Today, after getting new goggles, I finally was able to take advantage of the 24 hour pool available to me at the gym I go to. It only has 3 lanes, but I figured on a Saturday afternoon, it wouldn't be too busy. Right.
Unfortunately when I got there, all 3 lanes were taken up. In retrospect, 4pm on a sunny, warm Saturday afternoon seems like a prime time for a swim. Duh. The cool thing is, the gym also has a huge hot-tub. I like this gym.
So I decided to sit in the hot-tub to wait for a lane to open up. But I was not alone. There were two older women, enjoying the hot-tub and carrying on a conversation. I got in on the other side of the hot-tub (it was a big hot-tub) and minded my own business. However, I obviously couldn't help but overhear their conversation...
Woman 1: "DOS was so nice, because anyone could change any program to suit their needs!"
Woman 2: "I agree, programs these days are so walled-in, you can't change any freaking parameters in them, not like you could in DOS, for 4tran..."
At this point, I really couldn't help but join in on the conversation. Here were two women, one roughly in her mid-50s and the other well into her 60s, maybe 70s, and they're talking about COMPUTER LANGUAGES! I was floored. I have never experienced a blend of the 'when-I-was-your-age' and nerdy 'my-programming-language-is-better' outside of perhaps a couple discovery channel documentaries! Needless to say, they are now my two most favorite old people.
I'd provide more dialog, but my memory sucks and it's easier to summarize. Basically, the older woman was some sort of computer programmer back in the day. She was talking about how bad she feels for kids these days because they A) have no idea how to create their own programs, and B) can't change the deep parameters of existing programs to suit their needs. And the younger of two recently switched careers (for what to what, I don't know), and was having to learn how modern computer languages are written and used.
Eventually, I did get to get my laps in. I sincerely hope they are there next time I go to the pool. A guy could learn a thing or two from these incredibly intelligent women!
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