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Last Updated : Sunday, 04 August, 2002 at 09:35 PM -0500
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| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 04 August, 2002 at 09:35 PM -0500 |
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Monday, July 29, 2002
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Happy Monday
Yes, 'tis I. The goofball.
So far so weird this morning. I've surfed the job boards, preped some resumes, and then decided to take a weed-wacker to the underbrush and see what I could clear up with the formatting on this page. Some persons have a running complaint that the color and font choices I've made do not translate well, or at all, to their particular browser. For which I've apologized, and done nothing about. So this morning I thought "well, let's see what we can do". Since I have both IE and Mozilla on my machine now, I can compare the two.
And, frankly, while Moz seems a whole lot faster, boy, oh boy oh boy does it know nothing at all about CSS. For example, I have a "header" format for the bar at the beginning of each day. If you're using IE, you'll see a green background with very light gray text. If you're using anything else, it seems, you'll get plain old black text on white background. Lovely.
So, I had to make a change. I had to change
<P Class="gbhlt36" Align="left"> <a name="1MON">Monday</a>, July 29, 2002</P><hr>
To
<TABLE Width="100%" Border="0" Cellspacing="0" Cellpadding="2"><TR> <TD Width="100%" BGCOLOR="#009933" VALIGN="MIDDLE"> <FONT FACE="Arial, Helv" COLOR="#EEEEEE" SIZE="6"><B> <a name="1MON">Monday</a>, July 29, 2002 </B><A HREF="../current_resume.html"><IMG SRC="../pix/hireme2002.gif"></A> </TD></TR></TABLE><hr>
Isn't that fun? Not. What a freaking mess... Of course, I did ask for it.
Many moons ago I found one of those "web designer" folk (don't remember who, now), who was pushing "standards now". Now, mind you, I know web designers. I've done web design. Some of my best friends are web designers. But I've never much cared for people who put more stock in the "design" of a page than in the content. But that's just me.
And since their idea of "cutting edge design" required that I upgrade my perfectly functional installation of IE 4.0 to something much more bleeding edge (5.5, I think), I was against it. 100% against it. Still am, come to think of it.
But this isn't the place to fight out that battle. It's done and over with.
Good Grief...
I'm starting to think maybe a career change might be in order after all. Over the weekend I had the opportunity to peruse the local paper, where some poor fellow used the word "historical" twice in reference to a nearby accidental swamp-landing by Charles Lindbergh four years before the fellow took that hop 'cross the pond all by his lonesome. This fellow, however, referred TWICE to the historical Charles Lindbergh crash in the swamp which is now Port Cargill... Being a history buff and a somewhat lackluster student of the language we laughingly call "English" (I believe firmly that there are unique branches - Australian English, British English, and American English - Canadian English might well be a fourth branch, and American English can be further differentiated into "Proper", "Eubonics", "Legalese", "Bureaucratese", and "Numbskullese". Business-speak, often referred to as a branch of language, isn't properly a language at all, for it often fails to communicate clear, concise messages with little or no misunderstanding. But then again, the same could be said for most languages, improperly used), it irritated me just a bit.
But then I saw this link over on CNN, and was really appalled by what now passes for "reporting". I mean, sheesh. Moby's trip to NASA was last week, already, and this fellow didn't even bother to contact Moby to discuss it, apparently. Now, I don't know if they contacted him or his agent to request permission - I haven't found or read Moby's copyright notice on his site. I know mine requires permission (because I wrote it that way), and, on those myriad occasions (well, ok, once) that "the media" wanted to quote me, I gave my permission. Of course, when the Sally Jesse Raphael show called and wanted me to be on, well, that was another story entirely, and I told them to get stuffed, and that was the end of that. Well, actually, I had to tell them four times, in no uncertain terms (even threatening to unleash the dogs of law upon them, I did, for harassment), to leave me alone. The feeble-minded are often difficult to discourage, it seems...
Anyway, I'm thinking that if the above is all that fellow had to do to pick up a paycheck, well, heck, I could do that. Of course, I'd have to sell my soul and self respect, but we'll see how long this particular little employment hiatus takes. I might be willing to shell those out right quick, depending...
Bye-bye, Jeep
Yup, had to give the Grand Cherokee back tonight. Finally. They had to ship in an entire wheel assembly (not just the rim but a bunch of other stuff). Total repair cost plus rental? Well, let's just say it's a good thing tomorrow's a payday for me. Unfortunately, that's not going to last forever.
And, as per any car repair, of course, on our way home, we were on our way uphill, accelerating, and there was a hitch in the shift. Lovely. Just freaking lovely.
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Tuesday, July 30, 2002
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Yes, I ran out of gas early last night. Didn't get this stuff posted. Sorry...
Disconnected
Yeah, that's me.
In one sense, my internet connectivity is, at least for now, faster than it was at work. Admittedly, they had different requirements, but when you share a 256K line between seven people, and then you get your own 1.5 Mb line (yeah, I know, Cables are SUPPOSED to be 10 Mb, but my provider limits me to 1.5 to keep from sucking up too many of their resources), it makes a huge difference.
On the other hand, I think I'm starting to feel what many "stay at home moms" feel. A complete and total disconnection from the "real world" - the work world.
I've been tracking my time spent here and there in various tasks, and when I factor in "work" time - Job Hunt, Housekeeping, and Child Care - and so far, I've got a pretty solid pattern of fifteen-hour days - unfortunately, factor in the non-work, non-sleep time, and you're looking at 19-20 hour days. Which will make for big bags under the eyes when one goes for interviews (some day).
I know, intellectually, that the job hunt ALWAYS starts slow. You send out resumes for 2-3 weeks, then the calls start. Eventually, the interviews.
For years, I used to be able to say that if I got a first interview, 70% of the time, I'd get a second. And when I got a second interview, 100% of the time, I got the job. How's that?
Well, over the course of the first... 15 years of my employment history, I had really eight interviews. One was a "strategic" interview (interviewed with a competing fast-food firm when my boss was looking to promote people to assistant manager from crew leader. I wanted to open up my options (or force her hand), and in the end, I decided to stick with the original, then-current employer - and got the promotion). Of the rest, I had second interviews five times. And every one of the second interviews turned into a job.
Of course, it helped that I was well under market rates for what I was making compared to my skill set back then. Now, I'm much closer to "average". Which is good on one hand, bad on the other.
Oh well. This, too, shall pass. Much like ... well, you know. Anything involving pain. What bothers me the most right now is me. Yes, I know the five stages of grief - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross - there's a name I haven't been able to forget for over twenty years - though why they needed to teach us "Death and Dying" in high school was ... well, I dunno. Not exactly morbid, but boy, you sure got depressed a lot that semester.
Anyway, I'm through the denial, anger, the bargaining, and I think right now I'm in the depression stage. Very tired, seems like a massive mountain in front of me, but I've got to get through/over it, because there's no one else but me to do it. Yeah, I know, spouting cliches like geese spout their ... byproducts (and also about as useful in non-gardening situations, come to think of it). But this, too, shall pass.
Off to prep a page for the lady with the monkey in the off chance she'll post. And for a good laugh, check out this page. I amused myself by trying to find a single feature on the "Current" Michael that existed on the "Original" Michael. Top to bottom, I swear that boy changed out all the parts - hair to chin, they're all replacements.
So it goes...
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Wednesday, July 31, 2002
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Speaking of Going
My car is STILL acting up. Last night, going to get Ann from her bus stop
(a mere 30 minutes from here for the "early" stop - ten minutes for
the "late" stop and four minutes for the "really close" stop
- of course, given the bus routes, the first stop drops her at 5:05 or
thereabouts, while the last is some time after 6:20 pm, I believe.
Lovely), the engine killed. Item #2 on the list that I talked to them
about. Then, not two blocks beyond that, twice the car acted very, very
strangely - the engine kept going, but the cruise light went out, and the
transmission seemed to lose force. Twice. So we stopped back at Park
Jeep Eagle, discussed the situation with Cory, the "Service Advisor"
who took down my lament, and scheduled an appointment for early next week -
Tuesday, in fact. Which wouldn't be so bad if we weren't looking at a
weekend out of town. Oh well. We'll see how it goes, and
hope.
I still really, REALLY hate cars. Of course, it didn't help any when we asked Cory if this was typical of the model (Eagle Vision TSI, 1993). "Oh, I get rid of mine once I hit about 90,000 miles, because then it's just one thing after another going wrong."
Lovely. Just lovely. We've got 137,000 on the vehicle, and it's still about a year from being paid off.
I hate cars.
Routine? What Routine?
Yup, that's me. Still nary a clue. We're still trying to build
together a routine for the day, which is not at all helped by the fact that the
weather is completely uncooperative.
Eldest child is overdosing on television, which I am, guiltily, allowing for the present - youngest wants in the worst way to go outside and play - until he gets there and discovered it's blast-furnace hot and muggier than an old-time A&W Rootbeer stand out there. Like getting a wet, dirty towel thrown in your face when you step out the door.
So I'm allowing a certain amount of leeway until next week, when I crack down. One hour television a day, one hour of housework a day, and two hours of outside play - all during the "daylight" hours. We'll see how it goes from there.
Lovely
Got a notice TODAY, dated JULY 25, that I need to be somewhere TOMORROW for
"rehabilitation training". Lovely. Good news is that our
old Daycare will allow drop-ins, tomorrow isn't a field trip day or anything
else odd, and they'll welcome the kids back.
So that's one hurdle out of the way. I'm sure there will be more.
DOH!
My kids are, sometimes, quite clearly their Father's children.
Recently, there has been a lot of "do I have to" going on about bike pads and helmets. My kids are the only ones in the neighborhood who had previously been "required" to wear bike helmets. Mind you, when I learned how to ride, I never managed to thump my gourd on the pavement hard enough to scratch, let alone require a helmet. Some might say that was due to extraordinarily skillful bike riding - I'll put it down to dumb luck.
Something my children haven't managed to acquire yet, apparently.
Tonight, after the usual "do I have to" (we've ratcheted back so the kids are actually allowed to ride with shorts, no pads whatsoever in the neighborhood - it used to be tie-on tennis shoes, long pants, knee and elbow pads, and helmets were the only allowed outfit), the kids went out. Being exhausted from the daily grind of trying to entertain two young kids with a television in the house, I'd given up, and said "fine, smack your gourds." Their mother, she who is far more forgiving in these matters (despite the clarion call the neighborhood knows us for; "...because I have a $60 emergency-room co-pay!"), also gave in, and so monkeys one and two were riding bikes in the street in short pants, sandals (in one case flip-flops, in another slip-on shoes), and shorts.
He who wants to learn to ride without training wheels was at the far end of the street, while she who is now an expert was up near the house. The doorbell rang.
Being downstairs, I just knew someone was at the door. Before I could get to the stairs, the kid's voice at the door said "Rhiannon blah blah blah" and I could hear the shriek in the background.
My eldest has managed to acquire a nice matched set of road-rash - right knee and elbow - and is now convinced, firmly, of the need for knee and elbow pads. Or will remain convinced until about twenty minutes into tomorrow's bike ride with pads and helmet, when she will overheat and forget about the pain and agony.
Ah, kids. The good news is that the survival rate is nearly 100%, at least in the early years. The bad news is that no one gets off completely scott-free.
Oh well.
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Thursday, August 1, 2002
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No, Really?
From the "You Don't Say" news department, there's news that Traficant's
hair is fake. Wow. Couldn't have figured that one out for
myself. Though if I were the attorney guarding intellectual property at
the stuffed-animal firm he purchased the teddy bear he ripped apart to make that
toupee, I'd be looking at all the angles. Really.
Hey, MATT!
Well, I remember Project Conestoga. And apparently these
guys could use you.
Though I'm thinking we already have a closed, self-sustaining environment where
humans can live for months at a time.
It's called "The Shopping Mall". Ahem.
Bilbrey Watch
For those of you keeping an eye on things, Mr. & Mrs. Bilbrey, Sally, and
their attendant goods are on their way from California to Maryland. Keep
thinking good thoughts for them, if you would.
Job Hunt
Yeah, I did that today, too. I had to go to a meeting this morning and
found a couple of interesting factoids. Did you know that only 20% of the
jobs (at least locally) appear in want ads, on-line boards, or in other
published sources? I didn't. According to the lady who led the
class, 80% of the jobs out there are from "networking"
opportunities. Some organization needs help, and someone says "you
know, my brother-in-law's neighbor is good at that."
So I figured, what the heck. Typed up a little "John's Job Hunt" news letter, and sent it to some friends, locally and otherwise. I figure they might run across opportunities, and I might end up doing OK. My hope is that, within a month or so, I will be back at work, doing what I love to do - working with people and computers.
Oh, no...
Got the call today I really, REALLY had been hoping I wouldn't get - but knew it
was coming.
A close friend of ours, one of the kid's Godmothers, called. Her mom had been ill for quite some time, but we had thought the chemo and all the rest was working. Not so, apparently. She got a call while at work that her mother was in the ER, her breathing was labored, and there was little they could do due to her downward spiral.
But she said "I know she's not gone yet, she promised to wait for me to say goodbye." It's tough when you're the youngest in a large family - especially one that's got about 20+ years between oldest and youngest kid. She's got nephews and nieces older than she is, and now her mom is going. She's been part kid and part parent to her mother the last couple of years - Mom was still on the farm, most of which was rented out, but she still had some stuff to take care of, which Mom did - Mom being much like her daughter - independent, stubborn, and damned if she'll cry uncle without needing to.
We'll be there for her - she's been there for us.
Good News, Of A Sort...
Tried something today. After the car killed dropping Ann for her bus, I
realized that the "stalling" problems and the strange transmission
shifting stuff typically happened only during the last few months, when the air
conditioning was on. Well, gee. I wondered.
So I shut off the air today (yes, August 1, and we had a temperature 20 degrees lower than yesterday - and dewpoints 30 degrees lower). Drove the car all day. You know what? No strange shifting, no stalling. Nothing odd.
So the "good" news seems to be that the air conditioner compressor might be the problem. We'll get it checked next week, but if that's the case, well, we'll learn how to deal with it. There's only one more hot month this summer, and AC, while a nice convenience, really isn't a requirement (even for a job search).
Hopefully it's the start of some good news.
There may be an early update tomorrow, but if not, there won't be much here to see until sometime late Saturday or Sunday. I'm headed to the 20th High School Reunion. It could be worse. Could be my 30th.
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Friday, August 2, 2002
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In The Line Of Duty...
You really hate to hear those words.
I know that certain groups and certain people do not like the police. I have an uncle who was a patrolman who rose through detective and attended the FBI Academy courses, ending up as the Assistant Police Chief for St. Cloud.
My wife's grandfather was the county Sheriff, and his family lived for a time over the jail. Her grandmother cooked the meals, and her mom and her aunt and uncle would sometimes help serve them. You can't these days say that you'd allow kids into a jail on a regular basis - maybe it was a simpler, easier, more respectful time, back then.
We've also got a good friend who is a police officer. He had another career, another life, and he decided he REALLY wanted to be a policeman. He went to school, got his degree, completed his training, and is now working for two different departments in a nearly-full-time-job.
But last night, a 35 year old policewoman from Minneapolis got a call that there was a woman on the street waving a gun. Details are still sketchy, but they arrived on the scene, and the officer, who normally worked this particular high-rise apartment area, and her partner found a woman near the scene. Apparently she wasn't suspected, because the woman was allowed to go to the bathroom - with an escort, who may or may not have patted her down.
Two female officers and the woman entered the bathroom. By 10:30 pm last night, the woman and the officer were both dead - the officer was struck below her bullet-proof vest, in the lower abdomen, and did not survive.
I believe that there is a special place in hell for those who would kill people who have promised to protect and help the rest of us. The hours are long, the pay is mostly low, and frankly, while there are far more "dangerous" occupations (Danger as defined as "number of people doing this job who die annually"), there are few that come to mind which combine the overall range of duties from getting a cat out of a tree, a bike recovered from someone's yard, and getting shot at because you're just doing your job and asking some questions.
The officer's parents were at the hospital when she died, and the police department spokesperson sounded pretty broken-up about it - given the fact that she's usually pretty calm and collected, that's not a good thing.
You really have to wonder, some times, if the world isn't deteriorating, slowly, into hell on earth.
Rich, Smart, or Lucky?
When I was a kid, I was thinking being born "Rich" was better than the
others. Then, for years, I knew "Smart" was the best way to go -
without smarts, the other two wouldn't help.
However, this morning, I think I crossed over the line to Lucky.
The car did "it's trick" again. I thought I'd had the problems nailed when I thought it was the Air conditioner. And the car had been running so smoothly since that I really wasn't too worried about taking it to St. Cloud this weekend.
This morning Ann was moving slowly, and we ended up having to drive her to St. Paul to get there on time. We went about 5 miles further than we normally do in the mornings, and "the trick" happened again - Cruise light comes on, engine power completely disappears, and I'm left to coast to the side of the road. The engine eventually dies, I have a few difficult moments restarting it, then it seems to run fine.
Or did, previously. This morning, it happened. I got the car re-started, got back on the road, and kept going. Then it happened a second time. Pulled over, restarted the car, kept going. Then I thought about it. If I got to St. Paul, I'd have to wait for a tow, downtown, I'd have to get towed from Downtown to the dealership, then get the rental. All of which would take time.
So I turned around. And the car did it one more time. So I pulled over, shut it off, counted to ten, and restarted it. And it ran fine from there to the dealership - about 15 miles.
In and out of the dealership in about 5 minutes (we'd described the problems earlier in the week to the service guy), and we're again stuck with a rental. Why a rental? You need A vehicle to get around in - and the Tempo is presently DOA, so with the Eagle acting up, we're vehicle-less.
Lovely.
On The Road...
Some pictures before I go...
Yes, that's my eldest, crashed out, with the former footcat. She uses him as a pillow, and he stays there. He was in there like that for over an hour. Sheesh.
And yes, the "baby of the family" exercising his new-found independence. Forty-five minutes from removal of the training wheels to "I can start on my own, too!" Of course, there was the point at 20 minutes where he went down the street, round the bend, and kept going. And I was wondering if he knew how to stop - besides crashing, I mean.
And monkey boy and his victory dance. Such as it is. Whoo and Hoo...
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Saturday, August 3, 2002
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I'm Back!
The reunion, in four parts - Getting There, There, Next Day, and Coming Home.
Hey, it was something of a minor miracle. Let me rewind back to Friday
afternoon.
After firing off the packing orders for the monkeys (Three Shirts, Two Pairs Socks, Two Pairs Underpants, one pair jeans, one pair shorts, one swimsuit, jammies) and other assorted bits and pieces collected, we managed to make it to the office of my wife, for the 3:20 pm arrival, brief tour, and departure. All after the pre-home-departure tasks - packing, potty breaks, car toys, etc.
Well, we were late. By 20 minutes. So Ann came down, fed the meter (I had sixty cents, only in dimes and nickels, on me, and the meters in St. Paul only react to quarters. Which really bites), and escorted us to the security desk, and from there, to her office.
While at Ann's office, we got word from a friend that Jack's Godmother's mom had lost her battle with cancer. She had waited for her daughter to arrive, and she had managed a few hours past that. 4:42 this Friday morning she passed away. So there was some pain involved there.
So, after we sat for 30 minutes while she finished 10 minutes worth of something or other, then made a brief "hiyahowareya" stop at her bosses office (wonderful woman - and not just because she's Ann's boss), and then headed out of town at warp speed. Or at least "warped" as in "no, you can't get any closer than this to the speed limit" (and this is defined as a large percentage of the actual limit).
So, we departed downtown St. Paul, on a Friday, when there was a heck of a lot going on up north (something you need to know about Minnesota - once we hit August, there's a genetic switch which flicks on - "omigawd-we-just-finished-Aquatennial-and-its-back-to-school-soon-and-next-month-after-that-is-Halloween-and-we-get-snowstorms-pretty-soon-after-that". I think it's in the genome map.
Anyway, that "August" switch flipped. There was a replica "tall ship" in Duluth, there was a country music festival in Detroit Lakes (northeast and northwest portions of the state, respectively), cabins, lakes, and lots and lots of trees, and everyone from the cities was heading out of town - except for the four guys who are looking after all of our houses for the weekend. And we were on the freeway and heading through the on-ramp at exactly 4:33 pm...
Some day I propose to do some research into the source of the term "Rush Hour" because while you might want to, you sure as hell cannot. Perhaps it's the "rush" you get from moving a full car-length without fear of an idiot with out-of-state plates veering across three (or more) lanes of traffic to get to his off-ramp (saw that twice - Illinois and Missouri - thanks, folks, for sending the village idiots up here. We're going to hold them for ransom - which means you're going to have to find someone else to blame YOUR dumb moves on, we've got your idiots).
So we spluttered our way up the freeway, cursing the difficulties we had. For I was in an "informal" race with my buddy Jon to get there first. You see, he was leaving from a far-northern suburb, at a slightly later time, and would be crossing over to the other freeway to St. Cloud to come on in the west end of town, where the reunion would be. We, on the other hand, had to drop off our children at another friend's house (Rhiannon's Godparents) to stay (we'd be back there to crash later - the plans for getting a hotel room were tossed out the window when the income was severely limited). Then Ann had to change, and we had to travel down the road once labeled "The worst street in the country" on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (Division Street, St. Cloud).
So there I was, five thirty (a full hour) and we should have been nearly to St. Cloud - instead we were just reaching the north side of the last "suburb" (Elk River) on the line. Mind you, 5:30 was a full 30 minutes into the "happy hour" designated on the schedule - dinner being served at 6 pm, followed by a dance.
And I was sitting in a parking lot, waiting for my wife and children (who had gone to the bathroom at Ann's office, as well) to return to the vehicle so we could get going.
At 5:50, just north of Becker (most of the traffic had thinned out, and we were starting to make good time), Jon called. He was still south of Becker by a bit, wanting to know where we were. "Doing 83 in a 70, at the moment" (I was in a pack, and didn't want to "impede traffic flow". That's my honest answer, Mr. Patrol officer, sir, really - ask the six fellows ahead of me and the nine behind. They're all armed to the teeth and ready to kill. Oh, they're not? Well, I had a reasonable expectation that they would be. Thanks, and you have a nice day too...).
Got to the God-guys house, tossed out our kids, their stuff, Ann changed, and we were back in the vehicle by 6:30. Great, says Ann, it's gonna take us a long time to get across St. Cloud on Division.
"Fear not," says I, "for I know the traffic patterns." St. Cloud has horrid rush hours, rotten Saturday morning backups, and not much else outside of that other than the occasional "late evening" bad blockup when the "cruisers" are out.
We tore across (at or below posteds, this time, really) and made it to 25th Avenue before traffic got bad. We hit the "alternate route" and by 6:40, we were at the Holiday Inn. After a brief perusal of the parking lot and no Jon truck, I was safe. I pulled in, got out, and walked in.
The entire trip up I'd been alternating between some excitement and genuine fear over how this thing would go. In high school, I somehow managed after a few false starts to cultivate a solid sense of myself - and it allowed me to disregard quite a few of those who would pick on me, embarrass me, or otherwise attempt to wreck my self-confidence.
Other than the girls, of course.
But I was, I freely admit, a geek even in high school. In those all-school assemblies, I would either be in the band, banging on the drums, or working with the high school's answer to "what happens to the AV geeks when they get out of high school" - the fellow taught religion and ran the AV equipment - I helped...
So I figured "at least I beat Jon". Which I didn't. He was just ahead of me in checking in. And then I realized that our invites had specified a one-hour happy hour. Knowing my classmates then, and now, I should have realized that a one-hour happy hour was an absolute joke.
Our first task was to find our way to the tables, stake out a table where we could sit together, and then find some liquid courage.
Of course, it never happens that way - one of the class clowns came up behind me, recognized me from behind (I have no idea how, unless he saw Ann's misspelled nametag and guessed), and I turned with my ready line - "Hey, Jim, you haven't cha... Wow, good to see you." Which went over well. Well, he laughed...
Walking down the hall to the dining room, I ran into one classmate, then another, whom I recognized, and who recognized me. We hadn't talked much in high school, let alone after, but we started to chat. Found a table (whereupon someone from "The Komittee" had decorated it quite simply - copies of articles from our senior year school newspaper, pasted onto blue or gold file folders.
Jon and I staked out a table, with the ladies between us (protect them from the heathens, I suppose - we never were too successful with women in high school, (well, I wasn't, anyway, and when I needed a friend to hang out with on Friday nights, he was usually free), and some patterns die hard).
Now, I'm going to be doing a lot of referring to "the guy" or "the girl" from here on, because
Walked our way, slowly, back to the poolside happy hour, and noticed a few faces. Noticed a few faces that were most definitely NOT in my high school class, which went a long way towards proving we did manage to integrate some new blood into the area (not too much inbreeding).
Worked my way forward (had lost my buddy for a moment) to the bar, and was rewarded by a holler of "Dominik" - I looked up, and there was one of the guys I really, really liked in high school. He'd been the drum major, senior year, when we went to Winnipeg to march in the Red River exhibition.
I looked up, and there he was. Plowed a path to the bar, got the drinks, we moved out, chatted a bit, and separated. It (and the Miller Genuine Draft) gave me the courage to approach a few - so I figured I'd hit one of the easy ones, a cousin of mine. Big hug and a chat later, and we didn't realize they were herding us in the direction of dinner. Wow, where did the time go?
Got to dinner, and the pariah effect returned. Jon, and I, were at one of the two non-full tables in the dining room. We enjoyed it, though, and kept up chatting and joking.
I've got a rather poor memory for names and faces, so I've developed tricks over the years to remember most of them. But when you spend four years with these people, faces aren't the sole determining factor. For example, one lady walked in, and I said "I know who that is." Just by her walk. No, no limp or major handicap - just speed, motion, etc.
After dinner broke up, people started to move around more. I was feeling a bit of the pariah, still, when my tall friend from the bar looked me up, plunked down, and we started to chat. After his hysterical account of his appearance on Wheel Of Fortune, we chatted jobs for a bit - and he might be looking for a village idiot with my specific skill set.
After that, other classmates sought me out - including my junior-year-homecoming date - whose husband greeted me with the words "so how DID you get my wife to a strip bar?" The restaurant we'd gone to for dinner having converted to a strip joint some ten years after our date (at least).
And there were others, including the big hug I got from one of the prettiest girls in the class, which, frankly, made my night.
Having never been to a reunion before, I wasn't sure how long it would take. As I'd awakened Friday morning at 5:30 am, and had no nap (which would have been nice), I was thinking I'd hit the wall about 11 pm. Given the fact that my friend's reunion broke up about 10 pm (we went to the same school, that's where we met), I figured we were probably going to hit about the same time.
We actually didn't leave until after midnight, then we hit Perkins for the usual late-night topoff so common to us in high school - well, we thought about it, then decided, no, no deep-fried breaded ANYTHING, thanks, just dessert, thanks.
The next day dawned dreary and rainy. So we ended up skipping the picnic (held on a low flat piece of land right next to the Mississippi river, which was partially flooded from what we could see across the way).
Instead, we went to the open house at the old high school - it was their 100th anniversary.
I learned there that there's a fundamental blockage on-line for the school to get a site up - said blockage being that multi-legged-and-brain-dysfunctional-animal known as a "specifications committee". Peachy. So I've been working on a dataset design for the "alumni association" database - if the damned school can't get their act in gear and get going, then, damnit, I'll see what I can push from left field.
But we toured the school buildings (that were left - my favorite, and oldest, went down in the mid 1980s when they decided it would cost too much. Now I think they're going to need to put more money into facilities for the place. Can you say "ouch"?). The kids enjoyed running the halls (there were perhaps 200 people there - they looked to be prepared for about 2000, but the crappy weather did their plans in - they had blocked the streets off, but the pouring rain did them in - they got about 5 inches in St. Cloud today), and I enjoyed a couple of shocks to the system.
The worst, of course, was wandering into the old church, converted now to a performing arts center, and taking four passes before I realized the banner on the front of the marching band table was one I'd helped to win while in Winnipeg. There were trophies from 1982, when I was a senior, as well as our marching band uniforms from that period (which my wife referred to as "ugly" until she felt the weight of the material - we wore black wool pants, black wool suitcoats, heavily embroidered "overlays" (think of a piece of cloth that covers your front and back with a hole in the middle for your head, and straps on the sides to hold it together - now, make it out of heavy wool, embroider all over it, and then insulate and line it), and then I found the scrapbook.
When I found the section that said "the 1980s" I can clearly recall two color pictures on the page. One was my friend Jon, in a Vikings hat (with horns), playing his tuba. The other was me, in a pair of mirrored shades, wearing a shirt which said "RUGGED GOOD LOOKS". Ye gods. Oh well, I seem to have survived.
After about three hours in a very, very warm bunch of buildings (yes, they're still joined by a network of tunnels which leak only sporadically), we left. It was STILL raining, so we headed to get something to eat (we hadn't had breakfast, and the kids were hungry for lunch - it was 3:30 pm by that time - don't look at me like that; yes, they were serving food in the school, and no, I couldn't in good conscience expect my children to eat food in the same place I had a difficult time at. Heck, we ran the two and a half blocks to Taco Johns nearly every day we could to get a couple softshells and some potato oles (think tater tots with a dollop of refried beans in the middle) - and never got caught. I think that says a whole lot for the food service at school. They tried hard, but high schoolers are a finicky bunch). Given the fact that I'd just wandered through the buildings of my youth, I took a chance, made the suggestion, got approval, and away we went.
No, not Taco Johns. Some two blocks away from school (but in a straight line, down the street, in full view 100% of the time, which explained why we didn't go there often) was Waldo's Pizza Joynt. One of three restaurants (at the time) in St. Cloud which were located in former funeral parlors (we thought the pre-existing cold storage might have something to do with it).
Waldo's had much more than ambiance going for it, though. When working on a play ("You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" - sophomore year, yes, I ran a spotlight), we had one of the few working phones in that building in the tech booth. We'd call for a crusader special, and the delivery fellow would be at the door in 20 minutes with a "garbage can pizza" - everything in the kitchen, twice around, and double the cheese. It wasn't until a few years later when I learned from my sister, who'd gotten a job there, that they put a full pound of full-fat mozzarella cheese (most mozzarella cheese in this country is 40% fat - not full-fat, as I understand it) on their large pizzas. We got double that. And Then Some.
But, of course, "No Anchovies, Please". There's another CD I must acquire. J. Geils Band.
Anyway, we ate pizza (the formerly hallowed "game room" having shrunk from over 40 machines to a measly four - one of which was a pinball game), we didn't linger long, but hopped into the vehicle.
We also made good time to get out of town and start south. Before we hit Clearwater, though, we started to have blinding-rain-type problems. Starting about two miles south of the Clearwater exit on I-94 to about a mile south of the St. Michael exit (north of Rogers) we were in blinding rain almost constantly. At one point we slowed to 20 mph, but for the most part, we were doing 50. I really, REALLY like that Cherokee.
Anyway, we arrived home in the early evening, ate some leftovers, hid in the basement to avoid rumored passing tornados. Bad, bad thing - the prime reason I will never rely on a phone company for my television or my cable company for my phone was illustrated when the cable went out - no way to check the weather (other than the old-fashioned radio), no way to get a visual idea of what's coming in (as my internet is a cable modem), and no way to entertain the kids (other than the bloody idiot box). So we put in a movie, or three.
And that, as they say, was that.
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Sunday, August 4, 2002
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See Above - I'm all typed out. If you haven't enough to read, I encourage you to head over to Ann's site, as she did an update... The big news today, other than getting to church and still remembering the gospel when my mother called (bonus points to the brain for that miracle), was that we have three cayenne peppers ready to pick, two tomatoes about a day away from bingo, about a hundred more in varying states of nearly there, and a bunch of apples on the apple tree. Also four blooming sunflowers.
And I still need to get resumes, etc., out.
G'nite.
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