Dave's Retirement Adventure

Link to photo Album Here We’ve been to many 2 nd and 3 rd world countries. We always struggle with understanding the history of how they ended so far behind the First World countries. Australia is a completely different experience. Here we arrive at a previously isolated, former British penal colony, at the other end of the world, that has created a first world country and has maintained it for many years. “How did dey do dat?” We always thought we’d get a chance to visit here one day, and indeed a good opportunity came along in the middle of our six month stay in South Africa. Here’s the 14 hr route the Qantas 747 took. I’m always interested in relative latitude when traveling and it was very interesting to me that Sydney, Atlanta, and Cape Town, at about 33 degrees, are all the same distance from the equator. One of the immediate differences we notice on this trip, compared to our Egypt OAT trip is the amount ...

Estelle and I knew being overseas for seven months in Egypt, South Africa, Australia, etc had risks. And we knew at our ages that unforeseen health issues can happen, but we’ve both been very healthy and I don’t think we gave that risk a lot of consideration. So, we land in Johannesburg Monday night after two weeks in Australia, back with family, Wednesday morning I feel some mild chest pain. It comes and goes, feels like some kind of indigestion to me. The next day, Thursday, it’s still there, doesn’t respond to normal indigestion medicine, and it feels somehow different than previous indigestion pain, and I did just turn 72. So I call our long time friend, Etienne, an MD in Pretoria, about 5pm on Thursday to get his opinion. After a few questions he says I should come immediately to the hospital he thinks is best, in Pretoria, with the best cardiologists, who he knows personally, just in case… Still believing this is just indigestion, Estelle and I drive about an hour ...

I was not her star pupil by a long shot. But my junior and senior year English teacher at Montgomery Bell Academy had more impact on me than she or I could have ever imagined. I was a bit of a geek, even in the 60s, always into mechanical/electrical stuff, destined to become an engineer. But one great thing about a good education is that it doesn’t let you get by just doing what you think you like. It exposes you to a broad-based range of studies that will serve you well in your life. And Mrs. Lowry was passionate about the English language, its literature, and its proper use. She made us understand, “THIS IS IMPORTANT!” So it was with English. We had to turn in a 500 word composition (Theme) every week for four years at MBA. Each was read and critiqued closely for content and style by our teacher—no mercy for spelling or grammatical errors. Only later, in my working life, would I learn the importance of the ability to express thoughts clearly in writing. Over the years, I’ve use...

Dalcon International, Inc. was founded by David L. Condra in 1978, and incorporated in 1979 in Nashville Tennessee. The company initially did business as Nashville Computer Center, subsequently changed the DBA to Dalcon Computer Systems in 1981. The product focus of the company was business computer systems designed to meet the needs of small businesses. As an indication of how early Dalcon was in the Nashville market, it was the first company to be listed under the then new Nashville Yellow Pages listing, “Computers”. Although personal computers were just coming into businesses for use by individuals, Dalcon’s focus was on systems to run an entire small company, which required multiple simultaneous users accessing a common database, which was not then supported by personal computers. Consequently, Dalcon based its solutions on the Alpha Micro , which enabled the development of multi-user application software such as would be required for a business that had a number of peopl...