Memories

I've been gathering photos, documents and dates along with other odds-n-ends to put into some form of order so they can be burnt to disk and become a permanent record for my son, who then won't have to wade through piles and piles of mostly useless stuff to find out where I was and what I did during my short stay on planet earth.

For example, I have hundreds of photos of places where I've been, while one or two is really sufficient for a record. Who needs a hundred photos of the Grand Canyon when there's nobody in the picture that is recognizable and has nothing whatever to do with family?

Did I actually track missiles on Board a Range Safety vessel? Sure, here's a photo of me at the FPS-16 operators console.



Or another one, where I'm seen assisting tuning the paramps in the RF head of the same radar while cruising on station and preparing for a missile launch somewhere out on the Pacific Ocean:



Did I actually design the entire RF system for the main rings of the Superconducting Supercollider? Sure, here's one of my 3D AutoCad designs for the klystron and cavity tunnels:



Go visit my other blog THE IRON HORSE to see some more of my AutoCad efforts. Lots of railroad drawings.

One of my more favorite photos shows me on the antenna of the FPS-6 height-finding radar at White Sands Missile Range at Stallion Site:



What the heck was I doing up there? Going to go clean the RF window on the feed horn, a required Preventative Maintenance chore.

We had two-stage missiles called RATPAKS (Radar Acquisition and Training Packages) that were launched between major missile tracks, so operators like me could get in a little extra practice:



That's me, next to the second stage of one such missile on the helo deck of the USNS Wheeling, a Range Safety vessel.

The interesting shots will be placed in the record along with dates and information around the event. The rest will get boxed and put away, and labeled as extra stuff not in the Disk record, or tossed.

Leaving a house full of stuff totally unknown and unconnected to your downline to search through... is no favor to anybody.

So I'm getting it all straight while I still can.

Those were good days my friend, good days.