A Tribute to Mr. William Gates
"Dear Mr. William Gates:
I'm writing to wish you the best of luck on your retirement from Microsoft. You worked very hard to become a multi billionaire and you deserve an enormous amount of respect and admiration from the "average Joes" such as myself. You started off a nerdy college student putzing around in your dorm room with Steve Jobs and electronics. At a time when computers were getting started and were large enough for just a single one to fill the space of a warehouse just to add two plus two, you were a visionary and saw that one day in the future a single computer chip could be made as small as the head of a hat pin. This letter is to thank you dear sir, for changing the world to what it is today. You have clearly proven that machines would one day rule the world. It's all because of you and Mr. Case! By the way, I'm sorry the friendship between the both of you ended on such a sour note. The guy just wanted a 50% investment in the company you both created. You stood firm however, and said that the idea was yours and yours alone. He may have moved on to Apple soon after but, Apple will always be second banana to Microsoft...Always! I first of all, want to thank you for making computers so smart. Doggone it, they're just like humans... they work themselves to death and never complain to the boss, have no need for a cigarette break, the half hour lunch, or time to use the bathroom. Just like real people, they get pushed and pushed harder careful not to make mistakes but, on occasion they do. How many times I've put the blame on computer errors for not paying the electric bill and letting my car insurance lapse. Someone has to take the blame, right? I also thank you for the need not to communicate with others. Because of you, spouses don't have to speak to one another, children find middle aged friends to chat with and share McDonald's with, and oh yeah, thank goodness I can call cusromer service anywhere and not have to talk to a person. You made that simple too. I merely have to press "2" if I want the message in English or "0" to connect to a live operator that turns out to be someone's voice mail so I can leave a message. I especially like the latest trick of calls during dinner time where a computer calls me and asks me to "please hold on the line for ten minutes so an operator can speak to you". How about that? The computer calls me and wants ME to HOLD THE LINE and wait. Now, that's a neat trick! Thanks again to you or Al Gore or whoever invented the Internet. I know you created e-mail in the early 1970's but I'll bet you didn't realize that spam would become more than slimey pork in a can, did you? While on the subject, the Internet has brought me closer with family all around the globe. Sadly, most of my family is located in Africa, China, or India and most died in an accident and left money for me even though I never met them. The "password protection" idea was good too. I don't have just one password that covers everything on the Internet, I have a whole list of them! No matter what I choose or how peculiar the word, someone has already picked it before me. If I lost it, no problem...I can re-register on two pages and get a new password via e-mail. If I STILL can't get into a website with my password, I can try and decode a word in a box that looks psychodelic, all bunched together and twisted in a swirl. Sometimes it takes a half an hour to get it right, but it's fun! Thanks for everything Bill. Without you, WINDOWS would just be something we open up to let the sunshine in."
