Cray avoided publicity, and there are a number of unusual tales about his life away from work, termed "Rollwagenisms", from then-CEO of Cray Research, John A. Rollwagen. He enjoyed skiing, windsurfing, tennis, and other sports. Another favorite pastime was digging a tunnel under his home. He attributed the secret of his success to "visits by elves" while he worked in the tunnel: "While I'm digging in the tunnel, the elves will often come to me with solutions to my problem."
One story has it that when Cray was asked by management to provide detailed one-year and five-year plans for his next machine, he simply wrote, "Five-year goal: Build the biggest computer in the world. One year goal: One-fifth of the above."
And another time, when expected to write a multi-page detailed status report for the company executives, Cray's two sentence report read: "Activity is progressing satisfactorily as outlined under the June plan. There have been no significant changes or deviations from the June plan.
Gotta huff those good gasolline fumes directly from the source.