Down On Ferry Farm

As the elevator’s engine whirred, Larry looked at the other two people waiting in the small room. “Hi, I’m Larry” he said hesitantly. “My name is Sarah and this is Dan,” said Sarah. Larry shook hands with Dan. “Anyone know why we’re here?” asked Dan. The other two shrugged their shoulders and shook their head ‘no’. About that time, they heard the elevator’s motor kick on. They all backed away from the door and waited for it to open. When it did, a tall, well-built man was standing there in a suit and sunglasses. They all wanted to say it, but Dan said it first: “Hey, I know you”. It was the same man that hand-delivered a message about a week before. He appeared to be Secret Service but said nothing and did not acknowledge their existence. As he exited the elevator, there was another gentleman behind him, an older man with white hair dressed in a suit. He, too, stepped from the elevator and looked at the two men and one woman that were there waiting for him. “Hello, young people” he sta

During the down times between looking for work, I do a lot of self-analysis of the kind of person I am and the kind of employee I think I am. I am not going to sit here and say that I’m the ‘model employee’ because I’m not, but I think I’m a hard worker that can be applied to most situations with which I’m familiar and can manage pretty well. I don’t like to have tasks dangling over my head – if I’m assigned to do something, I like to get it done and move on. I feel like I’ve always been a friend of the ‘common worker’ – you know, the person who comes to work, does their job and then goes home. If you ask the people I have worked with, most of them will say I fixed their (professional) problems and, if I didn’t, there was a damn good reason I didn’t (i.e. – the company didn’t want to pay for a piece or part that was needed). I always tried to be the champion of the under-dog or the person who didn’t have the power but wanted to get something simple done. If I had any sway with upper ma

I watched this movie because a friend recommended it to me. I watched this movie on videotape – but I’m not holding that against it. The movie started out with Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel as college roommates. I know what you’re thinking and I never would have put those two together either. It’s all about sex (as the movie’s title suggests) and it's all they talk about. In the beginning it’s about the race to get the girl. In the end, well, it seems to me it was about one man destroying another man and himself along the way. First of all, I never once bought that Nicholson was a virgin. I never once saw Candice Bergen as a woman who would give in so easily. I thought the direction was dark and the love scenes were embarrassing to watch. They were clumsy and awkward even when they were supposed to be comfortable and easy. There was a reviewers comment on the box that read, “I have experienced only three or four movies that I was genuinely sorry to see end. I was sorry to see ‘C

Over the past couple of days I helped former co-workers gain remote access to their respective offices. I was upset with them for asking. Not because it put me out or was very difficult but the fact that they were trying to be able to work from home. And they were both very happy about this. Why? The reasons I was given were: “I can work undisturbed”, “I can smoke while I’m working”, “I can work in my pajamas and be comfortable”, etc. The ‘working undisturbed’ is about the only one I can rationalize. It seems to me that you go home to get away from work. I haven’t always adhered to this philosophy so I hope I don’t come off as a hypocrite. In my position(s), I have always needed remote access to the office but I never really wanted it. I recall many years ago having a conversation that went something like this: Them: “Hey, can I borrow the company laptop?” Me: “Sure. What for?” Them: “I’m going on vacation and I want to be able to do my work” Excuse me… what?! That makes NO sense whats

Seems like anything that goes on in my life happens over the weekend. I had another date on Saturday. The one word to describe this woman is “wacky”. I think she was trying too hard to be light and funny but it almost bordered on the disturbing. This is sort of what she looked like. Her hair was a little curlier. We ended up having a lengthy talk about movies (no surprise, her favorite movie genre is ‘comedy’), which wouldn’t be bad, but I kept wanting to move on and she kept droning on about movies. I swear we talked about movies for half an hour – which is a LONG time to be talking about something on which neither participant agrees. Next came music. Okay, now I can talk about some music. Here again, we didn’t really agree but we didn’t discuss this for a very long time (something I was ready to do). I think it was pretty clear early on that we weren’t going to work out… there were too many lulls in the conversation. I don’t know about her, but I had to work hard to come up with topi

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I had a very strange Monday, let me take you through it: 8:29am – I arrived at work a little later than usual due to the volume of traffic that morning. There was a car on the side of the road, which seems to freak people out -- I don’t get it. 8:32am – I get to my desk to find my computer off. This is strange because I don’t turn my computer off, I usually just log off. I’m not feeling right, but I can’t explain it. 8:38am – Once my computer came up I got a weird message so I restarted it. Basically, my computer said that the PC I had known for these last few months had gone away. I spent about half an hour trying to revive it without success. 9:04am – I feel a bit numb this morning and I don’t really want to be in the office… more than usual. I feel pretty stupid with everyone knowing I’ve been laid off. 9:15am – I begin the process of re-installing the operating system on my computer. During the down time (where no action is required on my part) I decide that I have come to a f

I view quite a few pornographic video clips and I have some advice to offer for the directors. Some of these seem obvious but there are a lot of mistakes being made. I hope this corrects some of those: Lighting: This is a key element of visual design. If you cannot see the object in question, all is lost. Be aware of natural light. I can’t tell you how many times the subject has been backlit – which makes her a silhouette. Not good. Also be aware of where the light is coming from. I tend to see a lot of “hot spots” that appear on the girls faces which washes them out in an unflattering manner. Bottom line: lighting is critical. Camera angles: I can appreciate that some of this video is Point of view (POV) but stop with the “Batman” angles. If I have to tilt my head to watch the video correctly, that’s wrong. Keep in mind that body parts are going to move and turn during the action. A still shot that catches her knee is not what I’m looking for. Ponytails: Has nobody ever heard of ru

Friday started like any other work day. I got in, did my business and got out. There was a rumor floating around that one of the Customer Service girls was going to let go. She had gotten wind of it the day before and was not very happy about it, but had come to grips with the idea by the time Friday came around. She got an e-mail about noon saying the HR person wanted to see her before she left. She approached the HR guy immediately and he delayed her, saying he just wanted to talk with her before she left. She had to stew all day with the idea she might be out of a job before day’s end. The tough part of the whole scenario is that Friday was her birthday and we had already planned to celebrate. The end of business on Friday came and, in fact, she was fired. She seemed okay with the idea. I guess she HAD gotten used to the idea. So some of us went out to celebrate her birthday. It was raining lightly as we walked to the Mexican restaurant. What we figured to be 8 or 9 people turned in

It seems I haven’t written anything in a while so I’ll try and catch you up. There isn’t a whole lot going on right now, maybe that’s why I haven’t written. It’s a Thursday and I took the day off to hang out with Superman after his father passed away. At the funeral reception I’m texting this woman from work – I’ll call her Leslie. I ask her if I’m missing anything at the office and she tells me it’s a slow day. We text back and forth. Superman asks who I’m texting so I tell him. Friday night, Superman and I go to a high school football game. He lives very near the football field and his oldest son is currently enrolled at this high school… so we go and watch the game and it’s a really good time. Superman asks me who I’m texting throughout the whole game. Well, I’m texting Leslie again. Sunday comes and I’m with Superman again, this time watching pro football at his house. You guessed it: I’m texting Leslie again. So Superman says “You should ask Leslie out”. So I text her just that “M

I walked into the convenience store attached to the gas station. I picked up a bottle of Coke and headed for the cash register. There were 4 people in line ahead of me (all of African-American ancestry). A moment later this black guy walks in with a big smile on his face, hoppin'-and-boppin' through the door and almost sings: "My president is black" Everyone in line and the women behind the counter started laughing. I simply smiled. The guy was roaming around the place throwing random "yeah" and "oh yeahs" around the place. Just thought I'd share.

The alarm clock blared and jolted Sarah from her sleep. She went through her normal morning routine hoping to leave the apartment around 8:30 to make the office by 9:00. As she left her house, she tripped over the last box of mysterious letters she had recently received. “When you’re needed, you’ll see the red sign” She rolled her eyes, kicked the box back into place and hastily left her apartment. “A month they’ve been coming” she said to herself “and still no answer why…” She had a fairly normal work day and was driving home when she realized she needed to pick up some groceries. When she walked in the store she noticed that it was particularly empty for this time of night. She pulled a cart and began her shopping. “This is pretty nice, shopping along like this” she thought. She finished getting her items and walked up to the checkout line, placing her items on the conveyer belt. She looked around and saw no one. “Hello…?” she called out. Just then the manager popped his head up from

Here’s the basic weekend wrap-up: Friday – I was supposed to go out for drinks with ‘the gang’ at work but I wasn’t feeling right. It was raining a bit and I was feeling a bit nauseous. I’m not sure if those two things are related. Anyway, I stayed incognito. Saturday – My sister works for the company that sponsors a wine festival so she puts me on the ‘will call’ list. It’s nice: I walk up, give them my name and they hand me a wine glass and put a paper label around my wrist. I then walk to their roped-off area (they call them ‘chalets’) and give them my name again. I get another paper label around my wrist and all is well with the world. These Chalets have their own food and wine so there’s really no reason to go anywhere else. They have their own TV, a couch and an upscale port-o-let. Nice. It was me and my niece to begin with and my sister joined us later in the day. The weather did not cooperate at all. It was windy, overcast and, at time, raining. There we

[Pre Date] Despite the advice I was given by Superman, I’m just going to ‘wing it’ at my date tonight. The only down side to these things is that I don’t feel like I’m learning anything about myself – I’m not getting the answer to the question: what am I doing wrong? Before my last date I asked the ‘advisor’ if I could get some feedback. She said immediately “that’s confidential” I told her “I don’t need to know WHO said what, I’d just like to know generally what I’m doing wrong”. She backed way off and just told me she couldn’t divulge that information. Then how am I supposed to learn? How will I ever get better? If there’s something fundamentally wrong that needs to be fixed, why wouldn’t you tell me that? I think it boils down to what women are looking for. They want a guy who looks good, drives a cool car, has a better than average paying job and who doesn’t have much (or any) baggage. Wow, I just totally shot myself in the foot – I’m not any of these. [Post Date] We met at “Don’s

Well, another date has come and gone. “Jane” and I met at an upscale Italian place in town. I was there very early because it’s right down the street from where I work. It took me a total of 4 minutes to get there. I tried to drive slowly but I just couldn’t get there any later. So I sat in the dining room – by myself – for about half an hour. It’s a really nice place but they have hard wooden chairs that are not comfortable after about 15 minutes. I know it’s by design (to move people along) but it didn’t make my wait very much fun. The soundtrack they pumped in was a lot of fun – old Big Band music from the 30’s and 40’s. Well, I like it anyway. So around 6:30 (our appointed time) she bounds in and sits down at the table. She’s tall (6 foot – nice!) with long blond hair (I was told brown, what is wrong with these people?) and a nice figure. If I could spec out a woman for myself, this is pretty much where I’d go. (see picture at left) This time, I can tell almost immediately she’s no

I had just walked in the door, coming home from work, when there was a knock on the door. ‘The doorbell works’ I thought to myself. I had put down what was in my arms but hadn’t emptied my pockets of keys, cell phone, etc. I open the door and there’s a man standing there looking rather ominous. He’s wearing a black suit, white shirt and sunglasses. He looks a little like those stereotypical secret service guys you see on TV. “Can I help you?” I ask. He doesn’t say anything, he just hands me an envelope. It looks just like the thousands I’ve received recently. “What is this?” I ask. He raises his hand slightly, indicating to me that I should open the envelope. I open it slowly and read the message inside: “Your help is needed. You will see the red sign soon” As I look up from the page, the man in the suit has turned and begun walking down my driveway towards a stretch limo parked on the street. He gets in the passenger-side front seat and the vehicle drives away. I am happy that the let

It all started Friday night when I went out with some folks from work. We went to a place that would probably be considered a ‘sports’ bar. I think we had been there before in some capacity. There was one woman from the office I was happy to see did not show up – I’ll call her “Terry”. I don’t have anything specific against her personally, but every time she has been with us in the past, the woman who reports to me (“Kendra”) replays the whole night for me: “I heard that John and Joe played pool. I heard that Gina and Tom were talking pretty close. I heard you drank 3 beers” and so on. Some of the reports are prefaced with “Terry told me that…” so I know where it was coming from. No such reports from Friday. Kendra is not a gossip so she doesn’t really ask. When she has that information, though, I think she wants to see my reaction. The group broke up around 9:30 and, as I was driving home, I realized I had not used the men’s room before I left. For some reason I didn’t get this feelin

It’s sad, really. It’s silent. Quiet. I like it, except when I’m sleeping. It didn’t used to be this way. It wasn’t always like this. It’s funny, really. It’s so far away. Distant. I’ll use it if I ever get it. It wasn’t used that way. It wasn’t always like this. It’s a piece of art for all to see, to look at, to admire, to judge. You put it out there, no one else. There was a decision to be made: hold on to it so that no one could see and think that it’s perfect, or give it to the world and let it be judged as possibly being imperfect. It hurts, really. It stings. Sharp. I avoid it when I can. It wasn’t always this painful. It used to be easier. I can’t, really. It’s difficult. Impossible. I like to read it, except when I’m eating. My memory of it is fading but I can’t believe it was always this way. It’s just words on a page, on a screen, on a television, in a movie theater. It doesn’t have to be anything more than it is. It doesn’t have to prove itself. There is a decision to be mad