Ode to N86

Boy, do I miss those guys! What a time we had.

You know, if we could all go back there for just one more day...

Dave M.
He was a heck of a senior scientist. I remember the time he told me about a tool called ZyIndex. He said that you could analyze PPSs with it. Whoa, what an idea!

Dave L.
He could sling code like Roger Staubach could throw a football. I remember the first time he brought Mosaic up on my PC. What a rush!


Phil H.
The Donald Trump of NSWC. He could build some ACCs. I remember the
time he told me about his idea of a tunnel between the PAF and the ACC.
The guy was fearless!!

Jim L.
Leaders? We're talking about leaders. I remember the time Martin Marietta wanted to build a network using IPX. Jim didn't blink an eye. He said "It's TCP/IP or nothing!" I'll never forget that decisiveness under fire.

Angel M.
The model for Rodin. He was deep. I remember the time I asked him why predicate calculus was germane to semantic analysis. He thought for a minute and said, "It's the frames that do it." Hey, I would have never thought of that. Deep, deep, deep.

Kevin P.
That guy could field some projects. He has his KSAT, his OLTOOLS, his inspection training, and his SEPG PAT teams. What a glove man! Not so good with the bat, though. He hit .200 on the dating circuit last year.

Chris S.
He was our Clipper captain. I remember the time he joined three tables and indexed three columns in another table, all at the same time. You say that's not hard. Try doing it using Clipper 5.0.

Diane W.
Proud Cajun. I remember the time she decided to fix the traffic problem behind the ACC. The Captain jumped to attention when he received her memo. Spirit? Yeah, Cajun spirit.

Greg S.
KSAT King. He could really make that program hum. You know, he never lost a database pointer. His wife confirmed that.

Tom C.
PhD in aerodynamics. Did advanced work on golf ball dimple design as an undergrad at Notre Dame. He was destined to be great. He became a Demming disciple in his later years. Total Quality Management. He took it too far, though. I heard that he's in Texas now drinking purple Kool Aid. Calls himself Jim.

Gene L.
You know the Nike commercial that used to be on TV in the early nineties? They'd show a pro basketball star making a spectacular dunk, and then Spike Lee would come on and say, "It's the shoes." That's Gene. It's the shoes.

Jimmy H.
Loveable guy. Came up through the ranks as a safety expert. They said he later became an Aegis engineer. I missed that part.

Gene H.
Detroit kid. Moved to California during the boom years. He knew his compilers. Good tennis player. Was living in San Diego: surf, sand, sunshine, bikinis. Moved to Virginia in the eighties to work on the Aegis project. Why'd he do that?

Charlayne H.
My kind of secretary. Quiet, hard working, dedicated. Nice person. Real nice. Her desktop was a little messy sometimes. Remember Charles Barkley, the "Round Mound of Rebound?" Charlayne's desk was the "Round Mound of the Unfound.”

Larry S.
What a golfer. He was always shooting in the sixties. I remember the time on one of the long Par 4's at Meadows Farm Golf Course when Larry hit a ball under his partner's elbow while his partner was sitting in his cart. You have to be good to pull off that kind of shot. Sixties? Yeah, for eleven holes.


Mike W.
Pig farmer. Economist. Systems Engineer. Renaissance man. Well, yeah, close. I remember the time Mike talked to me about this revolutionary product he was selling. I think it was called Special K. He said that it would cure all of the ills of the world. It sounded so good I let my wife try it. She's never been the same. Breakfast is her favorite meal, though.

Bob B.
Good technologist. Rudimentary social skills. I remember the time he had a sit down strike on the golf course when somebody hit into him. I'll never forget that sight. A scrawny (148 lbs) kid sitting on the ground Buddha style daring the other golfer (6'6", 250 lbs) to smack him. You know, that incident occurred on the same hole where a man was accosted on the green with a sand wedge. The guy was paralyzed for awhile. Bob didn't learn, though. He still acts stupid when he gets a chance.