#119 200 OKI
When we were moving to Norway, we decided to get an electric car over there. Taxes to import our previous beloved hybrid car would have been too high. I wanted a small electric car, but Janne wanted a big one. We got a used big one. I always wanted to please her. We wanted to travel between Norway and Estonia every few months and bring Eston with us so she thought we needed the space.
Once we knew about Janne’s diagnosis, logistics became complicated. The car had Norwegian plates which didn’t make things easy. Selling it in Norway was not an option as I didn’t want to be a day away from her. We decided to import it to Estonia instead. The taxes we didn’t want to pay to import our older car to Norway, we paid them multiplied to get the car into Estonia. We did the whole process. There was only one detail left: getting Estonian plates.
One of the few technical topics that I do love in computers is protocols. We all have seen it. In every web address, there is that “http” that tells us the conversation going on behind the curtains. You probably have seen about the “404 NOT FOUND” error when a page doesn’t exist. There are several codes like that to guide this communication.
My favorite is the humble code that almost no one sees and happens all the time. When you got this content in your computer or mobile, there was one code to signify success: “200 OK”. For several years, I wanted to have a plate that said this, but didn’t take the time with previous cars. I thought this was the moment to do it.
The plate was available in Estonia. However, if you choose three numbers and three letters, the fee is small. If you want less letter or numbers, the fee is much higher. I didn’t feel it was the right thing so I asked Janne. She replied from the couch, “why don’t you use OKI instead? This is how we say Ok in Estonian anyway.” This was it.
Now I love the big electric car Janne chose with the plates we both came up with. I found out later that Janne did love our car plate. Once when driving back from one of her chemotherapies and going through one of our favorite forests, she asked, “can we keep this 200 OKI forever?”
We will, Janne.
