July 1, 2010
Dear Everyone:
My idea for using some
carabiners to connect
“Jeannie’s” new lunch bag to her “office” suitcase shows promise.
I found some at the Great-Big-Warehouse-Hardware-Store.
Had a little trouble at first, but a helpful register attendant
led me to the “impulse buy” section, near where they make keys and there
they were in a plastic fishbowl.
I got one in each color.
One hooked onto the suitcase handle.
The other went around the lunch bag handle and easily “snapped”
around the first. This
allowed the lunch bag to hang off to the side, where it wouldn’t
interfere with the briefcase that “Jeannie” frequently wraps around the
pull handle when she takes it all out to work.
By the way, the Great-Big-Warehouse-Hardware-Store
doesn’t call them “carabiners”.
They call them something like “snap-click” somethings.
And they are stamped with a warning not to try and hold more than
150 pounds with one and “Not for Climbing”!!!
Stayed tuned for further developments.
In other news…
ARMA. I
know I’ve mentioned it before.
The Association of Records Managers and Administrators,
International. A couple of
years ago, I had signed up for the International conference when it was
going to take place in Las Vegas.
At the “last minute” the Company made me pull out and cancel my
attendance.
This year, the International conference is in
San
Francisco. I was pretty sure
the Company would not go for paying for me to attend, even though it
meant no airfare. (This was
before they announced the plan to cut nearly 1000 jobs in the
Bay Area
alone.) If I was going to
attend the International conference, it would have to be on my own dime
and my own time.
Here’s the thing:
Because of selling my old
townhouse last year, I have a nice
little sum of money in my savings account.
I’ve decided to spend a little of it on ARMA.
I already have my registration (early bird discount!) and my
hotel room (early bird discount again!
Saved $49/night.) The
International conference isn’t until November, so there’s plenty of time
until then.
There is also the
Pacific Region Leadership
Conference. The United
States (and Canada) is arranged into Regions.
Here in California, we’re part of the Pacific Region, along with
Hawaii,
Arizona,
Nevada and
Utah.
Each Region selects a Chapter to host the Leadership Conference.
This year, the host is the Utah Chapter.
The Leadership Conference is for the chapter
leaders, i.e., members of the Boards of Directors.
This year, I’m the Secretary of the
Mt Diablo Chapter,
representing the
San Francisco East Bay area.
Over the past eleven years, I’ve held every Mt Diablo Chapter
Board position except President, which I’ve managed to squirm out of
each time.
Again, I’ve decided to spend some of my own money
and time for the Leadership Conference, which begins in exactly two
weeks in Park City, Utah.
(If “Park City, Utah” sounds familiar, it’s the home of the prestigious
Sundance Film Festival, founded by
Robert Redford.)
We actually have five Board members attending this year, which is
definitely a record for us.
In the past, each Chapter would bring small gifts
for the President and Board members of the other chapters.
Over time, the competition to come up with the “coolest” gifts
has gotten a little out of hand.
Last year, the conference organizers asked that each chapter
spend their money on something “nice” and “substantial” to go into a
raffle instead. Our
Immediate Past President came up with an
iPod, which seemed to go over
well.
This year the new Chapter President asked for ideas
that would “represent” our chapter.
He suggested a gift certificate to a
winery.
Very California; but very problematic for someone from outside
the state. I remember when
we tried to send a wine gift to someone in
Oregon years ago.
You could only have it delivered to the local “State Liquor
Store” where someone would have to go and “receive” it.
Instead, we decided on a gift “credit” card that
could be used just about anywhere.
One person said, “Great idea!
I’ll try to find a ‘San Francisco”
T-Shirt to go with it.”
However, “San Francisco” is another chapter, not
ours. We need something that
says, “East Bay”, which means nothing to anyone outside the greater Bay
Area. I found a product that
you can use with your home printer to create a custom T-Shirt.
One with the ARMA logo (we’re allowed to use it for chapter
purposes) and something that suggests
Mt Diablo.
We have a “Chapter Logo”, which is a stylized
“mountain” that someone threw together for one of our Board members in
the first year that we were in business.
I sent that to the others for review.
In the meantime, I found some pictures that I took last spring of
the actual Mt Diablo, when it was green (lasts about two weeks.)
So I manipulated the ARMA logo, the Chapter name
and the blue-and-green picture of Mt Diablo and sent it off to the
others for another review.
We have a full week before it’s time for panic to set in.
We used to have a member who originally came from
Colorado. He finally asked,
“Where’s this Mt Diablo I keep hearing about?”
We pointed to the mountain.
“No, seriously.
Where’s the mountain?”
Love, as always,
Pete
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