CUELESS IN REDMOND Back in the old days, I took a few programming courses at Microsoft University in Redmond. On one of these trips, Louis Kahn and Greg Johnson went with me. Most of you don’t know these guys. Don’t worry about it. On this particular trip, Louis hooked up with a friend of his—Dave Edson, a Microsoft employee who was famous at the time for porting Tetris to Windows. Most of you don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t worry about it. We went to a fancy pool parlor in town to run a few balls. Dave Edson had his own cue, which came in a leather case and had to be screwed together. Dave asked me if I wanted to play him a game. I told him that I was seriously not good at pool. Dave told me not to worry about it—he wasn’t that good himself. I told him I left my cue at home. He gave me a look and got me one from the rack on the wall. So we played a game. While we were playing, I told Dave about my father, Rinkey Blumen. I told about the time, when I was twelve and watched him take on a couple of young slicks, half his age, in the Melrose Pool Hall. The slicks told him that they weren’t much good, but they’d play him a friendly little game for five bucks. My father put a fiver on the table and then beat them, holding the cue stick in only one hand. When Dave Edson heard that, he unscrewed his cue stick and put it back in its case. He thought I was getting ready to take him. I promised him that I really knew nothing about pool. It was true—my father never taught me anything about the game. So Dave got his cue out again and we resumed play. And I beat him.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:02:45 +0000