Norm and I started a small microcomputer company in late 1977, it was called Diamond Microsystems, Inc. We were officed in a professional business complex called the Diamond Hill Office Park, where we assembled all of the computer hardware and software by acquiring all of the components from different third party sources; such as the motherboard, chips, memory, diskette drives, console monitor, keyboard and even had the (all metal) desk customed made to our specifications. The operating system called Forte, was licensed from a couple of “mountain” programmers who also created the business application, a medical billing system. When we were in the process of making everything work, we invited Rinpoche and the Regent to our office for a demo and presentation of our creation. They both came, along with entourages, and listened as I presented the demo. Rinpoche asked questions and offered some advice. A few days later we asked Rinpoche if he could recommend a name for our computer… and without hesitation he said call it the GES 18. Norm and I were silent, we looked at each other… not knowing how to react. Then Norm asked him, “But Rinpoche, what happened to the other 17? Why start at 18” “Oh,” he said, “you’ll understand that later.” A few years ago, while visiting in Boulder, I met up with Norm, had lunch downtown and then took a stroll down Pearl Street. We found a bench facing the door to 1111 Pearl Street and sat there reminiscing about the old days and telling stories about our personal experiences while in the Vajradhatu center at 1111 Pearl St. Then I asked him if he had ever figured out why Rinpoche had named our computer the GES 18… he shook his head, “not really,” he said. “And you?” “I think so,” I said, “I think it was his sense of humor.” Traditionally, it is taught, the 18 dhatus are the result of our afflicted consciousness… and the digital intelligence of our computer was limited and buggy and so I felt he assigned a flawed digital “consciousness” with the number 18… so I surmised. He looked at me, a little stunned at first, then he snickered… then we both broke out into roars of laughter. He was shaking his head back and forth and then he said, “All this time! He knew!” The company, Diamond Microsystems, sold 16 full systems within months of launching the GES 18. But it was forced to take back every sale when the computer’s operating system and business logic failed in dramatic crashes causing all of the accumulated data to disappear. When we reached out to the mountain programmers for repair, they disappeared and we were left with a problem that we could not fix. I miss those days. I miss Norm. And I have several Norm stories, but I think this is enough.