Language Barrier
My step mother is from Guatemala. She has a fantastic command of the
English language along with French, Italian and German. Regardless of the
fact that she speaks English fluently it is still her second language and
there are occasional misunderstandings that sometimes have comical results
and at others not so funny results. I have several co-workers from India
who grew up speaking Hindi. Their English is all good but still there are
miscommunications between us sometimes.
I have come to the conclusion that no matter how well one speaks a second
language there are some little subtleties that just don’t translate. Unless
one has lived for an extended period of time in a culture there are things
one just can not understand. Colloquialisms seem to be the heart of the
matter in fully understanding each other. Even people I have worked with
who came from other parts of the US have had trouble understanding me at
times and I them due to little things like how one phrases informal speech.
About Larry D. Burton
I'm a 55 year old controls engineer who just likes tinkering with stuff.
Finished high school at a local institute of learning. Decided it wasn't a good time to be a healthy, physically fit 18 year old with no college experience. Entered college and started working toward a degree in animal husbandry.
1975-1976
Discoverd that I was not going to be a very good husband of animals so I left school to figure out what I might be good at. A local beverage company took pity on me and paid me to go from place to place making sure their on tap beverages were maintaining their high quality.
1976-1979
Got out of quality control and into vending. Learned about control systems and refrigeration also learned that vending machines are heavy and vending doesn't pay all that well.
In 1977 I found myself married
1979-1981
Dedicated myself to installing and maintaining commercial refrigeration equipment. Found myself on the roof of a local grocery store one night in the middle of an ice storm replacing a compressor and figured it was time to get back into school.
1981-1986
Got my but back into school at night and changed jobs to keep the mechanical and electrical systems of a local coporate hospital in working order. The job expanded to unstopping drains and burning lab samples and amputated body parts.
1986-now
Finished school and took on a job designing, installing and maintaining industrial control systems. Along the way I picked up a bunch of computer skills that became very useful connecting various industrial controllers to one another and moving the data into coporate databases. I now operate Dallas Bay Technologies, a one man shop specializing in technology solutions for industrial problems.
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