Tonight, after an unusually short (but fulfilling) 2nd Wednesday session, assembled at the Corner Booth were: Jeff, John L., Adrian, Dean, Cindy, Lindsay, Ferne, Don, and myself — Tomek. Bob abandoned us for the Celtics game. We began — at our end of the table, anyway —  with a meditation on the misery of selling and buying homes, with a nice sidebar on the special Hell that are condos. There was mention of the benefits of downsizing a bit, though. Then things turned into an analog lament, highlighting the pros and cons of the handyman lifestyle, and when exactly one should just call someone to fix something. A few of us reveled in old projects, with honorable mention going to a custom plane build. (That reminded me of this video of a kid who programs his Roomba to swear when it bumps into stuff.) That got us into some discussions about family flying trips, including memories of an incident on a simulator at the Manchester Airport Museum that didn’t end well, and garage doors. Old TVs were next, and we burrowed into vacuum tubes, copper coils, and the huge, old wooden cabinets they used to come in. We also hit on the nature of innovation in creative companies, and how they interact most effectively with their customers, with John Deere decidedly getting it wrong. Somewhere along the line we also touched on the career expectations of Millennials, and toward the end of the evening we explored (in some memory-lane-ing) the Venn Diagram of  telecommunications companies and tech companies. This was tied into some memories of North Andover. Amazingly, we managed for once to avoid politics. I caught brief snippets of conversation at the other end of the table pertaining to music and participants’ stories. As always, a good time was had by all.