June 19, 1997
Dear Everyone:
That loud noise you may have heard last Tuesday,
just after 4:00 p.m. EDT, when the
Stock Market
closed, was the sound of thousands of Compoids all yelling “Yes!!!” at
the same time. Company’s
stock having closed at over $75 per share, most of us now have 150
stock options.
Or, as “Elaine” put it, “You just got the closing costs for your
new place.”
So now I have to learn about the care and feeding
of stock options. I hope
they don’t require too much attention.
I’m going out of town next week.
Some months back, the CEO announced that if the
price of company stock went above $75 for three consecutive days, all
regular employees would get these stock options as a reward.
There are a number of fairly confusing plans to choose from
ranging from “grab the money and run” to “hold out, the stock could go
up even further”.
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t know enough about
the market to make any intelligent choices, so that leaves just plain
gambling; and
gambling has never really appealed to me.
Maybe “Richard” and “Marshall” can make some suggestions.
Probably one would advise Plan A and the other would advise Plan
B and we’re back to Square One.
Nevertheless, I’m not going to worry about it until after next
week.
Next week I’m going to a fishing lodge in
Idaho.
No, I won’t be doing any fishing or, as “Marshall” terms it,
“Terrorizing fish.”
Query:
Who goes to a fishing lodge to not fish?
Answer:
Techies.
I’ll be attending a technical conference for
Versatile for
Windows, a system that I can’t find time to learn and still haven’t
converted to. But we live in
hope. I’m dragging “Wilbur”
with me in the fond belief that after the reorganization he’ll be my
Assistant Systems Support Specialist.
This is, of course, assuming that I will be the new Systems
Support Specialist in need of an assistant.
The people hosting the conference chose the lodge,
presumably because it offers the best facilities for 40 or so people in
two different sets of training sessions (“Wilbur” will cover one and
I’ll catch the other) each with his/her personal computer.
Frankly, I like the idea of having the conference right there
where we’ll be staying. It
means I can leave everything in the room instead of hauling it around
with me.
As for “my new place”, “Jeannie” and I looked at a
couple of vague possibilities last weekend.
One had beautiful detached homes with 3 bedrooms.
I particularly liked one floor plan.
That, of course, would be the one that turned out to be in the
“mid-$270,000’s”. Not nearly
enough stock options to cover that one.
We also looked at a more reasonable condo (more
like upper $170,000’s) that was a mere 5 minutes from my office.
But I didn’t care for the floor plan and they were asking way too
much for something that’s not much bigger than the place I have now.
Ergo, we will keep looking (after Idaho).
Movies...
Even with that busy schedule, we still managed to
sneak a look at
Speed 2 -
Cruise Control. We
were curious to see if it could possibly be as bad as all the critics
said it was. Yes, it’s
possible. This is a movie
that began with the director saying, “I want to film a terrific boat
crash at the end. Work
backwards from there.”
Scripts that are written from back to front tend to
have even more holes than others and this is no exception.
I strongly recommend against it if you are susceptible to continuous flashing lights
(which are known to cause migraines and epileptic seizures).
Between the lights constantly going off and on and the jittery
hand-held camera work (when there was no
need for a hand-held camera),
I was beginning to get a headache.
As for the acting,
Sandra Bullock really didn’t have much to do, unlike the original.
Jason Patric
is a fine actor (Sleepers),
but alas, his character lacked the “emotional depth” that
Keanu Reeves
had. This is the second time
I’ve wondered if I wouldn’t have been better off going to see
Con Air.
Oh, well.
As you may have guessed, there will be no letter
next week as I will be in Idaho, not fishing at the fishing lodge.
Love, as always,
Pete
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