Saturday, August 4, 2012

AllenS emailed this video

11 comments:

AllenS said...

I remember my first military haircut. Immediately, my comb became obsolete.

AllenS said...

Once I got the haircut, I started wearing a hat.

We called it a Flying Saucer.

Once I became Airborne, I threw away the Flying Saucer, and put on an Airborne cap that we called a Cunt Cap believe it or not. I'll look for a picture.

AllenS said...

I have a picture of me wearing the politically incorrect hat, but you can't make out the hat very well. In fact the picture is quite blurry.

AllenS said...

It was called an Airborne Garrison cap.

Chip S. said...

Cool pic, Allen.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Very cute in that photo Allen!! Quite the dashing young man. Same steely glare though.

:-D

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

The old uniforms were definitely better.

ndspinelli said...

Fort Leonard Wood! We would drive past that fort on the way to southern Mo. to camp.

AllenS said...

Yeah, it was Leonard Wood. Two separate words. I noticed that there is no zoom in on the picture that I linked to. Other pictures had that feature.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Hey Allen...I just saw this on your profile.

I worked as a pressman on a 4 color web offset press.

Both of my parents were printers back in the day when printing was a skilled trade. Hot lead type and worked in many newspapers across the country, from Chicago, to San Francisco and lastly at the Mercury News.

My mother was a particularly good, accurate linotype operator. When linotype became obsolete, she learned teletype. My dad worked in the type setting and proofing areas too.

At one point we operated a small town paper and my job (3rd grade) was to put the big headline type letters into the galleys. It was good practice because I learned how to read upside down and backwards :-) We used an old platen type offset press.

Just thought I would share.

AllenS said...

Yes, DBQ, we talked about this before over at TOP. Where I worked, when type left the Linotype department it went to a department that was called the first dump. We also had a second dump, but I can't remember what went on over there. We probably had 35 or more Linotype machines. When I left work, we had 16 web offset presses, plus about 4 sheet fed presses. Three of the presses were 4 color, and shortly after I left, they got rid of the four color work.

From what people who still work there tell me, is that they have a press now (and are getting another) that never shuts off. When each number of signatures is met, it automatically changes plate cylinders on the fly. There is very little waste. When it is running, another set of plates are installed on the idle plate cylinder for the next signature.

If you look at a book, let's say a 4 color book, the first 16 pages are signature #1, running one web. When we (4 color) would run 2 color work, we would run two separate webs (rolls of paper) through the press, and make 32 page signatures.

Are there any lawyers reading this? I worked at West Publishing. Then it was bought by Thomson, and now it's Thomson-Reuters.

None of the four color work was for law books, but almost all of the 1 color presses went for law books. Four color work was for mostly college and high school books.

It was a tough way to make a living.