"I've seen the future, and it's a short bald man from New York." - Albert Brooks, from the movie Lost In America.
"Worst episode ever." - The Simpsons.
So I did my radio show last night, as I do every Sunday night from midnight - 2AM, and as I stepped outside, I was greeted by smoke and a whole lot of flashing lights. I think my reaction was fairly normal: I thought, "Holy crap!" Once I saw that the smoke wasn't coming from the KFAI building, I threw my pile o' CDs in the trunk of my car and played spectator. As fate would have it, a 4-story building about two blocks south of the radio station caught fire somehow (I don't know how yet), and it was mesmerizing to watch. I counted eight trucks on the scene, and at least that many police cars, and they blocked traffic for about three blocks in all directions. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic at 2 in the morning, and I was able to wander around freely without getting in anyone's way. I haven't seen it on the news yet, but I'm told that it was a 4-alarm blaze, and the building was reduced to some charred outer brick walls once all was said and done. No injuries, thank goodness. The building was undergoing (or was about to undergo) renovations, and was unoccupied at the time. I watched for about an hour, then headed off home. There were little ash bits all over my car, and a few in my hair. My jacket still smelled like smoke this morning. As a souvenir, I saved some little charred bits of stuff that I found a few blocks away - about the size of a softball, and about the consistency of some really light styrofoam. I brought one back to the radio station, and I saved two or three for my garage. Such excitement! (I got into bed at 4, and I was pretty worthless today.)
Work has been going pretty well. Last week, Seagate sent me out to Tucson to do some recruiting at a U of A career fair, so I stood in a tent with a few other Seagate engineers, and we collected resumes from about 400 students. We were outside in short sleeves all day; I'd forgotten how nice Tucson is in the winter. The trip was pretty rushed, and I didn't get a chance to see most of the people I still know in Tucson. Not to worry, though, because Margaret and I will both be out in Tucson this week, and I'll be doing some one-on-one interviewing at the U of A. (Tucson people: I'll be out there March 1-5, and I'll be calling once I'm in town.)
Actually, the weather out here in Minneapolis has been ridiculously mild. We lost all our snow cover, and we're back to looking at bare dead grass! It's been up in the 50's! In February! In Minneapolis! This is wrong on so many levels... But you won't hear a single complaint from me...
I mentioned a few months ago that I'd been walking to work. As you might imagine, I put the whole walking-to-work experience on hold at the beginning of December once the temperatures dipped below freezing. I'll start walking again once the ground thaws, probably in April. It would be a soggy mess trying to walk to work now.
How were your collective New Years parties? We were very happy to spend New Years Eve at some friends' house. They have a huge TV, plus cable AND a satellite system! Woo-hoo! I know that I will be perfectly content if I never hear the words "millennium" or "Y2K" ever again. There was some buffoon out here who spent $20,000 in Y2K preparations - he had his basement totally stock with canned goods and a generator. He looked even more stupid when they interviewed him for the local news - he claimed that the real danger would be the February 29th bug, and he was most certainly ready for it. Hope he enjoys his 200 cans of tuna...
Naturally, Y2K at Seagate was a big non-event. We had one teeny little glitch in a piece of software, though. I got an automatic response from one of the ordering systems that said the parts that I ordered would arrive on Dec 21st, 1899. Good to know.
And a rule of thumb that I discovered: Nothing brightens your day more than wandering by a conference room after a catered lunch has been there, and discovering some leftover pizza. Mmmm... leftover pizza... I've even given it its own acronym: POQA (Pizza Of Questionable Age). On the employee perks scale, it's only outranked by DOQA (Donuts Of Questionable Age)
Carlos Santana won 8 Grammys? Well, I say good for him. And thank heavens that the Backstreet Boys didn't win everything...
I've seen a few movies in the theaters recently, and I have my opinions (surprise?). "Being John Malkovich" was far and away the most original movie of the year, and I'll be mad if Spike Jonze doesn't get the Oscar for Best Director. (I'll be even madder if "Star Wars" wins anything...) "Dogma" was fair. "Fight Club" was atrocious. I think that's all I've seen lately; the studios usually haul out the trash around Oscar season, so I'll have to wait awhile before anything worthwhile shows up.
Margaret and I had a great idea for a carnival booth. Undoubtedly, you've heard of Whack-A-Mole. Well, we propose: Stomp-A-Pomeranian. You put on a pair of hip-high stompin'-boots, and for thirty seconds you get to stomp away in a cage full of little yippy-dog Pomeranians. I told this to a friend of mine, who proposed a different carnival booth: walk-up psychiatric evaluations, along the same lines as guess-your-weight. If our Carnie mis-diagnoses your ills, you win a free stuffed animal (or a flat one from the Stomp-A-Pomeranian booth...)
I have a title, now I just need a song to flesh it out: "Drooling Banjos"
This week, "Crap Fron The Past" celebrates its 1-year anniversary in it present time slot, with the admittedly absurd "all-beverage" show. You'll hear "Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)", "Go For Soda", "Tequila", "Red Red Wine", and dozens of others, plus songs by Hot Chocolate, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Oran "Juice" Jones, and the Gin Blossoms. That's this Sunday night at midnight (10 PM on the west coast) on KFAI-FM in the Twin Cities, and live in RealAudio at kfai.org on the Big Bad Web.
Oh, I almost forgot - the highlight of the New Millennium! (Doh! I hate that word!) There's a book that's come out recently about the show American Top 40 with Casey Kasem. A book about my idol! I had a tiny contribution to the book, and I'd talked to the author on the phone about two years ago. I would have been ecstatic just to see my name in print in the acknowledgments list, but to have it appear right before DEBBIE GIBSON is quite possibly the GREATEST HONOR OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!! I am genuinely overjoyed to appear on a printed list with Ms. G, and to appear back-to-back with her makes my less than lucrative radio career completely worthwhile. (No irony here - I'm actually thrilled beyond belief.) If you're gonna hunt the book down, it's called "American Top 40 - Countdown of The Century", by Rob Durkee. (He's a former statistician for AT40.)
Life is good, indeed.
Hope all is well in your respective necks of the woods. Keep your feet on the stars, and keep reaching for the ground...
Ron "a little dog named Snuggles" Gerber
