Sunday, or better Monday 3:30am.
We went to sleep early, at about 11pm, because we'll be up very early tomorrow. I fell asleep, but after a while my gif accidentally woke me up while trying to fall asleep. She did, but by that time I was clearly awake. I looked back at HIP97 which was about to end. Then, it must have been 1:30, I heard a noise outside our tent. At first I thought it could be a hedgehog or a rabbit, but after a while I realized someone was standing in front of our tent. At normal camping places, that would scare the hell out of me, but here at HIP it just couldn't be someone unfriendly. So I god out of bed, without wakening my gf, and opened the zippers of the tent a little. It was Parsec.
"What are you doing here? Aren't you tired yet? It's late..."
"Sorry to have woken you up. I have a problem."
She was scared, I could see. She was trembling, her face was pale, even in the dark, and she seemed smaller than usual. I could just feel she was scared.
"What's the problem? Wanna come in and talk? Be careful not to wake up MJ."
"No, please, I don't have time. It's urgent, you have to help me."
I wondered what could be so urgent at one thirty in the morning.
"Tell me..."
"I have a serious problem. It's a matter of life and death, so to speak."
That sounded strange.
"So to speak? What's that mean?"
"Can't tell you right now, it's awkward. But you just gotta help me. Otherwise...."
She then started to cry. Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked as if she would collapse.
"Don't stand there, do sit down on this chair, shall I get you some water, or Jolt? Are you cold?"
"I don't have time. You gotta help me."
I got impatient. I couldn't figure out what was bothering her. Obviously, she was very unhappy. She was afraid of something that would happen to her, or something that had already happened to her. But here at HIP, with all these nice and friendly people, what could happen? And why didn't she just tell me?
"You have to help me..." she sobbed.
"Please help me, I need to do something I can't do myself, and if it's not done, then ..." and she got overwhelmed by tears. I tried a different approach.
"OK, what do you want me to do? Name anything, and I'll do it for you."
For a moment, she regained herself. She straightened her back, and looked me in the face.
"Will you?"
I nodded, and smiled.
"Then please come with me, and talk to the FHQ people. There's an error in the network on this camping field, like most of the tents don't have ethernet any more. Can you ask them to fix it?"
I was going to get angry, but I didn't. Something in her told me she was really frightened, frightened to death almost. Yet, why would an error in the network scare her so much? I decided I liked her so much I wouldn't argue, but I'd do what she asked.
"I'll come with you to FHQ"
"No, I can't go. I must stay here,on the camping field. Can you go in my place and ask them to fix the network?"
Next
[ck: as you have noticed, the "next" link doesn't work and there's no information on what document it should have linked to. However, while cleaning up my harddisk this morning, after I got serious problems with it, I found some lost clusters containing file fragments that seem worthwile to show here. Btw, I have lost a couple of files from my system. The strange thing is they also vanished from my backup tapes that never left my house when I was at HIP97.
I linked the file fragments here.]
Go see yourself
