Lloyd,

Quote: Hoping that a use friendly manual is in the works the the KN7000.

I have read many manuals on a number of products I have purchased through the years. Yes, many are hard to digest. I use the word digest rather than understand for a reason. For one person it will mean heart burn, for another discomfort. Then again for some, indigestion, that triggers memories of farting at an inopportune time or place. All of which produce a negative response. Besides I like the word. But on the other hand have you ever considered the difficulty of communication from one language to another. In Germany they throw the horse over the fence, some hay. Here in the US of A we throw some hay over the fence to the horse. If, to my inquiry, Alec would respond to a question about my car - First lift up the boot, I would ask Ruthie to go over and lift up my shoe and wonder what in the name of heaven he’s getting at. Kick it maybe? And so it goes. Words are great, words are necessary and words are tricky. The art of communication is tricky. Me and my brother who just retired a few years ago as a tech writer for Motorola Corp. have discussed this problem at length many times. Ruthie and her only sister who by the way married my only brother, wish we would shut up about the art of communication and communicate to them when we are going to take them and their dishpan hands out to an evening of dinning and dancing. I guess some things in life never change. Oh well, Ruthie is great, wonderful and and I love her so I guess I will just have to put up with some of the things I have to put up with, and so with manuals.

Lloyd, read the quote of what you said in your post. See? Words are hard to string together to express what one is trying to say. I know and others know what you mean but sometimes one has to go back and reread to be able to understand another's communications. I have that same dilemma with words and have to always go back and read what I have just tried to communicate to others. Sometimes even after I have reread my own linguistic compilations I screw up. Screw up? Ruthie, I don't need that, quit reading my stuff and go wash my underwear. Lloyd and others who might think I’m picking on him, I’m not. Just trying to help me and others understand the ever arising discing of the instruction book. I remember years ago when I bought my first son a construction toy. This is real cool, I mused. Take a look at this Ruth, it says any six year old can put this together in less than twenty minutes, just follow the pictures. Wow! Christmas morning, what excitement, what a mess of the papers, big garbage bag, mom and pop cleaning up among giggles of joy. Mom fixen Christmas dinner and the bird, dad lifting the turkey into the oven. Dad putting on his glasses to read the small print on the oven timer. All set, turn her on and let this bird sweat it out at three fifty for the next three hours. Dad, dad. Ya, what’s up? Dad, will ya? Will I what, I quipped. Help me? Well what’s dads for I asked almost popping a button off my new christmas shirt. Ya, dads can do anything, I bragged. Handing me his new construction toy I said, Santa thought you could be a very proud little man and put this together by yourself. See, It says a six year old and your almost seven. Please, please? Well OK, you and me. Two hours later I suggested mother might need me in the kitchen. You know the turkey and things? We don’t want it to burn or anything. Maybe I’ll get a chance after dinner and we can give that da_ er darn thing another go. Man those pictures are confusing I said to Ruthie as I sat at the kitchen table having a cool one. About twenty minutes later after I drained the beer everything was quiet. Quiet means you better take a look. Peeking in the parlor, one little boy playing with one little toy, with one little smile on his face. Phew, I uttered with a very big exhale. What luck, think I’ll just sit down and have another beer.

See what us guys have to put up with? Over educated men getting paid to confuse us with their incomprehensible learned wordy words of utter meaningless instructions. Lloyd you are absolutely right, Alec’s book is a breath of fresh air wafting over a sea of almost dead instruction books. That’s what I always ask Jim, my brother, how can you write an instruction book for a piece of gear by only seeing the engineering drawings and not putting your hands on it and work with it. Easy, he says. I guess he knows what he’s talking about, I don’t. How about a rousing round of thanks for Alec and guys like him who bail us out of our fried state of mind drifting through this never never land of technology.

Well that’s all I got on this manuel thing. Ruthie says, about time! Let’s hit the sac.

Grandpa Doug