January 5, 1989
Dear Everyone:
Greetings upon the New Year.
Not much happening here this week. Everyone seems to be working on remembering how to get up and go to work again after all the time off for holidays and vacations. We had a staff meeting this morning that lasted a record 1½ hours. That’s pretty short for us.
Since I had the place pretty much to myself last week, I spent a lot of time playing with a software called Cuechart. Cuechart is actually a sort of people-to-computer translator. It prompts you to fill in the blanks about the kind of chart you want to draw and then plugs your responses into a program that the computer can understand. You can use it to draw bar graphs, pie charts and a lot of other nifty things.
You can also use it, I discovered, to make Title Sheets for 3-ring binders, of which “Ashley Holtz” had about a dozen or so. He asked me back around Halloween if I would work up some Titles for them, with the full understanding that I probably wouldn’t get around to it until now.
So, last week, I ran the Titles, used our brand-new paper cutter to trim them and slipped them into the title-holders on the binders. Now they look very professional, instead of having torn Post-Its stuck on them – which fell off like autumn leaves every time someone walked past the bookcase.
Of course, I COULD have spent that time working on the final report on the Ventura project, but Cuechart was more fun. Now I still have the dratted report to write.
In other news…
“Jeannie” gave Dad a book about Edward R. Murrow for Christmas. He read it all day Christmas and the day after. By night-time, he’d finished it and had started over again at the beginning.
Anyone who got an afghan from me (now you know what I was doing with my time during all those van-trips into and out of the City each day), they can be machine washed and dried, warm and low.
“Jeannie” is leaving Sunday to go up to Portland to stay with the folks while she scouts out the court reporting environment there.
Unsolicited endorsement: Anyone who has access to a microwave oven at lunchtime – Campbell’s Chunky Soups are now coming out in pull-top cans. Just pull the top off, dump the contents into a bowl and heat. I especially like the New England Clam Chowder.
We’re in the middle of a storm front right now; but we won’t know if the drought is officially over (or not) until next May or June.
Ta ta for now!
Love, as always,
Pete
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