Support Days, II: Two Customers

When I did tech support, I traveled to a couple of type shops on Long Island. One company I knew well, one I did not.

Danny and his wife owned the first one, in Hicksville. Danny was a very sharp guy, and at least a third, maybe two thirds of his support calls followed one pattern: Danny got one of us on the line, started to explain the problem, in the course of explaining the problem arrived at the solution, thanked us, and hung up. It was only later that I learned to call this rubber ducking. My only complaint about this was that Danny talked so fast that I would get out of breath listening.

Data General used to sell a unit, roughly the size of a cradle, that had a 25 MB hard drive and a drive for 8" 1.2 MB floppies, the latter generally used to back up the former. The hard drive seemed to suffer more minor failures than other units, perhaps because it was driven by a rubber belt; once I was at a customer's shop and heard a small bang when the belt dropped off, stopping the computer dead. Danny had one of these, though by now his main unit was a more reliable 73 MB drive, and so did the other fellow.

I don't remember the name of the man who owned the other shop. As at many of our customers, the system manager was the senior typesetter, who had arrived at that position by quick and accurate typing, not through any knowledge of computers. She was intelligent, but not particularly interested in computers. She was diligent in following the backup procedures, which backed up the hard drive to the floppies. But one day the backup required one more floppy than she had. She examined her directions, which I think were her predecessor's slightly more cryptic summary of the cryptic directions we provided. It appeared that she needed to format another floppy disk, and so, on a plausible reading of her instructions, she started a format of the hard drive. Fortunately, this failed (as it usually did) before destroying too much data. Unfortunately, it left the system unable to start. They called us, we called the travel agency, and I caught a plane to MacArthur Airport to see about salvaging data and putting the system back into working order.

This unit seemed to have developed other problems along the way, according to the field engineer. I ended up calling Danny, who had stepped up to the larger drive, and who kindly agreed to lend us his. The field engineer racked it into place, and we set up the new unit and started to transfer the data. About 7 pm, the lead typesetter went home. About midnight or one, I decided that needed rest. I called the local taxi company for a ride to a hotel, and went outside. After half an hour of waiting in the cool spring air for the cab, I went back in, and kept working. By the afternoon, the system was usable again, and I headed for MacArthur.

Some time, probably quite some time, later, Danny remarked that he had never got his drive unit back, and that the other guy didn't return his calls. That winter, I was at Danny's shop for an upgrade, which included a new 360 MB drive to go with the 73 MB one. I don't remember whether the new operating system even supported 25 MB drives; I doubt it did. I do wonder whether the other guy ever thanked Danny for bailing him out.

(One can walk into the drug store these days and purchase a 32 GB USB drive, that is to say, one that will hold more than 1000 times the data that was on these old 25 MB units. It will take up the space of a pack of chewing gum, and you'll get change back from your $20.)

Kirkin o' the Tartan

For this afternoon's run, I chose a route that took me by the corner of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW, which is to say past National Cathedral. As I headed up Wisconsin toward Macomb, it seemed to me that a woman turning into the driveway of the cathedral was dawdling. Once she was past and I was crossing the drive, I had a look to the right and saw a man leading two small boys, probably about five and about nine, each wearing a blue blazer and a kilt with a predominantly red pattern. It seemed to me that perhaps the woman had slowed because she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Then, as I was about halfway to the other end of the driveway, the bagpipes started. This seemed to deserve a closer look, so I cut back on the walk. For one of my uncorrected vision, there wasn't much to see but people standing near some pipers. However, as I turned back to Wisconsin, there came a man of middle age wearing jacket, tie, and blue-green kilt. I asked him, and he explained that this was the Kirkin o' the Tartan, a ceremony that raises money for Scottish-American scholarships. (I had to look this up when I got home, for it sounded as if he said "Carkin".)

It seemed to me that the the Saint Andrews Society of Washington, DC, might more appropriately have set the Kirkin at the National Presbyterian Church, something less than a mile farther out toward the Maryland line, than at the Anglican cathedral. But I see that a reception followed, and the cathedral has much more in the way of restaurants nearby.

Washington: City and Capital

The Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) created guides to the forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. The usual state guide fits comfortably in the hand: I judge from memory that the guide for Pennsylvania was about 450 pages. The guide to Washington, DC, Washington: City and Capital runs to 1140 pages including the index. After WW II, George Washington University brought out a much abridged version of about the size of the usual state guide. But why not have the real thing?

I mention this because today at Second Story Books I noticed a copy of the 1937 edition for sale. They have priced at $40; my own copy, purchased more than thirty years ago, has $35 penciled up front. I know that I bought it on sale, probably 40% off,  ergo $21; but in constant dollars that must be more than today's $40. I'd have bought this copy, but who would I give it to?

Washington in 1937 was a very different city. It was segregated by law, for one thing. The guide has a chapter of about 30 pages on "The Negro in Washington", and mentions the segregated schools in passing in the few pages given to the District of Columbia government. It was much smaller, for WW II began a great increase in the size of the government. The War, Navy, and State Departments still occupied what is now the Old Executive Office Building: it was only in 1941 that War and Navy left for the Pentagon, after the war that State moved to Foggy Bottom. The Smithsonian was much smaller. The Mall had temporary buildings left from the expansion of WW I. The suburbs gave way to countryside much nearer the city.

The book would not serve a tourist well today, even one strong enough to carry it without tiring. It places the National Gallery in the Natural History Museum at 10th and Constitution. Other institutions have moved or become known by other names. Washington then had streetcars and no Metro. But for the  person interested in a Washington that his parents or grandparents may have visited, the book gives a useful picture.

Back to the Blossoms

In a A Time To Be Born, set in New York about 1940, Dawn Powell mentions in passing the sudden importance of Washington, previously thought of only in connection with cherry blossoms and deadly state dinners. Nobody has ever invited me to a state dinner, but I do keep an eye out for the cherry blossoms.

Every year, some of us at my office try to walk around the Tidal Basin at least once while the cherry blossoms are at their best. This year, the peak was probably about Easter. I missed the days before, for I was out of town until Thursday, and the office was closed Friday. I did run down as far as Independence Avenue on Saturday, but to run around the Tidal Basin through the dense crowds would have been rude even if possible, and would have added a mile and some to a run at about the limit of what I can do these days.

Today a couple of us took the walk. Most of the blossoms were past their peak, most branches about half in blossom and half in leaf; a decent arborist could tell you which kinds of cherry they were.  But about a fifth of the trees were in full blossom, and all were beautiful. The crowds were thinner, so that we could walk without jostling, and with less care not to intrude on photographs.

We did dodge photographs, but five or ten rather than dozens. Of the photographs I saw in progress, two caught my attention: a young woman, sitting on the slope, tossing a handful of petals to be caught by the picture; another young woman, with a floral wreath on her head and a full purple skirt, who apparently was about to dance to some recorded music.

I took some pictures to prove that I was there, and here are two:

And on Friday, they were at about their peak in Mount Pleasant:

I believe that the blossoms appeared a couple of weeks earlier this year than last.

Is That Postmodern?

Last week we sat in a rooftop bar in Los Angeles, with a good view of the crowd. What struck me was the collection of clothing styles, in many cases with elements from years past. There was the man in a black hat, denim jacket, and printed tee shirt: it was a mid-1970s look, though maybe the jeans were a bit snug at the ankles. There were a couple of men in white tee shirts, straight-legged jeans, and sneakers: they could have come from a casting call for a movie set in the 1950s.  Several had a look that was from the 1980s. At least one woman had the shape of skirt, above the knees in front, below the calf in back, that I don't remember seeing before about ten years ago. Is this arbitrary mix of styles postmodern? I don't know.

It is more striking in Los Angeles, in that there one finds very old cars in decent condition, along with the very newest. There are 1970s GTOs in which the fellow with the hat would look at home. There is what we took to be a Studebaker station wagon to suit the men in white tee shirts. Along the block where we are staying are a Ford Falcon and a Dodge Sportsman van, both right around 50 years old.

Bumper Crop

Last spring, while in Los Angeles for a visit, we were reluctant to use our son's car, which had the check-engine light on. We asked the rental agency for a mid-sized car, the agency offered us a Jeep Cherokee, and we settled on a Prius. While backing up to turn around on a dark street, I backed into the bumper of a parked car, a sports ute of some sort, and discovered how far Toyota had gone in optimizing for a low weight:

The sports ute was not scratched.

Before this visit, our son took his car to the dealership, so we did not expect any reason to rent a car. On Thursday, having picked up the car at his office, we pulled over to the curb about one door down from the place we are staying, and were about to move up, when a sports utility vehicle sideswiped us, at low speed but enough to do damage:

This sports ute was a Toyota, I suppose a Highlander [correction: 4Runner], and in its case Toyota did not optimize for weight. I did not see any damage to the car that struck ours, though admittedly I was distracted. Our son will drop his car at the body shop today, and rent something to drive until it is repaired.

Reading Pelikan

Having started in the middle of them, I have just read the first of the five volumes of Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Christian Doctrine, namely The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). For a week or two, I will be able to distinguish Marcionites from Donatists from Nestorians.

It is a work of astonishing erudition, "based on the study of the primary sources in the original languages--Greek, Syriac, and Latin", though he had "of course, consulted the sources in translation as well." The secondary sources he lists are in English, French, German, (modern) Greek, Russian, and Swedish. One, I noticed, was by the future pope Joseph Ratzinger, on "the noninstitutional aspects of Augustine's ecclesiology."

The erudition apart, Pelikan offers a readable account of his subject, the development of Christian doctrine, "what the church believes, teaches, and confesses." I imagine that he was correct in writing in the preface that "By using the index and by working his way through the narrative, even someone who knows no church history and no theology should be able to follow the plot and watch its movement."  My own knowledge of church history and theology was not wholly lacking, but measured against this book it was and is exiguous.

At some point, I will need to go back and reread this volume. That will wait on many things, and perhaps on the fourth and fifth volumes.