MossyCon Contemplations 

By Robert Bernardo

I had never seen how pastoral the drive was to Jeri Ellsworth’s house. I had gone in the middle of black, foggy nights but never during a relatively bright Oregon day. However, here I was, cruising on the gently winding road through the verdant, rolling hills to her town.

Just the night before, I had arrived in Portland at 1 a.m. I wanted to make this March 23, yet-unnamed Commodore get-together. A few weeks earlier, during the usual Saturday #c64friends chat, Rick “Wildstar” Balkins had informed me that chat members, Leo “KilrPilr,” Scott “Fungus,” and Jeremy “Destine” would be coming down from British Columbia and Washington State to visit Dave “Lord Ronin” Mohr and Mark “Lord Alberonn” Reed of the Amiga-Commodore User Group of Astoria, Oregon. Rick kept me up-to-date in several e-mails, and it so happened that the get-together would happen in the middle of my spring break. It also so happened that I had to go that way in order to pick up repaired C= equipment and drop off broken C= hardware for repair to Ray Carlsen of Ethel, Washington. Also what better time to pick up leftover C= hardware and software from the defunct Commodore Users Association of Medford, Oregon?

Jeri’s house looked different in the daylight, bigger and brighter than I remembered it. I knocked at the front door and her roomie, Courtney, peeked out the window. The door swung open, and Jeri greeted me enthusiastically. I handed over my California gifts -- some food and a DVD. Jeri showed off her PAL DTV work. (all I can say is that there is great improvement.) I noted the new gas stove/furnace in the living room. Jeri showed her DVD’s of the TV show, Red Dwarf. I spoke excitedly of the Commodore get-together in Astoria happening that day. Jeri’s interest was piqued.

If I had arrived at Jeri’s house five minutes later, I wouldn’t have found anyone there; the girls would have been taking their semi-regular, daily jog. But because I had come in time, the usual schedule was dropped. Jeri delayed her work, and we went off to lunch at a newly-opened, family-type restaurant. The girls had hamburgers and fries, and I had a salad and veggie burger.

Afterwards, we returned back to the house. Jeri wanted to go to the Commodore get-together but first had to get some work done. She went off to her workroom, and in the meantime, I watched a bit of the Red Dwarf DVD’s and then went to work fixing errors and clearing adware and spyware off of Courtney’s PC. Courtney started baking some oatmeal cookies for me as payment for work on the PC.

I called Jeremy and told him that I would be coming in late to the get-together -- estimated time of arrival 7 p.m. -- but that I would be bringing in a special guest. He said that everybody had arrived earlier in the day, but he would pass on the message, and everybody would wait for us.

A bit past five, Jeri jumped into my car, and we drove off to Astoria. As soon as we got onto the main route to Astoria, I started recognizing landmarks, and so, there was no danger in getting lost. We started late, but thank goodness the route was not crowded with the tourist traffic of the weekend. We chatted about Commodore, race cars, and Astoria, and when we were not chatting, Jeri tried to study a technical manual.

We entered the town of Seaside, just south of Astoria. A flood of memories rushed over Jeri; she had visited the town many years ago with a youth group. It was already seven, and I asked Jeri to call Jeremy on her cell phone. She reassured him that we were only a few minutes away. We finally crossed into Astoria and wound through its convoluted downtown. Bullseye! The street of ACUG!

I parked, gathered my camera gear, and Jeri and I hopped out of the car. With me in the lead, we walked up to the Mohr house, and I knocked on the door. Mark Reed opened the door, a big smile on his face. There were big smiles all around, as everyone greeted us, including Leo, Scott “Number 16” Farley, a subdued Jeremy, Alan “MadMax,” Dave, and even a gamer or two from Dave’s role-playing group. But where was Scott “Fungus,” and especially, where was Rick Balkins? Jeri had brought her digital camera for the sole purpose of snapping pics of Rick. Though Rick had appeared earlier in the day, he had gone home.

Mark got Rick on the phone and begged him to return to MossyCon; I got on the phone and urged him to come back; and Jeri grabbed the phone and told him to return in no uncertain terms. “Wildstar, get your a** over here!” she laughed. Due to such a chorus, Rick returned in just a few minutes, and the cameras were firing -- Rick solo, Rick with Jeri, and so on. My borrowed SuperCPU 128 was returned to me, and I thanked Rick for taking care of it. All too soon, Rick had to leave.

Jeri parked herself on the living room sofa and talked to Dave and half the crowd there. I went upstairs and talked Amiga to Mark and Alan. After a little while, Leo and I jumped into his truck and went to get Fungus from the motel. When we arrived to the room, we found Fungus was out of it; he was fast asleep in bed. After much cajoling from Leo, he finally pulled himself out of the bed, and we all headed back to MossyCon.

Jeri was holding her ground against the onslaught of questions, jokes, and teases. Satisfied that she was OK, I went back upstairs, and this time Leo joined us in our discussion of hardware and software. In no time at all, we all went downstairs and out of the house to visit Dave’s storefront. Earlier, Leo and Fungus had bought plenty of C= hardware and software from the shop. I found some interesting C= programs I had never before seen; Mark told me they were from a school district. Dave presented his “seed” to Jeri! To clarify, it was an 8-inch long plastic replica upon which was printed, “Seed of Chucky.” Jeri happily accepted this bit of movie memorabilia, and once again, the cameras were firing away.

Everybody was getting hungry, and so, we walked to a Mexican restaurant a block away. Though it was 15 minutes to closing, the restaurant folk allowed our large group to dine (but Dave decided to stay behind at the house). Plenty of talk, and Jeri divulged some DTV secrets.

An hour later, we came back to the house, but first everybody wanted to see the C= and Ami goodies I had in the back of the station wagon. I pulled out plenty, the most notable being the Ami version of Red Storm Rising, the Turbomaster 4 mhz. accelerator cartridge and Master Adapter (sniff... stolen a few weeks later), DieHard magazines, MaiLink newsletters, the four SX-64’s and 1581’s for Ray Carlsen to repair, the MSD copy program disk, an A3000, an A590 hard drive, and much more.

We retired to the house to look over some of these wares. With Jeri in the living room, Mark and I tested out the Ami software and the A3000 upstairs. I gave Leo a bunch of magazines. We talked about the Commodore Vegas Expo. At times, Jeri, Mark, Dave, or I would get on Mark’s Tower 1200 or Dave’s C128D and chat with those on-line at the #c64friends chat.

The hours passed. I found out there was a PC in the house.

“Dave, I thought you said that you’d never let a PC in the house!”

“Robert, the boarder pays us $200 a month for a room, and for that money, I allowed him to bring his PC. I can transfer Commodore programs from the PC to the Commodore.”

Valid reasons, I thought.

Dave also told me that it was a spyware sucker... magnet... something. In other words, it attracted tons of spyware. It was so full of the malicious stuff that it didn’t run well at all. Boosted by what I had accomplished earlier on Courtney’s PC, I told him that I could fix its problems. I didn’t know what I was getting into!

It was hours later when the adware/spyware/registry fix utilities finally finished their work. Over 2,800 pieces of spyware! Over a thousand registry errors! What a mess! However, the utilities did the work and cleared the computer.

“Robert, I really have to go,” Jeri firmly told me. It was three in the morning. “I have work to do, and I’m expecting an important phone call.”

“I thought you woke up at one in the afternoon.”

“I’m trying not to do that anymore.”

“Oops.” With my apologies to Jeri, I gathered all my gear and told Dave and Mark that we’d have to do this again. Hurriedly saying good-bye, Jeri and I walked outside to the fresh, cool, night air.

My job now -- to get Jeri back to her house as soon as possible. Not easily done with the patchy fog in the low-lying areas between the hills and the mountains. While Jeri slept in the passenger seat, I strained to get a clear view ahead.

It was five a.m. when I got her back to the house. We said our good-byes, and I was on the road again to Portland. When I arrived at the Motel 6, I took a shower, but afterwards, I didn’t go to sleep. No, I went to Kinko’s Copy Center 20 minutes away, made some photocopies, and got onto one of the Net-connected computers in order to make an eBay bid on a CMD FD-2000 dual-disk drive (I won!).

By the time, I got back to the motel, it was 9:30, and I told the front desk people not to disturb me. Ah, sleep!

However, by 3 p.m., I was on the road again. Destination - Ray Carlsen’s house. An hour and a half later, I was at Ray’s place, but no one was home. No problem. I picked up the repaired items from his “secret” storage place and dropped off the broken C= goods into the same place.

Upon my return to Portland, I spent a leisurely night relaxing. Friday was another busy day, though. At 11 a.m. I was at the house of Jim Scabery, the gentleman who Scott Farley and Alan described as having a Commodore business for sale. Scott and Alan had arrived earlier and were already rummaging through the stacks and shelves of software and hardware. In a previous report, I described my C= visit with Jim.

I was on a tight schedule; I had to get to Gold Hill (Medford area), more than five hours to the south. After two hours with Jim, Scott, and Alan, I had to leave. First, I had to stop off at the post office in Lake Oswego and post off a concert laserdisc to Marv and Rindy Ross of the band, Quarterflash. Unfortunately, I was in line for more than half an hour! Finally, I departed the Portland metro area at 3.

Eight p.m.. Finding the house of E.J. Clutter, officer of the Commodore User Association, was not easy in the dark. To make matters worse, it was situated in a trailer park with unmarked streets. After much circling around, after phoning for directions, I finally found the house. E.J. was in Arizona, but a neighbor who had been expecting me opened the house. I was expecting to pick up a Commodore set-up or two from the CUA. No way! E.J. had most of a room filled with CUA’s goods and her materials, too. The station wagon was going to get packed full! Box after box of disks, keyboard after keyboard, drive after drive. If it weren’t for the neighbor and his girlfriend who helped me pack, I would have been there for hours.

Finally, the car was loaded, the rear sitting low because of the weight. I had to leave the bulkier items behind -- the monitors, the SX-64, the other boxes -- but I assured the neighbors I would return later in the year. They told me not to worry; none of these things were moving anywhere.

I drove south to Medford, had a fine dinner at Skipper’s Seafood Restaurant, and took off for the Motel 6 in Yreka, just over the border into California. I slept soundly at the motel, and the next day it was only 4 1/2 hours to the storage house in Stockton. My MossyCon adventures et al had come to an end. I’d have to return to the Pacific Northwest later in the year. Repaired items from Ray would be awaiting. The remainder of the CUA materials would be awaiting. My C= friends there would be awaiting.