It’s the Monday Mission:
1. Do you remember your first encounter with computers? Tell me about that.
When my family moved to Colorado while I was in HS (Ft. Collins HS — Go Lambkins!), we had a remote terminal to the CSU computer lab — teletype print-out, paper-tape input. It was keen.
Actually, earlier than that I remember, while on a Scouting trip to the big air show at Pt. Mugu, one of the hangers had a “play football against the computer” booths, where you keyed in a number for a play and it gave you the result — again, on a TTY print-out. I actually still have that print-out somewhere.
First real chance I had to play on a computer was in college — 3277 terminals on IBM 4330 mainframe, as I recall. Woo-woo — no TTY!
Of course, now I work on the damned things all the time. Where’s the fun in that?
2. How late can you stay up and still be functional the next day? Do you do that very often?
I can still pull an all-nighter and be functional the next day. But over the short run, I really need at least 6 hours a night to be in decent shape, and eventually an 8-9 hour catch-up to refill the tanks.
3. When was the last really good hug you got from another adult? Who was it and what was the situation?
Margie. Hmmmm. Friday, I think, sometime after I got home. It was very nice. We enjoy hugging (etc.), albeit with some restraint when it’s broiling.
4. One thing about children is that they all like to draw. We all shared the same ability and skill level at one time. Do you still like to draw? (Not do you think you draw well, or do others, but do you like to?) If not, how come? Did you get discouraged at some point?
I still like to draw, and actually could draw pretty well for a while (as a root-around of my web pages will eventually show, for those of you with too much free time on their hands). My problem was not so much discouragement (though I know others who can draw much better — Juli, as an example) but that I just plain ran out of hours in which to do it.
5. I way overslept today. I had to head to work with no shower (don’t get too close), and I am not in the best of moods. Have you ever overslept on a day you had something important going on? What’s the story there?
I’m sure it’s happened, but not enough to warrent an amusing anecdote for me to remember.
I hate going to work without a shower in the morning, though. Just hate it.
6. Ever go shopping for something you know you can’t afford? You look at it and even think about how it will look when you get it home, somehow you justify the cost and believe it can happen? And just before you get to the counter come to your senses? What was the last thing you almost bought, but thought better of it? And why the heck do we do that to ourselves?
Hmmm. I’m still kind of in that space with air conditioning and repainting the house, except that the latter is an inevitability and the former may be much the same.
7. (It begins again…) It’s all such a blur now. I’d asked you to help me wake up but the alarm didn’t go off. It was 10 till and just I knew I’d be late. Somehow you got me here on time. How did you do that?
I was kind of nervous about the whole thing and didn’t sleep well, so the alarm didn’t matter. Besides which, I’m always padding these sorts of trips with additional 15-30 minutes “safety margins” — multiple times — so I usually end up getting there early. Lucky for you.