Twenty Ten...efficient - Two Thousand and Ten...not efficient

My research and smart money indicate that it's more efficient to say 'Twenty Ten' than it is to say 'Two Thousand and Ten'. Saying only two words vice saying four words makes sense to me any day. Plus if we think back to 1999, it was 'nineteen ninety-nine' vice 'one thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine'...three words vice seven words.

Efficiency always wins out, as long as the process isn't run by our Government!!!

Ponder it and take appropriate action to implement,
JD

Gals and Rascals

I'm one of those folks that has difficulty remembering names. Typically if I'm introduced to someone new I do the salutations, talk a bit and tell myself I'll recall their name. But it seldom works for me.

Obviously if see folks on a regular basis I manage to file their name away into a brain location where I can recall it. But for folks that I only see a few times a year, it just ain't there.

I'm not sure when it started, probably in a position at work when I was middle-aged and in contact with a lot of different folks on an irregular basis, but I got in a habit of calling all the ladies 'gal' and all the guys 'rascal'.

Sounds kind of dumb doesn't it, especially with the ancient monikers of 'gal' and 'rascal'. But I became comfortable with it and eventually others probably just thot I was a bit loony. But I still do it today, even on the phone.

I'd walk up to a familiar face and say something along the lines of, "How ya doin' gal, I haven't seen you in a long time." Similar with a guy, "Hey rascal, good to see you man." After a while it just became second nature and I would use it for everybody, whether I remembered their name or not. It also carried over to emails. :-)

An older co-worker, Paul, is probably the one that introduced me to the use of "gal" the first time. Paul was a Korean war veteran and brought that terminology forward into my world during the '60s. I thot it was quaint that he referred to the ladies as gals. I don't know why I started using rascal for the men, especially given the definition above. In retrospect, I suspect that number '1' was my definition of choice.

JD

PS - If you're someone that knows me and I've done it to you, you're probably thinking, "Well that son-of-a-bitch!" Or maybe even worse which I won't get into here...

Typing on the old Royal

In 1956 I had a semester of typing at good ol' Howard High School, located 8 miles from the BToS. We used manual Royal typewriters. The Royal required use of your hands and wrists to firmly push the keys rather than just your fingers like today's electronic keyboards. I wasn't the best in the class, but I was pretty doggone good on the final speed and accuracy tests. Looking back on it, taking that semester of typing was one of the best things I ever did.

After graduating from Howard High in 1959, I went to work for a local US Government outfit as a computer operator. Back in those days our IBM 705 Data Processing Machine was a vacuum tube computer that took up a whole 20' x 20' bay. The IBM 705 had a keyboard similar to a typewriter that was basically used in our operations environment to provide corrections when a processing error occurred or to start a new procedure.

We also used keypunch machines to record data on punch cards. It translated the characters you typed into IBM 80 column punch card format. I didn't do a lot of keypunching, but having typing experience sure made the whole job a lot easier than 'hunting and pecking' the proper keys.

But the best thing that happened to me regarding typing may have been during my time in the Maryland Army National Guard (NG). Our NG company changed from the 121st Engineers that I originally joined to the 115th Infantry during the mid-60s NG restructure for Vietnam support. I was reassigned from 'engineer supply specialist' to infantryman and given a terribly heavy BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) as my weapon. That humongous BAR about wore me out the first weekend of training in the woods at Camp A.P. Hill.

The next training weekend two weeks later, the first sergeant completed his speech to the company and then asked if anyone knew how to type...almost before he got the word 'type' out of his mouth, my hand shot up. Being 6' 4" at the time, my hand towered above any others!!! The first sergeant needed someone to work with the company clerk on all the records for the influx of draft-evading, new National Guard members. I was the new office flunky. Bye-bye BAR!!!

For the remaining 4 years of my active enlistment, I was a NG office worker keeping the company records current during the early Vietnam years. I have to admit that I was much better with the company's typewriter than I was with that BAR. The NG sure knew how to make best use of my talents. I commend them to this day.

My semester of typing in 10th grade at good ol' Howard High School prepared me with an office-worker, basic skill set (also known as typing) for the myriad positions I held over the next 44 years in the computer software business. It rescued me from that cumbersome BAR. And, it allows me to effortlessly (well almost) record my thots for this blog every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Yes sir, that semester of typing on the old Royal was the best thing that ol' JD ever stumbled into. Well not the best, but pretty darn good!

JD