Gorp Gorp Gorp and drunken polka-playing Germans dressed as babies...

Apr 22 1990

I just came back from a parade. I don't know what it was for. Some old tradition. Tomorrow (Monday) is partly a holiday and there is another parade. Today I saw camels, lamas, goats, funny horses, and real funny clothes. I think todays was mostly the kids parade and tomorrows is for adults. Parades in Switzerland are neat because the costumes are so amazing, and it's the only chance you will get to see Swiss people smile.

Last weekend was a 4 day holiday. I took 2 days of it for goofing on. On Friday I went to Laussane, in the French part, with Dr Mike and a friend to stay at Alain Brossard's place. It's a fabulous place, and lots of fabulous cars cruising around - Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes and so on. Some of the landscape is like being trapped in a Escher painting. You look around and it doesn't make sense. You wonder where the natural land is as you look out over a bridge and see that you are looking down on 8 story buildings you just came from.

The next day, we drove back through some real mountains. We were above the snow line and got out at some ski resort and threw snowballs. You know, when people used to tell me about places where you drive up a mountain and you could just drive off with nothing to stop you, I thought they were full of crap. But it's true. There may be posts every 20 ft or so, but it wouldn't stop you. The roads are very narrow, and it's kinda scary if you're not the one driving and you know your driver has no snow-driving experience. Luckily there was no snow on the roads. But at the top it looks like a big storm was headed our way so we didn't stick around. This was a average mountain pass, about 1500 m high. Some are > 3000m. Anyway, the view was amazing. We passed through Interlaken (I'm told you're supposed to be suitably impressed because it's so famous) and stopped in Luzern (Lucerne) for supper.

I now know the secret as to why Swiss people are incapable of laughter. I've heard their national anthem. You can tell that the guy that wrote it is thinking, "Life is pointless. I can't stand it. As soon as I finish writing this song, I'm going to go out and end it all and shoot myself". You hear this pathetic sad solemn song and you want to cry.

The other day ETH gave a 2 day course. The kind people spend lots of money to come to. So with no warning, they grab 2 random diskless Suns, stick them on a random etherent, and want me to make them work for the demonstration. So after doing lots of gross magic to make them work, they tell me just before the talks what they want to have available and to work. I was literally hacking up to the last second. So on the 1st day, when it starts, I see Gaston Gonnet hiding in the back in a magnificent penguin suit, so I go back and sit with him. Bad move. The grand-poobah announcer says: "Gorp gorp gorp (this is German) gorp gorp world famous superstar Professor Gonnet". Everybody turns around and looks and I'm thinking, these guys don't realize I've actually outclassed them all with my Rocky Horror t-shirt and jeans and 2 day growth of beard. So thats over, Then I hear : "gorp gorp gorp gorp Herr White gorp gorp Hardware Wizard gorp gorp" and everyone turns and stares at me. blah. Anyway, that night Gaston and I found his maple bug and I got X-windows to work on color Suns and the 2nd day, the important one, was saved. yipee.

I haven't been fined lately, but I can now legally work in Switzerland since I now have my working papers (oh yeh, there was a fine to get them). They grabbed me a couple of days ago about not having a social insurance number or something. I'll probably get fined for that later.

For the billionth time, I've missed Rob Pikes talk on 'Plan 9' cause of system emergencies. He gave 2 talks here at the ETH. Niklaus Wirth invited him, but sort of neglected to tell anybody about it. So mostly sys-admins and profs that heard via word of mouth went. Wirth hates UNIX and C in case you hadn't figured it out. Last time I missed it was in Baltimore. I'm gonna try for London in July at the UKUUG.

There is no truth to the rumor about security problems at ETH. The real reason I disabled all 900 accounts except my own was to meet fabulous babes as they come in to find out why their account was disabled.

All the female assistants have left or are about to leave. I believe the president and vice-president of ETH have quit. Probably cause the female assistants left. Or maybe they couldn't afford the fines...

In a couple of days time, I think there is a meeting of Parliament that might discuss whether my department really needs more people or not. Since we have no operators, consultants, or real hardware people, and have more computing power than MFCF at UW, I might get a dog or a gerbil to help me. If I'm lucky... My boss is on holidays now. I'm all alone. Another 10 Suns showed up for me the other day. Rumor is another 60 are headed my way. I've got NeXt machines now. And a IBM thingie. And a huge Sequent probably headed my way. And a bunch of DEC stuff. yipee.

My room is being invaded by red Swiss army ants. They refuse to crawl into the poison ant traps I bought just for them.

Just went for dinner, I'm back now. I followed Dr Mikey into another Salvation Army dive where farting-belching zeroes and war-criminals hang out and they fined me for being stupid enough to listen to the drunken looped Germans playing polka music at me while dressed as big babies. The scary thing is, I'm getting used to this place!

There are some places open after 10pm for foodstuffs. But if you do show up after 10pm, you get fined. It's either 2 sFr extra for each thing you order, or I've also heard a 30% increase. It cost me $20 for a lousy salad, a coke and a bland apple pie. All desserts here are bland. All food here is bland.

I exist as 'rjwhite' on several machines at ETH now. But they aren't mine. I'm allowed to be 'rjwhite' on other peoples machines, but not my own. Something seems backwards here... Right now I'm 'white'. They half-accepted my new userid naming convention, only instead of 2 initials + lastname, it's 1 initial + last name. So maybe I'll become 'rwhite' now. yipee.

Back to writing my accounting software crap for tomorrow...