Space People

Mar 2 1990

So I got my official Billy Idol, I mean Swiss, haircut. Be careful when you say 'Nur zwei centimeters'. It could mean 'only two centimeters' OFF, or 'only 2 centimeters' LEFT ON. I have almost a centimeter on the back. Now I can pass as a native until I make a funny face.

The temperature dropped. We got rain, snow, hail, lightning and weird stuff. There's a big storm hovering over Europe.

I have heard from at least 2 sources that a house here costs about 1.5 million sFr. Thats only around $1.2 million CDN. I want a raise.

I found a great restaurant. Swiss people hate it.

They got these weird pigeon-looking birds that look like a seagull sh*t on their head cause their white beak travels up their black head.

I tell Swiss people that plan on going to Alaska that its all a big advertising scam to rip off rich Europeans, and if they're lucky, they might get to stay in a 2 storey igloo and see Alaska's tree.

Security guards no longer try to kick those crazy foreigners out of their offices at night here, they just write down their names and locations now. Somebody complained about their guard dogs so they aren't armed with them anymore.

I hear that if you wear what we think of as normal shorts, even around a gym, Swiss people will go hysterical and laugh their heads off at you.

Dogs are treated better than kids here, and are allowed almost anywhere, including restaurants. If you tie up your dog outside, you may get told off.

I've decided to shell out 600 more sFr for another month of intense German torture class. Now I understand why German engineers are the best in the world. If one can master the German language, they must be a genius.

This place has lots of money. Griping to myself out loud seems to get results. After complaining about lousy connectivity to the outside world, I made some crack like 'We don't even got a scummy modem'. The next day a 9600 baud modem was on my desk. I complained about my consoles being crap and about 3 days later Mr Wyse showed up at my door and gave me 3 Wyse terminals. I got 2 new Exabyte tape-drives I didn't ask for. We just got 2 NeXT machines. The hugest Sequent just came in. I may volunteer to sys-admin it. Its locked away with a Cray super-computer here. I'm gonna get four 1-Gig disks sometime soon and I didn't even ask for them. Gaston Gonnet has a lot of pull here... He's throwing an English speaking party tomorrow that I'm going to since I'm an expert.

So besides being the sys-admin, programmer, operator and consultant here, I'm also Mr Hardware. Now I rip out SCSI cables on running systems, re-route ethernet cables to other subnets to boot dying servers off the net, install tape drives and disk drives, and other junk.

I think my going to conferences has to be approved. By me. I'd be going to Holland for some Sun conference if my boss wasn't gonna be in England that week. I may still go. Guess I better ask his boss.

We are sorta on the Internet, but its being blocked by someone. I can connect to MIT and Princeton, sortof. But that's it.

Its past 10 oclock. Now I can't take my shower...