Random Tom-Story

Last night was date night, which means Tai stays with his Grandma (read: Ba) while Tom and I get dinner and a couple of drinks.  I talk about my novel, about what I'm reading (the Twilight series *shudder* - why am I still reading this?) and what Tai is up to during the week, and Tom talks about work.  Sometimes his stories would have a better audience in a computer geek, but last night he had a good one.

One of his employees - I'll call him G - is a gun-nut and a survivalist.  He's ex-Army Special Forces.  I will admit he makes me nervous, in theory, but in practice he's a nice guy.  Anyway - he does hardware as well as software work and he likes to play around with hardware.  One day Tom came back to work and the courtyard was closed off.  There were security and office emergency volunteers posted around the perimeter.  He wondered what was going on, but didn't ask.  Later he found out - G had made a solar powered battery charger for some of his computer equipment.  He'd left it in the middle of the courtyard to see how much of a charge he could get during the day.  Someone saw it out there, a briefcase full of wires and assumed - bomb.  When G went out to get it, they'd already called in the bomb squad.  Fortunately the situation was defused before anything got out of hand.

Later, on a trip to China, G picked up some new supplies, including a solar panel that is about as big as a piece of notebook paper.  He installed it in an army-green folder and created a new solar-charger for other equipment.  One afternoon he was carrying it into work, when Tom and another friend of theirs, H, met up with them.  

H says, "Got another bomb, there, Hurt Locker?" 

I about lost my shit.