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Sep. 26th, 2017
About That Placeholder...
Sep. 26th, 2017 10:21 pmIt's difficult for me to cry and type at the same time. Especially when I'm at work.
One of the side perks of my job is that since I test Google Play Movies and Netflix, being up on the current movies is helpful, so I visit IMDB.com almost daily. For the past couple of weeks a film has been at the top of their coming attractions, a Netflix production called "First They Killed My Father".
This happens to be the first line in the first book a friend wrote.
The friend was the mother of one of my favorite friends from BBS days. Dan Appleman is a handsome, outgoing, brilliant engineer with two masters degrees, founder and CEO of Desaware for 27 years, now co-founder and CTO of another tech firm. We were at a lot of BBS parties in the 80s, and somehow I found out his mother had written a book about her escape from the Nazis. I don't remember if we first met before I read the book, but we talked about the book more than once. I gave my copy to my mother, and it was passed around my family.
Her name is Alicia Appleman-Jurman, her book humbly titled Alicia/My Story.
Looking it up, not quite the same line:
First they killed my brother Moshe...
Then they killed my father...
Then they killed my brother Bunio...
Then they killed my brother Zachary...
Then they killed my last brother, Herzl.
Seeing the Netflix movie title reminded me of Alicia. I had lost contact with Dan except for a LinkedIn connection, so I did a web search for his mother, and was heartbroken to learn that she died last April, after heart surgery. She lived through the procedure, but died a few days later. She was 86.
One of the side perks of my job is that since I test Google Play Movies and Netflix, being up on the current movies is helpful, so I visit IMDB.com almost daily. For the past couple of weeks a film has been at the top of their coming attractions, a Netflix production called "First They Killed My Father".
This happens to be the first line in the first book a friend wrote.
The friend was the mother of one of my favorite friends from BBS days. Dan Appleman is a handsome, outgoing, brilliant engineer with two masters degrees, founder and CEO of Desaware for 27 years, now co-founder and CTO of another tech firm. We were at a lot of BBS parties in the 80s, and somehow I found out his mother had written a book about her escape from the Nazis. I don't remember if we first met before I read the book, but we talked about the book more than once. I gave my copy to my mother, and it was passed around my family.
Her name is Alicia Appleman-Jurman, her book humbly titled Alicia/My Story.
Looking it up, not quite the same line:
First they killed my brother Moshe...
Then they killed my father...
Then they killed my brother Bunio...
Then they killed my brother Zachary...
Then they killed my last brother, Herzl.
Seeing the Netflix movie title reminded me of Alicia. I had lost contact with Dan except for a LinkedIn connection, so I did a web search for his mother, and was heartbroken to learn that she died last April, after heart surgery. She lived through the procedure, but died a few days later. She was 86.
Tropical Paradise
Sep. 26th, 2017 10:58 pmAnother boring morning, except for Spook attacking my feet at 6 am, up & out early, traffic is such a mess that I'm avoiding 101 except for the last 3 exits.
No eggs in the fridge. This time I had to pinball my way through a big crowd of visitors who were finishing up a massive catered breakfast.
Steel cut oatmeal was one centerpiece. I have no idea why steel cut. Is there any other kind of oatmeal? Stone ground? Stomped by the bare feet of itinerant oat pickers? Shot from cannons? Oh wait, that's Quaker oats. Perhaps Quaker oats are the peaceful ones and the steel cut ones are more militant.
No eggs again. :-(
Started another automation run on one machine while playing movies on another which was showing some network lag. Fired up my Huawei phone and the new Samsung, and made the new one's screens mostly match. There was also a lot of logging into apps and looking up passwords. Had to call Amtrak and get shuffled three times to unlock my account. They have a 3 strikes rule, but hide the password as you type it. Totally unfair for a phone's tiny keyboard. But now everything is working, I think.
Lunch table was hijacked by three loud male Chinese guests of a very quiet woman employee who was sitting on the other side of the room with her grade school aged son. When the chatter got too loud, she moved the two of them across the hall to the sofa, where the kid fell asleep.
Chicken with peanut sauce was bland. No curry in the sauce. I had forgotten to pack dessert, but there were peanut M&Ms on the counter.
Boss messaged she would be late, but she arrived at about 4, with a/c adapters for a test unit, and news of new things coming down the pipe on Friday. The movie on the test machine was the first Tom Cruise Mission Impossible looking so very young, so I mentioned he had been on Graham Norton last month, and Boss, who is British, fired up Yahoo search to show me Graham Norton as a young actor in Father Ted. I do not know why, but there were about 6 searches for yoga pants on the screen. With screen shots. Nothing to be embarrassed about, there is no such thing as NSW at this job. The last bug I verified from one of the partner managers featured a very sexy rap video.
Boss asked me to switch test machines for the automation suite, which I did after she left my tropical paradise. It was 82° in the room by then, 90+ outside.
And the automation stopped before it could begin, engineer next door's machine, so he came over to fix it. Wrong model number in the unit's settings.
Oh the joys of working with prototypes.
Which brings us to 5:30, the suite was running fine.
Back roads all the way, and they were clogged too. Three traffic light cycles at the IFH, lots of bicycles to dodge where the bike lanes suddenly disappear.
Could have stopped for groceries, almost out of frozen dinners. But didn't.
Home, nothing delivered. Watched PTI (both hosts were back!) and one Penn & Teller FU.
Dinner was the last frozen one, beef pot roast. Marie C puts way too many potato chunks in it, but a lot of beef too. Ice cream.
Did some research on a friend's FB quote which I though looked wrong, and found it was totally so. Posted a long excerpt from Time which gave the context.
Filled out the placeholder with a full post.
Quicken has changed their login routine, no longer part of Intuit, so they have their own login server. It effed up my BofA download capability. I was able to get checking to work, but may have to phone them if it doesn't magically start to work for savings and credit card.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Nails
Shopping for dinners
Which means I'm going to miss Bingo.
No eggs in the fridge. This time I had to pinball my way through a big crowd of visitors who were finishing up a massive catered breakfast.
Steel cut oatmeal was one centerpiece. I have no idea why steel cut. Is there any other kind of oatmeal? Stone ground? Stomped by the bare feet of itinerant oat pickers? Shot from cannons? Oh wait, that's Quaker oats. Perhaps Quaker oats are the peaceful ones and the steel cut ones are more militant.
No eggs again. :-(
Started another automation run on one machine while playing movies on another which was showing some network lag. Fired up my Huawei phone and the new Samsung, and made the new one's screens mostly match. There was also a lot of logging into apps and looking up passwords. Had to call Amtrak and get shuffled three times to unlock my account. They have a 3 strikes rule, but hide the password as you type it. Totally unfair for a phone's tiny keyboard. But now everything is working, I think.
Lunch table was hijacked by three loud male Chinese guests of a very quiet woman employee who was sitting on the other side of the room with her grade school aged son. When the chatter got too loud, she moved the two of them across the hall to the sofa, where the kid fell asleep.
Chicken with peanut sauce was bland. No curry in the sauce. I had forgotten to pack dessert, but there were peanut M&Ms on the counter.
Boss messaged she would be late, but she arrived at about 4, with a/c adapters for a test unit, and news of new things coming down the pipe on Friday. The movie on the test machine was the first Tom Cruise Mission Impossible looking so very young, so I mentioned he had been on Graham Norton last month, and Boss, who is British, fired up Yahoo search to show me Graham Norton as a young actor in Father Ted. I do not know why, but there were about 6 searches for yoga pants on the screen. With screen shots. Nothing to be embarrassed about, there is no such thing as NSW at this job. The last bug I verified from one of the partner managers featured a very sexy rap video.
Boss asked me to switch test machines for the automation suite, which I did after she left my tropical paradise. It was 82° in the room by then, 90+ outside.
And the automation stopped before it could begin, engineer next door's machine, so he came over to fix it. Wrong model number in the unit's settings.
Oh the joys of working with prototypes.
Which brings us to 5:30, the suite was running fine.
Back roads all the way, and they were clogged too. Three traffic light cycles at the IFH, lots of bicycles to dodge where the bike lanes suddenly disappear.
Could have stopped for groceries, almost out of frozen dinners. But didn't.
Home, nothing delivered. Watched PTI (both hosts were back!) and one Penn & Teller FU.
Dinner was the last frozen one, beef pot roast. Marie C puts way too many potato chunks in it, but a lot of beef too. Ice cream.
Did some research on a friend's FB quote which I though looked wrong, and found it was totally so. Posted a long excerpt from Time which gave the context.
Filled out the placeholder with a full post.
Quicken has changed their login routine, no longer part of Intuit, so they have their own login server. It effed up my BofA download capability. I was able to get checking to work, but may have to phone them if it doesn't magically start to work for savings and credit card.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Nails
Shopping for dinners
Which means I'm going to miss Bingo.
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