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  GBS:      What the Heck Happened in L.A. B ob came into the office one Monday and said there was a problem down in the LA office and he wanted me to fly down with him the next day to check it out. The LA office generally had a staff of 15 to 20 people. When we got there we discovered that there were only 4 people in the office. There was one sales guy, one installer (someone who knew how to install, train, and use the applications but knew nothing about programming), one programmer and a receptionist. There were no managers. The place was empty. W hat happened? I don't rightly know. The Software Manager and the Branch Manager had both walked out but never told anyone. Bob went into the Sales Manager's office and I walked into the Software Manager's office. Bob found a large stack of unanswered messages on the Sales Manager's desk and I found an even larger stack on the Software Manager's. T o make matters worse bot...

Kathy, Me, Nyshia, & Gucci K athy and I had returned from our short honeymoon out on the coast and had settled into a duplex in the Rosemont area. My office had relocated to a new building off Bradshaw just south of 50. Kathy had left her position with GBS in the Bay Area and started a new job with a small marketing firm in Old Sacramento. W e didn't know much of anyone in the Sacramento area other than our co-workers. As a consequence we spent our weekends exploring the Sacramento area. I liked exploring the American River and we went rafting down the South Fork one weekend. Kathy liked shopping at the malls. Our weekends were mostly quiet. We still sometimes met up with our old Bay Area GBS friends either down in San Francisco or joined in with a group heading up to Tahoe for the weekend. Kathy knew both Bob and Mike from my office and the little socializing we did in Sacramento tended to be with them and their spouses. I didn't socialize with any of my s...

Married Again Berta, Frank, Me, Kathy, Gina and her boyfriend K athy and I had returned to California after our successful visit to New York where she met my family. Now back, it was time to plan our wedding. Getting married was not new to either of us as we'd both been married before. Neither of us needed or wanted a formal fancy wedding. We picked a date in April, which was just a couple of months away. Kathy and I found a place in Sausalito to make rings for us. Kathy found a dress she liked and told me she would like to pick out what I was going to wear and I mostly let her. G etting married wasn't new but having a wedding and reception was going to be new for me. The first time I got married I married Donna at the home of a local Justice of the Peace. We called his number to confirm he was available. The person who answered told us to come to his house in a couple hours. We didn't dress up. We didn't even have rings. We just used a couple of ring...

  Noises Off & The Car That Got Away I am able to shut out noise. This came in handy when I was working. People talking never bothered me. In fact once concentrating on something I often didn't notice when someone started talking to me. The down side is this gets me into trouble around the house. Another thing I do is sort of buffer what's being said to me when I'm engaged in doing something else. I hear it or kind of hear it. I realize someone is talking to me but I don't let it totally in until I'm finished doing what I'm doing. This came in handy when I was in school. More than once I had a teacher call me out for looking out the window while they were talking and ask, “Are you listening to me?” I would look at them and repeat the last sentence they said. Sometimes the class would then laugh. As you can imagine, this did not exactly endear me to the teacher and I could tell this did not convince them I was paying attention but there was not...

  Meet The Family Me and Kathy 1980 : The Miracle on Ice, Reagan becomes President, and John Lennon is shot - Post-It Notes, Rubik's Cube, and Pac-Man - CNN launches, Dave marries for the 2 nd time, and Mount St. Helens erupts K athy and I were engaged. Next step, let the the families know. Kathy's family was all in the Bay Area and I had already met them. Her parents were Korean. Kathy's parents were fairly calm and quiet. They didn't let much out and I never felt like I knew much about them. The things I remember most are Kathy's mom made excellent kimchi, there always seemed to be a pot of rice sitting on her stove top, and they had a sort of “living in a glass house” mentality. I wasn't going to be the only white guy in the family as Kathy's cousin married a white guy. Kathy, like myself had been married previously so my marriage experience was not held against me. On the weekend I drove down to the Bay Area. We went out to dinner with K...

D iane left and I became both the Branch Software Manager of the Sacramento office as well as the Regional Software Manager for GBS. I was good at and liked computer programming. Managing people is an entirely different skill set. I never thought of and never wanted to manage people, but here I was. As Branch Manager, I now had a staff of three programmers and two installers. Two of the programmers were not too happy about the change. My best programmer, Lori, not to be confused with Laurie, one of my installers, was good friends with Diane. To my surprise she was fine with the change. My two installers were also fine with me as their new manager. It was the guys who were unhappy not the women. Not what I expected. I had no real previous experience. My plan was to try and treat everyone how I would like to be treated. M ike was the Branch Manager. I officially reported to him as the Branch Software Manager, but I also still reported to Bob the Regional Manager in my...

  Throwing Caution to the Wind Kathy C ounting my high school girlfriend, I have been in eight romantic relationships that have lasted more than a year. Three of those relationships resulted in a marriage. Kathy is the 5 th of those 8 relationships. Kathy became my second wife, but it is the relationship that I least understand and the one I have a difficult time explaining to myself. All my relationships between Donna, and Kris were effected by my holding on to Donna. I was not still trying to get Donna back but it was in the way of deeply loving someone else. I loved Dottie but she followed Donna and it was just too soon. Plus, Dottie was too easy. The relationship was never quite balanced. I need someone to challenge me and keep me honest. I truly loved Cyd, but Cyd was young and still finding herself and I was a little past that point. I wasn't in the best place to go along for the ride and like I said, I was still holding on to Donna. Then there was Kathy. My r...

  Becoming a Regional Software Coordinator and More 555 Capitol Mall I 'd driven down to Sacramento a number of times while I was stationed at Beale AFB in Marysville and I had passed through a few times to go skiing in the Sierra's or river rafting down the American River. But all I really knew about the area was Old Sac, the Arden Mall, and Country Club Plaza along with Tower Records and the Sam's Hof Brau next to it. The only other place in the general area I'd been was the Roseville Auction, The GBS (General Business Systems) Sacramento branch office was located at 555 Capitol Mall. The building was relatively new and a landmark building at the time. GBS had an office on one of the top floors. I came up for a weekend to look for a place to rent. Downtown looked a bit tired and run down to me, not to mention rather dead. So I decided to look elsewhere. I was not too sure where to look but I remembered Bob had indicated to me that the office would be...

My Dad and My Baseball Glove My Dad at 10 in his baseball uniform and my A2000 Wilson Glove I was born in '49. Growing up, baseball was the dominant sport in America especially in the 50's. I grew up on Long Island in New York. For most the of 50's we had the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers all in NYC, each team with its star centerfielder: Mantle, Mays, and Snider respectively. Baseball was big in my family. My dad's dad played minor league ball. He was primarily a pitcher. He also played 1 st base when not pitching. My dad was the shortstop for his high school team and he also pitched, usually in relief. He played a little baseball in the military as he was on the base team. Base commanders took great pride in their baseball team so you had to be a pretty good ballplayer to be on the team. Those teams frequently included professional ballplayers. I loved baseball. My dad and I would often have a catch together after he got home from work. However ...