Ron's Big Life Update - April 1996 Part 2

"Hello." - Ric Ocasek, from the Cars' "Hello Again".

Well, apparently I survived the wedding in Tucson. Actually, it went much more smoothly than I would've guessed beforehand. Our only big glitch was the first dance, which was atrocious - have you ever danced with someone in a wedding dress before? Hopefully, no one took pictures of that.

Margaret flew out last Tuesday, bought some rugs and junk in Mexico on Wednesday, picked me up at the airport on Thursday, sewed all day on Friday while I visited my former colleagues at school, partied all day Saturday, sent me back to the airport on Sunday, UPS'ed all the gifts on Monday, and flew back here on Tuesday. As you might have imagined, I only played a perfunctory supporting role throughout the whole ordeal. (That was the agreement, and I'm sticking to it.)

The party was a lot of fun. We had a great turnout from the Arizona contingent (thank you all for attending; it was great to see everybody again, and frankly, it would have been pretty dull without you.) The east coast attendance was rather abysmal - a total of four. My parents, my brother, and my friend Steve, who some of you know. It's hard to say whether Steve was fully appreciated by the Tucsonans; in the words of my friend Julie, "Steve thinks he's famous." That pretty well describes him.

I didn't get to sit down or eat very much - it's true that you don't really get to enjoy your own wedding. We hired a great photographer, who took about 100,000,000,000 pictures. Hopefully, some of them will come out.

And I managed to enjoy the whole weekend without missing a minute of work here at Kodak. I only get five vacation days this year, and I didn't want to use any for the wedding. Needless to say, we didn't have much of a honeymoon. (Some might argue that since we got married in December, that our honeymoon was spent at Margaret's parents' house in Yuma, Colorado. Honeymoon in Yuma? If you can use the words Yuma and honeymoon in the same sentence, then you've never been to Yuma.)

I think we made out OK in the gift department. We got a couple of sets of white towels, which we were hoping for. And a nice vase (thank you Tim).

And actually, I haven't seen the rest of the gifts yet (they're in transit), but I did appreciate the nice wrapping paper - Ren & Stimpy (you EEEEDIOT!), diffraction gratings, all the good stuff. Thank-you's will be prompt and courteous, I promise.

In other news, my car still smells like a new car, even though it has 2500 miles on it. I was flipping through the Auto issue of Consumer Reports, just to see what the powers that be think of not only my new car, but everything else on the market. Aside from one model of Cadillac, the Dodge Neon/Plymouth Neon is the most unreliable car on the road. Unless I misunderstood some of their graphics, it looks like 83% of all new Neons have some problem with them. Interesting.

For those of you playing at home who vaguely remember the short-lived supergroup Deth Boat, good news! Jason (my high-school friend in NY who headed Deth Boat and still works in sound in NYC), decided to finally do something with the Deth Boat tapes. He's mastering the tapes with a Sonic Solutions machine at work (!) onto Hi-Fi VCR tape, then sending it to me so I can cut a few write-once CD's. Cool! I'd done something similar to this with a few dozen sound bites that I use for my radio show, but Deth Boat on CD is mind-boggling. Jason even managed to dig up a Deth Boat outtake that was recorded for the "Mutilator II" short film, and a live cut. And only eight years after it was recorded in the studio; even the group Boston can produce an album faster than that...

Crap From The Past plays on, as expected. Monday may be tax day to some, but to me it's Dave Edmunds's birthday! (He'll be 52.) Skip out of work for the day, put on a party sombrero, and celebrate DE's B-Day! Next Wednesday is Michael "Maniac" Sembello's birthday; not quite the same punch...

We're about to plunge headlong into spring. After a whole week of cold, rainy weather, we're about to dive into the mid-60's. I'm just guessing, but I don't think it'll last.

Hope things are well in your respective necks of the woods. Stay warm.

Ron "Can you play something by Barry Manilow?" G

Ron's Big Life Update - April 1996 Part 1

How y'all are? It's snowing as I write this. Spring has hit upstate New York...APRIL FOOLS! (It really is snowing. This sux.)

Anyway, I'm back on line after some mail server problems at Kodak. Some fun things have happened since the last time I wrote. Last weekend, Margaret and I drove out to Boston to do some hurried visiting and frantic sightseeing. It's hard to absorb much of Boston in less than a weekend. And if you ever decide to visit Boston, for God's sake DON'T DRIVE IN THE CITY!!! Boston is unquestionably the least car-friendly city I have ever seen. I've driven in NYC, LA, San Diego, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Toronto, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philly, Baltimore, Tampa, and most of the other cities in the country and nothing is even remotely close to the pandemonium of Boston driving. (Thank you, Boston people, for being good sports and not charging us for all the stuff that we broke.)

Yesterday, Margaret left for Tucson; I will follow on Thursday. Yep, I don't have a whole lot of responsibility for those wedding reception plans, and I must say that it doesn't bother me one bit. I didn't even WANT a reception, but Margaret did. So be it. I'll show up in my tux, eat some food, pay the band and the caterer and the cake person and the flower person and the photographer and the room people, and fly back to Rochester. No pressure on me at all, since Margaret is taking care of all the arrangements. Should be fun. And to top it all off, I'm not missing any work at all - Friday is a holiday and I'll be back here Sunday night. No time for a honeymoon this year (not enough vacation days anyway). Maybe next year.

I saw Quiz Show yesterday. Outstanding movie, and I recommend it to everyone. It makes me glad that the U of R's radio station (WRUR - where I do Crap From The Past weekly) has no corporate sponsors to kiss up to.

Speaking of CFTP, this week, we celebrate Biz "Just A Friend" Markie's birthday. The Biz turns 32 on Monday. Sing it with me: "OOOOHHHHH baby YOOOOOOOOOOU... You got what I NEED. But you say he's just a friend. But you say he's just a friend OOOOOOOOO BABY YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU....." Last week was MC Hammer's birthday (did you know that his real name is Stanley Burrell?) and next week I go crazy nuts for Dave Edmunds's birthday. Woo-hoo!

In music news:

• New Dave Matthews Band song. Excellent. Album due out at end of the month.
• New Aimee Mann album, "I'm With Stupid", is excellent. Radio ignored it, much to my dismay.
• New Tears For Fears album, "Raoul and the Kings of Spain", is pretty good. Radio ignored it also.
• New (old?) Brand New Heavies album, "Excursions: Remixes and Rarities" (or something like that) is great.
• New Joe Satriani album is excellent. He plays with a live band (finally), and keeps his singing down to only one song. It's produced by Glyn Johns, who has worked with the Eagles and some southern bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, I think. A terrific mellow album from The Guy With The Big Guitar.
• New Barenaked Ladies album, "Born On A Pirate Ship", is out and is excellent. This must have been an abnormally good few weeks.
• I picked up the last 'til Tuesday album, "Everything's Different Now", from 1988. It's extremely melodic, and accurately previewed what Aimee Mann would do as a solo artist. I love it. The two albums preceding "EDN" aren't so hot, however.

And all this since I left Tucson? Oy!

Well, I'm outta here; I have to go get married. And to all you east coast people, I'm sorry you can't make it. There are only four people showing up from anywhere east of Colorado, and my parents and my brother count for three of them. Sorry, but I won't be saving you any cake...

Ron "I do. No, make that I already did." G