Like many fathers, I once had hopes of one of my children follow in my footsteps. When my son was four years old he even publicly declared his goal of becoming an engineer when he grew up. Of course, upon closer examination this desire was more connected to a recent family outing than a burning desire to enter the field. His mother did get quite the argument telling him he was too young to decide on a career but he stopped her in her tracks by reaching under his pillow, putting on his new hat, and insisting that he had to become an engineer because Grandma had spent so much on the hat. We had spent the day at the Pennsylvania train museum. I had another opportunity eight years later when a big project at work required lots of simple part drawings. The kid was bored and a deal was worked out for me to pay him to do the work. He mastered CAD very quickly, earned enough to buy a new mountain bike, and spent enough time on the job to decide engineering wasn’t for him. So imagine my surprise when his Facebook feed recently featured a rotating epicyclic gear train he created “for fun.” He has a very successful ”day job” as a graphic designer for a leading newspaper’s electronic platform but does computer aided art as a hobby. No “legacy” entrée to the gear trade, he still has a few “involutes” stirring in him, I guess. Perhaps I should blame those famous Leonardo di Vinci covers Gear Technology featured during his formative years for his interest in an artistic career over following a path that occasionally required his father to do CAD work under a beach umbrella while on vacation. https://www.facebook.com/bustbright/videos/2079740788984292/UzpfSTEyNjEzOTc3ODU6MTAyMTg3ODQ2NDY0NjgxOTQ/