As I sat down at my desk this morning the old adage about a cluttered desk came to mind. There are several versions of that and all of them bad. But I've always countered that with if a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind what does an empty desk mean. I'll leave it at that. Yes, my desk is a cluttered mess most of the time. When bored I will clean it off. For me that's like wiping the chalkboard. Sometimes the old impressions remain, although faintly, and sometimes they disappear altogether. It makes room for fresh thoughts and ideas.
Yesterday I had done a bit of housekeeping emptying the drawers in my desk. They had become cluttered with all sorts of things. They looked like the junk drawer that can be found in almost every kitchen in America. Made a few interesting finds as well. The older I get the more that seems to happen. I hadn't really forgotten about those things, but my interest was renewed in seeing them again. They were just waiting for me to get to them. It's why I don't throw many things away. You just never know when they might spark an interest once again. Not trash, treasure.
So, on my desktop this morning, a real desktop not a computer screen, you have to make a distinction with that these days, I have two vacuum tubes and a Tops baseball card featuring Roy White from the 1968 season. Roy was one of my favorite players, the dependable Yankee as he was often called. I did check the value of that card and found it is worth about 99 cents! It has definitely gone up in value since I purchased it. Not sure what I will do with it though, just tuck it away again I suppose. But those vacuum tubes I have a plan for. I think they are a bit of a curiosity to those that don't remember them. I admit to not knowing a lot about them myself, I'm not an electronics man. I just like the look of them.
I did a little reading on the particular tubes I have and found they were made for a very specific purpose. They had something to do with a scanner for slides and photographs. The explanation was beyond my understanding of electronic devices. But I did read where every vacuum tube has a filament, like a light bulb, that generates heat to facilitate the operation of that tube. That's the glow you see when they are warming up. My idea is to power up that filament and just have it glowing. I figure to mount those tubes in some fashion to make an interesting display. That is, of course, if they still work. If not, maybe I can light them up with a small led bulb. It's a project.
Vacuum tubes were first made in 1904 according to Google sources. The first one was a diode. Diodes are fascinating things because they only allow the flow of electrons in one direction. I read where it was a diode that allowed the invention of radio and television. But in 1947 the first transistor was developed. They would replace all those vacuum tubes with one major exception. The cathode ray tube, known to us as a picture tube. They pretty much died about 15 years ago, replaced by LED's (light emitting diodes), plasma screens and an OLED (organic light emitting diode) I'll have to read up on that. Are they grown on a farm?
These are the things that I do now that I'm retired. My desk is usually a mess filled with ideas and projects. I'm not trying to invent anything, no experiments or anything like that. Just little projects to amuse myself and hopefully entertain others in the future. We will be remembered by the things we leave behind. We call that a legacy. A legacy is simply what you inherit. I'm thinking my descendants may inherit some of this stuff and wonder, what the heck is this? Just who was that guy? And why did he make whatever this is supposed to be. I figure I won't be remembered for any great accomplishments, no heroics or accolades. My plan is to be remembered by ephemera and by what I call knick-knacks. You know that stuff sitting on your shelves or tucked into a corner somewhere that you save just because you like it. Just stuff that amuses or reminds you of something or someone. I plan to clutter up their houses! It's a sign of a busy mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment