I have clients still asking me if I can place their old 10-MHz XTs with a good home. Got another in just last week. "Can you get our data files off this? And then can you find some use for it so it doesn't end up in a landfill? I hear they recycle things like this in the Orient."

So I told her how in China they pile up the circuit boards and set them on fire to recover the metal, spewing multitudinous noxious, carcinogenic and ozone depleting plastic combustion products into the atmosphere, sickening local children and killing the elderly. Somehow ecofreaks always think it's better everywhere else than here.

Of course, I do tend to annoy ecofreaks. I recall one dingbat spouting to a group of rapt listeners, "Our landfills have a higher copper content than our copper mines" (as if this were a bad thing). I told him, "Um, sounds to me like we're building a strategic metal reserve. We can go in there and extract this stuff when the regular mines run out". This sort of commentary just doesn't seem to be appreciated.