Spinor Info

This morning, my wife and I attended a very moving ceremony in the memory of my good friend, George Olah, who passed away earlier this year.

George’s daughters decided to dedicate a tree in a public park in Ottawa to their father. A little marble plaque at the foot of the tree bears George’s name, the dates of his birth and death, and the Hungarian word for cheers, “egészségedre”.

A violinist was also present. The sound of a solo violin during a cloudy, rainy day was especially poignant and it helped set a somber mood. At one point, when the violinist was asked to play one of George’s favorite tunes, I was able to capture a few seconds of it with my cell phone.

Yet we also had plenty of laughs. George, after all, was a very happy person and his stories were always delightful. My favorite moment: when one of George’s daughters told us that the city permit would even have allowed them to set up a trampoline, several of us exclaimed, “Why didn’t you?” That is because we all knew that George would have loved something so unconventional.

I was silent in the past ten days because I was traveling. I spent six days in Hungary, and a few more in London, England.

I’d like to say that I had a blast of a time but that is not strictly true: I had a rather nasty bout with gastroenteritis that severely interfered with my plans concerning my time in Hungary. Indeed, let this serve as my apology to all those friends I did not have time to look up: the two days I reserved for this purpose, I ended up spending mostly in my hotel bathroom. Oh well.

At least the view I had from my hotel room was enjoyable. I don’t mind trainspotting, and I was on a high enough floor that the noise was negligible, even with the window open.

The view from my London hotel room was perhaps a little less exciting. But, at least it was also a quiet room. Or would have been, were it not for some noisy neighbors next door. (Yes, dear lady, the entire floor heard you when you were loudly banging on your friend’s door at 6 AM yelling, “are you awake?” We all were, by then.)

If only my room had been a tad bigger, with a mattress a tad less worn and a TV mount a tad less broken, I’d have been entirely satisfied. But beggars can’t be choosers, and when looking for reasonably priced accommodation near Paddington station in London, we are all beggars.

And the weather in London was absolutely spectacular. Blue skies and sunshine most of the time, not too warm, with a pleasant breeze.

Now I am safely back home, though still nursing my left foot; I almost twisted my ankle getting out of a car about a week ago in Budapest, and endless walks in London did not help either. Hopefully, I’ll stop limping in a day or two.

Here are a few things I am not planning to do today:

• I will not feel particularly sorry for myself.
• I am not buying a red Porsche. (I always preferred muscle cars over European toys anyway.)
• I am not going out to find an expensive girlfriend.
• I will not run away from home with a girlfriend half my age.
• I am not planning to have a heart attack (of course, one never knows.)
• I will not to start hair replacement therapy (and not just because I don’t need to.)
• I am not going to complain (too much) about my back hurting.

Last but not least: I am not going to grow up. According to an Internet meme I just came across, if you haven’t grown up by age 50, you don’t have to.

Two days ago, I received the sad news: my good friend George Olah is no longer among us.

I actually have a recent picture of him, courtesy of CBC Ottawa: during a news report last year about smoking prevention, George appeared in a bit of stock footage, standing on a sidewalk somewhere in downtown Ottawa, smoking a cigarette.

Yes, George was a smoker, which may have had something to do with the sudden heart attack that took him from us. Or not. Sometimes, perfectly healthy people with no ill habits die for no reason at all.

George fled Hungary in 1956 after the failed anti-communist revolution and eventually came to Canada. Yet his opinions were never clouded or biased by his personal experiences: he had a sober view of the current political situation in Hungary, and shared many of the concerns my wife and I have regarding the country’s future.

I’ve known George for nearly 26 years. Back in 1987, when I came to Canada, it was George who introduced me at the company where I got my first consulting contract. Thanks to George, I never had to wash dishes or fry hamburgers; within a few weeks of my arrival, I was writing C code for an application at Forestry Canada. A few years later, when I was going through a difficult time, it was again George who got me in touch with a group that hired me for a programming job; the people I worked with there remain my friends to this day.

In recent years, George was busy with a number of interesting projects that involved low power wireless technology and ad-hoc networking. He had high hopes for his inventions. Indeed, he was a true optimist, always full of plans for the future. You couldn’t really tell that he was already past his 70th birthday.

George also liked to cook. Around Christmas, he often made cabbage rolls in quantities that would feed a small army. This past Christmas was no different; and not for the first time, he offered us some, which I duly picked up at his home. It was very tasty. Yum! We have not yet returned the container.

Well, I guess that was the last batch of cabbage rolls George ever cooked. And the aspic jelly, another one of George’s wintertime favorites that he was planning to prepare, won’t be made either.

What else can I say? Thank you, George, for the help, for the memories, for the food, for all the laughs and for all the fun. Szervusz, Gyuri.