When I was a freshman in college I got a job flying a heavily modified T28 Trojan aircraft in hail storms. The idea was to collect information on severe weather conditions by finding golf ball or larger size hail and flying through it and collecting samples in a special container. After an hour or so I would land and they would take the airplane into a hangar and bang out all the dents and I would be ready to go again. Weird but it paid my way through school and I never needed a loan. Later after graduation I got a job with the NSA, Yes, I actually was a spy, sort of, we analyzed telemetry data from Soviet missiles and space craft. Back then the NSA actually knew who the enemy was. It was the late 1950's, the era of Sputnik and Uri Gagarin

and we just had a friend at the radio station and sat
in the front few rows with the press. . I Am Envious!!! -- j

p.s. I did get to shake Sneaky Pete Kleinow's hand,
though. . my favorite steel player of all time. . snif.

.

Imagine walking on a moving catwalk in 120 degree heat, lifting guts weighing anywhere from 30lbs to 130 lbs, 8 hours a day 6 days a week. for $10/hr

oh yeah -- k25 and y12;; nothing like history right
there in your face. . and the polygraphers were an
odd lot. . some friendly like part of your family, and
others like the gestapo. . just pause to think hard
about your answer before you state it. -- j
.

The old fashioned way was to take a large ladle and bail it into a bucket and then dump the bucket into a 55 gallon drum. Of course the nose ends up very close to it and you have to watch not to splash it in your face.

I do not think so - nowadays it would be on everybody's phone and then on youtube right away. Back then, we were doing well to get stills (and not many of them). There is a website (though the Company is pretty much retired): http://pasttimeswithgoodcompany.com/ptim...

(This is from one of our British tours. (I am sitting down; I wear a red doublet.)

Jan

What a great Idea for a post 'K'!!! "Book Burning" we need to get you a copy of Fahrenheit 451. I read this all the way through.
I have had so many different dirty jobs I could put them in a TV show. Mm Mm Mm. The two stinkiest were; When I was between 10 & 11 I had to shovel out 7 stalls (5 sheep, and two newborn calfs) twice a week. I pulled septic tanks for three weeks (I operated the tractor) until we pulled one and it exploded. The two guys that worked with me looked like something out of a movie covered in thick slime. It took me almost an hour to get them hosed off and it was about 40deg. out. That was the day I quit that.
After college I went to work in Semiconductor Engineering. That was something like a cross between Teslas & Frankensteins laboratory and the Myth Busters TV show.

they were not out of date. It was a ruse by the publishers to make more money. a new edition with a different preface-something-would be marked up by 20%. You want to make bank? sell college kids books they have to have to participate in a class. the profs were in on it.

As a geologist, from 1983 through 1987, the longest lasting official employment I had was 10 months. Not too good. In '84, I wracked my back once again and was in the chiropractor's office. When he was done tweaking my bones, he grabbed me by the arm and took me in back and asked if I would take a look at this mine near Prescott he was already sinking money into. I did, took some samples, did some mapping and reported back to him. At $100/day plus expenses, he thought it was well worth the money not to sink additional thousands into the scam. And from there it went by word of mouth to others falling for the scams.

The interesting part with this one was when I went back to the "lab" these two guys had in their garage in Prescott, Az. They had a small kiln with the elements burnt out in it, a microscope with coke bottle lenses, and lived in an adjacent old "Mother in Law" type house next to an alley. While I was there their "partner", this seedy pencil thin mustache character arrived shortly followed by an extremely expensive Cadillac down the alley. Into the garage came this immaculately dressed distinguished elderly gentleman. There was no time for introductions and the seedy partner and Cadillac guy had no idea I was a geologist, just a scruffy bearded mountain man in flannel. So, I got to listen to the entire sales pitch they made to this obviously affluent fellow. And I kept my mouth shut.

The affluent guy left and seedy mustache guy jumped around rubbing his hands in glee and said "I think we have our White Rabbit this time". The two guys that I had visited the property with were mortified at this display. I never knew who the affluent guy was and I went back to my chiro with an eye popping tale to tell him. Interesting, that evening the two guys called me up and apologized for even being involved in the scam. They actually came from a respectable mining background history and had gotten suckered in to this by seedy mustache guy. I actually later hired the younger son to help me map thousands of feet of old underground workings high in the Bradshaw Mts. in central Arizona. I at least had an influence keeping him on the straight and narrow.

I put an end to this phase of my "career" by returning to Nevada and getting a real job with real gold mining companies.

yikes. ok then. important work. I love my bacon

The wisest course was not to inquire too closely...

Jan, feared the answer

I was part of a company that built a way to monitor them so they did not over pump them. I got to see and smell a large one at a huge resort.

That does not sound like the OA we know.

Restaurant grease traps, hoods, filters, and you name it.

A gut-snatcher is exactly what it sounds like, I gutted hogs for a living. I took everything from bunghole to throat out in just three cuts. I could fit a hog in less than 3 seconds.

haha. ok. that takes the cake, cj

bleak for sure

wow. wish I coulda been there, john. what people have gotten up to

Has anyone else ever had to clean a mess hall kitchen grease trap?

I hated polygraph sessions. Based on where you are located and the significance of Q, I probably know where you worked.

Why did you do that? I know I had a part-time
job as a janitor at night, and part of my work was
in law offices, and I saw books in the trash (by
mistake, I thought), and "rescued" them; but I
found out they were being thrown away because
they were out of date. So is that why you pre-
pared those other books for burning?

yes -- the Q clearance I carried for 33 years
was something strange -- I got 'em once by
changing my answers between instances of
taking the same test (they said that they had
lost the results of the first instance, but then
found it later). . we discussed why I changed
answers between the tests for quite awhile. -- j
.

did you videotape any of this? . bet it would be
fascinating today!!! -- j
.

as a dj for private parties and company christmases,
it was friends among friends. . people whom we knew.

then, one day, I got a call from a person whom I had
never known, asking if we would do the knoxville
"dogwood arts festival" dance. . in the old city.
in the middle of the street. . and play disco.

besides a couple of songs, I didn't play disco and
have always been a nonconformist -- no politics.
but they wanted music for one of the four sides of
an intersection, with the other 3 sides filled by others.
a radio station, a dance group and a club
featuring country music were the other 3.

long story short -- we got music and cable and took
the high-power stuff and, by the end of the night,
all of the people were on our side of the intersection.
and we did not have to replace too many windows.
we ran about 3,000 watts. . they paid for the romex.
and we made no enemies. -- j
.

book-burner. . not a job I would enjoy. -- j
.