Goin' Mobile

Since I wasn't able to get a computer like I wanted, I thought maybe I could spend my income tax refund money on a cell phone. I got something in the mail from AAA that had a special offer. It was a Kyocera phone that looked like a silver bullet. It was available through Verizon Wireless and was practically free. One of the features was that it had a button to contact AAA directly in the event of an emergency. It looked like I would be getting a good deal on this.

I called the number and told the representative I was interested in getting the phone. She commented about how someone had brought this phone to the office to show everyone and a lot of people wanted it. She asked a lot of questions and then she said she was going to have to do a credit check. I told her we might run into a problem here because I had just been denied credit at Gateway. She said something to the effect that they use the same credit check system as Gateway, so she wasn't very optimistic about the results, either.

After a few moments, she said, "Guess what? You can get THREE phones!" What? Why did Gateway run me out on a rail then? But this was good news. I was going to get a cell phone and join the 21st century.

The package was delivered a few days later. The first thing I did was plug in the charger. The phone wouldn't come on. I didn't know why. Reading the directions, I found out that I needed to have the battery inserted before anything would happen.

After I got it to turn on, I tried to figure out how to get a dial tone. I was pushing the green "call" button, but I didn't hear any noise. I then read the directions and found that I needed to punch in the number I wanted and then hit the green button. I called my landline phone from the cell phone. That worked! However, I tried to call the cell phone from the landline. I could hear it make a connection, but the cell phone wasn't ringing. Fortunately, there was a number I could call for technical assistance. Within one minute, they had the cell phone ringing and working. Time to play with my new toy!

One of the first things I discovered was that the button that was programmed to call AAA was actually the button that was supposed to be used to call my voice mail. This wasn't very smart. I mean, I'm going to call my voice mail far more often than I'm going to call AAA. I feel sorry for anyone who has their car break down more often than their friends leave messages. I was able to reprogram it.

One of the cool things about the phone was that I could program a different ring tone for each contact. This was the most fascinating aspect, getting to match the available tunes to my friends' personalities. All the tones were recognizable tunes (and included "Happy Birthday") but there was one song I couldn't figure out. One night, I was driving through Arizona and listening to NPR. They played a recording of Mussorsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." I was aware of the title, but never heard the piece. I suddenly realized this was the melody and assigned that one to Abed's wife, Qued, who was an aspiring artist.

The first person I happened to call on the phone was Abed. I walked up to his door and then called him. I told him I was coming over and immediately knocked on the door. He was shocked! When I ran into other friends, I would show them the new phone and tell them I had joined the "idiot brigade." It was funny because up to this point in my life, I thought people with cell phones were stuck up and materialistic. I had suddenly become one of them.

The plan available at this time was that I had a limited number of minutes I could use between 7am and 7pm and unlimited night and weekend minutes. I didn't have long distance. When I looked at the coverage map, it appeared that I could call anywhere in Southern California and it would be considered a local call. I thought this was a good thing. I was able to call Chud and some other people without having to worry about paying extra. But I was wrong. SO VERY WRONG! When I got my first bill, I went through the roof! In addition to the astronomical sales tax (which I wasn't expecting), I had a huge amount to pay for the calls to LA. When I called Verizon, they said something to the effect that the map didn't indicate the local calling area, just the coverage in Southern California. (Years later, I received a credit from a lawsuit. I assume it was related to this deception.)

For long distance, I had a calling card that I was able to program in the phone. That kept my bills from getting any higher.

Everybody I've ever known says the same thing about cell phones: "How did we ever get by without them." I recall the worst 24 hours of my life and think about how so much of that wouldn't have happened if I'd had one and there was an available wireless network.

The odd thing about this phone is that I only had it for one year. I then received an offer from Verizon Wireless for a free phone and plan that would include free long distance. The only problem was that the nighttime minutes didn't begin until 8pm. This would be the first in a long series of phone changes over the next several years. (And no, I'm not going to track those.)

I cannot compute

With my job and my salary rate, I figured it was time that I got my own computer. I was tired of going over to Lestat's and paying $1 for ten minutes of Internet usage. In addition, Abed and Qued, who had a computer, got kicked off their ISP after he wrote a bunch of angry posts and got reported.

Gateway was advertising that they were financing computers for $28 a month. I figured I could afford that. (After all, the almost daily trips to Lestat's was costing me at least $30 a month. I may as well put that money toward something substantial.) In addition, I had just received my income tax refund and wanted to treat myself.

Gateway had a location in Mission Valley. I went in the store and looked around at the models they had available. I approached the sales desk when there was no line. I told the gentleman I was interested in financing a computer. He got my information and ran a credit check. In April 2001, I was a little less than seven years clear of my bankruptcy, but I figured my chances of being approved for credit were pretty good.

A couple of minutes later, he said, "I'm sorry, but your credit's been denied." I couldn't say I was too surprised by this. "Okay... What about if I made a down payment?" (I had about $300 from the refund.) "It doesn't account for that." "So, are you going to show me any computers?" "No, I'm not." He stopped talking to me at that point and turned to the people behind me in line.

I was stunned. I mean, it was bad enough that my credit got denied, but that guy acted like I had wasted his time and he didn't want to spend one more second with me. It made me wish that my refund had been $1500. I would have slapped that cash on the counter and told him, "Look! I have enough money to buy a computer right now! I just don't want to spend it all at once. But if that's what I have to do, I'll spend it all now!" And then, he would likely say, "Oh, I'll be happy to show you around..." And I would go, "No! You expect me to give you my money after you treated me like that? I'll go somewhere else, thank you!" It's too bad there was no way that was going to happen. All I could do was sulk out of the store.

I kind of felt like I'd experienced a little bit of revenge. That location closed a few months later along with a lot of other Gateway stores. The Internet boom went bust and there were a lot fewer people buying new computers. I'd like to think that if they treated potential customers with a little more respect and provided more leeway on their credit, they might have been able to keep themselves afloat.

I swore I would never do business with Gateway. About five years later, I finally bought a brand-new computer. It was an eMachines brand and my main reason for purchasing it was because there were a lot of rebates that cut the price to nearly half. I was proud that I was able to make this purchase. However, I soon found out that Gateway had recently purchased eMachines. That meant my money went to Gateway. DAMN IT!

After that, I always research the brands when purchasing a new computer. What's really bad is that Gateway is still in business. They're not the same company they used to be, but it still ticks me off that they've managed to scrape by. At least I know that they burned through the money they got from me a LONG time ago.

Friend Zone Tease: Mimz

You might notice this is a category I've never used before. And to my knowledge, Mimz is going to be the only person it applies to.

It had been more than a year since I'd talked to Fraz (after she reneged on letting me borrow her vehicle for work). One Friday night, I was outside Lestat's waiting for a band to start playing when Fraz suddenly rode up on her scooter. She said hi and asked me how I was doing. I didn't know how I felt about letting Fraz back into my life. Even though her actions could have caused me to become unemployed, I was able to find a solution and not miss any work. It really had little impact on me in the long run. I just rolled with it like nothing had happened and decided it wasn't worth rehashing.

She told me to save her a seat while she went inside and ordered something to drink. I found a table outside. Sitting nearby was a woman. She was rather cute, had short hair and round glasses. She was holding a book. She sort of smiled at me as I sat down and went back to reading.

Fraz came out and we started catching up. As you may be aware, Fraz can be rather loud. Every once in awhile, the woman would look up from her book and pay a little attention to what Fraz and I were saying. Eventually, Fraz started involving her in the conversation. Somehow, Fraz had gotten the idea I knew the woman because I was sitting so relatively close to her. She told us her name was Mimz. Fraz told her that Lestat's currently had her bird photographs on display. This was something I hadn't noticed, despite my frequent visits to Lestat's. I guess I didnt' always pay close attention to the art they had on the walls. I usually just went there for the music and any events that I got to be a part of. But Mimz seemed to be impressed with Fraz' work.

At this point, the conversation got to be less between Fraz and me and more between the two of them. I started finding Mimz attractive and thought I would have a chance with her. The only bad thing was that she probably thought Fraz and I were a couple. I really didn't know what to do. Mimz left first, leaving me and Fraz together. I gave Fraz my new phone number and expected us to continue our friendship on the same terms that we had before. The only thing was that I knew I wasn't ever going to be able to borrow her car.

I still kept thinking about Mimz. I wondered if she might like me. I remembered that she said something to the effect that she frequently went to Lestat's. I thought there might be a chance she would show up there the next night. On Saturday night, I went over there and ordered something to drink. I hung out for a bit, but I didn't see her. Then I went to the bathroom. When I came out, she was sitting at a table inside. My patience paid off!

I went over and sat down. I said, "Hey, Mimz. Last night, I was trying to pick up on you, but it's something I'm not very good at. I was just wondering how you felt about me." She replied, "Well, I'll admit that I kind of liked you, but I'm not really looking for a relationship right now." "Oh, okay..." "However, I am relatively new to San Diego and I could use some friends, so if you're up to being a friend, maybe we can do that."

I'd been used to being Friend-Zoned my whole life, so it was nice to have a woman be upfront about her intentions. We continued talking.

If I remember correctly, she used to live in Portland and worked at a Starbucks there. When she decided to move to San Diego, she stayed with Starbucks. She wanted to work at a location that wasn't very busy. She soon found out that she had been tricked into working at the one with the highest sales volume in all of San Diego County. (But I don't think there's any such thing as a slow Starbucks, to tell you the truth.)

She told me she was 23 years old. If there was a possibility this was heading toward a relationship, I would have seen my age of 36 as being an obstacle. But since we were going to be friends, she didn't treat it like any big deal. I didn't feel I had anything to worry about.

I gave her more information about Fraz. I told her we had been friends for a few years, but the night before was the first time we'd spoken to each other in more than a year. I told her about the falling out we had and that the last thing I expected was for her to come whizzing up to me. I then said, "At the very least, I hope you didn't think we were double-teaming to try to talk you into a threesome!" Mimz responded, "Actually, that thought did occur to me." (So was she thinking, "I'm not looking for a relationship, but I sure could go for some kinky sex right now!"?)

Then this other guy I'd seen around Lestat's came by and sat down. His name was Jird. It was clear she was familiar with him. He was talking, but it wasn't about anything in particular. And he wasn't being funny or charming or anything. But Mimz seemed to be paying close attention to everything he was saying. Now, I was getting worried.

They decided to go to Rudford's to get something to eat and invited me to go. But we were doing the exact same thing we were doing at Lestat's, except getting food cost more money. I wasn't too thrilled with that. That also means this wasn't a date and I was constantly feeling like the third wheel.

At some point, we all left and I went home. Mimz and I did not exchange phone numbers. She said that when I wanted, I'd be able to find her at Lestat's. I went back a couple of days later, but she wasn't there. A couple more days and I did come across her there. She was talking to someone outside. I got her attention and waved, and she looked back at the person she was with and gave me this really weak gesture of a wave. It looked like she didn't even want me in the Friend Zone. It was more like the "We Happen to Be in the Same General Area" Zone. That's pretty pathetic.

I would still see her from time to time after that. She would attend some of the performances Abed and I did at Lestat's. But it seemed like she was more there to see Hend, a third person who frequently participated in our shows. Mimz and I would talk a little here and there at the shows, but I knew that was all there was going to be.

I never got her last name, so I have no way of tracking her down. But when you're never really friends with someone, that's how it usually turns out.

Flamin' Hot Lips!

Late in 2000, I made a significant dietary discovery: Flamin' Hot Cheetos! To me, they were something new. However, some research I did shows that they actually came into existence in 1992. I don't know why I never saw them before, but I never really was much into Cheetos as a regular snack. I remember as a child, if my family was grilling hamburgers, I would put a few Cheetos on mine to make it a cheeseburger. (For some reason, we never had cheese slices on our cookouts.)

When I was in a snacky mood one day at work, I saw Flamin' Hot Cheetos in the vending machine. I decided to give them a try. There was definitely truth in advertising here. They were HOT! I'm usually not too impressed with a lot of foods that claim to be spicy, but I was taken aback by this. Flamin' Hot Cheetos suddenly became my new favorite snack.

The vending machine was usually stocked with them, so I wound up eating a bag every day. I looked forward to my break time, when I would buy a single-serving sized bag and enjoy.

After a couple of weeks, I noticed I was having an issue with my mouth. My lips were starting to chap and peel. I didn't know what was going on. After a couple of days, it got worse and I realized that the fine red powder from the Cheetos was probably seeping under the skin around my mouth. Even though I washed my hands and wiped my mouth every day after eating them, I wasn't removing all the powder. That hot chili concoction was irritating the tender areas of my face!

I had no choice but to stop eating them, at least on a daily basis. I felt like I was going through withdrawal when I couldn't have my daily fix. But my lips returned to normal after about a week. I could still enjoy the Flamin' Hot Cheetos every once in awhile, but I knew I could never go back to eating them every day.

I did find a somewhat suitable substitute with the Chester's Flamin' Hot Fries. They had the same flavor and the powder didn't come off of them like they did the Cheetos. But I never found them as satisfying. And it was so hard to go back to regular Cheetos. They just tasted so bland now.

Research I've done shows that some people who have eaten a lot of them saw their stools turn red and they thought they were bleeding. There were other gastric issues that were written about in articles. But everything I saw made no indication that people got chapped lips from them. Was I the only one this happened to?

So I only eat the Flamin' Hot version about once every few months. I'd HATE to see what my mouth would have looked like if I had continued to eat them every day.

(And I should add that the story behind Flamin' Hot Cheetos is pretty interesting. Click here to read an article.)

Friend Zone #14: Tez

I first became aware of Tez when I met Fraz for the third time during Starve Theatre at El Campo Ruse. She played guitar and performed backing vocals as part of a duo with Leaz, the organizer of the monthly open mic event. She was thin, had long, dark hair and a cute, round face. She appeared to be in her late 20s/early 30s. I didn't talk to her that night because I was concentrating on my contribution to the open mic and getting to know Fraz more.

A couple of weeks later, Fraz and I were hanging out and she told me about a party taking place at Leaz' apartment. We went over there and hung out. I saw Tez there. It took me a minute to remember where I'd seen her before. After this, I started getting more and more involved in Leaz' other poetry and art events. Tez was usually at these. We started talking to each other more. It was during this time that she revealed that she was in her late 40s. I was shocked!

I started getting the idea that maybe she liked me, but I was nervous about bringing it up in conversation. I called Leaz and left a message for her asking if she could give me Tez' number. She called and left a message on my voice mail, informing me that Tez had a boyfriend who was a jazz musician. Leaz said that guys would frequently develop crushes on her and ALWAYS ask her for Tez' phone number. But she said that she would give my phone number to Tez and we'd see where it went from there.

Fraz told me that Leaz griped to her about me asking for Tez' phone number. Fraz said something to the effect of, "Don't take this the wrong way, but she's really disappointed that you did that." Take what the wrong way? Was Leaz interested in me like that? Maybe I was interested in Leaz, but I guess I just blew my chance at that. At any rate, I never did get a phone call from Tez.

In February of 2000, I was taking part in another of Leaz' poetry and music events at Lestat's. I knew Tez was going to be there, so I brought these Valentines to give to both of them. Tez said, "Wow! This is great! This is probably the only Valentine I'm going to get this year!" I was expecting that she would follow that up with, "That scumbag I call a boyfriend never gives me Valentines." But she did not say that. I saw this as a good sign.

Shortly after that, I had acquired tickets to see "Phantom of the Opera." I asked Tez to go with me and she agreed to go. I asked her if Leaz had given her my number. She said she had, so I told her to call me if something came up. The afternoon of the performance, I hadn't received a phone call from her. I decided to check the voice mail for my Ogolon Records business. She left a message saying she couldn't make it. THAT DAMN LEAZ! She gave Tez my voice mail number instead of my actual phone number. She didn't want her to actually make contact with me. This was how I wound up taking my ex-girlfriend instead and got a traffic ticket.

On the bright side, Tez actually left her phone number on the message. I called her the next day. She said she was sorry about cancelling and she also said, "Oh, and I want you to know I have a boyfriend." I said, "That's okay. I understand he's a jazz musician." "Yes, he is!" And that's how I ended up in the Friend Zone.

We continued to be friends and hang out after that. I learned a lot about her. She enjoyed folk music and wrote a lot of songs about silkies. Even though she looked fine, she actually had a large number of health issues. While she did not have the face of someone her age, if she wore something that exposed her arms, her age was quite apparent. She told me that she had a twin sister, but she smoked and looked considerably older.

The strange thing is that I never saw her boyfriend. I knew his first name and that he was in his 60s, but I didn't know who he performed with. And he certainly never came to any of the events that Tez played at. What I was aware of is that Tez had A LOT of guys in the Friend Zone. I even met a few of them. I always wondered how she felt, being that age and having so many men desire her.

We did get to go on an actual date (by my definition, anyway). I had bought two tickets to a concert featuring a well-known group from the 80s. (This was one of the shows that I wanted Molz to attend with me.) I thought I would give Leaz that shot and told her I was going to see that group. I thought she would say something like, "Hey, I'd like to go see them." But her reaction was that she never liked that group. There was no point in asking her. I then went to Tez, told her I had the tickets and invited her to go with me. She agreed to. I guess that she figured I wasn't going to try any funny stuff, so she didn't have a problem doing something with me.

And she did not cancel on me. We went to the show at 4th and B in Downtown San Diego. We both got something to drink and sat down at a table. When the show was about to start, we separated. I went close to the stage and she went into the back where the seats were. I had paid for standing room on the floor, but everyone was on the floor, including those who had paid for seats. She just sat down in a seat and no one bothered her during the show.

Tez and I were able to find each other afterward and drive home. She enjoyed the performance, even though it wasn't her kind of music. Just before we got to her apartment, I guess I had cut in front of another car and the driver honked the horn at me. The next thing I knew, the car was right behind me and took the same turn I did. "Shoot! He's following us!" Tez got a little freaked out. I made a couple more turns and the other driver finally went another direction. I guess that person wasn't following us after all. Whew!

I had later gone to a concert by myself at the Sports Arena. I found out later she was also at that concert because one of the other guys had invited her. (But I paid more than $100 for my ticket, so I knew there was no way I was going to buy another seat "just in case.")

I don't know what has happened to her. She doesn't really have much of a presence on the Internet. Leaz once shared a old photo of the two of them on Facebook. What little I found amounts to an obituary of her father who passed away in 2007. It showed her as a surviving child at the time. I also came across something that seemed to indicate that someone with a name close to hers had passed away not long after that. I can tell you that I'm not about to ask Leaz to find out. I have no desire to rip that wound open again. (UPDATE: I have confirmed that Tez did pass away. It does sadden me that I'll never see her again.)

However, we did get to go on another date, and that led to me meeting another woman. I'll go into detail about that in a future post.

Things go whizzing past!

Sometimes, I'll be out with my son and he'll remind me of what it was like to be a kid.



I wonder how long he'll continue to be excited about things like this.

Loyd comes for another visit, Part 2

Loyd and I had just spent a couple of quality weeks together. He had his own money to spend, so it wasn't costing me a lot of money. We were having a good time hanging out and doing things together.

The only bad thing for Loyd not being someplace permanent was that he wasn't able to vote in the 2000 Presidential election. I thought maybe there was a chance Loyd might be able to vote if election materials had been sent to the previous resident. (He had passed away, which was how I was able to move into the apartment. I should note that he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, not in the apartment.) There was a chance his name hadn't been removed from the rolls, and if it hadn't, we were considering committing a little election fraud. However, I guess the San Diego County Registrar of Voters was on top of things and received proper notice that he had died. We never did receive those election materials.

On Election Day, I was able to go out and vote. On Election Night, I took Loyd to the biggest free party in town! It was Election Central at Golden Hall in Downtown San Diego. I always loved going there. All the important people are gathered in one place. TV and radio stations are there doing live broadcasts. There are all types of activists there from every level of the political spectrum. Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians and other fierce independents. People were marching around with signs and these elaborate puppets. Everybody does whatever they can to get on TV and push their agendas. In addition, there's free food all over the place. They say nobody goes hungry on Thanksgiving? Well, Election Night is a warm up to that!

But that was nothing compared to what happened in the Presidential election. We weren't prepared for not knowing who won right away. It just felt like Election Night never ended, except we didn't get any more free food. Every day was an exercise in frustration as we couldn't get any solid news about who was supposed to be our next President. And it got worse when it started becoming apparent that Bush was going to beat Gore. I never imagined that happening.

Loyd's money ran out and we were starting to get on each other's nerves. We knew that the time had come for him to go back to New Mexico. Even though he had taken out a want ad in the newspaper, he still wasn't able to sell the trailer. That meant he was going to have to take it with him. That was going to burn up more gas.

We had to wait until my next payday so I could give him some money to get home on. Even though I had a decent job at the time and was making a good amount of money, this still created a little bit of a hardship for me. But it was something I knew I could live through

He went to put gas in the car, but there was a problem. Since his car had been rear-ended a while back, he had never opened the trunk. He knew that if he opened the trunk, he wasn't going to get it close again. When he went to fill up with gas, he thought he was pulling the lever for the gas tank. He wasn't. He pulled the lever for the trunk and it popped open. Sure enough, he couldn't get it to close. This meant he was going to have to find a way to tie it down so it wouldn't come open while he was driving on the highway.

He did manage to do that and was about ready to leave. But it was raining very heavily that day. As much as I was ready for him to leave, I did not want him to drive in unsafe conditions. I had him stay one more night. The weather cleared up and he was able to leave the next day.

But the Presidential election took longer than that to clear up. In fact, I don't even think it ever cleared up.

Loyd comes for another visit, Part 1

It had been seven years since my brother Loyd had come out to stay with me. He had stopped to see me a couple of times since then, but they were usually quick visits. October of 2000 was the first time I'd seen him since his heart attack. He was moving back to New Mexico and had some spare time on his hands.

Things had changed a lot for me since his last extended visit. I had a well-paying job, my own apartment and a properly working vehicle. He had none of those. I mean, his car worked okay, but he was always concerned it could give out any minute and it had been rear-ended in an accident. He also had all his belongings on a trailer. One thing he had that I didn't was a laptop computer.

One of his goals during the visit was to have a yard sale and get some money for a lot of his stuff. But my apartment complex didn't really have a yard. I figured that the next best thing to do was to rent space at a swap meet. They had the Kobey's Swap Meet every weekend in the Sports Arena parking lot. I'd always despised that swap meet, because if I wanted to go to Tower Records on the weekend while it was going on, there were no parking spaces available.

Getting in was relatively easy. We just went to their office, which was a few blocks away from the Sports Arena, fill out the paperwork and pay about $30. We were then given specific instructions on what time to arrive and where to go.

I had never been to this swap meet, so I did not know what to expect. I thought we were going to park in the main parking lot and have to carry everything he wanted to sell to our assigned space. We got there at 6:30am. We got to drive his car and his trailer directly to our space. I wasn't expecting this, but it was great because it meant we weren't going to have to carry a lot of stuff back and forth.

Our designated area was actually two consecutive parking spaces. We parked the car in one and put the trailer in the other. We started unpacking stuff. (I should add that we did not organize beforehand. There were things on the trailer he wanted to sell and other stuff he wanted to keep, but we didn't think about sorting this out.) Suddenly, about 20 people came up, grabbed things out of the trailer and asked us how much we were selling them for. The swap meet hadn't even opened to the public yet. We were NOT expecting this. Loyd had to quickly determine how much he wanted to see each item for, because this was also not planned ahead of time. We're still trying to unload everything. Loyd didn't want to waste these opportunities to suddenly sell his stuff, so he catered as much as he could to everyone.

I wish we had known this was going to happen. I didn't realize at the time that the people who swarmed us were other sellers, looking to take advantage of our (apparently obvious) naivete. They likely bought stuff from us and then sold them at their spaces to make quick profits. A little foresight would have helped us tell everyone to back off because we weren't ready yet.

Things got a lot calmer after that. We were able to unload and organize the rest of the stuff. Loyd was hoping to clear at least a couple of hundred dollars that day. He was also hoping that someone would be interested in buying the trailer and taking it off his hands. He really did not want to drive all the way to New Mexico with that.

Throughout the morning, we would have occasional visitors to our space, taking a look at our "selection." Loyd would play his guitar and sing to help attract attention. (He wasn't selling the guitar, but several people asked about it.) Around 11am, Loyd decided he'd made as much money as he was capable of and we decided to leave. This was even though there were four hours left in the swap meet. When we started setting up the trailer to drive off, other sellers told us we shouldn't leave yet. We still left, but we had to drive very slowly out of the parking lot so we didn't hit anybody in the crowd. It was weird to drive around where there's supposed to be strictly pedestrian traffic.

We wound up in a bit of a routine the next few weeks. I would go to work, come home, take a nap. Then we'd watch my favorite TV shows and often go out and see live local music performances. We also found other activities to take part in.

On Halloween, I thought I was going to take part in a poetry reading at Lestat's, but it was canceled without me being notified. I was shocked to arrive to see a country-folk band setting up. We then went over to Claire de Lune to take part in their open mic poetry reading. What I was going to read at Lestat's was going to take about 20 minutes for me to get through. But the slots were only 10 minutes each. I asked Loyd if he would follow me and read the second half of my presentation. He said he wanted to do his own material. I hadn't brought any of my other poems to read, so we just left. (At any rate, we were so far down the list that we probably wouldn't have gotten to do anything because they cut off at a certain time. It was better that we didn't wait to find out we weren't going to get to go on stage.) I don't remember exactly what we did the rest of the evening. I just know we didn't go back home because we'd run out of candy for trick-or-treaters.

But the most unusual thing we did involved the 2000 Presidential election. I'll get into that tomorrow.

Going Green

Prior to 2000, I'd never felt the need to get involved in Presidential elections. In 1996, I had gotten fed up with the direction the Democrats and Republicans were heading and voted for Ralph Nader, who was running as the Green Party candidate that year. I didn't think much of it, and it really didn't matter, because all of the Electoral College votes were going to go to Bill Clinton anyway. Even Ralph Nader didn't actively campaign for President that year. The Green Party just wanted a name to stick on the ballot. And it was a name good enough for me to vote for.

In 2000, things changed. Because Clinton was wrapping up his second term, the USA was going to get a new President. All of a sudden, Nader wanted to be an active participant. He traveled across the country, challenging the major party candidates. But he was never allowed to take part in the debates. Everything was strictly grass roots for him.

Abed and I were totally backing him. We'd gotten word that he was going to hold a rally in San Diego and made plans to go. It was held at a community center. There were at least 200 people there. (Yeah, it wasn't a large crowd, but it was standing room only.) I arrived before Abed and Qued got there. I saw them come in a little later. A local folk/new age ensemble performed music before he took the stage. I could also see representatives of San Diego media in the room.

His entrance was welcomed by a lot of applause. He came out and made a few generic comments. One of the things he did was start griping about the local news media. First, it started with him having watched the weather and getting upset because they were talking a lot of conditions without stating what the weather was going to do that day. He was trying to come across as humorous and light-hearted about it. Then, he started digging into how the media doesn't really focus a lot on the positive aspects of what is going on locally. This wasn't enough to dissuade me from voting for him, but my first thought was that he hadn't done any research before making that statement. I could tell you from six years of monitoring local TV news that the stations did cover how a lot of people and organizations were trying to help their community to grow.

He spent the rest of the rally criticizing how politics worked in Washington, DC. I'm pretty certain he knew at the time he didn't stand a chance, but it was nice to see him put so much effort into it.

A few months later, Abed told me he had been asked to MC a Green Party rally that was going to be held outside Horton Plaza a couple of weeks before the election. He said it was going to involve a few people carrying a casket that would signify the death of democracy. And then, the signs were going to be removed from the coffin to reveal the words "Two Party System." They were going to march around Horton Plaza with the coffin.

I attended the rally, which was in the plaza area outside Planet Hollywood. Abed came up and introduced a few speakers. Then some guys came up, carrying the casket. After Abed talked about the death of democracy, they took the casket away. I figured they were going to remove the signs later in the rally.

While this was going on, an older woman came up and asked me if I knew if Ralph Nader was going to be at the rally. I told her that he wasn't. This was just a local demonstration. She was there to give Nader a piece of her mind and try to get him to pull out of the race. She was worried about George W. Bush winning. I told her she probably didn't had much to worry about. (Even though I was voting for Nader, I felt there was NO WAY Bush was going to become President.)

While the speeches were going on, someone approached me and asked me to be a pallbearer. I guess one of the other guys had to go home, so they needed to quickly recruit someone. Since I was already all dressed in black, I must have looked like a suitable replacement.

I went over to the coffin and took my place at the front. No one seemed to bat an eye that I wasn't there for the original presentation. I was told that I would have to remove the sign on the outside on a given cue. We started marching into the center of the rally. Abed was surprised to see me get involved like that.

As instructed, we removed the outer signs from the coffin. There was a lot of cheering and we started marching with the coffin. There were TV news crews there covering us. One cameraman got in front of us and crouched down. He stayed there while the coffin went overhead.

We then turned right and marched down the street on the back side of Horton Plaza. This part didn't seem very well planned out. The sidewalk was narrow and there were only a few cars coming our direction in the middle of the Saturday afternoon. But we continued to carry the coffin and chant while a crowd of people from the rally followed us. After we turned the corned and walked in front of the shopping center, we were finally seen by the people who were out doing their shopping. I remember a lot of people didn't seem to like us promoting a candidate who stood no chance of winning. But we didn't care.

And then, after we started dispersing, a small group of Gore supporters showed up and started chanting, "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush!" But everytime they said "Bush," we would chant "Nader!" We had far more people than they did. Anybody nearby listening likely would have just heard people chanting "Nader" once every five seconds.

I watched the local news that night. I did see the rally covered on a couple of channels. And there was one that used a shot of me in the tease. We felt like we had accomplished something that day.

But all we accomplished was being able to get on TV. We had no impact on the election, whatsoever. Gore got all of California's electoral votes, but it wasn't enough to help him win. None of us had any regrets about who we supported. But a lot of other people across the country didn't feel that way and still blame Nader for Bush winning.

And the two-party system didn't die. But neither did democracy.

A real distraction

One of the things I wasn't used to in my previous workplaces was the presence of so many women. I had several that I dealt with on a regular basis when I worked for Landmark Theatres, but NDC was like college all over again. There were so many beautiful women and I developed so many crushes. It was probably worse than college because I didn't get to date any of them.

I did try, though. When I was an LDA, there was a woman named Lilz from another team at Balboa. She seemed to like spending time talking to me when she was on her break. She had made indications that she would have liked for me to have been the LDA for her team because she didn't care much for hers, whom she would snarkily refer to as "Mr. Personality." I got the idea that maybe she had a crush on me. She told me that she spent Saturday mornings at the Mission cafe in Mission Beach getting breakfast with her friends. It almost seemed like she was inviting me. But I wasn't just going to show up and see if she'd let me join her.

I decided to see how much she liked me. Abed and I were going to do a show at Lestat's one night. I thought that if she really liked me, she'd come see me play. (But I don't think she was going to be really impressed with the music.) The day of the show, I suggested she come check it out. She said, "I can't. I have plans with my friends. Please let me know in advance next time." Hmmm... I know that most women, if they're into a guy, would gladly ditch their friends to see him play. I guess these were pretty solid plans. Or maybe she'd gotten cynical about guys.

So the next time we did a show, I told her about it two weeks in advance. She still couldn't make it. Dang it! Being a musician is supposed to make it easier to get dates! (But that's what this blog is all about.)

Her name is rather common, so I don't know what happened to her. I did see her a couple of other times after I stopped working at NDC, but that's going to come up in another post.

But Lilz was someone I was pretty sure liked me. Almost all the other women I liked didn't even know I existed. This was especially true when I was a regular dispatch agent. But then again, I had little contact with anyone else, male or female. I had a tendency to be a little stalker-ish. If there was someone I was attracted to, I would make it a point to walk by whichever cubicle they happened to be working at. I didn't know if they could tell I was doing that on purpose.

And sometimes, they could surprise me. I started noticing Mitz when everyone at Chesapeake had to work at Balboa for the weekend. She was in the cubicle next to me and we talked back and forth a little bit. I know she had a kid and was probably married, but she was really cute and had a great voice. We didn't talk much after that. I would see her from time to time. Once I was leaving at 7am and saw her in a car with her husband.

When I was training to be an LDA, she came up and talked to the person working with me. She asked a couple of questions of him. That was the closest I'd ever been to her. On Labor Day Monday, when I had to work, I was in the break room. She was in there talking to someone. Suddenly, she turned to me and said, "Hey, Fayd! Congratulations on becoming LDA! I know you'll be really good!" I was rather stunned. Wasn't she aware I was kind of creeping around her every once in a while? I guess not. In the end, it didn't matter. She stopped working for NDC soon after that and I never saw her again.

I have found her Facebook profile. She still lives in San Diego. It looks like she got married to someone else. And she's really into her pug. One thing I notice about her now is that she doesn't wear a lot of make up. By that, I mean she doesn't seem to use foundation. I don't recall if she had the natural look back then, but it's really apparent now.

At one point, my regular cubicle (and no one had assigned cubicles at Chesapeake) was right next to one that seemed to magically get better calls on it. (This was an odd thing at Chesapeake. There was a weird algorithm in which some stations didn't get all the calls. I remember that there was one prompt that always came up on a regular basis, but if I sat in a different row, I would never get that prompt.) There were these two really cute women who would try to sit next to me. I enjoyed this (even though I couldn't get up the nerve to talk to them). However, there was this guy who discovered the magic cubicle. He came in before them. He was loud and smelly. I didn't like him sitting next to me. I wanted the cute women. So I started putting up a sign that indicated the user was at lunch. He would come, see the sign and then look elsewhere. Then, after he found another cubicle and started taking calls, I would take the sign away and wait for one of the women to appear. Eventually, he figured out that no one was sitting there, removed the sign and started taking calls. (And I don't think he knew that I put it there.) I would then see either of the women coming in and look disappointed that the cubicle was taken. (My cubicle was also magical, and I was not giving it up.)

One of the women I had regular contact with because she also became a LDA. Sometime later, I ran into the other woman. I referred to her by name. She didn't remember me. "You used to sit in the cubicle next to me!" She still didn't remember. That hurt.

So for me, working at NDC was not a very good resource for meeting women. I mean, I met them. I just couldn't socialize with them. But there was one I thought I had a real chance with after I no longer worked there. As usual, she will be the subject of another post way later in the future.

Another of life's LOUD moments

Sometimes, you have to look pretty hard to figure out where a sound is coming from. This happened outside the Walmart in Morgan Hill, CA.



My next-door neighbor works at the Walmart. I ran into him inside. He could hear it all the way in there. But I never did find out what was going on.

Friend Zone #13: Molz, Part 2

I called Molz up a few days after we first met. One of the things she wanted to make clear to me was that she was not looking to get married to someone so that she could get a green card. She was already making progress on that front. Apparently, she'd had other guys extend an offer of a marriage of convenience and she needed me to know where she stood, immigration-wise.

I told her I had tickets to a couple of concerts I wanted her to see with me. (Even though I didn't have a girlfriend when they went on sale, I had bought the tickets in hopes of being able to land a date.) She said she would only go with me to one concert. In the meantime, I told her Abed and I were going to be doing a show at the Casbah. She said she wanted to come see us play. She gave me the address where she lived in Carlsbad. It was a gated community. She gave me the password to get in. I found the house. She answered the door and let me in. The house was rather large, but very sparsely furnished. There were a few pictures here and there, but it looked like someone had just barely started moving into the place.

We went to the Casbah. It was exciting to have someone come with me there to see me perform. Our set went very well. After we were done, I had to drive Molz back home. Before leaving, I introduced her to Ferd and Tadd, his significant other. (A few days later, I ran into Ferd and Tadd again. Somehow the conversation turned toward Molz. Tadd asked, "What is it with guys and Asian women? It seems like every guy I've ever met thinks Asian women are the most beautiful in the world! I guess I'm lucky that my boyfriend doesn't find them that attractive." This was a funny thing to say, considering Ferd was half-Japanese. But many years later, Ferd wound up with a Japanese woman.)

On the way to her house, Molz and I discussed my birthday, which was coming up. She said that we had to do something special for my birthday. THIS WAS GREAT! Things were definitely looking up. She actually wanted to spend time with me!

However, there were some weird things that happened in the meantime. For starters, she would sometimes e-mail me from a different e-mail address. If I replied to that e-mail, she would tell me not to send anything that e-mail address because it was an old one that she never used. But why did she e-mail me from there in the first place? Another time, we had exchanged e-mails discussing TV shows. We both liked "Felicity" and "Ally McBeal." I asked her what her what her favorite shows in Thailand were. Her response was, "None. They're all crap!" In another e-mail, I asked her if there was someplace nearby where she liked to eat Thai food. She said, "Why should I go somewhere to eat Thai food when I can make it at home myself?" It was almost like she was saying, "What are you, an idiot?" These responses struck me as odd and sounded almost American. I started wondering if she was actually sending all these e-mails or if someone else was behind some of them. (But I must admit that since then, I've seen the quality of television programs from Asian countries that do not have a top tier entertainment industry. They truly do look like "crap.")

Then she tried to call me when I wasn't at home. The number was not blocked on the caller ID. It showed her phone number, but a different last name. Abed saw the name and realized it was Indian. What was going on here? In an e-mail to her, I put the last name in the subject line. She wrote back, "How did you know that?" I said that it showed up on my caller ID. She didn't explain any further.

I started wondering if I was about to become victim to a "Spanish Prisoner" scam. I didn't know what to think. However, my birthday was still coming up and we still had plans. Garager (mentioned in the previous post) was going to be playing at a coffee house in Oceanside. I was going to come to Molz' house and she was going to make me a special birthday dinner. Then we were going to go to Garager's performance. The main thing I wanted to accomplish on this date was to hold Molz' hand. And maybe things might go a little further than that. I could only hope.

However, the day of my birthday, I suddenly came down with a cold. I had a runny nose all day. I still had to go to work. I was able to do my regular job as an LDA okay, but I had also volunteered for an hour and a half of overtime on the phone, so I still had to work that. I was miserable and knew I wasn't going to get any sleep before I had to leave to drive to Carlsbad during rush hour traffic. I made it to her house about five minutes before I was supposed to get there. I rang the doorbell and she answered. In a panic, she ran back into the kitchen. She said my early arrival delayed her ability to properly fry the sesame seeds she was making for the meal.

I was expecting vegetarian food. But she actually prepared a chicken breast for me to go with the vegetables. It tasted amazing. I was impressed with her cooking skills.

Because of my runny nose, I had to always keep a Kleenex box nearby. The bad thing about this is that it meant I couldn't try to hold her hand like I had originally planned. There would be no touching that night with me in that condition.

We went out to the coffeehouse where Garager was performing. As it turned out, the coffeehouse had a recording booth set up. What they would do was record the live performances and then sell CD copies of them. This was very exciting for me. I was going to get to be a part of a CD with Garager on it.

During the intermission, Molz went up to Garager and talked to her for a bit. In addition, Jazzer attended the performance. Garager had produced her most recent CD. I introduced Jazzer to Molz. Molz seemed to enjoy meeting people that I knew.

After the performance, I drove Molz home. I walked her to her door and said good night. I looked forward to seeing her again, when we would go to that concert together.

Even though I had a cold, was feeling miserable all day and I didn't get to hold hands with Molz, it was still the best birthday I'd had up to that point. Red flags were waving right in my face, but I felt like things were on the right path.

However, a few days later, Molz called me. She said she was sorry, but that she had met "the one" and she wouldn't be seeing me anymore. She was going to marry this other guy. He lived in India. Even though she had only met him online, she knew he was "the one" and was going to move over there to be with him. This meant that we weren't going to go to the concert. I was going to have to find another date. (Abed wound up going with me.)

I told her that I wished she could have felt that way about me. She said she still wanted me for a friend and that she would keep in contact with me. Interestingly enough, she wasn't kidding about this. She made her living selling a variety of items at street fairs. If she was coming to San Diego, she would actually call me and we would meet and hang out. At some point, she had gone to India and met the guy. Anytime I saw her after that, she had a Bindi on her forehead. She also showed me a few pictures of the two of them together. He was around 40 years old. I guess he had also been married before and had kids.

But I was never clear on what exactly was going on. The thought had cross my mind that she had always been married to this guy and was trying to pull a scam on me. Maybe she figured out that, despite the late-model car I drove, I didn't have any money. So once I was no longer a mark, why did she keep in contact with me? These were questions I would never get the answer to.

Eventually, I lost touch with her. I was able to find her through Google. She has a different last name from when I knew her, but it's not the same as the one that showed up on the caller ID that one time. There are a couple of websites that list her availability as an English to Thai translator. One has a photo of her. It looks like it was cropped from a picture that had her standing next to someone. She has a Bindi in the photo. But that profile hasn't been updated since 2007. However, another listing (with no photo) shows that it was updated almost a year ago. It shows that she currently lives in Thailand. AND it has her phone number! But there is NO WAY I'm going to call it.

But if I didn't have a thing for Asian women before, it was apparent that I definitely had one now. In fact, I decided that if I was going to get married, it would be to an Asian woman.

The bad thing was that, after Molz, I was very skeptical of the intentions of any Asian woman that would have anything to do with me. I still felt like any one of them was about to rope me into a scam. Because of this, I didn't attempt to exclusively date Asian women. I still had to keep my options open.

Friend Zone #13: Molz, Part 1

Up to the year 2000, Asian women were one of many options for me. I didn't have what one would call a "thing" for them. They were just another type of woman I would consider dating when I was looking through personal ads. A few called me after I responded to their ads. One I met said she preferred men with short hair (when I had very long hair). Another one acted like she was getting a bad vibe from me. However, there was one I was glad I didn't meet because she barely spoke English and I was having so much trouble slowing down my delivery for her. I couldn't see having to do that for the rest of my life.

Now that I was in a more secure place in my life, I was ready to start looking for romance. (I should add this was right before I moved into my own apartment or got the promotion at NDC.) Abed and Qued had recently acquired a PC from her mother and were able to get access to the Internet. This was something we all needed. I tried looking through a few websites that offered personal ads, but everything free I came across just seemed like scams. I recall finding one ad on Yahoo! in which the woman stated that the man didn't need to do anything, she would take care of him. I found this same ad on several zip codes that I searched.

I then came across Match.com. They were offering two weeks for free on their service. I figured I would give that a try. I entered in a few parameters of what I was looking for and viewed the results. I'd been in the personal ad game long enough to know that the longer an ad's been posted, the less likely you were going to get a response. I had to limit my search to ads that had been posted that day or the day before. I found a few and wrote to them. I didn't know if any of this was going to work.

A couple of days later, I received a response from one of them. Her name was Molz and she lived in Carlsbad. She was 30 years old and came here from Thailand. She was vegetarian, but didn't mind if others ate meat. We exchanged a few e-mails back and forth through Match.com. My two weeks were almost up. I told her that I was going to be discontinuing my account and that she could e-mail me directly at my Yahoo! address. The exchange continued for a few more days.

During this time, Abed, Qued and I planned to be part of the Hotels/Motels art event at the Motel 6 in Downtown San Diego. The way it worked was that the organizer (named Erid) arranged to have an entire floor of the motel dedicated to artists, who would each book a room and present their art, whether it be music, performance painting or artistically trashing the room. Abed and I were going to perform music and Qued would have some of her paintings on display. Hird was also going to take part and play experimental music in his room.

I e-mailed Molz and told her that if she wanted to meet me, I was going to be at this event and she should stop by and introduce herself. I gave her the date, time, room number and my phone number. A few days later she called. The caller ID showed the number as "Private." It was great to hear her voice. She did speak with a distinct accent, but she appeared to be fluent in English and had little trouble understanding me. She said she was going to come to the Hotels/Motels event and meet me. She was going to take the train to Downtown San Diego.

The day of the event, Abed, Qued and I went to Motel 6 set up in the room. On the way, we saw that Hird was in his room talking to someone. The other person was someone I had seen several times before. I concentrated on getting my keyboard set up in the room and didn't think any more about it. I was kind of ticked off that Hird was going to be in the room right next to us playing music. I knew that he would try to turn his equipment up really loud in order to drown us out. (Ferd and his ensemble were going to be performing in another room further away.)

While we were setting up, the man who had been in Hird's room came into ours. "Hi, I'm Hofd. I'm a reporter for the San Diego Reader and I'm writing an article about this event." Suddenly, I recognized his name and realized who he was. "That's right!" I said. "And you also play with Garager!" (Garager was a well-known local singer/songwriter.) Hofd seemed shocked that I knew who he was. I explained that we had met before and he had signed a CD that he performed on. He was even more shocked.

Hofd asked us a few questions about what we were doing. When I gave him my name, I indicated that Fayd Ogolon wasn't my real name, but that was what everyone in the local music scene knew me as.

After Hofd left, I went into another part of the room. I could hear someone come in and ask Abed about me. "He's right over here." It was Molz. She introduced herself. It was exciting to finally get to meet her. She had black hair, golden skin and a beautiful broken smile. I was immediately attracted to her.

We talked for a little bit. We walked around the other rooms to see the other exhibits. I don't know what she made of it. There was one room in which some people were naked and having body paint applied. Then, they ran around naked on the floor.

We came back to the room. Abed and I started playing. A few people strolled in and out of the room during our performance. Everything went pretty well and I don't recall Hird trying to out-noise us. After we were finished, Molz said she had to go. I offered to walk her back to the train station. We talked a little on the way. She gave me her phone number and said I could call her to try to go out sometime. I was very excited about the prospect.

The event was supposed to run from 7pm to 9pm, which was when I left. However, it didn't really stop right then like it was supposed to. The other artists ran around the motel for most of the night. Abed and Qued spent the night in the room, but they said the noise didn't die down until 2am.

The article that Hofd wrote appeared in the Reader about a month later. Abed, Hird and I were all mentioned in it and it included a photo of Ferd and the ensemble. However, he reported that the police came in and shut everything down. Erid indicated that the police did show up, but everything was already winding down by that time. There was nothing to shut down. As it turned out, the article ran the same day that the San Diego Union-Tribune ran a story about the experimental music scene in their weekend section. The reporter had come out to a show Abed, Hird and I performed at. People in San Diego must have thought we were the kings of the local experimental music scene.

You'd think Molz would have been impressed by that. But as you will find out tomorrow, she never got that chance.

My 9/11

For this post, I have to jump up a year chronologically. I needed to publish this today to coincide with this dark moment in our nation's history and set up the scene.

In August of 2001, all of the dispatch agents at NDC's Balboa call center had to relocate to the Cheaspeake building. Everyone who was over there had to go work in this one section that was on the same server as when we were at Balboa.

We had been at the Chesapeake location just a few weeks and were finally getting adjusted to the new routine on Tuesday, 09/11/01. Most of the staff was already in place taking calls. Camd and I were discussing something at our Supervisor station. Right before 6am, someone came running in and told us that a plane hit the World Trade Center. We were rather stunned. We thought it might have been an accident. At the time, I thought it was a single-engine plane that hit the building and didn't cause much damage. A little later, we found out it was a passenger jet that struck the building. This was getting scary.

But we went about our daily routine. A few minutes later, someone came in and told us another jet had hit the other building. Camd said, "Uh-oh. That wasn't an accident." Suddenly, our call volume shot up. You may recall that a lot of our clients were people who worked on Wall Street. EVERYBODY was trying to find out if their friends and loved ones were alright. Camd told me I needed to hop on the phone and start taking calls.

About 30 minutes later, we found out that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon. At this point, I recalled a panel from a "Shazam!" comic book in which alien invaders were suddenly taking over the Earth. A bystander shouts, "Has the world gone insane?" This was what I was feeling at this moment as I continued to take one call after another, not knowing if they would ever be received or acknowledged. This feeling deepened as we got word of the fourth crash. I wondered if there were going to be more.

One of the messages I took was someone informing the client that one of the planes was heading to Los Angeles. Now, he was stating that one of the planes involved in the WTC crash was going to Los Angeles. (It was later determined that three of the four jets were going there.) I was a professional, took the message and sent it out, but I started panicking at this. To me, it sounded like there was a jet headed to Los Angeles that instant that was going to crash somewhere. That was close to us! Was a jet going to come crashing down in San Diego? We were still expecting more planes to come falling out of the sky at any given moment and any given location. We had no way of knowing when this would end. A few minutes later, I figured out what he was saying and stopped panicking. But I still waited for things to get worse.

As the day went on, we found out it was just the four jets. But just because the crashing was over didn't mean we were finished. We still had lots of calls to handle. I had gotten off the phone to go check on everyone. As I was walking around, I saw one dispatch agent go into hysterics. She was SCREAMING and holding onto Mond, our workforce manager. Mond was not known for being a warm person, so it was unusual for someone to reach out to her like that. She looked at me as if to say, "What do I do?" She just put her arm around her and tried to comfort her.

I heard about one dispatch agent getting a caller who tried to leave a message, but kept bursting out in tears while trying to dictate. That call took about 20 minutes to complete. Somebody wasn't going to hit the goal AHT that day.

As the morning went on, I could poke my head in and out of the break room, where I could watch coverage on TV. I tried not to get too wrapped up as I needed to get on the phone and answer calls.

One of the few times I was at the Supervisor station, the phone rang. It was the daughter of one of our agents. Schools were being let out for the day and she needed a ride home. This particular agent had an attendance problem, so before I got her on the phone, I had to go to the Manager and ask if it would be held against her if she left early. He said it wouldn't, so I was able to go to her and let her know that her daughter was on the phone and that she could leave to pick her up without any consequences.

One of NDC's Vice Presidents used to be a local TV news anchor. He called his old station to send a crew out to do a story on us answering all these calls. They interviewed him and the CEO of the company.

I did eventually go home. I had just recently gotten access to the Internet through AOL. I went on to see what everyone was saying about the attacks. Most of it didn't make any sense. We didn't have all the details, so it was still a lot of rumor and innuendo. I tried not to get too involved in the conversation. I just read what everyone else was writing.

A while later, Abed and Qued came over. The look on their faces told me they had experienced a lot of the emotions I had gone through. We talked for a bit and Abed asked to get on the computer. He wanted to look stuff up. I was just watching TV at the time. Later, Fraz came over. (We had reconciled our friendship within the last six months.) She held the opinion that this was something the US deserved to have happen a long time ago. I could see her point, but I wasn't in the mood for that discussion after talking to people who may have lost their loved ones. I kept my end of the conversation to a minimum while we continued to watch TV coverage. I saw the story about NDC. They featured the interview with the former anchor, but did not run a clip of the CEO.

I didn't know if I was going to be able to sleep that night, but I somehow managed to get a few hours of slumber in. I woke up the next morning for work, not knowing what to expect.

I don't remember a lot of what happened to me on 09/12. I do recall telling Camd that there was footage of the first plane hitting the WTC. He was surprised because he hadn't seen it.

We felt the effects of 9/11 for a few more weeks after that. People continued to leave messages that were likely never returned. A few times, I was taking calls and I would get queries about whether certain people still had accounts. All I could tell them was that the accounts were still active, but that didn't really mean good news. It just meant someone hadn't gotten around to canceling those contracts. Those in charge of that stuff probably had more important things to do than worry about ending service for people who may have perished.

But that day laid the foundation for many more changes that would occur in my life. After that day, I found I had a long road ahead of me and I'm still traveling on it.

Going for the promotion

During the first few months I worked at NDC, I would frequently see that they were looking for people to become Lead Dispatch Agents. At first, I wasn't interested. The difference in pay was only 50 cents an hour and you didn't qualify for the bonus. The only advantage was that you didn't have to be on the phones all day long.

But in July of 2000, we got a new operations manager. Her first order of business was to change how the bonuses were determined. They had been tracked by the number of revenue units that each agent produced. However, this had to change because a lot of pager companies were changing their plans to include one price for all messaging. (This should have been a sign that our business model was rapidly changing and would never return to the "good ol' days.") She decreased the Average Handle Time and put some other stipulations into place. I looked at this and figured it was going to be a lot harder for me to make bonus every month. I had started to rely on that income and had just moved into my own apartment. I figured now would be a good time to go for that promotion. The odd thing is that Dispatch Agents were eligible for promotion to LDA after three months of working for NDC, but benefits still didn't kick in until after six months. (But I was already on my path to getting benefits.)

They were looking to promote five new LDAs. The only problem was that there was only one that had a shift with a differential. My current 3:30am shift had a $1.25 an hour differential. The 5am shift offered a $1 differential. This meant that my increase would only be 25 cents an hour for the promotion. I couldn't take any of the other shifts because they didn't offer differentials, meaning the promotion would result in me making less money. That just made no sense to me. (I should add there was a shift with a 75 cent differential, but that would have resulted in me making the same amount. I needed to feel like I was moving upward.)

I submitted my application for the promotion and listed 5am - 1:30pm as my preferred shift. One of the best things about it was that it would be at the Balboa location and I only had to work Monday through Friday. It would be nice to have my weekends off. I figured my chances would be pretty good with this many positions available. Hopefully, everyone else applying worked regular hours without a differential, so any promotion would mean a 50 cent increase to their wages.

I had to interview three times. I met with someone from HR, a Call Center Manager at Chesapeake and the Balboa Manager with the Supervisor I would be supporting. I recalled meeting the Supervisor (whose name is Camd) once before when I worked a holiday and he was on duty. He had to assist me with an issue when I arrived at work that day. I mentioned this to him, but he didn't recall. I remember they asked what I thought made me stand out from the other applicants for the position. I responded by saying I didn't know anyone at Balboa. I would be able to come in and be recognized as authority, instead of someone's buddy who got a promotion.

One of the things I was able to ascertain at the interviews was that I could still work overtime on the phones. Every once in awhile, the scheduling department would have overtime available. I was glad I could use that to supplement my income and likely wouldn't need to rely on the bonuses.

All the interviews went okay from my perspective. I was rather optimistic that I would get the promotion and the shift I wanted. A couple of days later, the Chesapeake Manager I interviewed with called me into his office. He said that I got the promotion and the shift I wanted. The only issue I had was when I would start. Normally, I had the next two days off. He said I could have Wednesday off and report to my new Supervisor on Thursday. I would then work on Saturday and train with the person who used to be my LDA. This was also before Labor Day weekend. I asked if I was supposed to work on Labor Day (since I knew Balboa would be closed that day). He said I didn't because they already had the schedules set for Supervisors and LDAs that day. I wasn't on the schedule. Okay, cool.

He also told me not to tell any of my co-workers that I had gotten the promotion. However, I had to tell Maurd because that meant she was going to have to find someone else to carpool with starting on Sunday. (She already had someone to drive her on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so it wasn't going to be an inconvenience.) I also told her that if she was in a bind to go ahead and call my house and I could give her a ride so that she could get to work on time. Fortunately, she never had to do that.

On Wednesday, I got a call from the Chesapeake Manager. He said that I had previously been scheduled to work the phone on Labor Day, so that meant I had to work that day. I wasn't going to get it off. I was fine with that. We got paid extra on the holidays.

On Thursday, I showed up at Balboa before 5am. Balboa was not a 24-hour call center. They started at 5am and closed at 6pm Monday through Friday. There were a lot of people gathered near the time clock, waiting for 4:53am when they would be able to punch in for the beginning of their shifts. I didn't recognize any of them and they likely didn't realize who I was, either. The time came and everyone punched in their employee numbers. (They could only do this one at a time.) After I punched in, I went over to the Supervisor station and waited for Camd to arrive. He came in a few minutes after everyone else. He was pleased to see me. He started by introducing me to everyone on the team as the new LDA. Everyone seemed happy that Camd had a new LDA because he had gone a few weeks without one dedicated to the team.

He set about showing me what my duties were. These included checking for call outs, looking to see what time the agents clocked in, keeping track of the attendance for each agent, running daily reports, preparing written warnings, setting up the reviews. There was a seemingly endless amount of work to do. After time, I would get adjusted to the schedule and was able to do everything very efficiently, much to the pleasure of Camd.

One great thing was that in January of 2001, the LDA position changed. We were going to be called Assistant Call Center Supervisors, received a lot more pay and a better benefits package. This continued my streak of making more money than my previous job after one year of leaving.

As it turned out, NDC would not have any more promotions available after I received mine (at least for a year). The number of Dispatch Agents was steadily decreasing, we weren't doing as much hiring and Supervisors, LDAs and teams kept getting moved around. I felt sorry for anyone who happened to be waiting for the next round of promotions to apply because it just didn't happen. I considered myself lucky that I applied when I did.

But ultimately, it did cause a big problem for me. I'll get to that in a future post.

Flip This House!

After the 2016 Presidential election, I was expecting to see something like this:



Instead, we just get a bunch of Democrat challengers asking for money in their ads.

Heart-stopping news

During the period in which my car was in the body shop, I moved into a new apartment, two doors down from where I lived with Abed and Qued. This meant I didn't need my car or any other vehicle to move. While we were at it, we decided we needed to have the carpet in the two-bedroom apartment professionally cleaned while we were moving furniture around. (The management company would not replace the carpeting even though they were raising the rent.) Abed and Qued temporarily put all their furniture in my apartment while the cleaning took place. It felt like we were all getting a fresh start with new homes.

After putting everything back in their apartment, I had to get ready for work the next day. This would be the first day that I would carpool with Maurd. She would come by at 3am to pick me up. I gave her my phone number and told her to call me if there was any problem coming to get me. (This was in the day before cell phones were common. Neither one of us had a cell phone.)

I was very nervous about what was about to happen. Somehow, I was aware that Maurd did not have the best attendance record and I was afraid she was going to decide not to go to work and leave me high and dry to suffer the same attendance consequences that she did. I had a hard time sleeping that night worrying about this. I couldn't wait to get my car back.

Around 1am, the phone rang. I thought it was going to be Maurd flaking on me. She had previously told me that she lived with her boyfriend. Still dazed from waking up, I picked up the phone. A woman was telling me something about someone having a heart attack. At first, I thought Maurd was telling me her boyfriend had a heart attack and she wasn't going to be able to take me to work. But the woman kept mentioning my brother Loyd. That didn't make sense. I interrupted her and told her I had just woken up. I asked who she was. She was Loyd's roommate. I asked her who had the heart attack. She said it was Loyd. GASP! I had to take a moment to digest this. Loyd was only 33 at the time. I knew about our Mom's family history of the male members dying from heart attacks, but I never figured either one of us would succumb that early in life. She told me that he was okay and was recovering at the hospital. She said he would probably be able to call me the next day and tell me what was going on.

I couldn't go back to sleep after that. It was still going to be a couple of hours before Maurd was going to come pick me up. If I had my car, I probably would have seriously considered calling out that day. But since Maurd was coming to get me, I was obligated to work, even with this heavy on my mind.

I did get to talk to Loyd later to find out what happened. He told me that when he was in truck-driving school, he was required to watch a video that explained the symptoms of a heart attack. He said he could feel the tingling in his left arm and knew what was going on. He went to one of his other roommates and told him that he needed to drive to the hospital because he was having a heart attack. The roommate didn't believe him. Loyd insisted he was serious and was able to get that ride.

Loyd recovered just fine and only ever had one other incident later on. Today, you wouldn't be able to tell he had a heart attack. I don't know how I would react if that happened to me. It's something that's been in the back of my mind since then. I hope I'm as lucky as Loyd and will have other people around me if it happens.

A very inconvenient accident

I was driving down Adams Avenue close to the Kensington area of San Diego one day, when I noticed some guy on the sidewalk wearing a t-shirt that said "Heroes & Villains." I was trying to figure out if it was connected to the Beach Boys' "Smile" song and tried to get a better look. The next thing I know, BAM! I struck the car in front of me. Traffic had unexpectedly come to a stop along that busy road.

I got out of my car. The car I struck was a 1975 Volvo. It didn't seem to have much damage to the rear end. However, I saw was that my hood had crumpled up. There was a woman in the Volvo. She got out of her car. I then found out I had caused her to hit the car in front of her. This turned into a three-car accident. She had a cell phone and called 911. We were instructed to move our vehicles out of the road if we were able to drive them. If everyone was okay, we needed to exchange insurance information. Fortunately, it appeared that no one was injured.

While I was trying to get my car out of the road, I nearly hit three more vehicles as they were trying to drive around the accident scene. I'm surprised that no one else got their cars damaged by doing this. I was mad at myself for getting into an accident because of some guy on the sidewalk. I'll bet he doesn't even know the accident happened like it would if some woman was running around topless. I also noticed that my airbag didn't deploy, but I wasn't aware if there was a minimum amount of impact that had to take place in order to activate. At any rate, I was glad I didn't get injured by having that smack me in the head.

I was able to drive my car home. At first, I wondered what I was going to do. The accident was my fault. Even though I had full coverage, I would have to pay a $500 deductible to get my car repaired. I went down to the Daewoo dealership. They could only give me an estimate on the cost of the parts, but I would have to go to another body shop to get a full estimate of the repairs. After getting the parts list, I started thinking that maybe I could live with having a bent up car. I mean, all my other cars had major issues and I was still able to drive them. This was going to be like driving those cars. However, on the highway, I noticed that my hood was rattling around REALLY badly. I knew I couldn't live with that for the rest of my life.

I happened to live next door to a body shop. With the parts list. I was able to get an estimate from them. I don't remember the cost, but it was going to be more than $3,000. With this information, I was able to call the owner of the Volvo. She wasn't angry when I talked to her, but she did say that the Volvo, which they'd had for 25 years, had been totaled. I immediately apologized. She said it was okay and damage was minimal on the other vehicle, but it was still more than $1,000 worth of damage.

I was able to fill out the accident report and send it in. I remember accidents I'd had in the past and how they involved police. I always wound up getting a ticket, which meant I had a damaged car and had to pay even more money out of my pocket. I was relieved I didn't have to deal with that issue.

I tried to plan the repair of my car around my work schedule. I wanted to drop the car off Tuesday after work and pick it up Thursday afternoon. The body shop said it should be completed during that time. However, they called on Wednesday and said they were having trouble getting the parts in. They wouldn't have it ready on Thursday. I groaned. I had no way of getting to work at 3:30am. The buses didn't run at that time. I couldn't ask Abed to drive me to work that early in the morning. I asked Fraz if she would let me borrow her pickup for a few days. She said she would loan it to me. (She wasn't able to get around that much due to an issue with her foot.) We made arrangements that I would call her up the next day before I came over to get the vehicle.

On Thursday, I spent most of the afternoon trying to call her. She never picked up her phone. Finally, around 7pm, I got a busy signal. I figured that meant that she was home. I immediately got Abed to drive me over. Now, I was furious at this point. She hadn't said anything about being out of the house all day or that I was going to have to wait that long to come get the car. I really hoped she wasn't going to flake on me.

We got to her apartment. She was home. I knocked. "Hey, Fayd! I thought you were going to call me before you came over!" "I did call. The phone was busy. I figured you were home, so I thought I'd come over now." "Well, I don't appreciate you just showing up here!" "You said I could borrow your pickup and I have to go to work tomorrow! Can you give me the keys?" "No, I'm not going to let you just barge in like this! I'm not going to let you have the car!" "YOU PROMISED ME!" "I didn't promise!" "YES, YOU DID! YOU KNOW I NEED THAT CAR TO GO TO WORK! AND AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU, YOU OWE ME!" "I don't owe you anything!" "JUST GIVE ME THE KEYS!" "No! You get out of here of I'll call the cops!"

I didn't need to get the police involved in this, so Abed and I left. On the way back the house, I had no idea what I was going to do. Abed still did not offer to give me a ride the next day and I still did not want to ask. When we got to the apartment building, I realized I had one final chance. Our next door neighbor, Mr. H, owned a SUV. He had also recently bought a motorcycle. I could see him in his living room though his screen door. With my head hanging down, I said, "Hey, Mr. H. I need to ask a huge favor and it's okay if you say no. My car's in the shop and I can't go to work tomorrow. I was wondering if I could borrow your SUV to drive to work."

Mr. H immediately got up, grabbed his car keys and came to the door. I was so relieved. We made arrangements that I would only need to borrow the car certain days of the week. (Abed did agree to let me use his car on the weekends.) And I figured I might be able carpool with a woman I knew at work named Maurd. She lived nearby and worked the same shift, so I really only needed his vehicle two days a week at most. I just had to pay for the gas. He knew it was important that I needed to get to work.

I should point out that Mr. H used to be a drill instructor for the Marines and served in the Vietnam War. I've always seen how mean those guys are in the movies, but he was really nice and I was very fortunate that he took a chance on me. He also ran a locksmith service.

I was able to get Maurd to give me a ride a couple of days a week so I didn't have to worry about borrowing Mr. H's car all the time. But I was nervous when I drove it because I was afraid something bad would happen to it, too.

It took more than two weeks for my car to get repaired. I was so relieved to have my own car back. I felt like I was in control of my life again.

Fraz and I didn't speak to each other for more than a year.

After my car was fixed, Maurd had car troubles and I wound up having to drive her to work.

Sadly, I found out that Mr. H passed away in 2012. He was 70 years old at the time.

And as it turns out, that would not be the last time I would crumple the front end of that car. As usual, that's a story for another time.

I try to become a stadium announcer

In 2000, the San Diego Padres' stadium announcer decided to resign from the position after having held the permanent position for 14 seasons (and had been the backup announcer for the 13 seasons before that). The Padres decided to hold open auditions to find his replacement. I thought it would be a great opportunity for me. However, it was going to be strictly seasonal and part-time. I didn't know how I was going to be able to do that and my new full-time job. This was only a couple of months into my employment with NDC. I didn't think they were going to give me any leeway to run off early every other Sunday to do this. But I figured I would only worry about that if I got the job. This was not an opportunity I was going to pass up.

The Padres had announced what time the auditions were going to begin at Qualcomm Stadium. They were supposed to start at 5pm. I arrived about an hour early and there were already more than 200 people in line. I struck up a conversation with the person behind me. Neither one of us really knew what to expect.

I figured that for this many people, they weren't going to have us audition one at a time. I thought they might have us each read a script for a few people who worked for the Padres or have banks of recorders set up so we could provide airchecks of us reading. As we soon found out, this was not how they were going to do it.

They had staff handing out numbers. My number was around 200. The guy behind me went to another person and got a number around 300. At this point, we still didn't know how this was going to go, but they were shepherding us into the stadium. We all took seats. A member of the Padres management was there. (He was someone I had seen numerous times from monitoring news for six years.) After most of the people had taken their seats, he grabbed a microphone and started talking. His voice came out of the public address system. There was a one-second delay between the time he said something and the time that it came out of the system. I was sitting far enough back that I couldn't directly hear him, but I could see his lips move and they were not in sync with what I could hear from the system. He even stated that the delay in the system made it difficult for him to concentrate on what he was trying to say.

He explained how it was going to work. We would each come up, one at a time, read from the script we were given and speak into the microphone so we could be heard over the system. We would line up according to our numbers. I figured that it was going to take a little less than one minute for each person to audition. Taking this into account, I knew it would take around three hours before I would get my chance at the mic. And the guy behind me? Probably five hours for him. He said, "I knew I should have gone back and gotten another number!"

The Padres guy also told us about their expectations for whom they were going to hire. They were looking for someone who would just make the stadium announcements as written on the script without adding a lot of flair. Some stadium announcers at other locations act like they know the players personally and add some comments when the players come to bat or pitch. They didn't want that. He also said that they weren't ruling anyone out, that they would be interested in hiring a female announcer or even someone who spoke Spanish. He also mentioned that the old stadium announcer did the same thing for the Chargers games, but there would be no guarantee they would hire the same person they hired.

He also let us know that they had the concession stands open. This was good in that it meant I could get something to eat and drink while I was waiting for my turn. He also admitted that more people showed up than they expected. He was optimistic that they would be able to audition everyone that evening.

They started having people line up for the mic. The script consisted of an announcement of an upcoming Padres event, introducing the batter and introducing the pitcher. Everybody got a different event, batter and pitcher. That meant we couldn't memorize and practice the script ahead of time. Sometimes, when a particular name was announced, they would play that player's entry music.

Among the first 20 people in line was this one guy. He did a GREAT job with the event and introducing the players. He announced with a lot of energy without adding flair. He was so good that a lot of other people applauded. I was suddenly aware there was very strong competition for this job. And I wasn't the only one. I saw another man nearby throw up his hands and say, "How am I going to compete with that?" That guy definitely set the bar.

I noticed there were a lot of TV news crews and other media covering this event. I also saw that there were a few TV news people who auditioned. I could hear other people yelling out, "Ringer!" when they saw them approach the mic. I thought that they were just doing it for a story that would appear on the news and didn't really consider them serious competition. (But no, I found out later they were all serious about becoming the Padres' stadium announcer.)

Another unusual thing was the number of children who auditioned. Some were probably as young as eight years old. At first, I thought it was cute and that they were also doing it for the TV cameras. But it got really irritating because there were probably 50 of them who took to the mic before it was my turn. AAARGH! They could have easily reduced the number of auditions if they had restricted the participants to adults only. To me, they were just wasting everyone's time because there was NO WAY the Padres were going to hire a child to do this job.

Finally, I got my chance at the mic. After watching everyone else audition, it was clear that if someone didn't have experience with the one-second delay from the system, they didn't do very well. I didn't have experience with that and tried to figure out how to compensate. I had to hold the script with one hand, so that meant I couldn't just cover up my ears while reading. I cupped my left hand around my ear, hoping that I would mostly hear myself and not the delay. It worked well while I was announcing the event, but I started having problems when announcing the players. It wasn't a very good audition from my perspective. The guy who had been behind me earlier in line asked me how it went and if cupping my hand helped. I told him it helped a little, but I wasn't used to dealing with hearing my own voice come back at me louder than I could have ever expected.

I had to work the next day, so I went straight home. The next morning, I got the newspaper and read a story about the auditions. Apparently, more than a thousand people showed up. I think they were only expecting about 400. They had to shut it down at 11pm and try to have everyone else return another date. I honestly don't know if that ever happened. The story mentioned that one guy who did real well. He was a professional voiceover announcer and wanted the job. The story reported that he received a standing ovation from the participants. I will admit there was a lot of applause, but I didn't see anybody standing up. This guy was competition. I applauded his performance, but I wouldn't have stood up in a show of support for him and I doubt any of the other participants would have felt that strongly about it, either.

I did not receive a callback. I don't know who got the job. It could have been that guy for all I know. I went to a couple of Padres games during the 2001 season. The stadium announcer was male and did not have a Hispanic accent. But even if I had gotten the job, it looks like I wouldn't have had it for very long.

In 2004, they held auditions for a stadium announcer for the new Petco Park that was going to be opening in Downtown San Diego. It looks like the Padres learned a lesson from the 2000 auditions as these were invitation-only. However, in 2014, the Padres fired that guy and held open auditions again. Some commentary I read about it said that he should have been angry that they went the open audition route because it meant that anybody off the street could have done his job. I can assure you they hired a pro to do that job and open auditions were the best way to find those pros. In fact, for the 2000 auditions, the previous stadium announcer actually went on TV to talk about the auditions to find his replacement. He seemed excited about the prospect. (But of course, he was leaving of his own accord.)

From the news reports in 2014, they held the open auditions the same way they did in 2000. Everybody went up to the mic one at a time and read from the script over the PA system. But I didn't see any children this time. I did see that someone flew across the country to audition. He didn't get the job.

But I have to admit that being the stadium announcer for a professional sports team was never a dream of mine. I just liked the idea of being a part of something that a lot of people enjoy.