Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
White hair chronicles LXIII: IBM and La Salle @100, Pinatubo@20, Duran@60
Last June 16 was an important day for several reasons. This white hair chronicler's penchant for trivia was whetted by the anniversaries occurring on this date. While the younger set might not see the significance of these events, I have witnessed history made by the celebrators of this date.
First, IBM and La Salle celebrated their 100th anniversary. Because of its proximity to my house, maybe I would have studied in La Salle if I had not been accepted in my original choices for high school and college.
I have used IBM machines for the longest time. While I typed my thesis on an IBM Selectric typewriter, my younger office mates have not used a typewriter at all. In college, I learned COBOL programming using punched cards. Punched cards were a major source of IBM's revenues. The university computer then was an IBM mainframe (I don't think there were other brands). Then at later work I also used IBM's AS/400 using AIX. Then of course much later, IBM/Lenovo laptops.
Roberto Duran, a very durable fighter whose career spanned 5 decades, celebrated his 60th birthday. Today's fight fans see fighters who carefully select opponents to preserve their records. Duran belonged to an era where everyone fought everybody else. Those were boxing's golden days.
And of course, we remember June 16 as the date of Mt. Pinatubo's explosion. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the explosion that helped slow down global warming for at least several years and changed our landscape (political and geological) by forcibly ousting the Americans.
First, IBM and La Salle celebrated their 100th anniversary. Because of its proximity to my house, maybe I would have studied in La Salle if I had not been accepted in my original choices for high school and college.
I have used IBM machines for the longest time. While I typed my thesis on an IBM Selectric typewriter, my younger office mates have not used a typewriter at all. In college, I learned COBOL programming using punched cards. Punched cards were a major source of IBM's revenues. The university computer then was an IBM mainframe (I don't think there were other brands). Then at later work I also used IBM's AS/400 using AIX. Then of course much later, IBM/Lenovo laptops.
Roberto Duran, a very durable fighter whose career spanned 5 decades, celebrated his 60th birthday. Today's fight fans see fighters who carefully select opponents to preserve their records. Duran belonged to an era where everyone fought everybody else. Those were boxing's golden days.
And of course, we remember June 16 as the date of Mt. Pinatubo's explosion. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the explosion that helped slow down global warming for at least several years and changed our landscape (political and geological) by forcibly ousting the Americans.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
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