This page contains unsorted fragments of my life in the 1900s that will be merged into other pages.
Most are minor bits of interest mostly to archeologists who will study the 20th Century in periods to come.
Details will change as recollections are examined. Memory can be both accurate and fluid. There is nobody, too, to ask about most issues.
610601. Bird that isn't right.
Age 2 or 3.
Bird on the sidewalk. Baby bird. No feathers. It isn't a finished bird. It isn't moving. It's staring, instead. The bird isn't right.
620601. Place that doesn't exist.
Age 3.
A house has a small brick structure attached to it at ground level. Fire must have been involved, at some point, but the structure isn't an oven. It's more like an open room. Perhaps 4 feet by 4 feet in size.
The bricks on the inside are black. Not a black that is visible. Nothing can be seen.
It isn't clear that anything exists in this space. It doesn't seem to be a place. It's a place that perhaps not only doesn't contain things but might not exist itself.
I step back from this space.
620602. Plant that isn't right.
Age 4.
It's late. A different mode of the universe. I'm standing in the living room.
Nobody is there. It's so quiet.
There is a tall plant on its stand, where it's supposed to be. But its leaves and things are gone. No, they're scattered about on the floor.
The leaves and things are supposed to be on the plant. But they're not where they're supposed to be. Something has happened.
There is no thought of sequence of events. No fear. But the plant isn't right.
811010. Naive Young Coder.
Age 20.
It's sometime in my early years of college at U.C. Berkeley. There's a man with a tech business of some type. He's probably in his 30s. I know him casually because Danny, a friend at Berkeley, has worked with him.
I can't recall the man's full name. I think that his first name is David.
David has asked me to drive with him to Sacramento to debug problems for one of his customers. I'm not sure that I can be useful. But David presses me to go. He offers me a sum of money that is significant for the 1970s. Probably $100.
I agree to go. He drives us to Sacramento and we do what is possible. Subsequently, he refuses to pay me.
“You had a pleasant drive on a nice day”, David says. “You should be grateful for that!”
“That isn't the point” is my thought. But I doubt that I articulated my response so clearly. I'm outraged that somebody would make a promise and then simply laugh at it.
I am, or was, such an autistic fool.
I sputter my irritation to Danny. Who is significantly younger than I am and perhaps half the age of David. But he knows how to talk. He says something to David and David forks over the money.
I should have learned multiple things from this. But I learned nothing. Not about what normals are or about what it takes to communicate effectively with the creatures.
920101. Ken Kiraly always had a temper.
Age 34.
My younger brother Ken Kiraly, later the putative lead designer of the Amazon Kindle, has come to see me at my company, IPT in Palo Alto.
Ken had worked there a decade before. In fact, it was his first computing job and one that I'd gotten him.
I can't see now why Ken is visiting me then. But he isn't pleased. He wants me to hurry up and get into his car.
I'm too slow to satisfy him and placate his rage. I get halfway into Ken's car. He slams his foot down on the accelerator and zooms the car forward.
I'm dragged along as Ken Kiraly guns the car forward. Half inside the car and half outside.