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Been closing down my shop, selling this, selling that, tossing those, remembering the others. But it has still been my shop I am sitting in, surrounded by familiar stuff. I emptied a lot of drawer bins into envelopes - resistors, transistors, diodes, etc. ANd I gave a couple drawer bin units to a friend last night. But even with three 60-drawer bins off the shelf, a dozen remain, so it is still a shop.
But today, I lined up a truck, leased a storage unit, and... sob... pulled my scope off the bench riser. Right before my eyes, the riser turned into a...shelf. I'll leave the computer up until the last moment for communication and breaks. But the secondary computer is about to come off.
I got one of those wheeled tool carts, like a mechanic uses, though on top I don't use a tool chest, I use by palleted took kit from my field days. Jensen or Platt, I forget, but the airlines could not destroy the thing, and they tried. I actually saw a baggage cart drag a wheel up and over it once. (Of course the same wheel ran over my garment bag too, and tore that up pretty well, so I am not sure who won.) Anyway, red steel tool cart, couple of drawers and a larger bottom area with garage door thing. The upper drawer was little special hand tools, markers, calipers, odds and ends, the second drawer was all test leads and specialized test hookups. Odd adaptors wired up for just that occasion when you have to connect say a MIDI cord to a garden hose, or whatever. I used to work on wound boards for arcades, and there was a remoted volume controls on a cable. When I get the board, it has no control, so I have a little Molex guy with a trim pot on it to plug into the board. That sort of thing. Haven't cleaned that drawer in years, so I threw out the ten dead scope probes (well, it might be handy to make some BNC wired thing one day, and...), and the collection of specially wired Molex jumper plugs for things I never see. Found my smaller dummy load resistors. 1 ohm , 5 ohm , evena couple 8s. Giving those to my grasshopper. And the large selection of fine aged mouse turds. Oh and all manner of BNC adaptors. BNC to male banana, BNC to female banana, BNC T adpator, and many others. I have them all clipped together so ti looks like the ISS sorta.
But in the morning, I will pick up the truck, and out we go. I like a challenge, and fitting all this crap into 10x10 feet will be one.
Pulled the big display rack of boxed fuses off the wall, that area looks blank. That was where the special speaker cables hung too, like the XLR4 to 1/4 male cord for working on flip top Ampeg chassis. The odd dual banana male to RCA male cord. I think that was for connecting cheap stereos with RCA speaker wires to my bench speaker/load patch panel. RCA to clip leads, BNC to clip leads, two wire detachable power cords for like Roland..... All gone.
Forgot I had socket adaptors. For 7 and for 9 pin sockets, pins on bottom, oh, look like this:
Works like a bias probe adaptor, plug into socket, tube into adapator, then contacts circle it to connect probes, no need to go under chassis.
ANyway... all going away, and it finally sinks in that I am not in the game any longer.
But today, I lined up a truck, leased a storage unit, and... sob... pulled my scope off the bench riser. Right before my eyes, the riser turned into a...shelf. I'll leave the computer up until the last moment for communication and breaks. But the secondary computer is about to come off.
I got one of those wheeled tool carts, like a mechanic uses, though on top I don't use a tool chest, I use by palleted took kit from my field days. Jensen or Platt, I forget, but the airlines could not destroy the thing, and they tried. I actually saw a baggage cart drag a wheel up and over it once. (Of course the same wheel ran over my garment bag too, and tore that up pretty well, so I am not sure who won.) Anyway, red steel tool cart, couple of drawers and a larger bottom area with garage door thing. The upper drawer was little special hand tools, markers, calipers, odds and ends, the second drawer was all test leads and specialized test hookups. Odd adaptors wired up for just that occasion when you have to connect say a MIDI cord to a garden hose, or whatever. I used to work on wound boards for arcades, and there was a remoted volume controls on a cable. When I get the board, it has no control, so I have a little Molex guy with a trim pot on it to plug into the board. That sort of thing. Haven't cleaned that drawer in years, so I threw out the ten dead scope probes (well, it might be handy to make some BNC wired thing one day, and...), and the collection of specially wired Molex jumper plugs for things I never see. Found my smaller dummy load resistors. 1 ohm , 5 ohm , evena couple 8s. Giving those to my grasshopper. And the large selection of fine aged mouse turds. Oh and all manner of BNC adaptors. BNC to male banana, BNC to female banana, BNC T adpator, and many others. I have them all clipped together so ti looks like the ISS sorta.
But in the morning, I will pick up the truck, and out we go. I like a challenge, and fitting all this crap into 10x10 feet will be one.
Pulled the big display rack of boxed fuses off the wall, that area looks blank. That was where the special speaker cables hung too, like the XLR4 to 1/4 male cord for working on flip top Ampeg chassis. The odd dual banana male to RCA male cord. I think that was for connecting cheap stereos with RCA speaker wires to my bench speaker/load patch panel. RCA to clip leads, BNC to clip leads, two wire detachable power cords for like Roland..... All gone.
Forgot I had socket adaptors. For 7 and for 9 pin sockets, pins on bottom, oh, look like this:
Works like a bias probe adaptor, plug into socket, tube into adapator, then contacts circle it to connect probes, no need to go under chassis.
ANyway... all going away, and it finally sinks in that I am not in the game any longer.
, claims the OS files for XP+ have been corrupted. No worries, I'll take that over to the computer corner, maybe someone here will have an answer.
). So, maybe you're not going to be "in the shop Enzo" now. You're going to be whatever the next Enzo is. Because wherever you go, there you are. And life has a way of finding us in our element, familiar or otherwise. "Semi-retirement" can also be a consideration. You can be as much a hero helping a local shop maybe? Certainly you continue to help us. And I know you'll keep a good amount of bench gear for your own purposes and even helping others in your building. 
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