This is the first pancake of a project under the working title “book”, my better half’s project. Knowing no peace or rest, this dedicated woman is making her way through my not-very-literary speech, through the dubious sound quality of the first episodes, through the terms I initially overused. And the most important and difficult — she’s trying to make something from the conversational text that reflects the original authentically enough but also allows reading it as text. Especially for this project she learned to type blind in Russian and now types like a champ. The process of initial transcription of the first two dozen episodes is complete and now she’s doing combing and finishing. Taking advantage of the fact that all texts are in our family Dropbox, I pulled the first episode from her working process and give everyone the happiness to familiarize themselves with it for the new year.
Good day! With you is the first episode of Umputun’s podcast.
Since this episode is first — a few words about what I’m going to talk about, how often, and in general, why. In principle, I’m not going to impose any special topics or special restrictions on myself — I’ll talk about what’s interesting to me. First of all, what surprised me recently, what curious things happened, what I myself witnessed and heard from people. Well, of course, some special topics, since I work with computers and my hobby is computers, programming and so on. So I can’t do without them either.
Who am I? I’ve been living in Chicago for the last three years and my name is Eugene. Before that I lived in Israel for about ten years, and before that, naturally, in Russia, in the glorious city of Taganrog. Well, in general, the introductory part is finished, we can move on to business.
Here, since the podcast is first, and I’m not sure I’ll keep to the topic, I wrote myself such a little list of questions I wanted to cover today. So, let’s begin. By the way, I’ve already covered the first two.
Out of curious things. Last Friday I was returning from work. I should say, I rarely return from work because I rarely go there. My work is mostly from home, and about once a week, well, depending on mood, sometimes twice a week, I go to Chicago. Chicago is geographically quite close, but if you look at time, it’s a completely unpredictable situation: sometimes you can drive these forty miles in forty minutes, and sometimes… sometimes it takes two to three hours. By the way, I live in a small American town called Naperville, thirty-five to forty miles from Chicago. So why am I saying all this? Ah! Returning from work. There, when you’re driving from Chicago, there are lots and lots of such bridges. And on one of these bridges, already when leaving the city, I see a mass of people standing, the whole bridge just packed with people. Everyone’s looking down at the road from above and holding signs, huge signs. Signs of the following content, translated into Russian: “Love animals — stop eating them and stop killing them!” And below an inscription, also in large letters: “If you agree with this — honk.” Well, this is a free translation. And near this bridge people are really slowing down, a small traffic jam is gathering, and some are indeed honking. Moreover, a serious number, apparently, were honking, since it was quite noisy. Well, I’m not a vegetarian, didn’t honk, driving on. And two or three miles later, on exactly the same bridge, a much less numerous group, but also all active, cheerful, colorfully dressed, holds signs of this content: “Out of Iraq right now! Let’s not allow our soldiers to stay there any longer!” And again, the same inscription, apparently it’s standard: “Honk if you agree.” Not one, not a single car honked! Don’t know what the point is here. Either they honked enough at the previous bridge, or they don’t agree with withdrawing troops from Iraq, but so, such a curious fact from life.
Here’s another interesting thing that happened to me during the week. I ordered a second cell phone from Cingular. In America, in general, there are very few large firms, providers of these mobile communications. I ordered from the largest, called Cingular, although I had quite a negative experience with them, I’ll tell you about that a bit later. So I ordered this phone. It cost some pennies, and they even returned twenty dollars, I think. Two-year subscription, all like everyone else. They delivered it by mail in about two days. And there’s such a strange paper attached to it. It says that for the phone to work, it needs to be activated. And to activate it, the following data is needed: various personal data is listed that I should prepare for this call to activate the phone, like social security number, first-last-middle name, and, most surprisingly — phone number. And the purpose of my call is precisely to get this number. Probably a typo came out somehow. How can there be a number when there’s no number yet? I call them there. There the fully automatic registration system asks all these questions. Asked for the card number, first-last-middle name, zip code, something else. At the end the root question: “Enter the phone number to continue activation.” Well I ask you, where would I get the phone number? And that’s it, and there are no other options. Well, we’re seasoned people, not simple pretzels. We stay on the line and don’t enter anything. Indeed, after about two minutes it switches to an operator. A woman appears, starts with me… Barbara, her name was Barbara, as I remember now. Very kindly communicates with me, asks the same questions as the answering machine. At the end she wondered if I knew the number, and wasn’t surprised that I didn’t know it. Entered everything about me, gave the number. Well, the service this time I quite liked, even though they started stupidly with this automatic registration system.
Although I have such a special, even specific attitude towards service. There’s such a peculiarity for those who speak English like me, that is far from very well, but at the same time my “far from very well” is such that everyone who wants to understand — will understand. And sometimes you come to some place, for example, for me a telling place is Starbucks cafe. I need to say two words: “cappuccino tall” or “tall cappuccino”, doesn’t really matter. And in general, in a cafe where they sell coffee, if a client comes to you and says something, even with an accent, and even somehow crookedly, well go through all the variants in your head. What can he ask for? I won’t ask for automotive screws. I’m asking, apparently, for some coffee, apparently saying the name of coffee or cup size. No! This was just such a project for me — so to speak “tall cappuccino”, so they wouldn’t ask again. Moreover, it’s surprising that mostly black people ask again, although they themselves speak, in my opinion, with a completely terrible accent, but they understand each other and everyone understands them. So, what am I talking about? Ah! So in service what’s important to me is when they try to understand and try to guess, even if my pronunciation isn’t quite one hundred percent what they expect to hear. And this Barbara was on top. Simply on top!
And my negative experience with this Cingular was about a year ago, when I was buying my… no, not buying — I bought my first phone about three years ago. Suddenly about a year and a half ago these frightening papers started coming with this content: “You owe two hundred dollars to Cingular company. Your case has been transferred to the agency that collects debts, and if you don’t pay immediately, then…” So they’re willing to take it in parts now. If two hundred dollars is a lot for me, I can pay a hundred or a hundred forty, and the rest later. But this needs to be done literally in a week. And the return address, so if you have any problems — call there. What problems do I have? I don’t owe money to anyone. I always paid bills normally. Well, I call this number that’s indicated there. Nobody answers, not even an answering machine. I call Cingular at this… Some lady came up, kept me on the phone, kept me probably an hour on the phone, transferred me from supervisor to supervisor. In the end they told me the current state of my account. And there it’s clear to see that I owe them twenty dollars, no two-hundred-dollar debts anywhere near. And that’s it, and there are no problems. Well, there aren’t and aren’t, I forgot. And a week later again such a paper comes, moreover already with a reminder that look, they’re transferring the case to court and will knock these debts out of me. Again I called them there, called. Well, in general, it was a long story. They upset me so much that if it weren’t for this two-year contract when I took the phone (the first was also a two-year contract), I would have just thrown them to hell. Well, then of course I calmed down. In general I have such an impression that in these big companies that are for all America, something isn’t quite right with this… how is “customer support” in Russian? Yes, with technical support. Some parrots just sit there and try to understand who to transfer this conversation to and how to get this responsibility off themselves as quickly as possible. Exactly the same story, exactly the same sad stories I had with others. For example here, satellite television, which is Dish. So when I called them to ask why one sum was promised and another comes out, they also muddled my head for so long, wanted to find out such intimate details about me and immediately offered to subscribe to a million services. Since then I try to solve all my questions and problems over the internet — it’s much calmer. You send a letter — well, maybe they’ll send an answer, and maybe even fix it. They don’t send an answer, don’t fix — you send another letter, with a certain pressure. And that’s it, experience shows that everything, as a rule, gets fixed.
What else interesting happened here? The other day another episode of Daily Source Code came out. Well, if anyone’s not in the know, in my opinion — this is one of the best podcasts, unfortunately, completely in English. That is, if you don’t understand this enemy language, alas. It’s hosted by a certain Adam Curry, a person known in certain circles, but I didn’t know him before these podcasts, although everyone I tell about him knows him. Yes, they say, he was on MTV once. But apparently when he was on MTV, MTV was already quite far from me. So, it’s called Daily Source Code, he does it every day, tells something. And this time he was in San Francisco. He goes out, at night… He goes out on the street, apparently with a microphone either in his hands or on his head, I don’t know how it’s technically solved for him, and right on the street at one in the morning in San Francisco he records his impressions, pesters people. Well, some pester him. Mainly beggars pestered him, asked for money. And he tells what he sees — well, like a Chukchi, what I see, I sing about. And he approaches some intersection. Noisy, noisy, and suddenly I hear in the background what seems like Russian voices, moreover such loud Russian voices either singing or shouting. He approaches them. Turns out, it’s a group of some Russian guys. They’re in San Francisco, I didn’t quite understand either their English or his, since it was noisy there. But apparently one is from the Urals, and one either from Moscow or somewhere else. So they come on vacation already, apparently, not for the first time and sing on the street. Don’t know who they’re singing to at one in the morning on the streets of San Francisco, and don’t know where there’s such a public that will listen to Russian, but the fact remains. He asked them to sing, and they so kindly sang a song for him. Don’t know, maybe the song isn’t theirs, by style reminds of Nautilus or something like that. At the end Curry wondered, here, he says, you’re such fine young people, singing-playing, you probably record disks in Russia, sell them? They say: “What disks, in Russia everyone can sing on the street like that.” He says, “What, playing three chords”? They answer: “No-no, four.” Well yes, sang quite loud. Of course it’s hard to evaluate their vocal qualities especially since it was noisy, and they… apparently their main goal was to out-shout the traffic movement and other San Francisco noises. Here this led me to a thought: don’t know how he technically made this podcast, and my podcast is made… Well, don’t know how it will be made, but for now — literally with what’s at hand. And at hand we have some such microphone that’s worn on the head, all this is plugged into my main computer, which is under Linux and in the program Audacity. Yes-yes, it’s called Audacity, this audio track, and it’s recorded. Well, apparently I won’t do anything further with it — clean it somehow, process it, since this isn’t royal business. Recorded and recorded. Like live broadcast, and that’s it.
Tomorrow I’m going to work, tomorrow is Friday. As a rule, I go to work on Fridays. Tomorrow I have such an unpleasant purpose for this trip. I have one worker. Well, a young guy, I think he’s twenty-five, from Poland. Here, apparently, for a long time, since he speaks English like a bird sings. So he has some kind of either bug or feature in his head: about once every six months, well, I don’t have particular statistics, he’s only worked a year, but… Six months ago it really was the first time. Once every six months something switches in him, and he starts, as they say, “being rude to those around him”. He works in the office every day and communicates a lot with our girls who do technical support. And so he with them… No, of course there’s no such rudeness, he doesn’t beat faces, doesn’t curse, but apparently, he’s unkind. He’s such a type that, in general, is unkind in life too. And I don’t think they start complaining to me from the first time — and I’m his boss — but apparently he’s rude to them and rude, and something overflows in them, and they literally start crying on my shoulder. And the other day their boss called me. Crying, just crying! Says, “it’s impossible to work with him again!” His, so — they call it ego — his ego, they say, interferes with his work. Need to do work with him, an educational conversation. Well, tomorrow I’ll go adjust his brain. Hope it’ll work for another six months. That’s such a reason. Yes, so I had this topic at number eight in this plan, called “brain adjustment”.
I recently listened to Russian podcasts here. In general, with podcasts it’s a completely phenomenal thing. I discovered them about two or three months ago, completely got hooked on this thing. As they say now, I’m a fan of them, a fan… In my iPod, which in general was bought for this, there are probably twenty podcasts, maybe even thirty, of which I listen to about ten regularly. Sometime maybe… Sometime, possibly, I’ll do a podcast review. Here there’s such a strange problem — Russian-language podcasts. In general, there’s nothing to review really. Well, I mean there are a couple of such fun podcasts, but in my opinion either they’re too fun, like Titties-willies show, or, recently listened, moreover like that, with transitioning pleasure, also such a Russian podcast, don’t remember what it’s called. This podcaster, well that is, the one who speaks the podcast, calls himself Steering Wheel Rulik, I think. Yes, if I’m not confusing anything. Well, the point is that these are notes from a person, from the face of a person who either left for Germany long ago, or is leaving for Germany now. In general, tells about his impressions: how they receive there, how they settle and so on. In general, a completely amazing podcast, especially not from the point of view of factual material, but… Well, it’s clear how they’ll settle there, receive, but from the point of view of the position presenting this material. That is, for me, as a person who survived two emigrations, it even causes some bewilderment. So a person comes to a foreign country, they somehow barely settle him somewhere, somehow barely feed him, somehow, well, integrate him, I don’t know what to call it. Yes, in general, I’m trying to remember my emigration to Israel. To say they somehow integrated us there… It was just that time when they gave some money. This of course was good, money is of course good, but integrate as you want, yourself. And here in America there’s no such concept at all. Came here — live, came here — work. And don’t know English — learn English. There in Germany all this isn’t simple. Somehow these Russians are gathered somewhere, Russian Germans, they’re taken somewhere, somewhere they help learn this language, well, in general… And the most amazing thing is that this seems completely insufficient to the one who’s telling the podcast. Such a strange, strange concept that there’s such a big and kind state that takes care of you and helps you. I’ve long lost the habit of such a concept.
Today I spent half a day doing such a curious thing that people far from Linux might not understand. At work we have a jabber server. Jabber is such a thing that… well, probably the closest analog from those programs that are used in the Russian-speaking environment. ICQ, maybe some yahoo messenger, maybe something else, maybe MSN. Well, this jabber is our own kind of server at work. And it’s not that we developed it, but simply we have a local one, and our whole office communicates with each other through this server. Our office is quite distributed physically: that is, some offices work in Chicago, most developers sit at home. There’s a large department — relatively large, our whole company is twenty-five people — well, a relatively large department is in Florida, in the city of Tampa. And this messenger, this like-ICQ — is our main means of communication, recently it started behaving strangely somehow. Works — falls on flat ground. Before that, in general, it worked decently. I started dealing with it, walked through forums, listened to smart people, and they advised me against using this server that I was using. It’s called jabberd. Well, I’ll tell you, jabberd is such a thing that’s nontrivial in configuration. I once spent, probably, a day, maybe two, to figure out where and what to write in it and how to activate all these features. In general, I can’t say it’s not user friendly. Although with us in Linux everything is so: if you know where, in which file to twist what, so you’ll twist it, and it’ll work, there’s no sin to complain here. But why did I remember this? Because today for a test I started installing another server. Entirely written in Java, called Jive, I think. Now I’ll look what it’s called. Oh lord, what is it called! Jive, exactly! Jive-messenger. Well simply, you know, heaven and earth. This program either the one who writes it, his hands grow from the right place, or thinks about poor users — users those who will install this server. Well, simply if with that one I spent two days, moreover my head then split, because what to twist where — unclear. Some shamanism. You go to Google, search who else encountered such a problem, and try to understand how this problem applies to you and whether it can be solved somehow by the methods that are said there. So, you install this one, launch it, and in general everything already works. If you need to change something, there’s a wonderful web interface. Right inside it has its own server. You connect to it — beauty! No configs need to be changed, completely self-documented thing. I didn’t have to… No, I had to go to the forum for one place to understand what one strange message means. But installing this… lord, forgot again what it’s called! Jive-messenger, yes, Jive-messenger on three servers — that is we have two: one main, one backup at work, and I also installed it at home — probably in total took about two hours, without any strain of the gray matter of the brain. So there is something to this, to these uninhibited user interfaces that help a simple administrator live.
What other topics do we have? Yes, in general, I think that’s all for today. First podcast, experimental. Don’t know if it’ll be in demand, whether it’ll be downloaded by anyone, whether it’s interesting to anyone. In general, if this is interesting to you and you want me to continue with this and tell some of my stories in the future, maybe more different stories — write. Write, write in the show notes to this podcast, well, to such notes on the site where you got this podcast. There should be all my details: where to write, where to send letters, where to send questions. By the way, if there are any questions, you can send them either by email, or audio questions. I might even play some, maybe even answer some. I have no idea what questions you can ask me, since we’re not particularly acquainted yet. You listened to me for twenty-five minutes, maybe someone’s curious about something.
By the way, I was in Russia four months ago and discovered there a lively interest in those who came from America. Moreover, such a strange interest, like in the eighties, probably, more likely in the first half of the eighties, when Americans were asked — well how is it there with you, bad? And here, such strange things people ask me: “How is it there, how bad has everything become there?” Don’t know where, where the legs grow from such information, why bad, why it should suddenly become, but such curiosity, in a negative direction, in Russia clearly takes place. Yes, it’s not bad here at all, if you suddenly haven’t understood yet. I like it here, my wife likes it here, and my children don’t particularly complain, although of course there are some quirks. About these quirks and all sorts of other interesting topics we’ll talk next time. Most likely this podcast will come out once a week, I’ll hardly find time and strength to say so much more often. So somewhere in a week. In a week? Take care, bye.
This is such a chapter from the podcast. I’ll be your CO and remind you that this was recorded in the distant year 2005 and, of course, since then much is already not so, but some things are quite relevant.
This post was translated from the Russian original with AI assistance and reviewed by a human.