02-X-2019.
Went to Čankovo on 28th and saw a miracle: the sour cherries are blossoming again.
On 30th I finally deployed the new aluminium ladder to cut the branches off the rear apricot, the one overhanging the chicken coop. These branches broke from the big snow last winter, they just got too heavy. Most of them fell into Juliška's yard, but we retrieved them and I later cut them. Not that we need firewood, but can use some, it gives a different feeling. Interestingly, the gas heating pushes more heat upstairs, as it pumps warm water sideways into the main vertical pipe. The solid fuel feeds the line from the basement.
Of course, Linda had to try the ladder.
In the afternoon we went downtown with the girls, on bikes. The weather was beautiful, so we let them play with the fountain. Other kids envied them for being allowed to get wet. We just squeezed their garments and dressed them again, it's not cold even so.
These days I'm trying out the replacement nokla, a C3, which is about the last model with Symbian, and about the first model with touchscreen. It arrived on 27th, from a classifead ad on the kupujem-prodajem (I buy - I sell) website. Makes solid video, is much faster as a photo camera, but lets in some parasite light from the side and there's no serbian keyboard app, so I decided to burn in some compatible version. In the following weeks I gathered what tools I could find, and I think I got everything together, but... There's a requirement to delete, inside the phone's filesystem, two system directories where some important files are, and it seems the only way to change those files is to delete all of that and let it be rebuilt automatically when the OS boots. Which I couldn't do, can't get permission to even see those directories, let alone delete them, so the end result was a brick. There's another installer which could do all that, but it won't even install on gugolj (which is the only 32-bit OS we have, a W7). Could probably do on the old Toshiba from 2007, as it has an XP, but transfering files to it is a problem, it already destroyed one flash drive so thoroughly, that neither linux nor W7 nor W10 would confess that it exists. For that occasion I eventually copied the few files to sGradlj.com and download them from there. There's always a way to transfer files, it's just a matter of will and patience.
Nina gave her two week notice to Firriver. David was happy that she at least gave notice, unlike me, and was unhappy for all other reasons. Jan was probably pulling some more hairs from his head but OTOH said he understands her position (even though she said absolutely nothing about the reasons). The nice thing about working without a contract like we did is that although we have about zero legal rights or protection, we likewise have no obligation either. The whole risk is the last paycheck.
BTW, when I wrote that invoice on 28-VII-2019., I said
This is the last. I've deducted the three days. I don't mind if it doesn't get paid.
It was nice while it lasted. For most of the years, it's been a genuine pleasure. But I was always the guy who'd leave the party before anyone pukes.
Well about "deducted three days" - by my calculation, it would have been 4516€, but I made a typo when entering the amount in the sheet, so I billed Firriver 5416€ instead. I had a nagging feeling I saw the wrong amount before it closed, but I adamantly refused to fix my last bug - I'm not working anymore, let someone else fix my bugs now. But no, they didn't mind, they paid the extra 900€ just like that. It's as if I invented a severance package, or that I was finally this once paid for the bug and not for fixing it.
Mentions: 28-VII-2019., Unofficially retired, Čankovo, David Berton, Firriver Fertility (Firriver), gugolj, Jan Brenkelen, Juliška, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nokla, sGradlj.com, in serbian