23-VII-2003.
The eight of us telecommies have last evening, after landing at the airport in two batches, rent cars at Orion's cost - the first batch already did and left, and now so did we and kicked the pedal to Cueblo, into that „Bachelor's pad“. Few faces missing from last time - first of all the big guy who used to work once for a few months on a base at the south pole, and that other guy with british accent and german surname (zeitz, which would be slavic zajc aka rabbit, which I ignored and confabulated that it was yet another case of semiliterate clerk on Ellis island, must have been Zeiss, which he welcomed wholeheartedly and went further claiming that his grand-something-father was a cofounder of the lenswork business, sure, yeah right). On account of the former I wasn't surprised to see him unseen, he didn't come across as really a programmer, more of a „and I can code too“; of the other I had no impression at all, except he was maybe just faking it while he could.
In the morning four of us got into one car, the others into the other, and drove first a few blocks south of the office, which is at the south business zone of Cueblo anyway, to get a breakfast. This time why not, I never earned this much, let's see what do they take. On the parking lot, some missus had a tiny dog, lighter than a chihuahua, actually larger but weighing less. The legs and tail were more like drawn lines than leaving an impression of containing actual bones. A cartoon. But it's a live creature too.
At breakfast I see that part of the gang was already there and eating mufljuzi (v. house dictionary) with blueberries and coffee... okay, can do, but I still think I took something else. Then the whole Colorado gang came (e.g. Emily, left on the photo, and K.M., don't know which one I'd gladly spread on bread first, possibly both). Then off to work, everyone carrying one's own laptop (owned by Orion, of course), which we left in the cars, there being about zero chance that they'd be stolen, everything around is flat and barren, nothing grows there, and barely anyone ever passes by this time of day, save for the likes of us.
For smoke breaks I equipped myself - I'd go down & out in front of the offices, sometimes carrying a printed piece of code, donning my new polarized sunshades. Because sun was hitting it to the hilt, not a cloud in sight. The air was so dry that the sky was pure blue, and seen at the proper angle through polarizers - [the] nape* due north - it was bluer and derker than jeans. Of footwear I brought only slipper, what need would I have for anything else.
That Myers-Briggs test, which I mistakenly shoved into 13-III-2003., was probably yesterday. The end result came to everyone by email, or maybe even on paper (or for which pretty [dick] would I put it among scanned stuff for august), so I can look at it at ease. With me in the same square (meaning we lean the same way in each of four groups of questions) are the director, one of Mikes (the one from Colorado), Bill M. (a foxer or Ceer). In the near neighborhood are my roommate, my neighbor (from Road Iland :), four considerable girls from support, and some two guys from the west coast. Jake is whole two steps away. Eh, frail is the memory, weak is the knowledge.
At least the description in my square is commending, „Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving new and challenging problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to one new interest after another“. Of course, this can be construed as its opposite - „rushes in, claptraps, can't finish one thing before starting another, phantasizes and drags others into it...“, just like the celebratory poems in other fifteen squares can.
The lunch was usually brought, someone would go and fetch pizza or burrito, and whatever fols order (they pay, I guess, don't remember if that was on the house too, guess it was, seeing how everything else was). So okay, try the burrito. Theeeere, finally something properly hot, guess I finally found myself south enough. (What about Houston, nothing of the kind there, eh?)
Later in the afternoon the whole company went to a lengthy party at Jake's, in the hills. Astounding - it's all green, none of the moonscape in sight, he even had his share of lakeshore. The mansion was huge, with a glass wall two storeys high, facing the terrace and the lake, all wood of course, influence of Frank Lloyd Wright plainly visible. Terrace done in two-three levels, mostly following the terrain, and is covered with planks... but not of wood, it's some recycled plastic. It has texture like papier mache, and heats up incredibly, it gets hotter than mediterranean limestone.
There was lots of beer. American, though, but then when in Rome do as the Romans do (to their slaves...). There was food, of which I only remember it was served on the same paper plates as in the office (except that burrito, which came neatly wrapped in aluminium foil, therefore properly warm). There were some kids too, it being at a home and including the Jake's adopted son, the little Majka (mother, in serbian... Micah as a name will never fit into my head). The three of them were such an incongruous trio, he a schwabian light brown, she a scottish white-and-black proud big girl and the kid of, it seems, mexican origins. There I learned Jake is also a pilot, passed the driver's, and has his little plane, a Cessna. So that programming does pay.
Actually, Cueblo was slated to fail and vanish, because in the times when fast internet was installed everywhere, still on cable then, too early to think of optic, this isn't Hungary, c'mon, not one of the telecommunications companies found it profitable to build networking here. So the local businesses pulled up, invested some money, and founded a nonprofit which built the first connections, and then they got lucky. It's not only Orion which was founded on that basis, but also a bunch of other companies doing business on the web or through it, and the economic nosedive was delayed for some worse times. And the initial gang saw some nice windfall, ergo a little plane.
Two more guys wore sandals over socks, which I thouhgt was thoroughly not kosher. And I think I never saw it anywhere else but here. In the middle of summer, at that.
After we moved on to digestion, the guys wanted to go play golf, and tried to convince me to try, „you don't know what you're missing“. I held to the true old defintion of golf as a spoiled stroll and, as usual, preferred to stay in female company. The girls were in good mod and looking cute, all of them. Love the girls in summer dresses (song by „Haustor“). One Vietnamesse, „call me Pepper - one guy oncelearned to pronounce my name right, but got so involved in it that he completely forgot what he wanted“, got specially attached to Jake Browne and me, „my boys“, and she weighed fortyfive with bed (the usual phrase quotes „fifty kilograms with bed included“, but she was also small), a sparrow, and the two-three small beers she downed have really got to her head. And she leaned on teaching us how to pronounce her real surname, not the english placeholder she used, Huang. For one, the ng is silent, not pronounced at all. What remais is ua (as in 'why' without the 'y'), preceded with a whiff of butterfly's wing flap in place of the aitch. For slavic speakers, a regular h at quarter strength. Of course, I managed to pronounce it right, three times no less, and she was astonished. And, by the way, the famous Nguyen, which our teevee speakers broke their tongues with for years, is pronounced like wn, or w'nn :), but that one I already learned from our downstairs housemate, three years ago.
The dispersal occurred before sunset, because what little road there was through the hills wasn't marked well at all, and there were a few drivers from Colorado who didn't know it by heart. In the evening nobody was eager to go out, two parties in a day would be too much, and we didn't even peek into the fridge to see if there's beer.
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* yes, nape of MY neck, who else's, and nape of what possibly else... sorry about your language.
Mentions: 13-III-2003., Cueblo, Emily Hoss, house dictionary, Jake Bauer, Orionware (Orion), in serbian
10-II-2026 - 7-IV-2026