AFK BRB Chocolate

My dad was friends with the guy who designed the Aztec Hotel. He didn’t want regular light fixtures originally, so he came up with an idea for lighted columns, and he made a prototype table-lamp sized. The was in 1925. The prototype is in my living room and I use it every day.

Old guy checking in. I was a computer science major, graduating in 1985. My goal at the time was to go into computer animation (note that Toy story, the first full length computer animated movie, wasn’t released until ten years later). But there was a big computer animated project that was canceled or tabled just before my last semester, so the market was flooded with out of work animators and I decided I’d better do something different. I was getting married, and I needed a job.

I had good grades, but I didn’t think there was much that made my resume stand out from my classmates, each of whom was making 100+ copies of theirs and applying to every software job they could find. So instead, I asked everyone I knew if they knew anyone who worked at a place that hired software people, and asked if they could get me a name of a hiring manager. I got seven or eight of those, and I sent each of them a letter with my resume, mentioning who pointed me their direction. Out of that I got three interviews and two job offers. My first job ended up being writing control software for the space shuttle main engines, and I stayed at the company almost 40 years. I just retired in January.

My wife and I always laugh when we catch ourselves tapping other faucets. The soap dispenser sounds like a good idea.

It does! It runs for minutes without retapping, but not like ten minutes. Never really timed it, and only noticed when I was filling the sink up (it’s a big sink).

Here’s an odd one my wife and I were just talking about. Some years ago, we were redoing our kitchen and the contractor told us to go buy the kitchen faucet we wanted. We went off, looked at several, and picked the one we thought looked the best with what we were doing.

When the contractor went to install it, he opened the box and a battery pack fell out. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why a faucet would need batteries. It turned out that you can turn it on and off by touching it anywhere (handle, faucet itself, whatever), you just leave the physical handle open and set where you want it, then you can touch on and off. I thought it was the dumbest thing ever and we’d never use it.

Flash Forward to now and it’s one of the most used conveniences we’ve ever bought. All those times your hands are covered in raw meat or other cooking mess? Just touch the faucet with your elbow. Rinsing a bunch of veggies one at a time? Tap on, tap off. It works flawlessly, unlike those touchless ones at the airport: no delay and works every time. We will never have a kitchen sink without it - my wife wants them for the bathroom.