From: mlloyd@westmark.Stanford.EDU (Mike Lloyd)
Subject: Re: Wanderer Returns
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 02:23:06 GMT

adc@threel.co.uk (Alan "D." Culloch) writes:
[tale of sightseeing and soaking on the far coast deleted]

WhingeWhineMoan!  OK, so it's probably a shade petulant of me to
complain, but I will all the same.  Here I am, bashing my head off the
ignorance-wall presented to me by my students, and then I see tales of
the Better Life Out West.  Sniff.  Well I shall priggishly content
myself with the knowledge that, given the will, a way can be found for
longer-term presence in such environs.

: Although, unfortunately, my visit _just_ failed to coincide with
: those of various Orcs and Mikes, I consoled myself with the
: thought that in the great, extended soc.bi David Lodge novel,
: we were all more likely than not to bump into each other in
: some airport lounge fairly soon anyway.

Ah, how true, Alan, how true, although if the Goddess really shares
Lodge's sense of humour, we are probably fated to extend our games of
phone-tag into the air, as those in-flight credit-card phones become
more and more omnipresent.  A frightening thought.  In fact, I now have
a facility whereby I can program a machine with a one-minute message,
and have *it* ring *you* at the time of my choosing to say its piece.
Heaven only knows what convolutions of machines jabbering to machines
about owners who just can't seem to get together we can come up with.
Lessee, if I get the machine to ring you, but you have your phone
auto-forwarding to a conference-call with ... <mumble>

: Mike: sorry our game of ansaphone tag never got anywhere in Boston/NY!
: I vividly remember listening to your recorded voice while sitting
: in a cheap motel room somewhere in New York State, watching
: "Gizmo the Weather-Dog Sez:..." on TV, thinking "this is bizzare."

*laugh*  Yes, Alan, that is quite bizarre.  Sometimes this country is so
odd one no longer feels the need for hallucinogens; between the
telephones, the preachers, the cartoons and the weatherbeings, one can
get rather happily befuddled, and all (apparently) legal!

: The closest I (almost) came to direct contact was with someone at
: your office on a Friday afternoon, who said "Mike?  I think he's
: upstairs at a party..."   He he, mlloyd -- party animal!

What party?  Nobody told *me* there was a party at work!  Maybe they
*do* understand the pink triangle bola after all ... (ran into my HofD
today for the first time in a while; also the first time I've worn my
"I'm not shy - I'm just studying my prey" badge ... he noticed; don't
know what he thought, though).

In fact, I'm quite amazed the person who answered the phone even knew
who I was!  Let's say I'm not maintaining that high a profile at work
... my fellow-hacker postgrads in the machine room know who I am, but
most of the staff probably just think I look too out of place to be a
genuine member of the Dept of Stat&OR :-)  Little do they know that
beneath this freakish exterior lurks the heart of a closet
mathematician!

Still, really sad to miss you, Alan.  Mea maxima culpa, for surely it
was my fault.  I kept ringing hotels to find you had left that morning
:-(

hugs
Mike
-- 
Mike Lloyd, B0/1 h- f- t w- g+ k+ s m- e? |    "Bloody nose and burning eyes
      Retro-hippy, music nut, bi and      |  Raised in laughter to the skies"
          backrubber of devotion          |                 - Bruce Cockburn
               --The end of confusion is the beginning of death--
Newsgroups: soc.bi