Oct 14, 2011

American TV: Between it and Signetics

After the day that I quit American Television Service and spent the remainder of the morning and into the afternoon walking home there was a period of two months that I was without employment.  We took a family vacation with Marie’s family to Colorado to Verl’s home area and on the way spent a little time stopping to see some of the wonders of nature that exist in Utah. I have pictures of Jeff and Ben in holes of rocks and to this day do not remember where we saw them other than it was between here and Colorado. That vacation was only one week of the approximately two months that I was unemployed. Verl let us go rent free until I was again employed and we used the savings we had put away to pay for bill and food during that time. I will always appreciate Verl for giving us the help. My mother also helped as she could with some money for our needs.

I had applied at the Employment Office in Provo and had to send in weekly surveys stating where and when I had applied for jobs and what I had done during the week. It was a terribly difficult thing for me to do since I had always been employed and didn’t like the fact that the government didn’t trust me, but I knew it wasn’t the government at fault just the freeloaders of the past and present who proved that the government had to ask those questions.

I applied finally at Signetics and in the interview with Aagie Olsen, the Maintenance Supervisor, I was asked a number of questions that I felt I had really bombed out on since it had been three years since I graduated in Electronics from Snow College. Aagie then asked if I had any questions and when I asked about what type of equipment that they repair I was simply told: “Nothing you have ever seen before.” He was right I had never seen anything like them, evaporators, masking machines, furnaces, and later Ion Implanters and Series 10 Plasma machines. I have also always appreciated Aagie who gave me a chance to work probably based more on my willingness to work than on my knowledge of electronics. I didn’t realize it at the time but when he said “we will train you on the equipment” it meant more than just doing electronic repair but would also include drafting, plumbing, carpentry, janitorial labor, supervising, design, and a host of other jobs that just don’t get covered in a two or even four year degree in college. Life is like that though, you train in a little area and then get a job where you become trained on what you really have to do on that job and it isn’t ever just one thing or at least hasn’t been in any of my employment histories. 

Oct 13, 2011

American TV: antenna and lightning don't mix

Just after getting married Marie and I moved into her father’s home in Mapleton. I then began looking for work and interviewed with several places in Orem and Provo. Carl Haupt of American TV hired me in the summer of 1975 and began training me on various parts of the television repair industry. He once told me he had hired me not because of my electronics training as much as the fact that I had been raised on a farm and probably knew how to work.

He trained me specifically to be able to install antenna’s for TV’s. I learned how to install them in attics even though they lost a lot of reception inside an attic. I learned how to install them using large poles on top of a roof.  I learned how to attach them to chimneys and other things that would be found on the top or near the top of a building and then how to get the most gain from the antenna by directing it toward the nearest TV tower.

I had installed them on a number of building and inside many attics before actually experiencing the following two events.

The first was about a time I had gone to install an antenna on a roof near Park City, Utah. I was by myself on TV calls that day up in Heber and Park City. I had a call to go to a home near Park City that should have had good reception but didn’t. Usually that meant nothing was wrong with the TV but that there would be something wrong with the antenna. It was as I had usually discovered up in that area of Utah in that the antenna which the owner had installed was designed for low band reception known as VHS but the transmitting towers in that area only transmitted UHS signals. I then had to remove from a trailer home the antenna was designed for VHS reception and replace it with a UHS antenna. The only catch to this otherwise routine job was that as I started to do it and had placed my ladder against the metal exterior of the trailer home I noticed an electrical storm approaching from across the valley. I figured that I had plenty of time since it seemed to be several miles away. I worked quickly but soon found that it was a very fast approaching electrical storm. I barely completed the job and got the ladder back onto the truck before lightening was sticking on a few seconds away from the home. I felt somewhat (but not totally) better when I was able to get into the truck as the storm moved quickly past me and further up the valley. From that time forth when I was putting up antennas I always made sure it was a good day or I rescheduled it for another time.

The second incident with antenna installation that I will write about here concerned an installation inside an attic. I had several interesting experiences that I believe I have written about before but this one was one where I learned a valuable lesson about myself and how I truly feel about close walls and heat. Carl and I were working on a motel in Heber that was only one story tall but built on a piece of property that required that the rooms be built on a different level of ground every couple of rooms. So the attic had about a foot and a half of clearance until I would get to where the new level of room and been started and then I had basically nine or so inches of room to squeeze through into the next section of attic. I was a lot smaller than Carl so was elected to be the one in the attic to pull the cable from room to room until we were able to repair the room that had lost reception. As I recall it was about 11 or 12 rooms from the end of the building where I had to go in to gain access to the attic. It was also an early summer day and the weather was very clear making the area in the attic somewhat hot by the time I was able to complete the job. We had started early but after driving to Heber from Orem a good share of the cool part of the day was fleeting quickly.  I went into the attic which was full of itchy insulation made from fiberglass that had been blown into the attic. This required that I also wear a respirator to protect my lungs which only made the process a lot hotter since I was re-breathing my own hot air most of the time. I made it with relative ease to the room where I had to drill a hole in the header of the wall and  lower the cable down into the wall. It took Carl a few minutes to fish the cable from the wall and each passing minute I found myself getting more and more anxious to retreat from that very hot attic. I was finally able to turn around and start to go out and by then was almost to the point of just knocking a hole in the ceiling of one of the rooms to allow me to get out. I also seemed to be getting stuck a lot more as I pushed myself, my tools belt and the drill between the narrow opening at the end of each of the rooms where the attic level was shifted. That 9 inch hole felt little larger than 3 inches as I would look at them before trying to pass through. There was only one thing that kept me going though and that was the knowledge that I had been through that spot once already and knew I could at least fit through it again. I was nearly totally exhausted as I climbed into the cool fresh outside air and didn’t go back in the attic again. I wasn’t sure I could have even forced myself into the situation again since I knew what it was now like.  I found myself however facing some of those same fears years later as I took my children into a cave called the Nutty Putty cave west of Utah Lake. I was scared again and knew that even though I had my children with me there was a limit to just how small the opening around me would be able to get before I would halt the activity and return to safety of the fresh air outside. I don’t think my children ever realized my dilemma but they will probably recall upon reading this story that I never took them a second time to that cave.

Oct 12, 2011

Ten years without Health Insurance 1995-2004

For the first three years of our marriage we had some health insurance coverage that we bought since the place I worked did not provide insurance. If I remember correctly it only cost around $600 to have Ben and by the time we had Brittany it was several thousand. When I went to work at Signetics the coverage was excellent and covered probably all but about $600 of the cost for Briittany. I am roughly remembering these figures and could be off by some degree. The whole point of it is though is that we had excellent coverage while I was employed by Signetics and when they shut down in 1993 it would have cost me nearly $800 a month to stay with their medical plan. We found a new plan with IHC but it still cost around $400 a month and as I went from working a $12.00 an hour job to $0 for a time I finally had to drop all health insurance. We then went from 1995 to 2004 without any insurance. This was the period of time that we sent three of our four sons into the mission field and because of the Church Insurance were able to get coverage for them in the field. But at home it was a bit different story. This was a period of our marriage when we recognized some of the Lord’s greatest blessings in our behalf. Both Jeff and Hayden had to have surgery on their ankles, Jeff was paralyzed for a short time due to a soccer accident, Loren was diagnosed with Diabetes and not a whole lot else. In other words we were really blessed since all of the children played soccer during this time and could have sustained major injuries. Then when it was time to do the surgeries on the ankles it was performed by the father of one of the other soccer teammates and he didn’t charge us anything. We had some cost with the anethiesist but it was still less than $1500.00. When Loren was diagnosed with diabetes however we saw blessings come in another way in that in 2 days we were able to secure health coverage that would cover his hospital stay in the ICU. I look back and think about all that could have happened and realize that when the Lord promises to open the windows of Heaven he does it in ways that we usually don’t recognize that are not always tied directly to money but rather are tied directly to good health and welfare for our families. He has certainly blessed us through the years and this particular set of years it becomes very apparent that there are other ways that He does it for us.

Oct 11, 2011

American TV: 24 foot ladder and ticket in school zone

There are times when a person just isn’t thinking and it can really get you in trouble. This one wasn’t much different. When I worked for American Television Service I drove a Ford Van with a ladder rack on top for carrying the ladders that I would need to climb on roofs and repair antenna installations.

One particular day I went to where my boss Carl Haupt and one other employee was doing a job on a roof antenna. I can’t totally remember the particulars as to why I was there but I do remember for some reason having to take one of the ladders down form the roof and go to another job while they finished up on the one they were working with there. I remember taking the 24 foot ladder which was normally just 12 foot when not extended and trying to lay it down on the grass. For some reason I wasn’t able to drop it where it was and it was probably due to windows in the house that may have been in the direct path of a fall if it got away. So I tried to walk it out toward the van and then put it together after it was laying down. I did it OK but for a few tense moments it was almost to big for me. Now remember I am only 5’ 8” and the ladder was extended to 24 feet. The Lord must have sent an angel to catch it and steady it for me because I remember just as I thought I was going to lose it I was able to gain control and let it to the ground where I put it back together. I then loaded it onto the van, fastened it down and left for my next appointment. I came off of a side street in the middle of a school zone and started toward the end of the street past the school. The van didn’t have a whole lot of get up and go but I did manage to get about 25 mph out of it before I spotted a red flashing light in my rear view mirror. I had come on to the street after the point where the school zone began and was unaware that it was during the part of the day when it was a 20 mph zone and I received a ticket for it. So the Lord blessed me but I still had to take responsibility for not being more aware of my surroundings. He can’t do it all for us but I am sure glad He steps in when necessary for our health and family well being.

Oct 10, 2011

Developing pictures in the kitchen with dad

Many of my adult loves were started at home in my youth. I have just written about one of my scouting experiences that started me on my lifelong trail of scouting. Well my purpose in relating this story is to tell how my love for photography began.

My father had in the attic some old wooden ammo boxes that had a light in the bottom of them and a button in the top near where there was cut out a small hole of about 5 x 7 inches. I looked at these many times as grew up and especially as I would be assigned to go into the attic to organize and clean it. When I left home my parents gave me those two ammo boxes and the other small wooden frames that went with them. I also received the equipment that went with them I had turned out to be the one family member interested in taking pictures and who had also been most interested in using that equipment as I was growing up. My own children have never shared that interest though and one summer while cleaning out our attic may have given them to the trash. I have been unable to find much of it since that day even though it may still be here somewhere. I often wish I had given it to a museum or something especially since now the computer has eliminated the need for such equipment.

I must tell you though why it was all so special to me. When I was very young and this would have been around the age of four to six I remember my father getting out that old equipment and setting up in the kitchen his makeshift darkroom. He would remove the film form the Brownie instamatic that later became mine also and in the extreme darkest corner of the bathroom put it into a small container where he would then develop it. After it dried he would cut the film into separate negatives and place one of them with a piece of photo paper into one of the 5x7 wooden plates that would fit over the hole in the ammo box while also holding the paper and the negative tightly together while the light would go through the glass front and expose the paper.  The next part was what had really caught my attention at that young age. He would remove the paper and under the dim light of a red globe put it down into the developing solution. As I would watch I could see the image slowly come form the light of the paper and into full view. It was so magnificent to watch.  I loved to see it each time it happened. I spent many hours later in my teenage years in a darkroom developing pictures for the High School Yearbook. Then after I went to college I bought a small enlarger and continued to develop pictures in any dark room that I could set up. I also continued after I was married to use our master bathroom as a darkroom where I could develop my own black and white pictures. Now however the equipment sets idle and I use the computer to do all of the special effects that were rather difficult to do with an enlarger and darkroom. I still love thinking about the process but find my time to do it gone even as the technology to do it slowly ebbs away as well.

Another version:

Developing pictures in the kitchen with dad

One of the best memories I have from my childhood was being in the kitchen late at night with dad. We would do it late at night because what we were doing needed to have no lights. I loved to watch dad as he made pictures for us. They were black and white and it was so fun to see the image as it came slowly out of the white paper and we were only able to see it because of the red light bulb dad had put into the light socket in the kitchen. Dad had an old wooden ammo box that had a hole in the top and a light mounted in the bottom with a switch near the hole at the top. He would take a piece of paper from a box where it was wrapped in black paper to prevent light getting to it during the day. He would then rewrap the rest of the paper and put it into the box and replace he lid before doing the next step. He never accidentally exposed the paper that way. Then he had a wooden frame with glass on one side and a wooden back that was removable so he could place the negative next to the glass and the paper with the emulsion side next to the negative. He would then replace the back and clamp it into place and then put the glass side down over the hole in the ammo box. The hole was the exact size needed to put the frame on it so no light would leak around the sides and still expose the paper. He would then press the switch and turn on the light and then count for several seconds before releasing the switch. He would remove the paper from the frame and then immerse it into a developing chemical in the sink. That was when we could see the image appear on the paper. He would rub it and move it around in the chemical until all of the exposed parts were completely developed. He then would wash the paper and then place it into a Fixer solution that would help the photo remain in a black and white state rather than turning a light brown in a few years. I really had a lot of fun doing that and it was no wonder when several years later when asked to be the yearbook photographer it was a perfect fit since I already knew how to develop the images needed for the yearbook. I continued to do it for several years after our marriage as well until the computers took over and it could be done outside of a darkened room and even in complete daylight even though that tended to create some issues as well. I have always loved photography and think that it must have stemmed from those nights way back during my youth in the kitchen with dad.