Ron's Big Life Update - June 2005

Hi, all. It's been a very good couple of months, and virtually everything I have to report on is good news. I realize that eliminates most of the suspense, but these things aren't exactly nail-biters. In chronological order…

Early March - Met Liz's parents when they drove down to visit. They're from Ada ("AY-duh"), a small farming town in upper Minnesota near Fargo, and about a four hour drive from here. It was the first time I'd met anyone's parents (in that sense) in about ten years, so I was a little nervous. We all went out to dinner at a great restaurant here in town, and thanks to an ungodly amount of sangria, it went very nicely.

Late March - My washing machine died. It was a Maytag, and dated back to the late '70s, according to Frank, a friend of mine who is an actual repairman for Maytag. While the part that died was replaceable, it was expensive, and it made more sense to just get a new machine. So I got a new Maytag, based on Frank's recommendations. Apparently, the Maytag line that earned the company its stellar reputation has gradually been whittled down to just one model, which is what I bought, and it's pretty darn terrific. And for the record, the other washing machine models that currently use the Maytag name are, according to Frank, crap that looks like it was designed by an eighth grade shop class. There you go.

Mid April - Quite possibly the greatest weekend in all of history. The low point of the weekend was a wedding, so that will give you an idea of the scope of this particular weekend.

Saturday morning: Got up around 9 to clear blue skies and around 60 degrees. Wanted donuts, but since Liz and I shouldn't really eat donuts, we came up with a compromise. We'd walk to Donut Connection, which (according to MapQuest) is 2.96 miles away from the house. Three miles each way to burn off a donut? Perfect! We moseyed through side streets, took a foot bridge over the interstate, and wandered around the perimeter of a nature preserve. Liz didn't believe that there was a nature preserve in my little first-ring suburb of Richfield, but there it was. We each got 2 donuts at Donut Connection, and they were possibly the best donuts in the entire history of circular food - still warm! Mmm. Then on the way back, Liz pointed out that K-Mart across the street was flying a banner outside the store proclaiming "Nationwide Bike Sale". I'd actually been looking for a bike so I could go riding with her, but I couldn't justify spending $300 at a bike store to get a decent one. So we strolled into K-Mart, and $52 later, we strolled out with the cheapest bicycle ever built. It was pre-assembled, so it was straightforward to get it home - one of us rode in the lowest gear while the other one walked.

Saturday afternoon and evening: One of Liz's college friends got married, so we went to the wedding. The ceremony was at the Basilica here in Minneapolis, which is a mighty fancy church. So fancy, that whenever some religious event makes the news, they always show the inside of the Basilica. We guessed that the ceilings were somewhere around 75-100 feet tall. The acoustics for the pipe organ and singing were unbelievable, with so much natural reverb that it was like the whole church was singing in the shower. Although, the same acoustics made normal speech almost unintelligible. The reception was in the super-fancy lobby of a super-fancy office building west of downtown. The DJ was embarrassingly awful, the food was so-so, but the cake was good. So good, in fact, that when I noticed that some extra pieces of cake were laid out by the windows across the room, I believe my exact cry was, "Son of a b****! Cake!", and I nearly knocked over one of Liz's friends in my cake-bound haste. It's funny NOW, but Liz was probably appalled at the time.

Sunday morning: Got up around 9 again, properly inflated the tires on my new bike, and rode it the 8 miles or so to Liz's house. Then we properly inflated the tires on her bike, and rode to Liberty Custard, a seasonal ice cream place that Liz has been dreaming about since the fall. She had a malt, I had a scoop of ice cream with a piece of cake. Breakfast o' champions! Then we kept riding all over the county on the designated bike trails for the next four hours. The weather was a tiny bit overcast, but unseasonally warm, and just perfect for doodling around on bikes. We estimate that we put around 30 miles on the bikes, which is pretty good for the first day. I decided in the first five minutes that my cheapy bike needed a new seat, but there's not much you can do when you're actually on a bike ride. So after four hours of riding on the brick-like seat that came with my $52 bike, my posterior was a wee bit sore. It started to drizzle just as we got back to Liz's house, so we parked the bikes in the garage, hopped in the car and drove over to Matt's Bar for dinner. They have the best greasy burgers and sammiches, which hit the spot perfectly. And now that Hennepin County is non-smoking county-wide (woo-hoo!), we didn't smell like smoke afterwards (just grease. Mmm…) Since we were on a roll, we stopped by Lund's, an uppity local grocery store, and picked up one of their "picnic cakes", an 8-inch square frosted cake that Liz loves. And split it. Mmm… During the next hour, she sanded the woodwork in her condo's hallway while I checked eBay to make sure that none of the CDs she was about to donate to my radio station were worth anything.

And there you have it - the perfect weekend. Virtually all of it outside with perfect weather. Virtually all of it junk food, with no vegetables whatsoever. And a little bit of color on our arms, which were exposed during the bike ride. If the whole summer is like this, I will be a very happy camper indeed.

Late April - Took the Patent Bar Exam again. Same format as last time - 100 multiple-choice questions, all pulled from a huge pool of questions. It seemed a little easier the second time around, though that may just be luck of the draw. During my practice exams, there was one particular question that I got wrong so often that I printed it out the night before the exam, just so I'd have the answer fresh in my head in case that question showed up on the exam. It turned out to be question #1! A pleasant surprise and a nice way to start the test. How'd I do? Again, the government told me that I'd be notified in "due time", so keep reading.

Early May - Liz got a cat. He's about a year old, is already de-clawed (we'd never do that to a cat, but it was already done), and has a huge poofy tail like a dust mop. Very cute. She had trouble picking a name, though, and we kicked around quite a few. Liz's friends all made suggestions, including Thadius, Hyde, Quincy, Poohead, Bentley, Lenny, and Q.T. McWhiskers. I wanted to name him after Italian food, so I called him Gnocchi for a while. Now I call him Pesto. He doesn't respond to anything, so it really doesn't matter what his name is. And I like the fact that everybody has a different name for him. The cat cries a lot, to the point where Liz now puts him in the basement at night so she can get some sleep. It's still not clear if she's keeping him, so I'll have to let you know in the next Big Life Update.

Late May - Memorial Day Barbeque! The tradition continues, only not at our house this year. Too much food was et, naturally; that's part of the tradition. Bleh.

Early June - I found out that I passed the Patent Bar Exam! Woo-hoo! This makes me a Patent Agent. (FYI - the hierarchy is Patent Engineer, Patent Agent, and then Patent Attorney if I go to Law School. Which I won't be doing any time soon.) I can now sign my own documents and talk directly to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, instead of going through another patent attorney. The exam has a reputation for being the hardest bar exam, and passing it is a nice career milestone for me. A bump up in prestige, and a bump up in what the company can charge for my services. Good stuff! To celebrate, they bought dessert for the whole company - two giant cakes that were almost too rich to eat. Heck, if I get a cake every time I pass an exam, I'll go to Law School!

I gradually became aware that there are essentially no other patent agent/attorneys anywhere with a Ph.D. in optics and almost ten years of industry experience. There was one that I worked with who brought me into the firm where I am now, but he got out of patent prosecution about a month after I got here, and he's not doing that kind of work anymore. That leaves me. And that puts me in a very good position to take on optics clients; I can say firsthand that as an inventor, you want to make sure that the person writing up your inventions knows the technology and speaks the language. There really isn't any substitute for that. So I'll set a modest goal, and give myself two years to completely take over all the patent prosecution for the entire field of optics! Sure, why not?

And wouldn't you know it, within a week after finding out I passed the exam, I got four letters from recruiters…

Early June - We went rafting and camping on the Peshtigo River in upper Wisconsin, a six-hour drive from here. It was the same trip as last year, with slightly better weather but only 11 people. Last year we had 22, and that's where I met Liz. So this was sort of a one-year anniversary, sort of. I bought an inflatable mattress and a tent, so I didn't have to mooch equipment off anyone this year.

We drove up on Friday afternoon, set up tent while it was still light out, made a fire, and sat around gabbing and eating smores until everyone was set up and accounted for. Saturday morning, we went out rafting on the river. The water was low enough so that the usual two-person rafts wouldn't have worked well, so everyone got a free upgrade to Funyaks. Aside from being fun to say, Funyaks are much easier to steer and are self-draining - a big plus. We finished rafting around noon, then started eating. "Bring enough for yourselves and a little extra to share." Based on that, we all brought way too much food. With only an hour-long break for a nap at some point, we cooked and ate non-stop until midnight. What a day!

We drove back on Sunday, and while Liz and I were in the car, we tallied up everything we ate on Saturday. I will now reproduce the list of everything I ate between noon and midnight on Saturday. Do not try this at home.

2 fancy hamburgers
1 Polish sausage & bun
2 juice boxes
4 s'mores
1 banana
half an orange
one-third of a watermelon
1 yogurt
1 package of Pop-Tarts (something like "Ice Cream Sundae" flavor - no natural ingredients whatsoever)
4 pancakes & buckets of syrup
3 breakfast sausage links
10 (ten) pieces of really good bacon from a local custom meat place, some of which were wrapped in the pancakes along with the sausage links
1.5 pieces of rhubarb pie
a handful of grapes
half a pizza sandwich (a specialty of a friend of ours, who makes them over the fire in her little Coleman sandwich grilling thing)
half a cherry sandwich (see above; I think these may be called Mountain Pies?)
more than my share of leftover sliced, grilled potatoes
more than my share of leftover beans
1 package of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls

Now THAT's a weekend, in true Gerber Eatin' Style. Liz ate enough to feel sick also, but she ate significantly less than I did. She's not a Gerber.

Mid-June - Had the usual poker game with friends. We play about once a month on a Saturday, low stakes, pretty much the way I've played since high school. Only this time, instead of having the dealer call the game like we usually do, we decided to play a whole night of Texas Hold 'Em, just like they do on TV. (Aside: Who wants to see other people playing poker? How ridiculous is that? Future generations will undoubtedly see "Poker on TV" as the mid-00's equivalent of televised bowling. I'll be glad once the whole trend passes, and we can play just like we always have, without the hype.) I lost my $5, but I ate my weight in boneless wings.

Mid-June - Most expensive date ever. Liz and I met some co-workers of hers at a Japanese restaurant downtown. Pricey, but fun. Liz had never been to one of those places where they cook everything right in front of you and put on the big show with the knives and the pepper shakers and the big fire and all that. She had a blast. A few of our friends are jugglers, and we think they would be naturals for that style of cooking. "Now… FIVE peppers shakers! And watch me pass them to the table over there!" Ooh! Then we saw a movie - "Madagascar", which was light, fizzy fun. The high point of the movie was a lemur that was voiced by the guy who does "Da Ali G" on HBO. Pretty excellent, although I wouldn't want to see the movie again (it was no Finding Nemo). And THEN, we saw a band at 1st Avenue, "Ted Leo and the Pharmacists", a punky/pop three-piece in the fine tradition of early Joe Jackson. They were pretty good, and played everything way faster than they did on the records. Everything was upbeat and fast. To give you an idea of how fast, Ted played Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark" as an encore, and it was the most down-tempo song of the night. Fun show! Then I dropped Liz off and went home, having crammed more entertainment into one evening than all of last year.

Mid-June - Minor crisis, although it could be a major crisis for the Crap From The Past website. The guy who's hosted my old show archives (25 GB, ludicrous amount of traffic) is losing his T1 connection, and I have until the end of June to find another person willing to donate some space and bandwidth for my archives section. Mind you, the archives section has every CFTP show I've ever done in the last 13 years available on demand for streaming in their entirety, all for free. If I can't find another generous donor, I can't host the archives section of my website, and my website becomes lame-o. Yikes.

That's about it. No big travel plans coming up, unless they turn out to be spur of the moment. Liz says "Hi". Pesto says "Me-ow-woo-woo-woo".

Take care!
Ron