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

[grumbler]

Wow!

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

It was a fascinating program, because we had to do things like swap out the whole crew, in a port neither crew had ever been to before, but without tipping off in advance that this was happening in this port (because the red Team was looking for indicators of where and when the op would take place).  Where does the oncoming crew sleep for the two nights of the turnover?  How do you get spare and replacement parts to the replenishment port without anyone being able to track their movements (since they are specialized enough that they'd only be moved to a boomer replenishment port).

Hell, I was amazed that COMSUBPAC and COMSUBLANT even agreed to run the program; they were sending a CO out for a 70-day patrol after only 3 of the 30 days he normally had to get his sub and crew ready for patrol.

It was also very hard.  It took several tries before we had a successful (i.e. not detected in advance or attacked while occurring) replenishment.

[Savonarola]

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

I'm surprised they let you into an active mine without safety training.  One of the projects that I'm working on now is a mining company in Australia.  In order to just get onto the land the mining company owns you have to go through several inductions.

[Savonarola]

I've done a lot of thing that I would class as neat personally but others probably wouldn't (like designing my own SCADA software).

There's someone at my company who has a license plate which reads "SCADA."  (Someone else has a bumper sticker that reads "Repeal the 17th"; (the constitutional amendment which mandates direct popular election of senators.)  Florida is a strange place.)

I've written some of my own tools to analyze traffic and interference.  Personally I think that's a neat thing to do; but I doubt anyone but a radio or telecommunications engineer would think so.  That's one of the reasons that I posed the question; to discover what different professionals found neat in their profession.

[mongers]

I saw the after effects of the motorcycle wrecks on the rehab floor of the hospital when I was getting my leg patched up.

Swore I myself to never get on one of those things...EVER.

My dad was an ER doctor for decades.  That lesson was drilled into us from an early age.  He could be quite descriptive at the dinner table about the events.

Well that's another sort of uber-cool for me, little better than fixing broken people. 

I can half-see what attracts those people to repeat attend/hang out at emergency departments, though I cannot understand their selfishness in consuming valuable resources.

[mongers]

Meh, I've done all sorts of neat things, too many neat things to mention because it won't get me laid here.

But I was thinking about it, and for a variety of different work and non-work reasons, I've been a guest on MSNBC (albeit by telephone) in its early days, I've been quoted on ESPN, responsible for an embarrassingly hilarious (non-work related) quote in a front page piece in the Washington Post that I will never tell any of you monkeys about, sat in on a group "technical advisors" session for a two-part episode of "Homicide: Life on the Street", was in a Russian-made documentary about US law enforcement, and had a one-line speaking role in a never-distributed minor motion picture that let me fill out SAG paperwork.   

Time for my closeup, Mr. Josh DeMille.

You should be using those resources to get laid more often, change of country for a while to sow some wild oats ? 

[Malthus]

I defended a lawsuit in which my client was sued by Jesus Christ (a/k/a The Son of Man).

And no, it wasn't a frivolous suit, or brought by a lunatic - millions of real dollars were at stake. 

I know you've told us this story, but I forget. How was this possibly not frivolous or brought by a lunatic?

The plaintiff was a scamming "priest" who made a lot of money with a religious-themed ponzi scheme.

The defendant was his Canadian investment agent/advisor.

The plaintiff collected all his scammed money in the name of his church - a legally registered entity. He then handed it over to his investment advisor to invest. The advisor invested it - on behalf of the "Church".

Later, the feds caught on to the priest, and he (eventually) ended up in prision. In order to avoid the feds bringing proceedings to take all his money back, he dissolved his religious corporation and did a few asset transfers, with the assets eventually supposedly ending up in the hands of a trust - himself (through some intermediaries) being a trustee, and the beneficiary of the trust being "Jesus Christ, the Son of Man". Obviously, this was all bullshit, the sole point of which was to make life harder for the feds chasing his cash.

However, the guy succeeded mainly in outsmarting himself. At one point he asked for some of "his" money back from his Canadian advisor. "Who the fuck are you?" said the advisor. "I am holding money in the name of [Church], not you".

So the guy attempted to sue in name of [church]. Only problem: in Ontario, you have to sue in the name of an existing corporation. He had dissolved his corporation a year ago. In Ontario, you can always re-constitute a corporation to sue; in his state of incorporation, you can't. So he was fucked, by what we in the trade call "a true conflict of laws".

You can probably see the next step comming ... he then sued in the name of the trust that supposedly held the assets now. In his home state, if you sue in the name of a trust, you sue in the name of the beneficiary, which in this case was "Jesus Christ, the Son of Man". The Ontario court ruled: the transfer was bullshit and the trust was an obvious fraudulent device, so no valid lawsuit. He was fucked again.

Then the feds got involved, seeking restitution for the fraud victims, and we were conflicted out (the partner I worked for did a lot of work in Canada for the US feds). Not entirely sure what happened after that - I think the feds and the client came to a deal, in which the client handed over some portion of the money and kept some for himself.

[Malthus]

I also participated in defending a lawsuit in which it was determined, as a point of law, that Martians did not have standing to sue in Ontario. That one was more, well, frivolous.

Racist! 

Heh - that was when summary judgment motions could not succeed if there were "facts in dispute". The guy alleged he was being persecuted (by his dentist!) because he was a "Martian". Whether the guy was, really, a "Martian" was a "fact in dispute", albeit a really stupid one.

So the court ruled that only humans and corporations had standing to sue in Ontario. Ergo, even if he was a "Martian", he could not sue; and if he wasn't, his case had no basis. 

[alfred russel]

Then the feds got involved, seeking restitution for the fraud victims, and we were conflicted out (the partner I worked for did a lot of work in Canada for the US feds). Not entirely sure what happened after that - I think the feds and the client came to a deal, in which the client handed over some portion of the money and kept some for himself.

I'm reading this, "it was complicated, lots of lawyers jumped in, what a feeding frenzy, but then with all fees the money started to run out, most of us lost interest at that point, and I don't know what happened to the scraps that were left."

[Zanza]

Hmm, not sure. My current job allows me to do business trips to lots of countries (10 different countries on 4 continents in the last two years). That's kinda neat and even Languish-related: I met Tim in Seoul last year.

[Alcibiades]

Got shot at/shot and blew stuff up overseas.   We'll see if I'll be doing really cool stuff here in about two years.   

[The Brain]

You're not the first to plan to shoot up Languish.

[Ed Anger]

Got shot at/shot and blew stuff up overseas.   We'll see if I'll be doing really cool stuff here in about two years.   

Hopefully, you pissed on a jihadi corpse.

[Malthus]

Then the feds got involved, seeking restitution for the fraud victims, and we were conflicted out (the partner I worked for did a lot of work in Canada for the US feds). Not entirely sure what happened after that - I think the feds and the client came to a deal, in which the client handed over some portion of the money and kept some for himself.

I'm reading this, "it was complicated, lots of lawyers jumped in, what a feeding frenzy, but then with all fees the money started to run out, most of us lost interest at that point, and I don't know what happened to the scraps that were left."

Bleak House, right? 

In fact, there was pots of cash left over, even after all the lawyers got paid ... 

[CountDeMoney]

Got shot at/shot and blew stuff up overseas.   We'll see if I'll be doing really cool stuff here in about two years.   

Shit, you didn't have to go overseas to get shot at; you could've been with me on Harford Road when that asshole Reid exploded my light bar.

[grumbler]

Got shot at/shot and blew stuff up overseas.   We'll see if I'll be doing really cool stuff here in about two years.   

Shit, you didn't have to go overseas to get shot at; you could've been with me on Harford Road when that asshole Reid exploded my light bar.

Harry Reid exploded your light bar?

Cool story, bro.