Car 42

Episode 1 - 1997

Blanca kindly sent me some precious documents that well educated users sent directly to her (as opposed to all-users). As these are not public domain, I removed the information about the author's identification...

I also added some documents posterior to the main Saga.

The original mail...

Message 51:
From bcamucet@eso.org Fri Oct 17 14:43:20 1997
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 17:37:49 +0000
From: Blanca Luz Camucet 
Mime-Version: 1.0
To: all-users@eso.org
Subject: Auto 42
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Colegas:
Alguien tomo el auto 42 sin avisar. Lo hemos buscado por todas
partes, y aun no lo encontramos, si alguien ha visto el auto, por favor
avise al 4162, 4164.
Gracias
Blanca Luz Camucet
 

[note the To: all-users@eso.org...]

I've seen it outside just now.
Should I send it Fedex ?
Tchao
FXXX

Blanca: Y mi respuesta fue, y ademas fue la unica persona que le alcance a
responder ese dia:
 

Subject:  Merci
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 18:20:53 +0000
From:  Blanca Luz Camucet <bcamucet@eso.org>
Organization:  ESO - European Southern Observatory
To:
BCC:  bcamucet@eso.org

Fxxx:
         Mmm, ce n'est pas possible, je ne crois qui l'auto voyage
beaucoup, mais l'effort per cherchez est grand. Merci beaucoup.
         Blanca Luz

It is not in Garching ....
Uxxx
 

Yo NOOOO !!!!
--
______________________________________________________________
EUROPEAN  SOUTHERN  OBSERVATORY   -  E.S.O. - LA SILLA-CHILE
xxx
 

Blanca Luz Camucet wrote:
>
> Colegas:
> Alguien tomo el auto 42 sin avisar. Lo hemos buscado por todas
> partes, y aun no lo encontramos, si alguien ha visto el auto, por favor
> avise al 4162, 4164.
> Gracias
> Blanca Luz Camucet

Pero si yo no tengo licencia puh!
 

Jorge Ibsen
jibsen@only.god.knows.where

Message 53:
From ematamor@eso.org Fri Oct 17 17:40:27 1997
To: bcamucet@eso.or
Cc: all-users@eso.org
Subject: Auto perdido ?
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 17:35:15 -0400
From: Eduardo Matamoros 

Blanca Luz Camucet wrote:
>
> Colegas:
> Alguien tomo el auto 42 sin avisar. Lo hemos buscado por todas
> partes, y aun no lo encontramos, si alguien ha visto el auto, por favor
> avise al 4162, 4164.
> Gracias
> Blanca Luz Camucet
 

Blanca, debes llamar a porteria pelicano para que revisen bien los
equipajes del personal que esta bajando en el bus.

En el Team 3.60Cat, no lo hemos visto.

Saludos

Eduardo

Message 55:
From ralbrech@eso.org Mon Oct 20 04:09:19 1997
To: Blanca Luz Camucet 
cc: ralbrech@eso.org, all-users@eso.org
Subject: Re: Auto 42
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 09:02:44 +0200
From: Rudi Albrecht 

Tampoco esta' aqui en Garching.

Saludos

Rudi Albrecht

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rudi Albrecht ralbrech@eso.org
Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facility
European Southern Observatory Room 419
Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen, Germany
Tel:+49 89 320 06 287 Fax:+49 89 320 06 480
+---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hola Blanca,

Si lo veo por Garching (en Alemania) les digo que se lo devuelvan.

Rxxx

_________________________________________________________________

Rxxx

        ____/  ____/  __  /    Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
       /      /      /   /     D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen
      /___/  ___ /  /   /      Phone: +49-89-3200-6594
     /          /  /   /       Fax  : +49 89-3202-362
    ____/  ____/ _____/        Email: rxx
________________________________________________________________

Querida Blanca, permiteme sumarme a tu pesar por la perdida del auto 42.

En el futuro la silla usara mis maquinas ecologicas ,asi todo el mundo
tendra asegurado su transporte .
Infinitamente condolido
Lxxx

Por lo demas, eso habria sido bien dificil, porque no existe tal avenida

en La Serena!  Lo unico parecido se llama Avenida del Mar!

Puchas que te agarraron pa'l chuleteo con el asunto del auto, Blanca!

Chao,
                Mxx

Message 59:
From mpilleux@eso.org Tue Oct 21 11:41:03 1997
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 11:37:09 -0400
From: Mauricio Pilleux 
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "'Blanca Luz Camucet'" 
CC: "'all-users@eso.org'" 
Subject: Re: Auto 42
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

TENGO MUCHA CURIOSIDAD POR SABER SI APARECIO EL FAMOSO AUTO (?).

Saludos,

Mauricio Pilleux

Could you please stop sending this spanish email-conversation
to all-users.

THANKS,

Joerg

Message 61:
From axxxxxx@eso.org Tue Oct 21 13:17:49 1997
X-Sender: axxxxxx@web3.hq.eso.org
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 18:14:31 +0200
To: mpilleux@eso.org, Eduardo Matamoros ,
Carlos Ebensperger , 
From: Axxxxxe Cxxxxxxc 
Subject: Re: Auto 42
Cc: "'Blanca Luz Camucet'" ,
"'all-users@eso.org'" 

and I sure hope somebody among you does care about lost equipment

Axxxxxe Cxxxxxxc
 

E.S.O.
Tel: +49-89-32006-xxx
Fax: +49-89-32006-xxx

Could you please stop these English language comments to all-users.

In case you have not noticed: the native language of more than half of the ESO
employees is Spanish.

DANKE,

Rudi
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rudi Albrecht ralbrech@eso.org
Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facility
European Southern Observatory Room 419
Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen, Germany
Tel:+49 89 320 06 287 Fax:+49 89 320 06 480
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

Dear all,

Please be informed that car 42 is again at home. He seems to be physical
and psychologically ok, apparently he didn't suffer any abuse, nor even
any kidnapping.

We want to thank everybody who help us to find 42, also to all the
people who proved that humor hasn't dead at ESO.
 

To all of you, many thanks and Muchos Saludos

R Parra
NTT Team
 

Message 65:
From gdelgado@eso.org Thu Oct 23 00:26:17 1997
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 00:01:07 -0400
From: Guillermo Delgado 
Mime-Version: 1.0
To: Axxxxxe Cxxxxxxc 
Cc: mpilleux@eso.org, Eduardo Matamoros ,
Carlos Ebensperger , jibsen@eso.org,
"'Blanca Luz Camucet'" ,
"'all-users@eso.org'" 
Subject: Re: Auto 42 o la inconciencia de algunos...
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)

Axxxxxe Cxxxxxxc wrote:

> and I sure hope somebody among you does care about lost equipment
>
> Axxxxxe Cxxxxxxc
>
> E.S.O.
> Tel: +49-89-32006-486
> Fax: +49-89-32006-366
 

Nuevamente la sapiencia y altura de miras de algunos de nuestros
ilustres dignatarios nos trae de regreso al mundo real. Mundo en el
que no se deben tolerar actitudes inmaduras como el buen humor.

Mas bien debemos concentrarnos en la busqueda de objetos perdidos que
tanta merma estan produciendo en el buen resultado de las operaciones
de La Silla. Por ejemplo, me gustarìa que el culpable de los desacatos
en La Silla responda por sus crìmenes y conteste, al menos, las
siguientes preguntas:

- El robo de la hora de onces, que tanto ayudaba a la buena
convivencia entre las distintas secciones del Observatorio.
- La desaparicion de la confianza del personal con sus superiores
jerarquicos, y por ende a la Organizaci=F3n.
- La desaparicion del espiritu de equipo.
- Quien se llevo la risa del comedor?
- donde exiliaron a los patos del Beño?
- Cuando nos cambiaron la ciencia por la economia de mercado?
- Quien definio que una persona que ha entregado 9 o mas anos de su vida
a La Silla vale menos que un espejo de 8 mt?

En realidad tengo muchas otras preguntas, pero no tengo ganas de
escribir m=E1s. Entre otras razones porque son ya las doce de la noche y
mi familia tampoco me paga horas extras por estar frente al computador
a esta hora.

Saludos a todos los delincuentes que se atreven a sonreir a pesar de
las circunstancias.

Guillermo

PD: Por mas que he mirado por todos lados aqui en Santiago, no he
podido ver un auto blanco con un numerito 42 en su costado. Aunque hay
rumores cada vez mas insistentes que hablan de que habrian visto a un
ciudadano aleman de apellido Scheaffer manejando un auto de esas
caracteristicas...

From gtimmerm@eso.org Thu Oct 23 09:30:15 1997
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 09:14:36 -0300
From: Gero Timmermann 
Mime-Version: 1.0
To: Guillermo Delgado 
Cc: all-users@eso.org
Subject: Re: Auto 42 o la inconciencia de algunos...
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by web3.hq.eso.org id OAA16903

Hola Guillermo !

Felicitaciones !!

But, so the NON-spanish-native speaking comunity (mayority? :-) at ESO
doesn't miss a word, I rather say it in our sacred "official language"
...
Congratulations, Willy !!

You were darn close in your PostData: at least regarding the name of
the car-less subject, whose name shall not remain in anonymity:
The winner is:...... Heinrich Schmidt !!!
In the deep darkness of La Silla nights, this irresponsible soul light-heartedly
stepped into car #42, without the slightest precaution in making sure this
car really belonged to him !!! (shame on you !! see what you started ? :-(
Thou shalst repeat 42 times: "I will never ever take what belongs to ESO,
or is not mine (again)"

Gero

PD:
In spanish we say: "por la boca muere el pez",
which translates to something like
"the fish gets hooked by his mouth"..............

*--------1---------2---------3---------4---------5---------6-----
* Gero Timmermann gtimmerm@eso.org home: (56-2) 273-4348
* http://www.eso.org/~gtimmerm CUSeeMe: 134.171.81.90
* European Southern Observatory, ESO LaSilla, Mangmt,Tech.Supp.
* POBox 19001, Santiago-19, CHILE - Phone: (56-2) 207-3397 x4456
*********1*********2*********3*********4*********5*********6

Ola' Guillermo,

I am sending this to you and the small number of people who you
explicitly addressed. Here in Garching there were complaints that the "Auto 42"
issue should not have been addressed to "all-users", so I want to avoid more
complaints of this kind. However, I was alarmed by the apparent
bitterness of your e-mail, so I decided to respond.

I also have to apologize for answering in English. My Spanish is good
enough for everyday conversations, but not good enough for this discussion.

> Mundo en el
> que no se deben tolerar actitudes inmaduras como el buen humor

Good humor in ESO is not dead. The "auto 42" issue is proof of that. Of
course not everybody in ESO has the same, or even any, sense of humor..

> - La desapariciM-sn de la confianza del personal con sus superiores
> - La desapariciM-sn del espM-mritu de equipo

These are serious issues. Good humor can help in solving them, but it is
not sufficient.

The common denominator of both these issues is poor information flow. If
you are being told "don't think, just do it" or, worse, if you are being
told to do something which, according to the information you have, does not make
sense, it leads to the effects you observed.

History is full of examples of successful heroic deeds of small groups
against overwhelming forces. The Spartans at the Thermophyles, the Mapoche
indians against the Spanish, the people of Leningrad against the Germans. The
one element they had in common was that they knew what was at stake and that
the goal of the "organisation" had become their personal goal.

This is where there seems to be a serious deficiency at ESO: somehow the
organisation does not succeed in allowing the employees to identify with
the common goal. It cannot be because of the goal itself: after all, we are
building the largest telescope in the world; we are running one of the
largest observatories of the world; we are building the most sophisticated
instruments; we are involved in the operation of the Hubble Space Telescope and we
are beginning to plan the Next Generation Space Telescope. We are producing
exciting science. If these are not worthwhile goals it is hard to
imagine what else there could be.

So why is it that a large number of people in ESO  are not able to
identify with those goals. Here are some possible reasons:

- The size of the project. ESO has been extremely ambitious to take on a
project the size of the VLT. This would have been impossible in
industry. Trying to do the impossible does, of course, create difficult
situations.

- Cost constraints. All large projects, everywhere, have budget
problems. Compared to other "big science" projects the VLT is doing very well.
However, because of the magnitude of the project, there is a strain on
resources.

- Economic situation. It is no secret that the economic situation is
Europe (and the rest of the world, for that matter) has been getting difficult
in recent years. The result is that organisations like CERN, ESA, NASA, and
ESO have been subject to repeated attempts to cut their budget. Compared to
other organisations ESO has been very successful in fighting for money, but we
had to take some cuts nonetheless. The result is that all organisations, not
just ESO, had to cut staff, had to re-organize, had to outsource. Of course
this is hard for those individuals who were affected by these measures. On the
other hand, there are 4.5 million (!) unemployed workers in Germany.

These are the "outside" reasons. There are others:

- Communication problems. Even though we have satellite antennas, e-mail
and video conferencing there is a deplorable lack of both vertical and
horizontal communication. I can imagine that the turno system on La Silla
contributes to the communication problems.

- Rapid growth/rapid turnover. ESO used to be a rather small
organization where everybody knew everypody else. We are now a company with lots of
employees coming and going.

- Shifting of priorities. La Silla used to be the center of ESO. It has
now shifted to VLT, and resources are being diverted from La Silla.

- Work load. There is just plain and simple a lot of work to be done.
This means that some actions, which should have been prepared and
communicated to the staff well ahead of time are implemented abruptly, with inadequate
information and explanation.

So where could we start to improve this situation? Let's examine the
situation in two ways:

- From the "top". I think it is fair to say that at the top level the
organization is well set up to do the project: the organization, the
machanisms, the procedures, etc., have been put in place. The fact that
ESO lost very little financial support in the recent budget cutbacks is very
much due to this fact: we were able to demonstrate, to Council, and through
Council to the governments of the member states, that we know what we are doing,
that we are spending the money carefully, that we are on top of the project.

- From the "bottom". There is no doubt that the ESO employees are
competent, and that they are able to perform well in their jobs. I think the ESO
workforce is way above average when it comes to dedication and
resourcefulness.

So why then is it that there are problems? It can only be that whatever
happens at the "top" is not being properly conveyed to the "bottom".

This means that we "mid-level" people (I am one of them) are not
successful in closing the loop between "top" and "bottom", between design and
implementation, between the General and the soldiers in the trenches.

While it could be argued that the General should visit the trenches more often it
is obvious that this is
neither possible nor feasible given the geographic distribution of the
ESO installations.

It is the mid level people who have to take the decisions made at the
top, understand why the decisions were taken, convey the necessity to their
subordinates, and help them in implementing the decisions. The most
important aspect is that the implementors must get the feeling that what they do
and how they do it really makes a difference.

In defense of the mid level people I want to say that there is
considerable pressure on them, that quite often they themselves are faced with
difficult situations. That sometimes it is too easy to say "Don't ask, just do
it".

Which brings us to the "philosophical" issue:

> Quien definio que una persona que ha entregado 9 o mas anos de
> su vida a La Silla vale menos que un espejo de 8 mt?

Nobody will claim that a person is worth less than an 8-meter mirror. However,
the fact of the matter is that ESO is a service organisation, whose
purpose is to build and maintain telescopes. If we fail to do this we will all get
fired by Council. The challenge is to build telescopes AND to do it in such a
way that people are happy.

Let me suggest the following: if you are faced with an ESO decision
which does not make any sense to you e-mail me and I'll try to clear it up.

Saludos a todos los sobrevivientes,

Rxxx
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rxxx
European Southern Observatory                                 Room
Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2,   D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen,    Germany
Tel:+49 89 320 06 xxx                           Fax:+49 89 320 06 480

The following form contents were entered on 31st Mar 98
Date = 31 Mar 98 15:39:09
subject = Don't read this e-mail -- dangerous Virus
Message = WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING                 1.4.98

During you are reading this VIRUS, your hard-disk is deleted,
your brain is washed, you get more and more nervous,
the value of ESO car #42 will be subtracted from your salary,
you will never again receive overtime compensation with more
and more overtime and you
have to pay your missions to Chile from your salary.

According to the advice of the administration you will
"care about lost (ESO) equipment", but ESO will not care
about lost money during outsourcing. It's the VIRUS.

This VIRUS also is going to the minds of ESO managers in order
to find measures
making worse the working atmosphere and motivation of the staff.

This VIRUS will increase the number of printouts, papers, plans,
specifications and publications at ESO, which all are never red.
In addition to this the VIRUS let you write endless paper
 which nobody can and want to understand.
It leads to more useless long-distance calls.

Check the coffee machine in the cafeteria, probabely the VIRUS
is jumping in and you can taste it.

You seem to laugh, but the VIRUS will teach you different.
You call it El Nino, economy crisis, bad nerves, overpopulation,
pollution or stagnation, but it is the VIRUS.
It first affects the heads.

The best is, you switch off your computer and start real work.
But the VIRUS don't let you. It makes you crazy and you will
surf more and more in the internet and your e-mail boxes deleting
in this way man-years. The VIRUS is holding you at least 5 hours
in front of your screen every day. If not, the VIRUS suggest you
to organize endless meetings with no substancial results.

Be honest, isn't it the pure truth!

WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING             1.4.98
- = -
- = -
>From = This message was sent by someone using the Anonimous e-mail form
at http://www.clemsontiger.com. Feel free to come and try it out for
your self.
 

please stop sending these messages to all-users
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert A E Fosbury (Bob) rfosbury@eso.org
Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facility
European Southern Observatory Room 517
Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen, Germany
WWW: http://ecf.hq.eso.org/~rfosbury/rfosbury.html
Tel:+49 89 320 06 235 (o) +49 89 609 9650 (h) Fax:+49 89 320 06 480
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
 

Message 68:
From guest@eso.org Thu Oct 23 10:39:34 1997
From: guest@eso.org (User Guest Account)
Subject: Auto 42, Cancel International Rescue
To: rfosbury@eso.org
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 10:27:48 -0300 (CDT)
Cc: all-users@eso.org
 
 

Whats wrong Bob with sending at all users, aren't you concerned about lost
equipment?, not with the Team on this one Bob?. Not willing to help in the
international search for Auto 42. Have you not been impressed with the
outpouring of sentiments which have shown the whole ESO organisation at
it best, worst and ugliest.

some post-saga emails...

Episode 2 - 1998

Dear Colleagues!

        Car 42 had a big accident with a donkey in the night, all cats
are black in the night, but in this case, that cat was a donkey, our
colleague is fine.

        But the car 42 went to hospital at La Serena, he need a special
effort to get to donate blood-oil for him. He is recovering slowly, but
it will be here soon with us again.

        Thanks, his mother
Queridos Colegas!
        El auto 42 tuvo un accidente grande con un burro en la noche,
todos los gatos son negros en la noche, pero en este caso, este gato fue
un burro, nuestro colega esta bien.

        Pero el Auto 42 fue al hospital en La Serena, el necesito un
especial esfuerzo para conseguir donacion de aceite para el. Esta
recuperandose lentamente, pero el estara pronto aqui con nosotros de
nuevo.

        Gracias, su madre
 

CompaM-qeros,

Blanca nos golpeM-s con esta terrible noticia respecto a nuestro querido
Auto 42 (talvM-is el mM-as famoso miembro de la flotilla imperial estacionada en
La Silla).

Yo se muy bien que, en estos casos, el pensamiento positivo de todos los
que nos aprecian es la mejor medicina para una rM-apida recuperaciM-sn. Por este
motivo mis mejores deseos estM-an junto al sufriente Auto 42 y su abnegada
madre (el conductor del auto y el burro tendrM-an sus propias madres y
amigos que se preocupen por ellos).

Saludos a todos,

Gxxx

Original mail is lost, but in substance, a mail from Garching to all-users announced the keys of a Saab were found in the ESO building.

Stephane Guisard wrote:
> It may be the key of car 42 !!!! Unfortunately there are no SAAB on la Silla !!!!

From: Olivier Hainaut 
To: Stephane Guisard 
Cc: all-users@eso.org, mmueller@web3.hq.eso.org
Subject: Re: SAAB key

Dear all,

Stephane Guisard wrote:
> It may be the key of car 42 !!!! Unfortunately there are no SAAB on la Silla !!!!

For those who do not remember the tragic and intercontinental disappearance of
NTT's car 42, I spent some time during a long and cloudy night doing some
archaeologic and bibliographic research about this event. The result is at

          http://sc6.sc.eso.org:80/~ohainaut/tmp/car42.html

Pls note that this mail is sent only for historical purposes, and is NOT meant
to re-start a discussion about car 42, nor about the various politically
incorrect statements contained in that web page.

Amities,
Oli

PS: If, at this point, you want to tell me how stupid this kind of message is,
- I know
- be sure not to CC your reply to all-users :)

--  +  --Olivier R. Hainaut--------------------------- Phone: +56 2 228 5006
  +E S+  New Technology Telescope - Team Leader          Fax: +56 2 228 5132
    O    European Southern Observatory               mailto:ohainaut@eso.org
--  +  --Casilla 19001-Santiago 19-Chile ----http://sc6.sc.eso.org/~ohainaut

From: xxxx@strw.leidenuniv.nl
Subject: Re: SAAB key
To: ohainaut@eso.org (Olivier Hainaut)

Dear Olivier,

you may know that "all-users" email is also forwarded to stc members. Anyway,
when I got into the office this morning (a day off), and went through my email,
I saw your email about car42, and decided to go to the web page. This was
great stuff ! Thanks a lot. A very fine way to start the day.
Can all eso email be like this ? Maybe you can put the car in a shrine ?

regards,

xxxxxx

From: xxx@eso.org>
To: "Olivier Hainaut" 
Subject: Re: SAAB key
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 06:38:30 -0400

Olivier,

good research!

xxx

Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 09:21:16 -0700
To: Olivier Hainaut 
Subject: Re: SAAB key

Good to know that (deep down inside(or outside?), somewhere over and under certain
NGCs/ICs)  ESO  has humour!

xxx

Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 09:23:42
To: Olivier Hainaut 
From: xxx@eso.org>
Subject: Re: SAAB key


Hi Olivier
Congratulations for Car 42 Incidents
This Page es very, very funy

:-)

thanks for smile
Regards
xxxx

:-)

Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 09:50:21 -0400
From: Sxxxxxxx
Organization: STScI
To: Olivier Hainaut 
Subject: Re: SAAB key

How funny your web page about auto 42!

thank you to make it public.

Hope you're fine.

baci
Sxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 10:54:41 -0400
From: Vxxxxxxx
To: Olivier Hainaut 
Subject: Re: SAAB key


Hello Olivier!
I at least appreciated the results of your research. I had only heard about the
incident, thanks to you I finally can read all about it.  I think it's hilarious! Bye,
Vxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 12:43:11 -0400
From: Hxxxxxxx
To: Olivier Hainaut , sguisard@eso.org
Subject: Re: SAAB key

Dear Oli and Stephane,

may I kindly ask you to drop my name from the distribution list of this kind of
studidity.

Many thanks,

Hxxxxxxxx

PS: to be slightly clearer: I insist that you drop my name from the
distirbution list of this type of email discussion!

Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 19:18:33 +0200
From: Pxxxxx
To: Olivier Hainaut 
Subject: Re: SAAB key

Eh ben dis donc, si j'avais su a quoi tout ca conduirait, j'aurais pas laisse mes cles
de bagnole a Axxxxx!

Bon, c'est pas grave, je commande une autre bagnole.

Amities
Pxxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 10:25:06 -0400
From: Blanca Luz Camucet 
To: Olivier Hainaut , and a few others
Cc: nttt@eso.org
Subject: Lo que no se vio del auto 42, o lo que no fue all users!


Querido Oli !:
    Te contare que estaba pasando por un periodo nostalgico y encontre
genial tu idea de poner en una web, las aventuras del auto 42, si bien
los primeros momentos me daba verguenza "la metida de pata", finalmente
lo tome con buen humor y he terminado por aceptar las tallas.

    Asi que te envio esta colaboracion a la causa :

    El primer e-mail que yo recibi del auto 42, fue este:

Dear Oli
    I will tell you that I was passing a nostalgic period and I find
genial your idea for putting in a web, the car 42 's adventures, if the
first moments and I was ashamed of my reaction, finally I took with a
good sense of humor and I had finish to accept the jokes.

    By this reason, I sent my colaboration for your page :

    The first e-mail that I received that historic moment, was the
follow 

Hola,

I've seen it outside just now.
Should I send it Fedex ?
Tchao
Francois

Y mi respuesta fue, y ademas fue la unica persona que le alcance a
responder ese dia:

My answer was, and he was the only person that I allowed to answer that
day.

From: ohainaut
To: Blanca Luz Camucet
Date: 1999 May 05


Hola Blanca!

MANY thanks for your contribution to the Car 42 Saga. You entered in the La
Silla legend, and -at least at la silla- the number 42 has a special meaning
to all of us.

For your information, as you had already left La Silla at that time, on Apr.1
last year ("dia de los inocentes" en Europa), La Silla had about 40 cars with
their number changed to Nr 42. Even the big white bus had been renumbered for
the ocasion. This of course caused some confusion and more cars were lost, but
everybody remembered you  :) 

Bisous,
oli

From: ohainaut
To: bcamucet
Date: 1999 May 14

Hola Blanca!


>>         Today, I see that you put those messages, I am thinking you had other
>> day cloudly...


no, this time it was a very long program that took forever to be executed...


>> but here in Paranal the people say me, that I passed to
>> ESO's history.


 :-) 


>>                -----------------
>>               /          _____  \
>>              |          |     |  |
>>              |          | 0_0 |  |
>>              |          |  _  |  |
>>              |          | [_] |  |
>>              |         _______   |
>>              |        (       )  |
>>               -------------------
>>              |  ___         ___  |
>>              | |   |       |   | |
>>              | |___|       |___| |
>>              |___________________|
>>                |   |       |   |
>>                |___|       |___|



lucky that there are no buros in Paranal  :-) 

bisous,
oli

Jorge Miranda

from	Isolde Kreutle ikreutle@eso.org
to	all-users@eso.org,
Robert Fosbury ,
Michael Rosa 
date	21 July 2009 11:36
subject	Message from the Director General
mailing list	gar-users.eso.org Filter messages from this mailing list
hide details 2009-07-21



Dear Colleagues, 

I am sorry to have to convey the sad news that Jorge Miranda died
yesterday shortly after his 54th birthday.

Jorge joined ESO and the La Silla Observatory as a Mechanic on 1
October 1976 and in April 1982 he was appointed as Scientific
Instrument Operator.  After a short period as a service contractor, he
returned to ESO employment in March 1998 as a Telescope Instruments
Operator and later as a shift leader. Over the many years he served
Jorge made a significant contribution to ESO and the success of La
Silla due to his dedication and technical insight.

In 2008 Jorge had a long and hard period of a serious illness and a
heart transplantation which he seemed to have overcome, recovering
well early this year.  It was a great pleasure to have him back with
the La Silla team taking up a core position of the La Silla 2010+
concept. Unfortunately we have now learned that his heart was infected
which took him away from his family, friends and us too early.

Jorge will be remembered by his colleagues and friends at ESO as
someone with the utmost professionalism as well as his open and
friendly personality.

Jorge leaves his wife and three children and our thoughts are with
them at this most difficult time.

Tim de Zeeuw 

Car 42 sold

The Final Episode

The return of Car 42

Episode 4 - 2011

Received: from kila.ls.eso.org
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:38:54 -0400
From: Jaime Alonso 
Subject: Very Important Finding
To: Nicolas Schuhler 
CC: ...

Hola Nicolas,

Amazingly, last nigth just arriving from Paranal, I found
car 42 parked very close to my place at the intersection
of Peumos and Maitenes streets. As you can inmagine,
after such a discovery, I could not sleep, so I spent the
rest of the night planing an investigation.
Today I found that the new owner is Jorge Federico Gras
an artist that, among other activities, is restoring a 406
UNIMOG.

Salut
Jaime



Car 42 in 2011. Note it still bears the SciOps stars, and the donkey mark in memory of the animal that attempted to destroy the car in the early 2000s (under Jorge Miranda's tenure). With permission from JF.Gras and J.Alonso.

















That's all, falks...

Note that this page had been tragically lost - fortunately, thanks
to http://web.archive.org/, it could be recovered.

last update: 2011-08-17T10:45:09 Wed