This New Internet Thing, Chapter 15

This New Thing

I wrote a book. The publication date is May 29, 2024 (if you’d rather not deal with Amazon, your bookstore can also order it from the distributor Ingram Spark, or print-on-demand if they have the equipment). You can read it for free here, although it’ll be in serial form. My fond hope is that you’ll find it so compelling that you just buy the book instead of waiting 8 months to see what happens. There will be a chapter each week, 33 in all.

In Chapter 14, Janet took the plunge into being an engineer again. She has to go to Fry’s to buy stuff, because that’s what you did back then. Her husband Walt doesn’t understand it, because in his world (contracting), if you wanted to make money, you managed people instead of swinging a hammer. In this chapter he can’t stand it anymore and has to get away. Fortunately, Janet’s dad Len is living in Walt’s house up in the Sierra, so he’s got a place to go.

Reading in serial form has a long and honorable history. My cover artist sent me this “Read Like a Victorian” website. Enjoy.

================== This New Thing ==============

Walt’s patience was wearing thin. Another Saturday afternoon and Janet was closeted in the home office with yet another of her work friends. He was watching a game on TV, but he’d rather have been hiking with Janet and Bernie, or doing chores, or really doing anything with her. This “getting hands dirty” thing seemed to take way longer in her line of work than it did in his.

A month ago he’d helped her carry the second computer in from the car, and she’d said she was itching to get her hands dirty again. He thought, “Hey, I can relate to that. I need to grab hold of a crescent wrench once in a while, too. Arguing with suppliers and subs does get old.”

As long as he’d known her, she’d been a manager. It did bring in a very nice salary for them, usually way more than he made, unless it was a really big year for contractors. She looked good and dressed very nicely, so he felt like a major stud whenever he was out with her on his arm. All the people he worked with looked at him much more appreciatively whenever she paid him a visit. “What’s not to like about her job?” he always wondered. “So what if you have to deal with some obnoxious people! What else is new?”

But he’d assumed getting her hands dirty would take a couple hours, at most. That was two months ago. Dan Markunas, who at least Walt liked, was at the house today, helping Janet do whatever it was she was doing. He’d tried sitting in there with them a couple times and asking some questions, and they were always happy to talk. But he usually gave up when they started explaining Windows and Unix and “TCP” and “drivers,” whatever those were. Not like socket drivers, he was pretty sure.

He had to admit Janet seemed like a different person now. Sex was sensationally better, for one thing. He could feel himself blushing whenever he thought about it.  “Hey, we’re married! What’s the problem?” he told himself. But this “getting hands dirty” thing was doing something for her, he had to admit that.

Around 3:00, she and Dan came out of the office for a break. They sat down on the sofa with him. He muted the sound and said,

“So how’s things going in there?”

Dan answered with a sigh, “Everything is a struggle. Things that are supposed to work, don’t, and you can’t find any information anywhere.”

She added, “So we always end up asking a question on the forums, and waiting half a day for someone to answer.”

Dan looked at her and said, “If all else fails, as it usually does, I guess that’s what we’ll have to do.”

She looked at Walt. “You see what high tech is like?”

Walt tried to relate that to his world, but he was puzzled.

“So why do you need to do this, whatever ‘this’ is? Is someone paying you for it?”

Dan looked at Janet for the answer. She hesitated before saying,

“Well, we don’t need to. I mean, it’s not for my work or his work.”

Walt waited for the rest.

“It’s fun, I guess. This World Wide Web thing is brand new. Lots of people all over the world are jumping on it.”

“World-wide web? What the hell is that?” he asked.

Dan said, “So, you’ve heard of the Internet?” He shrugged.

“It’s this network of computers that’s been slowly, slowly growing over the last 20 years or so. Janet and I both went to a conference about it in Santa Fe a couple years ago.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember you went off to Santa Fe” he said to Janet. “So it’s that thing? I think you tried to explain it to me, but I forgot what you said.”

She put a hand on his thigh. “Dan said it: it’s been an academic thing forever, but now it’s been approved for commercial use.”

“So, if you have a computer you can use it? OK, we have a computer, or I guess two now, but most people don’t have any.”

They both realized that conjuring up a future where lots of people were on the Internet was not going to work on Walt. In his profession, massive changes like that weren’t routine.

Dan thought Janet should handle this. She squeezed his thigh extra hard.

“I’m just enjoying it, hon. After all these years of sitting in meetings, it’s a nice change to be really doing something.”

He got her meaning. 

“OK, well, I’m glad, then. Maybe next weekend I’ll go up and see your Dad. We’ll see how that guest house is coming along.”

“That’s a great idea. We haven’t heard much from him lately.”

Then, to Dan, she said, “Well, shall we give it one more try?” They trudged back into the office. Walt turned back to the TV and unmuted it.

* * *

The next week, Walt drove up to the cabin in the Sierras where Janet’s dad Len was staying. He got there late Friday night, and they sat around drinking Scotch for an hour or so. This house was so familiar to Walt! He’d always loved coming up here with his mom and brothers when he was a teenager. He was never quite sure how Mom had ended up with it in the divorce. Dad must have tried for it, but somehow or other she got it, giving up God knows what, and she’d never talk about it afterwards. She must have been determined to keep that bit of family memory for herself and the boys. Now Walt had it, and he was letting his father-in-law retire there. It was perfect!

They went out fishing together on Saturday, and Walt noticed that Len didn’t have as many fish stories as someone who fished daily would have. Maybe he didn’t, really?

The new house hadn’t made much progress, either. Len seemed to get a lot of phone calls and they sounded business-y. Finally, Walt’s curiosity got the better of him. While they were watching TV that evening, he said,

“So, Dad: what are you occupying your time with these days? I get the feeling it’s not fishing!”

Len shifted in his chair. “Well… I guess I wasn’t really ready to get put out to pasture, after all. I thought I was.”

“No?”

“I still have some fight left in me. I’m doing some financial work for some of the little businesses up here, which is what all those phone calls were about. And I’m starting a little private investment business, sort of a mutual fund for just a few ‘sophisticated investors’, as the SEC likes to put it.”

Walt thought that answered some of his questions. Len continued,

“You can see all this paperwork on the desk here. Even though it’s still private, I have to file what’s called a Private Placement Memorandum with the government, and naturally you need a lawyer for that.”

“Wow, I’m surprised. I thought we had you all set up here!”

Len was apologetic. “You and Janet have been great, Walt. I couldn’t ask for a better son-in-law!”

“Hey, no need to apologize, Dad! We just want you to be happy.”

Len smiled and they didn’t talk much for a while. He got up and went to the computer and fiddled with it, then turned to Walt.

“Come here. I want to show you what I’ve been doing.”

Walt walked over and squinted at the screen. “So what am I looking at here?”

“This is an investing forum on America Online. I spend an ungodly amount of time debating with these people about stocks. That’s how this ‘mutual fund’ thing got started. Some rich guys kept asking me to run some money for them. Me! A poor kid from Detroit. Imagine that.”

“Stocks, like investing, you mean? I’ve always stayed away from that stuff. Too risky for me.”

“Well, it can be. When I was at Chrysler in Finance, we had a lot of restrictions on what we could invest in, plus I had to put Janet through MIT. But now, hey, I’m retired and she makes more money than I ever dreamed of! It’s kind of a hobby for me. I understand it pretty well, after all. And I’m not risking a whole lot of my own money on it.”

“Wow. You’re braver than I am.”

Len shrugged.

“So you guys just swap tips and news and stuff?”

“Oh, it’s way more than that. There’s this software you can get that downloads the data, analyzes it, graphs it, and does all sorts of comparisons for you. You can spend 100% of your time on this stuff if you want.”

Walt had nothing to say about that.

“So now you know why my phone is always busy.”

“We did notice that, actually. We just thought you’d made some friends up here!”

“Well, I have, but most of it is, I’m online.”

“If it makes you happy, Dad, then we’re happy, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

Len fiddled around some more, and switched to a window with nothing but text in it.

“And this, Walt, is The Internet you’ve heard so much about!”

Walt put his hands over his ears. “Gah! There’s that word again! I came up here to get away from that stuff.”

Len laughed. “It can’t be in your business, can it? Not yet, anyway.”

Walt told him the whole story of Janet’s coding efforts. Len listened appreciatively.

“Well, I guess I’m partly responsible for all that, so I’m sorry, Walt!”

“You? How so?”

Len explained that Cassie had asked him about something called “Mosaic” which he’d never heard of, and he’d asked Janet about it. But he never thought she was going to spend all her time on it, when it wasn’t even her job! My God, 3Com was paying her enough already to do her regular work, and now she was working for free as well?

Len and Walt were now seeing eye to eye on this. Who the hell works for nothing in this day and age? Especially when you have a husband at home who loves you, sitting by himself in the living room?

On Sunday they worked on the guest house after Len got back from church. He apologized as he left, saying that going to church was kind of expected up here, plus he met a lot of people who turned into bookkeeping clients.

“Oh, and I do the church’s books, too!”

“I bet that’s fascinating,” said Walt, with a smile.

“You’d be surprised, young man. I’m tracking down some suspicious-looking invoices for their nonprofit right now, which was what some of those calls were about.”

“Uh-oh,” said Walt. Len didn’t go any further.

* * *

Janet was sprawled on the couch watching TV when Walt got home. She looked exhausted. Walt was concerned.

“Hey, you look like you were out digging ditches all weekend or something.”

“We had the worst bug in the world today.” He waited for more..

“It was the kind where nothing happens!”

“I guess you’re going to explain that to me?”

“Well, if something crashes, at least you can get some idea when or where it went wrong.”

“OK…”

“But when something was supposed to happen but didn’t, you have nothing to go on.”

“So you had a big nothing?”

“Exactly. We spent the entire day figuring out why it didn’t happen!”

“But you found it?”

“Finally. Yes.”

He kissed her. “I’m glad, even though I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She pulled him down on top of her. “Oh, Walt! I missed you so much.”

“Not as much as I’ve been missing you this last month.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, hon. I just get so wrapped up in all this stuff. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

They just leaned against each other the rest of the evening. She didn’t think this was the right time to tell him she was going to a conference about the Web in Cambridge in July.

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There! That wasn’t so bad, was it? There’s a companion “Notes” doc where I detail what really happened back then, who helped me with it, and answer any other questions you might have.

Yes, there’s no free lunch: you can read this for free, but going deeper into the history will cost you a modest $5 a month. The Paid section will also include all the chapters, whereas they age out of the Free section after a few months. If you like what you read, buy the book.

There will usually be a Notes post on each chapter, where you read the real story if there is one.