10-VII-2009.
Go moved to Duffy Duck, i.e. she got a writ that she's now officially employed at Warner Bros. When she showed the paper to us over skype, I was fully expecting the sign to swivel and let out Bugs Bunny with a carrot... The salary is the same, but they have other benefits - longer vacation, and some bonuses for success, i.e. whenever a game is finished, it is calculated according to the number of years of work on that game, so it may drip. They still don't know what next will they do. They need to rework a few major characters, becuase they conceptually don't fit into being published under Warner's logo. One of them is quite hers (actually half are, and the garments for most) so she'll have fun with that this summer, and then when september comes the art labor should be practically finished. Until then they may possibly think what to do next. They may take over some of the games being done by two other Warner's studios in town, that Warner also bought recently, because those studios don't have the technical base that they have, and teaching their staff to do it right now would take a lot of time and money.
Soon later I heard the details of „conceptually don't fit“ - when Warner took over the firm, their legal staff found out that these characters may resemble some well known faces a tad too closely, and these may become a problem (or may try to wring some money out of them in court), so they decided to rework them into dissimilar. The new proposed faces came from Go and her immediate boss - all three of hers passed, none of his. Seems to be he was off the concept or some such. Well, that was the first level of decision, now they're waiting for an amen from above.
The garden is making progress. This is the only shot where I got it all, well most of it, in one frame - Juliška's shed, and the cucumber which climbed up it and diverged from it half a meter to the clothesrack, and the tomato to the right of it, which is already a meter and a half tall and blossoms on its sixth stratum, while the first one is now beginning to ripen at last.
Some time this summer we had an interesting event with the woodworker bee (which is probably not called that at all, it looks more like some kind of bumblebee, I don't know from which pinky finger I pulled this name). The poles holding the back yard door being replaced, that is one was replaced but the one with the hinges stayed, and we leaned the former to it, these bees have started nesting in that leaned one. They drill such a perfectly round hole with smooth walls, and the sawdust they throw out is finer than flour, a true miracle. Not this time, this time they nestled in the handlebar of the purple bicycle, which we leant to the rear wall, right under the kitchen window. We didn't lock that bike because it was junk, I left it to cannibalize it when I get around to fixing the other two bikes. So one day we two sat there, sipping coffee and smoking, when we noticed that bee buzzing around, aiming for various rod-like things - watering hose, broom handle - and we started giving it mock advice „hey, girl, not there, that's not hollow, go for the bicycle, that's where your home is“... and then we noticed the bike wasn't there. We rolled laughing, them idiot thieves stole an unusable bike...
David is still in Italy, with the translator girl of his (who is probably a doctor), and he showed the app to some clinics there, and they immediately went into „ah yes but we also have an outlying division in Switzerland“. Also, more news from the fair, our main competition seems to be lagging behind. In a few places they can't wait to kick them out, in a few others they, immediately after their visit, they called us to show ours. And a few of their prominent old customers have taken interest in us, those that they used to brag about... so it altogether sounds like we're on the roll.
Jan is less frequently present these days, while moving into the new house.
Correspondence with my folks...
As far as we understood, Ender doesn't have a permanent work position, if he has the time to hustle motorbikes or cars.
The whole last year he didn't put together more than a month or two anywhere - even when he was working in the neighborhood. The problem is somewhat circumspect... he's practically a victim of the system. Fayes had this sudden idea to buy a new house even though they haven't paid the first one yet. This new house is a huge... house of cards. The same spruced-up plank cabin like the rest, with big windows etc, but it's impossible to heat up in winter. Their electricity costs about three times more than ours, and they barely manage to have a couple of rooms warm enough, the rest of them simply won't - draft somewhere, thin walls, skimped on insulation to profit more. The house was built for market, the spit and polish technology. And he started getting sick - as a mechanic he worked more or less outside (the garage doors are kept open and generally sized 3x3 meters, and these garages are like hangars, four such doors open on the average), and then started catching flu at home too. Then the doctors got him, found he'd had pressure, and started force feeding him meds, the more expensive the better. He acquired water in lungs, swollen legs, gout, and from meds sideeffects became prone to falling asleep in any position at any time. One doctor, a kin Philippino, gave him the ordinary lassix (same as the doc in Japan did) instead of the expensive junk, and when he went for a refill, they wouldn't give him without him going to a specialist first - while he sneaked a peek on their screen where it said that he won't be let anywhere near that Philippino doctor. Because he prescribed a cheaper med to his countryman.
Then he'd go home to squirm in pain or simply sleep it off, stunned by the meds, and gets fired. Another time he saved his shop boss from some trouble, which made her look very stupid (well, the event really was her fault) so he got a kick[-in-the-ass] ticket the first chance she got. He was training in yet another shop, to actually start working for pay when the business takes off, which it didn't.
We've put him back in order mostly, he shaved a few kilos off, it's been months since he fell asleep in the middle of a converation, he became much more nimble, doesn't cough.... just to push through the next winter without flu or anything on the lungs, and we're at ease.
Matter of fact, the heating situation Ender explained later - when that was built, Fayes insisted on putting the main living room together with the one above it, which does look great (confirmed later when we saw it), but this disturbed the airflow and the upstairs thermostat never came to terms with the one on the ground floor, so the heating and cooling work senselessly. Ender's room is above the garage, so not warmed up from below, and seems to be in a cul-de-sac of the out-of-kilter airflow, so the AC rarely visits there.
Mentions: David Berton, Ender Aquila (Ender), Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jan Brenkelen, Juliška, Rosanda Aquilla (Fayes), in serbian