Fill Levels

[Alan C.]

Tom,

With your Auction Formula, your Points System, your Declaration Files, impressive knowledge, cellar, etc,

I'm beginning to formulate the image of a white haired proffessor in a dusty oak pannelled room, papers and books everywhere, with lots of half finished hand written theories, close to hand. With an Old Cleaner/House Lady who brings you the odd cup of Tea on a tray, and keeps the rest of the World outside the front door! (Like Sherlock's or Father Ted's) while you finalise the Legacy, or help a famous Murder Detective who needs help with a Port related clue!

I know I'll be hopelessly off the mark, but its a quaint old vision, and I'm sticking to it! :)

Alan

[Todd Pettinger]

Alan,

I think that is just Tom's avatar throwing you off! (Or perhaps the age-inducing 'name' of "Uncle" Tom. The eccentric old uncle who has always been the black sheep of the family, but you JUST discovered, it actually fabulously rich in knowledge, experience and perhaps even monetary valuations due to his eccentricity!

Although he is right - Tom, you are an enigma to the majority of us on this forum who have never had the pleasure to meet you. i have found myself with multiple 'versions' of you in my head.

Seeing as how we likely will not meet in person (I have only ever gone thru the UK twice and that was a 4 hour layover in Heathrow PRIOR to joining this forum - had I suspected i would be in London for any significant length of time I would have filled out the "Landing card" provided to us prior to reaching London in the air and gone in search of the nearest approved FTLOP-UK-approved port-seller!) it would be a cool idea to have a "virtual meeting" of some sort where we can post pictures of ourselves... to give folks a better idea of just who they are conversing with online until all hours of the night!

(I have to admit, I recently saw the PP newsletter with the pictures embedded and have to say, I know what Roy looks like and I believe I picked Mario out of the lineup, but if the person I suspect is supposed to be Alex Bridgeman in the picture is really him, he looks NOTHING at all like I envisioned in my mind!)

Todd

[Tom Archer]

Dream on!

Tom

[Todd Pettinger]

Tom, I can't decide if that "dream on" is supposed to be for you posting pictures of yourself, you bringing an old bottle of VP to Canada, or you being the 'eccentric old man' uncle that everyone has pictured in their minds...

Todd

[Derek T.]

Todd,

That is a real picture of Tom

Derek

[Jay Powers]

Tom,

With your Auction Formula, your Points System, your Declaration Files, impressive knowledge, cellar, etc,

I'm beginning to formulate the image of a white haired proffessor in a dusty oak pannelled room, papers and books everywhere, with lots of half finished hand written theories, close to hand. With an Old Cleaner/House Lady who brings you the odd cup of Tea on a tray, and keeps the rest of the World outside the front door! (Like Sherlock's or Father Ted's) while you finalise the Legacy, or help a famous Murder Detective who needs help with a Port related clue!

I know I'll be hopelessly off the mark, but its a quaint old vision, and I'm sticking to it! :)

Alan

Todd, you forgot the explosives! My vision is ex British infantry, maybe Sandhurst, or on the flipside Foreign Legion, now succesfull buisnessman, enjoying the countryhome but ready to drop into the Congo on a "lark".

As a chemist, and a former young boy who loved to blow things up, I'm insanely jealous of the Beaker avatar and wish I had thought of it first.

Todd, what do you do? From your posts I would guess either technical writer, database maven, or both?

Jay

[Todd Pettinger]

Todd, you forgot the explosives! My vision is ex British infantry, maybe Sandhurst, or on the flipside Foreign Legion, now succesfull buisnessman, enjoying the countryhome but ready to drop into the Congo on a "lark".

Good point. That does fit in around the same line of thinking I have as well. Retired like Robert deNiro in "Meet the Parents" (where he couldn't seem to leave the CIA stuff behind once retired)

Todd, what do you do? From your posts I would guess either technical writer, database maven, or both?

Jay

Close Jay!

I'm a Systems Admin-type guy, more operations than anything, but have had the misfortune to be targeted for technical writing in the past, which I mainly enjoy but is tedious work and usually gets you slapped with the title of "technical writer-b$%ch"

I do participate in exam-writing as a consultant for a large manufacturer of servers. This is by far the most interesting work I have done as I am behind the scenes writing, designing and able to have a say in the direction of the curriculum which is near and dear to my heart. Being that I am usually the guy taking the exams, it is fascinating to be on the inside of the room where the exam questions are being researched from the curriculum, thought up, debated, researched some more for accuracy, and finally, passed into a pre-exam for technical review from engineers, target beta exam-takers, etc. (I have to say that the company that has asked me to be involved in this process is really very excellent with the quality control and fairness aspects of the exams they produce, unlike many other exam "vendors" who seem to think that writing the most convoluted scenarios that test your ability to stay awake to read the entire question, never mind interpret the question and the proper answer(s) from the trickery they employ, is the best way to post a technical exam to geeks.)

Anyway, not to get too far off topic... the work "encourages me to drink a lot of port whilst I pour over notes and do more writing at the end of the night."

Todd