Love, As Always, Pete

The Weekly Letters, by A. Pedersen Wood

November 3, 2005

Dear Everyone:

Twenty-something years ago, I had a calendar entitled, “Chocolate Makes the World go Plump.”  It was a monthly calendar with a chocolate-related cartoon for each month.  Example:  “Did You Know…?  Two tons of chocolate equals the weight of an average hippo.”

When the year ended, I didn’t throw the calendar away.  Instead, I used a paper cutter to slice off the bindings.  Over the years I’ve collected many whimsical, humorous cartoons from calendars, post cards and greeting cards.  When I worked in the Land Files in San Francisco (many, many years ago), I would post one of these cartoons on the wall above the copier each day.  People coming in to use the copier would look at the cartoon and laugh.  Sometimes they would take it off the wall long enough to make a copy for themselves.

Technically, this was a violation of the copyright laws, but I doubt the calendar manufacturers lost much money because of it.  Over time, my collection has grown to include Peanuts, Ziggy, Cathy, and many pictures of animals with amusing captions.

Once, again in San Francisco, I had an office right across the hall from the coffee room.  (Location is everything.)  People going to get coffee would stop and see the cartoon on the wall outside my office.  They would get a chuckle along with their coffee.  Once, when I’d been on vacation for a week, one of them even went to my supervisor at the time and complained that the cartoon hadn’t been changed while I was away.

When I was working in “Pleasant Hill” earlier this year, I would post a cartoon on my overhead cabinet.  But more often than not, I was the only person in the room all day, so it was pretty much wasted effort.  Then, when we moved to the new “space standards” with cubicles, I posted cartoons on the pillar outside my cubicle.  But since very few people came all the way down to my cubicle, not many saw them.

Now that we have offices in Building K, I am again posting cartoons on the wall outside my office.  Since half the people in our group have to pass my office to get to the printer/copier/coffee, they are seeing the cartoons.  Several have stopped to comment on how much they enjoy them.  So my cartoons are getting a new lease on life.  This makes me happy.

In other news…

I’m still working on the “old” (three-years) computer because I haven’t moved everything to the new (laptop) computer.  In the past few weeks, I’ve managed to convert all of my email to Word documents in special folders.  I’m hoping that I’ll have time this weekend to transfer all of my documents to CD so I can move them to the new computer.  Then I’ll uninstall things like AOL, TurboTax and the like.

I had hoped to donate the “old” computer to the local high school.  I made inquiries through a friend who has contacts with the school district.  So far, the response has been underwhelming.  But I have another friend who has already indicated that her son would be more than happy to get a “new” computer.  So the “old” computer will probably be ready to move in a few weeks.

In the meantime, the “new” computer is currently sitting on the kitchen counter.  Normally, it sits on top of a box just inside the front door.  But on Halloween, I didn’t want to be opening the door to trick-or-treaters with an expensive piece of machinery in plain view like that.

As for Halloween, I only got a few kids.  A group of three little ones, including one toddler who clearly had no idea what was going on.  About a half-hour later, I got a larger group of medium-sized kids.  After that, nothing.  So I have a large bowl of candy sitting by the door, calling to me.  I haven’t taken the candy in to work yet because everyone else is unloading their leftovers right now.  I’ll wait a week or so.

Hopefully, I won’t have eaten it all myself by then.

Love, as always,

 

Pete

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