(25) Design draftsman’s job (5/6).

Straight after the VK model work began on another new car named JB Camira. The electrical engineer being still in the Quality Control Department the job to design the electrical system fell into my lap. Still being in full swing after the previous model I began in earnest…

The new model was yet another “new” for General Motors. New by virtue of being the first “world” car, in the sense that its various parts would be designed and manufactured by GM factory anywhere in the world. One of those parts, an instrument panel, landed on my desk already, from GM Isuzu in Japan. At first glance I saw that the electrical socket on its back was unsuitable for production, for its propensity to disconnect during vibrations, due to lack of locking mechanism. On reporting it I was told that the panel is in production in Japan already, and performing without failure. The panel was eventually installed in production vehicles, and became a source of many headaches to the car owners.

The new model was new in several ways: it was the first GM car with front wheels drive, first with 4-cylinder engine made in-house, and first with the engine located east-west. The body was also new, and it had a new electrical system as well: 

Production of sedan version began first, but I liked this shape better.

A few months after start of its production I heard that the old Swabian Otto is retiring, and now I understood why my work was being signed by him without a word of question – frankly, the old dear couldn’t give a damn…

By the way, it was only me who called him “the old Swabian”, based on a meeting I was in with him and a few of his fellow chief section engineers. I was sitting between Otto and another German, somewhere from Saxony. The two were quietly exchanging words in their native language when Otto, obviously exasperated, said something like “Weltes groses Gabe ist ein Schwabe” (a Swabian is the best gift to the world). The guy from Saxony sent back some sort of swearword which I could not understand, whereupon Otto turned red like rooster’s wattle and did not utter a word for the rest of the meeting. So, to me, he remained the Swabian, the world’s best gift. Despite some minor disagreements I remember him fondly.

After Otto, Bob Newton became the Chief Electrical engineer. With him, still in his role as lamp engineer, we designed and pushed into production rear lamps for LH Torana car, so we knew a bit about each other.

About a month after Bob N. became the Chief, my neighbour at the desk, Jack V., turns to me with the words “Congratulations, Charles!” “What to?” I asked. “Don’t you know? Go and see the announcement in the corridor”. There, on a piece of paper were the words that “effective from dot dot dot 1978 or 79 Charles Hatvani is transferred from drafting to engineering section in the function of electrical engineer.” I went to see Bob in his office: “Aaaah, finally!” said he. It transpired that the proposal for my transfer was originated by Otto, it was only finalised by Bob. My work did not change much, but I lost some money: as the draftsman I had plenty of overtimes, which was denied to the engineers.

A few months later, while still in the middle of JB Camira development, Bob N. was relocated somewhere else, and we had new boss. His name was Roger Gibbs, fresh from the USA where he studied at Stanford University and also worked somewhere for a couple of years. He was about 30-35 years old, the son of the local GM managing director. He was presented to us by the local Chief Engineer, and assumed the seat vacated by Bob N. After a week or two we were summonsed into his office, one after another. For my interview I prepared a little list of items I was currently working on: new vehicle, new fuses – never before used in a GM car -, new wiring, new fuse/distribution box, all designed here by us…. His eyes became glazed right after the fuses; my “wiring” speech he missed completely. Instead, he announced that electricity is his weakest point; he would be more interested in how I am managing my job – any problems with the colleagues, draftsmen, mechanics? Work pressures? No? Why not? Well, I was not prepared for that sort of discussion, and he was somewhat disappointed; we parted without any cordiality. His influence on my work, and on the work of the section as a whole was zero. Soon, after a few months, he was promoted to the organisation’s stratosphere and we lost sight of him.

We were given another boss, Jeff J. He, until very recently, used to sit a few desks from me as a design draftsman on sheet metals. His contribution to the electrical section was even lesser than that of his predecessor’s…

(24) Design draftsman’s job (4/6).

With the aforementioned German (Otto Tescher by name) I had another conflict. The highest car in the WB Series had a little electronic module installed in the boot. The module’s job was to monitor all the rear lamps and report any failure by way of a warning light on the instrument panel. The module came from France, it was my job to find a suitable location for it, and also marry it with our electrical system. The module was designed for a French vehicle with an electrical system different from ours, and I was unable to follow its installation instructions exactly. Had I followed them it would be possible to start the engine from the rear lamps area even if the automatic transmission was in gear. My sketches were given to the experimental workshop, mechanics there installed and connected the module, it was tested and everything worked correctly. Eventually some dozen of prototypes were fitted with the modules. Suddenly, the Quality Control department reported to the Chief Electrical engineer that the French module is NOT installed according to the French instructions!

I was called to Otto’s office where he started noisily monstering me from the moment I stepped in: why did I not follow the French instructions exactly, why am I causing him so many problems for which he must keep covering up to uphold our reputation, why…!? My attempts at explanations were drowned by streams of abuse, for he was interested only in total submission, he did not want to hear any explanations. I was forced to re-design the damned thing to the French instructions, knowing full well what was going to happen.

I was out of GM already for some couple of years when it eventually happened . There was a recall notice in the daily press, according to which hundreds of WB vehicles, fitted with the rear lamps warning modules, were being recalled because of their faulty French supplied modules. It transpired that when a mechanic somewhere in a workshop was replacing light bulb in rear lamps of one of those vehicles, the engine in that vehicle suddenly started, the vehicle lurched forward and pinned legs of a mechanic who was standing in front of the vehicle, to the wall. “Faulty diodes in the French supplied module”, the recall message said. Faulty my foot, I thought for myself: two broken legs because of one pig-headed man…

        VB, VC, VH, VK

An era of the so-called “world cars” began. A new vehicle was imported from (General Motors) Opel in Germany, and we were told to prepare it for local production. The original four cylinder engine was replaced by a six cylinder one, eventually even by an eight cylinder engine. We were busy for a couple of years, and the car ended up heavily modified with model designations VB, VC and VH. The modifications mainly took place in the body of the vehicle, which was not strong enough to take larger and much more powerful engines. After these three models there came one designated VK. For that model a locally produced engine was to be used, but the carburettor was replaced by a Bosch supplied electronic fuel injections system – first for a GM produced car. The vehicle underwent a serious face-lift, to distinguish it from the previous models. The electrical engineer having been transferred to the Quality Control department, the job of installing the EFI system ended up with me:

I was not entirely happy with the electrical system in those imported vehicles. For instance, we were not allowed to modify the original German fuse box, with its failure-prone ceramic fuses; also, various switches were fairly flimsy and were prone to breaking. Working alone, and having a fairly free hand, I replaced the ceramic fuses with plastic ones, and for these I had to design a new fuse panel, there being nothing even remotely similar in the GM catalogue of parts. There being a few new modules as well I relocated all of them, together with the fuse panel, from under the dash in the cabin into the newly-designed box mounted in the rear of the engine bay – another new for GM vehicles. To be fair to Otto, the Chief Electrical Engineer, I must say that he was signing off all these novelties without a word, without a question!

My biggest challenge was in form of the new Electronic Fuel Injection system. I had no experience with anything like it, and neither had the local branch of Bosch. Eventually I was allowed to invite an EFI specialist from Bosch in Germany, a man called Ullrich, or Urbanek, and together we completed the design in two or three days.

        After a couple of minor problems encountered in prototypes the production car performed perfectly from the first vehicle to the last (except for its starting problems, which may be mentioned in the next blog, Lord willing).. 

(23) Design draftsman’s job (3/6).

Around 1974-75 I was relocated from the mechanical section to electrical as a design draftsman. It was the result of some internal reshuffle in the section, where a couple of draftsmen were promoted to design draftsmen, and somebody retired, or resigned, I think. All of a sudden I was where I more-or-less secretly longed to be, without anybody asking me whether I liked it or not.

At the time GM was planning to prepare a new car for production, a car designated HZ/WB. HZ was new only on the surface – new sheet metal, mainly. Inside everything was almost identical with the previous model, including all the electrical parts. I was supposed to work according to the time-honoured method: take components, including wiring, from the previous model, install it in the mock-up of the new one, and make them fit – meaning fit physically. I was working side-by-side with my “tennising” friend, the electrical engineer. I inquired ever so gently about the electrical properties, as distinct from the purely physical/mechanical ones, of our components. He showed no interest in the electrical properties, and, as far as I was able to ascertain, no deeper knowledge of any kind either.

In the meantime I continued to work surreptitiously on my version of electrical system of the previous car, LH Torana. In my opinion the wiring diagrams used by the GM to represent the electrical system, were totally unsuitable for calculations of electrical properties. What “diagram” should replace them I had no idea whatsoever, and I continued to peruse various electrical text- and handbooks in bookshops and libraries. Eventually I settled on a scheme that I judged as suitable for my purpose. It was a scheme of electrical installation in commercial building by Siemens, I think. I began to experiment with its shape and graphic representation of automotive components that are rather different from components in commercial buildings, such as transformers, isolators, consumers, etc. Nowadays, 28 years post-GM-H, I have no access to my eventual creation, which still exists in the GM archives under its original number 9942800 (the only one I remember from those days nearly 40 years ago), so I try to present some 5% of its shape as I remember it: 

Obviously, this little scheme was but a beginning. Slowly, the internal arrangements of electrical parts were being added, their electrical properties, thickness of interconnecting cables, designations of various contact points – and all of that was coming from my head.

At the time we had a bit of a fun as well. The cars’ top model was called WB Statesman. As a design draftsman I had the opportunity (and the duty!) to design wiring and other components according to my best judgment; the results were subject to approval by the electrical engineer and his superior, of course.

       Eventually a first prototype was ready for presentation to the top GM brass. In the workshop the local Managing Director (a Mr. Gibbs) and his counterpart from the US were sitting in the cabin, turning all the switches on and off, when between the two of them a red-hot smoking wire dropped from the roof and mini-exploded in a shower of sparks. The two gentlemen jumped out of the car, experimental workshop began to fill with acrid fumes, mechanics were running around with fire extinguishers - well, we, onlookers, had lots of fun that day.

What exactly happened? Wire, running along the roof lining and feeding the roof lamp was thick enough to serve one roof globe, as in the previous car. The Statesman, on the other hand, had three globes in the roof, and an additional couple of globes for the rear passengers. Since the two bosses turned all the roof lights on at the same time, the thin wire became overloaded, turned red hot and melted at the most inopportune moment. The fuse, from which the wire was fed, happened to be too large as well.

Subsequently there ensued panic in the electrical engineering section. It transpired that several hundred of these Statesmen were manufactured and distributed to dealers all over the country. The fix, consisting of replacing the thin wire with a thicker one, was not complicated; removing and replacing roof lining was a vastly more complicated, and costly, affair. At the time I did not know about the panic, I was not privy to such delicate information.

       It all ended well, though. Wiring in the offending vehicle was the only one that was “cobbled up” from the wiring of the previous model by the electrical engineer. Once the manufacturing drawings were consulted it transpired that the offending wire was of the correct – larger – thickness, and, therefore, all the several hundred vehicles released to dealers all over the country, were safe. And who changed the thickness of that wire? Charles Hatvani! Why did I not inform anybody? Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, but the manufacturing drawings were approved and signed off by both the electrical engineer and his superior. My calculations, under which I changed thickness of that wire, saved the company fairly sizeable sum of money, reputation notwithstanding. I was summoned on the carpet before the Chief Electrical Engineer, a tough-as-a nut old German, and told off for acting as an "maverick" , instead of receiving a word of thanks. Those were the ways of GM of old. “Were” – perhaps they are different these days (of which, knowing the overall GM culture, I have some doubts)…

(22) Design draftsman’s job (2/6).

    One of the electrical engineers, Clem Rogers, was my friend. We met outside our work by playing tennis opposite each other in the same competition. When, eventually, we came across each other at work we just exchanged a wink. His section was about 2 or 3 tables away from my desk. There were some 5 engineers in his section: a radio engineer, switch engineer, instrumentation, lamps and wiring; the wiring engineer happened to be my friend.

    Before my friend became wiring engineer, he worked in the seating section. The previous wiring engineer (Henry Valis) having died the post was given to my friend, who until then had absolutely nothing in common with electricity, and surely no interest in it either. He was not a graduated engineer, he was promoted to his seats from being a draftsman previously. Unlike myself he did not like electricity, he liked his seats. His electrical duties he used to discharge by using the method described above, in line with the GM tradition and custom: take wiring from the previous model, install it in the mock-up of the new model, and chop, hack and pull to shape.

To be frank, my knowledge of electrics, especially its automotive variety, did not extend much farther: in my youth I assembled a couple of crystal radios from kits, and, as a conscript in the air force, I worked as an electrical mechanic for some two years. Later, as air traffic controller, I dabbled in design of radar installations.

    I decided to look at the electricity a bit deeper. From a technical bookshop I bought an electrical handbook for American marines and read it from cover to cover. And I began to apply my newly-acquired knowledge to study the electrical system of cars I was working on – and began to discover some interesting things…

    In the handbook I discovered formulas that were vaguely familiar to me from my high school days: Law of Ohm, of Kirchhoff, description of batteries, electric motors, alternators, and so on. I found which of the engineers is in charge of these components in our cars. To my surprise – no one in particular. For instance, batteries and alternators belonged to the engine engineer, who was merely interested in their shape, mass and method of installation in the engine bay; the same with the instrumentation engineer, wiring engineer, front end engineer where the lamps are installed, etc. There was not one engineer in charge of electrical performance, electrical parameters, electrical compatibility – not one! If, for instance, the alternators began to fail, the first thing to do was to blame the supplier. If the supplier suggested a different brand, or a larger alternator, the suggestion was accepted, the alternators were installed and if they stopped failing the matter was forgotten. Nobody was interested why the alternators failed in the first place. If a fuse failed it was replaced by a larger fuse. That the larger fuse may necessitate thicker wires, for instance, has never been considered. And that was the situation with all electrical components. Being still a mechanical design draftsman I began to toy with electrical calculations of situations I encountered in the cars I was working on. My results were often, if not always, different from reality: here the wires were too thick or too thin; the alternator was (usually) too weak; the fuses were too large/small; earth returns were poorly constructed (the abominable holes in the sheet metal + self-tapping screws), and so on and so on.

For my calculations I was using electrical system of the vehicle called LH Torana for which I “designed” its wiring not a long time previously: 

    The car had several variants. Basic model had four-cylinder 1.9 litre engine, with carburettor, and four-gear manual transmission; three-gear automatic transmission, six cylinder and eight-cylinder engines were also available.

(21) Design draftsman’s job (1/6).

In July1969 I was told by a friend (thank you, the late George Hanzalek) that the car maker General Motors-Holden's is looking for draftsmen. It’s a profession I have never been interested in, and I have never been interested in cars either; long time before, at the high school, I used to get the worst marks in subjects such as geometry and technical drawings. After graduation I worked as an aircraft mechanic, land surveyor, labourer, flight instructor and air traffic controller. Immediately prior to the General Motors job I was washing crop dusting airplanes at the Moorabbin airport.

During interview at GM I was asked a few general questions by the Chief Draftsman John Carr, given a few half-completed geometric sketches to finish and half an hour later I was sent home to wait for an answer. A few days later he rang and told me that I could start next Monday.

For the first few months I worked as a detail draftsman. The work consisted of drawing car components from sketches supplied by design draftsmen, or by engineers. The components were mostly screws, nuts, brackets, cog wheels, cast iron parts of engines, etc. We were drawing on plastic "mylar" sheets using pencils, rulers, protractors, compasses, erasers and similar tools; it being 1969 the graphic computers were at least 15 years in the future.

It has taken at least a year for me to learn various tricks of trade: drafting technique as practised by the GM, the office culture and hierarchy (there were some 150 of us in one large room), relationship between various offices, workshops, etc. After a year or two I was promoted to the position of design draftsman, and the tedious job became a tad more interesting. This time it consisted of sketching parts of a car according to the requirements of the car modellers, the people who were sculpting the future car using wooden skeletons covered in clay. Sometimes I worked from their free-hand sketches, sometimes even from their bits of clay shaped in the form of the future part, sometimes from mere verbal explanations. My job was to translate these loose bits of information into technical information for use by the experimental workshop, by parts manufacturers and, eventually, by detail draftsmen. My masterpiece from those days was design of the instrument panel for the vehicle called LH Torana. Design of these mechanical parts was not exactly my kettle of fish, for I was more drawn to the electrical systems. I asked the chief design draftsman for transfer to the electrical section. To my surprise I was told that the electrical drafting pool consists of detail draftsmen only, that there is no design draftsman among them. And he added that there is not much electricity in these vehicles anyway. Hm, hmm and hmmm…

      I decided to take closer look at the electrical system of cars I was working on. At the time the car’s electrical system was fairly simple. It consisted of some electricity around the engine, starter, alternator, battery, front and rear lamps, instruments and a few lights and switches in the cabin. All these components were interconnected by a network of cables that were in the way of everybody who had anything to do with the cars. For that reason, the cables were suffering under unflattering names, spaghetti, octopuses, etc. One exception were battery cables that lived under their proper names. Their bulk and rigidity resembled mechanical parts, and their willingness to spark and even turn red hot when mishandled were respected by all.

    A year or two later, due to a spike in the workload, I was given a chance to assist the electrical section. Out of the blue I was given a job of preparing drawing of wiring for manufacture of a new car. It happened simply: an electrical engineer dropped a heap of “spaghetti” on my desk with the words that "manufacturing drawings are required by such and such time". The engineer was working according to the time-honoured method. “Spaghetti”, taken from a similar car which was already in production, were installed in the body of the car being prepared. Where they were long, they were trimmed to suit, where they were short bits were added. Results were given to the mechanics in the experimental workshop for beautification, and eventually to draftsmen to translate into production drawings.

    Having absolutely no idea what to do I embedded myself next to one of the draftsmen in the electrical section, who was glumly looking at a similar heap of spaghetti in front of himself. He was a spaghetti veteran, and with his help (thank you, Wolfgang Christel!) I managed to produce sketches that were converted into production drawings by a young draftsman.

    A copy of his drawings was used by another draftsman whose job it was to prepare electrical wiring diagrams for publication in service manuals. This is the result of his work in this case it is schematics of the electrical interconnections in the front part of the car:

     Following this excursion into the electrical section I returned back to my desk and continued with mechanical design work. The electrical experience, however, was bugging me: why was such a complex electrical job given to me, considering my absolute lack of any experience in that field? The explanation supplied by my section leader did not satisfy me: in this office everybody is expected to do everything…

(16) Hard to explain (1/2).

1.

My aunt Rosie, my father’s sister, has died in February, 2010. She was the last member of my family’s previous generation; in a few months’ time she would be celebrating her 90^th birthday. I saw her for the last time in February, 2007. A few months before her death she moved from a flat in Bratislava, where she lived for some 30 years, to a flat in Prague, in the same block of flats where my sister lives.

News of her death came to me second, nay, even third hand, for my sister is not on speaking terms with me.

I was fairly close with Rosie. She was 16 years my senior, and she was one of the first people to visit my mother in maternity hospital after I was born; she used to tell or read bedtime stories for me. We lived in the same house for most of my time in Czechoslovakia. After I with my wife and children moved far away we were the best of pen-pals, or lately, telephone pals. Last letter from her I received only a couple of weeks before her death.

Four days after her death I woke up unusually early: I dreamt that something knocked on the wall right behind my head. Part of a dream, I though in the half-sleep, when one is dreaming and at the same time one is conscious of it. Later, around 11 a. m., I was in the kitchen by myself, scribbling on a piece of paper. It was very quiet, when, suddenly, on the wall next to me, about level with my head, somebody knocked on the wooden wall: rap, rap, rap and rap, four times, loud and clear. I looked outside – there was nobody there; the sound was clearly that of somebody knocking, not of an animal trying to scramble out of a tight gap.

Sensing the strangeness of the moment, I stood up and said, loudly: “Welcome, Rosie, come for a guided tour of the house”, the house she had never seen. And I walked around the house, from room to room, pointing at various things, including a small pile of her last few letters, and sat down on my seat. For the rest of the day, and for a couple of following days, I felt strangely elevated, as if my head was floating high above the clouds, detached from the rest of my body.

2.

In 1985, on the day my father’s mother died 30 years previously, I sat at the table, with a sheet of blank paper and pen in hand. I was going to start a letter to her daughter, my aunt Rosie, to share some memories of her mum, my grandmother, who was, and is to me, the best person in the whole world.

Not living in Slovakia I had but few contact with people from there. Slovakia, part of Czechoslovakia at the time, was still a “socialist” country, firmly behind the Iron Curtain, and friends were afraid of being in contact with somebody from the “West”. In the country where I lived, the only source of information from Czechoslovakia was the local weekly broadcast in Czech or Slovakian language. Those programs we listened to only occasionally, chiefly because of the atrocious accents and dictions of the broadcasters.

I started my letter with the words “Dear Rosie, today it is 30 years since…”, when I was interrupted by my wife. She called from the kitchen “Listen, there are Slovakians on the radio”. She turned the volume up, and I heard the much familiar voice of an old crooner Frantisek Kristof Veselý, singing the Little village in the valley (Dedinka v údolí), the favourite song of my grandmother…

3.

In 1985 I was living some 16,000 kilometres from Prague, the city where my parents were living at the time. We exchanged maybe 3 or 4 letters per year, and were in telephone contact once or twice per year. My mother, about 72 at the time, was suffering from all sorts of ailments related to her obesity, of these ailments the diabetes being the most prominent.

At the time I was busy starting a new private company. One day I had a few visitors in our house to discuss some details of the new venture. In the middle of the meeting I excused myself, went to the kitchen and contacted my father on the ‘phone. International calls at the time were expensive and we spoke perhaps 2-3 times a year; this call was entirely out of "normal" order. We exchanged a few greetings, upon which my father remarked that my mother went to hospital in the morning (by herself) for some sort of check – nothing unusual at the time, and if she does not come home in time the father would go to hospital himself to see what is going on.

A few days later I received a letter from him in which he informed me that my mother has died on the day of our telephone conversation, and approximately at the same time. Copy of the letter is attached:

In the letter, addressed as "Dear boy", and signed "granpa Karol", he writes that having finished speaking to me on the 'phone he returned home from his daughter's flat (about 150 metres distant) and there was a man with telegram waiting for him. In it it was written that his wife - my mother - has died in Thomayer's hospital, etc., etc...

4.

In 1991-1992 I was working some 800 kilometres away from my family. I was renting house with a small garden, and my wife and children used to come to see me there every few weeks; I myself went home every 2-3 months.

One day we were discussing some matter with our oldest son, he at home, me 800 kilometres away. The discussion ended inconclusively – we both agreed that we needed to consult somebody more familiar with the matter. Having hung up I began to mull mentally whom from my friends or associates I should contact: “Alex? Hmmm, maybe not…” “Richard? Not so sure…”. Keith?....” Telephone next to me rang, and I answered: it was Keith, the same Keith whose name was on my mind at that very moment. What prompted him to ring me at this time, I enquired. “Nothing special, I just thought of you…”, was the answer. There were 800 kilometres between us. As it eventually turned out, he did not know the answer to the question I was after; that ‘phone call, however, was the only time he rang me during the time I was away.

5.

Whenever driving around sharp bends in my vicinity I think of the old saying that the “Devil never sleeps”.

Near our house there is a narrow winding road, some two kilometres long. There are not many house along it, and not many cars use it. There is one hairpin bend on a steep slope. It is quite regular occurrence to meet a vehicle in the opposite direction, whether I am driving up-, or downhills. Usually, it is the only vehicle for the entire length of the road. And what makes it even more interesting, the vehicle in opposite direction emerges from the bend when I am thinking of something else, when my concentration is momentarily distracted.

6.

A few years ago I happened to be in Bratislava, and took a walk along Pekná cesta towards a forest house where we spent a few days in April, 1945, sheltering from the passing WW2 front. Pekná cesta in 1945 used to be just a dirt track, with sparse vineyards on left side, and unkempt meadows on the right side. At the top, where the steep climb ends the road crossed a narrow-gauge railway that was used to haul timber down to the timber yard between Pekná cesta and the main railway line. Deep in thoughts I noticed a little squirrel, hopping across the road from my right to left, almost touching my boots. The squirrel was not the Carpathian kind, red, with tall curving tail: it was tiny, with horizontal tail, and with stripes along the sides. Having a camera in my hand I even managed to take a snapshot of it as it was disappearing in the shrubbery on my left. I was in that forest several times, and saw a variety animals there, from boars, a fox, to a hart with his lady, who, startled, sent a few loud barks in my direction; but this squirrel was the first of its kind; last time I saw a similar one was in the park of Schönbrunn Castle in Vienna. After a few steps I realised that it was coming to me from the site of an old grave.

I doubled back and looked at the grave. It was still there, with the edges made by old Mr. Csöglei, but the gravestone was missing: Antonín Kopal, 1945…

He was a young man, murdered in the nearby vineyards by Russian soldiers. I saw him a couple of times where he was hiding with us in the forester’s house, but his likeness has long evaporated from my memory, together with his grave. Thank you for reminding me, Mr. Squirrel (or a ghost?).

7.

I had a beautiful girlfriend in 1964. The affair was becoming serious, the word “marriage” has even been mentioned a few times – more seriously by her than by me, of course, for I had what I wanted in abundance (a bit of wisdom for wedding-ready girls: don’t be too generous before marriage!).

One lovely day we were sitting on a bit of grass above Raca, with views extending from Svätý Jur to Bratislava Castle, with the two airports in front of us. The girl remarked that “right here, at this spot, she feels at home, she would like to have a house here”. Yeah, right, one of your fata-morganas, I thought for myself, and that’s where it all ended. We kept dating, we parted ways for a while, then got together again, and, eventually, the situation was solved for us – the girl became pregnant… Today, after four children, good forty years of marriage, four-and-a-half grandchildren, I am still enjoying my lovely wife, and living in the happiest marriage in the world.

We were married in 1966, first son was born shortly afterward, and we were living in a two bedroom flat with my aunt Rosie. And we started thinking of finding a place of our own to live.

Until 1962 I lived with my parents and grandparents in a house that was demolished when citizens of nearby village of Rača decided that they needed a tramway line. Our family was re-located to two flats in the new housing estate called Experimental on the edge of Rača.

After our first son was born I remarked to my father that my wife and myself are thinking of finding a place to live for ourselves. He casually mentioned that we have a block of land somewhere in Rača! The block was given to us by way of compensation for the house that was demolished, but my father, and his father, deceased since, never even looked at it, for “we did not need it, it was allegedly somewhere uphill, it was just a bit of a nuisance…”

My God, what now???

With my wife we went to the Magistrate office, which was at the beginning of Vajnorská ulica. To my surprise, the relevant department was run by Mrs. Mičusíková, my class teacher from the school at Tehelné pole. I recognised her straight away, and she remembered me as well (I must have been a real nuisance at the time!). Anyway, on perusing the document, and with regrets, she informed us that my father and his father should have signed the acceptance documents for the block of land within four years – and it was six months too late: the land had been allocated to somebody else…

We went to take a look. The land was there, there were foundations of a new house there, a stack of bricks, heaps of sand and other material. The little piece of grass where we were sitting a few years ago, and where my girlfriend at the time said those now memorable words that “here she feels at home” – the little piece of grass was still there…

(44) Lightning.

  The air around Earth is full of electrons with one of their common qualities expressed as potential and given in units called Volts. The Earth surface itself is largely devoid of electrons, has zero potential, zero Volts. The electrons in surrounding air occur in quantities increasing with the distance from the surface of Earth, and their potential is measurable.   For instance, the potential as close as 1 metre to the surface of Earth is approx. 100 Volts, and this potential is increasing at the rate of approximately 100 Volts per every 1 metre, refer  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_electricity

  Thus at the distance of, say, 1000 metres from the surface of Earth the potential is 100,000 Volts! The value of potential is not constant, and varies with the time of day, amount of water in the air, etc.

One of electrons‘ properties is their propensity to move from areas of higher potential to areas where the potential is lower. That property is utilised in construction of various machines, for instance light bulbs, electro-magnets, etc. Difference in potential is useful in cooking, where suitably constructed piece of material is connected between 0 and 240 Volts. Electrons in controlled amount are „travelling“ from the point of higher potential to the point with lower potential, and in their journey they heat the material connected between the 240 and 0 Volts. Electrons in the air are prevented from travelling from areas of higher potential to the areas of lower potential by air, which acts as an insulator; thus areas of different potential remain at their respective distances from Earth, give or take. And now about the lightning.

  The air contains various impurities, including water in various shapes, from microscopic particles of dirt and water through fog (clouds) to rain, snow and hail. If the air mass becomes saturated by water it ceases to be an insulator, and gradually turns into a conductor, of electricity.

  When such a water-saturated mass of air (a storm cloud, for instance) moves between areas of suitably high potential difference, the electrons utilise this „conductor“ for their travel from high potential levels to low potential levels. This „travelling“ takes place through areas of the lowest resistance, heats the „conductor“ up, which is manifested by both light and sound, and which we call lightning.
  This is a basic representation of conductive areas being formed in a developing cloud:

  From electrical point of view, a lightning is the same phenomenon as the burning filament in an ordinary household bulb (or an arc).
  Note: not sure as yet how to explain the ball lightning, except that it may not be an electrical phenomenon at all (perhaps residual plasma from the lightning channel?).
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The following esoteric text appeared in the Wikipedia as one of the reactions to the above article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lightning#Just_a_thought...
This talks about potential through the air, but uses non-descript details and is far from "modeling" specific. Upon finishing reading it, understanding how lightning works, I am left with the idea that "discharge" occurs in this massive, 3-dimensional rectangle that comes down from the sky using every water molecule/impurity in the air as the conductive path. We know this is not the case, and in fact the conductor, the flash channel, is an ionized "tube" of sorts only a couple of centimeters in diameter if that. Also, the potential in the air is realitively accurate, however it fails to mention the increases due to a storm cloud passing are significant, and the origin of lightning from a clear sky is non-existant (traveling miles from a storm cloud, the "bolt from a blue", comes from a cloud, not clear sky). PS, it's an unsourced blog at that. Borealdreams (talk) 22:20, 23 March 2014 (UTC)