just a tired tinkerer. luckiest guy in the world- from moving near coolest neighbors anyone could ever meet, finding a job where a highschool kid had opportunity to work/learn hard enough, and long enough to get into a first home at under 20 yrs old- and go from sweeping floors to designing machine tools and automation systems, programming robots in Japan, all self taught- even if the first 15-20 years, 70+ hr weeks were normal...

fortunate to have found several lifelong friends, friends who helped me out when lifes rollercoaster about broke me, and i was able to help a little when they were in similar troubling times...fortunate to have had four sons who are all bright, self sufficient, willing to help others, blessed to see medical miracles in one son who by all rights never shoulda made it past birth(now 20, healthy as a horse). was also blessed with numerous 'greatest generation' friends- so thankful my kids got to know them.

two marriages that had their ups and downs in life, but thankful for the good times, hoping many more years to come, been blessed with good physical health myself overall- now a overweight/balding not yet 'old dude', but sore/from abusing joints for too many decades...handling machine parts, climbing around to install/adjust servos-bearings-whatnot takes a toll...still feel a 300 pound mill spindle cartridge from 20 yrs ago that let me know a back can only be overloaded so many times...this yr something in the shoulder has me where lifting even my laptop hurts like what woulda kept me home as a schoolkid, but ya kinda get used to it...

developed a strange skillset over the years that kinda made me a 'go to' guy at work- just a idiot who read a lot and always tried to figure how everything worked, with the attitude 'if its already broke, i can only help it', and in so often coming up with some goofy outside the box methods on fixing things...

electronic repairs on CNC computer boards/servos/drives, writing schematics/ladder/basic/C/Karel(pascal), coming up with a simple g-code programming tweak that can reduce machine cycle times 30-50% AND reduce wear and tear (probably my biggest personal contribution at the shop profitability-wise, our programmers still do it now as a reflex, most probably forgot it was a crazy idea i had in 1992, cut ABS valve machining cycle times from 65 minutes to 35 minutes at same speeds/feeds, just by exploiting a kinda quirky issue in Fanuc and many other brand CNCs that still exists today...)

proudest safety idea- a simple crash prevention move on all our big cnc lathes- we get a lot of druggie type operators, in past 38 years, had seen some absolutely horrific machine wrecks due to impaired folks loading wheels upside down, etc- 'crash detection' moves make for a 'likely' safe wreck vs a high speed spindle removing train wreck that most folks could not imagine the level of damage done... standard procedure now, not a big deal at all- but in back of my mind know its saved a lot of machine damage and possibly some lives...

one thing about the shop i always disliked was not drug testing- one drunk/drug impaired person around high powered machinery/forklifts poses a risk to themselves and everyone within 100 feet- hard to have much respect for those who constantly party their way thru life, putting themselves and others at risk due to lack of any personal responsibility...

I came within inches of being run over by a forklift one day, idiot drank a bottle of vodka and came in hopped on a lift truck... have seen folks injured/wheels-chuck jaws-tool blocks flying, machines completely-permanently destroyed by folks coming in high- really pisses me off that irresponsible perpetual victims hiding behind a bottle cause so much damage and could care less, unless they hurt themselves of course, then its always the shops fault...'poor little johnny wasnt that high when he stuck his finger in the fan to see if it was spinning'...give me a break... of all the hazards around machinery, impairment/stupidity/complacency in that order are pet peeves that need nipped in the bud...some folks are just too irresponsible to run high powered equipment- the multiple DUI types especially are risky from what ive seen...bet 99% of accidents have been caused by those types... heard it 100 times, if i ever mention 'wish we had drug testing-wouldnt need to deal with this stuff', and about half the time someone will pipe-up and say 'on my own time i can do whatever'... as they often walk or ride a bus to work due to no license, then hop on a forklift or run a 100hp lathe hungover or still impaired... folks can do what they want, but if too irresponsible and willing to put themselves and everyone around them at risk, sorry- but 'disease' or not, they got no place around equipment without mandatory/random drug testing in my opinion... everyone just wants to get home alive and intact, irresponsible types reduce the odds of that for everyone around them... ok, off my soapbox on that topic.

In the late 90's, did some crazy integration of oldschool measuring sensors into bimba air cylinder shafts, achieved 25 millionths resolution with a hybrid probe we could build for 100 bucks...in 2017 was solely responsible for designing a automatic wheel gage- a crazy mix of plc/hmi/arduino/lvdt/laser/photoswitch controls, in a kinda inside out mechanical arrangement, where our datum was a belt driven chevy pickup hub, friction driving a chuck/locator/part loader/part measuring chuck...the boss who is also a great friend, wanted a simple quick check gauge to check 2 characteristics... in my doodling, I kept coming back to need to rotate the part as it could give a much decreased chance of a bad part slipping thru... was a bit of a battle, but he's a thinker, and in arguing thru it more lights came on in both our minds, i a kind of synergistic thing that only happens 'when its meant to be' and we really got into some crazy outside the box ideas- and it all somehow worked... every crazy idea we threw out stuck and created even more. example- we read bore diameter off of mounting flange thickness due to our weird mechanical arrangement... when I first suggested a truck hub as a 'spindle' i got some crazy looks- but had a spare from my wifes avalanche, and upon seeing it, everyone was like wow- that should work great... went from a what if thing to a insane amount of work, great team of folks involved in assembling/wiring a dozen of them- in the end it might have saved our most lucrative business, as we were a couple years ahead of our competitor at 100% checking critical characteristics, in a offline/automatic way that did not add any cycle time to our wheel lines- my boss has a uncanny sense of timing, and had kicked me off on the prototype gauge just weeks before a issue popped up- and customer was threatening to pull ALL our work... he mentioned we were developing a auto-gage, and their mood changed- they had a bunch of higher ups including a division president looking at the prototype the next day- lots of kudos and 'we are 2 years away from this' type comments- he really timed that right and mighta saved the company with that one decision... was a really fun exercise, building 12 at once, all new everything, but the programming went from fun to challenging to, my God did that job mentally exhaust me :) a dozen running a year, now starting 6 more with further advanced capabilities means a rewrite of the entire software from a new angle... then 2 changed design for wide base wheels, had to come up with a crazy spring loaded/anti backlash chuck for the drive hub- but we got it worked out... i'm so tired cant keep my eyes open at times...love programming, but thousands of hours over nearly a year, then after all the tweaks, a necessary rewrite to make the code all maintainable, involving retyping/regrouping thousands of address blocks into 'groups' that can be turned on/off as options, and the flexible cycle sequences that will require...my favorite thing to do, but mentally just fried. proud of the stuff ive had a chance to be involved with, thankful for always having a knack for fixing things- from repairing a Sloan flush valve on a urinal to machining on a $20k Haaglunds 15 cylinder hydraulic motor that needed repaired, from installing light fixtures to a 3000 kva substation, from moving a 6'ladder around with our first fanuc robot in 1986, to designing/programming all the robot/integration on two wheel lines we installed in Joetsu Japan, from coming in on my own tme after work to use Autocad terminal and try setting up cnc mill in machine shop, to designing/CAD drawing/machining/assembling and learning to fly a scratch built rc helicopter a few months later, from using bubble balancer to check wheels, to designing a fully automatic wheel balancing/orienting robot feeding machine for 7000.00 in 6 weeks, where balancing companies wanted >$70,000 and 6 months...seen/done a crazy amount of mixed occupation type things... been fun/interesting/challenging/tiring- but now, for whatever reason, last 5-10 years short term memory is all but gone, moreso on non technical (life- names, places, etc) things, but still, embarrassing and personally kinda scary, as alzheimers does run in my family, but i should be 20 years from that- however suspect my occupation makes me more aware of memory issues than some less technical ones might, so i do worry a bit that i know its coming... Anyways, thats me in a nutshell...hopelessly compelled to fix everything i can, save what i can from hitting the scrapyard before its time, hopefully will leave behind some tools/machines/knowledge my great-great grandkids might still be learning on 50 years after im gone...or that will fill a trash dumpster a day after i'm gone...who knows :)