06-XII-2009.
Ender likes to take the new Matrix for a spin, specially when Eleese is here - Nina's coupe isn't exactly fit to drive a little kid, with somewhat complicated access to the rear seat.
It seems the car was just abandoned, for who knows what reasons, and have spent several weeks on the dealer's lot. Now that it's here, runs just nice. The left headlight aims a bit high, can't adjust, or some gizmo is missing in it (Ender says he knows the brand, it's a cheap taiwanese knockoff, not the genuine article), or something's in the way, maybe something jury rigged when the side was ironed. The car seems to have had a fender bender, the paint above the wheel is newer than on the hood.
But that's all that's wrong, it's not that it just starts, goes (v. house dictionary), but even the small things that are expected to die on a car of that age - electric windows, outer mirrors, various small lights for this or that (two on the ceiling, two in the mirror - driver and shotgun each, one for reading, one in the trunk) all work. The [windshield] wipers operate at settings for drizzle, the foglights and headlights fire up themselves when it's dark enough, the photocell works. Even the sound system is flawless and the six disk jukebox swaps disks smoothly.
Them two also plan to sell the Miatta, just not to have too many cars. That'll take a few more months, so there'll be a photo where its roof was visibly below Matrix's side mirror.
Spent all afternoon downloading my old messages from UA, starting from april 1997... got as far as february 2001, not bad. I didn't write much in 2000 because we had only dial-up at home, and at work I was, well, at work and had a lot to do. Funny though, how it turns out that what I thought I wrote only recently, I actually did in the last century. Good addition of materiel for Byo.
Talked with Go in the evening, she more or less okayed our move. She found an interesting guy, who makes movies or at least organizes stuff around them, and he's interested in her work - to make their movie poster. He's equally Brazilian, Hungarian, Austrian and Chinese... saw a blurred image of him (her webcam usually focuses better than this) and he is as advertised.
Time to tell my parents. As usual, I'd much more prefer to not prepare the spit while the rabbit's still in the forest, it's so much easier not to tell them anything than to have to console them if the plan fails, but this was plan B anyway, and we're now already mentally travelling home. I caught myself making plans what to do when we get there - get Internet connection, fix the leak under the bathtub, or remodel the bathroom altogether, replace the toilet seat with something American that swirls and isn't so tight-necked*, maybe finally build that barbecue on the terrace... And so I told them, thus:
Whe Nina gained citizenship (like Go did this wensday, the flag will come on next [wensday]), she started looking for a way to import us. Turns out tha whichever way we shake it, we need to leave the country first, and if it becomes known that we overstayed, then we need to wait ten years before filing a request. She could have filed for us when she got the green card, which would make our application suspended as „in process“ until she'd get citizenship. We'd be legal enough to not have to leave the country and come back - but nobody told us that, specially not the old man Jack, and Nina also had trouble finding this out. So this is a write off, a missed chance. My driver's [licence] is up for renewal next year - on every 5th birthday - and now they introduced the online extension for the whole Virginia, everything goes into the central database in Danville (last major city on the way to Undersville), and if that database is in any way connected with the social [security], where they may have the expiration date of my SSN, then I may lose the only official ID remaining, if they ever bother to check.
So we decided to enroll Lena into a college somewhere in Europe. The considerable places are England, France, Netherlands, Belgium. The latter two have programs in english, and now we wouldn't need a visa to come see her (except the England, they're always so british), so there's no sound reason to stay here. Go manages, Nina manages, we'll leave her the house and the placić and, come summer, we move to Zrenjanin. For now we're still planning and gathering info, but I think working form Europe won't be a problem, I actually think it'll be a welcome layout, to have me there where most of our customers are, another one to pull that cart. All in good fullness of time, there's time until summer.
Meanwhile, if possible, don't spread this. We always stuck to 'jump first then say hop'. Just like the soviet space programme, no announcements, just „we launched it and it's flying“. And it'd be a treat to see all those stunned faces :)
Told David later, around midnight, when he asked me to put a new blank agenda page on our wiki. He was quite surprised, but took it in his stride. I think he'll find a way to get the best out of this situation. Though he did have a moment when he thought the worst has happened, when I said "we're going to have a change of". There was a brief "oh no, oh god", and the great sight of relief when I said "...continent and timezone". As long as I'm not changing jobs, it's all fine. And I'll be in the same timezone as the dutch office, which will actually help a lot.
njalter asked how to translate album titles Physical Graffiti (Cepelin) Graffiti soul (Simpl Majnds). Ah, well, fuckit, for one the word doesn't even have a singular in english. Which would be a graffito, but nobody heard of that, just as they don't know that datum is a singular of data. So, well then, how to translate it into serbian. Eh, „fizički grafiti“, and for the later, „grafitna duša“ or rather „duša grafita“, i.e. genitive insdead of adjective, because „grafitni“ exists in serbian as a kind of pencil and wheel grease :).
On seventh, Lena had something about the quiz at school, and soon after she had an interview for MIT, for which they, of course, have no forward unit and video chat is not official yet, so they found one of their alumni to perfor(m)ate that for them. Twenty minutes by Okeana/Owsheehannah, then in a street in the north-of-highway, richer end, one „Old donation parkway“. Wasting words on american naming of streets is futile, unless one is ready to collect them into a ten volumes book. There's no park, unless we count the Princess Anne and Lynnhaven parks, which belong to adjacent streets, few blocks away, but not this [street], and the queenling's memory is scattered around in dozen places - she's got two boulevards (in Norfolk and here, not connected), a high school (on third boulevard). And Lynnhaven is our end, a dozen miles southwest from this.
Anyways, we got there on time and she did the interview. I waited outside, walked, smoked, photographed, and lo, someone had a bright fresh idea which I haven't seen since 20-VII-1968.. But that Fiat 500 then was almost smaller than this one and still took four persons, and this is a two-seater. And this was a gadget that someone was selling, it even turns as the car goes, as if on a real toy.
A few days later she talked with someone at MIT, and by the sound of it, they'd take her if she only wasn't missing that one paper, so fuckit.
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* never happened, no such thing on our market, but what we did find was quite good, it never got stuck without a proper reason
Mentions: 20-VII-1968., Byo (Byo), David Berton, Eleese Aquila (Eleese), Ender Aquila (Ender), Gorana Sredljević (Go), house dictionary, Jack Baran sr, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), njalter, UbiquAgora (UA), Undersville, in serbian
6-XII-2009 - 5-VII-2026