Hi, all. As summer grinds to a halt, I figured that it's time for a Big Life Update. First, the old business.
I think I mentioned that I'm officially a Patent Agent now. I'm officially Registration No. 57,166. Yes, I'm a number.
Liz did, in fact, keep her cat. He still yowls at night, so she puts him in the basement. And he still doesn't have a proper name, although Poohead seems to be the most popular. We're still coming up with additional names, like Izzy, Yoink, and Pewter. And he's HUGE - he weighed in at 8.1 pounds when Liz got him, and now he's around 12. I like the idea of a gigantic cat the size of a cougar… named Poohead.
As for the Crap From The Past website problem, it's now solved spectacularly. As of June, I lost access to the guy in Bath, NY, who had a server with a T1 connection. So my archive of all my old shows disappeared. Well, wouldn't you know, I got hooked up with archive.org, a very large, very respectable, non-profit organization that does this exact sort of thing. For free. Permanently. They also host the old show archive for "Democracy Now", a far-left news show that runs on KFAI and a few other stations nationwide, so these people know what they're doing. So since June I've gone completely overboard - I ditched all the old crappy RealAudio files, and re-encoded all 13+ years of my old shows as both hi-quality and lo-quality mp3s. It's hard to say how many files there are, but it's certainly in the thousands. It will probably end up being about 100 GB of storage at archive.org, with an unlimited bandwidth. E-gad! For those of you that feel like poking around, you can access everything through crapfromthepast.com, or by searching on "crap", "past", "KFAI", "Gerber", or something like that at archive.org. Deeee-mented, and now reeeeee-spectable!
Now, on to new business.
Late June - Liz's work schedule was about to change to weekdays only; she'd been working every other weekend and had always had a weekday off. So to celebrate her last weekday off, I decided to play hooky with her and we went to Valleyfair, a big ol' amusement park in the southwest suburbs. As fate would have it, an enormous heat wave rolled through the Twin Cities at exactly the same time, and it hit 96 degrees that very day. And humid. And it was all right there in the weather forecast the night before. So I'm guessing that it scared off most people, because the park was essentially empty! No giant crowds! We wore plenty of sunblock and drank plenty of water while we were there, and since Valleyfair has water rides, we really didn't notice the heat. Plus, since there was nobody there, we were able to go on a ride, get off the ride, run around through the turnstiles, and get right back on again! No waiting, anywhere in the park, all day! This was it - the dream we've all had, ever since we were little kids! We rode the Wild Thing 4 times in a row till we felt kinda pukey, then ate something, then went on some other ride a few times in a row, and so on, for the entire day. And as you know, fun should be quantifiable, and I defy anyone to top our Fun Quotient for the day: Liz went on a total of 37 rides. That includes water rides, and serious head-blastin' roller coasters. (I went on only 36; I stupidly dropped my keys at one point, and was looking for them while Liz went on a water ride.) That's right - 37 funs. I think the total came out to 6 rides each on all the three or four major roller coasters, plus lots of smaller rides. Best day ever.
Early July - Some of you may remember a catchy little pop song called "Funkytown". It was a hit in 1980, and 25 years later, it's still everywhere. Well, the guy who wrote it, produced it, and played most of the instruments on it is named Steven Greenberg, and he's from the Twin Cities. He still lives in town, and he still has a hand in the local music scene out here. Earlier in the year, I summoned up the courage to ask him to be a guest on "Crap From The Past", and he agreed. So on the July 8th CFTP show, he sat in with me, live, for the entire 90 minute-long show! That's right - the guy who did "Funkytown", right there in the studio with me! He brought friends and family, and I brought Liz, and everybody brought cameras. He was great - he told stories, he described how he recorded in the studio back then, he talked about being the drummer in a rock band in the early '70s (!), he has a great business sense and talked about how artists, producers, writers and musicians get paid, and it all made for some great radio. The show is posted on the CFTP archives (see above), so you can hear what I'm talking about. One of the true high points for the summer. He signed all my Lipps, Inc. 45s (and there are more than just "Funkytown"), including the actual 45 of "Funkytown" that I bought when I was 11.Mid July - Another poker game. These have become a welcome, regular occurrence, and we've been playing about once a month. Well, one hand in particular stands out from this particular game. We were playing Texas hold 'em, and I was dealing. My down cards were Ace/5, unsuited. Respectable. I was in, along with most of the table. I then dealt the flop one card a time - ace, ace, ace. Yes, that's right. Five cards - four aces. I have never in my life gotten a natural four aces, so you can imagine my surprise. My thought process went something like this: "Holy $%^&*! Four @#$%^ aces! Oh no - who's going to stay in and bet? I have four $%^*&* aces and I'm going to win the ante!" Then one of the guys at the table bet. What could he have that beat four aces? So I raised him. And he raised me. And then all in. Yikes! He had a pair of queens down - a very high full house. But it doesn't beat four aces. I won a few bucks on the hand, and I think I was up about 2 bucks by the end of the night. Big spenders, we are. That's right - four $%^&* aces, baby.
Late July - I threw a birthday party for Liz at my house. The whole outdoor barbeque thing, chairs outside and all that stuff. Unfortunately, it was hot. Really hot. And humid. Really humid. Not just humid humid, but record-setting humid. The dew point was 80 degrees, which is exceptionally uncomfortable. The heat index (that how hot it feels) was a mere 125 degrees! I guess it could have been worse - a few miles to the southwest, the tiny town of St. Peter set a state record with the highest dew point ever recorded in the state of Minnesota - 86 degrees. Good party, though.
Early August - Despite my undying love for my spectacles (with the cool hexagon lenses - the same style lenses that my grandfather was wearing in his wedding photo from 1936), Liz really didn't like them. And she was vocal about it. Pretty incessantly, I must say. So I caved. I got new glasses, and I even let her pick out the frames. She's the one looking at them all the time, not me, so I trusted her to pick something nice. They do look pretty snazzy, and I've successfully put an end to the complaining, although there's no good story behind them. No pictures of me in the new spex, yet. I still have the hexagon glasses at home just in case.
Mid August - I had a one-day business trip to Boulder. Boulder is big enough to qualify as a small city, but I think it's considered a distant suburb of Denver. It's about an hour from the Denver airport. The rental car company gave me a Neon, and apparently Neons are still as crappy as I remembered from 1995, when some other rental car company gave me a Neon to drive from Tucson to the Grand Canyon. This one had only 9000 miles on it, had no pickup at all, and pulled severely to the left. Quite the lemon.
Boulder itself seemed nice. My trip coincided with freshman orientation at CU, so the area around the school was chaos. But the rest of the city was very pleasant. On a recommendation from a co-worker who used to live out there, I visited Whole Foods. Technically, it's a supermarket, but the term "supermarket" doesn't quite do it justice. It's more of a haven for fairly healthy eaters. A zillion kinds of produce, about half of it organically grown. A meat counter that spanned two full walls of the place, with every kind of species and permutation you can imagine. A deli counter with magnificent sandwiches, pizza, a salad bar, take-out entrees, you name it. And all of it labelled very carefully, with ingredients even for the pizza. Virtually all of it, chemical-free. I was amazed. So much so, that I ate two of my meals there, and bought fruit for the plane ride home. And all the while, I was surrounded by reasonably thin, highly liberal people - overall, a very enjoyable experience, and a nice change from the suburban markets out here. Plus, bike paths everywhere! I could get used to all that! Of course, I'd never be able to afford a house…
Late August/Early September - The State Fair, a Twins game (Liz's first), and The Renaissance Festival (a first for both Liz and me). Talk about eatin' bad!
The hot new food at the state fair was billed as spaghetti and meatballs on a stick, although it was logistically quite a bit simpler than that. They baked noodles into the meatballs, then deep fried them like a corn dog. Then insert stick, dunk in sauce, and voila. It was inoffensive, but not terrific. Liz and I combined had 11 food items, which I won't list here. 11 funs.
The Twins game was Liz's first pro baseball game, and it was a good time. The Twins shellacked whoever they were playing, so it was a nice, relatively exciting introduction to the game. Plenty of hits - we got three doubles, a triple, and a three-run homer. She asked a lot of questions, and I realized that baseball has a ridiculous number of rules. The one that stumped me probably has a very simple answer: Why are strikeouts scored as "K"? I know a walk is "BB", for a Base on Balls, but I was stumped where "K" comes from. I'm just thankful Liz didn't ask about the infield fly rule. I also ate a bunch, but I didn't have the stomach to eat for the cycle again. Maybe 3 funs.
The RenFest was… worth going to once. Maybe. Well, not really. A friend of ours is really into it, and has a costume and a season pass and all that. We went with him, since he knows the place pretty well. Maybe we just went on an off day, but Liz and I just didn't get it. Even if it hadn't rained like a car wash, I don't think we would have fit in well with the Huzzah crowd.
The RenFest did give me a brilliant idea, though. They always have the joust, and it's always so predictable. Guys in armor on horses with big sticks run right past each other. Then they do it again. Bo-ring. (It's the medieval equivalent of baseball!) So my idea is this: I suggest that we combine the competition of jousting with the good old fashion down home American tradition of the rodeo. That's right - we replace the horses with bucking bulls. Now imagine two guys in armor with big sticks trying to knock each other off the bulls, and you see where I'm coming from. If marketed correctly, the rodeo joust could be HUGE! It's a shoo-in with the young hipsters of today - it's unquestionably EXTREME! Those hipsters. I envision the rodeo joust having its own celebrities, like a hipper, cooler version of Tony Hawk. Who just happens to wear armor and gets bounced around by bulls. And it's a no-brainer to upgrade those rodeo clowns to jesters…
Yep, brilliant. And probably a better idea than my new idea for a condiment - ketchstard.
Early September - Liz and I drove down to Iowa to visit her grandparents. They seemed nice, and I think they didn't actively disapprove of me. Good enough! I think that's enough to earn brownie points in the family! And they earn extra brownie points from me because they thought I was a lot younger than I am - apparently I'm now at the stage where that's a compliment.
Early September - We've taken to using the word "pants" in place of the usual swear words. It's pretty effective, once you get used to it. Someone cuts you off on the road? Clearly has his heads up his pants. Someone trying to sell you something? Clearly full of pants. And so forth. I believe my friend Kelly came up with the whole "pants" thing, and I like it. Not your thing? Then pants off…
Mid-September - I guess you could characterize it as a minor gas leak in the house, although I don't want anyone to panic. For months, I'd occasionally get a whiff of gas in my laundry room, kinda near the water heater. Well, this past Saturday, I thought, "You know? I should get that looked at." Nothing out of the ordinary, no hissing sound or anything, I just thought that it would be a good idea. So I dug out my gas company bill, expecting to find the number to call if you smell gas in your house. The number's not on the bill. Oh, the bill gives you numbers to call if you're moving, or have billing questions, but no number to call IF YOU SMELL GAS IN YOUR HOUSE?!? Why would you not put the single most essential, disaster-preventing phone number right there on the bill?!? So I went to the website, thinking there would be a big, red phone number labeled "what to do if you smell gas in your house". No, not on the home page. Actually, nowhere near the home page. After some difficult navigation through their website, I eventually found a number to call, buried amongst some innocuous, useless blather at the bottom of one of their pages. I don't think that these pantsheads realize that they are, in fact, the GAS COMPANY. And sometimes, people need to make emergency calls to the GAS COMPANY, unlike, say, the request line to "Crap From The Past".
Once I found a phone number, things went much more smoothly. The phone line got it right: the very first thing I heard was "push 1 if you smell gas". I got connected to a live person who took some info and immediately dispatched a technician. The guy showed up within a half hour (on a Saturday morning, no less!), and was friendly, helpful, and knew what he was doing. I asked if I could watch, just out of curiosity, and he said, "Sure!" It's far more interesting for him if people watch and ask questions, so I did.
He came in carrying a gas detector, which was about twice the size of a voltmeter. It had a wand tethered to it by a flexible, transparent, plastic tube. It worked just like you'd think one of these would - as he brought the wand tip near the leak, it beeped and a number on the display increased. I asked if it was responding to the gas itself or the additive, and he told me that it responds directly to natural gas. Neat! I have no idea how it works, but it does. Apparently, these things have been around for about five years, and cost about $3500. He described one of the older ways they used to test, which involved cracking open a vial of something inside a chamber and looking for a color change, or something along those lines. Clunky. He still uses the soap bubble test sometime to check for leaks, just like they do with tires.
He found the culprit - a fitting that leads into my water heater. And although it wasn't technically his responsibility to fix it, he offered to tighten the fitting for me. Sure! He went out to the truck, got two big wrenches, and five minutes later, no more leak! How much did I owe him? Nothing - he said that the trip to find the leak was free, and it was a minor adjustment to fix it. I shook his hand and thanked him, and off he went. For free.
I was impressed enough with the service to write to the gas company, noting that the actual service was excellent, and the technician they sent out (For free! On a Saturday morning!) was superb. I also noted that they should probably put their emergency phone number on the bill - the technician said he'd had about a hundred people tell him that. My new impression of the gas company? A collection of fine people, all trying to escape the stupid pantsing bureaucracy.
Unrelated to everything: Somehow, I'm now the Treasurer of my radio station, KFAI, and also the Secretary/Treasurer of the Minnesota chapter of the Optical Society of America, both of which started in May, 1978. How did this happen? My mom has been the Treasurer of the Substitute Teachers Association of New York (or something close to that) for years! Grandpa was an accountant back in the day, and even though mom and I have no formal training in financial statements and whatnot, we seem to be carrying on the torch.
That's about it. Hope your school years start smoothly, and I hope you get to be lab partners with the pretty blond girl! Liz says hi, too.
Ron
