What are the neatest things you've done in your career?

[The Brain]

And more generally, you meet all sorts of interesting and unusual people and get to know a little bit about their life and story. 

... and then fling them into jail where they belong. 

"jail"?

[Grey Fox]

Gaol. Synonyms.

[Savonarola]

And more generally, you meet all sorts of interesting and unusual people and get to know a little bit about their life and story.  Got to know a lot of what it is like to grow up in a remote native community, of course.  Dealt with several placer miners (and yet somehow I'm a sucker for those reality gold mining shows) and lots of oil roughnecks.  I have a couple of "cheating at a casino" files, so I've been learning about their security.  I had an employee theft from a jewelry store, so I got to learn all about their business.  Heck my very first court case (which got me interested in litigation in the first place) was all about a failing septic system, so even now I know lots more about home septic systems than I otherwise would have.

I had to look up what a placer miner was.  Is that common in the Yukon?  Do they actually use sluice boxes and pans?

[Ed Anger]

Writing a report for the Chair Force.

[Ideologue]

Writing a report for the Chair Force.

"Firebombing works."

[Ed Anger]

Writing a report for the Chair Force.

"Firebombing works."

Nothing like that. 

[Ideologue]

"Tailhook: Was it Really So Bad?"

[crazy canuck]

I have been fortunate enough to do and be present at a lot of neat things in my career. There are few I can talk about

But one that I can that was really neat was when I took a tour of a deep mine site for a case I was defending.  I was given a full day safety training - basically learning how to use all the safety gear I would be carrying or had access to.  then they geared me up and sent me down the shaft with one of supervisors.  We walked around for a couple hours so I could see all that I needed to understand some of the facts in the case.  By that time I was exhausted.  The heat and the effort of walking on that enviornment is something.  Then the really cool part.  We were in an unworked area when he turned off all the light sources.  I have never seen black like that and probably never will again.

The experience gave me a whole new appreciation for miners.

[Ed Anger]

"Tailhook: Was it Really So Bad?"

THAT WAS NAVY.

[Barrister]

And more generally, you meet all sorts of interesting and unusual people and get to know a little bit about their life and story.  Got to know a lot of what it is like to grow up in a remote native community, of course.  Dealt with several placer miners (and yet somehow I'm a sucker for those reality gold mining shows) and lots of oil roughnecks.  I have a couple of "cheating at a casino" files, so I've been learning about their security.  I had an employee theft from a jewelry store, so I got to learn all about their business.  Heck my very first court case (which got me interested in litigation in the first place) was all about a failing septic system, so even now I know lots more about home septic systems than I otherwise would have.

I had to look up what a placer miner was.  Is that common in the Yukon?  Do they actually use sluice boxes and pans?

Around Dawson City, yeah it's common.  You'd see a bunch of signs saying "This business supports placer mining - placer mining supports this business".  It is of course the reason Dawson City and the Yukon even exist - the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush.  In the years following all the little bitty gold mines were bought out into one big consolidated gold mining company which employed hundreds if not thousands of people, and they systematically and very literally turned the Klondike river valley upside down looking for gold.

By about the 1960s the creeks were no longer economical.  Since then there are still dozens and dozens of mom-and-pop operations working away in the hills.

They still use gold pans - it's a quick and easy way to see if there is any gold in a sample of gravel - but sluice boxes are now mechanized and industrialized.  They're big deisel-powered things (though last time I was at the Yukon general store you could buy a manual sluice box).

Lots of people do it almost as a sideline or summer job.  It's moderately capital intensive - you need an excavator or bulldozer as well as your sluice box / shaker box, but I think the cost for that stuff runs into the five figures.  If you have a half-decent claim you can probably earn $50k or more in a summer.

In terms of risk vs return on investment it is of course insanely stupid, but there's a hell of a romance about it.

[Barrister]

I have been fortunate enough to do and be present at a lot of neat things in my career. There are few I can talk about

But one that I can that was really neat was when I took a tour of a deep mine site for a case I was defending.  I was given a full day safety training - basically learning how to use all the safety gear I would be carrying or had access to.  then they geared me up and sent me down the shaft with one of supervisors.  We walked around for a couple hours so I could see all that I needed to understand some of the facts in the case.  By that time I was exhausted.  The heat and the effort of walking on that enviornment is something.  Then the really cool part.  We were in an unworked area when he turned off all the light sources.  I have never seen black like that and probably never will again.

The experience gave me a whole new appreciation for miners.

Before I went to law school I worked for a mining company in Flin Flon (well - I worked for THE mining company in Flin Flon).  My work was entirely above ground, working with ore samples, but one day they did give me a tour of one of the mines.

I sure didn't get a full day worth of safety training though.   I guess they value lawyers more than junior mineralogists.

But yeah, they did the light out thing too.  You can't describe just how black it is a mile underground.

And of course it was that job which drove me to go sign up for the LSAT.

[garbon]

Travelling around the US/Europe for 3 weeks listening to people with rheumatoid arthritis talk about their condition and how its affected their lives. Though not ultimately used for a particularly..."good" purpose, it was neat to have the opportunity to summarize all those lived experiences into a report on what it is like to live with RA and the support that those individuals need.

Of course - that was 5 years ago.

[crazy canuck]

Back in the Cold War I developed and proved a method by which US SSBNs could be resupplied for additional patrols using commercial ports rather than their home ports (which would presumably be staked out by Soviet SSNs).  This developed into an entire black programs in which we actually carried out the replenishment of US boomers from various ports which had no existing USN presence.  There was also a 3-day limit on the replenishment, because that was the window for the Soviets to discover what was happening and redeploy their assets.  We had a SEAL team that played the Red Team, so operational and physical security were the two biggest challenges.

It was really neat to see an idea I came up with in a brainstorming session turn into an entire program with a budget and a cast of thousands.  Probably the thing that surprised me most was how readily all of the bureaucratic stakeholders changed all of their assumptions when presented with the logic of the program.

Wow!

That is not just neat.  We need a super cool thread for this.  I am impressed Grumbler.

[The Brain]

I have been fortunate enough to do and be present at a lot of neat things in my career. There are few I can talk about

But one that I can that was really neat was when I took a tour of a deep mine site for a case I was defending.  I was given a full day safety training - basically learning how to use all the safety gear I would be carrying or had access to.  then they geared me up and sent me down the shaft with one of supervisors.  We walked around for a couple hours so I could see all that I needed to understand some of the facts in the case.  By that time I was exhausted.  The heat and the effort of walking on that enviornment is something.  Then the really cool part.  We were in an unworked area when he turned off all the light sources.  I have never seen black like that and probably never will again.

The experience gave me a whole new appreciation for miners.

OK Grallon.

[mongers]

Cameras I help make are on Mars.

Well, that pretty much matches my definition of a cool and neat thing to have done.