today's highlight

I just got off the most hilarious phone call. This old English dude named John Fallon called me looking to track down a colleague of mine. He just kept going on and on about how he got my number and who he was looking for and why it was important. Even after I gave him the number he was seeking, he just wanted to chat on and on about the background of his project. Apparently, he’s promoting burning alcohol in small turbine generators and he heard that NREL has just such a generator sitting around in Golden, Colorado. He is trying to link DOE, NREL, and some utility in a town with a silly name to do a pilot. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about his project, but he had this amazing way of speaking that just kept me entranced. I was literally on the phone with this guy for 20 minutes. He said things like “of course, of course, all is forgiven,” “I suppose that depends on whose ox is being gored you see,” and “like the gentleman said in eight B.C., we’re all organized until we’re reorganized, you understand.” Oh and he would talk really fast except when he would say people’s names, a which point he would say them really really slowly like “so of course I asked the man his name and he told me D A N F O G E L and after speaking with him he directed me to J A C K D E M P S Y who sent me to your man C A L V I N F E R K who I rang at the number I’d been given which has clearly led me do you, you see.” The man was wasting my time but he was so enchanting that I consider his call the highlight of my day. How strange.