Garage Sale Ballot Results:

The Votes are In

By Steve Fink

I know, aren't we sick of election pontifications, whether they be written, verbal, or multimedia images. Please however, "cut me some slack, man;" this is my first article submitted for publication. If you are reading this somewhere other than at my house, guess what? I'm now a published author. Please include $50.00 bills with the cards of congratulations to the address at the end of this article. (Why? Read my editorial below.)

And now for the vote

For each Garage Sale, the Pi Webmaster posts an interesting coupon on the Pi's Web site. The Winter 2000 Garage Sale was no exception, with the posting of a unique "Coupon/Ballot" to be printed and handed in when attending the show. Turn in the ballot and save a buck on admission.

The "ballot" portion had a number of interesting issues you could vote on. These "issues" collected the most votes:

• I'm not making any admissions, though I may have made mistakes in my youth.
• I fondly remember typewriters
• I've never had improper relations with that operating system.

and the all time favorite; winning by a margin of 1 was

• I never read computer manuals until they stopped including them with new software.

See if you can find the "ballot/coupon" on the Pi Web site. I'm not promising that it's still there [try http://www.wap.org/info/gsale.html, says the Webmaster] but noodle around. It's worth the trip.

Not sure what else I should tell your about the Computer Show and Sale. Sure it was fun. Look what you could have won if you attended and stayed till the hourly drawings

Matt Nixon - Muggie Bear

Marshall Maley - Slikie

John Cerveny - T-Shirt

Carl Proza - Word 6 Book

Daniel Kothe - QuickKeys Program

Matt Kupferman - Adobe Book

Darrick Sparks - Stuffit Deluxe program

Richard Etner - T-Shirt

Bill Ashcraft - T-Shirt

Bob Russell - Web Design Book

Jeanette Redden- T-shirt

Eric Crane - Slikie

Lassie Corbert - Drreamweaver Book

Jamie MacDonald - Spring Cleaning program

Jamie Mitchell - Magic 8 Ball

Tayler Armstrong - Intellinews program

And now for the editorial

Like you, I'm a member of Washington Apple Pi. Again, like many of you I love to go to the Washington Apple Pi Computer Show and Sale, held in June and December. For the past four or five years I've volunteered at the event, answering questions, stamping hands, collecting admissions, and folding up 100 tables with some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. The stated purpose of the Garage Sale is to redistribute new and used computer wealth, but another critical purpose is to get all our member to see what we have done, what's coming up in the future, and get newbies to the WAP experience.

Definition of the WAP experience.

From The Living Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, copyright 1999: WAP experience - an individual or family of basically nice but occasionally confused computer enthusiasts. Although, they may be rated anywhere from virgin to expert on various computers, including Windows computers, the Macintosh (or Apple II, or ///, or...) is their preferred computing platform because it's just more darn fun. As a group, they have banded together for more than twenty years to provide support and answer those nagging "how do I do ________ on my computer?" questions. Helping answer questions on the telephone hot line, at monthly meetings where we have some of the neatest freebies going, or in person at the office, the WAP experience is about people helping people. Volunteers.

You've already enjoyed some of that experience by reading our award-winning Journal. I hope that the WAP experience has been so good you have volunteered to help. And if it was good for you, why shouldn't it be good for others? Volunteering can be a fun, learning experience as well.

I'm asking for your demonstration that the WAP experience is a good one. Please place new $50.00 bills in an envelope and send them to the author whose address follows this article. If you really can't do that, help us in other ways. Don't call the office to get on a list of people, or ask how you can help. Instead, think what are you good at. That's what we would like you to do for the club.

There was once a member who's talent was being a hostess, a people person. Many members will remember going to a total stranger's home and feeling awkward and out of place. Many new members feel the same way when they first encounter Washington Apple Pi. The hostess put her people skills to work and, doing nothing more than making people feel wanted, made their WAP experience much more positive.

Please determine your talent and volunteer to share it . Don't make someone pull your talent out of you, like a taffy pull. You are the best person to figure out your talents. Just let us know what you are good at. We'll use that talent to help spread the WAP experience.

In response to you, that's right the tall person in the back row ducking down, maybe, just maybe, you can let a family member help too. Most up us with kids find they know the answers to computer questions better than we do and have the ability to show/explain how to do it.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I love anything that has to do with Clint Eastwood. With my sons Jason and Eric and daughter Rebecca, we were in a Cint Eastwood movie. OK we were Extras but it was a lot of fun. If I'm ever asked to write another article I'll tell all.

Again, as the New Year rolls in without snow, please resolve to help others have a WAP-experience.

Steve Fink would appreciate any cards (with or without money) be sent to the WAP office attention: Steve Fink.