Category Archives: bio

bio, what I do

Representing a Company in Public Internet Forums

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Being an official company representative on the Usenet (or any other online forum) is hard, especially when the company you represent is the 800-pound gorilla in its particular niche. The attitude out there is often “large automatically means evil” – kinda like the public attitude towards Microsoft.

So I came in for a lot of flak during my years representing Adaptec/Roxio online, and some of it got personal. I mostly let it roll off my back (though I spent hours composing witty, sarcastic replies, which I rarely sent – sarcasm and irony do not come across as intended in email). The allegations which bothered me most were those that I lied on behalf of the company – I was always scrupulously honest. During my last months of representing Roxio on the Usenet, someone called me (repeatedly) “a lying bitch.” That thread went on for days, becoming a flame war between my detractors and my supporters. I finally weighed in myself:

Subject: The Bitch Bites Back
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 10:57:42 +0200
From: Deirdre’ Straughan
Newsgroups: alt.comp.periphs.cdr

All right, folks, it’s time for the subject of all this to put in her own piece. I begin by quoting Elizabeth Hilts, author of Getting in Touch With Your Inner Bitch:

“There is a powerful and integral part of each of us that has until now gone unrecognized, its energy largely untapped… It is the Inner Bitch… The Inner Bitch is not that part of ourselves that is sometimes stupid, or mean, or humorless. She neither indulges in self-defeating behavior, nor does She abuse herself or others. The Inner Bitch does not engage in petty arguments, even for sport. Why bother? The Inner Bitch never enters into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.”

I recommend this book to anyone who’s ever called a woman a bitch and thought it was an insult.

My “real” title in the realm of CD-R used to be well known out here, but I haven’t publicized it recently because my sense of humor was misunderstood by some colleagues. [That unofficial title, bestowed on me – lovingly! – by friends, was “the Bitch Goddess of CD-R”.]

“Lying”. That is slander, because it’s not true. If anyone has any proof that I have ever intentionally lied to any customer, here on the Usenet or anywhere else, I invite them to step forward with it.

As for the rest, my other guru, Miss Manners, would likely advise that the best response to coarse insults is a dignified, ladylike silence. And if you think a bitch can’t also be a lady, you have a lot to learn.

Naturally, this didn’t convince the troll of anything: years later, he is still slandering me out on the Usenet.

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bio, living in the USA

Health Care

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By the time we arrived in Austin, Rosie had been moved from the Austin Heart Hospital to the “rehabilitation” wing of St. David’s hospital, where she had previously passed two four-month periods. I hadn’t been to that particular wing before; when I visited in November, 2003, she was in St. David’s intensive care. Both times I was impressed by the kindness of the staff. Rossella observed that, while the people who cared for her in the Lecco hospital were competent, they weren’t particularly nice, and always seemed to be in a hurry. The St. David’s staff were busy, but they took time to be nice about it, even a little too nice at times: “Hi, I’m Keith, I’ll be taking you down to radiology this evening” – he sounded like a waiter.

The St. David’s staff were always careful to explain what they were doing and why, sometimes too simplistically. The doctor used a medical baby talk that didn’t tell us much: “The tests on your liver showed results in three areas that we’re not happy about, so we want to investigate some more.” If she’d been a little more specific, we probably could have handled the information. I suppose in rehab they’re accustomed to dealing with confused old people who are easily overwhelmed by medical details; Rosie is sharp as a tack, no problem there.

I was surprised at the number of different kinds of staff it takes to run that wing. Not just doctors, nurses, and orderlies, but also nurse practitioners and a case manager, occupational therapists and physical therapists. Having been through it all so many times, Rosie has no patience with the therapists. She knows by heart their “use it or lose it” speeches: “If you lie in bed and don’t use your muscles, soon you won’t be able to use them, so we’ve got to get you up and moving.” Up and moving is what you don’t want to be when you’re nauseated for reasons the doctors can’t even explain, but when Rosie refused to get up, the therapists would threaten her with: “We’ll have to discuss this with your doctor.” These strong-bodied and strong-minded young women had to learn the hard way that they are dealing with a woman who, while frail in body decades beyond her 76 years, is far stronger in character than anyone they’ve yet had to deal with. Faced with Rosie’s stubbornness and her son Guy’s constant, protective presence, the therapists eventually withdrew from battle. They remembered her from last time, and doubtless will remember her this time as well.

Most of the staff love Rosie, though, and who wouldn’t? In spite of years of severe illness, repeated surgeries and hospitalizations, she manages to maintain a sense of humor and a joy in people that are rare anywhere in life, let alone in a hospital ward. As one of the nurses put it: “We’re sorry you had to come back, but we’re glad to see you.”

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bio, living in the USA

Austin Music

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While driving us around in his car, my friend John introduced us to radio station KGSR , playing an eclectic mix of great rock and blues. He also gave us one of the station’s broadcast twin CD packs featuring (among many others) Los Lonely Boys. I’d never heard of them, and didn’t have an opportunity to listen to the CD during the trip, but my brother mentioned that they’re “all the rage” in Austin these days.

Austin’s Bergstrom airport is small, but, as befits “the live music capital of the world,” it’s got a selection of great music in the “Austin City Limits” store, and you can listen to some of it. So I got to hear Los Lonely Boys there, fell instantly in love, then was immensely frustrated that the CD was out of stock. So I bought a concert DVD instead, and am listening to it now. Wow! If you like hard-rocking Texas blues a la’ Stevie Ray Vaughn, you will LOVE this.

Austin airport also has a great bookstore, a branch of Book People, one of the few independent bookstores left in America. Even though I could get the same books cheaper on Amazon, I make it a point to shop at Book People’s main store when I’m in Austin: only at independent bookstores can you browse through shelves of books selected by intelligent readers who DON’T necessarily think the way you do, an experience which Amazon so far has not been able to duplicate.

I bought Jared Diamond’s new book, “Collapse,” which I eagerly anticipate will be as amazing as his Pulitzer Prize-winning “Guns, Germs and Steel.”

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Overheard on Campus

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A group of young students were sitting by the turtle pond when we stopped by to say hi to our turtles’ relatives. One (girl, not turtle) concluded a cellphone conversation and turned to the others:

“Guess what Mary just told me! She smoked dope with her mom!”

Her friends’ reactions were mostly of the “Eww!” variety. The conversation then turned to to who else’s parents smoke dope (most of the group), how they had learned about it, and whether they would ever smoke with their parents. Some parents had tried to hide the fact from their kids, as ineptly as they might once have tried to hide from their own parents: “He said it belonged to a friend, but I knew it was his.”

Kids today. You just can’t tell ’em anything.

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bio, food

Good Food in Austin

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No one should go to Texas without eating Mexican food, and we were fortunate to have my cousin Guy’s guidance to the good stuff. We ate at El Mercado (on Lavaca), some of the best Tex-Mex I’ve ever had. Standard enchiladas and fajitas, but the enchilada sauces (one green tomatillo, one red) were amazing.

We had Sunday brunch at Chez Zee, sitting at the bar because there was a half-hour wait for a table and I didn’t want to spend two hours on a meal. While trying to find decent food over Valentine’s weekend, I had occasion to reflect on the fact that it’s rare to wait for a restaurant in Italy – I can’t think of a single time we’ve done it, perhaps because, if a given restaurant is full, there’s always another great one nearby. Not always the case in the US. Chez Zee might even have been worth the wait, but eating at the bar was fine, especially as we were right behind the talented jazz pianist/singer, to better enjoy her music.

During our wanderings, Ross and I lunched one day at the Kerbey Lane Café near the UT campus, a great place for healthy food (including vegetarian). For one dinner we went the opposite route, with fancy steaks at Dan McKlusky’s. The food was very good, but the dining experience was spoiled by our fellow diners. Due to some weird acoustics where we sat in the front corner, everything seemed very loud, especially from the next table, where a man had invited two people for a business dinner in hopes of “getting your thoughts on this” (some business proposition). I don’t think he got many of their thoughts, because he did 99% of the talking himself – loudly – and we all learned far more about him than we needed to know. Lack of sensitivity to others is a common handicap among computer geeks, which he evidently was (his tales included his early days on punch-card machines and more recent excitement at visiting the world’s largest flight simulator facility). His daughter was student president of something or other at the University of Houston; evidently she is more astute in dealing with humans than her father is.

Our best meal was at the home of Julia and Dani. Julia is a friend of my old friend Barb. Thanks to Barb, she has been reading my newsletter for some time, and we’ve occasionally exchanged emails about something I’d written. So when I knew I was coming to Austin, I dropped her a line, and she invited us for dinner. “Spankyville,” as they call their place (named after their cat Spanky), is one of the most comfortable homes I’ve ever been in. Comfortable in the sense of a nice place to be: as soon as we walked in, we knew that we were among friends in a house full of warmth. It’s hard to explain, but a few rare places in the world make you feel that way. And we sure needed it right then.

The Chinese/Mongolian hot pot dinner was great; it’s a tradition in Julia’s family ever since her father, years ago, invited the entire Chinese Students’ Association of Texas Tech home for Thanksgiving dinner.

cooking at Spankyville

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