You recall that Telephone Community Enterprise Fund or something? The guilt-trip campaign that wants you to sign the computer card even if you give zero? Sure enough, they send a lady over to follow up my request that my file, as far as their purposes, be wiped out completely. Those do-gooders don’t quit easy. I refuse to be pressured into compliancy and I stand by my principles. I only donate to charity anonymously.
The smoke problem in the car resulted in an experiment. That is—non-leaded gas. An improvement, but are there any bad effects? The car has 119,000 miles on it. Time to call Guiness.
Dave called Howard, who is now raring to buy a 12-string. I say. Back home Dave and I practiced on what little we know from before, then I practiced on my own. Rossie much later pointed out that I’d been at it for 9 hrs. But it’s an easy way to get rid of Leon. Like Dakenken and Kbimbo, he can’t stand being around something he knows nothing about. N’yuk!
An incident. For reasons undisclosed I called Liz. A man answered. Transcript: “Hello is Liz there?” “Who is calling?” “Is Liz there?” “Who is calling?” What to do—she’s often said never mind who answers. The guy’s being a prick, so I’ll throw a scare into him. I told him who I was and then “Who is this?” “Oh, she’s not home.” “I see, I’ll call later.” He lost that round but that doesn’t seem to bother pricks.
I used to ride horses a lot, even bareback. But one summer I got a sunburn so now I wear a shirt. Also I’ve crossed a description of a computer program that summarizes some of the difficulties R & I have in deciding company policy. I am “goal driven”, he is “data driven”. I will choose a goal and then find data (or material) to accomplish. RofR examines the data and decides if the goal is realistic. The shortcomings are in both methods—but the combination has proven successful. It has a side effect. In a crisis I have a tendency to start researching enormous amounts of new material, whereas RofR tends to amass the material first and try to retrieve it in a hurry.
[Author’s note: here is a representative sample of my early work. The topics were often entered several sentences at a time, rather than as a group at day’s end like now (2011). Hence, it jumps all over the place and I can’t recall much of the circumstances myself. However, the car mentioned was my 1974 Maverick, one of the best units I’ve ever owned.
Dakenken and Kbimbo are nicknames for my brothers, names chosen by others, not me. Rossie was Dave’s stepsister whose mother would not let her go out with me because of a seven year age gap. If you read this whole blog, you’ll see that changed once Rossie became a single mother welfare case. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had that happen in my life.
I do not know the significance of the phone transcript, but I know that most of Liz’s other friends found me intimidating. Good, I made more money than the bunch put together and they should show a little respect. Don’t ask me about the horse riding, but that part about computers is revealing. In 1982, we were the only computerized small company in existence anywhere near Seattle and found all parts of the subject new and fascinating.
You can also see my aversion to abuse of records dates back a long ways, too. I gave my information to the phone company to get hired, not to be harassed by their charity drives. It took years to get my personal data off their computer. They did not remove it voluntarily, I had to, shall we say, assist them.]
