Demise of the geek

Got a 5:30 wakeup call today from the station to let me know that a piece of equipment failed that we had been working on yesterday. He said it died at 3am, so he came in and patched around it to put the station back on the air. So is everything back up and running? Yes, he just wanted to inform me of the problem.

Thank you ever so much for not calling me when the problem's actually happening and my involvement might be relevant. And thank you again for waking me up to tell me something that could have waited until I got in at the normal time. Grump!

And to cap it all off, the problem was not what the fellow thought: it was a completely different piece of equipment farther down the transmission path from what I had been working on yesterday. So I got to work on this, after all. My joy knows no bounds.

Sleep deprivation is a known aid to the sardonic arts. But I have kept it to myself... until now.

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It has come to my attention that I drew some erroneous correlations yesterday between amateur radio enthusiasts and, for want of a better word, geeks. While I'm still not clear on all of the dynamics involved, the feedback I have received from family and friends leads me to issue some clarifications:

• Becoming a ham does not necessarily lead to spurning showers and other forms of personal hygiene. If there's any cause-effect relationship, it's more likely the reverse. I see this with other solitary pursuits; back when the fairgrounds hosted weekend computer expos, the aroma of unwashed hackers was overpowering. In any case, clean amateurs do indeed abound.
• The effects of wearing pocket protectors can apparently be mitigated by owning a motorcycle. Research is pending, but the effect appears to be similar to lowering one's cholesterol levels by eating oatmeal.
• I still have issues with the armbands, and the idea that someone has to identify themselves as OFFICIAL. As with junk mail, anything that needs to say that it's important on the outside, probably isn't on the inside.

The home office apologizes for any confusion or offense that might have resulted.

Also, concern was expressed about endangering my parents' Heathkit AR-1515 stereo receiver by exposing it to the glare of publicity. So I will blur the control knobs to disguise its true identity:

There's still a few minutes left before I have to go back to work... maybe I'll wander down the street to the Kawasaki dealership for some research...