Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

The Monterey Peninsula Toy Box has launched a new feature, a Town Square forum where folks like you can get together and chat about issues of the Monterey Peninsula, rate local businesses, or just shoot the breeze. I decided to start a forum because I have always wanted to make my website more interactive. In looking around I realized there are no longer any truly local discussion forums available anymore. The Monterey County Weekly had one, but they've since dropped it in favor of comments on individual articles rather than an open discussion. The Herald has one, sort of, but it's mixed up with a national forum making local topics hard to locate. So it seemed like a logical step. We now have an on-line forum run by a local webmaster for local residents. I intend for the Town Square to be a friendly place where each member shows respect for others, even when they disagree. The Town Square is off to a slow start, but you can help. I invite you to go to forum.montereypenins...

I opened the newspaper one recent morning to find an obituary of a good friend. It was not a good way to start the day. From 1996 to 1999 Don Nivling and I worked together providing audio/visual services in a local hotel conference facility. We became close friends and we stayed in touch. In 1999 he ditched the rat race and became self-employed as "Captain Connector," a superhero to Monterey Peninsula residents who needed help setting up and learning how to use today's modern home entertainment equipment. Don looked and sounded like a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and a reformed hippie. But what I enjoyed most was his intricate cultural knowledge spanning everything from 1970s exploitation horror movies to the finer points of classical music. Don taught me how to set up a champagne quality home theater on a beer budget (his words). He was a master of employing used electronic equipment that others had tossed aside for assembling thundering home entertainment systems...