(Continued from previous post)
I told him I really didn't want him blowing himself up with a lightning machine, so he promised to make it small to begin with. I told him he could get into trouble with Homeland Security for trying to manufacture toxic gases, but he said it would be safe under water. I pulled dozens of examples of similar inventions off the internet, demonstrating the prohibitive cost of energy and the knotty problem of pressure in the production of nitrogen fertilizer, but all he did was get giddy with narcissistic supply that I should care so much about his idea. I told him he needed to keep records and charts, but his attempt to draw a simple diagram resulted in confusion and was abandoned.
All the books he borrowed from the library were thirty or forty years old, and he wouldn't believe that engines nowadays are so well designed and tuned that nitrous gases were vastly diminished. He tested his prototype and bragged that the litmus strip turned the right color in the water. It could have been from anything, and the change was infinitesimal. Then he found out how much it would cost to put up a new power pole to provide enough energy to make the litmus strip darker, and he hasn't worked on it since.
The discussion about A.I. was circular and pointless. I remember what a mess the herd was when I first showed up, and how many breeds he had mixed together, how baggy the udders were and the splayed hooves made it hard for them to walk. How milk production went up substantially after my husband began his own A.I. program and got rid of the Jerseys and Brown Swiss and yes, Simmentals. The neighborhood joke was that it was a Rainbow Dairy, with all the different breeds mixed together. Someone even painted the mailbox with a rainbow and the Rainbow Dairy title.
You couldn't convince him of that, though. As my husband always says, Don't waste your breath. So when my husband and I were on a long-awaited trip half way around the world, and I was checking FIL's bank account on someone's personal computer, I found a check for $11,000 waiting to be cleared on insufficient funds. Yes, he bought overpriced Jerseys while we were away, and yes, I transferred money to cover it. The Jerseys are almost all sold off now, since several of them never calved. My nephew, who can do embryo transplants, refuses to get involved.
The milking machine was supposed to be based on the human hand instead of on suction, as dairy milkers are today. So I found dozens more similar patented inventions from one hundred years ago. The problem was, that the pressure from a rolling milker, if not calibrated properly, could tear the teat from a cow's udder, and no dairyman was willing to have these machines tested on their herds. Since this invention was third on his list, and he abandoned the other two due to lack of interest on the part of everyone he knows, he hasn't yet attempted to resurrect this one.
He also invented a teat dip that decreased the somatic cell count and mastitis in our herd--or was it that my nephew had taken over milking and kept the barn and animals spotlessly clean? He won't admit to that possibility, and he wants to patent his teat dip, but he didn't keep any records.
He has spent years and years and tens of thousands of dollars not only on these inventions, but on others such as the labor-intensive manure system (most of the labor spent unplugging pipes), feeders, a novel barn design (the barn collapsed after 30 years, the most inconvenient building I've ever been in), feeding programs with acidophilus and that magic elixir, iodine, etc. etc.
He may have occasionally come up with good ideas, although it's hard to tell since I have seen him take credit for things he strenuously objected to, to begin with. One example was working on installing generators on the local dam when he was on the board of directors, but like I say, it's hard to tell if it really was his idea. In later years he convinced on of his sons-in-law to take him to visit the Indian tribes at the headwaters of our watershed and tried to sell them on the same idea, as only the obsessive can do. The Indian tribes did not respond to his idea, regrettably.
His most useful development was an open pollinated variety of tomato he planted year after year and which locally bears his name, although gardener reviews of heritage tomato varieties noted the following: "Flavor was not overwhelming. Could have just been a bad year but I never grew it again." "Planted about 3 plants and got quite a few from them til the heat and stink bugs set in. I didn't note anything special about them except that the 'big red' notation didnt fit the tomato." Reviews are from several years ago, and the seed is difficult to find, if at all.
In all cases, the reason he did these things was for the good of humanity, for posterity, for the entire community and the larger world. From his perspective, one of the great tragedies of his life, no doubt, is that no one recognizes or responds to his sacrifice for all our sakes.
I told him I really didn't want him blowing himself up with a lightning machine, so he promised to make it small to begin with. I told him he could get into trouble with Homeland Security for trying to manufacture toxic gases, but he said it would be safe under water. I pulled dozens of examples of similar inventions off the internet, demonstrating the prohibitive cost of energy and the knotty problem of pressure in the production of nitrogen fertilizer, but all he did was get giddy with narcissistic supply that I should care so much about his idea. I told him he needed to keep records and charts, but his attempt to draw a simple diagram resulted in confusion and was abandoned.
All the books he borrowed from the library were thirty or forty years old, and he wouldn't believe that engines nowadays are so well designed and tuned that nitrous gases were vastly diminished. He tested his prototype and bragged that the litmus strip turned the right color in the water. It could have been from anything, and the change was infinitesimal. Then he found out how much it would cost to put up a new power pole to provide enough energy to make the litmus strip darker, and he hasn't worked on it since.
The discussion about A.I. was circular and pointless. I remember what a mess the herd was when I first showed up, and how many breeds he had mixed together, how baggy the udders were and the splayed hooves made it hard for them to walk. How milk production went up substantially after my husband began his own A.I. program and got rid of the Jerseys and Brown Swiss and yes, Simmentals. The neighborhood joke was that it was a Rainbow Dairy, with all the different breeds mixed together. Someone even painted the mailbox with a rainbow and the Rainbow Dairy title.
You couldn't convince him of that, though. As my husband always says, Don't waste your breath. So when my husband and I were on a long-awaited trip half way around the world, and I was checking FIL's bank account on someone's personal computer, I found a check for $11,000 waiting to be cleared on insufficient funds. Yes, he bought overpriced Jerseys while we were away, and yes, I transferred money to cover it. The Jerseys are almost all sold off now, since several of them never calved. My nephew, who can do embryo transplants, refuses to get involved.
The milking machine was supposed to be based on the human hand instead of on suction, as dairy milkers are today. So I found dozens more similar patented inventions from one hundred years ago. The problem was, that the pressure from a rolling milker, if not calibrated properly, could tear the teat from a cow's udder, and no dairyman was willing to have these machines tested on their herds. Since this invention was third on his list, and he abandoned the other two due to lack of interest on the part of everyone he knows, he hasn't yet attempted to resurrect this one.
He also invented a teat dip that decreased the somatic cell count and mastitis in our herd--or was it that my nephew had taken over milking and kept the barn and animals spotlessly clean? He won't admit to that possibility, and he wants to patent his teat dip, but he didn't keep any records.
He has spent years and years and tens of thousands of dollars not only on these inventions, but on others such as the labor-intensive manure system (most of the labor spent unplugging pipes), feeders, a novel barn design (the barn collapsed after 30 years, the most inconvenient building I've ever been in), feeding programs with acidophilus and that magic elixir, iodine, etc. etc.
He may have occasionally come up with good ideas, although it's hard to tell since I have seen him take credit for things he strenuously objected to, to begin with. One example was working on installing generators on the local dam when he was on the board of directors, but like I say, it's hard to tell if it really was his idea. In later years he convinced on of his sons-in-law to take him to visit the Indian tribes at the headwaters of our watershed and tried to sell them on the same idea, as only the obsessive can do. The Indian tribes did not respond to his idea, regrettably.
His most useful development was an open pollinated variety of tomato he planted year after year and which locally bears his name, although gardener reviews of heritage tomato varieties noted the following: "Flavor was not overwhelming. Could have just been a bad year but I never grew it again." "Planted about 3 plants and got quite a few from them til the heat and stink bugs set in. I didn't note anything special about them except that the 'big red' notation didnt fit the tomato." Reviews are from several years ago, and the seed is difficult to find, if at all.
In all cases, the reason he did these things was for the good of humanity, for posterity, for the entire community and the larger world. From his perspective, one of the great tragedies of his life, no doubt, is that no one recognizes or responds to his sacrifice for all our sakes.
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