30 June 2006
My birthday
| This is my desk today, with flowers and a card from my colleagues, another card from my colleague Andrew and his family, and a set of portable games which Mikhailo gave me -- and considering it contains a very nice chess set, I like it a lot! Andrew (the other Andrew) and Una phoned me early this morning (and Andrew thought it important to let me know that my age is a prime number); Neal and Alison sent an SMS; Anton and Liezel phoned from Australia; and tonight I am going to supper with Adrian (not that Adrian, another Adrian!) at my parents' house. I miss Derrick particularly now. Last year it was around this time that I had my last proper conversation with him. He hugged me on my birthday and the other people in the office said, "Awwww, how sweet!" Twelve days later he died. |
26 June 2006
Francois
| I came to work very early this morning so that we could talk through our advertising and catalogue plans. No such luck, though. Francois (who started working here on Friday) was involved in an accident on the way to work. Rescue workers were busy with him for a long time before they could move him to the ambulance. A prior neck injury meant that they had to be very careful. Traffic was held up in all directions for hours. I went along with Marius, and cleared his personal effects from the car as they worked on him. I reckon that in America, if your morning started with a car accident, your neck in a very fancy brace and your body on a special stretcher, a drip in your arm and an oxygen mask over your face, then you would definitely still be in hospital by evening, not to mention the fact that you would have the cushy prospect of trauma counseling, occupational therapy and a bunch of other make-you-feel-better services all lined up. But this is the land of rugby players and understaffed hospitals, so less than 12 hours later, Francois is on his way home from Tygerberg Hospital. |
21 June 2006
Pepe
| Pepe complains that he can't go on holiday anywhere because people recognise him even in Oudtshoorn. But I think he actually just pretends that it's a problem. And besides, if you're (literally) going to play the trumpet in the Spur, you can't exactly blame people for noticing you. After I left, he joined these soccer fans to watch what turned out to be a draw between Argentina and the Netherlands. (He has predicted that Argentina will win the 2006 World Cup.) |
20 June 2006
Drat this inscrutible template!
I eventually thought I figured out what was overriding my rich text, and just when I thought I had control, I saw that my table text still wasn't the same as the body. OK, I will spend one fine evening taking a look at this CSS again...
19 June 2006
BarCamp
On Friday, Laurence mailed me a notification of a two-day event for geeks. I was sort of surprised, because I didn't really think he regarded me as worthy — because I am blonde and female, but because I rather think I actually act blonde and female too, and the most complicated code which I have write rarely amounts to more than...
Lookup := @DbLookup("":"NoCache";"":"";"(lkpDocTypeCategories)"; docType; 2);
FancyValue:= @If(Lookup = "1"; "Document based on the product classification system"; Lookup = "2"; "Other product document"; "General document");
@If(@IsError(FancyValue); ""; @IsDocBeingRecalculated | @IsDocBeingSaved ; FancyValue; "")
...although I do think the computed HTML which Brendan taught me to use in Notes column headings is rather clever, and I did manage doing an Implode/Explode all in one expression recently without any help.
And although Lotus Notes can run on Linux and can integrate with MySQL (not to mention that IBM has thrown a lot into the OpenSource community in recent years), it isn't really all open. But the spirit of BarCamp turned out to be one of openness, so I was welcomed, and I met a couple of delightful fellows and a small number of women too, although most of the latter evaporated after the first day. It was actually quite touching to see that guys like Edrich and Ralph had come all the way from Durban, braving horrible modes of transport just to be there. And it goes to prove that geeks are not really abnormal reclusive mutants who like to live in troglodyte isolation; they crave company as much as other editions of homo sapiens do, it's just that normal mortals do not provide an appropriate interface for connectivity, which is why BarCamp is so welcome.
I missed Derrick, particularly as there were some presentations specifically about Python, and I saw something about raytracing on somebody's laptop as I walked by. I actually wanted to open my presentation with a reference to Derrick (because if it hadn't been for him, I would not have been there), but I decided to keep things as short as possible, being insecure about the fact that my presentation was about a commercial software platform.
Unfortunately I missed some of the first day's presentations, but I was present for Dave's well-prepared presentation about blogging as a marketing tool, which convinced me that Marius was right when he said I should create a blog for Pavatile's people to use. From Rafiq and others I learned why some of the code I had wanted to fiddle with in my own Neil Turner blog template should be treated with respect (in fact, I will now have to check whether I did not unwisely delete some of the more useful tags!). Rafiq is also campaigning to have TYFYC (thank-you for your comment) recognised as a ligit Internet acronym. (Meanwhile, I am still trying to figure out überhaupt how to make comments show up in this blog!)
Dave, Rafiq, Adrian and Miguel.
An unexpected thing happened after I left. The BarCamp had been held in a cold and grim school hall, so you would have thought that I would be happy to go home. I had become quite cosy in my chosen lifestyle of white linen, no more TV, and no internet connection at home. I had been quite proud of having given up my computer addiction for so long, with no regrets. But when I left the BarCamp, I didn't feel like going home at all. I went straight to an Internet café...
11 June 2006
Cate's birthday party
Me, Cate and Sally.
Cate (formerly known as Cathy) was at school with me from 1973 to 1983, and I hadn't seen her since then. I will update this entry when I have time, because it was an enjoyable party, and aside from the incident which led to my departure (and aside from occasionally being groped by a smoochy woman who wore a short skirt and no apparent underwear, and whose name I don't care to remember), I had a very nice time.
1 June 2006
Liezel visits
For those who don't already know, Liezel is my brother Anton's fiancée, and she was visiting from Australia. She and my mother popped in to visit me at the office. Later on we went to eat out with both my parents. My father told us what we wanted and eventually, when he insisted to my mother that we had told him that we wanted beef, we gave up trying to convince him that he had no respect for the fact that we may have thoughts and tastes of our own, and capitulated, since he was paying, and experience has shown that there is no point in arguing with him, since it only hurts his feelings and at best he might throw all his toys out of the cot and let you have your way, but without conceding to your rights. Well, the meal was very good anyway. I look forward to being at Anton and Liezel's wedding next year. My trip to Australia has been postponed until then.