11-XI-2000.
On 10th at Zero, Pete announced the 'musical chairs' situation, i.e. more people coming in - we're getting a new project manager, Clara, as Ford was out of the picture, handling larger issues, and M.F. (the one we made for a Hungarian) went to documentation, so we'd need space for Rita Zahn*, Meagan, Brlja, Željko, Pali and this Clara.
Rita turned out to be a widely upfront jewish blonde, who somehow had an office of her own and gradually plastered the whole wall behind her with a huge map of Virginia, the left tail being on the wall to the main cubicle farm, and the coast on the outer wall. She was cute and friendly, and we gradually got into the habit of arriving at work at the same time from the same road (above the Garrison shopping centre), parking nearby and often walking down to the office together. I was even once a witness to some traffic snafu she almost had - the buildings in the upper end of the street were usually rent as lodging to students of the local university, so the amount of inexperienced or hungover drivers was a factor.
Meagan I don't remember at all, probably worked with Dutchie, who wanted to borrow the image scanner which was installed on my box. I told her „It works on W2000, but it requires a certain driver to be installed. I'm not sure where it is now - I found it on manufacturer's website, and there was some hassle about the exact version. I'll be away from machine from 12:00 on, so it would be easier for you to just use my machine and save the files to your private directory on pms_main. Be my guest.
Actually, I'm not using it much, but somewhere in my plans there is a note to fix the "scan doctor's picture" for main People screen. It works, but doesn't save properly. Anyway, if you feel more comfortable that way, just take it and install it at your machine, and if/when I ever get to need it, I'll get it.“
Tried to rent a car to for Zero, to drive to the airport and have a shift of the UScrew replaced by another. However, my debit card wasn't enough to rent a car (just like it wasn't the last time), so Ford came and put in his (also so I wouldn't use my corolla and pick the incredible 0,33$ per mile for costs). We did this in the morning and then I went and picked the outgoing gang (IIRC, Brlja and Željko were leaving, and perhaps one more guy, I guess V.).
Driving the bloody (red) Alero was kind of boring - automatic shift, can't even move your seat until you find the button, no manual contols, everything electric. Of course I couldn't smoke inside, phew. We left quite early so they'd have some time to see the landmarks of DC. I managed to navigate it quite well, having some geographical experience with it already, so I knew at least those few miles around the Pentagon-White house-Union station (or whatever it's called) stretch. Managed to park actually quite close, so we had a nice stroll around these parts, have a shot in front of the fence, see that phallic symbol, even visit that park with the bridge over it, with the postapocalyptic ivy and kudzu growing on it all the way up. Heard Tom Hanks (he does!) orate something, it being the vets day (veterinarians?), from the other end of the meadow.
(from left, Joška, I, Pali, Željko, Brlja (behind), V.)
Showed up at the airport on time, so we awaited Pali and Joška in order, then after a brief exchange these guys left for home and I took these two to A-burg. I hit a wrong turn somewhere, so I took a private road from Dulles - didn't even know these existed - and had to pay some toll (charged it to Zero, of course). Somewhere halfway we were all sort of hungry (I don't even remember whether I ate anything, perhaps had something from a hot dogs stand with the first shift), so I drove into Culpepper and found a restaurant. I think the sample was representative, just as drab and sterile as can be expected from a standardized franchise of any of Applebees and such. Another notch in Zero's tab, also not much.
Even though this is rather south compared to home, and the days this close to winter solstice are not as short as at home, when we finished dinner it was dark already.
This Clara Milovan was a thin curly blonde, okay, say light brunette, always in fluffy sweaters with often a silken shirt under - or, in case of one celebration, without the sweater. She was divorced, with two sons, aged between 7 and 10 at the time, kept the husband's (romanian) surname because it sounded mystic somehow so we had to explain**, and was probably the major selling point for getting married in the first place. Seems to be the rest was a disappointment. Something in the set of her jaw, the two muscles, that would pull the ends of the mouth down and wider, were too prominent. I've noticed these because they were shown in an exaggerated manner in the „The day after“ movie, someone's nice idea in the makeup department, and then I couldn't unsee it, or fail to see it when present. She'd be nervous at a time, then forcedly merry soon after, felt like she was out of her depth, but then all in all she turned to be our best project manager - didn't press us too much, kept tabs on everything, and fought for us with the comically discordial upper management.
Outside, the big indecision was still rolling. The matter of Al Gore, GWB and Florida recount was still unresolved.
At this time we had a guinea pig again, but it didn't last. This one was called Miška, and was actually a real guinea pig - one of the girls used it in a sort of scientific experiment for school.
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* not pronounced tsahn, because in american english the german z is never pronounced as ts, and the anglophones are utterly capable of pronouncing a ts in the beginning of a word - tsunami reads as ssunami.
** ...that it's actually serbian and means 'caressed'
Mentions: Allan Robin (Ford), Annenburg (A-burg), Clara Milovan, Goran Staković (Brlja), Joška Apro, Pali Bodor, Pete Citroën, UScrew, Zero Distance (Zero), Željko Popov, in serbian
26-XI-2016 - 7-IV-2026