24-XI-1996.

Did some work on the form driver routine in GenerAll, and some invoicing for the CD. Seems to be some view, using gen_cat6 (generator for catal6), to review the last batch of invoicing. Probably did that on the spot, so it must have been one of those days with a couple of good coffees, my tozna at the ready, ashtray to the left of the keyboard, and half a dozen ladies (a strictly female office there) chatting.

Late in the evening I worked on the dijeta app, don't know what - the zip won't open anymore, so I have no idea what I did this time.

GenerAll D:\FPD26\PRC\OPISFMM4.PRG v.4.10e FoxPro 2.6a (X)
24.11.1996 11:07:05 80486

Meanwhile in Hungary, Ileš was working on his cable tv billing app using my generators. He generated some views, and thanks to the timestamping I generated into the comments, now I know that.

I guess one of these years I was finally able to buy rolling tobacco at the kiosk. It was classified as pipe tobacco, but unlike most of pipe tobaccoes it wasn't scented, it was just plain tobacco, grown around here, and it cost far less than cigarettes. And it was made in the city - the factory is not far from kinta (or, some say, it could be considered a part of it). It came in 50g bags, identical in shape and size as the standard tobacco bag anywhere.

Politically, this was the time after the first big elections which Sloba lost. Ok, those were just municipal elections, and he lost most of the important cities (we did consider ourselves an important city, being always the third industrial centre in the country). So he called for repeat elections in all of these places, refusing to recognize the results, which led to mass protests, aka The Walk, which lasted well into february of 1997. Eventually they ended the dispute by issuing a special law recognizing the results, thus saving face and sticking to the claim that the elections weren't regular. Well, in their definition regular is what they control; this time the opposition came well prepared and each party had its own tally and they all matched within a couple of hours after closing the ballot sites - what internet we had then, and the already well oiled machinery of cell phones worked flawlessly.

In preparation for the election, the SPS apparatus went for as much public works as possible, which meant that many streets which were never paved finally were. To the width of a single lane. Several streets parallel to ours got that, and never recovered. It's year 2020 when I write this, and they still have that narrow pavement. Our street was somewhat lucky, we have put the kitty to pave our street by ourselves back in 1990, and so it was considered paved. Instead, we got public sewers. Until then, we had our own shitholes (ours is deep enough to have its lid covered with soil). The apparatus awarded the job to some connected buddy's building outfit, and these guys came with a backhoe, dug the ditch, laid the tubes. Ah, laid the tubes on one side of the street; for the other side they just lifted the cobblestones, dug the ditch, put the cobblestones back. Except they didn't know jack about cobbles, so they completely disturbed the drainage, so that part of the street became several lakes after every rain for the next 15 years. Part, as they ran out of money or time when they were about halfway up to us. Next spring the new local authorities hired the good old GIK and their guys dug the rest using simple spades, and dug the tunnels under the pavement without disturbing a single cobble. So we had no mud... and had to use a sidepath through the few unbuilt lots to get to the next street, to avoid wading through the puddles.

The current SPS's buddies' team had finished their job by this time, and filled the ditch, but didn't quite tamp the soil on it. I had the pleasure to watch a backhoe push itself out of it, because one whole caterpillar sank.

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Mentions: catal6, City doctors (CD), dijeta, GenerAll, Ileš Notaroš, kinta, tozna, in serbian