Hey! I’m blogging from the newest restaurant in town. The food is yummy!

It doesn’t multitask (yawn), there’s no camera (yet) and it doesn’t render flash animation, but it fills a niche that most people seem to be overlooking. The iPad is for the bifocal set. It’s a big iPod Touch with big buttons and the ability to have big text.

It will have a camera at some point. It might even get blessed with a front facing and a rear facing camera at the same time. Apple might even surprise everyone and sneak a camera into the first model that is still 2 months away.

I don’t need flash support. Lots of people don’t need flash support. The loss of the moving advertising and flashy websites won’t be mourned very loudly. I surf the web for information that helps me learn something or make money. I know that there are a bunch of neat games to play on the web that are flash based, but I don’t care. I don’t have time for it.

Pick up your iPhone and feel how thin and solid it is. Move some things around the screen and open an app or two. It’s a great little chunk of technology and the iPad is more of the same. When you pick one up in the Apple Store this summer, you’ll want one, even if it isn’t perfect.

The male flight attendant thought I looked like Drew Carey and wanted me to “do” my impression of him which I have none.

Hey I am here!

ding ding ding…
I crossed the 50,000 word line today, but I have a little bit more write to finish the story, which I’ll do tonight or tomorrow. The online shopping juggernaut is in full effect and I’ve got to get to work filling orders and helping out. Enjoy another excerpt of the madness:

When Little Cecil graduated from college, Big Cecil bought him a plane ticket and a Eurail pass so he could travel around Europe, just as Big Cecil had done. Little Cecil returned to the United States in the spring of 1999, which was a time when Big Cecil had entombed himself in his apartment, never venturing out as he had a dread fear of the Y2K bug. Little Cecil hadn’t heard about his father’s paranoia and expected him at the airport. After waiting for several hours on the curb, he called his grandmother.

By this time in her life, the only way she made it through the day was to drink a one and a half liter bottle of chablis after lunch. This left her in a semi-functional state until the next morning, but she always believed she was capable of anything in her inebriated state. Little Cecil’s call came at 9:00 PM, while Darlene was watching television and trying to stay awake.
“Hello Cecil darling,” she said.

“Can you come pick me up at the airport?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, your father won’t leave his apartment,” she said.

“Why?” Little Cecil asked.

“The bug!”

“His car? He doesn’t drive that thing.” he asked, knowing that his father hadn’t driven it years.

“No, the bug! The Y2K bug!”, she yelled.

Little Cecil told her where he was waiting and she got into her car to pick him up. She only made it to the intersection above the freeway when she nodded off and went careening down the hill through two red lights. When she crossed Eastlake Avenue she t-boned the truck that Sheila’s mother was driving, killing her instantly. Darlene was still barely alive when the paramedics arrived, but died on the way to the hospital.

Carrie Jackson was on her way to pick up her husband and her daughter who were too drunk to walk after spending the day at the Eastlake Zoo, a tavern only five blocks from the accident. They were celebrating Sheila’s twenty first birthday with a beer bender, leaving the family feeling guilty about Carrie’s death to this day. In the settlement with Horatio Willis, the mortgage on their crab boat was paid off with a fair amount of money left over. Still nothing compared to having Carrie alive.

The police eventually broke down the door of the Willis mansion as Horatio was deaf by this time and couldn’t hear the phone ringing. When they woke the old man up, he wrote down the phone number for his son Cecil, who was finally persuaded to leave his apartment with assurance that all the computers in the world had at least eight months of functionality remaining. Little Cecil took the bus home from the airport and came home to an empty house with the front door hanging of its hinges and no sign of his grandparents. He went up to the turret room of the mansion and watched for someone to come home.

The rest of the trip to West Seattle was uneventful, but it left Tom a nervous wreck. Suzi could sense his unease and wondered where his sense of adventure went. He didn’t breathe a calm breath until they had pulled into Suzi’s garage and the door had rolled down behind them. He opened the door and got out of the car, waiting for Suzi to follow.

Suzi pulled off her sweater and threw at Tom through the open door. He felt the sweater hit his legs and reached down to grab it off the floor. He looked up and saw Suzi still sitting in the driver’s seat, now completely naked.

“How about if we take the car for another spin now?”, she asked, shaking her hair, thinking it would look even sexier.

“I’d rather just carry you up to the bedroom,” he said running around the car and pulling her door open.

Although she was glad that he had relaxed within the safe confines of her house, she wished he could have enjoyed the ride as much as Gretchen had the other night. When he lifted her out of the car, she felt his strong arms and muscular torso through his dress shirt. Her own arousal showed her that she still wanted a man in her bedroom, for now. Tom tossed her on the bed and pulled off his work clothes to join her. They made love and then spooned together, until Suzi remembered her latest piece of art.

Suzi squeezed Tom’s hand and whispered, “Do you remember the ten commandments?”

“Which ones?”

“How about the tenth?”

“I don’t have a clue. Is it ‘don’t take the lord’s name in vain’?”

“No, it’s the one about not coveting what your neighbor has,” she said, rolling over to face him.

“I haven’t been coveting anything that I can think of,” he said.

“I was just asking if you had that tidbit locked in your brain,” she said, poking his forehead.

“Is this regarding your neighbor’s car?” he asked, remembering how much she liked the sports car that the guy on the corner had.

“Nope, in this case, it’s about a french fry,” she said wriggling out of his arms and sliding her feet onto the floor. “Get dressed. I want to show you something.”

Suzi bounced into the bathroom where she threw some clothes on. She came back out and watched Tom put his slacks and dress shirt on, stopping him when he went to pull on his socks.

“Come on, you don’t need your shoes or socks,” she said grabbing his hand.

She led him out of the bedroom and over to the kitchen where the stairs led down to the basement.
“Now, close your eyes. Put your hands on my shoulders and follow me down the stairs,” she said spinning around to lead him.

Tom was a good sport and didn’t peek the entire way down the rickety wooden stairs. He smelled the familiar smell of glue and other chemicals that would fill the basement when Suzi was doing her taxidermic art. Suzi told him to stand still as she lifted his hands off her shoulders and went to the light switch.

“Open your eyes!” she said in the darkness.

“I can’t see a thing. It’s pitch black down here,” he said, playing along with the show.

Suzi started raising the dimmer switch, slowly increasing the amount light that shone from the halogen track lights above her workspace. Tom saw the bird taking shape in his vision and then realized that it was posed in mid air, reaching for a french fry that seemed to float in front of it.

“How did you do that?” he asked, the wires invisible in the low light.

“Watch,” she said, bringing the lights to their fullest power.

With the lights shining he could see the delicate wires that allowed the bird and the french fry to float above the driftwood base. He walked around the piece admiring it. He thought it was much better than the series of desiccated reptiles that Suzi had completed the month before.

“I like it a lot,” he said, clapping his hands a few times.

“It’s The Tenth Commandment,” she said proudly.

I got the brushes app for my ipod and here’s a strange little painting I did


“Hey Tom, can you cut out of work early?” she asked her boyfriend on the phone from his parking garage.

“How early Suzi?” he replied.

“How about now?”

It was 2:45 in the afternoon and Tom generally worked until 6:00. All the other principals were out golfing that afternoon so Tom figured that he could leave the office to the staff without any problems.

“Where do you want to meet me?”, he asked.

“I’m in the parking garage next to your car,” she said.

“Oh, why don’t you come up while I put things away?”

“I’m not wearing any pants,” she answered.

Suzi had gotten quite a rush when she stripped off her pants in front of Gretchen, and she wanted to see if she could recreate the feeling with Tom in the car. Suzi had dated Gretchen before she met Tom, and they parted ways amicably, even raggedly, with some feelings still drifting around their heads. Suzi felt guilty about getting aroused with Gretchen, but wasn’t sure if Tom would be comfortable with such a show of sexuality outside a darkened bedroom.

“What, you don’t like your skirt?”, he asked, confused.

“No, not that. I’m naked from the belly button down. Come take a look,” she said, surprised by the loud click when he hung up his office phone.

Tom grabbed his suit jacket and whisked out of his office. He told his secretary that she could get him on his cell phone if anything came up, and that he’d been in early in the morning. He ran down the two flights of stairs to his floor of the parking garage and pushed through the fire door that opened in front of his parking space.

Suzi was sitting in her car, looking fairly normal with a bright yellow sweater on. She just smiled and waved when he looked her way, then beckoned him with one finger. The side windows of Suzi’s car were tinted, so he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary until he opened the door. When he bent down to get in he saw that Suzi was indeed sans pants.

“What do you think?” she asked.

He couldn’t formulate a response until he had taken the entire picture. Her yellow sweater was a tight, short angora knit that ended just above her perfectly shaped belly button. Her legs were so smooth, just glowing from spa treatment. Then she opened her legs and touched her freshly trimmed pubic hair.

“Um, wow,” was all he could say as he sat down.

“Come on Tom, I deserve some actual words don’t I?”, she asked, rubbing her hands down her thighs.

“Yes, please?”, he said.

“Your place or mine?”, she asked.

“Don’t care. Just drive while I watch,” he said, starting to get a little more comfortable.

Sheila went to her favorite part of the greenhouse, the desert room. This wing of the conservatory had all manner of succulents and cacti. A lot of the plants had small, colorful blooms since the summer had been so sunny. She just slowly walked through, admiring the plants until she saw some strange movement through the glass.

There was someone climbing on the top of her Duck. He had pulled the staircase down and then continued to shimmy up the stanchions, getting up on the roof. The man was jumping up and down while some of her passengers stood on the lawn of the museum and watched. Sheila almost knocked a couple of elderly ladies making her way out of the greenhouse, but then she ran back to the boat yelling.

“Hey! Get down!” she yelled, getting closer.

The man turned saw her running his way, but he continued his rampage. He leaped into the air and when his feet crashed down, one of his legs shot through the roof. He sat there stunned for a moment and then started pulling his leg out.

“I’m calling the cops! Get off my roof!” she screamed when she got to the entry stairs.

The man pulled his leg out of the hole and saw that Sheila was on the rear stairs. He made his way to the front and jumped onto the hood of the vehicle and then to the sidewalk, tumbling right in front of the tourists who thought that it was pretty good theater. Sheila jumped down from the stairs and ran towards him.

He got up and and shook his fist at Sheila, shouting “Keep at it and you’ll end up like your friends!”

Then the man turned and ran with surprising speed into the trees next to the museum. Sheila tried to follow for a short time, but gave up and went back to the boat. By this time all of her passengers were standing on the lawn, looking at pictures that a couple of their friends had taken of the excitement.

“Hey,” Sheila said, out of breath, “can I get a copy of some of those for my boss?”

“Yes, we can copy to computer. Very easy, all digital,” the man with the camera said.

Sheila went on board the boat and pushed the pieces of the roof under the last row of seats. She rocked the boat back and forth with the roof stanchions and it all seemed stable, so she figured that it would be OK to continue the trip.

“The fun’s over! Let’s get going,” she said, waving them back on board.

The remainder of the trip went as planned and she pulled into the station with a happy boatload of customers. She made sure to keep the man with the digital camera in sight when everyone waddled off the boat.

“Excuse me, can we copy your pictures now?” she asked him.

“Sure, need computer, very easy,” he said.

Sheila waved for him to follow her inside and she found The Padre sitting at the computer in his office.

“We need to download some pictures from this gentleman’s camera. There was a crazy man up at Voluteer Park who damaged the roof of my boat,” Sheila told The Padre.

“What did he do?”, he asked.

“You have wi-fi?”, the tourist asked.

“He jumped on the roof and punched a hole in it,” Sheila said.

“Yes, I have wi-fi. Did you catch him?”, The Padre asked.

“Card name, Suki, for wi-fi,” the man with the camera said.

“Only on film, so to speak. He ran off before I could grab him,” Sheila said.

“Suki? What?”, The Padre said.

“Let me do,” the tourist said, squeezing his way behind the desk.

He certainly knew his way around the computer desktop, and had the memory card in the camera talking to the computer of the wi-fi network in no time. All of the pictures on the card showed up on the screen and he dragged a copy of all the photos of the criminal to The Padre’s hard drive.

“All done,” he said, closing down the connection.

Sheila didn’t have much to hide or even clean up in her tiny apartment, so she just laid on the bed and read a magazine, waiting to see if the cops showed up. They never did and she fell asleep in her clothes on top of the blankets. When her alarm went off in the morning, she slammed the clock to turn it off, jumped up and went to the intercom.

“Hello?” she said into the handset.

When there wasn’t even the hint of a noise coming from upstairs, she looked the clock and realized what had happened. She just looked at her work outfit, all wrinkled from being slept in and sighed. She put her slacks and shirt over the shower rod, hoping that the steam from the shower would flatten the creases. It kind of worked, but she still had to do some ironing. By the time she had gotten her clothes to look presentable, she knew she was going to be late, so she decided to see if Marie might be going to work sometime soon and give her a ride.

Sheila walked up to the second floor and knocked on the door, “Marie, it’s Sheila.”
She heard something moving across the floor from inside the apartment, then the locks started clicking. When the door opened, it was Stefan trying to make out who he was looking at.

“Hey, uh Sheila. Marie’s already at work over at the New City,” he said, pushing his hair around his head.

“Oh, I was going to ask if she could give me a ride. I’m late.”

“I can. Let me find my shoes. Here’s the keys, go put your bike in the van,” he said, kicking things around the room, looking for his sneakers.

“Thanks,” she said, grabbing the keys and running down the stairs.

Sheila grabbed her bike out of the closet and went down the front stairs. She laughed when she saw the van, still in kidnapper motif. She had just gotten the back doors opened when Stefan walked up behind her.

“Hey let me start it up while you get settled. It runs a little rough in the morning,” he said, hopping in through the back doors.

Sheila got the bike in and closed the doors right as the cloud of blue smoke was threatening to invade the interior of the vehicle. “Looks like you might need some valve seals,” she said as she sat in the front passenger seat.

“That’s pretty low on the priority list for this vehicle. How did you know that keys only worked on the back doors?” he asked, gunning the engine and coaxing the beast into drive.

“Lucky guess,” she said, wondering if it wouldn’t have been faster or safer to just have ridden her bike. “Do you actually have any candy in here?”

“Yeah, look in the glove box. I put some fun sized bars in there a while ago,” he said.

Sheila opened the glove compartment and grabbed a miniature Butterfinger bar out of the bag. “I just wanted a prop in case we get beside someone on the way,” she said laughing.

“Good one. Let me catch up to that bus,” he said, pushing the van over the speed limit.

They pulled up beside the Metro bus and Sheila held the Butterfinger up in the window. It took a few seconds, and then the groggy commuters started pointing and laughing at the joke. Sheila even saw a couple people trying to capture the moment with their cell phone cameras.

“Hey we might be on the internet!” she joked to Stefan.

“I’ve been internet famous. It doesn’t really pay,” he said.

Stefan pulled the van into the parking lot of the garage before she could ask him about his electronically based fame. “Tell me that story the next time I see you, OK?”

By the time Sheila had gotten out and walked around the van, Stefan had already crawled through the cargo area and was holding her bike out for her to grab. “Sure, just remind me. It’s really not that exciting,” he said standing in the open rear doors of the van. “Happy sailing!”

“Thanks, and thanks for the ride. It’s got me back on schedule,” she said with a wave.

The Padre walked out the garage just as the van turned back onto Airport Way. “Interesting paint job. Is that a new boyfriend?”

“No, he’s the boyfriend of my new friend Marie,” she said, holding out the tiny candy bar and smiling.

“Well, I do appreciate truth in advertising,” he said, walking back to the rig he was going to drive that day.

For the next hour or so, Ted did his best to keep charming the two women while Cecil just barely endured the self inflicted torture he was going through. He had lived such a sheltered life that at 23, he hadn’t even kissed a girl yet. Ted decided that he would have to press Cecil a little harder, so he suggested that they all take a drive in his new car.

The four of them piled into Ted’s VW and Ted decided to drive over to Dick’s Drive In on 45th. Cecil sat in the back with Darlene and had to keep leaning into the side of car to avoid Darlene’s wandering hand. He just watched in amazement as Ted put his hand on Katherine’s shoulder, or her bare knee, without even asking, and she seemed to like it. Ted took one left hand turn extremely quickly and Cecil found himself slided into Darlene.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, trying to slide back over to his side of the bench seat.

“I hope we have some more corners like that,” she said putting her hand on Cecil’s leg and trying to pull him back over.

Cecil just giggled in discomfort and hoped that they would arrive at the restaurant soon. He couldn’t imagine how this situation might turn out if this woman kept pawing at him. Luckily, the orange neon of Dick’s lit up the condensation on the rear windows of the bug before Darlene had a chance to molest Cecil any further.

Katherine pulled at the handle on her door to get out, but the door wouldn’t budge. “Is it locked?” she asked, pulling up on the little knob and trying the handle again.

“Oh, hold on. That door needs to be fixed. I’ll open it,” Ted said, getting out and opening the passenger door from the outside. “I’m sure it’s still under warranty, sorry about that.”

Cecil started to climb out of the rear seat and Darlene grabbed his ass before he was able to jump out onto the pavement. He just looked back at her, smiling, and then she blew him a kiss. Although Katherine was the prettier of the two girls, Darlene seemed like she was hot to trot, which made Cecil even more nervous. He knew Ted had a girlfriend and probably wouldn’t want to do anything serious with Katherine, but Ted had already told the women that Cecil was available.

They waited in line in front of the big glass windows of the drive in. Ted pulled Cecil over to his side and whispered in his ear, “Hey, that Darlene wants a piece of you. How about that?”

Cecil looked over at Darlene, eyeing her ample bosom and curvaceous hips, not really knowing what he would do with them if he had a chance. She caught him looking and gave him a wink. “She seems like she might be a little more than I could handle,” he whispered back in Ted’s ear.

“She’s a pussy cat, you can always knock her over the head if she gets too frisky,” he whispered back, punching Cecil in the shoulder.

“Hey Darlene, Cecil was just telling me how much he likes your ass!”, Ted said to Darlene.
“Well, that’s a bit forward,” Katherine said in mock disgust.

Cecil just cowered, hoping that he would just vanish, or get beamed up by Mr. Scott on the Enterprise by mistake. Anything that could get out of this strange alternate universe he was adrift in.

“Come over here and tell me yourself, honey,” Darlene said, cupping her breasts in her hands.

This was the last straw for Cecil Willis. He held up his hands and back away from Ted and the two women. When he tripped and fell backwards off of the curb, they all just started laughing at him. He got up and just started running back across the freeway to his apartment. He didn’t care what Ted, or Darlene thought, he just wanted to be alone.