All Good Things ...

As Q (John de Lancie) said to Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in the second part of the series finale, and coincidentally the title of the two part thriller of ST:TNG, “But then again, all good things must come to an end...” Yes, indeed. And so ends my “trek” in Windhoek. All told, I’ll be heading to Tses Thursday morning, tying the record of 15 days set by a health volunteer just a short time ago. I leave with a working Schoolnet computer (with a new motherboard), a 4-in-1 DVD/CD burner bought for N$450, two other pieces of hardware purchased for N$140 + 1 Top Deck candy bar (I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse) and a much better relationship with and understanding of Schoolnet. Oh, I also scored TWO t-shirts, including the much-valued one that tells Microsoft “where to go” and the story behind its creation. They may also have a deal for my school for a copier through one of their suppliers! Well worth the time up here as our copier has both feet, well, more like nine toes in the grave. That pinky toe is holding out.

Ok, the story behind the t-shirt: Back in the year 2000 (ha ha for any Conan O’Brien fans if you remember that skit), er… anyways, they were about to sign a deal with Apple computers to install the operating system and software on their computers they were selling to schools here. Microsoft then jumped in and said that they would do it for free, implying, but not saying, that the software was included. They jumped at that offer and after signing found out they’d have to pay over R$1000 per computer to install the software! Too late to go back to Apple (that bridge was sorta burned), so they paid Microsoft for those computers and then went to Linux, that cute penguin, altering it to make the Openlab operating system.

I’m looking forward to getting back to site and getting back into teaching. Now I can do a movie night for the learners who behave – which will be about 15 out of 200 or so. I hope they can remember me.