Randy Dyess's Blog, page 4

The Storm – Part 1

This year, at the end of the first week of December, North Texas suffered through a record setting ice storm. The amount of ice was horrible (we received 4 inches where I live), but it was the cold that set the records. Longest number of days with low temperatures below freezing. Coldest days of the year. Power usage records, etc. etc. etc.

To me, what was different about this storm was the six straight days with much of the time spent below freezing and the ice just sitting there and not melting. We usually only see ice for a day or so before it starts melting. This time, days passed with the ice still on the roads and covering the ground. Once you got out of the main areas, roads still had ice on them a week later. It was six days before I got out of the house and there was still patches on ice on the roads around my house.

My daughter had to brave the ice to go to work each day after the first few days of staying at home, but she slide all the way there each day. School was out for four days due to the ice – something never heard of around here. I lost a dog pen when the weight of the ice on the cover collapsed the pen’s support poles. Carports, sheds, marina coverings, gas station covers, and roofs of buildings collapsed during the week. The 120 foot fence of a brand new gold driving range started bending when the poles started snapping due to the weight of the ice. Trees are down all over the place. This was a large amount of ice, but it was an unprecedented amount.

While we had ice on the roads for six days and ice still on the ground eleven days later, we never lost power for more than a few minutes. Internet was flaking, but stayed on. Satellite TV lost during the first twenty hours of the storm, but came on and stayed on the rest of the time. Many around the area did lose power for a day, or two, or even three in some cases, but the outage was in small sections and not all over the area. Three hundred thousand lost power out of the millions in the area. But there have been worse power outages before.

We did eat up quite a bit of food we had in the house during those six days of isolation, but we were never in trouble of running out of food or water. Because of the thousands of trucks stranded on the road, a few grocery stores did start to run out of the basics like bread and milk but the store up the road a few miles still had items on the shelf. Gas stations started running out of gas because deliveries could not be made. I’ve haven’t heard of this before in our area. Bad, but not devastating.

The reason I telling you this is that during those times, I started coming up with a little short story based on the storm. Like most writers, I am going to take some liberties and make the storm much worse than it actually was in order to frame the question, “What if the storm was as bad as this? How would everyone cope?”

As usual, this story hasn’t gone through much editing and will have some boo-boos in it. Just ignore them or better yet, let me know about them.

Also, as you read this story ask yourself – What if this type of storm happened to us? Would we make it out in one piece?

Enjoy and I would love to hear your comments.

Steve Matthews was often called the weather geek of channel 6. He wasn’t the chief meteorologist of the station, but he was the one who ran the data sets to produce the forecasts. He understood the models and data sets better than the rest of the on-air talent. They relied on him to make them look good and he never disappointed them. Awards were won because of his accurate forecasts and the station was known around the country for its weather department. The rest of the Dallas-Fort Worth weather forecasters were in envy of him and his skills and the benefits he provided their competitor station. When Steve talked about weather, people around the world listened.

 

“Hey, Professor. You still at it?” Chief meteorologist Henry Ray asked as he walked by the weather room after completing his piece of the ten o’clock news.

 

“Yea. I got some weird results with the last set of data. I’m going to rerun it and then verify with the midnight data. Fun, fun, fun,” Steve replied. He was the one that stayed up before the event, during the event, and after the event. Henry, who used to be a pro baseball player ,had gotten his degree in meteorology, but his talents lay in telling the people the news, not running complex weather models with often screwed up data. That was Steve’s job and passion.

 

“Ok. Try to get home some time tonight. Robin already thinks you are having an affair with Lucy.”

 

“Ha. Ha,” Steve replied. This was running joke between the two. Lucy was what they called their weather computer. Henry always joked that Steve spent more time with his computer than with his wife. The joke then morphed into the ‘affair’.

 

“Later,” Steve said as Lucy beeped. Henry turned and left. He knew once Lucy beeped, Steve would be lost to the world.

 

********

 

Three hours later, Steve looked at the results of running the last three sets of data. What he saw was not good. The different models they used were all coming together and showing a major event for next weekend. The numbers were changing so much between the data sets that Steve wondered if someone was screwing them up.

 

“Might as well go home,” he said to himself. “I’m not going to make any predictions from these until I get on the line with the guys in Oklahoma. These numbers have to be off.”

 

The entire drive home, Steve reviewed his results in his mind. If the results held up, then they were looking at a record setting storm in five days. He would only be able to review one or two more data sets before he had to call it one way or another. He already screwed up once in his career by predicting a major snow storm which never happened. Scores of hateful phone calls, letters, emails, and visits by city and state officials had soured him on calling anything too radical. He found out that in the real-world, it was easier to miss a storm than predict it and be wrong. He would get another round of data at noon and if things looked the same, he would call around to his group of weather geeks to see what they were thinking. There was nothing more he could do tonight and if it was true, he would need to bank up on all the sleep he could before the thing hit. They would spend days in the office during these long storms trying to keep everyone safe.

 

********

 

The next evening, Henry stopped back by Steve’s desk. “Are you still at it? Did you even go home?”

 

“I went home, but these results are too much to ignore. I’m going to run the numbers again as soon as they come in. Everyone’s standing by to compare notes on our results as soon as the computers spit them out.”

 

“What do you mean ‘everyone’?”

 

“My whole group, as well as the folks from Oklahoma City, NOAA, NWS, Dr. Phillips, and his crew.”

 

Henry looked at Steve and sat down, “What are you not telling me? What is so important that this entire group is staying up in the middle of the night for and waiting for the results? Spill it.”

 

Steve looked at his boss and took a deep breath. “The numbers have been getting worse each time we run them. At first, it was just another event which would cause the standard blizzards in the plains, heavy snow in the Mid-West, Great Lakes and Northeast. Minor icing around here and maybe throughout the Southeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic before turning to snow. Something to worry about, but nothing earth-shattering.”

 

“And now?”

 

“The numbers are showing something different.”

 

“Better or worse?”

 

“Worse.”

 

“How much worse?”

 

Steve looked down and took a series of deep breaths. After he had fortified himself to give Henry the news, he began. “Right now, if the numbers are right and hold up over the next two runs, we think that this will be a major record-setting event. Something that I don’t think has ever been recorded in North America. I don’t want to make any guesses on the actuals right now, but they will be the worse you have ever heard of.”

 

“Make the predictions,” Henry said with his ‘coaches’ voice they often called it. It was an order, not a suggestion and Steve knew it.

 

“Ninety to ninety-three percent of the country will suffer a record event. Three or more feet of snow for the plains, Mid-West, Mid-Atlantic, and southern New England. Four feet or more for northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Snow will be on the ground as far south as the Red River here, northern Florida, San Diego, and the Arizona – Mexico border. Parts of the Great Lakes will see ten feet or more of lake effect snow. Mountain areas in the western states and the eastern states will have six to ten feet of new snow. All roads between the Cascades and the Eastern seaboard will be covered with at least three feet or more of snow with drifts up to then feet. Nothing will move.”

 

Henry’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Steve and the weather geeks around the country were predicating the heaviest snowfall ever recorded in North America. “What else are you not telling me? What about here? What do we need to tell our viewers?”

 

Steve let out a breath. “We think that anything to the west of the Cascades, including all of the California coast all the way down to the Mexican border will have three or more inches of ice. Atlanta and the gulf coast will see ice as well. Miami may even see ice.”

 

He stopped for a moment. “We are predicating ten to twelve inches of ice for the north central Texas. Six inches in San Antonio and one or two inches in Houston. Ice will cover all of Texas down to the border with Corpus Christi getting at least an inch.”

 

“Did you say ten to twelve inches?” Henry croaked. “Can you imagine the devastation that will cause?”

 

“Yes. I can. It will be like a bomb has gone off over most of the state. Every tree will break apart. Every wooden telephone pole and electrical pole will snap. Metal ones will bend under the weight. Radio towers, cell towers, and high voltage tower will collapse. The whole state and most of the country will be without power during this storm. And no, the highest ice total recorded was eight inches in northern Idaho. No one around to suffer from the damage. Texas and New York have seen six inches from single storms in the 40′s. Isolated areas and not the amount of damage we are going to see.”

 

“Don’t forget,” Henry took over, “every building with a large flat roof will collapse from the weight of that much ice. Any thinly support structure like car ports, gas station covers, metal garages and buildings, mobile homes, and probably more than a few older or badly constructed homes will collapse. This is going to be a disaster.”

 

“That’s not all,” Steve interrupted, “it gets worse.”

 

“What? How could it get worse?”

 

“The front will come in on Thursday evening and drop temperatures below freezing all the way into Mexico. It will be in the upper teens here before a tropical storm comes in from the west and starts dumping rain. That is what the reason for the large amount of ice. What is bad is that another boost of cold air will arrive after the precipitation. This will keep everything below freezing for at least one hundred and eighty hours. Nothing will melt for over a week. We will be paralyzed.”

 

“Good, God!” Henry responded. “A week with ten to twelve inches of ice covering everything. I can’t imagine the loss of life.” Henry lowered his head into his hands with the imagines of what was about to come. People were used to one, two, or even three days of bad weather and would gripe, but they would cope. A week of below freezing with that much ice. Hundreds will die from medical issues, car accidents trying to get to jobs that their employers insist they attended or get fired. Hundreds will die from house fires and carbon monoxide poisoning when they try to keep their families warm. He could even see the headlines of entire families found dead in their cars when they piled into them in the garage and turned them on and found out they couldn’t open their garage doors because of the ice.

 

“There’s more,” Steven weakly said.

 

Henry looked up with disbelief in his eyes. “More?”

 

“Yes. It is too far out to confirm, but it looks like there will be another major Artic front coming in. We may have one or two days with a few hours above freezing before the next one hits. It looks as strong as this one, but without the precipitation. It may keep us frozen for another one hundred to two hundred hours.”

 

“Wait? Three weeks of below freezing weather with ten inches or more of ice on top of us?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Ok. I’m calling in everyone right now. We need to prepare to alert the public. When is anyone going public with this?”

 

“The first results should be in around one am. They will start the soft warnings then and build up the warnings over the next twenty hours. The full scope of this will not be made public until Tuesday afternoon. They want to try to keep the panic down as much as they can by slowing increasing the dangers of this storm. Hopefully, some people will listen and prepare starting tomorrow and the number of panic buyers on Tuesday will be manageable.”

 

“Any word on what the feds and state are going to do?”

 

“Nope. They should get the word right after this data set so they can prepare.”

 

“Ok. What do I need to do to help?”

 

“Order some pizzas and call your wife and let her know. She’s going to have to prep for a three week storm. I’m about to call mine right now.”

 

Henry looked at Steve with a “you’re shitting me right?” look on his face. He sat there waiting for someone to jump out of the shadows and laugh at the prank they just pulled on him. He just couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

 

“Since you are having a hard time with this, here is the chat that is going on,” Steve said showing Henry his screen. Everything looked real to Henry. If this was a joke, it was an elaborate one. The problem was that Steve was not a joking type person. He too serious and fit the personality of a number, crunching, geeky professor. Always serious and never much fun to be around.

 

Steve got up from his chair, “Call your wife. I’m going to call mine right now.” He walked out of the room to find a place for some privacy.

 

A few minutes later with a cell phone up to his ear, Steve said. “Honey, I need you to wake up and listen to me.”

The post The Storm – Part 1 appeared first on Randy Dyess.

What are you thankful for? Part 1

This little story has been swirling around in my head for the last few days. I thought I would write it down and get it out before it drove me crazy. Hard to concentrate on other writings when something like this is percolating. I have no idea where and if I will ever use this, but I thought I would share it with you. I hope you enjoy and as usual, let me know if you find something that needs correction or just have a comment on what I write.

Thank you and I hope you had a very nice Thanksgiving for those of you who are in the U.S. For the rest of you, I hope you had a very nice weekend.

Peter Wilson grabbed his cup of coffee and walked out onto the porch. “There’s just some things you can’t give up, no matter how much you want to be self-sufficient,” he thought as he took a sip. He looked out over his backyard and took in what he had created over the last three years. Others, like his mother, saw his large backyard as a mess. The nice patch of green grass with a few trees and bushes on the edges had been replaced with three dozen raised beds, fruit trees, berry bushes, grape vines, a corn patch, and various garden sheds. A compost heap was tucked away in the back near the goat pen that housed Mable and Suzy. Over to the left side a large chicken coop was filled with birds meant for meat and eggs. Over to right side was a shelter used for rabbits, growing worms, and as a green house in the winter and spring. Near the goat house were pens for a small flock of turkeys and runner ducks. No. He didn’t see a mess, he saw security. A sense of security he never felt when he spent his time chasing a paycheck.

He continued drinking his coffee until he heard the milk goats telling him to put down his coffee and come pay attention to them. Mable was still being milked each morning. They had recently allowed Suzy to dry off so she would be ready for when she delivered her next kid. One goat was enough to supply them with milk, but they seemed to do better in pairs and when both were being milked it gave his wife, Mary, more than enough milk to make small batches of different kinds of cheeses for them. He never drank goat’s milk or ate goat cheese in the past, but he loved them now. The taste was much better than the watered down milk they bought at the grocery store. He still had it on his list to purchase a separator so they could make butter.

He walked past the chicken coop on his way to the goat’s pen. The chickens all lined up waiting for the door to be opened. Peter’s youngest daughter Becky just loved to be the one opening the coop each morning. She would stand there and act like she was a horse race announcer.

“And in this corner, we have Millie. Millie is a two year old chicken who has come along great in these morning chicken runs. She easily takes the trophy on most days. Her biggest competitor is right next to her waiting. Mini may be small, but she is fast. The world is waiting to see who will be the first one to grab a beak full of worms scattered among the leftover greens. The signal is given and the race begins,” she would cry out opening the coop’s door and standing back to watch the chickens rush out to start their day of discovering all the little tidbits scattered throughout the yard they could eat and enjoy.

“Go get it girls,” was all Peter would say as he walked by and opened the door. The girls sauntered out and just looked at him. They were not dumb. They knew he didn’t put anything down for them.

“Ok. Ok,” he chuckled spreading the leftover salad and a few other tidbits around. “I didn’t forget you.”

Peter continued to head to the “back forty” as they called it. It was really the back end of their oversized yard, but he could pretend that he had a real farm in the country. He made his way into the goat’s pen and easily coxed Mable up on the milking stand. Suzy made herself busy eating up the goodies Peter had thrown into the feed bin.

While sitting there milking Mable, Peter had time to think. It had only been a few days since they celebrated Thanksgiving with his family in Irving. His mom always insisted that they come to her house for the meal, even though both her daughter-in-laws were more than willing to host the meal. His mom would always reply when they offered, “Thanksgiving is for me to host. I’m the grandmother and everyone should come here. That’s traditional.” Peter would just shake his head and laugh whenever he heard her say something like that. What was traditional about their meal? Over the years, his mom stopped cooking for the meal and just ordered it for a local store. All cooked and ready to serve. Her “big” adventure involved getting up early and picking up the order. Granted, he didn’t want to get up early and go stand in line with dozens of others who had just purchased their premade, “traditional” meal. She would then spend a few hours warming everything up and setting it on the table. The dinner was one tradition after another. Peter never really understood where the traditions came from, he just guessed it was something out of her childhood or more than likely, something she read should be tradition at Thanksgiving.

Even though none of them ever went to church, his mother would ask them to pray before ‘carving’ the turkey that she had paid extra to have pre-sliced. They would all bow their heads and pretend to pray for a few minutes before attacking the meal like they hadn’t eaten anything in months. Most of the time, his brother and the boys tried to take their meals into the living room so they could watch whatever football game was on. Mother would always act upset enough that they would come back to the table and sit down with the others. This didn’t mean they didn’t keep one eye on the game the entire time. His brother, Henry, had started streaming the game on his phone. He tried to hide the phone in his lap, but everyone knew what he was doing. Including mother. It was more important to show you were following traditions than too actually follow them. “A lot like life. More important to look like you were successful than to actually be successful,” Peter thought relieved he had gotten out of the rat race.

He finished his milking and let the goats out for the day. He had divided his yard into several different areas with temporary fencing. This allowed him to let the goats out to eat up the remains of his garden and enjoy plants he had planted just for them. Kept their feed bill down and spread out their manure at the same time. Slowly, he was increasing the number of raised beds he had in order to grow food for his animals. In a few years, he wouldn’t have to go the feed store at all. All the food for his small collection could come from his backyard.

He headed back to the chicken coop to gather the eggs laid during the morning. His mind kept going back to his Thanksgiving dinner. His mom would try to make small talk as they ate, but usually it was just to ask him if he had become tired of slacking off and tried to get his old job back. As usual during these family events, he had to defend his choice of leaving his old job to work on his mini-farm and make a living with his blog and books. His mom and dad lived the typical Texas mid-city lifestyle of malls and restaurants. While they thought his new life was quaint, they never could get over his leaving his old career behind to work from home writing a blog and a books he self-published. In their minds, no one would ever leave a job making over a hundred thousand a year for anything. You just didn’t do that.

Peter had spent decades working as a technical project manager. He took classes, obtained certificates, and changed jobs when he needed. Before he left it all behind, he had spent eight years working as a senior project manager at AllTex. His mom and dad were so proud of him when they found out he made over six figures. To them, making six figures meant he was rich. Peter never felt rich. In fact, even with his wife making eighty thousand a year they still had problems keeping up with their bills.

It wasn’t that Peter didn’t like working at AllTex, he did. He went in each morning at eight, took an hour lunch everyday with his coworker, Paul, and went home every night around five-thirty. For an IT company this was great. A lot of his fellow PMs around town talked about twelve hour days. Meetings on weekends. Calls during the night with out-sources in India or China. Peter was lucky, he had none of that. His job was steady and for the past fifteen years, they have always been steady. He always assumed it was because of his skills. He would often take a new job and it would be a mess. He would implement rules and processes he had learned and soon the mess would disappear and the projects would run smoother. He often helped others around town straighten their messes out and soon he became well known around the Dallas-Fort Worth area as a very skilled project manager. This reputation was what enabled him to snag the job at AllTex at a much higher salary than his previous ones.

He usually managed to make it through the meal without becoming too upset. They didn’t understand and probably never would. He didn’t have to die like Paul did before he understood the truth. His old lifestyle was killing him and everyone around him.

Thinking about Paul caused Peter to remember back all those years ago. Peter and Paul, or the two Ps as everyone called them, had known each other for years. Peter had graduated from SMU and Paul from TCU. Both with degrees in computer science minoring in business. They both became project managers after a few years of development work and met each other at the local project manager’s monthly tech meeting. Over the years, Peter and Paul had worked together three times at various local companies before both getting the job of Senior Project Manager at AllTex during their big hiring boom. They did the same work. Their cubicles were next to each other. They went to lunch with each other every day. In fact, they were almost identical in their likes and dislikes. They watched sports, but it wasn’t something they had to do. Neither one was really an outdoor person, computers were their livelihood and their hobbies. Both read whenever they could and loved to watch movies. Very similar personalities.

Over the years, they even started to look like each other. They both wore the same type of clothes to work each day. Slacks, always dark colored, with causal collared shirts. The shirts had to have a pocket to hold their cell phone and glasses. Both had thinning hair and eyesight that was growing worse each year. Each walked with a slump in their shoulders marking them as someone who spent all their time hunched over a computer keyboard.

Those features were not the only things that made Peter and Paul so similar. Peter was over sixty pounds overweight and Paul was nearly eighty pounds overweight. It wasn’t until about six years ago that Peter discovered Paul had Diabetes just like him, although Paul had to have insulin shots which Peter had managed to avoid. Both had high blood pressure and took pills for high cholesterol. Neither one was in any kind of shape other than round. Walking up two flights of stairs gave way to one flight which gave way to only walking down stairs. The year before Paul died his knees didn’t even allow him to do that. He rode the elevator when he had to leave their floor. Peter would often looked at himself now and couldn’t believe he was like he was a handful of years ago. He couldn’t believe he didn’t die of a heart attack like Paul did. He still remembered that day at the office when one of his best friends didn’t come into work.

******

Six years ago everything was going fine at AllTex. Peter worked his eight hours, spent time during the day talking to his coworkers and went to lunch with Paul each day for at least an hour. They could easily handle the workload without overtime and calls on the weekends were non-existent. Other project managers around the Dallas-Fort Worth area were extremely jealous of Peter’s work. They worked incredible hours and often came in on the weekends to catch up. Not Peter. He always managed to dot his I’s and cross his T’s before five on Friday. He couldn’t understand why all the others always complained about their workloads. Then it all changed. The entire upper management of AllTex changed overnight. New executives with large company experience replaced the aging executives who founded the company. Soon division presidents and vice-presidents were let go and replaced. They replaced directors and managers under them. In less than one year, Paul couldn’t tell the name of a single person in charge at AllTex beyond his immediate supervisor.

The change in management wasn’t the only thing that changed at AllTex. The new management decided they needed to replace everything so they could compete with Fortune 500 companies. The linchpin computer system that had been in place for years was the first to go. This system was eighty percent of the work in Peter’s department. Without it no one had anything to do. All of Peter’s checklists and processes were built around this system. He recognized he would have to start over.

“I can do it,” he would tell himself each morning. “I learned all this stuff once. I can learn it all again. Besides, most of the time all you have to do is make some small changes to the way you do things and it will fit the new system. No problem.”

What Peter hadn’t counted on was the deadlines the new aggressive leadership wanted. His eight hour day full of talking to coworkers and lunches with Paul started becoming nine hour days without any breaks. Lunch became something he ordered in each day or was served during a lunch time meeting. He bet for at least a year he ate pizza three days a week with the other two being some form or pasta. He was already forty pounds overweight when all of this started. A few months in, he had gained another ten.

“We keep eating like this and I’ll have to have Sheila buy me all new pants,” Paul would often complain after yet another meal of pizza and soft drinks.

“I never thought I would grow to hate pizza,” Peter would say time and time again. “Maybe, we should look at joining a gym nearby before we both explode.”

“Sounds good,” Paul would say. Peter bet they had this conversation two dozen times. They never joined and gym and continued eating pizza.

Weeks went by, nine hour days turned into ten. Ten hour days turned into eleven. Peter caught himself having to spend most of Saturday and a good portion of Sunday trying to catch up on his emails as they went from a few dozen each day to hundreds each day. He just didn’t have time to read them all during the weekday. He bought and configured a new phone for his business email address and read emails whenever he stopped for a few minutes. Those few minutes, right before a meeting was no longer spent catching up with his coworkers. They were spent reading emails. Reading emails in the restroom became common as was sneaking in a few each time he had to stop for a red light. He had been honked at more times in those years than he ever had in his life.

People in Peter’s group started leaving for new jobs. A senior developer here. A junior one there. A DBA one month. A technical writer another. Peter’s group were leaving in droves. If you happen to dress nicer than normal, everyone would comment on the job interview you must be going to. At first it was all in fun. Over time, it become serious after so many people left. Peter’s job became even more difficult. He didn’t have the resources he needed to meet his project deadlines. He spent hours trying to find developers and the other IT people he needed. Paul was in the same boat. They soon found themselves ordering pizza at night to go along with the pizza they ate during the day. They both started looking for other jobs as well, but it didn’t go too well for them. Being older, they had a harder time than the younger people did. They reached out to all their contacts and were told the same things. “We don’t have anything right now.” or “You don’t want to work here. It’s a sweatshop. You easily pull ten hour days and work most weekends.” To Peter and Paul working only ten hours each day would have been a break.

It wasn’t until Friday the 19th of April that everything came crashing down. Peter remembered the day very clearly. He woke up that day and could recall everything.

“Hey, Paul,” Peter said walking into Paul’s cube. He wasn’t there. Maybe he had one of those early meetings they both hated so much. “Oh well. It can wait,” he thought to himself as he walked back to his cube.

Three hours later, Paul was still not in his cube. Peter searched through his email to see if Paul had sent him a note that he was out sick that day. They usually told each other when they were out sick or would be late. That way, the other could handle questions. “Nothing. That’s strange,” Peter thought to himself. “I wonder what’s going one.”

About that time, Peter and Paul’s supervisor came to Peter’s cube. “Hey. Have you seen Paul? He’s missed several meetings this morning and no one has heard a word from him.”

“No. I was just wondering where he was myself. Let me give him a call.” Peter dialed the number, but only got his voice mail. “Voice mail. I’ll keep trying. Let me know if you hear anything and I’ll let you know if I get ahold of him,” Peter said to his boss.

Over the next few hours Peter kept calling. He finally became concerned enough that he looked up the number to Paul’s wife’s cell phone and gave to a try. “Hello,” a female’s voice came over the line.

“Hello. Is this Sheila?”

“No. This is Sheila’s mother. Can I help you?”

“Yes. This is Peter Wilson, Paul’s coworker. We haven’t heard anything from him today and we are getting worried. It’s not like Paul not to send an email when he’s sick. Is he all right?”

Peter didn’t hear anything for several seconds before Sheila’s mother whisper, “Peter. Paul had a heart attack last night. He died early this morning. Sheila is still at the hospital with the body.”

“What? How? Why?” was all that Peter could get out.

“It seems his health had started suffering with all those long hours you guys work. He simply gave out.”

Peter sat there in silence. “Peter? Are you still there?”

“Yes. Sorry. Can you leave a note for Sheila to let us know the details of the funeral? I’m sure there are a lot of people here who would like to come.”

“I can try. Sheila is blaming your company for Paul’s death. I don’t blame her. No one should have to live like Paul did these past months.”

Peter heard silence as Sheila’s mom hung up on him. Maybe she was right. He didn’t know. He did walk over to his supervisor’s office and give him the bad news. Peter wanted to go home, but his supervisor talked him into staying. He was really needed for the status meeting at seven and they needed him to cover Paul’s eight o’clock meeting with the CIO. “You can do that for me, can’t you?” Peter didn’t want to, but agreed anyway. He did walk back to his cube and call his doctor to set up an appointment for a checkup. It had been over a year since his last one and his health was not much better than Paul’s had been.

A week after the funeral, Peter received the results of his checkup from the doctor. It was not good news. Peter remembers thinking he should go out and buy his casket that day the news was so bad.

******

“Peter? It’s your turn,” his mother said. She always wanted them to stand up and tell each other what they were thankful for each year. He never liked this tradition and always thought it was a joke, but his mother insisted. It was tradition. He grins when he thinks that he always has a hard time not bursting out laughing when his oldest brother always said the same thing.

“As always, I’m thankful for my family and being able to see my girls grow up,” Bill would always say. Bill’s wife would put on a fake smile and his mother would beam.

Peter would always think, “But you work eighty hours and week and never really see your girls. Also, didn’t you just have your third affair with that new accountant? How can you be thankful for your family when you are having affairs and be thankful for seeing your girls grow up when you only see them three or four hours a week?” Peter never said that out loud. Bill’s lame speech would placate his mother.

In the past, Peter would always mumble something about being thankful for his family, which he was, and for his job, which he wasn’t. It was a job. It provided money. He always thought he could just go out and get another. He found out the hard way those last few years at AllTex that his ability to get a new job was an illusion.

As Peter stood on the porch watching the goats chew up a dead squash plant and the chickens and turkeys scratch around for bugs and greens, he remembered what he said three days ago.

“This year, I am thankful that I wised up and left that damn job at AllTex before I died in my sleep like my friend, Paul, did. This year, I am thankful that I left the corporate rat race and all that chasing around for a paycheck is behind me. This year, I am thankful that over the last three years, I have built a new life I can be proud of. A life that has meaning. A life that allows me to spend all those precious minutes with my wife and daughters instead of in the car during rush hour or at a job away from my family. This year, I am glad I have been able to lose over seventy pounds in the last three years because of the good food we grow in our yard. This year, I am glad I have been able to get off of Diabetes medicine, high blood pressure medicine, and cholesterol medicine because of how healthy I am now. This year, I am thankful that my life now has purpose. I am thankful for all those emails I get from my readers about how they are changing their lives around by following my advice to live a simple life. This year, I am glad for the first time in a long time I can actually enjoy taking days off for holidays and not worry about all the stuff I have to get done. This year, I am thankful for my life.”

He still cherishes the looks on his entire family when he sat down. His wife was beaming with pride. His mother was shocked beyond belief. His dad sat there with a “you go boy” grin on his face. His brothers looked at him like he had lost it. But mostly, he remembers seeing the look on his own face in the reflection of a mirror his mom had put on the wall. He remembers seeing someone who was very thankful for his life.

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Happy Thanksgiving

I really wanted to post something today, but work kept me busy today and I was a little wiped out this afternoon. I did manage to finish my first round of outline for The Meltdown tonight, but did not get around to writing a post tonight. I hope everyone in the U.S. has a great Thanksgiving tomorrow and for the rest of you – I will share some of my writing on Friday.

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Steve’s Escape is free for the next five days

Steve’s Escape

Readers of the second book in the Out of Gas series, The Farm, will remember Mark’s brother, Steve, arriving with his family one morning after breakfast. Steve and Maria tell the members of the farm the hardships they faced in Corpus Christi as the city fell to ruins. They tell a tale of lost jobs, a major city closing its doors, a large gang war, and their flight by boat to safety.

Steve’s Escape is that tale. This 18,000 word novella retells the family’s plight and subsequent flight with an extra level of detail not found in The Farm.

Click the link and get your free copy. Offer ends on Tuesday.

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EMP – Final post

I was sitting here thinking it had been a few days since I posted and wondering what I would post tonight when the below came to me. I had wanted to finish up the EMP story and let you know how I think it might end. Remember, this is a very rough draft and I have only scanned it once since it left my fingers. What you are seeing is what I poured out over the last ninety minutes. I hope you enjoy it and please let me know if you find anything or just like it. I love to hear from you.

Owen was hungry. It had been several days since they last had anything other than a few crackers to eat. He opened the freezer looking to see if he could soak up any water for the girls. After discovering the water in the bottom of the toilet tank could be soaked up with a rag and squeezed into the girl’s mouths. He was on a quest to find water for his family. Everyone was on the verge of being dehydrated and he knew he had to do something. If only he had listen to those people who kept telling everyone to have days’ worth of supplies stocked up for emergencies. If it wasn’t for all those cans of food that Sera bought and then refused to cook, he didn’t know where they would be.

Owen opened the freezer to see if there was any water pooled in it. Getting on his hands and knees, he pulled out the bottom rack. There was a packet of meat behind the rack. He didn’t know how long it had been there or if it was any good. He reached in and grabbed the package. It was still cool. Surely that was a good sign that it was still good. If it had been warm he would have thrown it out, but it was cool. Cold even. His stomach growled and he knew Cheyenne and Dakota were miserable. He had to do it.

Owen took the steak to the porch door. Bundling up, he went outside and fired up the grill. He would just cook the steak until it was well done. That should do the trick he told himself. Cook it until no more pink showed. He put the steaks on the fire and looked around. They still needed water. It would hard to eat steak without something to wash it down with. He looked down at a bucket of water they had found in the yard. They had saved it for the dog, but it looked so good. It was clear and clean looking. How bad could it be? It was pure rainwater that had filled the bucket over time. There wasn’t even any bugs in it that he could see. It would have to do. They needed water and if they had to drink out of a bucket, then that is what they will do. He went back into the kitchen and found a large pot. Putting the pot on the fire, he reached down and grabbed the bucket and filled the pot. He thought that all he had to do was to boil it for a minute for two and it would be fine.

A few minutes later, Owen’s stomach growled and rolled. The steaks had to be done by now. The water was steaming, that should be good enough. He grabbed a few plates and called his family to the kitchen. Once they were all there, he whipped the towel off of the steaks and glasses of water. “Breakfast is served,” he said with a smile.

“What? How? Where did you get this?” Sera asked.

“Do you really want to know?”

“No. I’m too hungry and thirsty to care.”

Later that night, Dakota came into Owen and Sera’s room. “Mommy, my tummy hurts and I don’t feel good.”

“It’s probably just upset because you got to eat something today. It’s been a few days since you had anything. Why don’t you crawl up here and sleep with us tonight.”

Cheyenne came in a few minutes later and complained that her stomach was hurting as well. She piled into the bed, crawled under the covers and fell asleep. Sleep didn’t last long. Cheyenne, Dakota, Sera, and Owen all grew very ill during the night. They all felt feverish and were very nauseous. Sera and Owen both had a hard time trying to stay upright trying to find anything that they could use. They didn’t even have a thermometer that worked. There were unprepared for this. The government should have helped by now. How can people live without electricity and water? Where were the police and fire departments?

The girls cried as they tried to throw up during the night. Sera and Owen didn’t fare much better. At least RJ wasn’t crying right now. The poor thing was running out of food and like the rest of them needed water. She was afraid for her family and angry at herself and Owen for allowing their family to get this way. She knew they were all on the verge of severe dehydration and this illness was only going to make it worse.

Owen was just as miserable as the girls. He knew he had poisoned them with the steak. If only he had left it on the fire longer. What made him think that steaks in a freezer would still be good three weeks after the power went out? Sure the food lasted a few days before it thawed out. But three weeks? The steak only felt cool because it was in the freezer and without heat, everything felt cool. He was actually surprised that the meat wasn’t molded. Or did he even check? He just opened the package and threw it on the fire and fast as he could. He didn’t even pay attention to it as it cooked, he was so focus on finding water. “I’m sorry,” he croaked before falling to sleep again.

The illness lasted all night and throughout the next day. Owen, Sera, and the girls all went through periods of throwing up until there was nothing left in their systems. Dry heaves followed and with each round, precious body fluids were wasted. It wasn’t until sometime the next evening that everyone had cleared their stomachs enough to start feeling a little better. Owen and Sera knew they were all dehydrated. Getting over food poisoning was bad enough when you had hospitals, doctors, medicine, and plenty of water to drink. Recovering from it living like they had to would be very difficult. Neither Owen nor Sera were religious, but given what they had gone through the past ten days they had started praying. They needed to feel like someone cared and was watching over them. Even if it was someone they couldn’t see or hear. It gave them strength to think that they were being watched over.

Owen woke up a few hours later and looked over his family sleeping in the bed next to him. He felt so guilty for putting them through this. There had to be something he could have done. Maybe he should have spent the money on water storage instead of that new sixty inch TV that now sat unless in the living room. He used to laugh when he saw those ads for disaster kits. “What a waste of money,” he would laugh when he saw them. Why spend that money when all you had to do was go to a hotel or let the Red Cross take care of you. Hell, even the fire department or church groups would set up stations to help out. No one needed to prepare for anything that lasted more than a few hours. Now, he thought the food and equipment might have made the difference. They might not have gotten sick if they had real food.

Looking over the small figures next to him, he saw his little girls starting to look like skeletons. His wife’s face had shrunken and her bones were starting to show. It had only been three weeks? How could they have gone so far downhill so fast? Was life really that fragile? He looked over to the baby bed and knew RJ was in trouble. They had no more water and his food had ran out today. What would they do for him? He couldn’t eat the same stuff they could. He needed formula and baby food, not steak and crackers. Even as dehydrated as he was, a little tear still rolled down Owen’s cheek.

Sleep didn’t come easy for anyone. They all had headaches from the dehydration. Cheyenne and Dakota kept crying and asking for water. They might have started recovering from the food poisoning, but the dehydration was getting worse. Owen had looked around everywhere inside and outside for water. There was nothing left. Over the last three weeks, they had used up every source of water they had around the house. If only he had a chance to fill their garden tub. That thing held thirty gallons of water. They would have had water to last a few more weeks with all that water.

“The bath tub!” Owen shouted as he sat upright in the bed. “The bath tub!” Sera looked at him and wondered if he was hallucinating from the dehydration.

“What? What bath tub?” she asked.

Owen didn’t say anything as he got out of bed. He swayed a little from the dizziness, but manage to get it under control before running out of the door the fast as he could.

“Owen? What is it? What’s wrong?” Sera asked making her way out of the bed. What was going on with him?

Owen ran downstairs and into the garage. It was dark, but he knew where he needed to go. He made his way over the fifty gallon water heater in the corner of his garage. He felt around and found it. The valve used to drain the heater. He gave it a tentative turn. Then another. A few more before he felt it. Water. Water was coming out of the tank.

“Owen!” Sera yelled as she came downstairs. “Owen! Where are you?”

“In here,” she heard from the garage. What was he doing in the garage?

Owen came through the garage door with a large smile on his face. “Follow me!” he cried grabbing her hand. He walked her into the garage and over to the water heater. “Hold your hands here,” he said as he placed her hands near the tank. He reached over and turned the valve. Sera cried as the water hit her hands.

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Book Review: This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone

This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone
By Melissa Coleman

I read pieces of this book during my lucid periods last week and wanted to write a quick review. This is a MUST READ book for anyone who has ever dreamed about chunking it all in and moving to that little cabin in the woods. It’s not because the book is full of tips, tricks, and advice on organic gardening or living a simple life. It’s because it contains many scenes showing the opposite. It shows you the hard work and long-term problems that might come from trying to replicate an idealized lifestyle that may not for everyone as well as the good times. This is something that most books simply do not. The author seems to not remember many of the bad times (or the editors edit them out). This book includes those problems.

The book is written by the daughter of organic gardening guru, Eliot Coleman. I have read all of Eliot’s works over the years, as well as his muses – Helen and Scott Nearing, and have loved them all. This book takes you behind the scenes of the early years of Eliot’s career in organic gardening and will give you the good and bad. Yes there are scenes in the book which I would have loved to have shared with my daughters and grandchildren. There are other scenes which will make you wonder if it would all have been worth it. Granted, the bad times might have been caused mostly by Eliot’s myopic views on how they should live their lives, but that is something that is hard to get from only one person’s story. Not to give much away, but you see the early struggles of someone who would eventually be an internationally recognized expert. Like all people who eventually rise the top of their field, something had to give along the way. Melissa’s book walks the reader through what had to give during those years.

Hopefully, the long-term issues were caused by Eliot’s views and long hours can served as a warning to others and not because you simply can’t live the lifestyle we have come to idealize. You simply cannot start from scratch with no money, not time, no help, and no clue and build up a self-sufficient lifestyle overnight. If you try to do so, your family will pay the price. For those of us who would like to keep all, or at least a portion, of our family intact as we simplify our lives, take the warnings this book gives you and learn from them. What may look like the ideal lifestyle from the outside will have its own dark side.

Read the book and learn from it. Don’t think you can just chuck it all aside and trek into the wilderness and start over with problems. Yes, there will be days of sunshine and lilies, but there will also be many days of rain, mud, blood, and manure. You just have to hope the good days outnumber the bad by a large margin.

So, ready to read this book after reading my review which is all over the place? I had a hard time writing this book because I both loved and hated the book. Too much darkness, but also great times mixed in. I’m glad it looks like everything worked out in the long run for Melissa’s family and she is able to overcome whatever emotional issues she may have had early in her life to give us this personal view into her early life. I enjoy this so much more than books that treat lifestyles most of us would like to live with a perfect, Martha Stewart, everything is great perspective and never talk about that baby goat that you spent all week with giving up the ghost ten days later.

Read the book! Remember that every life has good and bad moments and not many books talk about that poor person who is spending twenty hours a day, up to their knees in manure so that the main garden can look like something on a magazine cover.

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EMP Part 2

Second part of the new story I thought of while lying in bed sick this week.

Hope you like it.

For a family used to their entertainment coming from a variety of electrical sources, the day seemed to drag on forever. The kids quickly tired of coloring and wanted to watch TV. Owen had to explain why the TV wouldn’t work when the power was out. Then he had to explain why they couldn’t put batteries in the TV like they did some of their other toys. He had no explanation on why various electronic toys the girls had didn’t work. He had never experience a power outage that not only fried every piece of electrical equipment they had plugged in, but also manage to somehow short out their cars, watches, laptops, the kid’s toys, and a radio he had out in the garage.

“I’m bored,” Cheyenne said for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.

“I know sweetie,” Sera replied. “Why don’t you color some more?”

“I’m tired of coloring. Can we make popcorn?”

“The electricity is out. The microwave doesn’t work, remember?”

“Oh yea. I forgot. I’m hungry. When’s lunch?”

Not having a single clock in the house that worked, Sera had no idea what time it was. “Ok. It must be around lunch time. I’ll see what I can find.”

Owen got up and went into the kitchen with Sera. “How’ll we do this?” he asked her. “There’s no way to warm anything up?”

“Let’s get something out of the frig. Make sandwiches or something.”

“Ok. I grab the stuff out of the frig if you’ll get some chips. Let’s use paper plates so we don’t have to wash dishes.”

“Ok. Don’t hold the door open very long. I heard that you can still use for a few days if you are careful and don’t let all the cold air out.”

“Where did you hear that?” Owen wanted to know.

“You remember all those disaster shows that came on TV after Katrina? I watched a few of them one night when I had the flu. I wished I had taken some notes.”

“Me too. I don’t know what we are going to do if they power stays off more than a few days.”

“Why don’t we go out back and make this a picnic. Maybe that will get some of the cabin fever out of the girls.”

“Out of me as well,” Owen laughed. It was hard to go from a day scheduled in fifteen minute increments to one with no clocks and nothing to do. Everything they did was electronic.

The Miller family had a wonderful time with their backyard picnic. The girls and Owen played games, swung on the swing set, and ended up having a pretend Easter egg hunt. Owen and Sera spent more time with the girls that afternoon then they had in years. No cell phones, emails, or “must watch” TV shows interfered with the family outing. They didn’t even miss electricity and wouldn’t have known it was out if it wasn’t for the water being out as well. The situation with the toilets was getting critical and neither Owen nor Sera knew what they were going to do about it. They couldn’t use their water to flush the toilets without knowing for sure when it would come back on. They might be rationing food or water at this time, but they both felt using drinking water to flush a toilet was a bad idea.

“What are we going to do about it?” Sera wanted to know.

“We’re going to have figure something out. We can’t keep using the toilets.”

“That’s fine for you. You can go outside. What about me and the girls? We can’t go outside like you?”

“You may have to if the power doesn’t come on in the next day or so. We can’t keep using the toilets.”

“We’ll see. Remember, it’s supposed to get cold tomorrow. They are talking about a freeze tomorrow night.”

“I forgot about that. I hope someone can get the power back on by then and tell us how to reset everything. I think all we should have to do is flip a few of those circuit breakers in the garage by the water heater and everything should come back on.”

“Let’s hope,” she said. “This wind is horrible, let’s go back in. Besides, the clouds are coming in and they look like rain.”

“Rain. I’m going to pull out the girl’s pool. Maybe we can catch some rainwater in it.”

“And do what with it? We can’t drink it, they swam in the thing.”

“We can use the water for Rufus and for the toilets. It we get enough, maybe use it to wash up some.”

“That I’ll agree with. How much do you think it will take to fill the pool? They were talking about an inch or more.”

“I don’t know. I’ll put it under the corner of the porch where it always run off. That may help to fill it faster.”

After coming back in from their outing, it didn’t take long for the sun to start going down and the girls to get bored again. “Daddy, I’m bored. I’m tired of coloring.”

“I know sweetie. I’m bored as well. It’s too dark to go outside again. Don’t you have anything in your room to play with?”

“Nothing works.”

“Wait a minute,” Owen said. “I think I know what we can do.”

Without saying another word, Owen ran up the stairs to the upstairs hall closet. Having nothing better to do, the rest of the family followed. “What are you doing?” Sera asked.

“Wait a minute,” Owen replied. “Found it!” Owen came out of the closet dragging a big plastic storage tub. “Remember, we put all those old board games in this tub a few years ago when we cleaned out downstairs.”

Sera smiled. She remembered playing some of those games with Cheyenne before Dakota was born. There should be something in there to entertain the kids for the next day or so until things went back to normal.

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Reply to Terease

I received a nice comment today from someone about my post last night. It was nice to see someone was thinking the same thing I was this morning. While I was lying in bed this morning gathering the energy to get up and get moving, I did come up with a concept for making this short piece into a full book or book series. Still ill today and not working so during the periods I’m not miserable, I may flesh out a full outline and see if the concept is a valid one or not. What I was thinking of doing is to make this an experiment by providing four parts to each book. Part I would be a family who is not prepared in any way for a disaster – no supplies, no skills, and no clue. People who are simply waiting for the government to come to their rescue. Part II would be the same family, but this time they do not set around and wait for help. They organize what little they have and try to ride things out. Part III would be a “in-place” disaster prepper. Someone who has spent time and a little money preparing for a disaster that lasts a week or more. Finally, part IV would be a full-blown prepper who has a small place somewhere to go so they don’t have to spend time in a city riding out something like the loss of the entire power grid.

Still not got everything straight yet, but wanted to know if anyone had comments on this type of book.

Randy

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Political Fools

Settling here today watching a few football games between household chores and this little scene for my latest book Political Fools popped into my head. I thought I would write up the rough draft and post it here so you can look it over. Remember this is the rough draft. It was written over the last few hours during commercials and downtime of tonight’s football game, so it may have some rough spots that I will need to redo before actually adding it to my manuscript. Hope you enjoy it.

“Ok. I think we are all in agreement,” Senator Williston said to the assembled group of fellow senators and congressmen. “Dr. Landry’s study shows that if we manage this right, shutting down the government and starting over will benefit this great country of ours. We need to move forward with my plan.”

“Do you think we have the numbers?” Senator Moran asked. “I don’t think there is enough of us to do this right now. Shouldn’t we wait until our numbers are higher?”

“No. We don’t have the numbers to pass this right now. Remember, we don’t have to win in large numbers. We don’t have to replace the Republican candidate for president. All we have to do is get enough senators and congressmen on our side and we can push this through with some Republicans on our side.”

“So, why should be bring our agenda out now?” a congressman from Texas asked.

“We need the debate. We need to bring this in front of the public so we can build our base across American. We only have one year to get our candidates into the primaries. It won’t do any good to try to run our candidates and bring up Clean Slate during the primaries. We need to get it out and in the public’s mind before”

“How are we going to do this without shocking anyone and getting attacked?” Georgian Senator Wilmer asked.

“My assistant Paul has it all mapped out. He’s going to give you all detailed timelines for introducing Clean Slate. Basically, we drop the term in a conversation or interview here and there. Explain our views. We line up more and more economists and business leaders behind the theory. We have about two hundred of them now that will go along. Over time, the term becomes a bigger part of our speeches and interviews. A year from now, everyone will know what it is and then we announce the fifty candidates we have lined as well as ourselves as the Clean Slate party.”

Murmurs went up along the assembled group. Senator Williston gave them a few minutes to discuss his time table amongst themselves and when he heard the murmur quieting down, he continued. “Just so we are all on the same boat, the packet we are handing out has all the details you need to know about Clean Slate. Paul worked with Dr. Landry to come up with talking points, rebuttals, sound bites, and everything else you need to know to defend this plan.”

“Some of us are new to your little group,” Congressman Peters said. “Go over quickly what all Clean Slate entails and what this Dr. Landry has theorized.”

Senator Williston smiled and replied, “Sorry Bill, I had forgotten that you and Congressmen Smith, Anderson, and Jennings are new to our team. Dr. Landry has researched economic breakdowns over the course of human history. His research has lead him to believe that the current rate of spending and deficits by the U.S. Government is unsustainable. He believes that our spending combined with the debt and unfunded liabilities will crash our economy in the near future. I have reviewed his research and wholeheartedly believes in his conclusions. Several years ago, I started working with him to figure a way out of the mess. What we have come up with is the simple fact that if the economy is going to crash, why not crash it ourselves. Control the crash by having a plan to recover instead of being caught by surprise when it happens. Control the timing with a congress and senate that believes in a smaller government and less taxes.”

Senator Williston stopped for effect and let his words sink in. Even the people in the room who have heard this lecture before, still needed reinforcement from time to time. “What we need to do is build our numbers to the point that we control the agenda. When we can do that, we will refuse to pass the budget and stop the government. We default on our debt and lower taxes at that point to help us start over and the American business recover. We state at that time that we intend to wipe out all funding and start over with a clean slate. The budget we pass will be a fraction of the size and only include a very small portion of the current government.”

“And this is supposed to work and not bring everything down around our ears? What about the millions of people who will be out of work because of the reduced government?”

“There’s talking points on those topics in the folder. This is not going to come without some pain, but if we do it rather than having it happen by surprise, the fallout will be manageable. Read Dr. Landry’s paper and have your staff go over everything. You’ll come up with the same conclusions we have and be all the way onboard. This is the only way to get this great country out of the mess it’s in.”

Congressman Peters looked at the packet and then at Senator Williston, “Okay, Tom. I’ll give everything a go over and see what I how much I want to go in on this plan.”

“Thanks Bill,” Senator Williston said with a big smile on his face. He let the group talked amongst themselves while he bent down and whispered into Paul’s earl. “Make sure we put Bill and his group on a full-course press. He’s leaning to our side, but could blow the other way. Set up a meeting with Dr. Landry and include Bill’s group. We need to reel him in.”

“Will do. Make sure you mention that these packets cannot be made public. This all has to be keep secret until we are ready.”

“Good point. I’ll mention it in my closing remarks.”

Senator Williston, Senator Moran, Paul and a few others spent the rest of the evening making their way to other attendees of the dinner to talk privately about Clean Slate. Over the next few hours, Senator Williston had been able to convince all of the congressmen and senators in the room, including Congressman Peters, of the viability of Clean Slate. He was smiling and extremely happy by the time he and Paul found their way back in the limo to go back to his office.”

“You did a great job with those packets,” Senator Williston said to Paul as the limo pulled away. “A few more meetings like that and we’ll be able to pull off this whole thing.”

“Way to go with Congressman Peters. You had him drooling like a dog over the possibility of Clean Slate by the end of the night. After meeting with Dr. Landry, he’ll be one of our biggest cheerleaders.”

The two started laughing and the thought of Congressman Peters meeting with Dr. Landry. Little did anyone in the group knew that the whole thing had been Senator Williston’s theory. Dr. Landry only agreed to put his name to the research after a substantial offshore account had been set up in his name. It also helped that the title to a nice ocean-side resort in the South Pacific had been transferred to a company he now controlled. Dr. Landry didn’t want to ride out the after effects of Clean Slate anywhere near the United States.

Remember, what you see here may or may not make it into the book or it may be completely rewritten by then. Even so, leave me a comment if you like it or not.

Randy

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EMP Part 1

I spent the better part of this week fighting off a bought of food poisoning along with the dehydration that always seems to come with any stomach issues I have. While lying in bed yesterday dreading having to move around, I thought of this little story. I don’t know when and where I will use it, but I needed to get it out of my head.

As normal, this is a rough draft and I haven’t done anything to it but type it up. Ignore the mistakes, or better yet tell me about them so I can clean them out. Here’s the first part. Probably will be another part over the weekend and the final part of the story may come in next month’s newsletter. If you haven’t signed up for the newsletter – use the box on the right and sign up today so you will be able to get the end of the story. Remember, the key here is food poisoning.

Owen had just sat down and opened is laptop when the lights started blinking. “What the hell? Honey! Are the lights blinking in your office?”

“Yes,” Sera said just as they blinked once last time and went out.

“Dammit! What the hell is going on?” he said as he got up from his chair. “I don’t need this shit tonight. I’m already behind on emails.”

“Did you forget to pay the bill?” Sera yelled out.

“Ha. Ha,” Owen replied. “Like I would forget to pay the damn bill.” He looked out the windows of his office. “All the street lights are off and so are the neighbors. It’s not just us.”

Sera rummaged through her desk and found a small flashlight she kept in there. Turning it on, she got up and started walking out of her office to join Owen. “I’ll call and see how long they think it will take to get the power back on. Funny it went out tonight. There’s no storms around.”

“Maybe someone ran into a pole or something. Blew out a transformer or something.”

“Maybe,” she replied as she picked up her cell. “Funny, my cell is dead. It’s plugged in and should be charged. Try yours.”

“Mine’s in my office. I plugged it in a few hours ago, so it should be charged.”

Sera left and went into Owen’s office. “Yours dead as well.”

“What? God dammit. If some power surge burned out our phones I’m going to jump all over someone at TexPower. I need that phone tomorrow for my conference call.”

“Not much we can do about it tonight. Why don’t I check on the kids and we go to bed early tonight. Maybe we can make use of this outage and be in bed before then for the first time in decades.”

“There’s no way I can go to sleep this early,” he said as Sera looked at him with a smile on her face.

“Nobody said anything about sleeping.”

Owen smiled. “Right, I’ll meet you there.”

The next morning, Owen opened his eyes with a smile on his face. He actually enjoyed their little blackout last night and had gotten more sleep than he had in years. He turned his eyes at the clock, “Damn. It’s still out.”

“What?” Sera said as she rolled over and opened her eyes.

“Power is still out,” he replied as he wondered into the bath. “Water’s out as well.”

“Don’t flush then. We can hit the gym on the way in and take showers there.”

“Ok. I’ll get a bottle out of the fridge so we can brush out teeth and wipe down the kids before talking them to school.”

The morning routine was somewhat different than normal, but the Millers managed to get Cheyenne and Dakota ready for school and RJ ready for day care.”

Owen walked into the garage and hit the button to open the doors before smacking himself on the forehead. “Dummy,” he said to himself as grabbed the flashlight from the counter near the door. He pointed the weak light at the ceiling to look for the little tug ropes which would allow him to open garage doors manually. Setting the light on the hood of his car, he pulled the rope overhead. Light flooded the garage as the doors slowly opened. He walked over and pulled the second rope as Sera came through the door.

“Come on girls, it looks like we’re late.”

“Do you even know what time it is?” Owen asked.

“No. I couldn’t find that watch I used to wear and the digital one you had wasn’t working. I guess the battery went dead a long time ago.”

Owen grabbed RJ’s carrier and fished out his keys. He pushed the button to unlock his car, but didn’t hear the usual chirp it made as it unlocked the doors. He grabbed the handle, but the door remained locked. He pushed the button several more times without success.

“What the hell? My remote is dead.”

“Mine too,” Sera replied. “This is weird.”

“Take RJ.” Owen handed the baby carrier to Sera and unlocked the door to his car with his key. Sitting down in the seat, he put in the key and turned it. Nothing. The car was dead. No door chime, no dash lights. Nothing.

He gave Sera a worried look before getting out of his car and heading to hers. The results were the same. Both cars where dead.

“What’s going on? Why would both our cars be dead?” Sera asked with a little bit of fear in her eyes.

“I don’t know.” Owen got out of Sera’s car and turned around to walk outside. He could see cars lined up in the driveways down the street with their hoods up and his neighbors trying to figure out why their cars wouldn’t start either.

“Look at this sweetie. No one’s cars will start.”

Sera scanned the street. “What could cause this? Are we under attack or something?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get the kids back in the house and see if anything is working. Maybe we can find one of those old radios we took with us camping a few years ago. I’ll look for those if you find some batteries.”

“Ok.” Sera ushered the girls back into the house and put RJ into his playpen. She told the girls to color while she helped daddy.

Owen looked around at his neighbors for a few more minutes before trying to remember where he would have put the camping gear. He knew the box was somewhere in the pile next to the water heater, but couldn’t remember exactly which one held the radios.

“Hey neighbor,” he heard as he dug through one of the boxes.

“Hey, Phil. Strange day, huh?”

“Yea. Your cars dead?”

“Everything’s dad. How about you?”

“Same at my place. Trying to figure out what happened. Didn’t hear an explosion or anything last night. Not sure what could cause this. It’s like every piece of electrical equipment we have has gone dead overnight.”

“Same here. Sera’s was just asking what could cause this. I don’t have a clue. You wouldn’t know would you?”

“Nope. I thought I would wonder around the neighborhood some and see if anyone knows anything.”

“I’m trying to find some old radios to see if we can get some news. If you find out anything, stop back by and let me know. I hate being cut off like this.”

“Will do. If you get a radio working, come outside so the rest of us can hear it.”

“I’ll do that.”

Owen finally found the right box and retrieve the old radio. He was about to walk back into the house when he remembered that there was another radio stashed away in his dad’s old metal tackle box. He opened the metal chest his dad’s stuff was in and dug out the tackle box. He opened it and found the very old radio. Leaving everything on the floor of the garage next to the water heater, Owen went back into the house to see if Sera had found any batteries.”

“Any luck?”

“I found a few in the kitchen drawers and figured we could steal from the kid’s toys if we need to. Half their stuff runs on batteries. How about you?”

“I found two. Our old one and the old one my dad took with him fishing. Hopefully, one of them still works. Phil stopped by and said they were in the same boat. Nothing works at their house either. He’s going around the neighborhood to see if anyone knows what happens. I’ve never heard of anything that could knock out every piece of electrical equipment in an entire neighborhood before.”

“Hopefully, we can get one of these things working. At least maybe some radio station can tell us how long it will be before the fire department or help arrives. I’m going to go pack some clothes and things in case we can get a ride to a hotel. You work on the radios.”

“Ok,” Owen replied. He didn’t have luck with their radio and after scavenging a 9-volt battery from one of Dakota’s toys, he was able to get his dad’s old piece to work.

“Honey, dad’s radio is working, but I’m not getting anything on it. Just static.”

“Come up here and help me with the suitcases and let me try.”

Owen walked up the stairs and handed the radio to Sera as he started grabbing the suitcases Sera had packed. “Hey, try an AM station. He used to listen to those all the time and I think there is an emergency signal on one of them.”

“How do I do that?” she asked before seeing a little button that changed the radio from FM to AM. “Still nothing. Either this thing is not really working or there’s not any stations still broadcasting.”

“Probably not working. Hard to believe every station would be off the air. Don’t they have backup generators or something?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to wait around for the next few hours until help arrives.”

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