Category: Friends

Once a geek, always a geek: I’m posting this from Steve and Wendy’s reception. Style: California eclectic. Mood: elated
UPDATED: It’s now Sunday morning; Wendy and Steve are heading off on their honeymoon, which means that Steve will not be able to watch Arsenal drawing with Chelsea, thereby ensuring that his beloved Manchester United has won the championship again!
I’ll post some wedding photos when I get back to Seattle – I travelled light, and didn’t bring my camera docking station with me. It was a delightful wedding, with nicely quirky vows — “for richer, for poorer” morphed into a reference to the value of Sun stock options! It was very nice to finally meet so many of the people from the grommit blog-roll, especially Steve Chu. (Good luck in Philly, Steve!) For dinner, I was at a table with Sun folks, which was a nice opportunity to catch up. (So when is Nevada going to be ready to ship, anyway?! I know that the journey is more interesting than the destination, but really….)

What Jon said. But first, after watching Chelsea v Bolton (what a nail-biting match, with the scores coming in from Everton v ManU every few minutes), I need to catch up on a few chores… and maybe watch a little of the Middlesbrough v Tottenham match. And I want to finish the latest New Yorker, which has an outstanding commentary on Shootings.

This evening I’d planned to meet Jon* and his wife Laura at the Harvard Exit to see Pan’s Labyrinth. I was frustrated: the bus was late and then slow, and at 7 o’clock I was still walking quickly towards the cinema, eyes down to watch for patches of ice on the sidewalk. (Seattle doesn’t “get” winter.) As a result I almost bumped into Jon and Laura, who were walking the other way hoping to intercept me! Neither Jon nor I had bought tickets ahead of time, and the show was sold out. So instead we made our way to Café Septième for a drink, which turned into a delightful leisurely dinner. I hadn’t met Laura before, and relaxing with good food and a bottle of Brothers in Arms No.6 strikes me as a much better way to get to know someone than whispered comments during a movie.
And there’s always the Sunday matinée…..
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* Or should I link to him here? People with multiple blogs make my head hurt…..

We’ve lived in various places over the last 30+ years: a year in Hayes, three years in Newcastle-on-Tyne, four years in Chesham, nineteen years in Foxboro, and now four years in Brookline. In all that time we’ve never really had a “local”: a regular place to hang out and eat or drink. In England the “local” is usually a pub, but our nearest pubs in both Newcastle and Chesham were dismal places. And Foxboro was the kind of dormitory suburb without a centre, where most socializing happened at the homes of friends and neighbours. Oh yes, we’ve patronized various restaurants, but we never got to know the staff as friends.
But here in Brookline I think we’ve found our “local”: a really nice, interesting, friendly restaurant called Lucy’s. OK, it isn’t very local – it’s up at Coolidge Corner, about 4 miles away. But over the last year or so we’ve found ourselves eating there more and more often, or simply stopping in for a cocktail and a chat. The food is really good and always imaginative. This afternoon we were shopping at Coolidge Corner, and we found ourselves rearranging our schedule in order to be at the door of Lucy’s when it opened at five. We had a martini and chatted with Mitzi (the proprietor) for about half an hour before heading home to deal with the trick-or-treaters. Sure feels like a local to me.
Lucy’s. Recommended. See you there.

Back on May 4th I posted a piece about colleagues who had been caught up in the most recent round of layoffs here at Sun. What some people didn’t realize is that the process was not completed back in May. For reasons associated with the reorganization of the systems business, some of the layoff decisions were deferred… until today.
I want to mention two people who were RIFfed today who had been at Sun almost as long as I have. Since I haven’t cleared this with them, I’ll just call them Dave and Don.
I worked with Dave on the 386i (“Roadrunner”) workstation in the 1986-1988 period. I did software, he did mechanicals. Where we came together was designing the keyboard. For those of you who have not experienced it, working on a keyboard design team is the most miserable job on the planet. Everybody, and I mean everybody, knows how to do your job better than you do. Nobody, and I mean nobody, will be satisfied with what you decide. Too soft, too hard, too clicky, not enough feedback, “you moron, how could you put key X in position Y”…. Dave was unfailingly patient in the face of all the brickbats (and the occasional compliment). In the end, I think we did a bloody good job, even if everyone hated us for it.
Don joined the PC-NFS team back in… oh, hell! I can’t remember: it’s like he was always there. He was the guy who made the mysterious stuff happen: that ineffable transition from the first alpha build all the way to getting it into customers’ hands. You know what I mean: the product stuff; training the network ambassadors; preparing the support organization; getting the part numbers; the alpha and beta and omega of making a software product happen. These days it all happens according to a tightly-scripted process; back in the 80s we were making it up as we went along. (A PC software product?! From Sun!?!@!? Hah!) Eventually Don even wrote a book about how to turn our product into a real customer solution. He had [HAS! What the hell, he’s not dead!] a sense of proportion, and of the absurd, which kept him (and us) sane through many releases, and millions of copies sold. Thanks, Don – for everything.
Just two names. Many other colleagues, friends, and acquaintances of mine left Sun today, some gladly, but most before they were ready. Thanks, everyone, and the very best of luck. You deserve it.