Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In our podcast, we dive deep into metrology, calibration, and proficiency testing bringing you real stories, expert insights, and candid conversations from our 85+ years of combined experience. This isn’t just another technical podcast; we’re here to challenge the status quo, discuss industry changes, and tackle big questions like whether calibration labs are failing to train the next generation or if automation has gone too far. Expect lively discussions, industry leaders as guests, and a little fun along the way. As Howard puts it, “Proficiency testing is checking that transition from theory to application. But what happens when techs are just pushing buttons?” And Chuck adds, “We’re not teaching technicians how to measure anymore—we’re teaching them how to press ‘go.’” Whether we’re reflecting on our journeys—like Howard’s path from Air Force electronics to writing calibration procedures for the NFL—or debating metrology’s future, we promise to keep it engaging, informative, and unfiltered.
Chuck (00:18):
Good afternoon and welcome to another edition of ChatNAPT with the AI chatterbox, Chuck and Howie. I'd like to introduce my co-host, Howard Zion. Howard, how are you today?
Howard (Howie) (00:29):
Good afternoon, viewing audience. How are you today? Chuck
Chuck (00:33):
Summer's here.
Howard (Howie) (00:34):
I love it. We actually have regular mowings of the lawn, the sprinkler system, irrigation systems running. That's all signs of a positive warm part of the year.
Chuck (00:45):
It's a good thing because, you know, you and I have talked probably too many times about ethics, integrity, and I'm telling you, I've been seeing some things since you and I talked, you know, ourselves. We gotta have an episode devoted just to ethics and integrity in our business. What gets me, Howard, is these people that live in this dream, they preach ethics, they preach that they live in glass houses when it's convenient for them. Mm-hmm . And then they turn a blind eye when it's not convenient. That is the hypocrisy that just drives me crazy and I wanna call people on it so bad. So
Howard (Howie) (01:23):
Lemme ask you, is you, do you think that's intentional or is that just somebody not being consistent about who they are? You
Chuck (01:30):
Know, I don't know. I, how would you know? Until you ask the person the question.
Howard (Howie) (01:33):
I've been adopting this phrase lately and it's not very positive. I'm, I'm being kind of the pessimist. The older I get, the more I realize that human beings are defective. Everyone, all of us, including Oh yeah,
Chuck (01:43):
Absolutely.
Howard (Howie) (01:43):
We just, you know, physically, biologically, mentally, socially, we're just not very consistent in how we are who we are. And that's just all part of growing and learning and sometimes degrading because of life events. And so I wonder if this is human nature that you're witnessing or if it's intentional, which is even worse. Right. And without having specific examples, you could probably think of a couple that are just somebody who's not very consistent in who they are.
Chuck (02:15):
Yeah. Well, when you're not consistent, I think that you have to understand that these are people that they know they're being, you know, I don't wanna use the word dishonest, but they have to be, you know, knowledgeable that they are pencil whipping a calibration. When you pencil whip a calibration, you know that you're doing it wrong.
Howard (Howie) (02:34):
Yes.
Chuck (02:35):
You know, and when you preach in on, on a high horse that you believe in ethics, that you believe in integrity in our business, which we have a, you know, we have this code, uh, we have, but then you turn a blind eye to it when it's convenient for you to make a book. So
Howard (Howie) (02:48):
Let's, let's use that as an example. Let's say I'm company X, Y, Z, and I've got a couple of people who've been in metrology trained through the military, right. People, schools, whatever. And they've been in the business for 15, 20 years. And so they're doing calibrations and they hire a couple of new people who really haven't had the training and they're trying to mentor them into position. And let's say that one of the junior techs does something wrong in the calibration and it doesn't get checked for whatever reason. Would you call it an integrity issue? And on whose part?
Chuck (03:25):
Well, you haven't given me enough circumstances, but I would probably say it was a mistake by technic
Howard (Howie) (03:30):
The mistake on the technician's part.
Chuck (03:31):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (03:31):
Yeah. I call it an integrity issue on the company's part. You got somebody new and you know, you need to check their work. Okay. They don't know when to ask what they don't know. Right. You need to be reviewing that, so Yeah, that makes sense. But if a senior tech who's been doing this for years does something like that, you're right. They know better.
Chuck (03:51):
Yeah, exactly. Well, again, so, so we have a whole show here, my friend, I'm telling you. Maybe proceed, then we'll dedicate the whole show to integrity, you know, in ethics and we'll cook with some examples and explore Sure. What the community should be doing based on, you know, our combined 50 plus a hundred years of experience that we have here. Alright.
Howard (Howie) (04:10):
But
Chuck (04:10):
We have a interesting guest today.
Howard (Howie) (04:13):
Yes.
Chuck (04:13):
Very appropriate guest.
(04:15)
Well, we have what I consider one of those people that we talk about that's up and coming that is probably going to become a, what we call a player. Very knowledgeable. Been around a few years now, knows the business, has made a name for himself already. I have a lot of respect for this individual. Very knowledgeable. And we're gonna get a different site, which so far we've had, you know, auditors, we've had, you know, skilled people from technicians. We've had board people, we've had people from the bio side. Now we're gonna have a straight up person that does mostly auditing. Jeremy's been around for 28 years. He's been in metrology business. He was in the Navy, he's female trained. He worked at a rather large company as a technician, then is a quality. Works his way up all the way to quality manager of this large organization. Then he left and became a metrology engineer at Honeywell. And he currently holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering. And he now owns his own Cal lab called Nexus Cal. He, where he produces a provider of consulting, auditing, calibration services. And he also provides accreditation assessments for two major accreditation bodies for 17 0 25 and 17 0 43. Which is very relevant to what we do. So that's a lot of amazing experience. Hey, hey
(05:39)
,
Jeremy Sims (05:39):
How's it going? Wow. What a surprise. I thought it'd be fun to drive the Howard's house and do this
Howard (Howie) (05:45):
Quick photography. Yes. Because Jerry lives 15 minutes from me.
Jeremy Sims (05:49):
Well, 15 minutes on a normal day. Oh yeah. Maybe not 15 minutes when they decide to shut down half the road's on the way here.
Howard (Howie) (05:57):
Yeah. So, so that, that brings me to another point here. There are four seasons in the middle to upper states of the us Right. And this probably goes around the world, but it depends on your own location. And so there's spring, there's star , there's fall, oh wait, I said it backwards. There's fall, there's winter, there's spring, you know the other one? orange cone season orange C orange cone
Jeremy Sims (06:24):
Season. Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (06:25):
Stink with home construction. Oh my gosh. And so he got stopped trying to come over here on the main road that you would take between where he lives in where I live.
Howard (Howie) (06:35):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (06:35):
Except that, you know, for the last two weeks they've been doing work on that road. Not on this end of it, but on further end out further east. Yeah. Well, I got stuck going out to our new site that we have out there anyway, so they caught up with him on this end of it, and they just, the flag person just says, stop. And you're gonna sit there for 15 minutes or so.
Jeremy Sims (06:57):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (06:57):
You're not going anywhere.
Jeremy Sims (06:58):
It was long enough they had a pace car you had to follow. Oh, right. So it's a couple miles. And, uh, so it, you just stop. What
Howard (Howie) (07:05):
Does that sign say on the end of that car? Um, uh, follow me. Follow me.
Howard (Howie) (07:09):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (07:10):
And so what happens when you get to the end of the part where they don't want you to follow 'em anymore? It still says, follow me. You end up going off the road.
Jeremy Sims (07:17):
Right. I guess I'd just like to stay, you know, you guys are talking about integrity and ethics and what we do and here's my two sentences and as input into that thought train, which is what I find a lot, given that I've had the opportunity to visit lots of places and meet lots of people in lots of different Cal Labs and other industries, is that, I don't know, sometimes it could be a, definitely an integrity issue, right. They know better. And, uh, but what I find a lot is they don't know. They don't know what they don't know or, and they haven't taken the time to research it to find out. 'cause they're
Howard (Howie) (07:51):
Really
Jeremy Sims (07:51):
Too busy doing whatever else. You know, I'm not saying that's always, but I definitely see that as a component of what you guys are talking about. It's not even integrity as much as it is not understanding our, our world like you think they would. Well, how do you get,
Howard (Howie) (08:06):
How do you get into this business and not know, I mean, as a business owner, you're going out, you're advertising to potential clients, you're talking with them that you wanna support their business and make sure their equipment is measuring properly. How do you do that and not know enough to be dangerous?
Jeremy Sims (08:27):
I'm not saying I, I see it in every place by any stretch. I'm, I would say more often than not people, even when they don't know they wanna know. Um, honestly, the most interesting part of it is some of the labs where I've written the most findings are the most grateful for the information that's provided during that process. You know,
Howard (Howie) (08:47):
Do you see it more with internal labs versus external end? Or do you see any of the, but saying
Jeremy Sims (08:55):
The not knowing? I definitely see the not knowing stuff with internal ads more than external ads. I think they just don't have that external connection to all the rest of our industry and our world as much as maybe some of the external labs.
Howard (Howie) (09:08):
So that may, that may make more sense then if they don't have the expertise inherently. Right. But then they're not really serving people publicly. Right. From a consumer point of view, but they are serving their own manufacturing process, which is kind of concerning.
Jeremy Sims (09:24):
I mean, you know, and then, uh, like everything else, right? There's people that are really good at their jobs, and then there are people that aren't really so good at their jobs, but they all can still be in the business. So, yeah.
Howard (Howie) (09:35):
Right.
Jeremy Sims (09:36):
I don't know. I just, another facet of it. Right. Because sometimes I think it could be less integrity and more just not knowing and not having or taking the time to Yeah. To learn to research the information. And it, and we all know, the more you dig, the deeper the rabbit hole goes every single time. So,
Howard (Howie) (09:54):
So my father, now as you're talking, I'm sitting here thinking, how do we standardize this? Well, that's what 1725 was supposed to do. But there are some companies, especially internal labs, who say, I don't need that. Yeah. You know, that's a, that's not a requirement by our particular industry or our particular company, but what it brings is that consistency in the integrity of the work,
Jeremy Sims (10:20):
Assuming you have consistency in interpretation of sense,
Howard (Howie) (10:25):
That too.
Jeremy Sims (10:25):
And there's enough, uh, leeway in there and such and wiggle wording or whatever other language you want to use that, uh, I come across some interesting interpretations of various clauses. Oh, yeah. Yes. So, and the phrase, you know, so I hear the phrase, uh, well, that's not how we interpreted it. I mean, frequent enough
Howard (Howie) (10:45):
Standards are subject to that kind of variation. Right. But at least going from no standard to give you guidance to a standard that says, yeah, check your training and your personnel and this, that, and the other. Right.
Jeremy Sims (10:57):
Right.
Howard (Howie) (10:57):
Standards that you're using and the uncertainty the matter. At least it gives you a checklist.
Jeremy Sims (11:01):
Yes. Even
Howard (Howie) (11:01):
If you're not a hundred percent to whatever the interpretations are of that, at least it gives you something to standardize on.
Jeremy Sims (11:09):
And then you have some variability with even the accrediting bodies, right. Because they don't always interpret or apply all the rules or all the clauses. Now you're gonna get stuck talking . I mean, it just, they all have slightly different interpretations. Not always, it depends on the clause, but there's definitely different interpretations about different causes that are exactly what they might, or, you know, even in their own requirements and impose upon a lab, so
Chuck (11:35):
Wow. Within their own assessor cadre.
Jeremy Sims (11:38):
Right, right. Like, so, you know, so this secreting body says you have to do this for your uncertainty budget, but this accredited body might say you, you know, uh, it might not be as explicit as this one. Right. Or things like that. So there's still some variability even in the accrediting bodies is what I've seen.
Howard (Howie) (11:55):
Mm-hmm .
Jeremy Sims (11:57):
I mean, I think they're all generally trying to apply it the same, but, you know, you get some variability in there.
Howard (Howie) (12:02):
Yeah. So one of the things we're very concerned about with proficiency testing is the, uh, most recent document that they should, they're supposed to be following and incorporating, and they haven't yet, which is kind of surprising because what was the date that it's supposed to be incorporated?
Chuck (12:19):
Uh, July.
Howard (Howie) (12:20):
Yeah. And that's not far away.
Chuck (12:23):
Yep.
Howard (Howie) (12:24):
So maybe they're working on it, but I think you'd see some evidence of it being implemented. Okay. Um, I want to get to discussions on, uh, how you see proficiency testing when you're assessing labs. Oh, boy.
Jeremy Sims (12:42):
Um, well, that'll pick up the rest of the time. . All right. So you, you know, I've seen lots of stuff, right? Um, I've seen everything from, you know, the standard we use, uh, let's say, you know, one of the 17 0 43 accredited, uh, providers to, Hey, we made up some stuff in a spreadsheet and we don't even have rules. Oh, I've seen proficiency tests where people have taken a bunch of data and they're like, I guess that's good enough
Howard (Howie) (13:10):
Compared to what,
Jeremy Sims (13:11):
Yeah. That's the, usually the question I ask next.
Howard (Howie) (13:13):
Whoa.
Jeremy Sims (13:14):
You know, like, so what was the criteria for accepting this or not accepting this? And then that seems to vary pretty greatly. Um, sometimes they actually will do an ian calculation, uh, normalized error, right? Sometimes it's just that, well, we looked at the difference and it wasn't greater than our uncertainty, so we're good. So even if they're doing
Howard (Howie) (13:32):
An EM calculation, what's the reference value?
Jeremy Sims (13:38):
That is also an interesting topic, which seems to vary depending on, uh, what we're talking about. Um, I think where you see a lot of companies that do their own proficiency testing are certainly in areas where there's not really a lot of availability, right. There doesn't make a lot of sense to, like, let's say, ship a scale around, right? Yeah. And then, you know, there are some commercially available ones where the PT provider will send, uh, uh, you know, like a weight kit around or something, but that requires the lab them to have a balance of sufficient, uh, resolution to even see any kind of error in their own weights of whatever level they're doing. Right? So that's not particularly, so what you find, at least that's one I see a lot of because I, uh, I do a lot of assessments of, and I consult for some,
Howard (Howie) (14:28):
But the way you say these things that are just blatant error, right? They're just wrong. And you address that or ask the questions, what kind of range of responses do you get? Do you get like from cooperative to, oh, I didn't realize that, Hey, let's have a good discussion and it should go into a good discussion. Do you get people who are belligerent and just
Jeremy Sims (14:47):
No disagreement? I, I've heard some pretty interesting stories from other assessors about things they've heard. I guess in the, uh, at this point I've probably, I've done well over 200 assessments Yeah. Audits and things like that. I, I've only had a couple instances where people got a little upset and wasn't even about PTs, about uncertainty budgets. Well,
Howard (Howie) (15:09):
That's good.
Jeremy Sims (15:09):
But, um, so I guess I've been fortunate. Yeah. I guess maybe it's how I approach it. I'm not sure.
Howard (Howie) (15:15):
Okay.
Jeremy Sims (15:15):
But, uh, but the range of answers, um, sometimes it's, uh, well, I thought that was good enough, or I, you know, I, you know, it's not, the CAL labs aren't required to follow, let's say 17 0 43, right? They're not, they're not required to read ISO 13 528 and understand the various kinds of analysis they might be able to do, or when to throw out outliers or all those things. Let's say somebody like NAPT might be required to do because they're accredited, well, they're not required to do that stuff. They don't have to go to that rigor. They're not taking the time to read that stuff. And I mean, again, I'm generalizing general the problem, right. I'm not generalizing. Right. Obviously, I'm not saying everybody does that. 'cause there was one lab that there's their pt, internal PT program was so sophisticated. I, I told the accredit by, I need to send out a statistician. Um, because I'm like, I don't have time to dig through that amount of data to figure out whether it's correct or not. Uhhuh, it was hundreds of pages of analysis and this stuff. So
Howard (Howie) (16:13):
Clearly they done their
Jeremy Sims (16:14):
Homework. Yes,
Howard (Howie) (16:15):
It looked legitimate, but you'd need to dig further to find out
Jeremy Sims (16:18):
There was one anomaly, but I questioned as an anomaly. But, uh, but yeah, like it was extensive. So I guess the range of what you see is crazy. But I'd say, generally speaking, most of what I see, and, you know, some data they took amongst their technician and they doing the end calculation and they, and sometimes maybe that is good enough. So exactly what they're doing there. I question what the traceable reference is a little bit. But there you go. You know, if they can provide decent information on how they determine what their traceable reference was and where they got their reference uncertainty and things like that, I'm like, okay.
Howard (Howie) (16:51):
Yeah. I mean, if it eventually becomes circular within their organization, maybe it's not even a single side. Maybe they have multiple sites around the world, but it's still not comparing outside of that. Right. So
Jeremy Sims (17:02):
Yeah, that's always, that could be a problem. It could be. Yeah. And then, and what do you do with that? Right. Um, so 17 0 2 5 right. Says that they have to do PTs or ILCs without outside organizations. Well, like where applicable or where they can, right. So then they say, well, I can't, what are you gonna do about it? You know, I can't. And
Howard (Howie) (17:21):
A PT and others exist,
Jeremy Sims (17:23):
So they can sometimes, right. I mean, sometimes, I mean, unless
Howard (Howie) (17:26):
It's not a measurement parameter that nobody has. Right.
Jeremy Sims (17:29):
Right. I mean, like, I mean, you know, any, a PTN has a pretty wide scope of parameters that they can do PTs for. Yeah. And, uh, certainly, but, uh, yeah, it doesn't cover everything, you know?
Chuck (17:40):
Yeah. Okay. Jeremy, let me ask you this question. If I may, you know, my biggest problem, and I'm going on the record for this, for saying this, my biggest problem, and hopefully, you know, P nine, once the eight BS addresses will solve some of this questions where you're required then to comply with the documents, the 43 document, and doing statistics in according have a plan statistics, they prefer you use 13 5 28, but 5 28, as we both know, gives you some, you know, flexibility in how you establish the reference values. But my intention was that the ABS allow you, you as the assessor to accept what I call, you know, your proof that they do their stuff on toilet paper. And you almost have to accept that because they're not very stringent. So they're requiring the PT providers to, you know, comply with this big huge checklist, which is 1743. And they're expecting you to, you know, provide a service, a product in accordance with all this requirements. But then they add this internal document that says, well, you should do this. Well, they're not abiding by it. Why are they not saying, if you don't do this, then you have to, if you wanna do it yourself, which I don't have a problem with an organization doing their own PTs, I really don't. Mm-hmm
Howard (Howie) (18:57):
.
Chuck (18:57):
If you're not gonna use an outside provider, you wanna do it yourself. Good, good, good for you. At least you're doing it. I think you need to do it. And that's head doing on the conversation. But my contention is there should be an eating playing field. If the AB is requiring a provider to comply with a certain set of requirements for acceptance as a PT requirement, then why are they not requiring the internal laboratory to comply with the same set of requirements?
Jeremy Sims (19:24):
That's an interesting question. So I do understand what you're saying, and I think I would equate it to the same as whether a laboratory's accredited or not. Right? So a laboratory doesn't have to be accredited. They, they're not required to be accredited to even be traceable. Right. I mean, you can be traceable without being accredited. It certainly makes the approval and pathway easier if they are. But there's no absolute saying that says you can't be traceable without being accredited.
Howard (Howie) (19:51):
It's true, but the two are the same. And what I mean by that is, uh, accreditation under 17 0 25 requires measurement uncertainty among other mm-hmm . Components to be traceable. Right. NIST's website also indicates that measurement uncertainty to reporting is required to be traceable. Mm-hmm . You've gotta carry that forward for it to prop need forward to, to product. Uh, a lot of people don't understand that, or they view that as, oh, that only applies to mass standards, but no, this, it's the uncertainty of that measurement, that variability mm-hmm . That is required to understand how much air can that induce on the next level down for that instrument being used now, anywhere in the process, all the way down to measurements on product. Certainly. So they both require the same components, but you're correct. You don't have to be 1725 accredited formally.
Howard (Howie) (20:42):
Right.
Howard (Howie) (20:43):
To have traceability, you have to have all those components that are required in both. And 1700.5 is a phenomenal worldwide accepted checklist of the things you need to keep an eye on to keep things in control. So your measure is don't get under control.
Jeremy Sims (20:58):
So, yeah, I guess where I was trying to go with that was that, um, there's no requirement to be accredited to work in our field. Right. Just like I doubt there'll be some enforced requirement to only use accredited BT providers, um, no. In our field. And they, you know, do I like rules? Of course. I like rules. I'm a quality guy. Am my, my heart, right? Am I, I sort of good answer doing and do I think that it's better if they do? Certainly. I think it's better. I agree with Chuck wholeheartedly that if you followed 17 0 43, your program would be better off for it, whether you used in a commercially available, uh, product or not. I find frequently enough people have a hard enough time understanding uncertainties much less all the rules in 17 0 43. Yeah. And I'm happy if we can get 'em over the first time, but I think we'll get there. I think we'll get there. I think it's gonna take, it's gonna take more time, like, um, and how you force, uh, non-accredited labs to understand and use uncertainties and everything. That's, well, that's a great question on you. Criminal. So
Howard (Howie) (22:05):
Maybe, and I should come up with a Calibration for Dummies book, you know, and I don't mean that derogatorily, I mean, strip out all the language of all the, you know, source documents, international documents, whenever, and get it down to the nuts and bolts. This is why this is important. Here's what's important.
Jeremy Sims (22:23):
So it's interesting that you mentioned that because, uh, I, I have actually written at least a why, why is calibration kind of important. Um, I was, uh, writing it because I was part of a committee at one point. I was trying to participate, and, uh, so I had, uh, objective to write a why get into metrology kind of thing, right? Oh. And so I was kind of going down that path anyway. And then, uh, I've more recently been, uh, requested to, to write a basic uncertainty training. I mean, basic, basic, like ground zero, you know, and, and there's some great documents out there already for it. But, you know, creating one that we can put publicly, you know, I mean Yeah. Not necessarily, I mean, there's
Howard (Howie) (23:06):
Been a number of papers like that for measure of uncertainty Yeah. To try to get the basics across, getting away from metrology and getting into why are my cookies not turning out like grandmas, right? Right. And here's all the components of uncertainty that create that difference. Uh, there's lots of good examples like that, that you can use analogies to understand measuring uncertainties as well.
Jeremy Sims (23:27):
I'd certainly be interested in working on, and, uh, is something, if you wanted to work on, uh, you know, um, um, why do we do this and why isn't it important to it? I mean, I know that stuff exists out there too. I, I've seen it, and I know even in your past you've created similar types of Yes. Documents and such. And even back in the day, we wrote some papers on what do I do with this information, you know, when I get it. And then, um, you, me, and, and, uh, Phil, yeah. You know, I've written some papers back in the day on these kinds of topics, but I've
Howard (Howie) (23:56):
Said a couple of, uh, three part series papers that we presented together at the conference, and, you know, taking it from why is it important? How does it drive the industry? What problems does it create industry if you don't catch these things? And I gets into, into a little bit of detail. We use some, I think one of 'em, we had dimensional like pluggage examples, which is good for the people who wanna take it from the conceptual thoughts to practical thought, right. How do I actually apply this? And, uh, and then for others, you don't have to get mired into the details of the numbers to understand the concepts. You can still read through those papers and just ignore the details that might be confusing to you in the first pass. And then as you get more into the industry and the, and experiences of calibration tech, you can go back and look at those and get more out of it.
Jeremy Sims (24:42):
Right. But I think sometimes people underestimate the complexity of what we do it on the surface, it looks real easy, right. On the surface. I just, I just put the torque wrench on there and pull on it and take my torque reading. Right? But it's when you start getting into the math, the physics, the uncertainties that it starts getting complicated quickly, you know? And, uh, I think that's what fascinates me and keeps me driven in our field. Mm-hmm . 'cause I'm always learning something new about some measurement, you know, that I thought I understood pretty well. Yeah. You find out, oh, like, oh, I, well, I guess I didn't try consider that.
Howard (Howie) (25:16):
It's probably because people take a look at simple things like a hand tool of caliber or something like that and say, how hard could that be to calibrate a caliber? Right? Did you calibrate the stuff function? What is that? Oh, okay. So you didn't really understand the, all the measurements this tool makes.
Jeremy Sims (25:31):
I mean, I think there's always gonna be things that we don't know, we don't know, but, and I don't know how you get past that unless somebody goes, Hey, you know, and I think that's part of what I try to do when I have conversations with people, especially people who aren't directly in our field. For sure. Yeah.
Chuck (25:48):
You
Jeremy Sims (25:48):
Know, this is why this matters. This is how this affects you. This is what this means, and translates into whatever you're doing with it. You know,
Howard (Howie) (25:56):
I can't tell you how many times I've had this conversation with a customer. You probably have to take a look at your inventory of instruments and you've got a bunch of stopwatches. Oh, we don't ate those. We just buy a new with a certificate and then turn away when they're done.
(26:09)
Okay. Real quick, lesson on traceability. You understand that the closeup, which is end of period reliability, tells you how that instrument performed over its use. Did it shift, did it change material outside of its performance specs? If it did, you need to go back and see what had happened to the measurements you were making with it, right. On your product. Now, this current customer that we have, the brand new customer, great answer. Now that's okay. Because down the line, we test the product this way, and that's the traceable measurement that we need. Ah. So it's not as critical on stopwatch measurements. Fantastic. That's what I wanted to hear. That's us tying our knowledge of metrology and traceability to your knowledge of your product and all of that process. But too many times I've heard we throw away taught me that. Did you understand traceability? No. I guess I didn't realize that. We probably shouldn't be doing that.
Jeremy Sims (26:59):
You know where I see that one a lot, the temperature, humidity, you know, they'll buy a little temperature, humidity, meter. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, well, and then they'll put 'em on a two year cycle, which may be okay, maybe not, right. Right. But then they buy the new ones in two years. Right. And then, uh, like,
Howard (Howie) (27:16):
Or I don't need to calibrate my thermocouples. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, but I calibrate the indicator. Yeah. Now I'll run into that quite a bit. Yeah. Um, and for those in the listening audience, if you're not aware, your sensor in any application is where the greatest error lies. Not the, not the readout. Right. The meter itself is typically very linear, usually stays well within inspect, still needs to be checked. Right. But it's the prune on any pressure, probe, temperature, pro, all those things, that's where your major enemy is. And that's why you need to calibrate those units.
Jeremy Sims (27:52):
And you see that a lot with thermo couple, not so much RTE and the misters, but definitely thermal couples all the time. They're like, well, I got this wire, I twisted Ben, I took the meh, and like what, you know? And, um, there's a heat treating standard out there, right? A MS 27 50. And it's, uh, it's got its own, it's got its own things or whatever. It's also not a perfect standard, but it, I like it because it at least puts requirements on the end user to calibrate their thermal couples, how often they can be used based on what temperatures they're used. Then. Like, there's rules, right? There's rules on, there's two rules. Again, I love rules, man. You know, and then there's things in place to say like, here's where it's acceptable and here's where it's not acceptable. Right? But in the wild world of calibration, that's, you know, they, that doesn't exist, right? There's nothing that, I mean, there is, right? It tells you your standard should be calibrated for some reason people don't think it's thermalcouple pros as a standard, right? That's in thermal. Cocal pros, you're a hundred percent right. That's where most of your uncertainty is gonna come from, right? Oh yeah. They're just not, they're great for temperature range and not particularly great accuracy wise. No, they're not. So, um, so that's always a fun one.
Howard (Howie) (28:57):
Yeah. Chuck, sorry, we're picking up a, one of the, uh, word time.
Chuck (29:02):
I'm just listening to everything. I'm enjoying listening to you guys go at it. I, I talk too much usually. Anyways. Already way. Let's change topic here for a minute. So we've gotten a little bit more about Jeremy. Jeremy, tell us about you. We, you know, we never got the chance to actually get introduced to you. And we talked about, you know, you worked for a major company there for a while and you started doing Cal Lab. How's that going for you? Pretty good,
Jeremy Sims (29:26):
Actually. Um, right now I'm, uh, I'm up to five customers I consult for or just do consulting, QA type work, the creation of uncertainty bug, neat. Stuff like that. Right. That's awesome. So I got, I'm up to, so that's good. And, um, but not quite enough to cut back on the assessing, uh, yet. And then, um, you know, I, uh, I've done some Cal work, uh, calibration work for a couple, Cal. I'm not accredited yet, but don't worry, I'll get there. You know, I just, uh, it's a big expense. Right. And, and, uh, it's easier when you work for the big company to go get accredited. It's a little more interesting when
Howard (Howie) (29:59):
You,
Jeremy Sims (29:59):
Well, you gotta build
Howard (Howie) (30:00):
Your revenue volume.
Jeremy Sims (30:01):
Yeah. So
Howard (Howie) (30:01):
Profitability to pay for that.
Jeremy Sims (30:03):
Um, so I actually, uh, one guy, um, he has, um, he does backflow uh, testing. Oh. And so he brought me his gauges and then he told this guy, and then this guy just called me outta the blue. I didn't even know. Right. So, uh, we're starting, we're starting to see a little more calibration and trying to keep up with everything, but, uh, I've, I have no complaints. I'm happy that this is how things are going, generally speaking, so,
Chuck (30:27):
Yeah.
Jeremy Sims (30:28):
Yeah. But, uh,
Chuck (30:29):
I'm enjoying. And we know you are a road warrior 'cause obviously you're doing a lot of cals. So what do you do when you're not on the road
Jeremy Sims (30:36):
Work?
(30:38)
? I try to make it so that, uh, uh, Saturdays are family day. Like, I try not to do work on Saturdays unless I just absolutely have to. So like, you know, spend time with my wife and my grandkids or whatever we're doing Yeah. And stuff like that. Uh, but typically Sunday to Friday I work, it's pretty much most of my time. Sometimes I might have a little bit of free time to play a video game or something with my cousin or my son, or that's how we kind of stay connected and we like doing that kind of stuff. Or, you know, sometimes, uh, oh, every once in a while I get to go on a motorcycle ride. I think I've had down for about 50 miles this year. Yeah, definitely. The weather for it
Howard (Howie) (31:20):
Now.
Jeremy Sims (31:20):
Yeah. And so I stayed pretty busy to the point now that I'm actually have, um, I don't have employees, but I have other contractors helping me do work now, because I just can't keep up with it all. So. Well, that's a good place to be. Yeah. So it's, it's not bad. And then, um, that's the start. Like I said, that's the start of expansion. I like it. So first year you're having growth, now you're having expansion. So it's been good. It's been good. That's good to hear. But otherwise, you know, sometimes just the wife and I sitting there watching a movie's pretty great. Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (31:49):
You
Jeremy Sims (31:49):
Know, just quiet time.
Howard (Howie) (31:50):
Well, I mean, you're traveling not just in the US but all over the world, right?
Jeremy Sims (31:54):
Yeah. So I've been, as far as Bangkok, ho Chi Maine, I was in, uh, depression, Hungary.
Howard (Howie) (32:00):
Oh.
Jeremy Sims (32:01):
I haven't been. I have an Ments in Germany this year. Mm-hmm
Howard (Howie) (32:04):
. Lemme
Jeremy Sims (32:05):
See. I think I have to go to the Philippines this year. So what's your favorite place so far? Oh, I don't know if I
Howard (Howie) (32:11):
Have, where would you go back to for a vacation? Singapore. Wow. We've heard that before. Haven. Yeah,
Jeremy Sims (32:16):
We have . It's an awesome place. Like, they, it's it, you know, you hear stories about how clean it is and all that stuff. Like they're not joking. They
Howard (Howie) (32:24):
Yeah. You
Jeremy Sims (32:25):
Know, it's, um, it's pretty cool. Like, I would like to go back to Hungary, but like, not at the third week of December. , you know, when it was, uh, 30 degrees the whole time. No
Howard (Howie) (32:35):
Big deal.
Jeremy Sims (32:36):
But I feel like it, it's, it's probably a very pretty country in the summertime, but, uh,
Howard (Howie) (32:41):
Yeah.
Jeremy Sims (32:41):
Yeah. Singapore, I would definitely like to go back to Singapore.
Howard (Howie) (32:44):
Didn't Mitch tell us Hungry is one of the places he'd go back to?
Jeremy Sims (32:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Howard (Howie) (32:47):
Yeah.
Jeremy Sims (32:48):
Pete,
Howard (Howie) (32:49):
Pete, Pete did too, Pete about hungry. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, there's a consensus there. There.
Jeremy Sims (32:54):
Yeah. I mean, that's awesome. They're very interesting places to, to visit and
Howard (Howie) (32:58):
Yeah.
Jeremy Sims (32:58):
They, they're different overseas about metrology than I think we are here. They're, I think they're a little less lax about it. I don't know if that we're lax about it. Not all of it. You, but I mean, there's, it's a different feeling. Who they seem a little more, um, respectful. Yeah. Maybe that's the right word for it. Stringent. Um, they followed a little more strictly, I guess, um, at least from my limited experience overseas. I shouldn't say that unequivocally, but that's been interesting observation.
Chuck (33:26):
So they probably have better ethics,
Jeremy Sims (33:28):
Higher integrity. That's has to be integrity. I don't know if I go that far, but that, that, that might be a statement I'm unwilling to make at this point in time. , uh, I got a personal question for you. Sure.
Howard (Howie) (33:42):
I
Jeremy Sims (33:42):
Hear things about your truck. Oh, tell Mike's truck, man. It's a cool truck. It's a 69 Chevy C 10. That's cool. And, uh, yeah, it's been in my family since I was, uh, my dad bought it when I was like five years old. Right. And, uh, and then, uh, for the longest time it was supposed to go to my brother. Right. He was gonna take it and he finally decided he wasn't gonna do anything with it Really? So he said, no, go ahead and take it. So it went down and it made work,
Howard (Howie) (34:09):
Or doesn't? Oh,
Jeremy Sims (34:09):
No, it definitely needs work. Okay. Yeah. A lot. Okay. And so, uh, I, a buddy of mine, he, uh, has a trailer. So we went down there, picked it up, drunk it back to my house. And funny, mildly funny story. Now, it wasn't at the time, so when we got it to the house, I was pulling it into the garage and it runs. Right. So I was pulling in the garage, but the, uh, when I did the, uh, I was, I put down some plastic, you know, and, uh, 'cause it, it leak a little bit. I didn't wanna get it all over the garage floors. Sure. And then, so I was putting down some plastic, and then when I did it, the throttle was stuck a little bit. I almost ran through the back of our house. . Yeah. Not it's funny. Now. It wasn't funny. How would you explain that? Um, well, luckily Amy moved out of the way when she saw it happening, because she was standing almost in front of it when it happened.
Howard (Howie) (34:57):
Well, I gotta tell you, insurance companies, like when you hit your own stuff, if you're gonna hit something
Jeremy Sims (35:01):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (35:01):
They want you to hit your own stuff that they aren't sure something I've been told. So I don't think they would like that.
Jeremy Sims (35:07):
No. You know what, you know what stopped me? There was a wall, there's like a little wall and like a little closet area in the garage, and then there was a deep freezer in there. So between the wall and the deep freezer is what stopped the truck from going through the bottom wall. Wow. Yeah. But it's funny that it wasn't funny then. Um, so anyway, we worked on it a little bit, but not, I've just been so busy lately. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to, uh, spend any time on it like I'd like to. But the idea,
Howard (Howie) (35:33):
Yeah,
Jeremy Sims (35:34):
The idea is to strip it down, uh, frame up and kind of rest . I don't think I'm gonna go back. Originally
Howard (Howie) (35:40):
That's a retirement project. And you're a long ways from retirement.
Jeremy Sims (35:44):
I mean, y yeah, . Yeah. It's, yeah, I definitely got a ways to retirement. Although Amy did point out, it's not as far as way as it is in my mind. Right. My mind that's like a million years from now and, uh, unfortunately is not.
Howard (Howie) (35:59):
Yeah. Well, I mean, you can look forward to that at some point in the future.
Jeremy Sims (36:02):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (36:03):
Whenever that means. Hopefully sooner rather than, it becomes quicker if you make your millions in auditing now, like five years
Jeremy Sims (36:13):
. Okay. I think I'm gonna have to work a bit more and I don't know if I can do that to make millions in audits. You just gotta charge more profit, like, there you go. A hundred thousand per profit. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that works, but
Howard (Howie) (36:26):
Stupid market buyer.
Chuck (36:27):
Yeah. Right. Well, Jeremy, you've been so busy. So we haven't seen you to any conferences. Do you plan to go to any, uh, conferences this year? Or are you not gonna attend any of them this year?
Jeremy Sims (36:37):
I was supposed to go to I Am Kong, but unfortunately we, my, uh, my wife had a medical emergency that kind of stopped me from going about the day before. She's okay. She's okay. That's good. Um, but, uh, she spent three days in the hospital and, uh, so I pretty much like the day before you've got a hold of somebody at HLLA and said, Hey, sorry, I don't think I can make it. Yeah, yeah. Understandable. Well, glad is all right. But that, yeah, I was originally supposed to go to that one. Um, I wasn't, I haven't planned on going to NCSL this year. Uh, kind of talked about it, but I booked up with other stuff. I don't think I can really fit it in. And then, um, right after, what would be that week, we're going to Ireland for vacation. I'm actually making vacation guys. So
Howard (Howie) (37:23):
Good.
Jeremy Sims (37:24):
Yeah. You deserve it.
Chuck (37:26):
That's fantastic. But you're gonna a golfer, are you Jeremy? Do you golf?
Jeremy Sims (37:29):
I'm not particularly a golfer, but, um, I mean, I don't mind going to a driving range, but there, I don't have to keep track of wherever the ball goes tend see, because I'm not a golfer.
Chuck (37:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Sims (37:40):
And, uh,
Chuck (37:41):
Well, what brings Toland? Just, uh, I
Jeremy Sims (37:44):
Always wanted to go and my sister wanted to go, so it's her family and us and, uh, her, her brother-in-law. Uh, so it's just a big group of us. When did you go? End of July. July. Yeah. Nice.
Howard (Howie) (37:56):
Okay.
Jeremy Sims (37:57):
Yeah. Should
Howard (Howie) (37:58):
Be fun. Awesome. I guarantee I haven't been there, but I hear great things.
Chuck (38:03):
I haven't been to Ireland either. I've been to England and, and, but that's on my bucket list before. And my bucket list are getting, I better start checking some of it off because
Howard (Howie) (38:12):
Chuck (38:12):
Yes. I'm not getting any younger.
Howard (Howie) (38:15):
Yeah.
Chuck (38:15):
So, well, uh, the only other question I have is what's next after, after Ireland then? How much longer do you plan to do accrediting? I mean, auditing, not accrediting. You gotta do this a long time.
Jeremy Sims (38:30):
I, you know, I don't know that I'll ever quit doing it. I, I may cut back on it and how much I cut back depends on how much I get busy doing the other stuff. The consulting and the Cal Lab stuff. Um, um, but I kind of like to do it because it, I feel like it keeps me in touch with what's going on in our industry more so than just it does, you know, just going to a conference or something like you actually see. And honestly, I, I learned even at labs where, you know, maybe they don't have the most robust process, you still always can learn something from them about how to solve the same problems that we all have to solve. You always find something, something interesting, something new, even if it's just, um, the connection you make with the people in that lab. So mm-hmm . I don't know if I'll ever quit doing it, quit doing it, but I I, at some point, yeah. I would like not to be doing it five days a week, six days a week, every week, you know,
Howard (Howie) (39:21):
That's a lot.
Jeremy Sims (39:22):
Well, I think you've told
Howard (Howie) (39:24):
Me before the amount of work you do at the site is about the same amount of work you do back home to finish things up or Yeah.
Jeremy Sims (39:30):
Prep work. Probably pretty close to it. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, but you know, you when you're doing these things, uh, to, to make sure you can stay on time and on top of it. And, uh, you know, you, I'll spend two or three hours a night in the hotel also working on, sorry. And if I'm not working on that, I'm reviewing non-conformances I've previously written, and there's just always something to be doing, um, amongst the other stuff that I'm doing. Right. So. Right, right.
Chuck (39:59):
Well, we gotta we gotta ask you this before we call it a day. We gotta, we gotta ask you if you can share with us one of your horror stories from one of your assessments. Can you, without sharing who the name is,
Jeremy Sims (40:09):
Tell us. Well, I never do that anyway.
Chuck (40:11):
, can you share with us, uh, really like your worst experience that you had there in an assessment?
Jeremy Sims (40:18):
I honestly, I've been relatively fortunate. I mean, I, I guess worst experience could mean a lot of things. Depends on whether you mean with people or people's uncertainty, budgets or whatever. When I hand them, it's, it's where the lab gets frustrated and then, you know, I did have one guy kind of get up and yell at me a little bit and stuff like that. And to the point I was kind of like, all right, all right, I'm kind of over that. We don't, um, hey, we're, we're getting to my limit of Lee. I'm not gonna sit here and yelled at, we have a job to do. Either I'm gonna do it or I'm gonna go. But I, I've been relatively fortunate compared to the other stories I heard. I've heard of shotguns being pulled and all kinds of weird stuff hat Yeah. So I, I do not have any story nearly that bad.
(40:59)
Hatfield's, the McCoy stuff. I, maybe I wasn't there. You know, you look like a Hatfield next shot of you. Um, I, I guess for me, the worst part is, is when you do have to go in and, and you tell that, and every assessment, let's say, if I'm talking about those specifically, you know, you start with, and basically we all start with the same statements about, it's, it's a sampling process. You know, I might find things that your lab and, you know, the previous assessors didn't find in the likelihood as another assessor will come in to find something I didn't. And, and it, it's normal 'cause it's sampling, right? You're not gonna catch everything in, in one assessment. And then I hear frequently, well, you know, I hope we don't have to fix all our uncertainty budgets again. And then I have to tell 'em like, here's everything wrong with your uncertainty budget. It's like, for me, that's like the worst. Like it's, yeah. Just because now, I mean, they're already not happy about it. Right. And then I'm gonna have to tell 'em, yeah, here's what's wrong, and here, here's why
Howard (Howie) (41:58):
You gotta fix it. You know, unfortunately, if impacts a good majority, if not all of them, you gotta do it. Right. Sorry, you didn't get it right the first time. Here's how you fixed that. Right.
Jeremy Sims (42:06):
And then maybe it's, they didn't get it right the first time. Maybe it's the previous assessor didn't pick up on this particular detail when he looked at the uncertainty budgets. And I did. And there's a hundred other reasons that these things could happen, but I guess that's probably the worst part. You know, like when you have to tell a lab, they're gonna have to go fix stuff again that they thought they already fixed or, and then, you know, well, so
Howard (Howie) (42:26):
That begs the question of what did they think an assessment was supposed to do? Find it squeaky clean and never have a problem, of course, that you're there
Jeremy Sims (42:35):
To find issues. I wished I could say I hadn't had lamb say to me, nobody's ever looked at that before or said that before, but I get, I'm, I'm sure lots of assessors do. Right? I get that statement way more frequently than I thought I would. You're not doing it like the last person , you know? Um, I don't know. I, I can just say from my perspective, I, I try to do it the best I can. Yeah. You know, and, and follow all the requirements and whatever I find is whatever I find, you know,
Howard (Howie) (43:03):
Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I've always, I've always thought whether it's an internal or an external audit, that the value of the audit is to show me what I missed. Yeah. Right. Or find things that I just haven't gotten to yet and have a plan for it. But I just, it's taking time to pinpoint it, but it should have some value to it.
Jeremy Sims (43:21):
I think so, and, and I don't think, I mean, if you look at really the core of what we're supposed to do, right? My, my objective in an assessment is to come in, you know, identify where there's compliance and where there's not and be done. But I've learned so much through my years with various assessors, you know, they may not tell me what the answer is, but they may at least point me in the right direction. And I feel like I, I try to do the same. I mean, we have to be careful, right? There's conflict of interest and we can't, of course we can't tell people how to do stuff, right. But I can say, you really should go read, you know, A STM whatever, a SME, whatever, you know, those types of things. Like, you should go read those un unless have just blatantly wrong and then you try to knock and forth, right? Sure. But, uh, all right. I got a question for you.
Howard (Howie) (44:05):
You've, for a good portion of your career, been on the consumer, the customer side of auditing
Howard (Howie) (44:12):
Mm-hmm .
Howard (Howie) (44:13):
Or you've done audits internally for your company, and then you've experienced external auditors coming in and doing their thing. So you've seen it from that perspective. Now that you're on the other side of that and you're the assessor coming into an organization, how did that change your perspective? What stuck out to you the most? This side's way better.
Jeremy Sims (44:32):
easier. Oh yeah. You just come in, you drop the bomb and then you leave. Your case is done. . Um, what I learned from those events where I was the on, you know, the honoree, right? Um, is that, uh, don't be like some of the auditors, right? You know, if, if a lab doesn't know you, you try to clarify the best you can of what you're looking for. Um, you try to come to an agreement with something that's compliant or not compliant based on the information. Um, but I, I try not to be, uh, I, I try not to be, you know, combative or anything like that with them. I, I, I, I always try to work or phrase from the standpoint of, this is, this is gonna help you in the end, right? This will help make your system better. 'cause I think that's really the main objective of, of the process. Yeah. Yeah.
Chuck (45:24):
Um,
Jeremy Sims (45:24):
Nice.
Chuck (45:24):
Yeah. Well, I can certainly tell Jeremy, you're a good auditor. I, I would have no problem having you audit me. You're very politically correct. You're, you've got a great, no, seriously, you've got a great tone about you. You're very, you say the right things at the right time. So Howard, you get one more state that we're actually at an hour already. Can you believe it? We bet you're talking an hour, so you get one more questionable. Yeah,
Howard (Howie) (45:46):
I, I'm gonna show my four M question up there. Okay. Most memorable, metrology, mulin
Jeremy Sims (45:50):
And most me metrology moment when I met Howard z and the angel son , I, one was, he set was being politically correct. I was really turning to light off. And where was that when we met, and I know that's not your most notable but charger moment, but where was that, that we met? Where did we meet at? Do you recall? Was that the first time I visited Rochester? Nope. And then I don't remember.
Howard (Howie) (46:16):
I went to St. Louis
Jeremy Sims (46:17):
Okay.
Howard (Howie) (46:17):
To set up particle counters. Oh,
Jeremy Sims (46:19):
You're right. I forgot about the particle killer in St. Louis. Yeah. Oh boy. That thing, that was, uh,
Howard (Howie) (46:25):
That's when I first met you. I'd heard about you
Jeremy Sims (46:27):
Before then, and then after that
Howard (Howie) (46:29):
You came to Rochester.
Jeremy Sims (46:29):
Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You did come down there for the article counter thing. That was, that was an interesting, so apparently it's not the most memorable, is it till No. Oh, the most memorable metrology moment. Oh, hang on, hold on. Um, I guess that's not something I sit around thinking about too much. I guess my, my most memorable moment would be, I guess when you come to that, all of us go through this, right? We think we understand this stuff or whatever. When you come to the realization that, um, you always have something new to learn, you don't know everything. Not that I ever thought I knew everything, but you know, when you're younger right? You think you know more than you probably know. Sure,
Howard (Howie) (47:07):
Sure.
Jeremy Sims (47:07):
And then you, you, you do this longer and you realize, oh,
Howard (Howie) (47:10):
He sounds like his father.
Jeremy Sims (47:11):
Yeah. , you realize, Hey, I, I, there, I, I now know that I don't know as much as I want to know, should know, thought I knew, whatever you wanna say.
Howard (Howie) (47:23):
Yeah. We had a lot of, uh, incredible whiteboard moments in Rochester, didn't we? Oh, I love the whiteboards.
Jeremy Sims (47:30):
You like sit down and you just start drawing for,
Howard (Howie) (47:32):
We put whiteboards all over each of our offices and we just, so we could just chat up a storm and draw out concepts and ideas and formulas and what it rings. And, uh, that was very helpful. So if you don't use whiteboards, uh, I, I, I highly recommend it.
Jeremy Sims (47:48):
I, I think, um,
Howard (Howie) (47:49):
Get what's out of your head out where people can see it.
Jeremy Sims (47:51):
I think that was, I don't know that that'd be my most memorable moment, but definitely one of the things I've definitely enjoyed about working with teams. I mean, I do work a little a lot now, but I do, I, I have a lot of references. I can, I can call you or I can call this person, I can talk to this person. Have you seen this? And yeah. So, but uh, yeah, I do, I do miss the whiteboard sessions and stuff. Yeah. I mean, you know, next thing you know, you got a whole whiteboard of formulas and grass or everything, you know, and solving a problem. Or maybe not. I do sometimes in, in an assessment, if I'm trying to explain something and I don't think the land's getting it. If they have a whiteboard, I'll get up on the whiteboard and I'll still draw there until Yeah. But this is what I'm trying to describe. Does this help make more sense? You know?
Howard (Howie) (48:33):
Thanks.
Jeremy Sims (48:33):
Um, it, it,
Howard (Howie) (48:34):
That does help. Early in my career, this is when I worked for, uh, Martin Mariano, which is Locking Martin now. And we were, look, we were talking with one of the test engineers about instruments that were used on one of the product lines for the clear system. It was a spectrum analyzer that I think they were needing based on what he was describing, right? But he kept trying to use in a fullscope, right? Mm-hmm . And so to get that concept across, I used solder to create a 3D model of, you know, wavelengths looking at it from like, in the oscilloscope, a a time-based perspective that's often, and then turn it on the side. And you could see how the frequency based perspective worked with all those different sign, uh, waves, right? To give him the respect. 'cause he, he never used a specter analyzer and didn't know what the difference was. So that's pretty, that's pretty cool. It ended up being a good conversation for us, and it caught us over that hump. Right? Right. I probably could've drawn that out and 3D Right. But then we didn't have whiteboards, , boy, I'm dating myself way back. We had blackboards, but they weren't readily available. Right. So I was just trying to make something up where I could have a conversation.
(49:51)
Nice. But yeah, the whiteboard is definitely up. Yeah. Well,
Chuck (49:54):
We gotta call it a day, my friend. Jeremy, thanks so much for taking your time on your day to drive over in your, uh, cone season and,
Howard (Howie) (50:02):
Uh, from orange cone, orange
Chuck (50:04):
Cone season and joining us for one of our episodes. We appreciate your, your time and your valuable input. It was a great conversation. Uh, again, I really appreciate it, uh, parting
Howard (Howie) (50:15):
Words of wisdom, Mr. Mr. Ellis,
Chuck (50:17):
The only words of wisdom I have is if you're not participating in proficiency testing, you're not proving you're technically competent.
Jeremy Sims (50:23):
He, he does say that a lot. A lot. Yeah. Um, I would just say thank you for having me. Um, really, absolutely. I got the opportunity, uh, to come over and talk with you guys, and glad you could be happy to do it again. Yeah, yeah.
Howard (Howie) (50:36):
Oh, there be more topics to talk about for sure.
Jeremy Sims (50:38):
There's always more topics than our world to talk about.
Howard (Howie) (50:41):
We mentioned that we have, uh, enough guests between the people we know to Philip six or seven, uh, seasons.
Howard (Howie) (50:47):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (50:48):
Um, and in there we'll scatter in some return guests, so Sure. That'd be great.
Chuck (50:52):
Alright. Any quality comments from you?
Howard (Howie) (50:55):
No, none from me. I'm all, well, I'm all out of words.
Chuck (50:58):
Alright, well until next time then. Thanks again. And, uh, when fa thanks to our sponsor, national Association for Proficiency testing. Check us out on web. We're there to help you out when you need us. Alright, how easy out. Take care.