A Personal History of Computing, Part 4

The road onward from Ski-U-Mah went through Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, coincidentally my birthplace, but a stop in 1973 because it was the world headquarters of the Aluminum Company of America, aka ALCOA. My BS in Marketing was going to make me a salesman – an interesting turn of phrase.

Later in the year, after training and orientation that took me all over the country to ALCOA fastener, sheet, primary (ingot), extrusion, and forging plants, I landed in the Bettendorf, Iowa sales office. The following years weren’t really the best, but there were moments. First child Heather came along in 1974, while I was unselling aluminum. Unselling? Yup, that was a time of “commodity shortages” including aluminum, and my job was literally to make ALCOA’s customers as miserable as possible. Turns out that’s a pretty good way to make a salesman miserable, too. Raising prices? Not the half of it. Changing the product mix; dropping simple extrusions for complex ones. Winnebago wants to extrude its own parts from ingot? Forgetaboutit!

Anyway, back on topic. Not much computer stuff going on. Typewriters. Calculators. Green bar computer paper mailed out periodically with numbers printed on it. A big mainframe was spewing out nunbers showing me I wasn’t making life hard enough on my customers. They weren’t taking their low-margin business over to Reynold or Alcan fast enough. It finally got me fired.

So I went home. Ok, they say you can’t, and maybe they are right, but the next four years weren’t in rural western Minnesota weren’t so bac. Courtney’s birth interrupted a golf game in 1977, I was a Jaycee, in a bowling league, a golf league, a softball league, and Co-chair of the Republican Party in the Sixth Congressional District. I was also selling real estate and managing farms, which is where computing came in. Renting land, cash or share, sometimes managing a “custom farming” operation. Negotiation, buying, selling – and contracting to sell – grain, keeping records. Periodically reporting to owners. The limit to income was the record keeping and reporting one person could do with an electric typewriter, carbon paper, a calculator, and a pencil. I was maxed out.

That’s when I found the IMSAI 8080. S-100 buss, Intel 8080 processor. Later Mathew Broderick’s home computer in War Games (1983). I’m not sure where I saw it. Perhaps an ad in Popular Electronics? Anyway, all that led to my first report dealing with computing, productivity, and business processes – a proposal to the Klein National Bank to finance a small business computer. It didn’t fly. Though they never said so, I’m pretty sure they thought I was “round the bend.” Little computers? In small businesses? Print letters and reports? Nonsense. Certainly nothing on which to risk the bank’s money. It was a green eyeshade era.

That little roadblock eventually took me back to the big city, but not before a campaign for the State Senate.

That, as they say, is another story. But not part of these computer tales.

Memories Live On

Today, April 26, is our fourth Wedding Anniversary. I can’t say what we would have done. Something special for certain – every day was special.

We went out in Monterey on Jeannie’s sixtieth birthday, her last. We were back at Paddy’s at Chateau Elan in Braselton Georgia in October, one of Jeannie’s favorite places. That same weekend, we met friends – Martin, Mike, daughter Courtney, Murphy was there, too – after Petit Le Mans. That was the last time Jeannie was well enough to go out.

I’m thinking today of what was. But I can’t help thinking, too, of what could have – would have – been.

Many years ago, Jeannie gave me a book called “Love in the 90’s” about the love between a couple who were able to grow old together. It was inscribed in her hand in the flap.

“Tom, my love – Merry Christmas,” she wrote. “I am looking forward to growing old with you. Someday there could be a book about us like this one. Your Jeannie.”

Of course there won’t be that book, but there are – and will be – others. There were only three anniversaries together after our wedding in Las Vegas, but there were many stories, many wonderful times.

The stories and times began years before this scene from that April day in 2004; the memories will go on forever.

Out of Whack

A friend in the investment business called on Friday. “I'm not dead yet,” he said, “in fact, I'm feeling better.” (Sorry, that’s a bit of an inside joke – and a reference to medieval Europe – so a bit offbeat, too.)

“I've had a glass of wine – or two. Ruffino Cianti Classico Riserva.
Unfortunately, the bottle was too small.”

“Good wine,” I said.

“Si,”

“Too early here," I observed.

“Ha,” he laughed. “Is there such a thing? It's after lunch, no?”

“So it is,” I agreed. “What’s the celebration?”

“I'm just about finished moving my clients to cash. I have a few who haven't returned calls, but they should be out by mid next week.” “I started moving them in December. I think we are in real trouble here.”

I thought about that, and added, “This is a time when commodities are no refuge either – that looks like a bubble.”

“Agreed. I don't think they are in a bubble, but I think they need a near term correction,” he said. “They are ahead of themselves.”

“When we get a true correction – a bear market – there is nowhere to hide in equities.

“I’ve arranged for healthy lines of credits for my clients For the purpose of investment, "if" we get a large correction But I don't intend to use them, unless we drop 20% or more

“This is the second time in my career that I've felt the markets were out of whack, out of synch... the other was in 1999 into early 2000.

“I have a cartoon from that time on my desk at work. A smiling commentator says, ‘Alan Greenspan noted that the glass was half full... markets rose on the news.’”

“Was the GE news today a wake-up,” I asked?

"Tom, there have been so many wake-ups at this point. I just laugh at the general apathy."

"So, there’s a correction looming?"

"I'd like another month and a half. But if I was confident I had a month and half, my clients wouldn't be in cash already. I'd like more time to call prospective clients, to tell them I'm moving clients to cash, while their broker is pitching the ‘we are long term investors BS.’"

So, there it is. A point of view. A professional point of view. One I’m inclined to take seriously.