The book is a collection of stories: assignments from a long and enjoyable engineering career as well as anecdotes and experiences from summer jobs, vacations, and consulting. The focus is technical, each little story pivots on some scientific principle. The intent is three-fold: a) genealogical: to capture descriptions of a lifetime of fun times and accomplishments for descendents who might be curious about old great-grandpa Tom, b) to inspire a next generation of youngsters to consider pursuit of engineering, science, and critical thought, as a door to a fruitful life, and c) to try to bridge that pervasive "boring and/or over-my-head" gap by showing that "engineering" concepts are essentially common-sense and intuitive (you learned them in kindergarten playground), and the jargon should not be off-putting. The book's message: Engineering/science can be fun, it happens every day and everywhere, a degree is not a prerequisite.