2013.02.22 01:00 - Pigeonhead

Wol Euler was guardian for this session.

Hana Furlough: hello wol
Wol Euler: hello hana! nice to see you again
Wol Euler: heheh, pigeonhead
Hana Furlough: lol yes
Hana Furlough: nice to see you as well
Hana Furlough: how are you this morning?
Wol Euler: cheerful
Wol Euler: and yourself?
Hana Furlough: can't complain
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: you haven't been around for a while, at least not during my times
Wol Euler: have you been busy?
Hana Furlough: yeah i was asked to teach a class this week
Hana Furlough: so i was busy doing that
Wol Euler: nice (I hope)
Hana Furlough: yeah it went all right
Wol Euler: do you like teaching?
Hana Furlough: sometimes
Hana Furlough: or, most of the time
Wol Euler smiles.
Hana Furlough: i just don't like having a lot of people stare at me for long periods of time
Wol Euler: ha, yes
Wol Euler: that must take getting used to
Hana Furlough: yeah it's weird
Hana Furlough: do you ever teach?

--BELL--

Wol Euler: back in the day I used to give training sessions at a computer company
Hana Furlough: how was that?
Wol Euler: great fun, I really enjoyed it
Wol Euler: especially the higher-level macro-programming courses
Wol Euler: watching the students' minds expanding :)
Hana Furlough: ahh yes that is always a treat
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: I miss it, actually
Wol Euler: one of the many paths not taken in my life
Hana Furlough: ahh yes
Hana Furlough: those
Hana Furlough: do you have any trainees at your present job?
Wol Euler: no
Wol Euler: the office isn't big enough for that, never was
Wol Euler: I get my teaching fix in SL and in WoW
Hana Furlough: how many are in your office?
Wol Euler: right now two of us on half-time
Wol Euler: bossette comes in occasionally to look at the drawings
Hana Furlough: oh wow
Hana Furlough: that's small
Wol Euler: yeah
Hana Furlough: so you teach in SL?
Wol Euler: times are hard
Wol Euler: only informally
Wol Euler: I used to be a mentor, when there were mentors
Wol Euler: I loved that
Hana Furlough: yeah that must be very rewarding
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: turning frustration into "aha" is a great feeling
Hana Furlough: yes!
Wol Euler: and the first hour of SL is nothing but frustration for most people
Hana Furlough: ahh yes
Hana Furlough: i'm still at that point
Wol Euler: which is why the overwhelming majority of people who try SL leave it within that first hour, never to return
Hana Furlough: oh really?
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Hana Furlough: i had not heard that statistic, but it makes sense
Wol Euler: well, look at the numbers. 15 million residents, but 40,000 people online
Wol Euler: most people don't last long enough to make a single friend
Hana Furlough: oh wow
Hana Furlough: i had no idea
Wol Euler: which is actually one of the crisis or opportunity points in the process
Wol Euler: statistically, if you make a friend during that first hour, you will stay
Wol Euler: so as a mentor I talked to *everyone*
Hana Furlough: good idea
Wol Euler: accepted every friend request
Hana Furlough: do you keep in touch with a lot of your students?
Wol Euler: some of them, yes
Wol Euler: very few, though
Wol Euler: we didn't actually have much in common in most cases
Wol Euler: I was just their first point of contact in SL
Hana Furlough: oh i see
Hana Furlough: well hopefully they went on to make new friends
Wol Euler: if they stayed, they did
Wol Euler: but one can never know
Wol Euler: one of the problems that game designers (and virtual world designers) face is that they can't follow up on why people leave
Hana Furlough: oh right
Hana Furlough: that must be true
Wol Euler nods.
Hana Furlough: so have things picked up at work for you?
Wol Euler: no, we are still in the same position: one small house project, and lots of hope for other projects
Wol Euler: I've spent most of this week doing costing for the house
Wol Euler: spent more time in Excel than in CAD
Wol Euler: we are far over budget :(
Hana Furlough: oh no
Wol Euler: yeah
Hana Furlough: i'm sorry to hear that
Wol Euler: nobody's fault but ours
Wol Euler: boss misread his own spreadsheet, mistook brutto for netto
Wol Euler: i.e. left off the tax
Wol Euler: so we are 20% over
Hana Furlough: oh no
Wol Euler: it's almost funny, actually
Wol Euler: in a gut-wrenching way
Hana Furlough: is it going to be okay?
Wol Euler: for certain values of "ok", yes
Wol Euler: it'll have to be smaller
Wol Euler: is the short answer
Wol Euler: so we are trying to get a good fix on what it will cost right now, to be certain of how bad it is
Hana Furlough: i see
Wol Euler: fortunately the client has been pushing for changes, making this bigger and that bigger
Wol Euler: we can blame some of it on their desires
Hana Furlough: oh good

--BELL--

Wol Euler: we have been asked to look at extending the pool / health centre that we built, a year and a half after opening it is too small
Wol Euler: but that's far from being a paying project
Hana Furlough: that sounds promising
Wol Euler: it would be a nice job
Hana Furlough: i wish it would result in some revenue for you all, though
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: thank you, so do we :)
Hana Furlough: :)
Hana Furlough: some friends of mine suggested we all visit katsura rikyu
Hana Furlough: i told them i am holding out for another friend
Hana Furlough: : )
Wol Euler: awwwwww
Wol Euler: you know, it may be years before I get back
Hana Furlough: i guess that's true
Hana Furlough: well, we shall see
Hana Furlough: who knows how long i'll be here
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: time passes, I'll tell you that
Wol Euler: I never thought I'd be away from Canada for this long
Hana Furlough: really?
Hana Furlough: so you thought you'd head back?
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler: never occurred to me that I could do otherwise, actually
Wol Euler: until I got to England and discovered that it was nice
Hana Furlough: interesting
Wol Euler: I've lived away from "home" for more than 2/3 of my life
Hana Furlough: wow
Hana Furlough: that's a long while
Wol Euler: only in retrospect :) as one lives it, it feels short
Wol Euler: it feels just like life :)
Hana Furlough: : )

--BELL--

Wol Euler: how's the pigeon family?
Wol Euler: is Junior flying yet?
Hana Furlough: actually, it's very sad, but both of the babies died
Wol Euler: oh no :(
Hana Furlough: i don't quite know why but it was awful
Wol Euler nods.
Hana Furlough: there may not have been enough food
Hana Furlough: i don't know
Wol Euler: :(
Hana Furlough: but the parents stopped feeding the last baby for some reason
Wol Euler: wow
Hana Furlough: anyway, i'll spare you the details
Wol Euler: how strange, and how sad
Hana Furlough: yeah it was
Wol Euler: I'm sorry to hear that
Hana Furlough: when it first happened, it was so painful
Hana Furlough: but i eventually came to see that life is strange
Hana Furlough: and there are parts of it we are not meant to understand
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: well, poor babies, and poor Hana
Hana Furlough: thank you
Hana Furlough: the strangest thing was the night after the last baby died, the mother returned and slept in the nest one last time
Hana Furlough: i don't know why
Hana Furlough: but she hasn't come back since
Wol Euler nods.
Hana Furlough: it must have been so hard for her
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler: I wonder what happened. Perhaps there is a new cat on a neighbour's balcony?
Wol Euler: or a hawk in the tree across the street ...
Hana Furlough: as far as i saw, they just didn't get enough food
Hana Furlough: they make have been sick somehow
Hana Furlough: i don't know
Wol Euler nods.
Hana Furlough: i even called the wild bird center at the zoo and explained the situation after the second baby started to seem unwell
Hana Furlough: they told me not to do anything as long as i saw the parents coming to the nest
Hana Furlough: i really wish there is something i could have done
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler gives your hand a squeeze.
Hana Furlough: thank you
Hana Furlough: my friend who is a monk performed a short service for the first one
Hana Furlough: and i performed one myself for the second bird as it was dying
Hana Furlough: strangely, in bother cases, by the time the seeing off service ended, the baby was gone
Hana Furlough: i found this very comforting, somehow
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: saying goodbye
Hana Furlough: yes

--BELL--

Wol Euler looks at the clock and sighs.
Wol Euler: I have to get ready for work, I'm sorry to say
Wol Euler: are you okay?
Hana Furlough: oh i'm fine
Wol Euler: good
Hana Furlough: this happened about two weeks ago
Hana Furlough: please don't worry
Wol Euler smiles.
Hana Furlough: have a good day at work
Hana Furlough: hope business will be booming soon
Wol Euler: thank you, hana. Enjoy the evening, and have a happy weekend
Wol Euler: thanks!
Hana Furlough: thank you!
Hana Furlough: bye for now!
Wol Euler: take care