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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

If you give an engineer a spinning wheel

Writing about the Bad Bobbin reminded me of a story from my childhood. Taking a page from Alison's book (and possibly her blog), I share with you an anecdote:

Mom and I were taking spinning lessons together (which you can hear about in this episode of Cast-on), and we had come home with a spinning wheel. Enthusiastically, I filled the first bobbin, and Mom and I changed the bobbin.

I tried sitting down to spin again, and it wouldn't work. It wouldn't GO. The wheel was moving, the flyer was spinning, but nothing was happening!

Mom turned to Dad and deferred to his degree in Civil Engineering. He and a friend (another engineer, though I'm not certain what flavor he is) fussed with the wheel for over an hour. No luck. They determined that the wheel was broken and COULDN'T work.

We called the teacher the next day, and she suggested checking the tension. Which was dangling, unfastened.

Spinning Wheel: 1, Two Northwestern Engineers: 0.

9 comments:

  1. What a great story!! :) You live you learn! :)

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  2. This happens to me sometimes too!

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  3. Been there, done that. More than once too - you'd think I'd learn...

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  4. That's hilarious. Spinning wheels are just about the only mechanical things I can understand.

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  5. Where's the funny button when you need it? My problem is that I usually have both ends of the drive band (Double Drive) on the flyer and nothing on the bobbin.

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  6. Hahaha! Been there, done that...even without two engineers.

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  7. HA!!!! Awesome!
    My dad has a friend that is a Bona-fide Rocket Scientist that works for Cal Tech and pretty much is an UBER BRAIN....but he cannot work his cell phone. If you don't reach him...call back cause he won't have any idea that you called.

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  8. Engineers design, mechanics fix.

    A good thing to remember!

    I would love to meet Galina, with or without the microphone!

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  9. I had not heard that one. But that is hysterical!

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