Yet another visit to Svemiks, where I did some more work on the cooperation, aka Acc157 - some checking of members; the form files were generated afresh and there's some checking routine to prevent the satellite stations from inventing new partners; that's reserved for the main office. The data exchange with the satellites went fine in my simulations, and when I carried floppies myself. When we tried it over the modem, from the silo at the entrance to the village, it worked flawlessly, but with other three it never did at all. The phone lines were unusable, cell phones weren't up to the task (and couldn't plug a modem into them anyway), and the floppy drives were dirty from chaff. The same thing then worked fine for MXM.
And oh yes, there was a problem for a while there with the house network, which crapped some. It wasn't the hardware, that is, the machines were all new and good, the cables spanking new, Laza tested them all out (and that's when I saw the glue gun for the first time, all the outlets were wall mounted and with this there's no need for holes or screws, just stick it to the wall), it was that there was some update for the windowses 95 or was it 98 already, where it started screwing up. The file handle would just disappear, or well it can't disappear, a number is a number is a number, it would lose connection to the file. We complained about that, had them see with their IT contractor, whoever sold the machines, we checked our part and it's all the same as elsewhere where it just works. So it must be something in the network software. And this time we heard a guy did come, some hotshot fresh off all of them m$ courses, who checked that the network indeed works. He opened a word document from machine A and saved it on machine C while sitting at machine B, it all works. Whoa, that's networking for you? One time operation passes, so it's all working? Why does it close files when they stay open for a while, which wasn't happening before? Ah, yes, to increase overall network speed, thank you very much, it wasn't broken, for which dick were you fixing it.
I don't quite remember how I solved that. To fix something that m$ broke never made any sense, it will stay broken, it must be that I rather went on checking whether a table was still open, and if it wasn't, well, open it again... which I probably did in the GenerAll itself, so it would work everywhere, because who'll go through two dozen apps... Maybe I'd be capable of finding in the code, but it's been twonysix years since, and I wouldn't even know where to look.
The day before, some import routine will now use arj instead of pkzip, because it would tread over the stack (whatever that meant) when called multiple times during the same fox session. Lots of work for EnergoPro on their workshop app, about tracking materials and semiproducts. Their product has a recursive structure, just like a recipe in BarSys has.
The big cuntdown [can't translate „raspičkavanje“ better than that] with MXM was afoot. There's nothing we had that they haven't had, we did warehousing for both wholesale and retail, gas station separately, and BarSys, and Acc157 what with modem transfer of data between weigh station and the cooperation [building], trucking, invoicing on laser and from Word, and interest, and a special management module (something that peeks into various apps and displays the results in several catal6.prg made views, well everything. And then one of the brothers had a hardon to ditch us and switch to DBA. There was lots of tension around paying the remaining invoices for march and april, so I extracted the data from Kosta and put together three similar reports (because not everything was in Kosta, for some stuff I had to retype it from the handwritten workorders, all signed, no cheating no tricks). Just have to quote a few pearls...
„03.04.98 Helped around fixing Brane's machine... with variable success (in our office). Installed the drivers for the sound card with uncertain success - system is not complaining, the card seems to work, but there are no speakers nor headphones so I couldn't test“ [there's no way Vanji would divert any money for anything that would be fun at work]
„06.05.98 The fonts on Brane's machine all screwed up, w311 messes the print - it has all the times except the normal one. All looks OK, but from Word it won't print šćđ.“ [as usual, m$ will add support for anything unrelated to itself only halfway and years later]
„21.05.98 Installed W4wg3.11 in polish on Brane's machine and thus relieved myself from misery. All prints, all works, except 600x400 which rolls up/down and messes the display, reverted to 480x600“
„27.05.98 on the gas station computer, found this:
- into Autoexec.bat a SmartDrv 1024 1024 was inserted, which took away the key half a megabyte of memory from the system (we keep it at 512 512 or rather put ncache2 instead of SmartDrv)
- in config.sys found some ten empty lines before the first active line
- keyboard worn out
- tested modem transfer, works as designed... the guys at the pump say the machine was at Bole's home for quite a while, and in the hands of his daughter...“
Eh, how many times was it that the main machine of some privatnik had a trip to his home, to have his kids play on it for a while, to install who knows what, to reconfigure it in many ways, to unsettle everything, and then we were blamed for something not working anymore. This is the sweetest, when you put up the minutes on the situation found, have it signed off, with all the billable hours.
That Brane guy was a hippie of sorts, his hair was just like mine was some twenty years ago, he spoke softly* and slowly (was he in rehab from something?) and ate macrobiotics only. He offered me raw peanuts, well okay if he can eat it I guess it won't do me any harm. It was like eating raw beans. Edible it is, not that it isn't, but the taste... not even close.
Well, considering how they were, we even got our mileage out of them quite well - clocked many hours, sold machines, printers and modems, they were even paying the maintenance, but seeing how it was going lately, they demanded more and more and were less satisfied... so, DBA it is. Well, good luck with them, then. We got the better of this, last or forelast years we had a big agricultural estate switch from them to us, and I remember them being among the top ten customers by importance, and now we had almost no problems at all with them. That's where I came into a harsh dispute with Vanji about the games on users' machines, because he considered them harmful, carrying viruses and often installing their own oddball drivers so we have lots of work to untangle that. To which I said look, when I get there and see Mancika playing solitaire, I know precisely why I like the sight - she's finished, she's got nothing to do, because she finished the day's work, and that's thanks to the speed and efficiency of our applications. Eventually we settled on distributing a set of vetted games, including a Windows when they'd want solitaire, so the customers' needs were sated from that side, and they won't install shit without our knowledge.
Around this time I saw Tejka, which was inevitable, as her office was on the same floor, just around the corner. I think we met three times. First time we just spotted each other in the hall, then went to her office and had a drink. I think not a vinjak, must have been a loza, that sat better with her. Just one - I don't mind a drink at work, the later the better, and no more than one, I need my head for work. And if I need to drive, not even that. That day I was on bike, so why not. Word after word, we came to SF, of which her husband is a fan, and when Ursula leGuin was mentioned, she said she's got a full set of her books, which I didn't even know were published here. Next time she brought them, and then I read them and returned them, which was the third time. The fourth was next year.
While I'm at random encounters, Sneca was also in the building, but on the second floor, and I saw her only once. On the other hand, in Bangro's building I got acquainted with Zvezdana, but then she vanished and reappeared as an accountant in MXM. Small town.
One such day I was riding my bike from work, and without a hitch - the chain didn't derail, he tire didn't gain a hole, so I didn't have to push it for 6km and ponder dark thoughts along the way. Why are the tires so bad, because there's too much sand in the rubber, and there it is because it's cheaper that way, and that's why this junk sells, because nobody buys any more expensive ones, and there are no better ones because nobody would buy them, people have no money, because Sloba set the country so that he and his are the haves and for the others whatever remains... This would end after about four kilometers, when I'd conclude that I'm no assassin material, I'd either miss or get caught before even taking aim, I'd be screwed along with the whole family and he'd just get more pretext to rail against more enemies.
No, this time it was all fine, as much as possible under the circumstances (now whether this was this summer or the last, can't know), so I stopped by that hole-in-the-wall shop to buy a few CDs, to expand our library a bit. I knew the owner was Go's boyfriend at the time, and I didn't know whether he knew who I was. Nothing, regular shop talk, the guy is neither folded nor into-your-face, neither ugly nor a beauty, just a regular guy. I think I bought the two Tom Waits CDs then.
Bare ten days later here he came knocking on our door, asking whether Go was at home. Wait a moment, let me see... no she won't come out. The guy went away all peed on, tail low, never saw him again (unless that's the same guy, three blocks from here, who later had a carwash in the yard). Who knows what she was doing to others that we didn't know of. I know just that Slavko and Dražen were hers for a while, don't know in which order nor how long they lasted, not too long for sure.
Their night life began around 23, i.e. they set off from home to be on the spot then. And the spot wasn't downtown, it was that stretch between Mravinjak (Anthill) and Zeleno zvono, where it made a real korzo. If the Bell had a deejay or a club band inside, the Mravinjak had a terrace above its main room, where they'd put a live band, often Panta, and they'd hit the chords all night. They'd split between three and five, or even later. It lasted for years, and I think we saw the young taking off to town at 22:30 even twenty years later.
They'd gather on the štrafta first, then walked to there, mostly down Cara Dušana street, which stretches from city hall to Prvomajska. Where it crossed the magistrala there was an electronic shop, with TV sets in the windows. Someone would bring a remote, at least half of the sets used the infrared, ultrasound wouldn't work, they'd turn a couple of sets on, switched them to satellite, find some porn and there's the merriment, to warm the gang a bit before going for the night's good times.
On the ZR radio I saw a title „Music of american whites“.
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* unbelievable. There's no english word for opposite of loud, they use opposite from hard for it.
30-VIII-2011 - 16-V-2026