Relic rant

[adorshki]

Sure there was plenty of crappy blotter and microdot floating around, but there was also plenty of great green pyramid gel, decent blotter (100+mcg) and liquid c. 1980 if you knew where to look.

Fair enough. In '80 I wasn't looking, although I did have a couple of mushroom experiences by sheer chance. Now that you mention it I recall there was also some liquid out here in '77 that was reputed to be the analogue "ALD" so quasi-legal. One had to figure out how to get a dose out of the vial. Don't remember for sure how much a vial was but I'm thinking like 1000 mics? It was "pleasant" at a reasonable dose (about 150 mic), and I've had "unpleasant" in comparison.

It also occurred to me that CA (and the east coast and maybe midwest industrial region?) are typically a couple to five years ahead of the rest of the country in such matters, for me '78-about '82 seemed to be a period where cocaine was a deluge, here at least. I was even being offered at work. Led to a somewhat cock-eyed decision to leave the job since it was stressful (wholesale electronics parts telephone sales desk) and the remedy was right there too.

Thus my unemployed busking period from late '80 to mid '81 after I acquired Stringeater, my first steel string, a $99.00 Korean "Carlos" brand with an adjustable alloy bridge that ate .024 G strings in about 2 hours, leading to my love of .025 G's. Even then I developed a system of re-winding the broken saddle-end of a string back through the ball to get another few hours of play time off 'em. When that one finally got winding notches it was time for a new set.

Hand-relic'd by me: I mounted a make-shift strap peg on the neck that wouldn't let the strap slip while I carried it around neck-down on my back. (no case). One day in a gas station restroom I set it standing/leaning on a counter while I did my business. About 20 seconds in I hear the the crash-thud. Had a little ding on the neck but seemed unfazed. After a few years the neck warped but I had my Fender flattop by then. Fender got stolen, still have the Carlos in case I ever get around to practicing light repair like nut/saddle/fret work.

 

[Rayk]

I was thinking the same thing! I've got two more years, and I can't wait.

Ugh 5-6 more yrs here . Stupid 67 rule
On topic I never got the relic thing either .

 

[davidbeinct]

This is an interesintg veer from relic'd guitars to the relic'd brains of certian LTGers...



walrus

At least it’s honest hard wear.

 

[tonepoet]

Ugh 5-6 more yrs here .

Veering off into the topic of being a human relic....

I don't mean to sound like a big brother or a dad here, but 5-6 years before retirement, for me, was a time to accelerate saving and getting a car to be paid off by retirement date. At the time, my Dodge Dakota was 12 years old and I was able to get a new Ford Escape with 0% interest with the last payment due the month I retired. The 5-year goal being to retire free of credit debt.

 

[adorshki]

At least it’s honest hard wear.

And some of it's soft wear...

 

[walrus]

Veering off into the topic of being a human relic....

I don't mean to sound like a big brother or a dad here, but 5-6 years before retirement, for me, was a time to accelerate saving and getting a car to be paid off by retirement date. At the time, my Dodge Dakota was 12 years old and I was able to get a new Ford Escape with 0% interest with the last payment due the month I retired. The 5-year goal being to retire free of credit debt.

Yes, agreed. We've been debt free for about 10 years now, so retirement next year doesn't seem so intimidating.

walrus

 

[Rayk]

Veering off into the topic of being a human relic....

I don't mean to sound like a big brother or a dad here, but 5-6 years before retirement, for me, was a time to accelerate saving and getting a car to be paid off by retirement date. At the time, my Dodge Dakota was 12 years old and I was able to get a new Ford Escape with 0% interest with the last payment due the month I retired. The 5-year goal being to retire free of credit debt.

Believe me I’m trying been trying . Passed over 11 times for promotion in favor of younger less knowledgeable poorer work ethic minded people . That’s saying it nicely . No room to breathe financially with rising prices etc . Everything went up except the pay check . I’m waiting on promotion attempt number 12 . My dodge Dakota needs an engine rebuild, new paint, headliner etc. lol my house payment takes half my income . Gas , groceries, Wi-Fi , cell phone , insurance, health insurance’s , electric bill, water bill , debt payments etc cleans house on the rest . I often hit zero funds .
I have not bought new clothes in years , don’t go to bars or enjoy dinning out unless it’s passing through a drive through for my boy . There’s no miss’s to help out . I’m thinking of a second job again but honestly I’d just be killing myself doing that .

Sorry for the reply , off topic delete if needed . No more veering here .

 

[GGJaguar]

Hang in there Ray. Hoping things take a turn for the better!

 

[tonepoet]

My dodge Dakota needs an engine rebuild, new paint, headliner etc.

Off topic a bit, but a relic.... yes, the 2004 Dodge Dakota I had did have a headliner that lost all its staying power. I drove it 12 years and my son drove it another 4 then I donated it to charity.

 

[tonepoet]

younger less knowledgeable poorer work ethic minded people

This is a whole other rant, but yes I ran into this in my line of engineering work. Aside from the lack of work ethic, the younger guys coming in seemed to think that "repair" meant throw it away and buy a new one. I noticed a decline in the ability to troubleshoot problems and create solutions. Throw it away and buy a new one was their solution. End of rant.

 

[fronobulax]

This is a whole other rant, but yes I ran into this in my line of engineering work. Aside from the lack of work ethic, the younger guys coming in seemed to think that "repair" meant throw it away and buy a new one. I noticed a decline in the ability to troubleshoot problems and create solutions. Throw it away and buy a new one was their solution. End of rant.

I bristle a little bit when people seem to promulgate the stereotype that the older generation believes that the younger generation lacks a work ethic or similar work related motivations or skills.

I will say that "'repair' meant throw it away and buy a new one" has been my experience since at least 1980 when dealing with products that have "smart" electronics. As a software engineer my "other duties as assigned" included isolating a hardware fault to a particular circuit board and then replacing the board. The old repair would have been finding and replacing a component on the faulty board. Perhaps my experience was different because I supported R&D and/or time sensitive operations and getting the system back on line in 5 minutes was more valuable than doing a "real" repair and saving a few bucks doing so. But "'repair' meant throw it away and buy a new one" has been around for decades and attributing it to a younger generation as if it is a new attitude is not (always) correct.

Maybe that was my rant

 

[Guildedagain]

Young people around here suck. We're supposed to be a back to the land grow your own food type of place, all they do is smoke, drink, drive, nearly every single one has totalled a car in the last few years. We used to take care of elders that have passed now, cutting firewood, general care, but it doesn't look like we'll ever get that from them.

Examples of young people idiocy.

Taking a really nice wood antique cookstove out of a house and leaving it to rust outside, because it "took too much room". Doing the same with an old sewing machine, turning it into trash. Amassing trash that attracts bears.

Taking a shed full of canning jars to the dump, because they'd "only can in new jars" if they ever canned. Taking a truckload of old farm antiques to the dump.

Letting fruit trees go bad.

Using a community bath house as a dog house.

Running engines out of oil, almost every single one.

Insisting on driving to town in a blizzard, then knocking on door asking to be pulled out of a snowdrift at nightfall when it's ten below zero, I said GTFO, and the gal says "but my flashers are on, my battery's gonna die" as if I could give a rip and thought it was worth dying over.

Having vicious dogs that attack people or kill livestock.

Smoking in dry areas. Smoking, they all smoke. At parties, there's like 10 cigs going, it's unbearable, I don't go anymore.

Very little education and a lot of attitude. None of them play music.

No interest in a long established community orchard, leaving the old folks to do all the work, but then interested in apples when it's time to make cider.

That's just the shortlist.

Yea for old folks.

 

[Rayk]

Hang in there Ray. Hoping things take a turn for the better!

Thanks ,not to de a Debbie downer it’s been a life long issue but when I move on from this life I’ll find that SOB who cursed my life lineages and kick their arse !

 

[Nuuska]

Boy named Rayk

 

[adorshki]

This is a whole other rant, but yes I ran into this in my line of engineering work. Aside from the lack of work ethic, the younger guys coming in seemed to think that "repair" meant throw it away and buy a new one. I noticed a decline in the ability to troubleshoot problems and create solutions. Throw it away and buy a new one was their solution. End of rant.

As a software engineer my "other duties as assigned" included isolating a hardware fault to a particular circuit board and then replacing the board. The old repair would have been finding and replacing a component on the faulty board.

I saw this develop while I was selling Heathkit from '85-90. It was the dawn of the age of SOIC's which can't be hand-soldered, and VLSI chips which consolidated the former suport chips onto a single substrate. Heath even started releasing kits with pre-assembled boards because they were based on Zenith TVs. Trouble-shooting became "board level". The customer base did not approve.

My nephews's high school in Wisconsin dropped Auto Shop. No more future in it. Current trends are removing any repairability apart from factory repair, which is all at "board swapping" level.

 

[Guildedagain]

"Window Pane",

A tripping hazard

 

[GAD]

I saw this develop while I was selling Heathkit from '85-90. It was the dawn of the age of SOIC's which can't be hand-soldered, and VLSI chips which consolidated the former suport chips onto a single substrate. Heath even started releasing kits with pre-assembled boards because they were based on Zenith TVs. Trouble-shooting became "board level". The customer base did not approve.

I hand solder SOICs all the time. You just need the right tools. Hell even with a pointed tip I can do it freehand with a magnifier. Certainly it would have been difficult with the crappy pencil irons hobbyist seamed to use back then, though.

 

[fronobulax]

I hand solder SOICs all the time. You just need the right tools. Hell even with a pointed tip I can do it freehand with a magnifier. Certainly it would have been difficult with the crappy pencil irons hobbyist seamed to use back then, though.

"The" Jack Casady posted this on Facebook.

The Weller D-550 Soldering Gun: Who still has one of these? This I bought when 13 years old to build a HealthKit 8 Watt amp for my first amplifier in 1957!

And a shout out to dreadnut who would have taught us to solder.

 

[adorshki]

I hand solder SOICs all the time. You just need the right tools. Hell even with a pointed tip I can do it freehand with a magnifier. Certainly it would have been difficult with the crappy pencil irons hobbyist seamed to use back then, though.

Completely inefficient for production though. "Wave soldering" was the ticket.

2 of our in-shop techs were capable of using scopes to troubleshoot down to component level but didn't have tools for actual repair. Wouldn't have been covered under the Heathkit warranty anyway, they had to use "factory" parts, which meant boards in some cases.

IIRC the 386 computer kits were board-based too, and some of the HERO 2000 robot. Older TV's and audio were still being maintained by owners, especially windows getting the-TV-their-husband-built repaired. Emil our TV guy had a lot of sympathy for them.

The worst was when the picture tubes were NLA.

 

[Rayk]

Off topic a bit, but a relic.... yes, the 2004 Dodge Dakota I had did have a headliner that lost all its staying power. I drove it 12 years and my son drove it another 4 then I donated it to charity.

I got thumb tacks holding mine up this would be the 3rd headline I put in it . It’s still running has the 4.7 v8 in it .