Anne was telling a joke about an old engineer who was called in to consult and after studying the problem, he tapped the broken machine once with a hammer and it started working again. When he sent in his bill for $5,000 management balked, because he had just tapped the machine once with a hammer. The old engineer explained that it was $5 for the hammer and $4,995 for knowing where to strike. After she told this joke, Dan said that the story sounded just like a true story involving Henry Ford. I googled it and found the following on Wiki:
In the early 20th century Ford’s electrical engineers couldn’t solve problems they were having with an electrical generator and called in Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady. He was pals with both Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison. After several days of study, Steinmetz climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection. Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice for $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill. Steinmetz, responded with the following: Making chalk mark on generator = $1; Knowing where to make the mark = $9,999. Ford paid the bill.
Kids, send them off to college and they come back smarter than you!
We did get out on our bicycles today and rode through the park. It was a lot colder than last Sunday. We stopped to warm ourselves at the open-pit fire at the ice rink. I had made it all the way until today, when I heard the Little Drummer Boy (LDB) at Steinberg. I play the LDB Game. See the rules below. This is the furthest that I have ever made it. So close, yet so far. We also stopped off at the boathouse again. This is starting to be habit-forming. We definitely didn’t burn off enough calories riding to offset those that we ingested. Today, was another grey day. All but two days in December have been overcast. Our last sunny day was last Sunday, when the temperature climbed into the seventies. It is unusual for Saint Louis to have so much cloudy weather. Today is the Winter Solstice, both the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Winter starts tonight and with December 25th just days away, it is starting to look a lot like Christmas.
The LDB Game is a game wherein you lose when you realize that you’ve heard the Little Drummer Boy song. Who Plays It? Persons of honor. When Does the Game Start? The Game begins on Thanksgiving. When Does the Game End? Regular Season lasts through Christmas Day. I, like the Saint Louis Rams, never had any pretensions of postseason play. Play it if you dare. See below.