Growing up, and meetings

Isaac on his first day of school

Isaac started school today, an event which he enjoyed, but which left him rather sapped of energy by the end of the day. Everything’s going so fast. It seems like only yesterday that he was a tiny baby popping out into the world for the first time.

After dropping him at school, I went into the city for a couple of meetings. The first one went smoothly, but the second one started off as a bit of a farce, as we tried in vain to get a telephone hook-up to a couple of guys in Sydney.

They can put man on the moon, but the human race hasn’t yet come up with a speakerphone which can work reliably. This one worked for about 30 seconds at a time, before the connection was lost and we’d get very loud feedback of some kind. It would work for even less time if anybody dared to move it to be closer to the person talking, since naturally the guys on the line couldn’t hear a word.

Every time the connection was lost, one of the guys would ring back, then put us on hold to get the other guy, which flooded the room with classical hold music. It took a laughable ten minutes or so before the chairperson decided it would be best to hear the guys’ contributions on another occasion. Ah well, a little office entertainment never hurt anyone.