I don't think he's the first person to express this sentiment, but I like the quote.
Since my last Big Life Update in June, there has been a great deal of little importance, and a little of very great importance. It should be pretty easy to tell which is which...
July 4 – For the first time in many years, July 4 fell on a Friday. Liz and I avoided a potential conflict with my radio show by watching fireworks over the Mississippi from outside the radio station from 10:00-10:20pm, then wandered inside for my 10:30pm show. Painless.
late July – Threw Liz a birthday party at the house. All she wanted as a present from me was a good cake, so I got her a giant sheet cake from Wuollet's Bakery. It's supposed to feed 64 people, and we had about 32 servings left over after everyone went home. We ate birthday cake for dinner for an entire week!
Summer – Got to see more baseball games than usual this year. Usually, I try to get to a St. Paul Saints game (fine minor league goodness), and maybe a Twins game (overblown major league bigness). I don't care one bit who wins or loses, and I can't stand watching baseball on TV, but I do like being at the games. They're a good excuse to sit around, eat junk food, and watch other people run around and tire themselves out. It's exercise, Ron Style.
The Saints game came late in the season this year. I don't remember who won or lost, or who was even playing, but I do remember that the walking vendor guys were selling warm, freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. Good that I retain the important details...
July 20 – We also got to two Twins games this year. For the first one, our friend Bob was supposed to be part of a large group singing the national anthem on the field at the beginning of the game. I say, "supposed to", because he didn't quite make it to the stadium on time. He took the light rail to the game, and got delayed by the thousands of other people who also took the light rail to the game. Oops... We also took the light rail to the game, but we left a ridiculous amount of time before the start of the game, and got there way before Bob did.
A word about the Minneapolis light rail system. It was largely the pet project of former Governor Jesse Ventura, who managed to get enough funding to get one line opened between downtown Minneapolis and the Airport/Mall of America. It opened in the summer of 2004, and ridership has been WAY beyond what anyone predicted. More lines are planned, and hopefully they'll be smarter about not screwing up the car traffic patterns around the train lines.
So we took the light rail back home from the game, along with thousands of other people. That may not have been such a good idea - the wait was close to an hour before we actually got on the train, and it was packed when we finally did get on. We ended up sitting right next to the unmanned conductor car at the back of the train (presumably, there was a person in the conductor car at the front of the train). Through the window, we could clearly see all the controls at the conductor's disposal. No steering wheel, but an impressive layout of dials, buttons, lights, and other doo-dads that big kids like me just love. It turns out that the train goes exactly 47 MPH in the straight outdoor stretches, and about 60 MPH inside the tunnels. Not exactly a bullet train, but it still beats driving. Plus, there's a button on the control panel labeled, "Car Wash". I really have no idea what a "Car Wash" would actually do, but the vision in my head is that inside the car, water would spray out from a zillion tiny nozzles, much like the inside of a dishwasher, and the fine music of Rose Royce would play in the background. Clap-ca-clap-clap-clap.
The actual game itself was a complete dud. A pitcher's duel (ugh!), with six hits total in the entire game. There was a solo home run for the Texas Rangers, and they wound up beating the Twins 1-0. One of the least exciting games I've seen in person.
August 19 – Went to another Twins game, this time with with a different group of friends. Before the game started, I was complaining to one of them about the snoozy July 20 game, and I told him that nothing makes me happier than sloppy baseball. Plenty going on on the field, runs hits errors galore, and lots to watch. The guy I was talking to was a true baseball fan, and seemed kinda horrified at my ideal version of a baseball game. To him, I must have come across like, "Oh, we just love to go to elegant dinner parties. Our favorite parties are where the cops show up with riot gear and tear gas, and everybody gets arrested."
Well, to this guy's dismay and much to my delight, the game was one of the best routings I've ever watched, on TV or in person. We didn't just stomp on the Oakland A's, we took a cab to the hardware store, bought a shovel, dug a hole in left field large enough to accommodate the entire city of Oakland, buried the A's, their mascot and all their equipment, and planted daisies on their heads. Complete, utter stompage. And because I have never witnessed such one-sided stompage before, I tore the box scores out the next day's paper, so I'll forever have some statistical memories of our day at the park.For this game, we took a city bus to and from the game. On the way home from the game, around 10pm, Liz and I were the only passengers on the bus. It was infinitely better than the light rail, and from now on, it's nothing but the bus to and from any downtown activities.
August – Had a weird dream. It was in the form of an action movie, with the running and the shooting and all that. Don't really remember anything specific except the name of the bad guy: The Destructionator. I woke up laughing.
August – Managed to not watch any of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Avoided hearing anything about some American swimmer and some Jamaican sprinter. (If only Tetherball, Synchronized Running, and Octuples Tennis were real olympic events... God bless you, "30 Rock"!)
Late August – Went to the State Fair again. Ate too much, as predicted. For some reason, several of the new food items involved bacon, including, unimaginatively, a 1/4-pound slab of bacon, deep-fried, on a stick. I made the mistake of STARTING my fair day with that, and I felt kinda bleh for the entire day after that. Good times.
September – Avoided St. Paul during the 2008 Republican National Convention. (For those of you that aren't from here, St. Paul is a different city than Minneapolis. Their downtowns are about 10 miles apart, and the cities have very different feels to them.) From what I saw on the news, the police presence was more than a little excessive, with a bunch of journalists being arrested along with protesters. I feel bad for some of the local restaurants and storekeepers near the Excel Energy Center. They were promised that the convention would be huge boon for business, and in reality, it was exactly the opposite. Convention-goers had all their activities and meals completely, 100% scripted for them, so there was no time to wander around and play tourist. And the locals stayed completely away from the area for the week, knowing that the streets would be blocked by police or completely closed. I'm not sure what impression St. Paul made to the national audience, but many of us locals were not impressed by what we saw. It tied up traffic in Minneapolis as well, with many delegates staying in hotels over there. Roads were blockaded, police cars and escorts were everywhere, and it was just a pretty difficult week for folks working downtown.
The convention also introduced the world to the vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, a woman who doesn't believe in the theory of evolution. (From the Anchorage Times, October 27, 2006: The volatile issue of teaching creation science in public schools popped up in the Alaska governor's race this week when Republican Sarah Palin said she thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the state's public classrooms. Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night's televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.") Oh dear.
Early September – Someone threw out my lunch at work. I responded with a sticky-note on the fridge.September – Seems that there was a good-sized gap between the foundation and the siding in the northwest corner of the house, and I discovered a major bee problem. More specifically, it was bees outside the house and wasps inside the house. I learned pretty quickly that the wasps were easy to deal with. They were very slow and not very aggressive, so that you could easily squash them with a rolled up magazine. They didn't take any kind of evasive action, so you could just walk up to them and squash them. For a while we were in the routine of coming home from somewhere, then I'd grab my rolled-up magazine and check the main-level rooms for wasps. I'd usually find 3-5 of them by the windows. Squash them all, then go around with a spray bottle and paper towels to mop up the bug guts. A nuisance to be sure, but not much of a danger.
Mind you, I had a professional exterminator working on this the whole time. He was focusing his efforts on getting rid of the bees outside by using glue traps. Glue trap after glue trap after glue trap. He was replacing them daily, and they just kept filling up. After a month of this, and asking myself, "Who am I to question how the professional deals with this?", I finally questioned the professional and suggested that he used something a little stronger than glue traps. I also put in a call to the management at the exterminator company, and explained my dilemma. Whaddya know, within two days he'd sprayed whatever you spray into the gap in our siding, caulked up the cracks, and voila! No more bees. The wasps stuck around a bit longer, though, but the cold weather seems to have done a number on them. I still find about one per week, and I expect that to drop off when it gets REALLY cold outside. The important thing is that the house is sealed, so that any remaining wasps will starve and the hive will die - permanent end of problem.
October – I turned 40 on the 22nd. Liz gave me the bestest present ever - she spent a good five hours in the kitchen preparing a giant Cuban feast! She found some recipes on the web and made a few dishes reminiscent of what we got at La Teresita in Tampa, our favorite restaurant in the whole universe. Liz made about 12 servings each of arroz con pollo, ropa vieja, and yuca, and we have a lot still left in the freezer. Even caramelized pineapple for dessert! She's the greatest!
And my brother, Kenny, came out to visit and help me turn 40. I dragged him around downtown, showed him my office and my favorite lunch place (mmm... Zenbox...), walked him around the skyways, showed him construction on the new Twins baseball park at the west end of downtown, took him to the Mill City Museum (long history of milling in Minneapolis, with General Mills still having headquarters here), drove him to an apple orchard WAY outside of town so he could get some local non-city flavor, ate lunch at Wally's (awesome roast beef sammiches), showed him the Minnesota River at the south end of Lyndale Ave. (just across the river from us was a plant of sorts that seemed to be moving some weird-looking green powder into or out of a barge on the river; don't know what the green powder was - raw crayon ore?) That must have taken two days, since I don't remember eating lunch twice in one day.
We also went out with Kris & Marie and took Kenny to "David Fong's". I figured that Kenny can get great Chinese any time he wants in New York City, so I thought I'd give him something to talk about with his friends by dining at the worst Chinese restaurant in the entire midwest. It's 50 years old, and the menu hasn't changed at all since 1958. It says on the outside of the restaurant, "Chinese American Cuisine", so you know you're not in for an authentic Chinese meal. You will, however, get a good representation of the Chinese food that your grandparents might like. It's spotlessly clean, has a spiffy, well-maintained exterior and parking lot, and is always packed. Really, always crowded. Baffling, actually. We all ordered stuff that turned out to be dreadful. We actually had difficulty identifying one of the things that Kenny ordered. The consensus was that it was egg foo yung, but I don't think we'll ever really be sure. Unbeknown to me when I decided to take him there, "David Fong's" was having their 50th Anniversary, and we each got a set of really nice chopsticks in a really nice little box. A genuinely charming trinket, capping a genuinely awful meal. My chopsticks are now in the same display cabinet as my Twins and Saints baseball bats from Bat Day and my Green Giant Sprout telephone.On Saturday, we threw a birthday/meet Kenny party at the house, with the theme being "eat like you're a kid again". We supplied ten pizzas from Papa John's and 36 juice boxes, and everyone else brought Zingers, Hostess cupcakes, Slim Jims, Chicken In A Biskit, Entenmann's Pop 'Ems, Dunk 'Ems, those sugar cookies with the really thick frosting, peanut M&Ms, pretzels, black licorice, Chuck Wagon sandwiches from the gas station, a seven-pound can of chocolate pudding, some really nasty cheezy poofs, a gallon of Lemon Lime Drink for a dollar, and so on. You get the idea. Very anti-gourmet. I felt kinda sick after it all (much like after the State Fair), but it was worth it. On Sunday, we threw a poker game at the house and polished off a good chunk of the leftovers. We did stuff on Monday, then Kenny flew out on Tuesday.
Overall, a really good birthday: surrounded by family, good friends and bad food. I hope the rest of the year is as much fun as Birthday Week.
Kenny and I both put on about five pounds that week. I've lost just about all of it, and I'm sure Kenny has as well. It's in the genes.
Early November – Presidential election. You may have heard something about this?I started my first "Crap From The Past" show after the election by playing "Landslide" by The Dixie Chicks. (Wikipedia: Ten days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lead vocalist Natalie Maines said "We don't want this war, this violence; and, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas", (the Dixie Chicks' home State). The statement offended a huge number of people who supported an invasion and war in Iraq, and the ensuing controversy cost the group half of their concert audience attendance in the United States and led to charges of the three female bandmates being un-American, as well as hate mail and the destruction of their albums in protest.) The Dixie Chicks were poised to cross over big-time to the pop world, like Faith Hill and Shania Twain, but the remark got them blacklisted and it didn't happen. Funny how five years can take us from ruining a musical career by publicly criticizing the President to basing the entire presidential campaigns of both candidates on publicly criticizing the President. It felt really good to play "Landslide" on the air, and you can read into it as much as you like. It also felt really good to play "Chocolate City" by Parliament, and James Brown's "Say It Loud (I'm Black And I'm Proud)". Quite a giddy week, I must say...
Early November – I redid the “Crap From The Past” logo in Scalable Vector Graphics format. I was inspired by, of all things, an issue of Liz’s “Aquarium Fish International” magazine. The font of one of the headlines on their cover exactly matched the font used in the “Compact Disc Digital Audio” logo! Their friendly production coordinator told me which font it was, and I found it online as a 
free font: Eurostile-Black-DTC! Why-reka! I don’t have to settle for “close enough” anymore! I’m just excited that I can now save my logo in .emf format, which is the same format as most clip art. That’s right, the CFTP logo is clip art.Mid-November – I have some tiny ceiling light fixtures in the basement that can barely accommodate an incandescent bulb, and are way too small to fit a normal-sized compact fluorescent bulb. I finally found a place in town that sells small-profile compact fluorescent light bulbs - Electric Craftsman in Hopkins, MN. These bulbs have the same size threads on the base, but a tiny little ballast, and a smaller-diameter tube that forms the coil. Except for the threads, it looks basically like a normal-sized compact fluorescent bulb that's shrunk down proportionally to half its size. Cute, really. I heartily endorse this store in Hopkins for all your lighting needs.
Mid-November – Liz and I were bored on a Sunday afternoon, so we drove down to Rochester, MN for some good barbecue at John Hardee's. It's a little less than two hours each way, but it's worth it. Along the way, we saw the strangest cloud formation - a big block of 20 or 30 stripes! How on earth does a cloud form in stripes? This is a question far too complicated for feeble minds like ours. On our drive, we were content to avoid all thought whatsoever and just sing along with the radio, whimsically butchering as many lyrics as possible. Liz sang, "He's a juice box hero/With straws in his eyes..." Liz rocks.
Stay warm!
Ron & Liz Gerber
