So my mother (and undoubtably others) has been
wondering what is happening in my life and why I haven't posted
in a while. What can I say? What memories will I carry forward of
these days?
I'll never forget the silent sobbing of my lover as I sent her to
the front for disloyalty to the cause. She wept and cried out
"We'll always have our memories of Paris!" I never saw
Alexandra again.
OK, thats the memory I want to have. Actually the truth that I'm
a programmer at a moderately successful software company working
on retail software to help another company sell heavy trucks
doesn't sound quite as interesting. Sigh.
Well, I've been busy at night with Fantasy Football drafts. It
has taken far more prep time and effort to gather information
this year. Being in Holland, away from magazines and newspapers,
made this much more difficult. Websites provide lots of
information but filtering and weighing the information is more
difficult. For my main draft, I was online until all hours of the
night. I was woken up by phone rings so I could make another
selection at 3:00 am. I think the draft went well, the next
couple of weeks should tell.
One of the programmers I work with visited me this weekend. Alan
Olmanson stopped by on his way back from a client. We laid on the
beach on Saturday, that night we went to a 30th Birthday party
for a friend of mine, Clare Duggan. Handmade margaritas and
brownies ensured a most excellent party. Sunday was spent at the
Van Gogh museum appreciating fine art. A couple of friends were
scheduled to meet us at a Cuban music concert, but didn't show up.
So Alan and I appreciated the enthusiasm of the music and the
dancing. Alan flew home on Monday, I went back to work on Labor
Day.
30th birthday parties make me feel weird. I'll be 30 pretty soon
(well, not this century, but in an upcoming one.) As a boy I read
a lot about Alexander the Great and wanted to duplicate his
achievements. Of course he'd conquered and then lost the known
world well before he was 30, so I'm kinda behind. And he was dead
by 30. So maybe I'm ahead on that count. Pretty sobering. Thirty
- It seems an auspicious number. Probably the only comparable
birthdays I've experienced before it were my 21st Birthday (Totally
sucked) and my 18th birthday (Pretty good). I'll have to make
some special plans or arrangements for something to happen on my
30th. Clare went to Rome for her birthday. Something like that.
Since my last update, my mother visited me for a week. She brought supercat Spook with her, and my family is reunited. The visit went well with my Mom. She experienced Dutch family living. Walking to the grocery store, standing in line to buy kaas and brood (cheese and bread). Attempting to understand the saleslady when she's struggling with her English terms for materials in a bed cover. Also, much to my shock, a long dormant Domestic gene was triggered. Jeanne couldn't stop washing clothes, cleaning an already clean house, straightening and organizing everything. (Thanks for doing my shoe closet, Mom!) We spent a nice day in Maastricht, and visited Eindhoven so I could show her my client, DAF's factory. Shopping occupied much of her time.
Anyone have a preference for this style of page? I usually use white text on a blue background for my MS Word default. I think it looks good, but I'm not sure if it's an improvement over my black text on a light blue background that I've been using.
My next upcoming planned webpage: Investing - my current investments, how they are doing, why I'm in them.
return to August 16th, 1999
forward to October 2nd, 1999
return to home page: http://www.cprog.com