4-18-MWS

Hey what's the deal????? The Mooj was disturbed to find that only three people opted to enrich their lives by requesting official minion status. If this trend continues The Mooj may have to lower his standards. To fill out your very own minion application Click Here.

Name	Vital Statistics	In his or her own words.....
Benjamin Gulla, #1234	Ben is from Pottsville, PA. He is married with no children. His wife is a certified welder.	First my praanaams to thee Swami Mooj. I have so far read only one of your newsletters. I found it very helpful. I plan to read all the others soon. I seek Swami’s blessings in my endeavors for Mooj minionism.
Susan Bean, #1235	No information given.	When I was a little girl I begged my parents to take me to Frontier Village in San Jose but they never would. Frontier Village was the only place you could go in the SF Bay Area for fun because Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm were too far away. We hated Southern Californians because they had it so easy and we Northern Californians had it so hard. While we had to ration our water they filled their stupid swimming pools! Southern Californians suck!!!!!
"D.W.," #1236	D.W. lives in Hawaiian Gardens, CA. She is a former gang-banger, who went straight after seeing the movie, My Life as a Dog. She is also a huge Judy Blume fan.	I surely enjoyed my visit to your site. The newsletters are great reading. I will have to come back and read more if I can find the time and energy. I suspect that this is all a big scam and that joining your minion thing is like joining a cult or something. But I don't care because you are so cute and cuddly.

This week's teaching story is about DC generator maintenance. I'll bet that most of you have no idea how complicated a DC generator is. AC induction generators are relatively simple machines and had been around for many years before some genius figured out how to make one generate DC voltage. The DC generator is only made possible due to the invention of the "DC commutator." Next to the transistor, the DC commutator is considered by The Mooj to be the crowning achievement of American engineering. To enjoy this story one need not know how a commutator works, only that it uses hard stationary carbon brushes to rub against it while it spins. If the brushes are set too tightly they will gouge the commutator and cause it to pit and arc. The following story comes to us from the guy calling himself Jules Vermilion (minion #551). This person claims to have been an electrician in the US Navy.

Dog Brown

One day before a big exam our regular teacher needed to attend to some personal business and felt that the Radio-man could finish the last lesson without doing too much damage. That afternoon's topic was about generator maintenance and there was only one question on the exam from it. Our teacher circled, underlined, and put stars next the applicable information in his course outline and told Walker to just make sure that we understood that part since it was going to be on the test. When Walker reached that part of the lesson plan he paused, cleared his throat, and said as loud as he could:

"Now lizzen up y'all cuz dis nec ding don done gona be on du tes fu sho."

Immediately eyes opened up and heads lifted off desks. Then the Radio-man incoherently rambled on about how the commutator of a DC generator should be “dog brown” if the brushes were seated correctly. Our instructors at EM-A school often threw us 'horses' (i.e., guaranteed test questions) during lectures and we were never blind to such hints,—especially when it came to us gift wrapped like this one did. However, since Walker was so hard to understand, no one quite understood what he was trying to tell us.

"Did you say that the commutator should be dog brown?” asked one of my classmates.
"Yez, dog brown."
"Dog brown?" another asked.
"Yez, Dog brown."
"Brown like a dog?" asked another.
"Yeeez! Dog Brown!”

We had no idea what a commutator was or what it did, but we knew it had to be dog brown. The next day on the exam, just as the Radio Man said, there was a question about what color a DC commutator should be on a generator if the brushes were seated correctly. Everyone, without hesitation, wrote "dog brown" as the answer. When the exam grader (probably some flunky awaiting orders to a tin can somewhere) corrected the exam, he noticed that every student answered that particular question the same and assumed that the answer key was wrong and so he scored it as being correct. When we got our exams back the next day we looked them over and then never gave DC commutators a thought again until we arrived in the fleet.

After EM-A school most of my class went on to Nuclear Power School together and then most of us wound up on the USS Enterprise. For more than four years we repaired and inspected DC motors and generators, always ensuring that their commutators were dog brown. Whenever I had a new sea pup I taught him all about commutator maintenance and always reminded him about looking for the the dog brown color. (If ever we found a shinny or gold commutator we immediately readjusted the generator brushes to reduce the tension.) Many of the guys I taught, later taught their own sea pups (who then taught their sea pups) about properly inspecting a DC commutators.

One afternoon near the end of my enlistment I was participating in a qualification board for a junior member of my division. This new guy was qualifying to stand an electrical watch and the board was an oral exam to demonstrate his knowledge level. As was customary in such cases there were many senior electricians present and each one of us asked this fellow difficult questions. This guy seemed to really know his stuff and so when it was my turn to ask him something I began digging through some reference materials piled on my desk to find something obscure to ask and came across a generator maintenance manual. A thought popped into my head and I asked the guy: "Say, what color should the commutator on a DC generator be if the brushes are seated correctly?"

The guy had no idea and guessed: "Dark brown?"

"Nope, it should be dog brown," I said.

Our division chief (who was the senior member of the board) turned to me and said: "Say what?"

"Dog brown is right chief," piped in another board member

"Yeah, I believe it is dog brown," responded another.

"Dog brown is right," echoed other members of the panel. In fact it was pretty unanimous.

"You guys are nuts!" responded our chief, who then pulled out our office copy of the navy electrician's bible (Navships chapter 300 for you old salts out there) and opened it to the section on DC commutators. He read it aloud:

"The commutator for a DC generator should have a dark brown color if the brushes are seated properly..."

We never laughed so hard in our lives. Thanks to that imbecile Radio-man Walker we had carried around bogus information in our heads for six years and passed it on from sailor to sailor and probably ship to ship.

A friend of mine from my EM-A school class is still in the navy and he tells me that every now and then he comes across some old salt teaching a lowly 'sea pup' about generator maintenance,—telling the nub to look for the “dog brown color” to make sure the brushes are seated properly.