Travelling about

Date: Oct 15, 1993

ok, so I haven't written for awhile. Mostly because nothing exciting has happened and my life is so dismally boring.

The last mail I sent related how the second theft relating to my useless DECstation that I'm supposed to be using (but can't because memory and enough disk wasn't ordered for it) was that the small internal boot disk had disappeared. Well, when I returned from the Usenix conference in Cincinatti a few months back - the whole machine was gone !!! About a month later when I went to help somebody with their DECstation, I went to dig up the docs that came with my stolen machine, and now - they're gone too!!

So I'm still using this LOUD crappy LOUD Sun LOUD SPARCstation II that I made a deal for. I've managed to get out of supporting Sybase and other junk that was part of the deal. Since I'm a sys-admin who isn't allowed to know the root password to anything (despite me occasionally cracking them for laughs), you can imagine what a busy person I am! Oh yeah, I got a raise a couple months ago for being such a hard worker.

So I stole this great office that belonged to an American responsible for setting up funding for the new European BioInformatics Intstitute in Cambridge, England that our department will evolve into. I've had it now for 2 or 3 months. I'll get booted out real soon when they try to stick me into the evil KILLER magnet room. Well, they've shielded it now, and then they went and painted it (which I didn't ask for), so now the paint fumes in that window-less office with no air-circulation can kill as well. But since the Office Police can never seem to find me physically, I haven't been thrown out yet.

I went to visit my good buddy Dermot in the Greatest City in the World - New York. It was great. Even the night I got sick when Dermot kept forcing margaritas down me in some super-hip expensive bar. I thought that when the fabulous waitress comes around and asks you if you want another drink, that you have to buy one or she'll beat you up - but Dermot told me later that you don't. The traffic patterns, and people behavior was real cool. Now I know what it means when somebody tries to sell you a 'plate' in Central Park (plate, fork, spoon, etc are code-words for various drugs).

And the washrooms there were the most disgusting I've ever seen! And I saw the bullet hole in Dermots elevator. I was on top of the World Trade Centre and didn't get blown up, and saw Samurai armour and weaponry in the something Museum. Book stores were great. Got some great t-shirts for as low as $5. Saw the stock-broker catchers on the stock trading buildings. In one single taxi-ride, we had more close-call accidents than I've ever had in my 20 years of driving. We almost rammed another taxi doing a U-turn across 4 lanes, and almost ran down about 4 guys that ran out from no-where that looked alot like they just ripped off somebody and were trying to get away. Each had a big bundle of stuff as they tried suicide runs into the street.

After about the 3rd day I finally started to get the hang of when you can try and cross the street despite it being red in all directions. People always honk if nothing is happening, and when something does happen, they just stick their head out the window and start screaming. The really strange behavior, like drooling, and babbling while trying to stick a chipmunk down your shirt, while wearing truly strange clothes, was explained in that some large number (thousands?) of people were just thrown out of the mental institutions. I had heaps and heaps of fun and can now understand the attraction to the Village.

I went to a DECUS conference in Montreux lately. Waited so late to book the hotel that I ended up staying in Lausanne. So when I went to leave, the hotel tried to send my, and my colleague 'Ralph's, luggage to Moscow. So 'Ralph' and I sat in the lobby of this killer expensive hotel (we were armed with the EMBL Mastercard number which makes life real good) trying to look as miserable as possible ('Ralph' is real good at this) so that the hotel manager was on his knees begging us not to call the police and offering us another free night and booze and stuff. Unfortunately, they recovered our luggage a few hours later before it left Switzerland, so that we never made it to supper luggage-less to get a free meal. Oh well. It was still free to us, thanx to the aforementioned Mastercard number. I had steak every day. And smoked salmon and booze and other necessities for hard working people like me and 'Ralph'. Some people here think 'Ralph' and I deliberately hid our luggage and claimed it disappeared with the Russians' stuff just to get a free night. sheesh! Some people...

So throughout the day, even after we got our luggage back, porters kept showing up with other peoples luggage and asking if it was ours. They liked me and 'Ralph' so much that the bar stayed open later every night so we could sample their booze. 'Ralph' makes me look like an amateur at spending money. I heard he just bought a Dali painting while passing thru Belgium.

I went to Cambridge, England for a week. Sorta business too I guess. Nothing too weird happened there. Book stores were great. So was all the dessert. I bought a great tie with the bottom of it with a cartoon of the Incredible Hulk with this monster machine gun blasting away. I wore it to an interview the other day. Nobody likes my ties... I had to go to about 20 bank machines before one took my German bank card. (yeh, I left home without my VISA charge card and took almost no UK money)

I take off to Paris for the Interop conference in a week or so. I finally got around to bribing my secretary yesterday to book it for me. Hotels are KILLER expensive! I decided to be real conscientious and book the cheapest one, which was around $200/night. The 2nd cheapest one was $400. Of course the conference hotel booking place probably only tells you of the best places since they know you've got heaps of money, so I'm probably staying in the cheapest 5 star hotel. I've got the Mastercard number again. oboy.

Probably a week or so after that, I'll take off to Cambridge again. Sorta paid-for holiday where I get a free week or so to determine if I can stand living in Cambridge when my department moves there next year.

The Union Bank of Switzerland went and nuked my Swiss bank account. They sent me a letter saying if I didn't put big bucks into it within a month, they were gonna close it. Unfortunately, the letter took 5 weeks to get to me. It is 100 miles after all... Anyway, I yelled at them and got it back. But I had great fun in Lausanne later trying to use my card and machines would gobble it in the middle of the night and not give it back.

You know the stories you hear about blonde swedish sex-fiend babes? well, ours aint blonde.

So I was holding off going on the Autobahn until I bought new rear tires for my car because I thought the old leaky bald ones were unsafe. Now I got new rear tires. Pieces of crap. Wasn't allowed to buy anything good:

I wanna buy some tires
What kind do you want?
What do you got?
Well, what do you want?
Well, what do you got?
Well, what do you want?
Ok, gimme some Dunlops.
No! Too expensive. You want these 'Pneumatic' tires!

So I got 'Pneumatic' (no kidding - thats the brand name) tires. One is mounted backwards. When I pointed this out, the mechanic grabs the main Grand Poobah and he tells me it doesn't matter. Anyway, I can't argue in German. I suppose backwards is better than inside out.

So now my car behaves real weird. I went to the Frankfurt Auto-show, and between 120-140 kph, I don't feel so safe. Given that I have one of the best designed cars on the planet for handling, I don't imagine it's the antenna causing the problem. sigh... Oh, and somebody crumpled the other side of the front of my car this time. This time it's not very noticeable, and I haven't gotten it fixed yet.

Lately I've been getting woken up early in the morning by painters hammering and chiseling away (I think German law says painters have to hammer for a while). They chiselled a line all around the building below the roof line. I thought they were going to pull the roof off. Another morning they had me open all my windows and doors to paint the frames. The next morning the land-lord accidently leans on my door buzzer. I'm slowly dying. At least I don't have the flu here like everyone else. Swallowing 4 grams of vitamin C a day seems to hold it off.

So recently, the security guard here caught come burglars red-handed when they broke into Finance. They somehow tore the door right off the frame. Well, he didn't actually really catch them, since they nuked him with an electric gun and got away. I heard he was limping for a week.

That's about it. Nothing new. I'm still alive. Sorry I didn't get to see some of you when I was in North America a few months back, but Air France sorta messed up my schedule when they temporarily lost all my luggage. I'll be back next summer.