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Advice: Death From Above, or Thanking Someone From the Past
Thu, 01 Dec 2005

Be warning, I'm deathly-tired and unable to type ;)

A good friend (and a good man, chum) just scored a short term contract on the side of his day gig; a little cash infusion can't be a bad thing, and I'm sure its a big boost to the old ego. But it reminded me of something..

Years ago (long years, too) I landed a job while still wet behind the ears and a tad nervous; anyway, when I got home, a friend was there. Well, not so much a friend as an acquaintance I hated much of the time, but who was a good hearted jerk of a man the rest of the time :) I remember the conversation going something like this...

Me: Hey, so Les got me a job.

(Les was a weird sort of creepy guy, who was a little older than the rest of us and scored all the easy metal-ch1x. Anyway. He had mentioned something to me about going to get a job somewhere.)

Westwood: He didn't get it for you; you went and talked to them, it was your skills that won it for you; you got you the job. He was just pushing.

I don't know, maybe it wasn't Les who did the suggestion but Westwood himself; or maybe it was all Les I don't know .. but I think it was Westwood during one of his nice guy phases. (Don't get me wrong.. he was always a charming energetic fellow, but he cheated at wargames and thats breaking the sacred trust. "Death From Above" was a maneauver in the Battletech tabletop wargame.)

Well, the fact I remember that advice means it meant something - my memory was never really good except for technical things. Westwood made me proud that day though, and perhaps I owe him something there as that position was a salesman for Atari products at the local computer nerd-hangout, after highscool. The Atari ST was where I really cut my teeth for software development, BBSing, phreaking, all that good stuff.

Well, I just heard (a year or two ago ;) that Westwood and his wife had a pair of twins. He was fighting as a peacekeeper over-seas I heard as well, though not sure on that one. Either way, for advice given some 15-20 years ago .. heres to you guy.

n008 - yeah, cheating at wargames. Bastard!

Aphyd - Yeah, I found something good to say about him. I don't know why this came up. And expect the other guy.

Billy - congrats on getting the short term position. You deserve it. You spawned this whole post, even.

Aside: Whats that Peanuts theme song? And that 'working industry' music in the Loony Tunes cartoons.

Aside: Another silly invention idea -- interview all the past Survivor's who survived awhile; write up a book on Survivor Strategy, and also survival strategy to mock them.

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