28-VII-2001.
On 23rd we mostly sat and did nothing, as there was no order, nobody told us what to do. Yesterday, however, Ford went full slave runner mode, but I refused to get upset. Whatever it is, will be done at the speed of possible.
Today, exchanged a bunch of emails with Željko about some thingy called menu manager. I kind of remember we dropped the vpm at the time and went full tilt with Rick's own framework - simpler, faster and easier to code. Too bad we didn't go this way a year ago. We also got fox 6.5, and switched to it - had to distribute the runtimes, too, but it was worth the effort, the six five solved a few problems we had.
Um, no, it's still vpm, I see that I wrote some code (even though it as a saturday !), in something called „Rollover“ for Leevor (for the conversion to the web Hossy?), where I kept complaining of its quirks - it keeps resetting the internal path, among other things.
The other lady from Leevor, not Leanne (though I guess it's all the same, she was probably absent) sent us a screenshot about being „unable to open this person's file“. The way they sent them was very roundabout - they'd do a screenshot, save it to disk (of course in bmp format, the uncompressed abomination that m$ loved so much it was always adding support for other formats much later), create a blank word document (more bloat), attach it to an email (base64 encoded, add 33% to the size). Nobody told them to simply paste the screenshot into the email straight. Well, they were mostly using Outlook (or, worse, the Express version) which wasn't able to do that, for several more years. Anyway, „The message is a misnomer - she actually has the record open, it's the messages table not being found while using the Find button. One more thing for Monday, eh?“.
Drove to Richmond today, to see Go and Ricardo. They aren't with Jose, they're with Ricardo's mother (divorced, but living nearby) and of course she charges them rent. Well, so did Jose but didn't call it that, it was a contribution to the household expenses.
We saw the lady only briefly, she was busy with something - runs some sort of small business. And that was the only time we saw her at all.
Go's hair is still long and red, I guess she's tired of being a blonde or just wants to experiment.
These days I got the latest TotalCmd, 4.51, from the USquad guys, transferred straight to my box through Zero's network. Amazingly, they were still coming even though there were two rounds of layoffs. But then it was mostly the document writers and various other make-work jobs who got fired. Every couple of weeks they'd parade a new consultant who was supposed to save the company from sinking deeper. One of them had the bright idea to fire the customers (!) who stuck to the old Hossy, and keep only those (two, Leevor and one of the Dakotas) who went for the new one.
One of the guys would take a CD with photos and take it to my parents when he returns.
We're getting ready for the vacation. Ten days ago we bought two tents - big and small - and plan to camp on the coast of Atlantic. Just like we always did. We tried to imagine what would camping in the US look like, and assumed it should be more or less the same as it was once in Dalmatia. Of course, we mounted the small tent in the middle of the living room, and for a few days Lena would watch TV from it. We also bought these inflatable mattresses. The big tent can accomodate four people. It's huge, there's something like 2,5x3m common room in the middle, and two optional bedrooms on the sides - they need not be mounted at all.
We'll see. Though I didn't know whether I'll have a job when we return, I frankly didn't really care. Now or never, we go have a vacation.
News from home: dad complains how the rapid alternation of rains and heat destroys his vines, every disease thrives. He tries to spray it with as much protection as he can, but then next rain rinses it. Čarga's dad bragged in the vineyard that his daughter just got married, but mom knew it already - Đuđa was faster.
Mentions: Allan Robin (Ford), Đurđa Rođanović (Đuđa), fox, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Hossy, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Jose Bariero, Leanne Harper, Leevor, Majkrosoft (m$), Ricardo Manuel Bariero (Ricardo), Rick Netter, TotalCmd, USquad, Velemir Prokin (Čarga), VPM, Zero Distance (Zero), Željko Popov, in serbian