The date would be written as 19.9.1991 and would be in that way symmetrical. Which is why Gradek and Rade decided to pick this day to get married.
Practically all of DBA came to the city hall, though not to the party afterwards - there were too many of us and it's a thursday, we work the next day. On the official photo, at the main entrance, Števa, Sale (with daughter, not wife), we, Števa's wife, Nena and the young couple, plus as many people I don't know (OK, bride's father I do, met him a few times later).
Of the wedding itself I remember only that Števa dropped the line, when the matricular officer lady said that the bride is taking the groom's surname, „will she now also sign as Fefi?“ (v. november 1989.).
This too happened around that time:
The freshly minted boss of computers at the hotel "Lepenski vir" came and sat three hours with Sale and Vanji, they sketched the system, made layouts of the network... The tables were full, actually two 286s had to be removed so they'd have a place to sit and spread the papers. And put the ashtray (Sale smoked between medium and a lot, while Vanji is on the other end of the spectrum, plus one octave further) and coffee, of course.
When that was finished, the tab ran to a server and three workstations. And then the guy realized he doesn't know where his pen was. We searched everything where he could possibly have been for good 20 minutes, lifted keyboards, peeked between PCs... we offered a bunch of our pens with DBA logo, no thanks, he said, his pen is special, a gift from his mother, whom he may not ever see again, she's stranded in Croatia...
At some point he took the exasperated pose - one hand on his brow, the other on his right buttcheek... and there it was. The pen was in his rear pocket. "Don't worry, you spent three hours with us and it got to you, you're somewhat under influence... Imagine us, we're always with us."
In the end, nothing came out of this. The initial tactical fuckup about avoiding the director's mistress/wife seems to have sealed the fate of the project. Too bad, I never did a hotel app, that would have been wild.
There was another similar scene around that table, perhaps in may or june, when mrs Ketić was sitting across Vanji and asking for a system for her shop, which was a boutique with some small production line - few women tailoring and sewing stuff in the back. As they spoke, the stakes got higher and it gradually came to one server, two workstations, an UPS and a printer. Which Vanji quickly calculated, and then she just reached into her handbag, which was slung over her chair, and, after a dozen seconds of finger dance in the bag, pulled out a wad of money, perhaps two fingers thick. Exactly the amount. We were stunned with amazement.
With stour falling apart and Radoja going into politics, their erc didn't have a team in place to maintain the apps we did three-four years ago as a tezga, so I dug out the old stambena application and redid it from scratch, third time around (first version 1986 in m$ and pdp cobol, then 1988 in Clipper, now in fox as well). It turned out we had only one customer, who actually even paid but then didn't use it, so this was an effort in vain. It seemed to be too complicated for them, because they were one of the outcast, well, extended divisions which split in 1988... and this one was in Trbnjevo.
I went there one morning, brought also the computer and a dl2400 they bought, put everything right as it should stand, got even some chick who'll work on it, and went into explaining to her what and where and how, when their director wanted to have a say. He was sitting a couple of meters away on a swivel chair, and fired up one of standard lines of managerial bullshit, the guy who will find, in any context, some problem which then he alone will be able to solve. Which lasted a few minutes, and I already countered a few points with standard replies, there was nothing new that he said. And then he tipped off the chair. It was almost noon, and he was already as drunk as a slat. Seeing how this girl will have her hands full, I left her with greetings and told her to call if there's anything left unclear.
Never saw them again.
13-VI-2021 - 25-VI-2026