Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Bonnie, the man sounds desperate! :-)  You'd better get tickets
    for a tropical island or something soon!

    Lorna
    

    I know, Lorna, I know, and that's the way I respond to
    him..

    like "honey, if your life has gotten so dull that driving
    the back way to work is exotic, I think we need to have
    a serious talk"

    :-)

    we can go on in this vein for some time..

    :-)

    Bonnie

    
    My SO and I do things *togther* that would make outsiders think
    we were crazy......we've got a whole non-verbal communication
    system that we use when we're not being observed.....:-)
    
    He also talks to the TV, and recites cynical versions of famous
    speeches in the bath, complete with accents......(he's a great
    mimic)...
    
    'gail
    
           
    

    Bonnie, it could be worse.  We take the "exotic" backroads each
    day, and occasionallly John will break into a chorus of "fire forward
    phasers!!"  sick puppy.
    
    Grins

    The route lies through Winchenden, MA.  I've got nothing against the
    town, but their roads are really lousy.  I call it S/M Commuting, but
    it's not quite as good as the old days when I commuted on the
    Jamaicaway @ 40-50 MPH.  
    
    DR

    I've dated an audiophile.  Boy do they do nutty things.  Every time I
    put a tape on his stereo he'd scrutinize me as if to see if I pushed
    all the right buttons to decode the Dolby and DBX correctly.  And
    they're almost as bad as hackers - who when they roll over and wake up
    in the morning immediately log in - only audiophiles fiddle with your
    stereo instead.  They reset it until THEY like it, and then you have to
    set it again after they leave.
    
    I've dated a man who was forgetful.  Who was constantly losing his
    keys.  So it got to the point that I'd track them subconsciously.  All
    he'd have to do is ask, "Where are my keys, da**it?" as he scoured the
    apartment.  I'd supply the answer.  He'd give me that "where would I be
    without you?" look.  I'd smile angelically.
    
    -Jody
    

    just in case anyone is confused... 975.5 was written by the other
    Reinke who works in WMO :-)
    
    BR

I'm currently involved with a bona-fide equipment head.

Things like:

Not stopping a cassette tape in the middle of playing because it will cause a 
tension change in the tape, which will in turn cause a dropout.

Going to a hardware store to get a cordless screwdriver and holding every one
until he found the one that fit his hand right. (I wasn't along for the 
excursion, but I did have to run the charger down to make sure it was drained.
Apparently if you don't drain rechargeable things, they can't hold a full 
charge).

He's really into scuba.  He'll just sit there staring at his BC.

Everything that he uses, a microwave, a pump tube of toothpaste, even toys like
Lego are all analyzed for ease of use, design, and user interface.  It's
really funny to listen to it.

Alas, I was not brought up with such attention to detail.

Lisa

    When my SO decides he's going to make an investment in something
    such as a new car or boat he likes to investigate the product. I
    think it is a case of research-extremist. 
    
    For instance he was interested in a boat, that was manufactured
    in Seattle, he hoped a plane and flew to WA to talk with the
    manufacturer, tour the plant, take the boat out.  Much as he'd done
    when he purchased his first boat, he drove to Ohio to the manufacturer.
    
    This time he's thinking about buying a 300ZX. He has every brochure,
    magazine article, piece of paper ever written on the new model.
    Thank goodness he can't go to the manufacturing site! But he did
    go to the docks in NJ were the new cars come in, just to see all the
    cars lined up so he could decide on a color. He records every 300Z
    commercial that he sees on TV (he always has the remote in hand)
    and then proceeds to show them all to me (yawn). Then he drags every
    last friend he has on the face of the earth to various Nissan dealers
    to see what they think about the car. What obsession? 

    Gail

When my SO gets going on a project, he plans out each and every detail in
explicit, painful detail before he gets started.

His current project is YACS, which is Yet Another Conferencing System.  He
has been planning it in his mind for 9 months now.

In the middle of dinner, in the middle of a TV show, even in the middle of the
night (I get ready to kill him when he does this) he says "Diana... Diana, help
me, I need your input...I was thinking of implementing the network interface as
a programmable transaction engine comined with a two-way multiplexer, with the
following three data types...".  To which I generally say "Sounds perfect,
couldn't have thought of it better myself."  (Unless it's in the middle of the
night, and then I stare at him, and if I have enough presence of mind, put my
ice-cold feet on his back.  That sometimes shuts him up.)

Thank God, he has decided to start coding next month.  I wonder if that
means the midnight brainstorming sessions will end.

D!

    What's the point of dating a techie if you can't wake them up in the
    middle of the night and ask, "What if..."?

    RE:.10->.12:  I thought those behaviors were normal.  Are there
    engineers who don't wake up their partners with a "what if"?
    Seems to me we had a grad course in weird behavior as well as
    an extension course for engineering SO's in "Tolerating Weird
    Behavior."
    
    :-)
    
    ed

Rick snorkels in the jacuzzi as a means of alleviating tension headaches.

He says it also works for hang-overs, jets optional.

 Ann

    I wonder if its too late to change my ticket for May.  (^'  Suddenly I feel
    very very scared! (^'  The weirdest thing I do is talk to myself while
    walking each morning - out loud!
    
    You guys sure we'll be okay in your company.  Maybe if I don't tell
    Hugh any of this, he'll think its just like being with me (^'
    
    ...dale
    

What makes you think you're any safer in Australia?

>> What makes you think you're any safer in Australia?

You're not! ;^} Anyone who listed at the window of my house would here me
happily prattling on to myself, along with various off-key renditions of
whatever song happens to spring to mind ;^)

Dale... nothing wrong with talking to yourself while walking.... and in this
weather no-one would think it odd you you wore a snorkel and goggles while you
walked either!

  Hugh. 

    Sharon,
    
    Does this mean we may be blessed with your company (^'  or anybody
    elses for that matter...
    
    Hugh we'd better smarten up our act methinks!
    
    ...dale
    

    You can talk to yourself out loud as much as you want.  Just make sure
    you bring the vegemite.  :-)
    
    -- Mike

    
>    Does this mean we may be blessed with your company (^'  or anybody
>    elses for that matter...

    Actually, what I was driving at was that the bizarrity discussed so 
    far that *I* thought most worthy of striking fear in your heart had
    to do with technical questions in the middle of the night, and, given 
    sufficient will, anyone interested in asking you such a question at
    such an hour could probably track you down there and wake you up. 

    Or was it fear of people snorkeling in the jacuzzi when you need to
    use the bathroom that almost had you on the phone to the airline?

	Sharon

    MV - Actually I was hoping you had forgotten that.  I'll sneak it into
    Hugh's luggage.
    
    Sharon - If anybody, ever, thought to ask me anything technical to do
    with DEC they're in for a surprise.  here's a perfect example of an
    earlier topic.  I am not a techo, I have no wish to be one, and if I
    need to know any information to do with the technical side of DEC, I
    have wonderful friends (^' who can help.  But, if anybody decided to
    call me in the middle of the night I wake up pretty quick and could
    probably be lucid (^' (^' as others have discovered!!!
    
    Nontheless, I will be on guard during May.  Anybody who wants to get
    into vegemite is a worry at any time.  hey thats a good idea...gifts of
    vegemite for all.  Start a new trend...(^'
    
    ...dale (who's still drying out from the rain)

    Well, Dale, the way I look at it, there is a reason for getting into
    vegemite.  I figure that if I ever buy bread from a man in Brussels, 6
    foot 4 and full of muscles, I can then say "Do you speak my language?"
    and he can just smile and give me a vegemite sandwich.   :-)
    
    -- Mike

Mike, you'll get Vegemite even if Dale doesn't smuggle it into my luggage. 

I guess this is the right topic to admit that on my last trip I regularly
smuggled Vegemite down to breakfast at the Lowell Hilton ;^).

Hugh.

    Bless both your cotton socks!!  I know we're really down a rathole, but
    if anybody is into crunchy peanut butter ...
    
    ...dale
    

    To better understand the eccentricities of the engineer that you
    love I suggest reading "Soul of a New Machine". It's a classic account
    of how real techi-engineers think/work/live. I found it very insightfull
    in understanding how my technoid SO thinks.
    
    Gail 

    Would you believe that I was given the book "Soul of a New Machine"
    about 1 month before I got contacted about working at DEC?  Besides
    being fascinating reading, it helped a *lot* to understand the
    company when I arrived.
    
    Or, as Maxwell Smart would say, "Would you believe..."   
    
    	Pennie

    My husband has a hard time choosing one widget from another when we
    have to buy something.  For example, being new homeowners with a large
    front and back yard, we needed some gardening tools.  We went to the
    hardware store to buy a rake.  Simple task you say?  Well, there were
    about 8 different rakes to choose from and I stood there for *over* 30
    minutes while he tried each rake several times.  By tried, I mean he
    raked imaginary items in the aisle. 
    
    His reasoning is that if he's going to spend his money on something,
    he wants to get the best for his money.  In most cases, I agree.
    But over a rake?  (He did the same thing the next week when we went
    to buy a broom!)  He does this with EVERYTHING!  AIEEE!
    
    -Colleen

    That's really funny, Colleen. I do the same thing. I hate to spend my
    money on something and find out later it wasn't quite what I wanted. So
    sometimes I drive my wife crazy trying out the different kinds, like
    your husband. Making a decision to part with the cash can be so hard
    sometimes. :-)
    
     The Doctah

    I keep wondering why I married a guy who *doesn't* do that. 
    Although...if two of us were deciding to buy a rake it would take an
    hour's worth of dicussion on the rake, at least a week's deliberation
    on whether to go to Sears, KMart or the hardware store and then the 30
    min. each raking the floor.
    
    I managed to start a major war in KMart once by declaring how stupid it
    was (for him) to consider buying the cheapo $9 saw for one job when *I*
    would spend the $16 for the one that would last forever.  A couple of
    weeks later I went to Sears and got the good stuff.  Do you have any
    idea how many saws a woman has to try out to find one that fits her
    hand?
    
    I now try not to be so vocal about my capital-T Truths when we're
    discussing $10.
    
    Nancy_who_knows_little_about_moderation