Three Days of the William

I've seen William-Bob 3 times in 3 days, which is a new record. First, it was lunch with he and John-Bob at Snookie's (they still have ostrich burgers on the menu, although I went for The Wednesday Special which was a turkey and guacamole wrap). I was surprised to find No Waiting, which was certainly due to the cold (2C) which turns Texas Natives into cowering wimps. I've surmised that if you dangle about 20 snowflakes in front of a native, they'll go running home to mommy; it's amazing. I watched as drivers clutched their steering wheels with a Death Grip, just in case they encountered an icy spot on the mostly dry roads.

At lunch, the three of us Solved World Hunger, after which W.B. thoughtfully pointed me to the Mister Deity website, which provided a few moments of frolic (the guy's trying to stoke an audience for a half-hour TV show -- uh, Good Luck With That, except maybe on FOX which provides Wholesome Family Entertainment™ - like The Family Guy; American Dad; etc.)

My second Brush With Greatness was at Thursday night's Unix User Group meeting, in their temporary space at BNI in Plano. Their meeting room holds about 40 people, cozily. The speaker was a local Red Hat "Guru" (I use the term loosely) who wasn't prepared for this crowd, which is known to eat presenters alive and toss their carcasses in the dumpster amidst the pizza box remnants. Why some people feel they can face a technical audience with a sales-marketing pitch is beyond me. I'm not sure I learned much about the upcoming (15 March 2007) RHEL5 release that I didn't already know, but did score a 3-pack of Red Hat Golf Balls, to be used at some future time.

I first attended the DFW UUG's meeting at SGI (Silicon Graphics) near Preston/LBJ. When that location closed, the group moved to a nice space in the "JC Penney basement" (near Coit/LBJ) and were there for many years until being forced to relocate to Nerd Books in Richardson. The owner there decided he didn't want to stay late, so the group is meeting in Plano, but seeking a new location. User groups traditionally get the short end of the meeting space stick, fer sher.

Finally (well, the week's not over yet) I got an IM from William-Bob alerting me to the presence of 00E (a/k/a Bryan) who is visiting - one of his monthly trips from Maryland. Bryan was a -Bob until a few years ago. Yesterday, he bought a couple T-shirts from Poor Richard's after we fed there (me: veggie omelet Mit Grits). Only a few times in my life have I felt amused enough to buy a restaurant's T-shirt. Thinking about my current closet, the only ones promoting such places are in support of Dairy Queen (the institution).

Now, it's time to mosey over to Hollywood Video (across the street from Blockbuster) and rent a copy of Three Days of the Condor to see if William-Bob bears (bares) any similarities.

Aside: I finally Bit The Bullet and switched to the New! Improved! Blogger interface; if you spot anything peculiar, let me know. So far, I'm seeing minimal differences in the editor; it appears to post much faster, but that could be a Saturday morning aberration. I do like the improved Spell Check interface. And (oh yes) the Labels. I must make good use of The Labels.