More birthdaying

Yesterday evening, I had a little birthday party and invited some friends.

I don't know whether "a good time was had by all", but I certainly had one. Interesting conversation as well as decent food and enough of it.

Meike couldn't meet Sonja, though, because she had stayed home with the baby. So I joked that last year she met Sonja (Thomas was meeting a friend who was passing through Hamburg), this year she met Thomas, and maybe next year she'll meet Taya :)

I got some money as well as an O'Reilly pocket reference to LaTeX (which, I believe, is only available in German) and a Calvin and Hobbes book.

Interestingly enough, on the same day, I got two more birthday things: a postcard from gleffler (Thanks!) and another gift from my Secret Santa. Yay! (It should have come on Thursday but Stella was out, so they left a notice and she picked it up yesterday. So it all came together on the day of my birthday party.)

My Secret Santa sent me a clock that displays time in BCD format. Geeky!

So it has six columns, two each for hours, minutes, and seconds, and little LEDs which light up in binary to display each (decimal) place. For example, right now the columns are none, 8+1, 2, 4+2, 4, 8, spelling "09:26:48".

My Secret Santa even had enough foresight to make sure the clock would work over here by selecting one that could be switched to use 50Hz current and including a small transformer to convert from 230V to 120V. Thank you, Santa!

Update: I just noticed, while looking through my mailbox, that the paid account fairy visited me last night as well. Yet another birthday gift. Yay paid account fairy!

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A LiveJournal user who was happy to find that the name she wanted was already taken by an inactive Early Adoper—her three-years-earlier self! :)

How I got to know Stella

This is going to be a long entry :)

( How long? That's for me to know and you to find out. )