18-X-2016.: They are here
Long day.
Woke up early in the morning, actually she woke me up but I heard the clock at 6:30. Arrived on time at this 4th nursing home for oma, and Arpi showed up on time as well. Took her downtown, right across the gimnazija, for the checkup by the state commission (actually just one doctor), which is just one of the twenty steps needed in the process of getting her rolled up for the "add on for other's help and care", which you get if you are unable to live without it and you don't make enough money on your own. The social services are in the building of vodotoranj and the rear entrance of it is still in the pedestrian zone, but this little parking is off off limits until 10:00 on workdays, because of this. I saw processions of current kids going to school (they mostly look very nice and kind of cool, even the obvious montagnari, which wasn't the case when I was in their shoes). oma was mostly dozing, sitting shotgun.
Plan A was to have Dragan drive, but decided against that, his car is too big and too new, saxo is more representative for what we need :).
The downtown looks deserted. Since they repaved all of it, all the content is gone - the couple of remaining kiosks, the trees (of course the trees were growing in wrong places, set by the previous set of designers) are small and sparse, there's no reason to be there, unless you have some business with the city hall or banks or insurances or mobile providers. The rest is a few boutiques (but no regular garments or shoeware, just fancy or sports stuff), one remaining bookstore, and cafés. There's some real content in the surrounding small streets and passages, but not on the square or main street.
Visited the serekeš of yet another bank and pressed a wrong button - košava was quite strong and I was cold and didn't quite get the confused language ("without conversion" - sure, then you don't charge me for it, but then when I pressed it, I saw that they were offering 116RSD per 1€, instead of 123). She later told me to forget that bank, that's where most of the small businesses bank so these guys don't care about small accounts and can afford to be not attractive. The attempt at Vojvođanska (don't fall for the name, it's a greek bank now) the other day was better, the rate was 123 but they took 4,2€ fee). Still curious now how the OTP (my allegedly native bank) charges me here in town on the serekeš (since two months ago) and on the card readers in shops (since ten days ago), but did not charge me anything for that lunch in Belgrade last weekend. Hmmm... got to try elsewhere in Vojvodina, just to see which OTP is paying special attention to me.
Worked a bunch but also took a 30 minute nap during the rest of the morning (visited a server in NY, one in Dubai, of course going through Firriver's servers in Liverpool*). The last job didn't quite get through because the 2nd tableupdate() just wouldn't catch on a freshly inserted record, so I had to run it the 2nd time, when there would be no fresh records. But it wouldn't finish before we go, so I gave Jan instructions when and what to do to run it again. Then we left for the airport.
Their plane was on time, and Ender was in a wheelchair. This time pushed by a stewardess (that's stewardship, not just attending flights), but not all the way to the car - probably the wheelchairs got damaged soon on the bad pavement on those 30m to the parking. Actually the last 5m of the ramp are just, ahem, holy.
I'm getting compliments for my driving recently. To pay the parking at the airport, you take a slip from the machine (and it doesn't lower the spikes into the pavement, I never saw that work, but they're worn smooth by now). Then when you want to leave, you take the slip to the kiosk and pay and you get another slip which you insert into the machine on the way out and it lifts the ramp for you (but has already lowered the rear one behind you). Then you start up the slope - clutch, gas, release the handbrake, all in sync. Ender said "I know only three guys who know how to do it with a manual shift". "With a 1,1 liter engine chock full of people and luggage?" - "Not even myself, then".
This was typed by Violet: "asssssascvgfffrdsfsaFCC". They are here.
On 22nd I hopped off to Rile's shop to buy a case. Nena didn't have a case separately, only with a power supply, but then even so it was ridiculously cheap, and it's a 500W model - just 3000 RSD, about 33$. Yeah, right, the „500W“ is the model, the power supply is mere 250W :). It's still sitting on my shelf (as of 2023), because it has a 120mm fan, just the kind that died in one of my older power supplies, so I keep it as a source of brand new spare parts. Still intact.
Along the way, took Ender to some lab to get a blood test done - his INR was 1,72, where referent values are 0,8 to 1,2. Whatever that may mean.
The reason I bought the box is Raja's machine, which they brought in parts - disks, motherboard, graphic card - and would assemble today. Keyboards, mice and monitors I already had spares of. So Ender got to it and did almost all of it by himself, except in a couple of tight corners** where his fingers were too thick to reach.
Then there was a problem with lack of SATA cables. It turns out that I got two with each disk or motherboard, so in my Alibaba's cave, aka bottom drawer of my desk, there's a bunch of those. Ender couldn't believe it - when he was working at Best Buy, they charged 20$ for one.
The thing with the tubes is the processor's cooler, with oil coolant, and the oil is cooled in a separate cooler with a large cooling fan. Can't see where to insert another cool word. The graphic card is that black vertical board, longer than the motherboard itself.
Same evening, Raja had his box and started playing.
Later in the afternoon, I took Nina and Lena to dad's. uncle Staja was already there. Met Zina too.
Before midnight, another dozen shots of a hedgeghog munching cats' food.
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* dunno where I got Liverpool, it turned out to be Manchester
** literally corners, not curves
Mentions: Arpad Gunaroši (Arpi), Dragan Umljanić, Ender Aquila (Ender), Firriver Fertility (Firriver), gimnazija, Jan Brenkelen, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), košava, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Nevena Žaja (Nena), oma, Rista Stančulov (Rile), Ryu (Raja), saxo, serekeš, uncle Staja, Violet, vodotoranj, Zina, in serbian