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Aldenisms

1. "The Electricity is the Ink" - yeah! right!, along with some fertilizer, salt and water.
2. "The Goldfish Bowl" - that little office with the big window that faced the hallway, across from the cafeteria.  Whenever you sat in it, everybody knew it, and would look at you like you were fish in a bowl.
3. "The Alden Way" - not the right way or the wrong way to do something. Things were done the "Alden way" - don't ask why, just do it.
4. "Barn Tear" - You may remember that countless rips and torn clothing and occasionally lacerations suffered by bumping into Alden equipment, and usually caused by the sharp corners on the "Target Screw" (see Below)
5. "Target Screw" -  (In the same category as "French Head", not quite what might come to mind!) this ALDEN innovation that required only a small coin of the realm to disassemble your Alden Equipment..
6. "Wireless Helix" - The ultimate in sharp objects, stropped to razor sharpness in normal usage it caught many an unsuspecting operator and employee alike. Kept Dr. Bob very busy.
7. "The Office of Death" - an office in the new building on the second floor - who ever occupied it, didn't for very long...
8. "Chinese Time" - "those of us who lived through it, it became a source of real concern since it always seemed that the more you worked, if you were out on a trip, the less you received in return. I doubt if anyone alive could explain how it really worked, but it related to time spent beyond 40 hours if you were on a trip. A kinds of inverse proportional relationship between hours worked and income received. (All because we worked on a "Guaranteed Forty Hours" which was supposed to be like you were on salary, but you weren't - Just try not working forty for more than a week or so and watch what happened - [Things did finally change for the better and even hourly folks were paid time and a half while out on trips - I can remember one instance that I worked 33 hours in one day -coming back across the International Dateline from Taiwan - You can bet that took some explanation!!]" - Bob Dean
9. "Uncle Charlie's Pigeon Farm" - our affectionate name for ALFAX
10. "French Head" - Not what you think.  It's the nickname for the weather recorders (less the  electronics) that the French Government bought a bunch of. 
11. "The Ramp" - for some unknown reason, when they expanded out of the milking barn, instead of putting the "new building" on the same level to or adjacent to the barn, they build this long indoor ramp to connect the two buildings. Strange. 
12. "The Flys" - you knew that spring would be just around the corner, because every year, the bathrooms would be crawling with these microscopic flies. Kind of like fruit flies, only smaller.
13. "The House" - used for everything from engineering, production, service, training and gluing Epirbs. A final resting place for 50 year old documents.
14. "Capacitated" - For real fun, we would put small capacitors in power outlets, so that when someone plugged them in or turned them on, KABOOM! A loud explosion followed by a  miniature mushroom cloud that usually incapacitate the unsuspecting victim.  Usually followed up by laughter by the mad bomber.
15. "The Stink Fax" - Alden built a recorder for submarines (great place to put something smelly)  that scraped a layer of clay coat off of some type of carbon paper.  It really stunk.  I'll bet the sub crews really enjoyed using this baby.
16. "Level 4" - the highest level in the warehouse, where the temperature was always 110 degrees (year round), and you were surrounded by dead birds and boxes of stuff left over from trade shows that nobody wanted.