I don’t really like Iron Chef. Squid ink ice cream? No way.
But then I found out that Alton Brown was rushed to the hospital after suffering heart arrhythmia in early March 2004. Which got me curious - would Alton be actually be competing?
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Every year brings around the MIT Flea Market, a collection of computer/HAM/other crap from years ago. It’s pretty rare to find something that was made in the past 18 months there. More commonly you’ll find things at least 5+ years old.
I go for two reasons: to sell or get rid of crap in my basement that has been accumulating for the past while, and to socialize usually with my friend Nelson. Nelson usually has far more stuff to sell than I do, so I’ll hustle what stuff of his that I can for him.
This year (actually the Apr 18 one) was particularly interesting. Nelson had a U-haul van PACKED with stuff whereas I had a small cardboard box with a bunch of cards and cables in it. One of the items Nelson was trying to get rid of was a Dolch logic analyzer. Now I remember Dolch as making luggable PCs in the late 80s/early 90s. But apparently they made these logic analyzers in the early 80s, making this thing 20+ years old. It couldn’t have been that bad, as it came with two 5.25″ floppy drives. There was this sign on the Dolch that read “Dolch Logic Analyzer: Free. Textronix cart: $100″. Yes, the empty cart had more value than the analyzer. The analyzer (and cart) sat in the van for most of the day with most people not giving it a second look. Near the end of the day (about 2PM), we started our “Free Bin” where we take the stuff we don’t really care about and give it away. It might be a 9600 modemwe couldn’t sell, it might be PCBs that do nothing. It might be a mouse or joystick. In some form of desperation, the Dolch was hauled out of the van and near the Free Bin in the hopes we could get someone to take it.
And that’s when we met Pevner.
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