Jeff Likes to Tell Stories

Welcome to my blog. I haven’t kept up with it in a while. But I hope to get back to writing the types of stories you’ll find here. If my life was a sitcom, these might be considered scripts for the show. I write about my life, my interactions with my family and those strangers I encounter on a daily basis. My more serious writing can be found in various places. But I often post them on Medium.

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 29.05.2005



If someone had told me back then that when George Lucas completed his saga I'd be living in Washington, DC, working as a Web designer for the Smithsonian, living next to a suburban forest with my wife and two children, and that I would actually be happy about being bald I would not have believed them. My first question would have been, "What the hell's a Web designer?"

I survived my early angst with a little help from Obi-Wan Kenobe. I began to learn the ways of the Force. But I decided to stay down-to-earth. In the ensuing 28 years I have developed a philosophical skill set --a guide that helps me weather the complexity of ideas and changes that mark contemporary culture.

The opening of The Revenge of the Sith marks an important milestone in my life. It's a time to reflect on all that I've learned since Luke and I discovered the Force:

Commuting with Nature, Worker's Comp / 26.05.2005

Pretty in Pink: My Coworkers and I in the Uniform of the Day Commuting time is usually decompression time. Unlike driving, riding the subway each morning and afternoon allows me to listen to music or This American Life on my iPod, read the morning paper, and sometimes just observe my fellow commuters. Today, as I made my way underground, I was reading Deepsix, my latest less-than-deep sci-fi novel. I casually looked up to notice the five people sitting closest to me were all wearing pink and black. Hmmm. This was a bit out of the ordinary. And as I walked up...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 08.05.2005

An object can only achieve its meaning by being exchanged. Allan McCollum THANKS by Allan McCollum You can never compliment the mother of your children enough. Dinners made, fannies wiped, tears softened --the list is endless. And so for my wife, the mother of my two little ones, I have found the perfect Mother's Day gift: Allan McCollum's THANKS Visible Markers. These are a great way to actively demonstrate my appreciation for the often invisible, but major things Mom does for all of us. Family acts of kindness are easily camouflaged in the buzz of daily life. Now I can express my feelings in...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 24.04.2005

When buying clothes, it's easy to throw men into an abyss. And it can happen with just the simplest little twist. Just yesterday my significant other along with our two very significant little others went to an outlet mall. The kids needed new shoes, my wife needed new pants, and I, well, I needed something. I was sure I needed something. I always look forward to finding a bargain but when faced with the actual experience of shopping in situ I get very depressed. Depressed to see the "schlock" that's for sale, depressed to see people actually buying that junk, and...

Professional Auteurism / 02.04.2005

Trouble, oh we got trouble, Right here in River City! With a capital "T" That rhymes with "P" And that stands for Pool, That stands for pool. We've surely got trouble! Right here in River City, Right here! Gotta figger out a way To keep the young ones moral after school! Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble...

Fairly Odd Parents-Past, News Outta My Control / 26.03.2005

Despite Terry Schiavo's parents' efforts to keep her alive and despite Congress' deplorable actions, we wait. Waiting for a loved one to die is a time full of anticipation. Waiting for them to pass --no euphemism can adequately describe that feeling. It's so personal and so intimate, which makes the government circus surrounding Ms. Schiavo's end-of-life so sad. I remember another waiting. • • • My Mother and Me in the Late 1960s In 1960 when I was eleven my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was benign but the operation to remove it changed our lives forever. A once vibrant and beautiful...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present, Worker's Comp / 06.03.2005

Psst. Hey you. Yah you. Come over here. Wanna buy some cookies? Uh, I got Trefoils. I got your Do-si-dos. I got Double Dutch, Samoas, and Thin Mints. I even got Lemon Coolers. They're lo-cal. What's your pleasure? The Girl Scouts' Thin Mints. Pictured larger than real life, but not as delicious. Thin Mints please. Those delectable chocolate-covered wafers. They seem to melt in your mouth so effortlessly you're scarfing down a whole box before the first commercial of CSI. THIN MINTS! Ummmmm. I want 'em now and I want 'em bad. It's Girl Scout cookie time. I'm not alone. It's the...

Artistic Tendencies, Fairly Odd Parents-Present, Idiosyncratic Celebrations / 27.02.2005

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates is a spectacle consistent with [the Renaissance art tradition], a piece of elaborate social theater that's an unintentional portrait of our time. That portrait can be poignant and charming; most of all, it's funny. I'm surprised more isn't being made of the ongoing social comedy surrounding The Gates, which is a satirist's dream. Well, actually, I'm not surprised: People are afraid to smile too much around art.

Mark Stevens
New York Magazine

The Gates. "The Gates" has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Much is being written about Christo's and Jeanne-Claude's latest public art piece in Central Park. There are even homages and parodies (and parodies) of the work. Whatever you think and whatever you've read, it's certainly a cause for celebration: art displacing war on the front pages of major media.

But I'm not here to talk about the work. Instead, let's talk about the title of the work. The Gates. It's nice to see your name in headlines, plastered all over the Web, and on the nightly news. But it certainly isn't the first time.

I'm what you might call a Celebrity, once removed. I see my name on airport and train station signage all the time: "To Gates 71-75." At the Oakland Airport there is even a more personal acknowledgment: "Gates 7-17" (my birthday). And now I'm associated with fine public art.

Yes, my name is famous. But I am merely a country cousin. Not in the real sense. I'm not related to Bill (or to Christo and Jeanne-Claude for that matter). I actually come from a very short line of Gateses. It's just my two daughters and me now. At Ellis Island some low-level official set me up for this by christening my grandfather Herman Guyetsky as Herman Gates. I've given thought to changing it back, but, then, I've built up quite a reputation --once removed of course.

Mechanical Aversions / 20.02.2005

Mercury, the messenger of the gods, is in charge of all things that have to do with communication, electronics and transportation. And Mercury is set to turn retrograde for the next three weeks.


During this time, it's challenging at best to get where you want to go or reach who you want to contact and dealing with computers can be an absolute nightmare. Fortunately, there's a purpose for everything.


Right now, you're being asked to review, repair, redo, revamp and look things over for a second time until Mercury goes direct. In the meantime, concentrate on fixing what's broken, giving something a second shot and being especially diligent at troubleshooting.

From an Online Astrological Site

I have been shamed into entering the 21st century. Shamed! "You are a Web designer and you don't have broadband at home? Tsk, tsk, tsk."

I really never saw a strong need for it, given its price point. I was paying a whopping $6.95/month for dialup. But with my friends' strong admonitions (you know who you are) and my need for a faster home connection to establish a VPN hookup to my work's servers, I was forced to reconsider.

Cable was too expensive and they added fees for every computer you wanted to connect. After copious research I settled on Verizon DSL. It was the cheapest and they had been supporting Mac OS X for a while. When it comes to being the first Mac person in my neighborhood to walk into a PC-based world, the vanguard I am not.

When my DSL modem arrived last week I was pleasantly surprised to see it was also a wireless router. Connecting the other computers in the house should theoretically be a breeze (and I wouldn't have to buy an Airport Basestation).

To those of my readers who are already in a fog by my use of acronyms and words like VPN and router, wait there's more. I understand your desire for clarity. And this is the point of this tale.