Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Friday, May 21, 1999 7:43 AM

A Thursday Night


As I wait for a certain person for a meeting, I pick up the South Bay edition of the telephone book and start perusing through it. As I'm waiting, I inquiringly ask the tardy person's secretary "Did you know that there is a bail bonds place at Crenshaw and the 405?" as I show her the full page advertisement. Before she can answer, I also state "I found the 800 number for Suicide Intervention. It's 444-9999."

As I get ready to answer, the tardy person shows up and I enter the conference room. I carry the telephone book with me. As I explain to the tardy person the technical, schedule, and cost status of a certain contract, I open the book and show her the page of listings under "Psychotherapists" and tell her that I am ready for her questions.

At 10:00pm, after countless trivial activities, I try to get hold of my...ah... investor, no...sponsor, no...business partner Ta-Wei. After leaving a message for him at his Internet home page, sending him email, beeping him, paging him, FAXing him, Skynetting him, and leaving voice mail at his cellular number, I finally get hold of him via telephone. "Ta-Wei, it's Ray. We have to meet now. It can't wait. It's important."

It is Thursday night. It is Latin night. We go in and I start telling Ta-Wei that I have come up with a decomposition algorithm for cellular automata simulations (or societies, if you prefer). After explaining to him what the use of cell aut is and why the decomposition algorithm is so great, he starts getting excited. "But wait a minute, Ta (That's what I call him for short.), I have to file an invention disclosure form at TRW and they get first right of refusal." He doesn't seem so excited now.

"It's automata. And they might be interested for the applications that I described a minute ago."

"But Ta, you're straight."

I decline his offer. Mainly because I gave up dancing in about 1983 after unsuccessfully trying a head spin and having a headache for the next three weeks. He goes off and dances with other people - both women and men. I watch. I just realize that Ta-Wei, with the deepest, blackest hair on the planet, has had some subtle streaks of neon blue or violet put in his hair. I only notice this because the streaks continue to go on and off, as if he has a neon light tied to a voltage source, as he passes through the flashing lights. His hair looks untouched in normal light, but positively electric in the lights!

A gentleman and I start a conversation about the Korean economy. After a few minutes, he says that we should go to his car to talk because it is difficult to hear in hear. I accept. We go to his car and talk for 10 minutes about miscellaneous things. We also spend 40 minutes not talking.

I interrupt with laughter and drown out what Ta-Wei is saying. And ask "Do you think that our investors would be interested in the decomposition algorithm?"

In the morning there is drizzle. I damn the torpedos and get on the motorcycle anyway. And play one of my favorite games. I pretend that as I am leaving the traffic light for the freeway entrance ramp I am riding a launch vehicle.

P.S. I have almost finished the TRW invention disclosure.