May 10, 2000
Dear Everyone:
Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there.
I have returned from “Hobby”.
Got back last Saturday afternoon.
Went from an overnight low of 60, with relative
humidity in the 90’s
to a daily high of 60 with relative humidity of…
humidity? what’s
that? Quite a contrast.
This time, I only got lost once.
No unintended trips to
Galveston.
And the one time that I did get lost, it was the fault of the
directions which told me to start out by turning right when I should
have turned left.
Not that I can blame the directions too much.
“Hobby’s” traffic situation, by their own admission, is a
nightmare. Freeways going in
all directions and people still can’t get from Point A to Point B.
So then they built an “Interstate” freeway that does nothing more
than circle around the downtown area.
And, when that didn’t do the trick, they built another circle,
called “The Beltway” around that.
Nevertheless, I did manage to get to where I was
supposed to be on time in most cases.
This in spite of the fact that both my travel
alarm clock and
wristwatch died in the night.
I could live without the alarm clock; it was more for insurance
in case the hotel didn’t provide something.
But I can’t go more than two minutes without looking at my wrist
to determine both the time and date.
So I stopped at a drug store and bought a cheap
watch ($9.99) to hold me over until I could get a new battery put into
the real watch, which I finally accomplished this afternoon.
Other than that, things went pretty well.
Training Wednesday and Thursday mornings was very successful.
Our attempts in the afternoon to get the
barcode scanner
to download to the system in the “Hobby” Records Center did not go well.
We tried all kinds of alternatives, with no luck.
Finally, we brought the thing back to California with us; and
discovered on Monday that the problem was with the cable connector
between the scanner base and the back of the PC.
I spent last Friday driving to “Beaumont” to
consult with a group of people who have just been spun off into a new
joint venture
company, which they have already nicknamed “Jay-Vee-New-Co” because they
didn’t know what the new company’s name was going to be.
They’re looking for alternatives to their antiquated records
management system. The IT
people liked the look of our new system, but their lead records clerk
didn’t seem as hopeful.
On the drive there and back, I wasn’t surprised to
find a lot of C&W stations coming up on the radio of my rental car.
And I expected a number of Spanish stations.
What I didn’t expect was how many religious stations there are.
But then again, given the traffic situation, maybe it’s
reasonable after all.
But enough of that.
Movies…
Saw
The Road to
El Dorado a couple of weekends ago, when “Jeannie” was too busy
working. This is an animated
musical. In some ways, it’s
very much a “Road to…”
movie. You have your
Bing Crosby kind
of person, your Bob Hope
kind of person and there’s even a
Dorothy Lamour
kind of person. And it makes
about as much sense as the old Road movies, which is to say, not much.
Kevin Kline and
Kenneth Branagh
provide the voices for two adventurers who stow aboard a
Conquistador’s
ship to the New World.
There is no explanation given for why two Spaniards would have
American and British accents.
The brightest character in the bunch is a horse.
Music by Elton
John and Tim Rice
doesn’t do much of anything either.
Even the kids wouldn’t like this one.
Skip it.
Gladiator
is infinitely better. Also,
much longer. This isn’t a
spectacle, with every actor in Hollywood, like
Spartacus.
Nor is it like all those Roman Gladiator movies that we used to
watch on Saturday afternoon TV.
It’s the epic of one man, a general who has fought for
Rome all his
life and only wants to go home to his family.
When he is betrayed and loses everything, he winds up a slave
forced to fight other slaves as entertainment.
But the general doesn’t care if he lives and that
gives him an edge.
Russell Crowe,
who gained about 40 pounds to play the cigarette executive in
The Insider,
is in fighting trim as the general, Maximus.
This is one guy who can wear a tunic and swing a sword without
looking ridiculous (remember
Harry Hamlin in
Clash of the
Titans?)
Other roles are aptly portrayed by
Richard Harris,
Oliver Reed and
Joaquin Phoenix.
Great performances all around.
Good actors, well-directed in a story about someone you can care
about. Well worth the time.
Love, as always,
Pete
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