Ron's Big Life Update - November 2001

"em·pur´ple, v.t. To tinge or color purple." - the dictionary. I'm not making this up.

"WRIGLEY SCANDINAVIA AB, BOX 3024, 183 03 TÄBY, SWEDEN. SOCKERFRITT TUGGUMMI. INGREDIENSER: SÖTNINGSMEDEL (XYLITOL 34%, SORBITOL, MANNITOL, ASPARTAM, ACESULFAM K), GUMMIBAS, AMMONIUMKLORID, FÖRTJOCKNINGSMEDEL E414, FUKTIGHETSBEVARANDE MEDEL E422, AROMER, FÄRGÄMNE E171, YTBEHANDLINGSMEDEL E903, ANTIOXIDATIONSMEDEL E320. INHÅLLER FENYLALANINKÄLLA. ÖVERDRIVEN KONSUMTION KAN HA LAXERANDE EFFEKT. NÄRINGSINNEHÅLL/100 g: ENERGI 665 kJ/160 kcal, PROTEIN 0g, KOLHYDRATER 62g, (VARAV SOCKER 0g, POLYOLER/SUKKERALKOHOLER 62g, STÄRKELSE/STIVELSE 0g), FETT 0g, (VARAV MÄTTADE FETTSYROR 0g), KOSTFIBRER 0g, NATRIUM 0g. NETTOVIKT: 14g" - the ingredients list and nutrition information from a Swedish package of Extra gum, "salty licorice" flavor. I thought it was pretty tasty, but based on the reactions of everyone else who tried it, I am the only one in America who thinks so.

You can almost understand the warning: "ÖVERDRIVEN KONSUMTION KAN HA LAXERANDE EFFEKT."

Along the same lines, a company address from a label of "Future Drink", a strawberry juice drink that Margaret found at her favorite Asian market:
"VICTOR INDUSTRY CO., LTD.
19 MOO 2 LIABKLONGPASICHAROENFANGTAI RD.
NONGKHAM, BANGKOK 10160"

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I wrote the bulk of this giant e-mail about a month ago, expecting that our entire group at ADC would be laid off. I'm sure there will be cuts, but the rumors have dragged on for almost a month and I'm getting a little fatigued waiting for the axe to fall. So while I'm still employed as of November 2nd, I don't plan to be employed here much longer. Keeping that in mind...

Well, if you're receiving this message, then I'm no longer an ADC employee. The whole telecommunications field has been hurting lately, and now my group is the latest casualty. Our group didn't have any orders from customers, and is not currently shipping any product, so we were an easy target for downsizing. (Or is the new term "right-sizing"? Oh, who cares?)

We've seen this coming for quite a while, so we weren't terribly surprised. I think you can rate a company's health by some tell-tale details. Margaret loves one example of a company that had cut back on the tampon dispenser in the ladies' room (soon to be an ex-company). For us, our company cafeteria turned out to be an accurate barometer of how ADC was doing. Up until the end of August, the food was excellent, and I was the happiest camper on the planet (because food is my life, as you know.) On August 27, they got rid of the hot entree/veggies and scaled back the hours, leaving only a grill, salad bar, and sandwich bar until 1:00. No more 2nd and 3rd shift meals, and no late afternoon cookie runs. Bad news. Well, on October 1st, they raised the prices, presumably to offset some of the cost of the corporate subsidy. Insult to injury, as I see it. And if the company is trying to skimp on the cost of FOOD, there are much bigger problems at hand.

ADC also announced that they were downsizing the photocopier/printer near my cube to a smaller one that has the same resolution but prints slower. They downsized a COPIER?!?!?

I don't have a new job lined up, but our whole group is watching Ed, my three-time boss from ADC/Seagate/Kodak. He's hired me three times already, and together we've burned down the department three times! As I write this, I'm sure Ed is looking for another optics company in the Twin Cities to destroy, and we'll be right behind him basking in the low stock prices and layoffs.

In other news, Margaret has tied up the ER game, with a trip to the emergency room on September 8. (We're now tied for the year 2001, 1-1.) We were at a friend's party on the north side of town, and she cut her right thumb on a pair of scissors: 6 stitches in an urgent care center, one hour before they closed for they day on a Saturday. Pretty bold - winning games on the road now, while I have to rely on the home-field advantage. She's still favoring the other fingers on her right hand, and even learned to use utensils without her thumb. (She's useless with her left hand; no ambidextrous-ness whatsoever. We joked that without her right thumb, she's about as mobile as the cats!)

I found out that if it's 98 degrees outside with 90% relative humidity (as it was during some record-setting days in August), then there is about 5 tablespoons of water in the air inside your car. How much water is there inside your car when it's 70 degrees and 30% humidity? I forgot to ask Tom, and I don't want to bother him. We may never know.

The word "racecar" is a palindrome. This has not significantly affected the lives of anyone I know.

We saw some worthwhile films on video (not in the theaters, which has been nothing but garbage and sequels-of-garbage since "Memento" passed through.) For those of you into the blaxploitation films of the '70s, I can wholeheartedly recommend "Dolemite" from 1975. Rudy Rae Moore was a foul-mouthed stand-up comedian in the '70s, and starred in the Dolemite films as a foul-mouthed butt-kickin' neighborhood-do-gooder. The whole film is astoundingly inept on many many levels, and the costumes alone are worth the video rental fee. Mighty bad, mighty good.

I can also recommend "Rubin and Ed" from 1991. It's got Crispin Glover and Howard Hessman, and it's a thoroughly charming, small movie. It might have played in theaters for a week or two, but I hadn't heard about it until recently. Sample non-sequitor dialogue: "My cat can eat a whole watermelon." Mighty good, mighty good. (Thanx to Joel, who's been a fearless and uncomplaining host for Moooovie Night.)

In other other news, the Crap From The Past Mobile DJ service has kept me busy with about one wedding a month for the summer. It's a nice pace, and it strikes a good balance between personal burn-out and accumulation of dust on the equipment. Plus, I'll need the $ now more than ever...

The radio show continues to break new ground, and now it actually made the ratings! In my second hour, I pulled a 1.6 share, meaning that 1.6% of all the radios that are on are tuned in to me. It may not sound like a lot, but for a teensy 250-watt non-commercial FM station, it's enormous. I'd compare it to having some guy with a camcorder competing with Conan O'Brien. Utterly ridiculous, and yet I actually beat KS95 and V-105, two corporate (and boring) FM stations in my time slot. Woo-hoo!

And does this carry any weight to help me get a better time slot? Of course not; our little radio station has an "every man for himself" attitude, despite the claims of those in charge. And more often than not, I get the impression that no one's in charge at all; no one makes any big changes, for fearing of disturbing the equilibrium (even if some of the equilibrium sounds crappy).

And now, a misanthropic rant: For those of you who don't pick up Twin Cities radio, there is a superb '70s show on Sunday afternoons called "Cosmic Slop". (www.stitzel.com) The hosts (Chuck and Joel) are terrific, the music is terrific, and the show has earned a justifiably fanatical fan base out here. I've been on their show, they've been on Crap From The Past, and we all get along great and send piles of music back and forth on a regular basis. We're all part of the radio solution, not the radio problem. Cosmic Slop has much bigger exposure than my show, and I have no problems being the #2 "retro" show in town, since Cosmic Slop is put together so well. Living in the shadow of another show motivates me to expand the boundaries of what a two-hour radio show can do; when you're #2 you try harder. And KFAI certainly treats my show like #2.

In other other other news, the Minnesota State Fair came and went at the end of August. They say it's the 2nd largest state fair in the country, and it is indeed something we Minnesotans look forward to all summer. It's got something for everyone (do I sound like a commercial yet?) Margaret likes the animals (chickenz, piggz, horsies, dux, cowz, and other misspelt farm creatures), but my favorite is what the State Fair is known for: Food on a stick! It's legendary - the wide variety of foods on-a-stick. This year, I had the pork chop on a stick, pizza on a stick, elk burger (disappointingly not on a stick), and the bucket o' chocolate chip cookies (again - no stick). The big feature this year was a new food item - deep-fried candy bars. Yes, you read that right, deep-friend candy bars. The guy would bread the candy bar of your choice, then plunk it in the oil for a minute or two. I heard many a food critic saying that the only reason you'd really want to eat one of these is so you could tell your grandchildren that you once had a deep-friend candy bar back in '01. No candy bar for me, thank you, and I chickened out only because the line was way entirely too long for them. (Plus I'd just eaten the better part of a bucket o' chocolate chip cookies. Mmmmmm...cookies...)

About two years ago, I bought $50 worth of Pinnacle Micro stock, and I described the whole event in these e-mails before. Pinnacle Micro was a reputable data storage company in Colorado Springs, but they had suffered a mass exodus of their technical staff, and in November 1999 there were only 23 people left at the company. Back then, I decided to buy a few shares of their stock, which were priced at 11 cents each at the time. Well, the stock rose to 49 cents the next day and I looked like a Financial Genius! But over the next two years, the stock price fell to below a penny (How can it do that? No fair!), and Pinnacle Micro eventually ceased to exist as a company. In the name of closure, I present the final words of Pinnacle Micro, taken from their website:

"Pinnacle Micro was a leading designer, manufacturer and supplier of optical storage systems for general data storage and data intensive applications such as network storage, imaging, desktop publishing and prepress, as well as emerging applications such as digital audio/video and commercial multimedia. Pinnacle was the first company to develop and market a 4.6 GB magneto-optical drive (Apex 4.6) and was instrumental in developing the consumer market for CD recordable products.

"Pinnacle’s product line included magneto-optical drives and jukebox systems, writable DVD drives, CD recorders, media and accessories.

"Founded in 1987, Pinnacle Micro’s world headquarters was located in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, USA.

"At the end of 2000, Pinnacle Micro went bankrupt and its assets were liquidated. In July, of 2001, EZ Systems.com purchased from Pinnacle's bank this web site and their trademarks. EZ Systems, a distributor of computers and data storage products did not assume any liabilities from this transaction."

My $50 rode for two years, which is much longer than it would have lasted in Las Vegas.

Speaking of Vegas, there are casinos out here on the Indian reservations, just a few miles south of ADC. After hearing great things about Mystic Lake Casino's lunch buffet, we decided to check it out in person, in what has now become a Labor Day tradition: "Eat until something bad happens." Last year, it was a phenomenal barbeque place in Rochester, MN. This year, we fell prey to the overpowering quantity of excellent food at Mystic Lake. We surrendered, but we're regrouping and I'm confident that we will eventually show them who's boss (providing that my brother Kenny comes to visit sometime soon). And if I play my cards right (no pun intended), I can combine the eat-fest with an emergency room visit, making me the Champion Of All There Is To Be Champion Of!

I found out that a Bic Round Stic pen will last exactly 7 months at work, if it is the only pen at your desk. Then it runs out of ink.

So here's a thoroughly strange incident: A few days ago, Margaret got a call from some telemarketer. Usually, she just yells and screams at them and hangs up (or asks them politely to be taken off their list), but Margaret said that the telemarketer girl had such a cute innocent voice that she just had to hear out the pitch. Would we be interested in previewing a new TV show that was being considered for production? Would we ever! That means I get to invite my media-savvy friends over and we could all rip it to shreds! Woo-hoo!

The telemarketer girl told Margaret that we'd get a videotape in the mail along with a questionnaire, we'd watch it that night, and that the telemarketer girl would call back the next day and retrieve the answers from the questionnaire. OK then. Monday night, a big UPS envelope showed up, complete with all as promised. The tape had big instructions on it, though, and warned us that it was a special tape that would erase itself if you fast-forward or rewound it. (How can this be? we asked. Details to follow; keep reading.)

The pre-viewing questionnaire was basically a marketing survey. Which brand of batteries/shampoo/peanut butter/etc. do you use? There were about 20 different product types, and Margaret gave legitimate answers to all of them. But why would this TV company care what brand of xxx we use? Obviously we were being used to test something other than the TV show itself, but it wasn't clear what yet. The pre-viewing survey was given under the premise of a sweepstakes: Out of all the households participating in this program, the company was going to give one of them $75 worth of products as compensation for their time, and the company wanted to know which products the lucky household could use. Sure. We noticed in the fine print that the odds of winning "depended on the number participants"; I think that if the number of participants is greater than 1, then my odds of winning are 0.

So then my TV-savvy friend, Mike, came over. He knows literally everything there is to know about old TV, actors, producers, etc., and we knew he'd enjoy this and could probably fill in some motivational details for us. The three of us started the tape, which gave us a stern warning not to rewind or fast-forward, because the tape would erase itself. (Sounds a little too Mission: Impossible to be true, but we accepted it at face value.) For the next half-hour, we sat through "Dads", a (presumably) failed TV pilot from 1997, with commercials included (a-ha! Motivation become more clear! Keep reading.) The show itself was sub-Lifetime-network brutality, starring three useless male leads and their kindergarten-age kids. Margaret saw the whole thing as a Full House rip-off (irritating kids, annoying Bob Sagat-esque character), and I saw elements of a Friends rip-off (bad Joey Tribiani impersonation, plus one of the actresses - a divorced "mom" - really played Ross's lesbian ex-wife on Friends). Rue McLanahan (Golden Girls) played an annoying schoolteacher, doing her best Madeline Kahn-playing-Lili Von Shtupp. Senseless torture for the unsuspecting viewer, who would certainly lapse into a saccharin-induced coma in seconds. We three were prepared for the worst, though, and we could actually see how in 1997, this might have been pitched to the UPN as an antidote to the sharp writing from Friends.

Of course, the underlying message of the show was "Pay attention to the commercials!", and although "Dads" was from 1997, the commercials were all current. A contact lens ad, a battery ad, a few others. We watched it until the tape told us to stop, Margaret filled out the post-viewing questionnaire (a handful of questions about the program, a boatload of questions about products), and they did indeed call back the next night as promised.

So what about the tape that would erase itself? Well, it really did erase itself, so I had to take it apart. I found a small rectangular magnet (About 1/8" by 1/8" by 1/2") attached to the outside of the housing under the plastic flap with a small piece of black electrical tape, right before the tape enters the take-up reel. So you watch the tape, and it gets erased right before it enters the take-up reel. Voila! Technically, that doesn't prevent you from fast-forwarding, but we didn't know that at the time. And if you rewind, everything you've already seen is erased! Cool! It's a pretty slick idea, and an elegant way to produce a view-only-once program. (Not too useful for day-to-day use; you can't record on it because the tape gets erased 1 second after it's recorded. Plus it would get erased if you rewound it. Come to think of it, I can't imagine why anybody would use this at home, ever.) Good old marketing...

The week before Halloween was the most sleep-deprived week I've ever had, including all of college. On Wednesday 10/24, Margaret threw me with a surprise birthday party, and I was indeed surprised beyond comprehension. Some sample dialog from the days preceding the surprise party:

Ron: "Why are you cleaning the floor? Not that I'm complaining."
Margaret: "Because it needs cleaning. Stop complaining."
Ron: "OK."

Ron: "Why is there another cake in the fridge? Not that I'm complaining."
Margaret: "Because I had extra chocolate left over from the last cake. Stop complaining."
Ron: "OK."

So Margaret scheduled an eye doctor appointment for me on Wednesday evening, and I drove off to it without suspecting that while I was reading DEFPOTEC, evil wife would be inviting over a bunch of friends and throwing me a party.

The optometrist dilated my pupils, which wasn't much of a problem for the drive home, since the sun had already set. I remember a conversation I once had with my friend George, who drove back to work during the day right after an eye exam. "George, are you sure you can drive after they put those drops in your eyes?" "Sure! I can't focus very well on things that are close, but I can see objects that are far away just fine." "But you never crash into things that are far away..."

So I drove home and walked up to the house without suspecting a thing. I only figured it out once I saw Margaret lighting candles in the dining room. Evil wife... So Margaret and I are both 33 now, and I can't say that I like it. You round up to 35 instead of down to 30, and I don't like the big numbers anymore. I was up plenty late on Wednesday after the party.

Thursday night - mooooooovie night, a tradition since the spring. Up plenty late.

Friday night - on the radio helping with the KFAI pledge drive. Up plenty late.

Saturday night - DJed a wedding. Up obscenely late. (More about this shortly.)

Sunday night - Did my own show on the radio. Up plenty late again. I was a zombie for days after all this.

So this wedding I mentioned was in the southeast corner of Minnesota, in a little town called Winona ("winn-OH-nah", like Winnohnah Ryder). It's a 2-and-a-half hour drive from Minneapolis to Winona, but it was very pleasant, since I've never traveled that route before. The wedding had a Halloween theme, and nearly all the guests came in costume! What a hoot!

So the wedding ended, everyone helped clean up, and I had the car loaded and hit the road about 1:15 AM. I had two cans of highly-caffeinated bevvies ready, and I was pretty invincible, as far as driving long distances go. Well, about 30 seconds into my drive, once I'd left the small number of Winona's "city lights" behind me, I saw the most spectacular display of Northern Lights that I've ever seen. Giant green streaks everywhere in the sky, and I can't imagine a more perfect place to watch them - on a deserted highway pointing northwest, with the Mississippi River to my right, without a cloud in the sky, and not a single thing obscuring my view. For about 45 minutes, I kept 1.8 eyes on the sky and the other 0.2 eyes on the road, and I was simply awe-struck. It was as if "At this time, God concludes His broadcasting day." Nature is Cool. The rest of the drive zipped by uneventfully, even though I did get to hear both 2 AM's from the end of daylight savings time on the radio.

On a more serious note, I hope your family and friends are all OK after the September 11 incidents in NY and DC. My family was fine, but I lost two friends in the World Trade Center, and I was the only Minnesotan I've run across who knew people personally out there. I delivered what became a short, improvised eulogy to them on my first CFTP show after the attacks. Equipped with only a short outline to make sure that I got from point A to point B, I began the show with a 13-minute talk break, just talking about Ken and Craig. It came out better than I expected. Ken and Craig, we'll miss ya.

Stay warm,
Ron & Mah-gret