Happy holidays! I apologize in advance for this mass e-mailing, but I figured that this is better than sending a chintzy card that doesn't say much. Plus I hate addressing envelopes. So with plenty of further adieu...
Margaret and I have had a mixed 1998. We both lost our fathers in the first half of the year, so we figured that it was gonna be a horrendous year start to finish. Actually, the second half of the year was pretty entertaining, and I will hit some highlights:
I got a solicitation to purchase the bestest book in the world: "The Gerbers in America: From 1790 to 1998!" Joy joy! "You'll go back in history and meet Gerbers like Francis, a farmer, who lived in Monroe County, Illinois in 1850." The author of the invitation, Eugene E. Gerber, "guarantees that once you've started this Gerber book, you won't want to put it down." Utterly spellbinding! "No direct genealogical connection to your family or to your ancestry is implied or intended;" I guess we're supposed to delight in the listing of our non-family namesakes. Well, at least "each heirloom quality Gerber book is handmade to order and elaborately illustrated," so that my $34.50 plus postage and handling would not be wasted if I actually cared about my namesakes. The publishers were nice enough to include a wholesome picture of three Gerber-looking people smiling at each other while flipping through a rather paltry-looking paperback book. Margaret got a similar solicitation to buy the book of Vonderwahls, but since there are only seven or so Vonderwahls on the planet, she passed it by.
Minnesota was probably the only place in the world that warmly embraced El Nino, which graced us with the warmest winter on record. It wrought havoc over the summer, though, and we had two monster storms in May, two weeks apart. The first one was a lovely hailstorm, and Margaret assures me from her Colorado upbringing that this was a serious hailstorm. And, courtesy of God and my homeowner's insurance, we had a new roof put on, and we'll be getting new aluminum siding on the side of the house in the spring. Two weeks after the hailstorm, we had hurricane-force winds that left us without power for five days and knocked a tree onto our garage. And thus, a new garage roof. All in all, the insurance companies paid out more for these two storms than they had in the past 31 years combined, and I believe the exact figure was around $848 million. Woo-ha.
We discovered something odd about a motion sensor that came with the house. For months after we moved in, we couldn't get the thing to work. The first time it came on was after our big hailstorm, so we figured that it jostled a loose wire or something. Well, at the end of the summer, Margaret replaced the motion sensor, and noticed that both old one and new one had a big warning printed on them that read, "Do not install upside down." Naturally, the old motion sensor was installed upside down, and I think it's very funny that the first time it ever came on was during the big hailstorm. As if to say, "AAAAAAAA!!!!! Something's moving all right!! Ow!!! Ow!!!"
Gas prices dropped to an absurdly low level recently. I paid 83.9 cents a gallon less than a month ago. Ridiculous, although I can't complain.
I had my teeth cleaned by the worst dentist in Minnesota. That is the last time I pick a name off the list that my insurance company gives me.
We turned in our idiot neighbor to The Man for illegally selling plants off her driveway in a "permanent" garage sale. It worked; no more of her stupid customers parking in front of our house. I will forever treasure the memories of her battles with the police officers that came to ask her a few questions. A helpful hint to those who feel like cursing out police officers: not terribly effective, although supremely entertaining for onlookers.
This past summer, Cindy Crawford married some guy named R. Gerber. Needless to say, this makes me very proud to be an R. Gerber.
Work has been nice and turbulent. Since last year, we've been reorganized three or four times, and we have a new CEO. For some reason, they're still paying me, so I can't complain. My first few patents went through in 1998, so I exist on the U.S. patents database. We finally got a cafeteria in November, after working in the building for over a year. Hoo-ray for lunch! I also took my first sick day ever because a flu shot got me very sick for exactly one day.
The Minnesota Vikings are obliterating everything in their path. It's about time.
Our free cable got turned off last week (Doh!), but it really isn't the end of the world. It appears that South Park has run its course, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 hasn't run any new episodes in months. Although Margaret has a bizarre attraction to The Discovery Channel and The History Channel, I won't be missing cable at all; The Simpsons is still the best-written show on the air, Friends is still funny, and we recently discovered Everybody Loves Raymond, which is excellent. I'm sure that Margaret will be lobbying for a paid cable service, but I stand by my big antenna.
I picked up a Vanilla Ice video for free. (Ron: "I'll give you a dollar." Other guy: "Just take it for free.") It's from 1991, and its only redeeming quality is that it's only about 11 minutes long.
We joined a casual bowling league with two friends of ours. Once every two weeks is plenty casual, and we don't take ourselves all too seriously. Which is good, because we've got last place pretty well locked up. I have a 135 average, which is close to what I used to bowl in college. Not too long ago, I had my best series ever: 180, 186, 185. I thought I had become Mr. Bowler until the next week: 131, 135, 139. Nope, I'm still the king of my 135 domain. Margaret has an excellent acid-green ball that we found in Rochester at an estate sale. The holes fit her hand exactly, and it came with a bag and shoes that fit her feet exactly. If Cinderella was a bowler...
As I write this, it's December 15th, and as of today, the Twin Cities have received exactly 0.1 inches of snow so far this year. Our weather guy says that statistically, it's something like only a 7% chance that we won't have received our first inch of snow by Christmas, but it looks like we'll be able to see the grass this year. Ho ho ho indeed. The ski places out here are getting hurt pretty bad, and I can't imagine snowblower and snowmobile sales are doing too well.
My biggest laugh of the year came from my newfound exposure to the stock market. I will 'splain. About two years ago, while I was still with Kodak, we watched Pinnacle Micro, an optical data storage company with a technical group in Colorado Springs, disintegrate. All the technical people left until it was just one guy, Chuck, who I knew personally. We watched the stock price plummet from a few bucks a share down to around 12 cents. Over the last two years, we'd check up on the stock price and it's been bouncing around between 10 cents and 20 cents a share. Well, I had to call a broker guy for some Seagate stock stuff, so I figured I'd buy about $50 worth of Pinnacle Micro stock as a joke. (Just like in Vegas - it's what I can afford to lose.) I ended up with 500 shares, and the purchase price came out to 11 cents a share. We laughed and laughed, and joked that I now had controlling interest in Pinnacle Micro. Well, that was November 4th. For some reason that I don't fully grasp, it appears that my silly transaction touched off a huge buying spree for Pinnacle Micro, and by November 9th, the stock got as high as 48 cents a share. I was clearly an investment GENIUS, having just quadrupled my investment in five days. Which is all completely absurd when you consider that Pinnacle Micro consists of Chuck, and maybe the desk that Chuck sits at. The crowning achievement came on November 11th, and I present to you the complete press release:
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IRVINE, Calif., Nov 11 (Reuters) - Pinnacle Micro said Wednesday that it has no explanation for the recent rise in the price and trading volume of its shares. Pinnacle said that as previously announced, its liquidity position continues to be severely constrained and that it is looking for sources of longer-term financing. The company said is operating under an informal moratorium on repayment of its trade debt with no defined termination date. The moratorium was granted by a creditors' committee representing a substantial portion of amounts owed to unsecured creditors. The company also said it continues to be in default under its agreement with its secured lender and that if it is declared in default under the secured line of credit by the lender and demand for payment is made, the company would likely be required to seek protection under the Federal bankruptcy laws.
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The stock has since decayed slowly to 13 cents a share, and unless somebody drops another 50 bucks on PNCL, it looks like my little joke is just about over. I'd like to think that I was responsible for all this, and that my puny little self caused some wild fluctuations on the stock market. Margaret laughed, too.
My radio show is in syndication, which is nice. It airs on exactly one radio station, and it's not even the one I work at here in Minneapolis. If you're driving around Rochester, NY at 3 PM on Wednesdays, you'll hear me, as if I never left Rah-chester. If you're not near Rah-chester, the show has a permanent home on the KFAI website, and it's updated weekly in the RealAudio format. (Do a search on "Crap From The Past" with the quotes, and you'll end up at my little web page.) My year-end special airs on the webiste until January 3rd, and I think it's pretty good.
We had a tiny Hanukkah party, and Margaret made a huge gingerbread dreidel! It's the greatest thing ever, so I took about a thousand pictures of it, and we donated it to an old folks' home here in town.
Oh yeah, we elected a former pro wrestler as our new Governor. And you can find your "Our governor can beat up your governor" T-shirts at the world's largest mall in Bloomington, MN. (No, I'm not kidding.)
Have a safe and happy Hanukkah, a merry Christmas, an amiable Festivus, and a Happy New Year.
Ron, Margaret, Stinky, and Pukehead (our two cats; pray that we never have kids!) Gerber
