Happy Centennial, Cash!

One Tuesday back in 2009 I showed you some little turtles in the drawer of my cash register. In that post I promised more about the cash register in three years time. Now is the time!

Today my cash register is 100 years old!

In August 1994, Jerry and I visited New Mexico. We took a day trip over to Las Vegas. I don't really remember why we went over there. Maybe it was a play day with Peggy. I have no real connection with the town. My parents and older sisters all went to New Mexico Highlands University. I was spared. The only thing I really remember of our trips to Las Vegas to see Jack's Aunt Gladie was our excursions to the nearby Dairy Queen where I'd get a Dilly Bar.

One of our stops on our visit was an antique store on the plaza. They had a bronze National cash register for sale. I was working for NCR at the time and had been wanting to get a cash register. I admired it but decided that it would be too difficult to get it back to California.

Here it is in the antique store.

We went back to Los Alamos without a cash register. The cash register kept calling to me so I decided that we probably could have it shipped. We went back the next day and bought it.

We took it to a business in Los Alamos that ships things. They built a crate with 5/8" plywood, removed the "Amount Purchased" top sign and glass, reinforced the purchase price that was showing (I don't know how to have nothing showing in the amount purchased window) and packed it in foam and styrofoam peanuts. They knew what they were doing. The cash register got here in the same condition we left it.

Its condition isn't perfect but it's pretty good. Its locks are missing their keys. Its Finish C "should be highly polished and clear lacquered with a car quality lacquer, to protect the polished finish" but it's not very shiny.

The people at the antique store told us that they were about its third owners. Its first owner was in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I think they told me that the son of the first owner used it in a shop in Las Vegas. It then went to the antique store. Now I have it.

I can't find the receipt but the price tag you see in the picture survives.

Ignore the "c 1912"! We know it's actual age!

On the underside of the cash drawer is the guarantee that the cash register will be mechanically correct for two years after it was delivered. It shows that it was built for A. A. Witherspoon of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It was delivered April 3, 1912.

You'll notice that the Register No. and Size recorded on the guarantee are the same as on the front of the cash register.

This means that this is the original drawer. The cash register isn't cobbled together from pieces!

There is a modification that probably voided the guarantee. The spring that pushes the cash drawer out broke. There is another spring tied to what's left of the original one.

To celebrate my cash register's 100th birthday, here it is making its cheerful Ding! when it registers a sale:

My 100-year-old cash register!

Red hot poker

Jack's choices of hobbies for me weren't always as successful as beekeeping.

Out of nowhere he gave me a book on how to play poker. I don't remember ever expressing an interest in the game.

The book was filled with the obvious information about the probabilities of filling your inside straights and how likely your two pairs will be beat at a table of four players.

The most interesting parts of the book were about the psychology of the game.

Much of the book was about how to play in a weekly game against a regular group.

We learned how to observe the mannerisms of our friends to understand when they're bluffing and when they have an exceptional hand. We learned how to encourage our friends to give away information through these signals. Of course it taught us how not to have such bad habits ourselves.

It taught us how to win but not win so much that our buddies stop playing. If one of the guys is looking like he's about to drop out of the Friday night game, we were told how to start losing some of our money to him so he'd be encouraged to stay in the game and lose much more money to us.

There were many problems with taking up poker for fun and profit (mostly for profit).

Among them:

1. I was a kid (in high school, but still a kid).
2. Without a lot of money.
3. Who didn't know anybody with money.

But mostly it seemed to be teaching me how to cultivate friendships in order to take as much of their money as I could. That didn't interest me.

There must have been tips on how to win against people we've never played against. But you probably have to get good at the game by first cleaning out your friends' bank accounts.

I never played poker for money.

I wonder why Jack thought I'd be interested in poker for a living at that time.

"Here, little number cruncher, you can make a living at what you're good at."

"Here's something I wish I could have done. Make me proud."

"This is your last best hope."

"Get rich quick."

I'll never know.

No mooching for now

Last month I wondered if we were related to one of the singers in a band that was going to the Colgate Country Showdown in the hopes that we could mooch off of him when he becomes rich and famous. The contest was yesterday.

It doesn't much matter if we're related. A Floridian won.

But then runners up on American Idol often do better than the winners (so I've heard)!

I's singin' dem ol' cap'tal gains blues agin, mama!

Long ago, I was working for a company called NCR that had been in business for more than 100 years. Then, for some reason, AT&T decided that there was something that NCR had that AT&T needed. So they bought NCR.

For a while I worked for "NCR, An AT&T Company." After some time they thought that that wasn't a good enough name so they changed it to "AT&T Global Information Solutions" (or "AT&T GIS" for short).

AT&T had developed a product (called Tuxedo) that was a competitor of a product that NCR had come up with (called TOP END). Once AT&T owned NCR they didn't need two products that did similar things. (I won't bore you with what they did, mostly because I really don't know.) So AT&T sold their Tuxedo product and kept NCR's TOP END. (I don't know if it was because TOP END was seen as the better product or what.)

AT&T sold Tuxedo to a company called BEA Systems.

While all this was going on, I was in a department of NCR that was about to be shut down. When my department ceased to be I had to find a new spot in the company to work in. I happened to end up in the TOP END department.

Somewhere along the line AT&T spun NCR back off to be an independent company.

After a few years working in the TOP END department they started having morale boosting activities for us. We had a winery touring day and a bowling afternoon and other fun outings. I didn't know that morale was needing boosting. I had lost contact with the rumor mill. It turned out that there were rumors that NCR was considering unloading its TOP END product.

Finally, in June 1998 we got called into a meeting where we were told we were indeed being sold to another company. It happened to be BEA Systems. It was effective that day. Now Tuxedo and TOP END were products of the same company again.

Lucky for us it was just before the company's Employee Stock Purchase Plan enrollment opportunity. I took them up on their offer of discounted BEA stock. In December I became a stock holder in BEA Systems.

Just after that BEA laid us all off. Like AT&T before them they didn't need two products that did similar things. I guess they bought the competition to get its good parts to add to their product and to shut down the competition.

Just after this the stock market's irrational exuberance kicked in. The price of BEA stock benefited from the exuberance and I decided to sell a tiny bit of my stock. That was just before the bubble burst. With that I recouped my initial investment many times over. Oh, the capital gains!

Then the bubble burst. At least I had made a profit. So what if the rest was not worth a lot.

Well, earlier this year Oracle decided that they wanted to buy BEA. BEA said they weren't for sale and Oracle came back with a higher offer and BEA, with pressure from a big share holder, Carl Icahn, agreed to be bought.

I thought that I was going to become a stock holder in a competitor of my own Teradata Corporation (Teradata and Oracle make database systems). Friday's mail brought me an envelop from the company that manages my BEA stock. It had a big check in it. It turns out that the sale was a cash deal, not a stock deal. The price they paid again was many times more than I had paid (though a mere fraction of what it was in the exuberant days).

So I have unexpected money in my hands. I have no idea what to do with it. Well, other than send a big chunk to the tax man.

Maybe you can help me decide. There's a poll over there on the right. Please, no ballot box stuffing and no hanging chad.