Freeday 6 August 1999
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Pic of the day: This picture of me was taken by Ageless Girl, on our
last day in the IBM teaching center. We were agreed that it would not
be proper to have a picture of her on my website, even though I am sure
most of you would have preferred this by far. She did like the camera,
though, sort of. She is a good and respected hobby photographer, though
she does not make money from it apart from the occasional award or some
such. This was her first time with a digital camera, so may not
betray her talent. Having me to photograph may not exactly help either.
We were scheduled to go at 15 (3PM) and Ageless Girl was quite anxious to catch her plane, which would take her to a birthday she much wanted to attend. After half an hour of tarrying, suddenly there was a flurry of activity, and at the designated time a likeable young man from HQ was still chatting. We had everything we needed, and I urged her to go. Finally she did. I hope she caught her plane. Now, you're probably sick and tired of reading about this nameless young lady. Certainly you've all come here to read about my continuing humiliations and my many imagined illnesses. No? Huh? Well, I'll try to keep you updated if I meet her again after the weekend. Anyway, I was given a CD with teach-yourself programs for Word97 and Excel, as well as some general info on our new proprietary systems and Outlook 98. Finally the guys at HQ are drifting towards the mainstream of computing. I am slightly encouraged by this, while others think it is all just a camouflage: Make it look like we've got new modern equipment, while the old flaky software continues to run behind the rosy Windows.
Time will show. Probably it will be forgotten in 100 years.
Sitting here on the train rolling down towards Kristiansand, I wonder just how many e-mail and Usenet messages wait to roll into my PC. I have only been gone 3 days, but that is the longest I've been offline for a long time. Actually there was an appropriate phone socket on the hotel, but the prices were horrible and furthermore I did not want to get any complications to the tab. Which by default was paid by the employer. I think I slept more these two nights than on weekends. But the sleep was shallow, from the barking of humans in the center of Oslo. I have not lived in cities, so these sounds still catch my attention. I look forward to coming home now. |