Posted on 07/17/2012 4:02:07 PM PDT by Nachum
Val Patterson said his life motto was "Anything for a laugh." And after the 59-year-old died of throat cancer last week, he owned up to a few humorous events from his life.
Patterson's obituary in The Salt Lake Tribune begins like many others, with a loving tribute to his wife, Mary Jane, and recollections of a life lived in full. But then things get more interesting, as Patterson notes, "Now that I have gone to my reward, I have confessions and things I should now say."
First up, the former engineer admits he never earned the advanced degree from the University of Utah that gained him entrance to his chosen professional career:
"What happened was that the day I went to pay off my college student loan at the U of U, the girl working there put my receipt into the wrong stack, and two weeks later, a PhD diploma came in the mail. I didn't even graduate, I only had about 3 years of college credit. In fact, I never did even learn what the letters 'PhD' even stood for."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Sounds like a real jerk to me.
Great. I wonder what kind of engineer he wasn't. I hope I never need to drive across any bridges he worked on.
I wonder if Obama will fess up in his obituary. He’s certainly pranked more people than this guy.
Yes, it’s a funny story, but just maybe his confession would have done him more good if it was on his knees during his lifetime rather than in the paper after his death.
That was my first thought too and I'm glad I wasn't the first one to say it. Getting banned from Disneyland and Sea World doesn't exactly sound like a nice guy to me. Of course, he was a smoker so he probably enjoyed annoying others and not caring what they thought about him.
Great. I wonder what kind of engineer he wasn’t. I hope I never need to drive across any bridges he worked on.
Most engineers I have had to work with had degrees but lacked aptitude. If this guy had the aptitude he was probably above average.
That's a victory dance for all the stuff he got away with now that nobody can do anything about it.
He may have been a lot of things, but "honest" was not one of them.
Ya, I'm sure that is why he smoked, he just like to annoy people.
When did so many freepers lose their sense of humor?
Was this part of the joke?
what makes you think he wasn't a competent engineer?
Well there is some evidence he wasn’t strong in the professional ethics department...
Granted. Then too, he was a practical joker. That could make for some interesting bridge design.
“Of course, he was a smoker so he probably enjoyed annoying others and not caring what they thought about him. “
I gave up those nasty cigarettes well over 20 years ago.
To this day I can’t stand being around annoying tobaccophobes.
And I am not one but I have spent a good deal of time in bars and restaurants which contained both smoking and non-smoking sections and my personal experience is that smokers are less considerate of others and often act more like jerks. That's a generality, of course. Every rule has exceptions.
But I do believe that his personality and smoking addiction were not unrelated.
Something about falsifying his credentials. But maybe all the work that goes into an advanced degree is just busy work after all.
Patterson attended Junior and Senior High School with my DH.
This confession is really not that much of a shock.
As licensed Professional Engineer who worked from the bottom to the top and took 12 years to complete my degree, I can say you have hit the nail on the head. Know a lot great technicians who could out “engineer” the PEs they work for.
non-sequitur. If one does or does not falsify credentials, it has no impact on the quality of work required by an advanced degree program.
for those of you in Rio Linda, while I would question someone's work ethic who falsified credentials, I certainly would not consider lacking an advanced degree a basis for doing so.
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