Week 4 Jorunal 2

Years since I was born : 32

Years since I was able to grow facial hair : 14

Months since I actually tried to grow facial hair : 4

Weeks it took my wife to notice I was trying to grow facial hair: 1 ½

Average fluid ounces of pop I drink in a given 24 hour period: 78

Chances that I will have to help with a computer problem at work in a given week: 100%

Chances that my mother or aunts will call me with a computer problem in a given week: 75%

Number of computer programming languages I know: 12

Number of human languages I know: 1

Number of people in the world I would trust with my life: 4

Week 4 Journal 1

I get angry when the same mistake is made more than once.

I am happiest when my daughter runs across the room when I get home from work, and yells “Daddy!!”

I am afraid of committing myself to more than I am capable of.
Being laid off changed me.

I want the world to realize that regardless of how different we are, we are stronger united than we will ever be divided.

Sometimes I miss having fewer responsibilities.

I often wonder who I would be now if I had chosen to pursue music as a career instead of computer science.

Derek chuckled to myself quietly as he pulled his jeep up to the guardhouse. An 18-foot electric fence stood across the roadway. The weathered sign on the guardhouse read “Wilkerson Farm. Authorized Entry Only. No Foods, Liquids, or Uncontrolled Animal Matter Past This Point”.

“Wow. These guys really are crazy. I can’t believe Lou talked me into this assignment.”

It took almost a full hour to get the guard to let him in. The 6-hour drive from the news office had resulted in a pretty deep pile of empty soda cans, newspapers, and fast food wrappers. The guard stood and watched with a satisfied grin on his face as Derek shoveled out everything other than his camera out of the car and into the dumpster behind the guardhouse.

Once the guard and dumpster had had their fill, he was allowed to proceed. About a hundred yards beyond, an earthen berm blocked the view to the rest of the complex inside. The jeep lumbered over the berm to find yet another checkpoint with another electric fence.

Finally inside, two men greeted Derek. One carried a cattle prod. The other had a large rifle slung over his shoulder.

“Welcome to my farm. I’m Alan Wilkerson,” said the man with the cattle prod, motioning me towards the first of a series of barns.

“Derek McIntosh, Kansas City Chronicle. Most farmers don’t have lab coats, or armed guards.”

“True. Most reporters have don’t have to play cameraman too. Let me guess… First assignment? It took me five years just to get a newspaper to send someone out here. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they sent me the cub reporter.”

“Right, right,” Derek said, waving his hand dismissively, “So why couldn’t this ‘amazing breakthrough’ be discussed on the phone? What exactly are you doing here?”

Wilkerson stopped at the door of the first barn. He looked over his shoulder at Derek for a moment, with a sly grin on his face, and then slid open the large door.

Without warning, Derek was forced to the ground by a tidal wave of feathers rushing from the barn. Dazed, he rolled onto his back and looked up in terror as the head of a rooster stood almost five feet above him, eclipsing the sun.

Larger than an ostrich, the rooster looked down quizzically at the man on the ground before him, and bent down for an inquisitive nibble with its giant beak, removing his shoe. Two other large hens also moved in to investigate.

“Hey!” Wilkerson shouted, jabbing the cattle prod into the side of the rooster. The rooster let out an unworldly squawk and dashed over to the other side of the complex, where a large grain elevator stood. The hens quickly followed, milling around the base of the elevator expectantly.

Wilkerson offered his hand to Derek and helped him to his feet. “Sorry about that. They get a little jumpy around feeding time.”

Derek had no words. He just watched, transfixed. Another “farmer” emerged from behind the grain elevator, driving a front-end loader full of corn. The tractor hadn’t even stopped before being mobbed by the giant birds.

Finally, he remembered his camera, and began snapping pictures. Wilkerson picked up a foot-long tail feather that had fallen on the ground during the altercation, and held it out to Derek.

“So, was it worth the trip?”

Derek took the feather. “Mr. Wilkerson, I believe you just made this cub reporter’s career.”

I don't know why I remember...

I don’t know why I remember skipping classes in the theater during high school. Most of the kids who had activities in the theater had keys to get in there whenever they wanted. The keys were copies of copies of copies; handed down from each class of students before them.

The theater administrator turned a blind eye, as the previous administrator did when he was a student. He sat in his office in the far back of the auditorium all day, while we remained in the areas backstage. I honestly don’t know if he ever really did any work aside from granting excuses for absences at the end of the quarter for “theater activity work” for missed classes, in exchange for the free labor we provided.

Meanwhile, we would use the backstage as our private locker room and clubhouse. Many simply hung out in the Green Room and relaxed or wasted away the day. Homework was done, gossip was traded, and relationships ended as quickly as they began.

Some, like I, did a little work for the theater to justify skipping that last class. We would spend time organizing stacks of stage lighting gels, adding a coat of paint to an incomplete backdrop for the next production.

Lovers would sneak off into the dark corners of the storage areas; where remnants of past plays and sets were stored; stealing moments of intimacy on an assortment of ancient mattress or couches.

From the theater, we would descend into the catacombs of the school. Filthy, unlit crawlways of pipes passed beneath the halls that the rest of the students walked. Yet we passed beneath their feet; unseen.

When the theater was used, we watched the audience like hawks, keeping their gum and feet off of the seats and walls; student, parent, and teacher alike. We guarded that theater like it was holy ground, because it was. To us.

Ron Carlson Writes a Story

Having never made a concerted effort to write a short story before, I found this book very enlightening. Whenever I’ve tried to make up a story, I’d always get to “that place” where, as the writer puts it, I needed to get some coffee. I’m not a coffee drinker, but the metaphor still holds.

“Staying in the room” is continuing to write when you are at that point where you are not sure where the story should go next. By keeping track of the “inventory” of the environment and characters you are creating, you can keep searching for the story through those creations and let it lead you to where you are trying to get the story to go (or maybe even somewhere you had no plans of going).

When we did our first freewriting exercise for this course, I found myself quickly needing lots of coffee. I knew the premise of what I wanted to write, but I couldn’t get myself there. I had a couple false starts where I did go “get coffee”, and finally forced myself to stay in the room and get it done. Without realizing it, I had used my inventory to get me through the exercise… The “paper” in the first sentence I had decided to use. I used it to get myself from the first sentence to the story I wanted to tell.

The three biggest things I think I pulled from reading this exercise were:

1. Build up your inventory from the beginning of the story, and use it to get you through from “scene” to “scene”.

2. Don’t stop just because you are stuck! Fight! Look for that next sentence. Walking away to distract yourself from it for a while will just break your concentration.

3. Don’t get hung up on proper names of characters, locations, streets, etc. when you are pounding out your first draft. If the name doesn’t come to you immediately, just grab a suitable placeholder out of the ether (a “Mickey” or “Doris”), and run with it. You can always search-and-replace a better name into your story later.

Closer to Memory

My first memory in life is my fourth birthday party. My friends and I were all seated around the kitchen table, freshly gorged on cake and ice cream. I don’t remember most of the presents… in fact, I only remember the last one.

The sun shone brightly through the patio door on that brisk autumn day, and we were anxious to get outside and play. “But wait, there’s one more present,” my mother called, as my father brought in a large decorated box, larger than I was.

Giddy with excitement, I raced over to the box. “Don’t shake it!” my mother cautioned! Curious, I laid my ear against the box. A gentle, persistent scratching sound came from the box.

“A puppy!!!” I screeched, searching for the opening to the box. The top popped open, and inside, among a pile of shredded newspaper, a tiny grey-and-white puffball appeared, looking up towards the light in the opening.

“Mew!”

“Oh. It’s a cat,” I muttered.

After all my friends had gone home, it was time to introduce the kitten to the rest of the family; Fido, the 180-pound St. Bernard. The kitten sat quietly on the floor as my parents stood nearby for the introduction.

As Fido approached, the kitten looked up and asked, “Mew?”

Towering overhead, the St. Bernard sniffed the kitten. He pondered for just a moment, and then quickly scooped up the kitten in his mouth, with only a grey fuzzy tail left dangling out.

“No!” my mother yelled, with a sharp swat to the back of the dog’s head. The kitten tumbled back out onto the floor, soaked in slobber.

The cat never forgave the dog for that moment, regularly chasing the huge dog around the house, slashing and biting at it’s ankles for the rest of their time together.

101 Word Story

Fourth grade baseball. The first, and last, year of my storied career.

“Ball,” the umpire called, as the first pitch sailed past the batters box, far from its intended target. The next two pitches were even farther outside.

“Well, I know where this one’s going”, I thought to himself, as the pitcher scowled towards the plate. Before the ball even left his hand, I turned my back to the mound.

I looked right at the umpire’s face as the baseball landed squarely between my shoulder blades.

You never have to learn how to hit the ball… if it always hits you.

Of Beginnings and Audiences

I read about it in the papers, in the subway, on my way to work, I read it and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again. There it was, the second-biggest secret in the history of mankind, in black-and-white on every newspaper headline on Earth.

"Sources: Secret Moon Base Listens For Signs of Alien Civilization"

With the newspaper folded neatly under my arm with my other papers, I walked quickly into General Murphy’s office. "General, I…"

The General’s shot an even sterner look at me than usual, and pointed angrily at his speakerphone. I silently moved to stand by the chair near his desk as the voice at the other end of the call continued, "so you are absolutely certain that this leak did not come from your command?"

"Yes sir", the General responded, "there is no way this could have been communicated from here without being detected."

"Very well. Jackson out."

The General keyed the receiver on the phone. He reached for the bottom drawer of his desk, and produced a bottle of whiskey, capped with glass. He began pouring a glassful as he looked up at me and said, "Well, Doctor? Tell me I didn’t just lie to the President."

"You know as well as I do how tightly communication is controlled here."

"Yeah? What about that makeshift radio confiscated from one of your scientists last month?"

"That radio had no transmit capability. I could barely pick up a signal from a kilometer away, let alone send one over three hundred thousand."

The General swallowed his glass of whiskey, and roughly grabbed the newspaper and documents under my arm.

"What of this then? You’ve read it by now I hope. You saw the level of detail?"

"Yes. Obviously someone with knowledge of the site…"

"Some knowledge!? There might as well have been a picture of the two of us at the ribbon-cutting ceremony four years ago!"

He crumpled up the papers and fired it across the room. It made a quiet thud as it hit the wall, and we watch as it rebounded slowly back into the center of the room, settling gently back onto the General’s desk.

We looked at each other for just a moment. The General cracked a wry smile. "Damn it. You’d think I’d be used to the gravity here by now."

Tirade over, the General finally motioned for me to sit. "I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m not accustomed to intelligence leaks from my command. Especially when it’s the biggest secret the world’s ever known."

"Actually, sir, I’d say it’s the second biggest."

He stopped momentarily, and stared at me as if to open my soul. "Second biggest?"

"Well, the newspaper article said we were listening for signs of alien civilization," I said, as I uncrumpled the newspaper on the desk to remove my other documents from the wad. "It didn’t say what we found last night."

The General sat back in his chair. "Oh hell," he said, as he reached into his desk for another glass. "You and I are going to need at least one more of these before we call the President back."