I guess my banking troubles were finally over. There's an automated email from Wachovia showing that I successfully enrolled into online banking app, which means I don't care about having the statement delivered via mail to know how I stand. The app was not bad altogether. It was just a bunch of webpages where I could see what I got - which checks cached, what purchases got charged, when did my salary lay down. I could also pay bills electronically... at least I thought so. It would take eight more years, at least, until the time I'd make a mistake (the water and sewer service went to the same company but different accounts, and I mixed them up), so the checks were returned. Checks. Physical printed checks delivered by snail mail. Just printed on schedule and then bulk mailed. That's the state-of-the-art electronic business?
Well I call that bullshit. It's just another trick for the bank to delay payment to the last possible minute. You schedule a payment on 14th, for example. That's when they take the amount off your account, and move it to bank's. The check is printed and sent. The few days it takes for the check to reach the destination, be entered into their ledger, be submitted to their bank for caching, and then verified and finally allowed to transfer the money from the other bank's account to the recipient's, is the time when the banks (sender's and recipient's) keep the money en route, i.e. on their own accounts, thus enlarging their portfolios enormously.
The bad old inefficient sdk managed a sixfold transaction in 30 minutes. The fools.
And, ah, I couldn't really use that app right away. They said "Within the next five to seven business days you will receive, via U.S. mail, your password to access Online Banking. If you do not receive your password within ten business days of receiving this e-mail, please let us know".
In other news, aman is becoming a serious institution, with the board deciding on how to use the money - they're getting serious aid from some german Stiftung - to at least pay the freelancers who wrote for free so far.
The guys at home are already dealing with something EONS related. This came:
Westleton University DOM
Prescreening Criteria as of 10/20/1999
DO’s automatically get assigned No-Reviewed. (ostheologists or what?)
Central American and Caribbean graduates get assigned status of No-Reviewed.
All applicants elected to AOA get assigned Yes-Pending.
All grads from Boston University, Harvard, Tufts and University of Massachusetts get status of Yes-Pending.
U.S. applicants with USMLE scores >= 220 (3-digit score on Part 1 or Part 2 get assigned status of Yes-Pending.
IMG’s from Ireland, United Kingdom, Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, and Western Europe with USMLE scores >= 86 (2-digit score) get assigned Yes-Pending.
All other U.S. applicants get status of No-Pending.
All other FMG’s get assigned No-Pending.
Nina will have a PTA meeting soon, and I'll have to learn how it's done in the US. There's a floor plan, names of teachers... So it's not just classmaster and parents of kids from his own division, there are no divisions here. They all teach the whole year, though not every kid has every subject and not necessarily at the same teacher, but these groupings are neither permanent nor generally applied - they get regrouped for every class. So you need to know which teachers teach your kid, where their classrooms are, and the schedule of the tour, and on that day you see between four and six of them. It's a bit of a circus, but they manage. Schools are good at that.
At UA, the Foxtools Forever and Dark Beer Club was active, and I announced the big news - I found Heineken Dark. Yeah right, and so soon - then the next time I found it was in 2007. (actually did, once in 2003 - so it's three times total)
Jack emailed shortly, Jack is better, thank you, how's family adjusting to VA? My response, among the rest, "Place is very green, can't find the city from all the forest. We rent a house in a forest (100ft high oaks and walnuts) and it's still within ten minutes walk to the office. Though, I drive to work, so I can jump home for lunch." Speaking of which, once at the lunch break, some time within the last couple of weeks, I went with the guys to a restaurant down the street, just to check it out. Not too shabby, but nothing to write home about. What gave me a little start was when we were about halfway through the meal, and the waitress came by to say "Are you guys okay?". Sounded like she was asking if we were nuts, because of all the noise six programmers can make (I think Pete, Felix, Larry and two more guys). She was actually asking whether the serving is okay and whether maybe we need something. Well, those tiny cultural differences [...years later I saw our waiters do the same. Whether they got that habit then, or I was so rarely in a restaurant previously, is beyond me.]. In the end, it was just 7$ for the meal... but then that would be about 150$ a month. For just lunch for me alone. Ah no, guys, tried it and didn't like it. You have all the background you want, your families and whatnot to support you if shit hits the fan, while we still got nothing. Maybe later.
Searching for bread. American bread is generally shit. Too much water, too much chemistry, too much starch and very little else. Found the pumpernickel bread, which is dark enough but still too soft. At least the only other, apart from the little stick (baguette), which can be eaten without toasting (OK, I wrote "without a toaster" and Škrba ate my soul on that account, "never saw you eat a toaster, with or without bread").
That pumpernickel is rye, I really love rye, and there was also some russian rye bread... but, brother, had I not eaten rye bread in the USSR, I'd perhaps believe this was the right thing. But this is all too spongy, soggy, there's no entertainment for the teeth. Worst of it is that all recipes contain cumin, because they weren't brought here by Germans or Russians, but rather Jews. And they managed to set it as standard, so it's near impossible to find it without. I did find one which said „seedless“ on the bag, but it was actually worse: the cumin inside was ground. Some five or seven years later I found some danish*, which at least smelled right, had no cumin, and was so thick that it came in 4mm slices. Some consolation.
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* danish bread, that is, not a danish... It's kind of insulting, to call a piece of pastry a danish, as if whole Denmark doesn't make anything else.