September 30, 1994
Dear Everyone:
So, how was “Cincinnati”?
This is the question everyone asked when I got back into the office
Monday morning.
"Fine," I replied, of course, when the
real answer would have been:
"How should I know? I never saw
it."
We got into “Cincinnati” (we being “Clarence” and me; “Temperance” had
gone ahead on Monday for extra sessions) at about 8:30 Wednesday
evening. So it was dark when we
arrived. I set about unpacking,
pressing everything (I was delighted to discover an iron and board
already in the closet), getting ready to go to work the next day, and
landed in bed by midnight.
So far, all I'd seen of “Cincinnati” was the airport and the inside of
the hotel. For some unknown
reason, “Temperance” and I were "upgraded" to one of the Club Floors,
boasting a Lounge with "free" continental breakfast in the mornings and
hors d'oeuvres with drinks (which you could easily charge to your room)
in the evening. “Clarence”, in
the meantime, was left "slumming" on the 8th Floor.
However, “Clarence” confided that
his room had
two beds instead of just one.
Each room also had a bar ($1.50 for a small can of Diet Coke), three
telephones (one in the bathroom) and two TVs (again, one in the
bathroom). This was one of those
older hotels where the electricity and plumbing had been added later.
Nice big rooms, and nowhere to
put anything down in the bathroom (unless you wanted to balance
something on top of the little TV).
The Spectrum Users Conference (our reason for being in “Cincinnati”)
officially began Thursday morning with the introduction of Spectrum Plus
(their new Windows-based version). This
was a very professional
presentation, with lots of computer graphics, to the never-ending
strains of the theme from
Chariots of
Fire by Vengalis.
However, we soon discovered that
Spectrum Plus won't really be ready for production until late next year.
"Oh, darn!" said “Temperance”, or words to that effect.
"Thank God!" I replied, since
this means I'll have time to get
Versatile settled down before having to tackle another new software.
The Conference itself went very well. Good,
informative sessions, with frequent breaks and refreshments.
After the morning session, a
group of us went to lunch, following a genuine native “Cincinnati-ite”,
who led us through a side entrance to the hotel, turn right past The
Disney Store and bingo!, you're inside a shopping mall.
That's right. A shopping mall.
Just like the one near you, with
a Warner Bros
Store, The Limited,
Calvin Klein,
McDonald's, etc.,
etc., etc. It's shopping malls,
along with television, that are homogenizing America, rolling over the
regional differences that make each area unique.
Time was when people on the East
Coast thought a "cheeseburger" was a patty of ground beef with a dollop
of cottage cheese on top of it. McDonald's
took care of that. On the other
hand, I can safely report that the
New Jersey
accent is alive and well and living, among other places, in
“Cincinnati”.
Thursday evening they held an "Open House", with beer and wine and a
chance to network with other Spectrum users.
If you've never heard of Spectrum
before, rest assured your
insurance company and HMO
probably have. It's a purchasing
and inventory software and many of the user companies have the word
"Life" somewhere in their name. Also,
if you've ever bought anything from
TJ Maxx, you've used Spectrum.
After the Open House, there was the usual tendency to go out partying.
Personally, this is something
I've never really understood. I
wouldn't dream of going out drinking and dancing, etc., etc., on a
regular work night. Why do it
just because you happen to be in a different part of the country?
Where is the appeal in getting
drunk with a bunch of strangers?
Of course, I realize that this was my big chance to "see" “Cincinnati”.
However, a very wise man (brother
Matt) once told me that it is
possible to say, "No, thank you" when pressed to join in on the
festivities. A small group of us
did go out for some dinner, but some of us managed to be back in the
hotel before 10:30. I guess I'm
just a natural born party-pooper.
Getting out of Friday night’s Banquet was, of course, out of the
question, unless you could produce plane tickets that proved you had to
leave the Conference early. It
was like any other business function disguised as a social function.
Eating catered food with a lot of
people you don't know and then listening to very loud music until you
can make a graceful exit. I was
gracefully back in my room by midnight.
Saturday morning, I discovered that my room had a view of the river.
Or, at least, a body of water
seen between two high rise buildings. Up
to that point, I hadn't been in the room except at night and hadn't
noticed what was outside the window. We
didn't have to leave for the airport until after noon, so I had plenty
of time to pack, then wander over to the mall for some brunch and to
look for a present for “Jeannie”, preferably something that couldn't be
picked up just as easily at our local malls.
So that's what I saw of “Cincinnati”, the hotel and the mall.
I also got to see some of
Chicago's famous O'Hare Airport. Specifically,
the neon-lighted tunnel that leads from Concourse B, where the
“Cincinnati” planes come in, and Concourse C, where the San Francisco
planes go out.
When I got home Saturday night, I called “Jeannie” to let her know that
I had made it safely.
Her first words: "You're home!"
Yes, I am.
Her second words: "Did you bring
me anything?" Well, of
course I did!
Movie review…
We did manage to take in a movie the weekend before I left on my trip.
Timecop,
starring
John-Claude Van Damme. This
is what I call "a head-kicker", for the simple reason that just about
everyone, hero and villains alike, gets kicked in the head at least
once. However, this is not your
usual head-kicker, in that it has a fairly discernible plot.
Of course, most head-kicker fans
don't really care about anything so esoteric as a plot, but the rest of
us like a little something to occupy our minds in between bouts of
vicarious violence.
As the title suggests, time travel has been invented and bad guys are
going back into the past to make money for themselves and screw up the
future for the rest of us. Our
hero's job is to track them down and stop them.
But every time he goes into the
past and returns to the present (about 10 years into our future), he
finds things have changed a bit.
This is a delight for the supporting cast, because they get to play the
same characters differently, depending on what happened in their past
when our hero dipped back into time again.
The mark of a good head-kicker
is a well set up supporting cast, who serve to hold up the acting part
of the picture, as witness
Tommy Lee Jones
who almost single-handedly saved
Under Siege
from Steven Seagal.
Timecop
has plenty of action, of course. “Jeannie”
pronounced it too violent; but remember that she missed 30% of
Robocop
because she kept her eyes closed "until the kids in the audience stopped
saying, ‘Ooh, gross!’," so take it with a grain of salt.
Timecop also has some
fun moments and terrific special effects.
Worth a matinee, or the price of a rental if you want to wait.
Love, as always,
Pete
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