Entries this day: Bicycle_europe Gin_in_France nice_code z_work

Bicycle europe

This is from a friend Dave, who I met through the Bluebonnet Council hostel office here in Houston. He's an avid bicyclist, and is currently cycling across part of Europe:

   From:    dave
Subject:    euro-tour 2001
   Date:    Tue, 17 Jul 2001 12:22:06 


dear all,
     we had a swell time camping in Amsterdam,
breezing past
Anne Frank's house & some other historical stuff,
cafes,
red lightr district with its window ladies, who i
kinda
felt sorry for.  Took a road trip up to Zaanse Schaans
with
all its windmills & quaint houses in the
polders/dikes.
Had to go back to the airport to pick up Butch's bike
which
had gone to Singapore so we got a late start across
the
netherlands.  got to amersfoort on the bike paths, but
the
5 guys we were with had gone on ahead in a speed racer
kinda
way.  we thought they must have seen the huge sign of
bike
turns for Arnhem, so after waiting for a while, we
went on
toward it.  We left a message at the next turnoff
after we
waited at some picnic tables, not sure if they were
ahead or
behind.  We ended up camping at a nature park with
picnic
tables b4 arnhem, cuz it was almost midnite.  we made
it to
emmerich on the border of germany the next afternoon ,
so we
waited at the bahnhof a bit, then headed for freiburg
on the
cheapweekend ticket.   ($20 for 2)  got there after
midnight
sunday morning,l but still no 5.  slept in the station
then
got woke up an hour later to show our tickets. then
had to get
up at 5am anyway.  raining, so didn't go to the tour
de france,
but took a 9am train for munich;  didn't stay there,
but went
on to Berchtesgaden near the border of austria. (to
get the
most use out of our ticket).  wondering where the guys
were,
but having good times even in the rain, we camped near
the
touristy lake & climbed a 24% grade up to Hitler's
bunker
(saw it) then zoomed down to the salt mines, but too
many
people waiting to see em, so went on the salzburg...
hostel
on the hill was full, cooked dinner with view, then on
to
camping a km from train station (with view) FOR THE
USUAL $6.
still raining when got up, so may take train to Linz
to start
riding down the danube river for the vienna (wien)
races.
hoping to see the guys there ..love dave

What is most interesting to me is that he's just rattling off stuff they saw, and stuff they did. Not like, "Oh My Gosh, we got to see Anne Frank's house!!" or "The view was so spectacular we could see for miles!"

So, when will I adjust my life enough to take such a bicycling tour of Europe? Can I do this and still have my job, and still attend SWUUSI each year, and still do whatever else I do? Why am I making this so confusing?

I imagine a little research toward this adventure will help.

Gin in France

July 2001

An update from Gin in France!

ps: for those keeping track, I just put added an email above "05Gin_in_St_Nazaire.html"

Subject:   Gin in Les Sables d'Olonne, France
   Date:   Tue, 17 Jul 2001 17:41:46 


Hello sistas' and brothas',
     Oh life is pure extasy on any given Tuesday in
paradise.  A good friend of mine from Holland is
traveling with me for a few weeks and speaking Dutch
with me when i beg like a hungry dutch  dog.  Last
night when i decided we were going to camp on a tiny
beach right in the middle of this big city (under the
lighthouse) and picnic on a fine red wine, french
cheeze, pastries, olives and a salad over the ocean,
he told me the Dutch have a saying that goes; "living
as the gods in France".  This is especially reserved
for a life of plenty.  I can relate, very good drugs
could not make this better.  I have been walking the
beaches and cliffs and swamp lands of coastal France
for two weeks, on the sunny days getting neeked in the
waves and exposing my lilly whiteness to the sun. 
Every day brings a new emotion to explore.  Now that I
am not lost all day (everyday) i can focus on the here
and now and try not to reflect or anticipate too much.
 I am taking a break from the mind chatter every
chance i get.  Feeling lost did give me large
obsticles of frustration to explore and larger lessons
to process and incorporate into my database.  The suns
rays dancing on the water are much more reassuring,
and the special sinking deep into the soft sand adds a
certain element of challenge  that i do not have on
the other paths.  I measure how far i have traveled
with my finger on the little map I have, an easy day
is one finger, a real foot-blistering day is two.  It
has rained almost every night for the last weeks since
I have been on the coast.  My little tent is holding
up quite well, last night on the beach during a storm
was another great endurance test, we were mostly dry
in the AM.  The ocean is amazing.  I constantly thank
all the powers that made this possible, and have been
singing seasmie street in all the languages i know the
tune in, thanking the sunny days and the beautiful
people of the path.  The french people are golden,
they have been pure love and wish me unending courage
as they watch me walk by with my huge and heavy back
pack.  Sometimes folks ask where I am headed and I
tell them I am a pilgrim on the Route du Saint Jaques
du Compostella Starting in Normandy (north France) and
walking to Galicia (spain),  everyone knows this
pilgrimage and it is a big deal, and i feel so honored
and am realizing it is mutual.  My french is still
getting better, and the other day someone asked me if
I was French.  Wow, it is definetly not that good, but
i hope someday it will be.  I almost expect to be
asked to sing a solo at every party i arrive at, the
last time a mike was shoved into my hand and I was
asked to sing for a village party.  I really belted it
out, singing my song about Durango, Mexico.  I think
this afternoon i will look up the lyrics to a couple
more Sinatra tunes.  It is a Franky summer.  I will
probably make it to La Rochelle in a week or two, but
it is time for the beach today.  I am feeling a little
old today, this is the third time in a row I have
looked at my e-mail and seen a friend of mine has
passed on.  It happens to all of us, so live it up! 
Today is a good day, big hugs, lots of warm wishes to
you and your family and respect in the deepest way
from my soul to yours.   
Ultrea, gin

nice code

6:15pm CDT Tuesday 17 July 2001

Dave had a super good idea for helping the maintenance of the G3 project be a lot easier. Part of the project is a list of variable names and values. The names are referenced in the code, and by changing the values, G3 does different stuff.

Dave determined that the values can reference one another, so long as the value that's being referenced was defined before it's used. This required a small change to how the values of the variables were being defined, but we just tested it and it works perfectly.

End result is that the stuff I was working on today will become way simpler to write. Simple enough that I don't need Kevin's SAS brain to help write it.

You know what else? Kevin suggested that I write a paper on the G3 and present it at the next SUGI. Wow!! Wow!! That's a huge endorsement on how awesome is G3. Nice.

z work

11:45pm Tuesday 17 July 2001

I'm at work now. About to go home. Our client in Singapore was all, "we're not getting any of the password-resend emails."

Turns out that no one is getting the password resend emails, because our mail server thinks our web server is trying to use the mail server as a spam email relay.

Fuck.

I tried telling our mail server to chill, but it seems pretty adamant that the web server is an evil spam creator. Silly computers.

I'm going to bed.

Right after I log my hours.