Now this is what you call a full life! Black armbands everyone. What an engineer was Joe Sutter! Thanks Joe for being part of something that changed all our lives!
http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/joe-sutter-father-747-dies-95Now, whilst not a engineer myself, I am the son of a great one. Some small amount of genetic material was passed on in this regard. I grew up fascinated with Dad's slide rule and the mysterious contents of his leather briefcase - I can still smell it. Engineers are very often great lateral thinkers - so much so that often the most obvious answer can elude them - the answer
cannot be that simple! Being the son of a very gifted and very intelligent engineer I feel gives me the right to have a little laugh about this characteristic of engineers. So, when a very talented engineer passes, I think some humour is the best antidote.
Here's a couple I've found. A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.
The engineer fumed, “What’s with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!”
The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such ineptitude!”
The pastor said, “Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let’s have a word with him.”
“Hey George. Say, what’s with that group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?”
The greens keeper replied, “Oh, yes, that’s a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime.”
The group was silent and respectful for a moment.
The pastor said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.”
The doctor said, “Good idea. And I’m going to contact my colleagues and see if there’s anything he can do for sight.”
The engineer said, “Why can’t these guys play at night?”
Here's another.To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half-empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Last jokeThere was an engineer who had an exceptionally gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with their most complicated machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work, but to no avail.
In desperation, they called on the retired, engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine.
At the end of the day, he marked a small “x” in chalk on particular component of the machine and stated, “This is where your problem is.”
The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for £20,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:
“One chalk mark -£1. Knowing where to put it – £19,999.