amiga-news.de - Advent Calendar: Door 2

02.Dec.2022 Advent Calendar: Door 2 - Daniel Jedlicka
Behind the second door with the initials "DJ" of our advent calendar, Daniel 'trixie' Jedlicka has prepared a story for us. The AmigaOS 4 developer is best known for his recently developed audio editor Rave, but he has been involved in AmigaOS 4 for much longer: He wrote some articles for OS4 Coding (for example about programming screens), published the English dictionary WordNet (latest version 3.5) and has taken over the development of ADRipper since 2015 (latest version 1.13).

In addition, he runs his blog Rear Window, where he not only publishes status updates on the development of his audio editor, but also far-reaching and very readable articles, for example recently about the Amiga37 or the question what motivates him as a developer. And here is his Advent Calendar anecdote:

"It’s the 3rd of August, the year is 1990, I’m seventeen years old and I’m sitting on a tour bus. My father and I are going back from Nuremberg in Germany. But make no mistake, we didn’t go sightseeing; in fact, we couldn’t care less about the city’s history, landmarks and tourist attractions.

The bus is fully loaded with all sorts of electronics. Eight months after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Western goods are still quite a rare sight in Czech shops. Tour operators are thriving because shopping trips like the one we’re returning from are extremely popular in the first year of freedom. The mood on the bus is upbeat. The most excited, and the loudest, is a group of hi-fi enthusiasts occupying the front seats: they just won’t stop their bickering about Sony, Panasonic and something called the Nakamichi Dragon. I don’t understand any of it.

Our bus stops at the state border. After a few minutes, a young Czech customs officer climbs onboard and asks: "Has anybody got anything to declare?"

His words are met with an awkward silence, the kind of silence that is supposed to mean "no".

He looks at the flood of boxes protruding from luggage racks and bags half-blocking the aisle. The lie is so bold and obvious that the officer needs some time to process it. He steps off the bus, taking our tour guide with him. I can see them standing beside the vehicle and talking about something with a lot of agitation. The guide is gesticulating wildly.

After a few minutes, the officer is back on the bus and we all know we’re in trouble. Row by row he moves along the aisle inspecting the cargo, and if a particular box looks too pricey to be dismissed, he commands the unlucky owner outside the bus, where other uniformed officers take it over. After a few minutes there’s already a small crowd. Through the window I can see them fumbling with passports, customs forms and banknotes.

The bus is almost half-empty and my dad is sweating profusely. We didn't account for this! We spent all of our money in Germany, so how on Earth are we now going to pay the customs fee, possibly even a hefty fine for not declaring our goods? It’s sure as eggs that we’ll return empty-handed because what we’ve bought will be retained or confiscated.

The officer approaches our seats. There’s no way we could pretend that the tall cardboard box painfully stuffed between me and dad doesn’t exist. The officer sets his eyes on me. I realize he’s practically my age, perhaps a little bit older, fresh out of school. He looks at the box and his thin lips read the word "Commodore" silently. He looks at me again.

And then he moves on. My dad starts breathing heavily as if he's just had a heart attack.

In about forty minutes the bus finally crosses the border. My Amiga story is about to begin." (dr)

[News message: 02. Dec. 2022, 06:01] [Comments: 2 - 03. Dec. 2022, 11:22]
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