Well, friday started innocently enough. I got up at about 10 in order to meet Nikita (the husband of an ACTR research scholar) at 11 to go to "Netcom 96" a computer and networking trade show. After locating the exposition center and presenting our complimentary tickets, we got to wander around inside. It felt like every trade show i've been to in the states...except nobody was giving away any tchotchkes....and for an internet trade show (among other things) there was surprisingly little connectivity (I spent a bunch of time trying [and failing] to locate a machine with a net connection....well, there were several, but those were "hands off") I did, however, find that lots of pavilions had unix boxen (mostly suns) out to play with. Almost all were demoing net traffic analysis software. All had shells open. All but two were logged in as "root." I think a security consulting gig could make a lot of money here. As we walked around, I discovered that Nikita is terribly interested in the field of e-commerce. So, I spent a lot of time chatting with him about various systems. [No, Utopians, I didn't violate any NDA we may or may not be under ;)] Toward the end, we were in a booth of a fairly big reseller/consulting company toying with their hardware. Some guy comes up to us and askes us if he can help us...we get to talking...i ask them if they have any programming gigs open. He shakes his head. I pipe up that I can also do Mac, PC and Unix support. "Macs?!?!? You know Macs? One of our biggest clients has been having trouble with their macs. What's your phone number? Can you call me on monday? You'd probably be needed over there about three times a week...How much do you charge? Well, we're charging them $50 per hour...you and I can work something out on monday." At this point, I grinned and asked him about the work environment. I swore that I was never going to take a shirt and tie job, but since it appears to be the only game in town at the moment, I'll try it once and see how it goes. If I like it and they like me, I'll grab another permanent press shirt or two and invest in a second tie. I was very amused. I headed back to the dorm to hang out until 8:30 when Carrie was supposed to show up with some friends to go out to the cafe Margarita (Named for the character in Bulgakov's _Master and Margarita_) Well, we went to the wrong metro by the wrong pond. When we figured this out, we wet to the first cafe we saw and were told that they didn't have any food, wouldn't we like a drink instead. After briefly toying with attempting to obtain their 4-foot long inflatable tube of Mentos, we continued our quest for food. Seconds later, we narrowly avoided being struck down by a tram by diving aside. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that it wasn't just a tram but a tram-restaurant. Prices wer high, but not terribly high. At about 11, we returned to the dorm to take a breather before going off to meet Carrie's friend Nancie to go to some form of "Native African Music Festival" which started at 12. George decided to tag along. When we got there, we discovered that the price wasn't 60 T.R (minus student discount) as advertised but was 80 T.R. 16 bucks....for music till dawn. George took this opportunity to bail....he decided it wasn't worth it......but it was...it turned out to be a disco/rave. We danced for about 3 hours straight. Everything from an R&B band to white russian rap. Definately not "traditional african music" but perhaps something got lost in the translation. Smoke machines, A great light show, some weird music, russian rave kids and some very bizzare individuals on a variety of mind-altering substances made this one hell of an interesting people-watching venue....Finally, at about 3:30, the real acts had gone home and were replaced with a string of Russian kids with synthesizers...each of whom seemed to sound like what one might imagine Depeche Mode to have sounded like before they learned how to play....Shelly and I each played one game of $1 pinball in the basement of the venue before deciding that it was definately out of out price range. Returning upstairs, we found Carrie and Nancy fast asleep. We decided to go to the Starlight diner for some coffee and something to eat. The Starlight is supposed to be open all night, but we realized that we had no idea where it was. (As it turned out, I'm pretty sure it was a block from where we were, but we had no idea) We hopped a cab to nancy's appartment where we all piled in and promptly fell asleep.