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Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: tmadden@netcom.com (Robert Benchley)
Subject: Kim Visits Colorado; Rockies Unscathed
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 05:57:54 GMT

Newly-minted AFU Man Of The Year and all 'round belle vivante Kim Scheinberg paid a brief visit to Colorado this past weekend. Kim's Garbo-esque plea of "I vant to be alone, but with two guys", coupled with very little advance notice, limited the honor guard to just Ray Depew and Tom Madden.

Tom attended Kim's arrival in Denver on Sunday and, after a whirlwind tour of bookstores and coffee houses in the Cherry Creek area, proceeded to Boulder to fulfill Kim's strange request to "see a chinaman burn". No flammable orientals were among the buskers on Boulder's 16th Street Mall, but Kim did manage to humiliate a juggler. "He's cute, and has an English accent", she explained. As if that was supposed to make sense.

After dinner with Tom and Gail Madden, Kim commandeered the local 486 and proceeded to pull an unsuspecting Derek into the Madden rec room.

On the way back to Denver Sunday evening Kim complained she was cold. Tom, OAM that he is, turned up the car heater. The enormity of this missed opportunity only revealed itself to Tom's ancient brain thirty minutes *after* Kim was safely delivered to her friend's apartment in Denver.

Monday was HP day for Kim, as she bused north to Fort Collins to visit Ray. Tom later joined them for a most leisurely, and enjoyable, lunch. Large quantities of pasta products were consumed, and convivialty flowed freely. Into this congenial atmosphere Kim, Scheherazade-like, spun the tale of AFU-NY II. In-jokes were explained, photos brought forth, and Ray & Tom both wished they coulda been there. Sort of. Familiar names were attached to unfamiliar faces. One photo showed Andy in an apparently futile attempt to don a winky prosthesis. In another, Diane seemed to be observing Andy's efforts and thinking "armadillo". There was the motherly Vicki, attempting to preserve disorder; Clay and Ewan comparing hair styles; a recumbent Ny, complete with giggles; Lee dressed as a traffic cone. Or perhaps a carrot. Andonandon.

But Kim's return schedule intruded on this pastoral gathering, so the group retired to Ray's HP office, where Kim used Ray's workstation to once again lure Derek into the open. We were somewhat distracted by assorted HP offspring parading through the aisles in full Halloween costume. One youngster, dressed as a Sun workstation, was particularly frightening.

Departure time arrived, Kim hugged Ray goodby, and as Tom whisked her away to the airport in as much luxury as a 130,000-mile '82 Celica permitted, the setting sun silhouetted the mountains and lit up the underside of an adjacent cloudbank in a brilliant blaze of red and gold. A final hug for Tom at the gate, and Kim was off. She reportedly spent the return flight in a four-hour coma, recovering from her relaxing 29-hour stay in Colorado. (Next to the imaginary state of Wyoming.)

Random observation #1: the AFU MOTY jacket is a Wonderful Thing. Vicki, always good with the needle in AFU, now gives another meaning to the term. Unless Robin protests (yes, we've seen you over in rec.crafts.textiles) Vicki can be the official AFU Seamstress.

Random observation #2: at the risk of destroying his net.image, Ray is really a Nice Guy. That he is able to take up the cudgel to chastise errant posters from time to time is all the more remarkable since he lacks that mean streak.

Random observation #3: Tom mentioned he has finally ditched the formal name in his login, a silly leftover from his Bell Labs days. So, for the one or two AFUers who autoselect him, replace

        tmadden@netcom.com (Thomas C. Madden)
                        with
        tmadden@netcom.com (Tom Madden)

Your faithful servant,
R. B.

From: rrd@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Kim Visits Colorado; Rockies Unscathed
Date: 3 Nov 1994 23:44:25 GMT

Robert Benchley (rbenchley@netcom.com) wrote:

: Newly-minted AFU Man Of The Year and all 'round belle vivante
: Kim Scheinberg paid a brief visit to Colorado this past weekend.
:
: Random observation #2: at the risk of destroying his net.image,
: Ray is really a Nice Guy.

(Don't let it get around, okay?)

: Your faithful servant,
: R. B.

And Now, For The Rest Of The Story:

When AFU's MotY first invited Your Obedient Servant(s) to dinner on Monday night, my first thought was "Hot dog! I finally get to meet her in person!" My second thought was "My wife and kids will shishkabob me alive if I go out to dinner with a strange woman and leave them in the lurch on Halloween night." (THREAD TIE-IN! THREAD TIE-IN!) My third thought was "Oh, okay, so she's not really that strange, but they'd still fricassee me alive." My fourth thought was "Why am I having all these ordinal thoughts?"

A flurry of e-mails ensued between Ms. Quindlan, Mr. Benchley and Yr Obdt Svnt (thread tie-in? can you see it?), the upshot of which was:

SCHEINBERG DOESN'T DRIVE! NO DRIVER'S LICENSE, NO NUTHIN'!

My jaw hit the floor when Ms. Quindlan revealed this fact. For a boy born 'n' raised in a mix of the suburbs, rural French Canada and the Great American West, the idea of getting along in this vast country without Legal Proof of Automotive Dexterity (heck! even with illegal proof!) was as foreign as ... well, it was a foreign concept, anyway.

We elected to celebrate this discovery and discuss it further over Sunday dinner and Monday lunch. Family plans prevented YrObtSvt from attending Sunday dinner, so Ms. Quindlan and Mr. Benchley had to watch the Chinaman burn/stir-fry all by themselves. The home of the nationally ranked CU Buffalos, East Berkeley, provided ample entertainment and nutriment for a Sabbath evening (THREAD TIE-IN! THREAD TIE-IN!).

The AFU MotY successfully attempted to use the shuttle bus from Denver Int^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HStapleton Airport to Fort Collins on Monday. YOS was relieved to hear her voice on the telephone, declaring "Your lunch date is in the lobby," banishing any visions he had had of a lonely waif, trudging northward along the I-25 service road, halfway between Denver and FC.

Signor Bent^Hchley arrived shortly thereafter, and we went out for a late lunch of handmade pasta. After we had sufficiently loosened Ms. Quindlan's tongue with two 7-Ups, no ice, (THREA*mmph* *gag*), she proceeded to give us the detailed description of AFU NYC II that we had been hoping for. Now we know all the in-jokes, you drunken fratboys, and you're all our best mates, no really, we mean it.

Unfortunately, the long, late lunch was way too short, and we finally had to adjourn (after Kim had eaten a respectable portion of Tom's strawberry sundae). We went back to HP long enough for Kim to panix over her non-functional vacation script, and form a low opinion of HP workstations -- with Derek's help. Ever the gentleman, Tom drove her back to the airport, as the sunset I had special-ordered just for her unfolded behind the Rocky Mountains.

The sunset almost made up for the freezing weather that greeted her arrival on Sunday night. We do like to give all our out-of-town guests a frosty reception and the cold shoulder, and make sure that their departure is the highlight of their visit. That's just the Cowboy Way.

... actually, the Real Cowboys are about an hour northwest of here, in the nonexistent state of Laramie. (Did you hear that Wyoming and Nebraska are going to merge into one state, called Wyobraska? That's so Nebraska can have some real mountains and Wyoming can have a real football team. Go Rams!)

Your Obedient Servant,
Ray Depew
Chairman, Curator and Headmaster of The Axeman Institute tripemonger to the masses
Snocketville, Outer Blazflap