7/08/2003 10:14 PM -0700
Got a call from Jeannie today. It was a nice surprise. We used to work together in the Pure Metals group at JM. She was the main Boron Oxide lady. Sometimes I would go help her pour and take samples, or she would help me with my acid etching and samples, and we would talk for hours and hours.
I loved my work at JM. May be a strange thing to say, but I loved to look at all the pretty metals. Analyze them. They all had their own unique characteristics, and I never got bored of them.
I think all us PM groupies felt this way. We all enjoyed the work we did, and were sometimes competitive to see who could create the purist of the pure.
Maybe had to do with our leader... Bob. He was the king metallurgist. He knew everything about the industry, and was very generous with his knowledge. He looked like a professor, too - bald head, grey hair, glasses, blue lab coat. Sometimes I would draw pictures of him on the board... or on my lab coat to see what he would say. I could make cartoons look just like him... and he got a kick out of it.
Our Plant Supervisor was also a cool dude. Mike was Italian. Ate pasta everyday for lunch religiously. He used to tease me all the time about blowing up the antimony room. Like it happened all the time... It really only happened once... twice... ok, maybe three times at the most. You were supposed to purge all the oxygen out of the zoners before entering hydrogen. But you can't see oxygen, so it is all guess work. You wouldn't "really know" until you turned up the heat to melt the metals. Antimony was the worst because it takes such high heat to melt. Well, oxygen + hydrogen + high heat confined to small areas like zoner tubes don't work together. You end up blowing shit up. Like I said, it only happened to me a few times, but Mike never would let me live it down. Actually, they all stayed clear when I was getting the antimony zoners going. But even after all of that, Mike still promoted me to the
II-VI materials after a while... Cadmium and Tellurium. These were the most prestigious of our products, so I guess all faith wasn't lost.
Jeannie called tonight to invite me to a Pure Metals bash this Friday. Mike is leaving the industry and they want to have a party. They want me there because I was part of the original group. She said things have changed since Honeywell bought them... products have changed... the labs as I remember them are gone... almost all my zoners are gone, and mostly all of the Pure Metals group are gone. Only a few of them left.
I have very good memories of working with these guys. The last time I seen them was when we had a bash for Bob at his house in Canada... that was about 3 years ago. It was fun. I can't wait until Friday... should be like old times. Maybe I will blow something up for them as a memory...
I loved my work at JM. May be a strange thing to say, but I loved to look at all the pretty metals. Analyze them. They all had their own unique characteristics, and I never got bored of them.
I think all us PM groupies felt this way. We all enjoyed the work we did, and were sometimes competitive to see who could create the purist of the pure.
Maybe had to do with our leader... Bob. He was the king metallurgist. He knew everything about the industry, and was very generous with his knowledge. He looked like a professor, too - bald head, grey hair, glasses, blue lab coat. Sometimes I would draw pictures of him on the board... or on my lab coat to see what he would say. I could make cartoons look just like him... and he got a kick out of it.
Our Plant Supervisor was also a cool dude. Mike was Italian. Ate pasta everyday for lunch religiously. He used to tease me all the time about blowing up the antimony room. Like it happened all the time... It really only happened once... twice... ok, maybe three times at the most. You were supposed to purge all the oxygen out of the zoners before entering hydrogen. But you can't see oxygen, so it is all guess work. You wouldn't "really know" until you turned up the heat to melt the metals. Antimony was the worst because it takes such high heat to melt. Well, oxygen + hydrogen + high heat confined to small areas like zoner tubes don't work together. You end up blowing shit up. Like I said, it only happened to me a few times, but Mike never would let me live it down. Actually, they all stayed clear when I was getting the antimony zoners going. But even after all of that, Mike still promoted me to the
II-VI materials after a while... Cadmium and Tellurium. These were the most prestigious of our products, so I guess all faith wasn't lost.
Jeannie called tonight to invite me to a Pure Metals bash this Friday. Mike is leaving the industry and they want to have a party. They want me there because I was part of the original group. She said things have changed since Honeywell bought them... products have changed... the labs as I remember them are gone... almost all my zoners are gone, and mostly all of the Pure Metals group are gone. Only a few of them left.
I have very good memories of working with these guys. The last time I seen them was when we had a bash for Bob at his house in Canada... that was about 3 years ago. It was fun. I can't wait until Friday... should be like old times. Maybe I will blow something up for them as a memory...
posted by Rezilla | 10:14 PM
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