10-I-2001.
That time when the corkscrew broke during doček, we missed the first grocery but got a new on on the second, a waiter's type - pretty much like the pre-war one, differs by having a square beer opener on one end. There were three kinds of those, 2, 4, and 6 dollar kind (the expensive one has a thick plastic handle and a rubber plating against slipping), and while I was taking that one lady asked someone about the wine openers. I showed her, and she asked whether I saw one with two handles. Nope, not even looking for one, it broke in my hands. So did mine, says she...
The other day, emails with mine:
He says he talked with Greg and Ford, who, namely, have a plan that early in the year they should visit Zrenjanin as a four member team, comprised of them two, one woman and you.
Nice of him to make deals, and if he ever told me anything on the subject, I'd be nicely surprised, I'd probably faint of excitement. I think I'll undermine the whole thing, may Brlja and Zero carry themselves into three nice*, I'm just waiting for something black on white from Salt Lake and then to play some sort of little Chinese's revenge. I'm really fed up by the one and the other as well by now.
In regards of the travel, we'd prefer a summer vacation, on our cost and without the faces from work. It'd be more like the fabled 'vacation in Baška Voda' used to be, when you keep seeing the same faces from the job and from home. I'd rather not deal with them anymore, because everything's so murky and uncertain and keeps changing hourly, and I'm kept out of the loop.
And the lady who'd appear I think I know which one she may be, just the one I'd be missing, thanks.
When Joška returned, he told differently. Namely, that [you] would bring the children to continue school here, because it's better and more complete and higher quality, while being far cheaper than there. We would like that, because at least the children would be with us. I don't know if it's just you thinking [out loud] with Joška or was it a serious plan.
I think he got it a shade sideways, the stress was on „no matter that our school is both better and cheaper, when now there's not a theory** that they'd be able to hook back into it after switching to this“. I think m$ and Nina would have trouble with plugging into the programme, and Go would have to start from scratch. Now it is what it is, this american stuff, no matter how much lighter and thinner, counts for more around the world. Money bores [where a drill wouldn't].
...
Those 20% [which Avai would keep] are what Brlja and I agreed here, but he gave it such a tepid support, that it was clear on the spot that he's substantially opposed to it. It doesn't matter what of his talk he means seriously, and what are just test balloons, it's still important to hear what he has to say. And the „why would Avai get some while someone else works“ - well, he and I are that Avai, and that money would make workers happier, wouldn't it? Ah, the cheepskate.
About the Salt Lake job:
Mail was exchanged, and we spoke on the phone several times, and I sent the scanned documents (i.e. everything in electronic form, no physical papers, which is all valid here, there's rarely any situation where a paper isn't valid without a stamp - worst case is that a copy needs to be verified by a notary public, which bank's notary does for me for free as I'm bank's customer). The most important paper is a copy of the original visa request, which is at the lawyer's [Jack] on Florida. I wasn't sure whether he'd give it just like that (i.e. who's the more important customer, me who brought him the case, or Zero who pays for it), so I went through their son [Jack], with whom I talked as early as the time of bombing, and who is again pals with my future boss (this continent is a little town, everyone knows each other :). So then, the son firs estimated that the old man won't give it just like that, as it would be disloyal to the customer, but then a couple of hours later he reported no problem, and already put his father and my future boss together.
By the way, we fucked up one thing: there's a winter olympiad in Salt Lake next year. My disgust to organized sports and other forms of show business, this may mean an increased amount of money in town (and a seasonal increase in prices of everything) and a chance for us too, even some job for her and the girls.
[all of the above was in semi-haircut latin, where it'd keep the š and ž, but completely screw up č, ć, đ, as something out there, probably a m$ email client, would do that.]
On UA there's an already longish dispute on whether fox should be a part of the next Visual studio dot net, which is a set of runtimes common to multiple languages (some vbasic dot net was mentioned, and some cis, aka sea sharp) so there's now the dilemma whether fox should be fit into all of it and thus lose what makes it itself, namely the local cursors and database engine and a dozen other gadgets and contraptions that no other language out there has, or should it develop independently, in its own direction.
There was already a lot of pressure from m$, programmers were bought off (e.g. MTV, who was really a loud proponent of the independent development option, because then we don't have to wait for the next Studio to be out, we're a smaller and independent product with far less bureaucracy etc etc). The other side of that coin is that outside of the Studio the fox will be even less visible, with even fewer customers, and the story that it should be exterminated would be even easier to sell.
Just today the thread #00461780 was launched with exactly that title, „should fox be in VS.net?“. Because it used to be in, at the time of version 6, and now the seven is about to be published, so the question of whether it should be published separately, with everything else remaining as it was, or should its motor be replaced and should it then use, instead of its own code, what dot net has, which isn't quite ready for the limelight at the moment. Though, there'd be some help in all the folks in the dot net team who used to work in fox team previously.
Even Grant joined the discussion, very mindful of what he'd say and what not, „m$ did not publish HOW would VS be accessible once it's issued, including whether individual languages would be available in separate editions“. To which someone asked „well then why isn't [fox] seven published right away, what's the delay?“.
And it won't have a DWIM() function (do what I mean [not what I say]). Says Jo, „that's for C# alone, there you'll have the main menu with only two options to choose from, DWIM and Exit“.
Of course, Jan found a bug immediately, said when you have two combos with some code in the .addRow() method, and a timer which does nothing, the six (and probably seven as well) starts consuming the processor in large amounts...
M. Eshers said „let's not put the cart ahead of the horse, let's first convince m$ to give us a honest fighting chance to make them some money. Let's compose an open letter, where those who don't have the time to join the discussion can easily chime in“. That would have to be aimed at the upper echelons of m$, where the fox is seriously neglected - it's not that it's not advertised to customers, it's that most of the workers there have no idea that the company has such a product.
As early as the next day, Grant announced that „what, no more bugs? Seems we can start delivering the seven...“.
That evening we went to Kroger for groceries around 20:30, as we largely got used to the idea that it works day round and thus in the evening there's no crowd, the shelves are already being restocked for the next day, there's a lot of everything, specially parking space.
The stupid box behind is a liquor shop. It offers about 200 kinds of beer and who knows how many kinds of everything else. We went in, I'd say, once... and don't know whether we bought anything, there's too much choice and I seriously doubt the freshness of it all.
Rick sent a shot of himself behind a sizable desk, laptop in front of him, a larger mobile, a monitor (looks like something of 19 inches at least, if not bigger) and a keyboard. Suit, tie...
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* unspoken because everybody knows it, „three nice mother's/aunt's cunts“
** widely accepted shorthand for „not a theoretical chance“
Mentions: Allan Robin (Ford), Avai, doček, fox, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Goran Staković (Brlja), Grant Laurel, Greg Reubenthal, Jack Baran, Jack Baran sr, Jan Brenkelen, Joška Apro, Jo Wolk, Majkrosoft (m$), MTV, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Rick Netter, UbiquAgora (UA), Zero Distance (Zero), in serbian