FAQ #5: Did you send a long, boring Holiday Greeting?
This is a somewhat fancy version (with hyperlinks, etc.) of what was mailed:
Once upon a time life was simple. That all ended when some smart guy/gal discovered sand. What really happened was that s/he figured out that sand is made from silicon. And, if one squeezes sand just right it changes from near worthless stuff available just by scooping it up, into millions of transistors per square inch, on a silicon wafer. Once in that form you can name a valley in its honor and sell little pieces (called chips) to idiots like me.
And so, I bought one of those little chips of sand in January of 1993, along with all the electronic gizmos to run electricity through the sand and call it a computer. For those of you who don't know, a computer is a marvelous device which saves time. (However, it save time using the same concept as Mette uses every time she saves money buying something for half price during a SALE. By the way, have you ever noticed that that word is always big and bold? It's big and bold here too, and even if they spell it differently it means the same..and any female immediately walks into any store with a big bold sign proclaiming
[Well . . . that is the way the folk receiving the paper mail saw it, here you can have it the way it should be seen:]
Well, I've been saving time with sand for almost four years now. And, for the past several days I've been saving so much time that I haven't had time for much of anything else. Because, last year Mette or I had to address all our Holiday Greetings. THAT is the way they did things back in the Dark Ages...and I didn't want to have to do it that way again, ever. So, my little time saver and I got real familiar with each other and coaxed the printer to spit out the little label on the envelope with your name and address on it. Oh, for those of you who received a label that was partially mechanically printed and partially hand lettered...well, I got tired of saving time before I worked all the bugs out of the operation. And, if your label is entirely hand written you can be sure it's because by the time I was ready to print your label...well, I had saved so much time that I had taken the printer to the dump. (I did get some labels done, not many...and, of course, those reading online don't see any label, at all.)
So, here I sit broken hearted..Tried to print and only had problems. To make matters worse it is dinner time on the 16th of December. This thing should have been done over a month ago..but I was too busy saving time to have time...don't you know.
I made myself a promise about this time last year: Keep a running list of accomplishments for the year, so you know what to write about next year, stupid. So, I wonder what has transpired here in the last year that you might be interested in...hmmmmm...
You might be interested to know that the 4th of July 1997 marked my third year of being a non-smoker. It also marked the third year of constant weight gain. I think I've gained the same amount of weight as all the cigarettes I didn't smoke would have weighed. Well, maybe not quite.
You might be interested to know that Mette and I sat in the third row while Art Garfunkel performed in a small theatre nearby. I don't even care a little bit that Paul Simon is a bigger star, when Art did Bridge Over Troubled Water it took me back 20 or 30 years or so, and I am glad I was there.
I have formulated a new rule: If you get a chance to sit at the feet of "The Real Deal", do it. I
had not learned that rule in 1964 when I passed my only chance to attend the Beatles live in
Memphis. A ticket cost (as I recall) 20 dollars...at the time I was making about 30 a week. I have
regretted saving those 20 bucks for over 30 years now. If I could go back I'd give a month's pay.
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In June I packed up my "two man" tent and with my ($125) ticket set off to attend the Roskilde Festival. (Which is the largest music happening in all of Europe.) This year there were 90,000 tickets sold (sold out months in advance) to it's four days and nights of music. I got there on the first day of music (Thursday) which was two days after the campground opened...and I walked for 25 minutes past folks in a music mood who had the good sense to arrive on Tuesday. And, Thursday night around 10 o'clock Mr. John Fogerty stepped up to the mike. |
| Well, John is one of "The Real Deals." He is the guy who stood in front of the legendary Creedence Clearwater Revival back in the late 60s and sang the songs he wrote, like: Bad Moon Rising, Proud Mary, and Who'll Stop the Rain. Well, it gave me shivers. Shivers, because the songs took me back 30 years and because I was standing in a cold RAIN listening to John's unanswered question, Who'll Stop the Rain? |  |
It rained all night Thursday. And all day Friday. And all night Friday night. And Saturday morning I woke up when the group in the next tent turned off their boom-box-ghetto-blaster about seven in the morning. I took out my ear plugs and noticed it had stopped raining. I stepped out of the tent, saw a little patch of blue sky and quickly calculated I could probably get my tent packed and leave before it started raining again. And I did. My ticket was good for 48 more hours of music and party...in the rain and mud. By three o'clock in the afternoon I had hosed the mud off my stuff and had a warm shower. Sitting at the feet of that "Real Deal" was worth the money, but not the 45 minute slosh though over-ankle-deep mud along the path that had taken only 25 minutes to walk two days earlier.
Then in July, Mette and I borrowed a "four man" tent (WHO names these thing? The "four
man" tent was just large enough for two persons, the "two man" tent almost big enough for one) So,
we camped at the Samsø Festival and had a great time. We saw some world famous entertainers.
Well, they are world famous in all of Denmark. They are "The Real Deal" over here...I enjoyed it and
will go again.
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Then, in August we sat at the feet of Mr. B.B. King. He ministered the blues to us for nearly two hours. If I get the chance to attend one of his sessions again I will gladly jump at the opportunity to not save any of the ticket money...even if it has doubled. |
Guess what, 1998 tickets are in hand to see Elton John & Billy Joel perform together in
Denmark's largest arena, in Copenhagen.
And, a month later in the same stadium we attend the reigning masters of Rock & Roll:
| The ROLLING STONESSSS |  |
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I wonder what else you might be interested in. We continue to work on this old house. This year we paved half the front yard with a kind of modern cobble stone..now we can walk from car to either front door with absolutely no mud, at all. Next spring we hope to extend the walkway all the way around the house. We still have not painted the outside..we are beginning to like the old fashioned gray concrete. The bathroom now has a sink and is on the growing shorter list of things to finish in 98. (The list includes finishing the kitchen and the stairwell.)
1998 will also drag me to school again. Let me tell you, in 1988 I had this plan to retire from the Air Force and go to law school. Then I spent some time thinking that over (about 10 minutes of deep thought) and decided I had all the schooling any sane person would ever need in one life...and swore to never ever darken the door of any dungeon of knowledge. Well, after three years I have at last decided that learning Danish is not going to be automatic, nor easy. So, on the 5th of January I'll enter the Horsens School For Foreigners to learn the local lingo. I'll be there with refugees from many of the countries in the headlines...where the favorite sport is to kill folks. It should be a good experience. And, it will be nice to chat with the neighbors in their own language, for a change.
I could tell you about the wood I cut, hauled and split. Do you know what a meter is? It's about 39 inches, which is a little more that a yardstick...now, imagine a cube a yard stick long on each side. I split somewhere between 15 and 20 of those this year. It's hard work...I'd lot rather be saving time on my computer. But, time saving had to take a back seat to wood fixin'...since we heat the house with wood, only. As close as we can figure, using the money we saved on other forms of heating, we paid for the stove midway though the second season. (Oh, I think maybe we also used some of the money Mette saved at a SALE.)
I guess I should also mention that 1997 might have been the first year that the company I started moved into the black. I'm not sure yet, but I think maybe I made a small profit. You see, I work on the Internet...and the more I work the more time I save...and everyone knows that time is money...and saving time is what computers do best..
Speaking of which, if you had one..and it was hooked to the Internet you would get this note BEFORE Christmas..and, you wouldn't have to see what a time savings, machine printed label looks like...AND, you could adjust the print size so you could read it easily. So, join the Information Age..tune in, log on, and drop out of sight while you save time...
Now I'm gonna spend the next several hours trying to figure out why I can't make this thing print out some return address labels...
But, before I do let me wish you, and all you hold dear the very best holiday season ever...and a wonderful new year too.
Keep in touch. Write me online at this address DenverD@ibm.net I usually answer mail sent there in a couple of days, or less.
