A Day in the Cafe

There are many reasons I like to work in the local coffee houses... getting out of the house, good coffee, good pastries, free wifi, interesting people.

Now that last one. Interesting people. That's a really good one. Sometimes the interesting people are people I know but haven't seen in a while and it is a serendipitous thing to run into them. Most times they are new people I meet, or surrepticiously listen in on, without introduction.

Sometimes there are crazies and that's always interesting too.

But usually it's normal interesting people. Once I met a guy who was in one of my classes at Seattle Central Community College. It was a class that was really 99% lab, so the chances of us meeting in class were slimmer than meeting in public.

One day I met a guy who tutors people in programming and I have his email and will be using his services when I take SQL, MySQL and PHP classes.

Today I sat next to two people who were translating a Chinese novel (it sounded like it might have been a murder mystery). They had the book, a stack of notes and a huge chinese dictionary. They argued over specific characters (Chinese writing characters that is) and the essence of their meaning as well as what they thought the author intended. They would come up with five or six ways to translate one sentence. Very interesting.

Now, at the next table, there is a web designer who is explaining to her customer, his new website, built on the Wordpress content management system (CMS), and as I listen, I realize I have a much better understanding than she does, of what can be done with the Wordpress platform. It makes me feel good, since I am so totally a beginner!

OK - back to work for me.