(no subject)

Hey, Here's one for the Military members, and taxpayers, of the list ... Virginia ... The Navy recently needed some Ariel Hydra Plus DSP boards and contacted me about them. They mentioned also searching eBay. Well, I ended up seeing some at ... Ariel Hydra VME single board DSP computer http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=162&item=230… I talked to the seller and he thought he had a thousand dollar reserve on them. I told him, no, no reserve, just $500 opening bid. He had made a mistake listing it and ended the auction because of his mistake. I couldn't buy them. My buying budget couldn't cover $1000 boards that I wasn't sure were even going to be the right part ( minor difference in last digit of part number) and I'm not an extraordinarily strong player. But I gave the client the seller's phone number, and seems they may have had possibilities. Response from client ... require, however these boards still may > be workable. We are researching to find out what the slightly different part number denotes. We are still your work on this! I still want to follow up and see if this worked out. Wish I could have made a little to cover my bills, but didn't seem doable on this one. But I might have saved you all a lot of money, and might have solved a national need. Can't post client contact info though. Having anyone pestering my clients would be a no no. But, might have built up the karma level. Right now I might see the light at the end of the tunnel on a project for the Saudi government. ( They are our allies ). Also just donated a chassis to Cornell University ... http://wwwapps.ups.com/etracking/tracking.cgi?TypeOfInquiryNumber=T&Inq… With chassis, you can't get enough for them to make them worth packaging and shipping. So my terms were the mailing center had to do it. Plus I didn't have suitable materials. Used to wish we could bring some of you with us, but you made it seem better to go it alone. Incidently, with the situation overseas, the US military and many defense contractors are currently re-evaluating their spares levels. Best Regards