From Kaptin Korenek:(08/13/99)
At the time I came on with LSC (remember this was when LSC offices was the
corner table of Denny's on the SW Freeway), the company consisted of you,
Roger, Doug Miller, Ken Akridge, and David Sawyer (I think on summer break
from school).
Thoughts that must be shared:
1. What ever happened to Ken Akridge and his wife ("Sue" maybe)? They
both were a blast! Remember she was (is?) a federal Air Traffic Controller,
and she got us passes to the Beechcraft area at OTC at the Astrodome?
Sue(?) claimed us as Federal Employees with the FAA. When the Beech guy
asked me "What do you do with the FAA?" I replied "nothing" (which was the
truth) and we all laughed and laughed, and then I invited myself onto their
Beech King Air and into the pilot seat. A priceless experience provided by
Roger, Frank, Sue(?) Akridge and LSC.
2. I was the passenger in a rented Camaro with Roger Benett driving in
Evanston(?) Wyoming, going up a snowy mountain road to the Chevron plant
when the [rear wheel drive] Camaro start sliding backward down the frozen
road. On my side of the car was a pretty steep snowy drop off. When the
car started sliding backward, I put one hand on the seatbelt release and the
other on the door handle. I was really going to "bail" on Roger!
Fortunately the Camaro stopped sliding backward. Roger and I that evening
drove to Salt Lake City and traded the Camaro for a front wheel drive car,
no further traction troubles. Roger did take me on a *great* tour of
Jackson Hole Wyoming and the Grand Tetons, I'll never forget that. A
priceless experience provided by Roger, Frank, and LSC.
3. My first time out of the US was to go to OPSIS, Caracas Venezuela
for LSC. What a great experience! Everyone there was great! I worked with
(I think "Maria") and Gorge (pronounced Hor-hay). Their coffee is really
"espresso". I of course did not care, and proceeded to drink as much of it
as regular coffee. By lunchtime I was "buzzing" along pretty well. On the
flight to and from Caracas, Frank was kind enough to get me a First Class
seat on a Venezuelan Viasa DC-10. When I first sat down in the plane (going
to Caracas), I knocked over some books belonging to the person in the next
seat. I apologized, and he introduced himself to me and gave me his card,
he was George Warde(?), president and/or CEO of Continental Airlines (at
that time). What a nice and personable man. On the plane, he asked the
pilot if I could visit the cockpit. They let me in, the plane was on Auto
Pilot, and the co-pilot had his foot up on the "dash". The pilot, copilot,
and navigator/engineer were all just killing time till it was time to land!
I decided "this is not what I expected" and returned to my seat. We made
one stop somewhere in Venezuela before Caracas, and at that stop George
Warde was given the Red Carpet welcome and treatment. Later he gave me
"pointers" and help on all the things to expect at the Caracas airport.
Once we landed and de-planed, us "commoners" went through one line for
Customs, and they wisked him away for VIP treatment. As we were separated,
I remember looking back and giving him a smile and a wave, which he
returned, and then he was gone. He had become a "dad" and a friend on that
flight. And, he did not have to talk to me at all! I have no idea of what
ever happened to George Warde, and God bless him wherever he is. A
priceless experience provided by Roger, Frank, and LSC.
4. My very first business plane ride was to Wichita, Kansas, to Kaneb
Pipeline Co. As I sat in the Southwest Airlines 737 at Houston Hobby, I was
filled with excitement and fear. Somebody was actually paying to have me
flown somewhere! Wichita was winter going on spring, cold with some snow
still left on the ground. Mack Brown, Ron Wahl, and everyone else at Kaneb
was really good to me, except one of the night dispatchers who would test
the Korenek-modified 99% assembly language Kaneb system and say "This is no
better than what we had!". So I would go in, look for more ways to make
their UI at least appear to be more responsive, make the changes, and
re-submit it to the dispatcher, until I got a "OK, now this is better!".
Those systems each had 112K RAM (*after* our upgrade), and a HP 7900 hard
drive with (correct me if I'm wrong) a 5 MB removable platter and a 5 MB
fixed platter. A priceless experience provided by Roger, Frank, and LSC.
5. Seiscom Delta: Terry (?), a manager with Seiscom Delta, and I, were
standing by the coffee pot at the LSC offices across the street from Baker
Automation (Kinghurst?). Terry was worried about his magnetic tape to
grey-scale plotter system actually working as Seiscom had promised. I told
him "We will get it working". With David Sawyer's help, we got it working.
The system was formally demonstrated and handed off, after which we just
shook Terry's hand and probably went to lunch (or home to sleep). This was
in spite of the main engineer/programmer being located in Israel, a couple
of Seiscom techs going in and changing the hardware on us overnight, no
development equipment at Seiscom (we made software changes at LSC, punched a
big roll of paper tape, and took the paper tape roll to Seiscom offices). A
priceless experience provided by Roger, Frank, and LSC.
6. UGC in Shreveport, La.: In retrospect, a lot of people promised
Esso Singapore a fluid product ship loading system (UGC promised, Minibase
Systems promised, and LSC promised). Meantime, Lim Tek with Esso Singapore
would send in system specification updates like "this system will do X" and
"this system will do Y". So we finally corralled what the system was
supposed to be, and off to Shreveport I went. After several weeks (months?)
of effort by myself, Trygve Thorsrud, and Howard Peng, the system became
deliverable. I think I spent a 24 hour period just doing system
documentation using "WOLF" (Word Oriented Line Formatter), a HP 1000 series
Contributed Library word processor program. After returning to Houston I
received a really nice picture of the complete system and a letter from
Craig Pearson of UGC thanking us (LSC) profusely for getting the system
working and delivered. A priceless experience provided by Roger, Frank, and
LSC.
7. I think Frank came to visit us in Shreveport at UGC, and while going
somewhere in a car Frank told the story of a little Dachshund dog that was
locked in a trailer home, along with a chocolate cake. When the dog's
owners returned they found the cake was gone, and the dog was laying over on
its side unable to get up after having a expanded tummy from all that
chocolate cake! I got this mental picture of a dachshund dog laying on its
side with a expanded tummy after having eaten a whole chocolate cake, and I
"lost it" laughing for several minutes (and I still laugh when I think about
it).
8. We had some kind of informal LSC employee meal somewhere where we
were in this big room but we were the only group there. Doug Miller was
telling a story and mentioned a "CAT Interface card". I sat there wondering
what the letters "CAT" might stand for, like CAT was an acronym for
something. So I asked Doug and Frank "What does a CAT Interface card do?".
They said "It interfaces a computer to a real live CAT". I got this mental
picture of a CAT being wired up to a computer via a CAT Interface card and
again "lost it" laughing out loud for several minutes, this time at the
restaurant. And I still laugh out loud when I think about it.
9. Back when LSC offices had moved up in the world from Denny's corner
table to the Townhouse on Beechnut, I was working on the leg of a desk or
table using a screwdriver. The screwdriver slipped and punched a little
rectangular slot between the fingers of my hand. As I passed by Judy Little
at her desk (in the Living Room), I mentioned I had cut my hand, and then I
passed out on the floor. Judy later told me "You were there at my desk,
then next time I looked you were gone, and I thought: Where did he go?".
Then she stood up and found me passed out on the floor in front of her desk.
So she helped get me moved to a blanket on the floor, where I stayed until
the dizziness passed. Meanwhile, Ken Akridge had hurt his back and Judy
helped him upstairs and to lay down until he felt better. Eventually Judy
called the Paramedics for Ken. When the Paramedics showed up, they first
saw *me* laying on the floor, and they started to administer to me until
Judy waved them off "No! No! The person you want is *upstairs*!". So
upstairs the Paramedics went to help Ken. But I can only wonder what they
must have thought with me on the floor and Judy telling them "No! Not
him!", like just what *are* these people doing in this Townhouse?
10. Let us recall system utility software "CLIVE" and "PETE":
CLIVE - Core Location Inspector and Verification Effector
PETE - Plenipotentiary Eradicator of Transient Effluvia
Over time, more will surface, and like it or not I will share it with you.
:-)
-Gary
From Frank: 08/14/99
Anyone remember our Martin-Marietta Project? Technicaly, it was real cool,
but my fondest memories will be:
1. Being greeted by the Holiday Inn manager, and told to "control my boys"!
It seems that Alex had been locked out of their room by David, so
young brother Cone preceeded to scale the Holiday Inn, brick by brick.
Quite a ruckas had evolved in the parking lot by the time he got up
to their room!
2. Alex's "Bowling Shoes".
3. Finding out that all of the troops had been locked out of their rooms
'cause my Amex was over-limit. Don't remember how we solved that, but
it all worked out ok.
4. Getting a call that Gary Korenek had been rushed to the hospital for
emergency surgery! Then, trying to find him and make sure he could still
code from his hospital bed! (Just kidding, Gary. We were all very concerned)
5. Martin-Maretta continually sending us a two inch thick contract to sign, and
Rog & me continually sending it back, with a one page replacement. They
paid, and I don't think we ever had a signed agreement!
More stories later from "The Old Philosopher"
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