Meeting

Thursday, June 4, 1998
One year ago: Written in Water

I woke up this morning, an hour later than I wanted to. So I booked on over to work -- traffic is notably worse even at seven AM than at the earlier hour I usually drive at.

I added many demos and samples written by team members to our internal web site. I've urged the authors to also write a few paragraphs describing what their demos are supposed to demonstrate. It may be obvious to the person that wrote it, that a sample shows some particular new feature, but it isn't always clear to anyone else.

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Manly Love
A Spanish comedy about a woman, Esperanza, whose best friend is a gay man, Ramon. Neither can find an appropriate romantic partner, and they try matchmaking for each other. I liked the cast (Javier "Jamon, Jamon" Bardem, yum! and Silvia Munt who reminded me of Bette Midler) and the script was funny and touching. The circle of friends (all gay men except for Esperanza) was the most interesting thing in the movie.

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Tonight I was supposed to get together with Rob "Pages of Goo" Hudson, along with some other online friends of his. Julie of Cerebrations had organized this gathering, since Rob and his fiancee Julie were in town for a week, staying with my old acquaintance Karawynn.

In a last-minute move, Julie and I decided to drive to the gathering place together, so I waited outside on the front steps of my building till she drove up in her pick-up truck. We were in Belltown in a few minutes, and made our way to Sit 'n' Spin, a café-laundrymat where we've had Cacophony events in the past. She and I were the first ones to arrive, so we staked out a table in the non-smoking section.

Frank Wong was the next to show up. He's an online friend of Rob's, and another Microsoft person. He said I was the one who had turned him on to Rob's writing, by posting a link to Rob's Ode to Testosterone in a public folder at work. He had a tape he had made of the Met Opera broadcast last night, which Rob was very glad to get.

So Frank and I went up to the counter and ordered our food. I turned around, and there were Rob and Julie and Karawynn walking in the door! I gave Rob a hug (my policy when meeting online friends for the first time, I've decided.) and Karawynn, and shook hands with Julie. The last to join our group was Kim Rollins, who inspired Rob to put his writing on the web several years ago.

We talked and ate, chatting about Rob and Julie's future move to Seattle, and what they did today (apparently they drove all over creation and back) and what they might like to do during the time they are in town. But Karawynn was getting tired, so Rob decided to drive her back to her place, and then return and talk with us some more.

This is where we made our mistake. Someone should have gone with him! Bad vision, driving at night in a strange city -- no wonder he got lost on the way back. We had a fine time talking with Julie and getting the straight dope on Rob, but we were worried about him! We waited and waited -- no Rob! Julie was watching out the window to see him if he drove by, and reported that guys walking past thought she was checking them out and started giving her the glad eye. Finally, an hour and a quarter later, Rob arrived after a trip that should have taken twenty minutes. "All good journal material!" Rob, JulieR, and I all thought to ourselves (or at least I did, and attributed the same thought to them).

So since we only got to spend a limited amount of time with the Robster himself, I proposed that he and Julie might want to drive to the Microsoft campus for lunch on one of the days of their trip. I'm also forwarding the information for this month's Vanguard, the monthly fannish social gathering I go to.

To prevent another episode of Rob being lost, he followed JulieR and me in her truck. We think they made it back to Karawynn's ok!

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