Wednesday Writings #7 - Off To The Park

Today's "Wednesday Writing" is a continuation of a story started back with Morning Machinations, and then continued in Communication Between Friends and most recently in Daydreaming Decisions.

Generally speaking, I want to apologize for continuing to string you along with little snippets. I do have a growing plan for this plot and the characters. Writing this story in small chunks one week at a time is kind of strange and as a result, I feel like it's a little disjointed. As an added note, I'm really just typing these in as quick as I can without any real editing, so if you spot errors, feel free to point them out.

Hopefully it's working for those who are reading it.

Enjoy.

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Off To The Park

The professor finished outlining the reading assignment for next class and then dismissed them. Gabby finished gathering up her notepad and presentation materials. She only half heard the comments from her classmates offering their congratulations on a job well done on her class presentation. Her mind was so far from the classroom she couldn't believe she'd actually given a presentation, let alone that it actually went well.

Her thoughts had been twirling ever since the moment in the computer lab when she had remembered, or dreamed, concrete details about her conversation at the party. Except when she was forced to concentrated, she spent most of the afternoon trying to draw up more images from the party but hadn't had any success. Julie had called 3 times during class and had sent a total of 12 text messages. Gabby had ignored all of it.

Her hip pocket buzzed as she walked down the hall. She pulled her phone out. Text Message 13.

i know your class is out by now CALL ME!!!

She shoved the phone back into her jeans and kept walking. She was sure it was her imagination or the hours spent blindly dazing off during class, but the world seemed a little fuzzy around the edges. Like she was wearing a pair of glasses that were too small and she could see the blurriness around them. Or as if everything at the peripheral was sliding out of focus. She went into the bathroom and rubbed some cool water over her eyes.

Staring at her face in the mirror, she watched a water droplet slowly slide down from the corner of her eye, across the bridge of her nose and then hang on the tip of her nose threatening to fall into the sink. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out with a long drawn out sigh.

Opening her eyes again she stared at her her reflection, then became aware of something moving behind her. It was Evan, the man from the party. Frantically she whipped around to confront him, only to find a very startled looking girl who jumped back with wide-eyed fear on her face and then ran from the room. She turned back to the mirror and saw only herself.

She closed her eyes again, convinced she was going a little bit crazy. She couldn't explain what was happening to her. She couldn't even describe it well enough to try and analyze it and come up with a proper explanation. She didn't know anything about Evan, if his name was really Evan and the memory from earlier wasn't just some dream she'd created. She had no idea who he was, where he came from or why he was interested in her. She didn't even know if she was interested in him.

Actually, she took that back, she was definitely interested in him. She was almost obsessed with him. Which was part of her confusion. She didn't know anything about him. She'd only barely met him and she couldn't remember it at all. And yet, she couldn't get him out of her head. That was so totally not like her she couldn't stand it. And yet, she wanted to find him.

Gabby pulled her phone from her pocket and walked outside to the bus stop. She debated calling Julie and then decided that she didn't want to talk with Julie just yet. She knew what Julie would say and she didn't want to deal with that. Not yet.

Within a few minutes, Gabby was on the bus headed downtown. She'd decided to stop at Indian Star for a quick early bite and then she'd walk to the park from there. Her phone buzzed at her 3 more times while she ate.

As she ate, she kept imagining herself sitting on the park bench, watching as Evan came walking up to her around the playground. She imagined him holding his hand out to her. She would take his hand as she stood. Arm in arm they would to the parking lot and he would announce that he was about to provide her with the most romantic date she could ever imagine.

She interrupted her own thoughts with arguments that she was turning this into some big romantic fairy tale. That this guy may be creative and mysterious, but he was just an ordinary man and would probably just take her out to dinner or bring a picnic or something. Her mind occasionally tried to argue that he might not even show up or that this could all be some big hoax.

Finally, paid for her late lunch and started walking to the park. She glanced at the time and was suddenly a little worried. Time had gotten away from her somehow. It was already nearly 6:30 and she knew it would take her at least 10 minutes to get to the park. She started to run but then stopped, not wanting to risk arriving flushed and sweaty. She resigned herself to walking and possibly being a few minutes late. Punctuality was a big requirement for her in friends and relationships, but she was willing to be a little more relaxed if it meant being more physically presentable.

At 6:42 PM, she stood on the street corner opposite the northwest corner of the park. As she waited for the light to change, she scanned the park benches and was horrified to see Julie sitting in the southern one. Gabby felt her face flush and her muscles tense. Why was Julie there? At least she wasn't on the middle bench, but she shouldn't be there at all. This was Gabby's mystery. Evan had asked her to be there. Julie would just mess everything up.

The light changed and Gabby jogged across the street and towards the playground. As she started towards the benches, Julie saw her and stood, waving softly and smiling. Gabby clenched her jaw and was ready to chew her friend out when she saw a young boy on a bike ride up to the center bench. He looked like he was maybe thirteen or fourteen years old. He had a red and white striped over sized shirt with a large number thirteen on the back and a blue baseball cap pulled down tight on his head. He straddled his bike and put a knee up on the center bench as he turned his head to pan the scene.

He saw Julie first and spoke to her.

"Are you Gabrielle?"

His voice was deeper than Gabby expected but still wavered a little as he spoke. At first, neither girl said nothing. Julie shook her head.

"No. Um, I'm Julie. That's Gabby." She raised her arm and pointed as Gabby took three steps towards the boy. He turned and stared at her. He pursed his lips as he slowly panned over her from head to toe. Gabby stopped walking, a little unnerved at being studied so intently by this boy.

"So. You're Gabrielle?" He asked the question with a sort of finality in his tone that made Gabby feel slighted.

"Yes, I'm Gabrielle. Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter who I am. All that matters is that you're Gabrielle."

He reached behind the seat of his bike and unzipped a seat bag hanging there. He pulled out a large manila envelope and held it forward. There on the plain tan paper were the same block letters from this morning's envelope: GABRIELLE

"This is for you." He extended his arm, then turned his head and looked intently at Julie. "Only for you."

Gabby took a final step forward and took the large envelope from his outstretched hand. She was surprised by the weight of it and almost dropped it. The boy looked back at her.

"Remember, this is only for you. I was told to warn you that you should not share this with your friend. Doing so will have consequences." He stared silently at her a moment longer and then hopped back onto his bike to ride away.

"Wait." Gabby tried not to sound nervous or frantic. "What does that mean? It will have consequences? Who are you? Who is this from?"

The boy turned back to her and grinned. He almost laughed as he spoke.

"I really don't know. All I know is I got a hundred bucks for giving that envelope to you with the message I just told you."

"But who gave you the message?"

The kid frowned now.

"Nobody. I don't know. When I got out of school today, I had a note telling me to go pick up that package from a post office box and bring it to the park at a quarter to seven and I'd get fifty bucks for it. The note had a fifty dollar bill taped to it, so I figured it was for real. Sure enough, the post office box opened, had the envelope in it and another fifty dollar bill. I almost just rode off with the whole thing but I figured that whoever the note was from might be watching. I also thought that maybe I could get more later if I did a good job here."

He started to ride away.

"Don't you even want to know what's inside?" Gabby turned the envelope over to open it.

"No way!" The boy started pedaling slowly. "I don't want to know what you all are involved in. I figure the less I know, the less trouble I'm in if it's drugs or something. It's not drugs is it? No! I don't want to know. So long Gabrielle. Tell your friend thanks for the hundred bucks."

And with that, the boy rode away, leaving a confused Gabby and Julie staring at each other. Julie started walking towards her friend. Gabby held up her arm and took a step back.

"Stop. Just hold on a minute."

"What? Come on, you can't take the kid seriously. There will be consequences. Ooooh. I'm scared. We're best friends Gabby. We're in this together." Julie took another step forward and Gabby took another step back.

"I'm sorry Jules. I just. I don't know what to think about all this. Let me open it and look at it alone first. Stay with with me and you can give your advice after I see what's in it, okay?"

Julie didn't say anything but walked back to the far bench and sat down. Gabby watched her. It was obvious she was hurt, but Gabby needed to do this alone, at least to start. Still, she didn't want to push her friend away. She needed Julie. More than she cared to admit, she needed her.

Gabby sat down on the middle bench and tore open the seal of the large envelope. She then tipped it slightly and pulled the contents into a pile on the bench beside her. Most of the weight was from a large spiral bound book with a plain blue cover. Along with that was a key ring with 5 keys, a small plain white envelope with something inside, and a hand drawn map. She opened the flap of the smaller envelope and found another one hundred dollar bill and a folded up sheet of paper. Unfolding the paper, it was in the form of a bird, black with a white body and a blue stripe along the white. Similar to the first bird note, there was writing across this bird. This time it was orange writing written along the blue stripe.

USE KEY IN CAR IN WEST PARKING LOT. DELIVER BOOK TO LOCATION ON MAP BY 7:15 PM. KEY 'A' WILL OPEN DOOR. KEY 'B' WILL OPEN LOCKED CHEST IN FRONT HALLWAY. DEPOSIT BOOK IN CHEST. LOCK CHEST AND DOOR AND RETURN HOME FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

Gabby was more confused than ever. She flipped through the pages of the book. It looked like blueprints and charts of statistical data of some kind. Most of the writing was in some strange pictographic lettering. It didn't look like any of the character sets she'd seen: Japanese, Chinese or Korean. It also didn't remind her of the stick figure style of Egyptian hieroglyphics. She had no idea what language it was. She looked at the map. It had a dotted path from the park to a big red X in a neighborhood to the west.

Sliding everything into a pile next to her Gabby looked up to see Julie intently watching her actions. Gabby flashed a nervous smile then shrugged at her friend and glanced around nervously. Across the playground, a mom sat reading a book while her two kids raced around. Otherwise, there wasn't anyone in sight. She still felt a little nervous about the boy's warning to do this alone. Still, it couldn't hurt to have Julie read the instructions. She just wouldn't let her participate. Gabby looked back to Julie and waved her over. Julie happily complied and came to sit on the bench with the materials between them.

Julie silently read through the note and looked over the map and the book. Neither girl spoke for a couple of minutes. Gabby was wondering why Evan hadn't been there. She was wondering what this was all about. She picked up the hundred dollar bill and looked at it. She'd made $200 that day. With her four hours at work, she hadn't even made a fourth of that. She didn't know what to think. She looked at Julie, wondering what she was thinking.

Julie stared back at her friend without saying anything. Her mouth opened and closed twice before she finally spoke.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

Gabby looked down at the book, the note, the keys and the map. Finally, she pressed them all back into the manila envelope and stood up.

"I guess I'm going to deliver a book."

Julie stood beside her and the two girls walked to the parking lot. They looked around. Julie's car was parked nearest to them. A gray minivan was parked a few spots away. They guessed that belonged to the mother at the playground. On the other side of the parking lot, a hundred feet away, were three vehicles. A red jeep, a black pickup truck and a deep blue BMW Z4 roadster, the only car she recognized. Gabby had never been much of a car nut, but all three looked very nice. Julie, on the other hand, was a huge car lover.

"Which one do you think the key's for?" Julie asked as the girls walked across the lot.

Gabby didn't say anything. Instead, she pulled the keyring from the envelope. There were five keys. One was labeled "A", one was "B" and the other three had no markings on them at all. A strange thought suddenly struck her. There were three keys and three cars. She shrugged the idea off as ridiculous as she stepped up beside the truck. The door was locked and the first key she tried failed to open it. But the second one flipped the lock and the door opened. Gabby stepped back as Julie rushed forward to look inside. Julie oohed and aahed over the truck, spewing stats and information about it.

Gabby turned her head to the jeep. She stepped towards it and found the door locked but quickly discovered that another key opened that vehicle as well. Still not understanding the implications, Gabby turned and stepped to the BMW. She'd never been a big fan of cars, but she'd always loved the look of the Z-series BMW. She nervously pressed the key into the lock and held her breath as she turned it. She felt the pressure beneath the key and a moment later, she pulled the handle to open the door.

Julie was still chattering about the pickup. Glancing over her shoulder, she realized her audience had abandoned her. Turning to find Gabby, Julie stared in shock at the open doors of the jeep and the BMW. Gabby stared back at her friend with a stunned look. Then, she slid into the driver's seat, slid the key into the ignition and started the car. Julie rushed over. She leaned on the door and looked into the car. Gabby looked up and let out a giggle, then covered her mouth in embarrassment.

"What are you doing Gabby?" Julie's voice grew suddenly somber. "You can't seriously be thinking about driving this car."

Gabby stared back at her friend for a moment without saying anything. She wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel and closed her eyes. She had no idea what was going on. But for the moment, she planned to enjoy it.

"I'm going to deliver a book. You can follow along in your car if you like. But you'd better hurry. I'm leaving now. I've only got 7 minutes to be there."

Gabby shifted the car into reverse and tugged on the door. Julie reluctantly stepped back, an argument on her lips. She watched Gabby back the car up and then start towards the exit. Then Julie raced for her own car determined to follow her friend and keep her safe.

On the other side of the river, Evan stood leaning against a tree. He grinned as Gabby raced the engine and squealed the tires out of the parking lot with Julie frantically starting her own car and trying to catch up. He quickly turned his gaze to the four men who came out from the house across from the parking lot and got into their own car. They would follow her, that much he knew. What they would do once she delivered the book...that was a mystery even to him.

Evan walked back to the road on his side of the river, started his motorcycle and slowly drove west to the professor's house where Gabrielle would shortly arrive. Nothing more would happen until she was there. But he had to be ready for the next move.

Wednesday Writings #6 - Daydreaming Decisions

Ah...I debated waiting an entire week to post this...but instead decided to give you a two for one today.

If you haven't already read the previous "Wednesday Writings", this is a continuation of a bit of a story I started on writing # 4, so I would recommend going back and reading #4 and then #5 before hopping onto this one. This particular section is somewhat transitory, which is why I decided it was more fair to give it to you today rather than waiting until next week.

Anyway, here we go.

Enjoy.

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Daydreaming Decisions

Gabby glanced at her watch then back at the building. She hated that Julie had a window office. She hated more that she was ditching her best friend when she said they'd meet at lunch. But Gabby just felt like she needed to do this on her own and, although Julie had good intentions, she just wouldn't understand.

Gabby looked up the street, willing the bus to arrive early. Hoping to be able to climb aboard and be gone before her friend looked out the window and witnessed the betrayal. It was at least 45 minutes before Julie would break for lunch, but if she saw Gabby at the bus stop, she would surely leave early to run down and berate her friend.

Gabby glanced back over her shoulder, trying to identify Julie's office in the rows of glass on the second floor. The mirrored windows made it impossible to tell if anybody was looking back at her or not, but she certainly felt as though she were being watched. Finally, the bus rounded the corner and pulled up at the curb. With a final glance back at the building, Gabby adjusted her purse and climbed aboard.

Gabby smiled at the driver and flashed her university issued bus pass before walking down the aisle. The bus was less than half full, the way it usually is midway through the morning. She settled into a seat near the rear of the bus and leaned her head against the window as they pulled away. The day had turned grey. Overcast and threatening to rain. A small breeze nuzzled the trees into motion and Gabby felt like they were waving at her.

She closed her eyes and immediately saw his face again. Work had been more difficult than usual. She felt constantly distracted. Any lull in conversation or activity brought back the blurry memories of the previous night. She had tried to force the memories to take on more distinction. She tried to force herself to remember the supposed kiss that Julie had described. She tried desperately to remember the name of the young man she'd spoken with, danced with, eaten an early morning meal with and even kissed. But no matter what she tried, her memories remained silent on any details that might comfort her or clarify her confusion.

Then she thought about the strange envelope. She'd read the message so many times that she had it memorized. She could see the vibrant gold ink on the almost maroon cardstock. She had studied the formation of the letters like Sherlock Holmes, trying to get some clues from the idiosyncrasies of the letters. She had found a slight hook on the tail of each of the Rs and also noticed that the top of the T was quite thick compared to the other strokes of the pen. After staring off and on for an hour and trying to make something out of the formation of the letters, Gabby finally decided she was being ridiculous. There weren't any clues to be found based on how the letters were written. She couldn't pull some 18th century deductive science out of the air and study the paper and ink to determine who had sent the note.

No, she was completely in the dark as to the person who sent the note, the reason they'd sent it, or how they'd gotten it into her fridge in the middle of the night. She had no idea if any of this was connected to her mystery man from the party, though it seemed like too much of a coincidence to not be connected.

She was jolted back to the present as the bus bumped its way over a set of railroad tracks. She glanced around to gain her bearings. Another 7 minutes and she'd be on campus. Julie would be leaving for lunch in another 10-15 minutes and would almost certainly call as soon as she found Gabby wasn't waiting at the car. She wasn't sure yet what she'd say to Julie. She just wanted to get to school. To get to the library. She felt at home in the library. Felt like she could really think. Like she could really figure things out. She had a class from 2 to 3:30 and another from 3:45 to 4:15. That gave her 2 hours before class to do some serious thinking. And, if she decided to go to the park, another 2 hours after class before she had to catch the bus.

Was she really thinking about meeting him at the park? Part of her was sure the message was from the man at the party. Was this his strange way of asking her out on a date? If so, what did that say about him? Since she couldn't remember anything about him from the party, all she had to go on was the note. And the money. What kind of a man sends a super cryptic message to ask a girl on a date. And includes $100 dollars with it? What kind of girl does he think she is? Worse yet, how did he get it in her apartment? What else did he do while he was there?

Gabby shuddered in spite of herself. She'd tried to think long and hard to decide if she had been drugged. And if she had been drugged, had she been raped? She thought back to her personal protection training. When she planned to go to school in a big city, her mom had made her go to a "Personal Protection Party." She had tried not to laugh at some of the ladies there as they learned how to scream, shout and generally assert themselves. But as the party went on, she felt like she'd learned quite a bit about herself and had actually had fun. She'd gone on and taken a couple of self-defense courses and, while she knew she was vulnerable, she felt a lot safer wandering to the bus stop at night.

From the class, she remembered the discussions about predators and rapes and how to try and get away. She remembered the kinds of evidence and details she should remember and take to the police if she was unable to get out of the situation. Thinking about her apartment and herself that morning, she was fairly certain no one had done anything to her. Which then unnerved her more. Why would someone sneak into her apartment to leave her a strange note with a hundred dollar bill and then not bother to take advantage of her? Was she undesirable? Why wouldn't a crazy man want to rape her?

She shook her head to try and get her thoughts straight.

"You're thinking crazy Gabby", she muttered to herself. She didn't want to be raped. She shouldn't be offended at having been unmolested. Her mind was completely rattled.

She arrived at the school and made her way to the library. She sat down at the computer and the first thing she did was to pull up a satellite map of the park. She went there last summer for a picnic with Barry. It was a big park. It meandered along the north end of town following the path of the river. Her picnic had been in the center of the park near some old historical buildings that belonged to some early settlers of the town or something. Further south, there were volleyball nets and a few basketball hoops. On the north end, by where she was supposed to meet her mystery man, there was a large children's playground with a bunch of slides and swings built around a big old playplace built of logs and bars and ropes and other fun stuff for kids.

At least it looked like a public and safe meeting place. That was one of the key principles emphasized in her protection classes. Keep it public. Keep it safe.

Gabby's phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and found a text message from Julie.

"sorry running behind on project for boss out in 10 min wait 4 me k"

Gabby wasn't sure how to reply, so she just set the phone down and stared back at the map on the computer. She zoomed and panned and rotated the park until she felt like she really knew it.

Now what?

She pulled out the note and looked at it again. She begged it to give her some clue. Something she could work with. She did a web search for red birds. She quickly found images of cardinals and parrots and robins. The bird on the note looked somewhat like a cardinal, though its head wasn't as distinctive as any of the images she found and its body and tail seemed longer and thinner. After paging through many images, she finally found an image of a red warbler in flight. The silhouette was almost identical to the piece of paper in front of her. So the bird was a red warbler.

So what?

Gabby had just started reading up on the distinctive characteristics of the warbler when her phone rang. Even without looking at it, she knew it was Julie. The conversation started out civil enough, wondering where Gabby was, but it quickly degraded into high intensity discussion. Not shouting exactly, but close enough to make Gabby hold the phone back from her ear while she talked. Or rather, while she listened. The first few minutes, she was berated by Julie for running off without her and for being headstrong and stubborn. Then Julie told her that this whole thing was dangerous. That someone had broken into the car. Nothing was apparently stolen, but whoever it was had left a piece of cardboard with the word "ALONE written on it. Julie insisted that they go to the police. The officer who had come to take the report on the break-in agreed with Julie's concern and suggested they make a trip down to the office.

Gabby tried a few times to unsuccessfully break into the conversation. She tried to reassure Julie that everything was alright and she wouldn't do anything stupid. She was just going to class. She had a project to hand in and needed to be there for a group discussion. She tried again and to steer the conversation away from the note or any form of danger. Finally, she told Julie that she had to go to class and she'd call her later. Julie objected naturally, but Gabby hung up the phone and rested her head in her hands.

She wanted to let Julie help her. She just didn't know what to do. Part of her agreed with Julie, that they should go to the police. Another part of her thought it was ridiculous. The police wouldn't laugh at her, surely, but she didn't think they'd be able to do anything. If they took her seriously at all, they might come out to her apartment and look for signs of forced entry. They might even look for fingerprints, though she was sure that anything on the note was indistinguishable by now. They might do some cursory searching for whoever broke into Julie's car, but Gabby knew from experience that car break-ins generally have a low success rate for being solved.

No, Gabby didn't want to go to the police. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do.

Part of her wanted to go to the park. To see what would happen. The smart, safe, rational side of her told her this was crazy. Told her she should stay far away. That even if she did go, she should take a cop or someone for protection.

Looking back to the envelope, she paused again and picked up the hundred dollar bill. What danger was there from someone who broke into her home, without doing any damage, and gave her $100. The meeting was in a very public place. Who knows, maybe it meant more money. Better yet, maybe it would be her mystery man and maybe she could get rid of some of the nagging questions at the back of her mind.

She smiled as she again focused on her mystery man. His gorgeous eyes penetrated her mind and gave her a sense of peace. The feeling seemed to cut through any sensation of confusion or uneasiness. Somehow she felt safe as she imagined him staring at her. She thought about trying to learn more about him but didn't know where to start. She hadn't known anyone at the party besides Julie and Mike. She didn't know Mike that well and felt weird calling him. Julie hadn't known anything about the guy. Why would Mike have known more?

Closing her eyes, Gabby imagined herself back at the party. She saw the man across the room set down his book and turn to look at her. She felt his eyes connect with hers. She felt their strength penetrate her mind and draw her towards him. She watched him walk towards her and she met him halfway across the room. Everything else seemed to melt away. In her mind, there was only him and her. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

And then, he spoke.

"Hello Gabrielle."

His voice was calm and deep. He lips didn't seem to move as he spoke, the words coming ever so softly and yet perfectly clear. She stared at him for a moment unsure if this was memory or imagination.

"My name is Evan. It's so good to finally meet you."

Gabby was still stunned but finally forced herself to respond, still unsure what to say.

"Have we met before?"

"Not only before. But also after. Time is short. Your friends are coming."

The images in her head shimmered like reflections on a pond. Gabby saw the party around her once again. Her memories of the night flitted around like leaves on a breeze. She stepped outside of herself and watched Evan, she finally had a name, lead her to the side of the room where they talked and laughed. She watched as she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room where a group of couples danced. She noted a sideways smile as she pulled him into the group and they danced and danced. She watched the night peel away until finally Julie came up to her and whispered something, then spoke more intently, then finally grabbed Gabby's arm and pulled her out of the room towards the door. Gabby held Evan's hand tight and he trailed along with her. Julie and Mike led the way to the car. Gabby saw herself sitting in the backseat whispering softly with Evan. Then sitting at the diner nibbling on french fries and chocolate shake. Finally, she saw them get back in the car to head home. She watched as Evan leaned over and ever so softly, ever so gently, and yet so full of confidence and power, pressed his lips against her and kissed her softly. She saw herself sit dazed for a moment and then kiss him back.

She tried to replay the scene again and again. To relive the moment. She felt the sensation of his soft lips against hers. She felt her heart flutter with feelings of love. She caught her breath through the pure exhilaration of it all. She found herself smiling broadly and let out a sigh.

Opening her eyes, she looked around the library. A younger girl at a nearby computer smiled at her then quickly averted her gaze. Gabby glanced at the clock. It was time to head to class. How had so much time gotten away from her. She pushed the envelope back into her purse, logged off the computer and grabbed her phone off the table next to her. She had three missed calls, all from Julie. How had she missed the phone buzzing at her side.

She smiled again and put her fingers to her lips. She could still feel them tingling. She chuckled softly and started the walk to class. Her mind was made up. There was nothing dangerous or scary about any of this. She would go to the park at 6:45 and meet Evan. She was certain it would be the start of an unforgettable date.

Wednesday Writings #5 - Commutication Between Friends

I always hate to start out anything with an apology, but for some reason I feel like I should this time. Today's "Wednesday Writing" is a continuation of something I started last week. I'm not apologizing for continuing the story...far from it...I'm glad to have continued on. What I'm apologizing for is that today's post is more of an "exploration" to help me solidify the story in my own mind than it is anything to help adequately progress the story. I felt like I needed to get to know Gabbie (who may change to 'Gabby') and Julie and to get a better feel for what happened at the party. There are still elements that are unclear even to me, but this segment helped me get a better idea of what's going to happen next.

That said, I still like some of the dynamics created in this piece and, even though it doesn't answer any big questions or provide big plot progression, I hope it's still enjoyable.

Moreover, I hope I was able to 'hook' you enough with the first part of this story to make this bit intriguing and give you a desire to come back next week to see what happens next.

As one additional warning/disclaimer...the final ~paragraph of today's writing feels a little contrived to me. For some reason, it begged to be written. But I'm not yet sure if it's going to work out like I expect it to and as such, that paragraph might actually disappear as things progress. In which case, I'm sorry for creating a thread that might not be finished (hopefully it will work out).

Enjoy. (and yes, I did spell it "commutication" as in a mash up between 'commute' and 'communication'...that's just me not thinking of a good title)

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Commutication Between Friends

HONK! HONK! HONKHONK!

Gabbie jumped and shook her head before focusing and realizing that Julie's forest green Mazda was hugging the curb in front of her, a frantic looking Julie waving her hands and, apparently, shouting something at Gabbie. Gabbie flashed an apologetic grin as she stepped off the curb and slid into the car.

Some blend of country-rock blared from the speakers but Julie considerately turned down the volume slightly to question her friend.

"Didn't you see me there? I pulled up forever ago."

Gabbie started to respond but was cut off.

"Man! The light changed. We're trapped."

Gabbie followed Julie's gaze over her shoulder and watched as a steady stream of cars flowed along the road. Gabbie loved her apartment, but the street she lived on was a nightmare for driving. Not only was it the easiest path to get on the highway and commute into the city, but there were three schools tucked away in the nearby neighborhoods so, depending when you left, you could easily get stuck behind car-poolers for kids ranging from kindergarten to high school.

Julie tried to inch her way into a small gap between a little red pickup truck and a blue compact car. The compact leaned hard on the horn and a couple of kids yelled something out their window. Definitely high school hour. Julie finally revved the engine and zipped with a slight screech into a hole that felt too small even for her sporty little car. Riding with Julie always made Gabbie nervous.

"Sorry Jules. I'm a bit distracted this morning."

"Oh. Oh. Yeah, I'm sure you are!" Julie's voice gave a hint of knowing as she spoke. "I'd be distracted too after last night. He was looking' good.."

"Right. Yeah. No. What? No. No."

"Come on Gabbie. From the second the two of you spotted each other, it was like nothing else existed. It was all I could do to get you guys to the diner."

Gabbie's mind raced, her brain trying to remember any specifics about the night. They'd gotten to the party around 9. She remembered mingling a little bit. These were Mike's friends and Julie had convinced Gabbie to go as a favor. It didn't seem like very long before she spotted Him. He had been sitting on the arm of a chair in the living room, reading something from a book to a couple of guys standing around him. As he finished reading and looked up, his eyes met hers. He closed the book and walked toward her, never taking his eyes off of her. Those wonderful deep brown eyes. Those eyes that seemed to know her soul.

The rest of the night was a blur. She could see his face. His hair. His body. His eyes. So clearly. Like she was looking at a photograph. But she couldn't remember what they talked about. She couldn't even remember if they talked. She couldn't imagine his voice. She couldn't remember his name. They must have talked. The party went on for another 3 or 4 hours before they went to the diner. And Julie said they were inseparable.

"Um, yeah. So what did you think of him?"

"What?" Julie was merging onto the highway onramp, snaking through gaps in the bumper to bumper traffic.

"When you got a chance to talk with him at the diner? What did you think of him?"

Julie stared into space for a few moments, unsure how to respond.

"He seemed very nice. Very polite and all that. It was kind of creepy the way he stared at you so much. I couldn't decide if it was a romantic stare or a stalker stare. But when you guys kissed good night…"

"Whoa! We kissed?!?" Gabbie was sure she would have remembered that even if she had forgotten everything else.

"Um, yeah. Are you sure your head's ok? After the diner, I drove everybody home. We dropped him off first. Kind of a dingy neighborhood, but still. Before he got out of the car, he leaned in and gave you a soft kiss on the cheek. It seemed a little more forward than you usually like so I figured you were going to cuss him out and shove him out of the car.

"Instead, you stayed silent, turned your face to him and smiled. You stared at each other for a few second then you leaned forward and kissed his lips. It wasn't a very active kiss. Your lips were pressed against his. He tilted his head forward and closed his eyes. Then…Wow. I sound like a total voyeur. You're acting weird Gabbie. What's going on?"

"Nothing. I was just messing with you. I hoped you didn't see that."

Gabbie chuckled nervously then stared down on the road, listening to Julie yelling at a few random drivers. Gabbie wasn't sure what to think. How could she have forgotten something like that? It had been months since her last kiss. Thirteen months, seven days, to be exact. Her six month anniversary dating Barry, and he gave her a kiss-off and went his way. It took her weeks to get over Barry. They'd felt so connected. And he was a good kisser. Two months after the breakup, she realized she wasn't missing Barry so much as she was missing kissing Barry.

For over a year, her lips had been aching to be kissed. And now, they had been, and she couldn't remember it. The whole night was a blur since she met him. Had she been drugged? Hypnotized? What was going on?

"Did anything seem strange about him?"

"Strange? Like what? Other than his total obsession with you. But you are Gorgeous Gabbie so it's not really that strange." Julie winked at her friend. "So, are you going to see him again? Did you give him your number? Or set up a date or anything?"

"Julie. I'm not really sure what's going on. I…Whoa!"

As the car sped down the offramp, Julie swerved tight to avoid a dingy looking man carrying a cardboard sign and shuffling across the road against the light. Gabbie found herself staring across the rapidly shrinking intersection at a wide-eyed old woman in an SUV. Fortunately the light was red for the oncoming traffic, but Julie had to swerve hard again to avoid a head on crash with the stopped cars. The car skidded up onto the curb and a second later, Julie had hopped out of the car and began shouting scathing curses at the old man who finished walking across the intersection, apparently oblivious that he'd nearly been run down. He didn't even seem to hear Julie screaming at him.

"Julie!" Gabbie leaned across the driver's seat and shouted at her friend through the door. "Julie! Come on! We've got to get to work!"

Julie huffed at the man again and reluctantly pushed back into the car. She was fuming as she maneuvered the car to get them facing the right direction and back on track. Neither girl spoke until they were nearly at the office.

"Julie. Are you okay?"

Silence.

"Julie?"

"I'm fine Gabbie. I'll be fine. I just can't believe that guy. Ugh. Did you see him? He just kept walking like nothing happened. He practically got us killed."

"He nearly got himself killed too. Maybe that was the plan?"

Julie clenched her teeth and kept driving. Gabbie's frustration and confusion were growing Gabbie finally decided she needed to try and find some answers.

"Julie. Um. I need your advice on something."

At first, Gabbie wasn't sure she'd been heard. It took a moment for Julie to respond.

"Sure Gabs. You know you can always ask me anything. What's up?"

Gabbie tried to figure out what to say as Julie worked her way to their office parking lot and began circling, looking for an open spot. She finally pulled into a spot and turned to her friend.

"What's up Gabbie? You're worryin' me."

"I don't…um. Julie, I don't remember the kiss last night. In fact I don't remember hardly anything from last night."

"What? What do you mean you don't remember?"

"I mean, I don't remember. It's like a blur. I keep remembering snippets of things that happened, but it all seems so surreal, like it didn't really happen. I can't remember anything that we talked about. I can remember basic events, but nothing specific. I can't even remember this guy's name."

"Do you think he slipped you something?" Julie reached out and covered Gabbie's hand with her own.

"I don't know. I don't think so." Gabbie shook her head. "I've never been drugged before so I don't know how it works. If he did drug me, I should be able to remember something, before I was drugged, right? I can't remember any particulars at all from the moment I first saw him at the party. I had my own drink anyway, remember? We got smoothies on the way over. How could he have drugged me."

"You sound like you're defending the guy."

"I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just so confused."

"Did he do anything to you?"

"I don't know. Like I said, I didn't even remember kissing him." She watched the concern ripple in Julie's eyes. She wasn't sure about the rest of it, but felt like she needed to talk to somebody. "There's more."

"More?"

"Yeah. This morning, I found a note."

"From him?"

"I don't know. I don't know who it was from or how it got there."

"Got where?"

"In my fridge."

"You found a note in your fridge? Why would somebody leave a note in your fridge?"

"I don't know. But it gets weirder. The envelope was addressed to me. So whoever it was, they knew me. It had a weird note inside it. A bird or something with instructions to meet at the park tonight. But that's not the weirdest part. It also had this."

Gabbie dug into her purse and removed the envelope. She pulled out the note and opened it to reveal the hundred dollar bill.

"What is this?" Julie gaped at the bill then picked it up and turned it over in her hands. "Is this real?"

"I think so. I don't know. I'm so confused. I have no idea what's going on. I don't know if this is related to the guy from last night or not. I don't know what this would mean anyway. Julie." Gabbie's voice broke softly. "Julie, what do I do?"

Julie stared at her friend. There was fear on her face. The hint of a tear bubbled at the corner of her eye. Julie dropped the bill back on her lap and squeezed her friend's hands.

"I don't know. But we'll figure it out together." The two girls smiled at each other. Julie stretched her arms around Gabbie's shoulders and pulled her into a hug. Gabbie pressed her forehead against Julie's shoulder and started to cry. Julie patted her on the back and whispered softly into her brown curly hair.

"It'll be okay. We'll figure this out. I'm sure nothing happened. But we'll figure it out, whatever it is."

After a moment, the two girls sat back up and stared at each other. Julie was the first to speak.

"Do you think we should go to the cops?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think anything happened. Besides, we have to get to work."

"Work? Are you serious." Julie tried to keep her voice from rising to anger, but there was definite frustration in her tone. "How can you think about going to work? No offense Gabbie, but you're a mess. We've got to sort this thing out before you do anything."

Gabbie gathered up the note and the money, shoved them back in the envelope and put the envelope back in her purse. She stared at Julie for a moment. She appreciated her friend's concern. She'd been hesitant to talk with Julie about this. Julie was her best friend but she was so impulsive. She was one who jumped first and looked later. She was always racing around frantically, letting her emotions pull her this way and that. Gabbie on the other hand was generally very calm, collected and methodical. She liked to think things through before doing anything. She was often accused of overanalyzing everything and never being willing to have any fun. Julie had dragged her to the party last night in an attempt to get some variety in her life. Gabbie had reluctantly agreed, more to get away from her homework than to appease her friend. Even in her concession to go to the party, she had thought the whole thing through logically, determining that a break from studying would help her approach her project with a new perspective. Still, Julie was her best friend and was the only one Gabbie felt she could really trust with this.

"I know you're just trying to help Jules." Gabbie twisted in her seat and opened the door before Julie could object. "But really, I think going to work might help me clear my mind a little bit. Help me get some perspective around this and figure out what to do next."

"Gabbie? Come on. Let me at least take you to breakfast. We can talk it over there."

Gabbie stood and got out of the car. She leaned on the door and stooped to look at Julie.

"Meet me on your lunch break. I'll hang around and wait for you."

"Wait for me?"

"It's school today, remember? Short work day. I've got class at 2."

Gabbie shut the car door and started walking around the front of the car. She looked through the windshield and tried not to laugh as she watched Julie muttering to herself and frantically grabbing her purse from the backseat before hopping out of the car and running up to walk beside Gabbie.

"OK. You can work until lunch. And then we're leaving. We'll go figure this out."

Julie wrapped her arm around Gabbie's shoulder. Gabbie just smiled and leaned her head towards her friend.

"You really are a great friend Julie. Thanks so much."

The girls pushed through the office doors, walked across the lobby and turned down different hallways towards their individual departments. Back in the parking lot, a dingy looking man with a cardboard sign wandered from the bushes and tried to open the passenger door of Julie's car. Finding it locked, he smashed the window and whipped the door open. He riffled through the glove compartment and knelt to feel around under the passenger seat. He then stood up and stared at the office building before turning and running back to the nearby bushes where he sat down, leaned against a tree and pretended to sleep.

T-minus 3 weeks - Recap of the 13 year road to graduation

Wow...so about 13 years ago, I was admitted to the University of Utah. I attended my first classes in Spring Term of 1997 and was excited to be in school. I had a number of transfer credits and AP Test credits...so, as far as hours were concerned, I officially started school as a Sophomore.

And now, 13 years later, I am finally about to graduate with my Bachelor's Degree in English. In looking over my transcript, there were a number of calendar years where I took no classes at all and there were many semesters with only 1 class. Part of me is depressed that it took me so long to finally get through with a ~4 year degree.

Even though it took a while, I'm actually very happy with the way things turned out.  True, it took me more than a decade to get a Bachelor's degree...but let's look at what's happened during those 13 years.

When I started school, I was a newlywed (~3 months married). I was bouncing between jobs (spent time packing/stuffing/shipping vitamins, selling board games at the mall, flipping burgers at McDs, selling music/games/videos at Hastings, and working as a substitute teacher).

Within that first year, I was hired on at a video game development house on the tech support staff and worked up into the Testing department...which turned out to be one of those "major breaks" you hear about, because it set me on a career path (different from my goal of being a High School Teacher, but we'll get back there). The company I worked for was bought out by Microsoft which brought significant financial changes as well as some new opportunities. The work schedule was hectic and made it difficult to balance school, but it provided some great training and helped hone some skills it would have been hard to learn elsewhere.

My wife and I took many fun filled road trips around the Western U.S. and even a couple back east. We went to a bunch of plays and concerts and other fun filled events. Had I been going to school full time and pinching pennies, there's no way we could have done all we did. We had tons of fun.

About 3 years into school, we had our first child and things changed yet again. Because I was working for Microsoft in the heyday of the Technological Upswing, we had fabulous medical insurance...we didn't have to pay a dime when Jason was born, and Microsoft even sent gifts of congratulations when he was born. A few months later, we decided our small one-bedroom apartment was going to be tough to raise a kid in and so we went house shopping and purchased a wonderful home in a great neighborhood. The following year, our second child was born. We continued to take family vacations, a little trickier with very young children, but still a lot of fun.

At this time, I tried to dive into school with a little more regularity. For a couple of years, I don't think I missed a semester and I pushed my hours up into the 'mid-Junior' range. Things started shaking up a bit in the technology world. The dot-com bubble burst. There were some big layoffs at work and eventually Microsoft sold our division. Still, things were going well for myself and my family. We managed to avoid the layoff and kept a moderately stable job with good salary and decent health benefits. Our third and final child was born (a girl this time) and we decided that our family was complete. We kept taking great family vacations...showed the kids what Yellowstone, Disneyland and the Grand Canyon were like. Our oldest started school and the others followed shortly after.

The tech world got bumpier, particularly in our arena ('sports video game development' - Amped Snowboarding, Links Golf and Top Spin Tennis) and I went to work one day to find a couple of bouncers sitting next to the door with a note taped on it indicating that our studio was closed. Through some old connections, I found a job relatively quickly. I actually transitioned through a couple of jobs and eventually landed at FranklinCovey where I've been for the last ~3 years. The career shakeup made it feel more important to finish school, if for no other reasons than to have the diploma in hand and to not have classes hanging over my head any more (not to mention the fact that some of my original credit hours were nearing their "expiration" and new requirements were being added). So I started going every semester again. I modified my major since I couldn't imagine working 'Student Teaching' around a full time job.

And now, 13 years after I started, I'm counting down the days to graduation. Looking back, I don't know that I would have changed a thing. There were so many great opportunities found and memories created that wouldn't have been there if I'd just done the full-time school thing and pushed through in ~4 years. There are tons of great friends that I would never have met. Things would have been very different. I plan on attending the graduation ceremony...I've taken a few "graduation surveys" for the school, and a lot of the questions/comments don't really apply to me since I've already got a family/home/career/etc...but I still figured that this was an accomplishment I should make the most of.

So, in 3 weeks, I'll be sitting through a couple of hours of lectures from school and department heads, telling us about how to use what we've learned to plan for the future and what we can expect and do in the 'real world.' Lynette has offered to throw a party for me...I think that'd be fun, but I'm not really sure what to plan. A barbeque would be fun but with the way the weather's been lately, I'd be nervous about it. Still, we'll probably do something.

In any case...here's to a great 13 years of school. Thanks to the teachers and students at the U for providing me a wealth of knowledge and experiences. And thanks to everybody I've met and known over the past years. I wouldn't change a thing. Most of all, thanks to Lynette for continuing to support my slow progress through school. I truly couldn't have done this without your support. Thanks so much.

Review - Right Ho, Jeeves!

My wife and I stumbled across the 1990s Jeeves and Wooster TV series years ago and absolutely loved the show. We've watched them again and again with a ton of amusement. Since then, I've read snippets from some of the stories and really enjoyed the writing as well (showing that even though Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry are fabulous actors…that the story/writing itself is astounding). Right Ho Jeeves was my first time with an entire novel, and it was fabulous.

For those unfamiliar with the Jeeves/Wooster story dynamic, the idea is that you've got Bertie Wooster who is a well-to-do bachelor living in England in the 20s/30s. Jeeves is his 'gentleman's personal gentleman' who, in addition to being an excellent personal valet helps solve the crazy problems that Bertie and his friends get into. The writing is tight, witty and great fun.

In Right Ho Jeeves, Bertie has decided that Jeeves has lost some of his skills and tries to solve his friends' and relatives' problems without Jeeves' help. Due to Bertie's often bumbling and clueless nature, he generally causes more problems than he solves. The result is a wild romp through the verbal slapstick of British humor.

I absolutely love the characters in the story and their outrageous personalities. The dialog is hilarious and I laughed out loud on a number of occasions. My only real complaint is that there are sometimes where the dialog is so quick that I, for a moment, lost track of who was speaking, but that was quickly resolved and easy to work through.

I acknowledge that "British Humor" is not something that everyone enjoys. But if you have the slightest inkling towards it, or if you just want to try out some funny writing about social and mental hijinks, then give P.G. Wodehouse's books a try. I can definitely recommend Right Ho Jeeves and, even without reading them, suspect that the other books will be equally hilarious. If you want to try watching some of them first, you can find a number of clips on YouTube or can buy the entire collection. This particular book was translated to TV in two episodes at the end of season 1.

So, if you're feeling a little smaltzy, melancholic or just fed up with life's malarkey, then slap yourself into a chair and fix your peepers on Jeeves & Wooster. They really are the cat's pajamas.


4.5 out of 5 stars

View all my reviews

As an added bonus, here's a link to a clip from Season 1, Episode 4...a clip that takes place about midway through the book (by now, Bertie has gotten his plans well underway and things are really in a mess). It's about 10 minutes long and may have be a bit of spoiler on the novel, but it gives an idea of the very straight/deadpan humor that is so characteristic of the book. Great fun. Enjoy.

Wednesday Writings #4 - Morning Machinations

Morning Machinations

Gabby groaned as she slapped the snooze button then pulled her thick down comforter up around her ears and rolled over. Her head was thick and heavy. She tried to remember the details of the previous night. She remembered the party, the dancing, the trip to the diner after the party with Julie, Sam and, what was his name? She remembered meeting him at the party and dancing with him. Oh how she remembered dancing with him. But what was his name? She couldn't remember. Grinning, she decided that for the moment, it didn't matter.

She conjured up his face and felt smile widen. The lighting at the party had been dim, but now she threw a spotlight on him for full examination. His black hair was cut short and styled nicely, flowing and bouncing with his movements. His face was long with a tall, skinny nose and pronounced jawline. His lips were full but not thick and she remembered the night before she had caught herself staring at his mouth while he spoke, watching the precise movements of his lips. But it was his eyes that had caught her primary attention.

His brown eyes had a sensitive, caring depth to them. It often looked as though they were closing ever so slightly. Not as though he was squinting, but just an added expression of concentration or concern. His eyes focused on her intently every moment they were together. Whenever she looked at his eyes, she felt as though she were the whole and complete object of his attention. While their glance was dedicated at her and seemed intent on gathering her in completely, the look wasn't overbearing or frighteningly penetrating. Rather, it was full of concern, attention and caring. As he looked at her, she felt, for the first time in a long time, as though someone, him, was genuinely and completely interested in her.

A glaring blast of voices from the morning radio show interrupted her thoughts. With a sigh of exasperation, she forced her eyelids open a slit and pressed the OFF button on the clock radio. Her eyelashes fluttered reluctantly as though trying to pull themselves back to a fully closed state. With a huff, she threw the blanket aside and vigorously rubbed her eyes to add some clarity to the hazy morning scene. Automatically and with a yawn, Gabby shuffled out of bed, plopped her glasses on her nose and ears and wandered to the bathroom.

She watched herself in the mirror as she contorted and stretched her face widely and extensively to get the blood flowing. She watched her glasses wriggle above her nose as she sqrunched up her eyes and forehead and then stretched them out as far as possible while opening and stretching her mouth into strange wide circles and ovals. Her morning exercises ended when she realized how ridiculous she looked and let out a small chuckle followed by a sigh and shake of the head. A few splashes of cold water and she was truly awake.

Checking the hall clock, she decided to have breakfast before getting dressed. Still a bit groggy from the night before, she meandered to the kitchen and pulled out the carton of juice. She should have been more shocked at the envelope taped to the side of the carton, but she was still a bit groggy. She gave it a sideways glance and then pulled it off and turned it over in her hands. It was a plain white envelope, empty except for a long strip of tape and her name written in meticulously well formed block-capital letters: GABRIELLE

Fiddling with the envelope, she glanced around her kitchen and even stared out the small window over the sink. Stepping back to the hall, she looked at the door with its bolt and chain in place. She thought back to the previous night and distinctly remembered riding with the group in Julie's car back to her apartment building and then walking upstairs and into her apartment alone. She couldn't think how anyone could have put the note on the juice. Or why.

Grabbing a glass from the cupboard and pouring some juice, Gabby sat down at the table, grabbed an apple and took a bite. Then she turned over the envelope, slid her finger under the flap and tore it open. Inside was a folded piece of heavy red paper. Unfolding it, a smaller bit of folded paper fell out which she immediately recognized as the color and consistency of a dollar bill. She dropped the red paper and picked up the tightly folded green, yellow and white. Unfolding it, she found that it was indeed money, but not a single dollar bill. With a slight gasp, she dropped the bill on the table and stared at it. Staring back at her with his high bald forehead and 18th century mullet was Benjamin Franklin.

After staring for a moment in disbelief, she remembered the red paper and picked it up again. Unfolding it completely, it was about 7 inches around and was the shape of a bird in flight. Written in vibrant gold ink with the same block lettering as on the envelope were the words: RIVERSIDE PARK. NORTHWEST BANK. MIDDLE BENCH. 6:45 PM

Gabby scanned the message again and again, now holding the note in one hand and the 100 dollar bill in the other. She racked her brain over what she saw before her but couldn't make any sense of it.

A sudden burst of sound behind her made her jump. Jolted from her trance, she quickly recognized the sound as her cell phone notification of a new text message. It was from Julie: want a ride 2 work

The message quickly brought her back to reality. Looking at the time, she realized she was way behind schedule. There was no way she'd be ready in time to catch the bus. She tapped the keys on her phone: yeah thx give me 10 min

She set the phone on the table beside the red bird, the green bill and the white envelope. She still didn't know what to make of any of it. But she didn't have time to figure it out. Taking another bite of her apple and a large swallow of orange juice, she hurried down the hall to get ready for work. Ten minutes later, she was on the sidewalk in front of her apartment, scanning the road for Julie's car. Inside her purse, a crumpled envelope held a folded hundred dollar bill, a red paper bird with a cryptic message and the entirety of Gabby's attention.

Contest! Help me, help you...and WIN!

OK, so this is kind of a round about thing but here's the deal. In my last blog post I gave info about a sale on an iPhone app. Now, I do legitimately think this is a cool book and a cool app. But, beyond that, I am part of a little contest. You see, there are ~50 versions of that link and we're tracking to see who can get the most hits. The winner gets a little prize.

Now, I realize that particular iPhone app may not appeal to all of my blog readers. But hopefully those who are intrigued by it will click the link and go learn more.

Now for the "hook" for the rest of you. I would love to have all my followers...and your friends...and your friends' friends...click the link and help me win.

That's a rather self-centered goal though.

So...if I happen to win this particular contest...then I will run a contest of some type within the next couple of weeks. The exact nature of my contest is yet to be determined as is the prize...but I will strive to have a prize value of at least $20 and to make the prize available internationally.

So...help me win (I've got a ways to go to catch the leader) and I'll host my first contest here on this blog.

As an added incentive....if/when I do run my contest, I will give 5 bonus entries to anybody who posts this link http://bit.ly/cGdrau somewhere and then comments on this post showing me where it was posted. I'll even increment it...so if you post it in 2-3 different spots, you'll get 10-15 extra entries.

So Click Here to get started...then tell your friends. And in the coming weeks, I'll host a contest to help reward your efforts.

Thanks.

One-day-Sale - Cool iPhone/iPod application - Great Work, Great Career

A few weeks ago I read and reviewed the book 'Great Work, Great Career.'

I felt like the book had plenty of great information, suggestions and advice and it came at a very relevant time. The job industry has gone through major upheaval in the past decade…even in the past few years/months. This book really provides some great reading to help work through those changes.

Anyway, in addition to the book, FranklinCovey has developed an iPhone (or iPod Touch) application that builds on the content presented in the book. I know we've all read books like this and made notes or nodded our heads and thought "those are great ideas….someday I'll try to implement them." Well, this iPhone app takes some of these ideas and wraps them into a nice interface where you can begin to put them into practice.

It's a cool application with sections for "Know Your Strength" which includes self assessments to help find your own strengths), "Define Your Contribution" (including tools to help match your strengths to your career prospects), "Build Your Village" (tools and advice for networking your career relationships), and a number of "Resources" and "Action Center" tools to help you along the way. There are also a number of FranklinCovey videos to reinforce the content.

All in all, this is a pretty cool application.

As an added bonus, I just received word that they as an incentive to try and get the word out, FranklinCovey is offering this application at nearly 50% off the standard price.

Today only (April 13, 2010), you can use this link to get more information and purchase the app for only $2.99! Even if you're not job hunting now, the tools and resources can help you improve your skills and reputation at your current job. Feel free to pass the link to friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc….anybody you think may benefit from this.

In addition to the information available from the link above, you can use this link to view a video presentation of some of the features. The video may require installing a plugin to fully view it. I'm looking for an embeddable and/or youtube version of the video.

Whether or not you decide to purchase, you should at least click over to the site and check out the information.

Let me know what you think.

Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced - Thoughts on Awards?

Well, the 2010 Pulitzer Prizes have come out. And I haven't read any of them.

I'm definitely not among the literary elite. I try to read a few books a month and, while I enjoy the pulp fiction and best seller shelves, I try to keep my reading varied and eclectic. Still, I haven't ever really gotten into the Pulitzer Prize much. I'll sometimes take a look at the National Book Award but even then, I tend to put more credence in more genre specialized awards (like the Poe and Hugo Awards or the Newberry or Caldecott Medals).

The New York Times lists the fiction prize winner Tinkers as 'The One That Got Away' because that NYT editor didn't read/review it...but now plans to.

I think awards can be a great way to help get some well deserving books the attention they deserve. But how do you decide which awards to care about? And even if a book wins an award you care about, how does that suggest you're going to like the book? I thought once about setting a goal to read all the books that won a particular award. I had similar thoughts once about trying to watch all the movies that won the "best picture" Oscar. Then I realized, that there were a lot of winners that I had no desire to read/watch.

Reading is often a very personal thing. While awards or "best seller" lists may help bring some titles to my attention, it takes reading synopsis or book flap info or reviews or even skimming a few pages to decide whether I want to invest in a book.

What about you? What do you think about book awards? How much do they influence your decision to seek out a book to read.

Catching up - San Francisco Bay Area

Wow...a week in the Interwebs can feel like an eternity sometime. ;)

For those who didn't notice (and even for those who did), I was away from general Internet and blog usage for the past week. I was attending a training in the San Francisco area and, while I did have some internet connectivity, it was pretty pathetic (I did a couple of bandwidth checks and I probably averaged ~30kbps most of the time...yikes). So, apart from some quick email checks to make sure there were no fires to put out at work, I stayed mostly offline.

The training was alright...it started out a little dry/slow and made me worry at first that I should have signed up for the more advanced class. But by the end of the second day, I saw some good potential and by the end of the week I had learned some cool things and felt like it was really worthwhile (I've actually used some of the knowledge already on this, my first day back at work).

The class was ~9-5 each day which left me the evenings free. The training was a few miles south of San Francisco proper (just a little south of San Mateo) which meant that getting out at 5 provided some crazy traffic depending on the direction I wanted to go.

The first day, I headed west to the coast. I've got some definite 'beach bum' tendencies, so it was only natural that I made a beeline for the beach. I spent the evening in Half Moon Bay as well as driving along Highway 1 a bit and making a few pit stops here and there to watch the ocean splash on the sand and rocks. I found a little restaurant by one of the pier's and had some great Snapper.

The second day I made a trip to Oakland to see the temple there. The San Mateo bridge and subsequent roads were pretty packed, so I got there just as the sun was dipping in the distance (the westward view from behind the visitor's center was pretty cool). Still, I was able to go in and do a session as well as wander the grounds a bit. Unfortunately the timing didn't let me do much in the visitor's center which looked pretty cool based on the brochure. It was pretty late by the time I got back to my hotel.

The next few days I alternated time between downtown Frisco and some beaches. I walked up and down the streets of Chinatown, spent a few hours in Union Square (had a fabulous burger at the Burger Bar in Macy's), drove out to Pacifica and walked barefoot along the beach for an hour or so, drove along the Great Highway past Cliff House (would've stopped, but it was my last night and I really cut things close) then into the Presidio and over to Golden Gate Bridge.

Based on the time left on the last day, I didn't want to risk taking time to go to Fisherman's Wharf. (next time) So I headed towards the airport down Van Ness, stopping once I got to the city center (walked past the opera & symphony houses), had dinner at Max's and then got to the airport 45 minutes before my plane left (there was a warning as I was checking in saying that check-in deadline was 45 minutes...I finalized check-in with ~1 minute to spare).

All in all, it was a good trip. I took a bundle of pictures and may eventually post them up. I would have much preferred to have my family (at least Lynette) there with me...but it was a matter of either "what do we do with the kids if we leave them home" or "what would she do to keep the kids occupied during the day while in Frisco"? We'll have to figure it out next time so they can come.

The Future of Publishing

Check out this cool video on the "future of publishing." I've seen similar poems/videos before. Aside from the creative style, this has a cool message I felt like sharing. Enjoy.

Wil Wheaton talks about imagination, friendship, gaming & more

Below is a cool keynote from Wil Wheaton at PAX East last week. It's lengthier than your standard bite-size-you-tube clip, so prep yourself for an hour or so of watching. It takes a couple of minutes to get going, but it has a great overall message.

He talks about his childhood and experiences growing up. Over at his blog, he gives an excerpt that sort of epitomizes the message he's trying to send.

Gaming is the foundation of the best friendships I’ve ever had, and it’s the mortar that has held my group of friends together for almost 25 years...
...
When you play a game - any game - you’re using your imagination to bring a world to life, and that’s truly special, because while all destruction is essentially the same, when you create something, it’s different every single time. When you create something together, you’re building bonds with your fellow gamers that could last for your entire lives. The Venn Diagram of my best friends, my gaming group, and people from high school I still hang out with is one perfect circle. I suspect that for many gamers of my generation, that’s equally true...

I'm all for the power of gaming to bring people together. Gaming definitely increases brain power in many ways...from creativity and imagination, to strategy and analytical analysis. It creates social environments for people to interact by increasing those same skills.

Of all the many things I collect and hobbies I engage in, my game collection is the one I'm most excited to bring out and share with family and friends.

So, pop some popcorn and listen as (Wesley) Wil Wheaton talks about imagination, friendship, gaming and more.

Enjoy.


PAX East 2010 - Wil Wheaton Keynote from Matt Waldron on Vimeo.