I've spoken to him on the phone several times before but never met him. Heck of a nice guy, I may add. He was never too busy to take the time.
Engineers can be a trip. As a Network Administrator of ~30 years I've supported everyone from the Janitor to the CEO of Fortune 500 Companies but the ones I always found most interesting were the Engineers. I sat in on a meeting once with about eight of these guys and they are on a COMPLETELY different plane when brainstorming. So I can appreciate your comment of "...still recovering".
The single most fascinating Engineers I've ever personally spoken with at length were Royden Sanders and Dan Blitz. The former was for all intents and purposes the Father of viable ECM (Sanders Associates) and the latter having done serious development of LORAN.
But Bob, he could always 'come down' to my level, as it were. One heck of a nice guy. How old is Bob now?
Thanks,
Lyman