2004 Christmas Blog Post
This Christmas season, we attended Spencer’s holiday concert, where he introduced a song again this year. They did some excellent renditions of "Sleigh Ride" and "America the Beautiful." His band will be traveling to Chicago April 22-24 for the Heritage Music Festival. I also attended a service at Trinity Lutheran in Stillwater, where Spencer was serving as an acolyte, and took communion from him.
We enjoyed seeing my cousin Susan, her husband Bob, son Liam, and daughter Olivia in a performance of the Nutcracker ballet, also in Stillwater. They recently moved here from Germany where they had a dance school.
I recently had a chance to take Spencer and a friend of his shopping for snowboarding equipment, and so far I’ve seen a couple of his hockey games. This summer he was on a baseball team, playing second base and outfield. I also had a chance this fall to see my nieces play tennis for Cooper High School.
About a month ago, after picking up Spencer at a local indoor skate park, we took the new light rail line from Fort Snelling to downtown Minneapolis, where we ate at a restaurant and saw the Mary Tyler Moore statue. I also took the LRT to the Mall of America when that leg opened up.
Had a great time at the May Day Parade at Powderhorn Park, with its larger-than-life puppets and non-commercialized atmosphere. Also had a great time at the State Fair with friends James and Dawn and with Spence.
I drove my car in a parade in Robbinsdale this summer, along with another hybrid (a Prius) and fellow members of the Green Party. I convened my Green Party caucus in March, and served as a delegate to the state convention in Bemidji in June, where we advanced two Nader delegates to the national convention.
Other than that, a New Year’s trip to friend Phil’s in Owattona, and an Easter trip to sister Janet’s in Saint Cloud, I didn’t travel much, but my cousin Scott from Michigan came to visit in September while my mom and brother Scott were in England. Scott H. and I went to the Mall of America, the Sculpture Garden (with it’s famed "Cherry on a Spoon") and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Also, my cousin Shelley’s daughter Julie from Madison, who is going to college here, joined us for dinner one Monday.
I am now in my second year as letter carrier, and second in line to get my own route. As the new local union steward, I have finally realized my ambition of holding elected office. The Hatch Act precludes me from running for partisan office, however!
May this be a joyous holiday season for you all,
Tom
Past Christmas Letters
posted by Tom Cleland @ 12/19/2004 08:31:00 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
PAST CHRISTMAS LETTERS:
1999
Merry Christmas everybody! This is our last (and first) Christmas letter of the Y1K (Year 1000) Millenium.
Actually, I worked on Y2K this year, making some programs compliant for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. One of the projects was assigned to me in November 1999, which I thought was cutting it a little close. It was only a two-week project, however, and I think my code should hold up fine.
But just to be on the safe side, I have quit my old job at Shared Resource Management, and am now working for Interim Technologies, another consulting firm. Really the main reason I switched is because the new company has more opportunities in PowerBuilder, the main computer language I've been using for the last few years. My first assignment is at Deluxe Check, just across the street, and I've been walking to work most days.
Spencer is in the Mites 3 hockey program and plays on the "Pony Black" team. It's a competitive program with intensive drills and skills like backward crossovers. In the late summer, Spence took gymnastics lessons, and can do a front flip, back flip, hand spring, backward hip circle on the high bar, and "skin the cat" on rings, where you pull yourself back to a starting position. At "open gym" I got to try some tricks myself, and did a handspring from a mini-tramp to an elevated surface before hurting my knee. Spence also played baseball in the spring.
Spence is doing well in math and spelling, and he is constantly correcting me on my grammar, which he calls "language." He informed me recently that he is no longer interested in Pokemon, but I know that his favorite cards were Venusaur, Vileplume, and Raichu. Last week he joined his cousin Suzanne and participated in his first chess tournament, where he was able to get a win and a draw.
I've been playing chess at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore on Wednesday nights, and managed to place first in a tournament they had there one night, although most nights I am glad to win about half my games.
My biggest achievement of the year was the completion of my CD, "Deadline 2000," with three of my songs reaching MP3's Minnesota Top 100. The CD is available on the World Wide Web at www.mp3.com/TomCleland.
Time to sign off. Spence wants to play "Descent" now. Happy Holidays and best wishes for the next Millenium.
2000
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Year 2000 got off to a great start as Spencer and I joined his cousins at the Butler's for New Year's Eve. The kids made a time capsule and custom T-shirts, made noise with a variety of percussion and musical instruments, and used up a quarter of Grandma Cleland's confetti supply. The next day we met here in Shoreview, used up another quarter of the confetti supply, and had a pool party. We played "Wheel of Fortune" on the computer, which worked just fine.
As the temperature started to rise up above freezing, Spencer and I travelled to northern Minnesota to visit my cousins John and Jim Munter and their families. The sap flows up and down the maple trees during that time of year, so Spencer, his second cousins and I collected it from buckets attached to the trees, and we boiled it down to make maple syrup. John and Sharon Therese also have El Pacas on their farm. El Pacas are similar to Llamas.
Spence had a good field day at his school this year, winning three races and placing third in the baseball hit and soccer kick. In June, Spence and I ran in Roseville's "Run for the Roses" 5-kilometer run. The fastest 10K runner passed us just before we crossed the finish line.
In July we flew to Washington State and visited my uncle Jim Harper and his family. We visited the Space Needle in Seattle, constructed the year I was born, fed seagulls from the ferry boat, hiked up Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic Mountain Range, and went to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where we visited the Butchart Gardens and took a "three-hour tour" to see Orca and Minke whales. We enjoyed great food and lawn darts at the Harper's, saw the movie "X-Men" with cousin Robert, and then travelled on to Mount Ranier National Park. In the photo on the Christmas card, Spencer and I are standing at the top of Burroughs Mountain, with neighboring Mount Ranier in the background. Back in Seattle, we visited the "salmon ladder", took an underground tour, and watched a Mariners game before heading home.
I played in three chess tournaments this year. I didn't do so well in the Minnesota Open, but I finished with an even record in the US Open, which was held in St. Paul this year. Spence won 2 1/2 games in the state tournament this year, and recently beat me when I played with all but two of my pieces.
We got a "GlobalPC" from Wal-Mart for Mom's birthday this year. She said I was "dragging her kicking and screaming into the 21st century" but she was truly able to send her first e-mail, all by herself. (marilyn@myturn.com)
As for this year's close election contest, I have a new bumper sticker which says "Blame me, I voted for Nader!"
May you have many great odysseys in 2001!
2001
Happy Holiday Season!
2001 got off to a shaky start as the consulting company I was working for had trouble finding new assignments for us. Luckily, a contract-for-hire position was found for me, and I am now a permanent employee of GMAC-RFC (General Motors Acceptance Corporation, Residential Funding Corporation), working as a Business Technologist. I like the people, the building, the technology, and the wide screen monitors.
One really good thing about leaving consulting is that, knowing where I would be working, I was able to move close to my place of work (August 1). I now walk to work most days, which saves time and helps the environment. I still have drives to Spencer's and Mom's though.
Tragically and coincidentally, there was a fire at my old apartment building after Thanksgiving, on the opposite side of the complex. Investigators believe it was caused by someone who fell asleep with a lit cigarette, killing that person and injuring three others, and causing two of the six buildings to be shut down.
One piece of good news is that two Green Party candidates that I supported were elected to the Minneapolis City Council. I'm particularly concerned about our recent record-breaking temperatures this fall, and the heat wave last summer. I'm predicting an even worse heat wave in the next few years, perhaps in 2002. I hope I'm wrong.
I put another CD on my web site, www.mp3.com/TomCleland. This one's more positive. It consists of older songs I wrote, which were on cassette tapes, and is titled "Classic Cleland". Recently, I had the privilege of being a guest vocalist with a rock band, in which a high school classmate of mine is the keyboardist. I sang "Jenny" by Tommy Tutone and "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel.
Spencer is having a good year. The picture on the Christmas card is Spencer playing in a hockey game. His team went on to win the eight-team tournament. His football team went to the league championship, he had a winning season playing catcher on his baseball team, and earned more Field Day ribbons, increasing to ten out of ten the number of events he has placed at least 3rd in.
On the academic side of things, Spencer's studies are going well, and he is now playing trombone in the school band. He had a singing and speaking role as "Herodotus" in the play "Dig It", which was about ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Greece, China, and Rome. He was elected as Student Council Representative for his class, and helped raise money for the children of Afghanistan, as part of the national program.
As for the 9-11 attacks, I might be a little more hawkish than some of my fellow Green Party members, but I still believe that we need to do what we can to make more friends and fewer enemies around the world. I am hopeful that we can find a way to move toward a positive, secure, sustainable future.
Wishing you a Peaceful and Happy Holiday Season and New Year.
2003
This year’s Christmas letter is my first since 2001. I didn’t send one out last year because I was out of work and concentrating on what to do next, after my department at RFC reorganized and my position was eliminated.
It came at a tense time as I was running for the Minnesota State Senate with just two weeks before the election. Even worse, the Wellstone tragedy occurred two days later. The election results were not so good for progressives in 2002, but I was thankful to get 2% as a Green Party candidate in a relatively conservative district, and to have the opportunity to spread the word about conservation, wind power, and Personal Rapid Transit.
With a tight job market, over the next several months I devoted part of my time to writing a software tool called the Traverser, which helps organize and share information over the Internet. It currently resides at https://sourceforge.net/projects/thetraverser.
Starting in June I worked for a month as an activist for Greenpeace, doing street canvassing. The pay was very low, but I enjoyed being able to fight for the environment.
In July I started part-time as a Rural Carrier Associate for the US Postal Service. I substitute on five routes, each with about 500 addresses, filling in when a regular carrier is sick, on vacation, or has a day off. In the morning, I sort magazines, catalogs, and letters into a case with slots for each residence, and in the afternoon I deliver the mail, along with parcels, using a mail truck. Increased mail volume and snowy road conditions make the holiday season very challenging! Compared to programming, in some ways I find the mail more stimulating, because the work is tangible, in the moment, and there’s a deadline every day.
I’ve used some of my extra time this fall to read several books, including Al Franken’s and Michael Moore’s. The most interesting book I read was “The Party’s Over” by Richard Heinberg. He writes that as a result of gradually diminishing oil supplies, we can expect the price of just about everything to increase steadily and indefinitely. He suggests we can lessen the impact through such things as conservation, wind and solar energy, and growing our own food.
I moved in with my Mom (no Cliff Clavin jokes, please!) to cut expenses and keep that rent money in the family. Together we recently attended Spencer’s Christmas concert, where he got to greet the audience and talk about one of the songs. He plays a trombone given to him by his uncle Scott.
Spence is enjoying 7th grade and moving from class to class. He has a 3.2 GPA and made the B Honor Roll. His favorite classes are gym, band, and social studies, and he does well at math. He still plays hockey, baseball, and football, playing center this year, and has added lacrosse, snowboarding, and skateboarding to the mix. He sure clobbered me at the Tony Hawk skateboarding video game, and ran a faster 5K as well!
Wow, Tom. That was really interesting. A completely different perspective from what you normally discuss in your blog. Thanks for sharing that. :)
I didn't know you were a letter carrier. That's so funny because my friend Guillermo who I met in San Francisco and who was sending me draft Nader URLs before I met you is (or at least was) a letter carrier. I mean A BIG TIME Green. He even ran for mayor in Daly City (outside San Francisco.) He and his wife just moved though, so he might be doing something different now.
Anyway, have a Happy Holiday!!!
Tom,
PS Don't laugh at me, but this description of your personal life was quite different from all the gaps I had abstractly filled into my mind. I wasn't actively making things up in my head to fill in the blanks, but I guess when you don't know things about people you generalize from what you do know until you have more info.
Makes me wonder what people don't know about me that I would enjoy babbling about in my own blog.
But I enjoyed reading that. Thanks again for sharing it.
You're welcome and thanks for visiting!
Post a Comment
<< Home