Cousin Glenn is actually my Dad's first cousin (I guess that would make him my second?) I had seen him briefly at a couple of family reunions. Our contact has been distant through the years, but when I told him I was passing through town, he said I was welcomed to stop by.
I got into town at about 5 pm and headed out to dinner with him, his wife Janet, and stepdaughter Stephanie. They decided to go to an Eastern European food restaurant which I was happy to try. I knew they had to have some Hungarian dishes there. Sure enough, the special that night was Paprika Chicken. I of course had to see how an American restaurant matched up to the authentic type. I think any Hungarian would have found it acceptable.
Cousin Glenn actually owns a small business that works mainly on computer programming. They set up emergency systems that alert fire stations when a fire is going on and when they need to leave the station. Janet works for him also. Listening to the two of them tell stories about having their own company and some of the employees they had was very interesting.
The craziest one was a guy who had worked for them for five years. When he would do his computer programming, he would purposefully write errors into it that only he knew how to fix. Then, when the fire stations had a glitch in their system, he would come in and fix the mistake quickly, and be the hero for the day. It took Janet and Glenn years to figure it out, but then the problem came that he knew all the passwords and had access to the systems. How they had to go about firing this guy sounded similar to the plot of a spy movie. They had a customer pretend they wanted to meet with him in Vancouver. While he was in flight, and had no access to the internet, they then shut down the systems and had the other employees take over. Then there was the issue of how to get the work issued laptop back from him. Janet and Glenn said they arranged it where they "accidentally" ran into him at the airport pretending they were going on vacation also. While Glenn distracted him, Janet in a way was able to confiscate the laptop.
Then it was a matter of being under close watch. The guy did try to get into the building the next day which would have been disastrous. He had access to all the computer systems and knew how to shut them down. Fortunately they had alerted the rest of the employees and nobody let him in. Glenn then talked about how he hacked into his cell phone and work e-mail account.
Eventually the guy lost interest and went away, but "Mission Impossible" and "Bourne Identity" were running through my mind while they were telling me all this.
Cousin Glenn is actually 15 years younger than my father, so they did not have much interaction growing up. But we compared notes on other family members, such as my dad's brothers, parents, and great aunts and uncles. Glenn's own brother, cousin Charles, is a real strange bird and Glenn and his sister Barbara agree. Janet was saying the first time she met him he told her all about a government conspiracy going on where John F. Kennedy was really killed by some alien men who were from the movie "Planet of the Apes II" (I'm not making this up). Janet said at the time she didn't know if he was being serious or not, but having met cousin Charles a few times by now, I wasn't surprised. Fortunately he is harmless, but he takes the weirdness of the Neal family to a higher level.
I asked them later if it was true Denver was a growing city and they said yes. Mainly due to the legalization of marijuana. Stephanie is a 1st grade teacher and she was saying in her job they had rules of you can not be drunk at any school function or high from marijuana use.
It was nice to visit with them, and get to know them better. Given that there are 15 other second cousins from my grandparents, they finally have a better idea of who I am.
After a peaceful night of sleep, I was off the next morning to Utah.
No comments:
Post a Comment