I made it to CMD Friday, July 13, 2001. It was a long trip in my truck pulling a big trailer, but I arrived safe and sound at about 19:00 AM on Friday morning. Aside from about 4 stops for fuel, I managed to stay awake the whole time except for about 1 hour when I pulled into a rest area at about 5 AM to take a little nap. I was quite cautious driving my truck on this trip since it had been sitting for about 5 years since the last time I had used it. It needed a lot of attention to get it ready for this trip. But it did a pretty good job getting me here with just a couple of minor problems. An oil leak had developed which wasn't a big problem, I simply had to make sure to keep an eye on the oil level and to add a quart or two when needed. The leak caused me to add a total of 6 quarts of oil to get here. That's minor compared to the amount of gasoline I went through at 6.4 miles per gallon! It didn't matter how I drove, it got either 6.4 or 6.5 on every fuel stop. But that's always the way it's been. After all, even when empty, the truck and trailer together weigh about 14,000 pounds. It's the cost per gallon of gas that's killing me on this 800 mile trip. The only other problem I had was that the truck got a bit louder about halfway into the trip. Both mufflers went bad and got noisy on me. I'll put up with the noise until I get home.

About ten years ago at a World Of Commodore show in Toronto, I met the guys at CMD and had a chance to talk to them for a short time there. This was the first time I had seen them since then, other than talking on the phone or through email. It was nice to see them once again. It's a busy place at CMD, everyone's working, the phones are ringing, Mark and Charlie are in and out tending to business. Doug is doing his thing, taking care of various clients. Charlie's mother Ruth (and the wife of Charles Christiansen, Sr.), is there for the day to do some secretarial work, answer phones, greet the walk-in customers, and many other duties. In the main work area, a young man named Noah, is working on PC's for customers. Back in the production room, a gentleman named Angel, is busy soldering up some SuperCPU circuit boards. For the past couple of years, Angel has done most of the soldering work on the CMD products.

The main thing I did today was get familiar with some of the operation and check out some of the special modifications that need to be done to the various circuit boards before being assembled into a product. Angel showed me most of the stuff he has to do to each circuit board, including special modifications that are done prior to assembly. Mark showed me the equipment used for programming the custom GAL and PLD chips used in most of the products and then turned me loose to create a batch of GAL chips that we would later install into some SuperCPUs and RamLinks during assembly time. CMD has eliminated some warehouse space to cut back on expenses, but aside from that, most of the Commodore related stuff is still set up and intact. (But not for long!) At lunch time, Doug invited me to go with him to get a bite to eat. We ate at a busy little Deli, and it sure was good. I had a very well packed sliced Kielbasa sandwich and Ginger Ale. At the end of the day, Doug once again bought dinner for me and we ate at Bickford's restaurant. This time it was a T-bone steak and scrambled eggs with pancakes. I was all set for the evening. Doug headed on home and I scouted around for a motel room. They were either filled up or were much more expensive than I was used to paying, but I was tired after the long drive and the first day at CMD. I paid $75 for a dumpy room and fell asleep.