In the World of the High Tech Redneck, the Graybeard is the old guy who earned his gray by making all the mistakes, and tries to keep the young 'uns from repeating them. Silicon Graybeard is my term for an old hardware engineer; a circuit designer. The focus of this blog is on doing things, from radio to home machine shops and making all kinds of things, along with comments from a retired radio engineer, that run from tech, science or space news to economics; from firearms to world events.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
How To Avoid A Dark Age
Got this link from Alan over at SnarkyBytes (who needs no introduction from me...)
Thank you for that. That was inspirational. I wish I had heard that forty-four years ago. I would have accepted that scholarship to Cornell instead of blowing it off and doing relatively little that was significant with my life.
I'm not complaining - I've done some interesting and fun things, even some good and useful things, but that would have motivated me to do more. It might have been in medicine (I _did_ get to do some work-study at Salk Institute) rather than engineering or astrophysics, but I would have striven to at least extend our fund of knowledge. I would have _stretched_ instead of merely accepting how things were, how they are. This should be shown in every high school in America. Instead of the marxist BS they push these days.
We all have things like that. When I was in high school, and taking the standardized tests, I started getting letters from all sorts of colleges offering me a partial scholarship if I'd go to their school. I got used to tossing them.
One day I got a letter from West Point. They can't actually offer you an appointment, but it said something like "if you can get your senator to recommend you, you'll have an inside track". Sometimes I wonder how differently life would have turned out if I had followed up and gone to West Point. Vietnam was winding down and would have been over by the time I got out of school. I might have spent my entire career and never seen a war. But I sure would be better equipped for what I think is coming than I am now!
Funny you should mention that. When I enlisted in the Navy back in '69, they wanted to send me to a prep school in Bainbridge, MD and then on to Annapolis. I really didn't think I wanted to sign on for six years (seven with the prep school) to be an officer, when I specifically enlisted to be a combat photographer - which I never got to strike for anyway, but that's another story :-)
BTW, love the word verification this time: urnalien ;-)
SG,
ReplyDeleteThank you for that. That was inspirational. I wish I had heard that forty-four years ago. I would have accepted that scholarship to Cornell instead of blowing it off and doing relatively little that was significant with my life.
I'm not complaining - I've done some interesting and fun things, even some good and useful things, but that would have motivated me to do more. It might have been in medicine (I _did_ get to do some work-study at Salk Institute) rather than engineering or astrophysics, but I would have striven to at least extend our fund of knowledge. I would have _stretched_ instead of merely accepting how things were, how they are. This should be shown in every high school in America. Instead of the marxist BS they push these days.
We all have things like that. When I was in high school, and taking the standardized tests, I started getting letters from all sorts of colleges offering me a partial scholarship if I'd go to their school. I got used to tossing them.
ReplyDeleteOne day I got a letter from West Point. They can't actually offer you an appointment, but it said something like "if you can get your senator to recommend you, you'll have an inside track". Sometimes I wonder how differently life would have turned out if I had followed up and gone to West Point. Vietnam was winding down and would have been over by the time I got out of school. I might have spent my entire career and never seen a war. But I sure would be better equipped for what I think is coming than I am now!
Funny you should mention that. When I enlisted in the Navy back in '69, they wanted to send me to a prep school in Bainbridge, MD and then on to Annapolis. I really didn't think I wanted to sign on for six years (seven with the prep school) to be an officer, when I specifically enlisted to be a combat photographer - which I never got to strike for anyway, but that's another story :-)
ReplyDeleteBTW, love the word verification this time: urnalien ;-)