On 09/10/2014 12:28 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:
....

I did make the mistake of taking a piece of test equipment and a
computer (this was in the pre-laptop days, when a portable computer
was more like the size of a standard carryon suitcase). I didn't have
any trouble with Canadian customs, but somebody forgot to file the
right documents with US customs for the gear. Due to time
constraints, I had to leave the gear and have the customer ship it
back to us. To get it back into the US, we had to pay import duties
that amounted to more than the stuff was worth. Unfortunately, there
was proprietary information on the computer -- otherwise we would have
let US customs keep it.

Oh, I've a zillion of those kinds...was pretty new w/ a new firm thru
which was running consulting contracts (after the coal analyzer gig)
doing coal flow measurement testing with utilities to develop a flow
monitor that could be used in individual coal lines to the boiler. One
cooperating utility was in England. So, when got ready to do the
testing on their unit this new company had a shipping department and
shipped products all over the world so I figured they'd know what to
do/needed be done. Turns out that was bum assumption; they shipped it
but without any customs paperwork. Took me most of two days at the
import impound station at the Stansted airport to get it out from behind
the cage at DHL...

As a very young lad out of school only a few years, met a fellow at an
ANS conference in Toronto from Chalk River Laboratories after presenting
a paper on employer's incore neutron detectors with which we were having
some issues. This fellow's area of research happened to deal with
similar detectors so he offered some free testing in their facilities to
see if could uncover some root causes. Anyway, not knowing any better,
I just rolled it up and put it in a bubble-envelope and put it in first
class outgoing mail. My they got upset in receiving when opened it at
Chalk River!!! I got quite a bit of feedback on that one...and he
never did learn anything useful to help us in our problems, besides.

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