Anyone with a basic knowledge of German geography, (or an Atlas) might have worked out by now that Wuppertal is not exactly close to Bremen in the far north of Germany, so when the new day arrived we were still several hours of Autobahn away from our destination and a day too early for the shops to open.
However, one of us has been quite heavily involved in recent weeks in the collaborative development of a new CNC machine. It’s in the prototyping stage presently, with half a dozen or so people putting in their tuppence worth and there's one (test) machine completed in the USA, and another in Oldenburg, Germany ready to make its first cut.
“Now there’s a happy surprise - Oldenburg is only forty minutes from the marine toilet shop in Bremen!”
The world of internet communities is a strange and wonderful place, where faceless people appear to hide between pseudonyms, but spend so much time together over the course of any given project that they end up knowing each other almost intimately. So it was, when bitingmidge met Tokoloshe face to face, after three or four years of collaboration that it was more of a reunion than a first meeting.
We spent hours with Phillipp and Andrea and their happy brood, drinking cups of tea, swapping stories and generally catching up on each other’s lives while poring over the finer details of the new machine and the software, putting it through it’s preliminary paces. All the while four pairs of tiny feet attached to bodies banging and cutting things for their own projects in the background, never crossing the invisible line that brought them within the “danger zone”.
Eventually, the call of the “new toilet” tugged us away, and we left laden with gifts of precious things; some seashells collected on a holiday, a commemorative plaque made on the new machine, and a deadly shank with a pink handle lovingly crafted in our presence, which would come in handy if we encountered any dragons on our way.
No comments
Post a Comment