- Joined
- Jun 21, 2012
- Messages
- 4,880
Yes, it sounds like we trod similar paths. I found high school very boring... except for my junior year at a school in Smyrna, TN, where I had an "old school" chemistry teacher. She believed in a "hands-on, taste, sniff, and smell" kind of chemistry that is verboten today. She encouraged me to submit a science project in the school's annual Science Fair, where I won Grand Prize (still have the nifty plaque somewhere) for a method of chemical titration that involved exciting a solution with RF on external screen mesh electrodes and measuring the resulting RF conductivity as the solution slowly changed pH during the titration. There was a distinct minimum when the pH reached 7 (neutral solution) and continued on from there. I don't remember whether the solution went from acidic to basic, or vice versa, but the dip in RF conductivity was clearly evident. And oh so much cooler than messy Litmus paper.You sound just like me when I got started in Elect. ... Working on equipment keeps me going in my old age. ... .
That won me and some fellow students a trip to Nashville's Peabody College for a State Science Fair, We loaded up our exhibits in the back of our chemistry teacher's beater station wagon and headed off for a day trip to Nashville, where I was terribly outclassed by other students and their "professional looking" exhibits. IIRC, the winner there was a guy who was able to separate "heavy water" or D2O from ordinary water by using electrolysis. It took multiple passes to show any positive results, akin to isotope separation in a centrifuge, but the theory was sound. Kudos to him, but I didn't even garner an "Honorable Mention" from that trip. That same summer I also won (after taking competitive tests) a summer session at an all-expenses-paid physics colloquium held at (then) Western Kentucky State College in Bowling Green, KY. I did well enough that they invited me to enroll as a freshman that fall. It took some convincing of my parents to allow me to skip my senior year of high school to do that.
My dad wanted me to finish high school in Dayton, OH (where he was going into business with his brother-in-law after retiring from the Air Force that same year) and then apply for admission to MIT. I had no idea what MIT was, but if I did, I probably would have opted for Stanford or Cal Tech instead. I used to like California until it became too crowded and too liberal... lived there twice as an Air Force brat. But at eighteen I knew diddly about higher education. Long story short, I flunked out, but had a wonderful time hanging around a college theater group pretending to know something about stage lighting. Probably should have attended classes instead. Dad was furious, but he let me come "home" to Dayton where I finished high school and got a HS Diploma in 1963. The business was doing great, so I suppose he didn't miss (too much) wasting room, board, and tuition at WKSC instead of at MIT. Certainly less expensive, and I didn't acquire a Boston accent in my speech. I can still speak Kentucky though.
I have seen and heard tales of what happens to those who "retire" and then vegetate on the front porch in their rocking chair. Dead, usually, a few years later. So I try to remain active both here and at the hobby bench. I will soon have a new electronics lab set up in our Venice, FL home. Maybe I can get a few consulting jobs after that, maybe build some "one off" projects for a paying customer. You gotta keep busy, keep learning, and keep up with the younger generation to stay alive in the 21st Century. Plus, I have access to a nearby beach (one mile from my home) with private parking and a private ferry that runs back and forth to the beach every day except Wednesday and Holidays.
The beach is technically a public beach on the Gulf side of Manisota Key, separated from my house by the Intracoastal Waterway and two bridges a few miles apart. Hence the need for the ferry, but the nearest roads from either direction end more than a mile away from "my" beach. Some people do park at either end and walk it, because the last ferry departs at sundown every day, and I guess they enjoy the isolation or night fishing or whatever it is people do on the beach after the sun sets.. It's never crowded like the other public beaches on the Gulf Coast, such as Siesta Key in Sarasota. I didn't think I would like Florida after a terrifying experience as a child swimming in the Gulf at St. Petersburg in the 1950s and encountering hundreds of jellyfish on the incoming tide. I managed to get back to shore without getting stung, but vowed to never swim in the ocean (or the Gulf) ever again. Silly, huh? I might venture forth into the Gulf this summer, after the water gets a lot warmer than the 70F it's currently at.
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