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.

Commuting with Nature / 25.02.2003

That sound. I am driving my daughter to school. We have been on the road for almost an hour, twice as long as it should take us to get downtown. And we are almost there. She sits in her backseat booster and if I angle the rearview mirror just so, I can see her forehead and right eye. Snow banks continue to trespass on city streets, chocking our commute to a crawl. It is a long cold ride. As I listen to the news, the winds of winter fight the winds of the Iraqi War. The heat is blasting. And that...

News Outta My Control / 22.02.2003

Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil. War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. The conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing. President Bush Washington, D.C. September 14, 2001 I think [it's important] to ask where the long-term American future lies, whether we really think...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 18.02.2003

We are still snowbound. The main roads have been cleared. And our driveway has been excavated from the knee-deep snow. But the county has not made even an initial run down our street with its snow removal truck. The government is closed, as are the schools so I am doing some of my own work here at home. Luckily, my net connection was not affected by the precipitation. Here is a photo of where our driveway meets the street. Scientific measurements added for clarity. Our neighbor has volunteered to snowshoe it to the closest liquor store. Urban legend states that huge...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 16.02.2003

It's snowing. It's really snowing. According the weather bureau, this is the second worst snowstorm in recorded history. And, wouldn't you know it: not only on a weekend but a holiday weekend. But we are prepared. In between storms yesterday I managed to stock up on the essentials (snowbound food and movies). We already have enough plastic and duct tape in case the snow starts encroaching our living room perimeter. But what to do with the kids? Our walls were not built to contain their unbridled energy for too long. We have no "safe room" outfitted with special child energy buffers....

News Outta My Control / 15.02.2003

Which is scarier: the fact that a man was gunned down in broad daylight at a gas station in Washington, DC and no one did anything to help him or that, in another part of the city we were scared sh*itless into buying more duct tape and plastic than we know what to do with? First we are told to prepare for the worst: build a "safe" room in your house. Have an escape plan and phone contacts outside the city. Carry a three-day supply of important meds with you. Everyone begins to look suspicious and catastrophe is imminent. Our survival...

Commuting with Nature, News Outta My Control / 12.02.2003

Which is scarier: Osama bin Laden's recent tape or Michael Jackson's? Each, in its own way, is a reflection on our society and speaks volumes about our values. Osama thinks he can change the world by killing infidels (innocent or otherwise). Michael thinks he can change the world by offering young children his bed (100% innocent). We are responsible for both of them. Each sees simplistic solutions to the world's woes. But they're not the only ones who do. Our government's reaction to terrorism: batten down the hatches (that's good), cozy closer to repressive regimes if they allow us a better...

News Outta My Control / 05.02.2003

I was a good boy. The kind of boy every parent would love. I did everything I was told as a child and even believed everything my parents told me. As I look back now, fear was just as much a part of the equation as anything else—fear of what my father might do if I questioned him. Consequently, my rebellion came later than most, in my early 20s. I can remember a few times I inhabited the other side of the tracks when I was young. But for the most part, I was just a good kid, thinking and doing...

Commuting with Nature, Professional Auteurism / 25.01.2003

I saw Michael Jackson on the subway yesterday. Not the present version but the one from the 70s: medium, well-shaped Afro and that angelic, before the shit-hit-the-fan face. It's been oh so cold here in DC (coldest it's been in seven years) and this MJ was wrapped in what looked like a duct tape goose down tubular jacket: something he might have worn in his Scream video. Past and present in one neat package. Coincidentally, just as I was observing Michael someone's cell phone called out. Obviously, the user had been downloading too many tones as the Jackson Five's A-B-C beckoned...

Professional Auteurism / 23.01.2003

The Washington Post is reporting today that yet another wireless technology is being tested in this country. EvDO (Evolution Data Only) is ten times faster than regular modems and faster than WiFi (the wireless networks available in many Starbucks and hotel lobbies). In addition, EvDO can use existing cell networks. This has got the telecoms salivating. R&D is hard pressed in the downturned economy so not having to commit to a totally new infrastructure is appealing. This does not mean, however, that implementation will be cheap. New areas of the broadcast spectrum would have to be bought to accommodate increased traffic....

Professional Auteurism / 20.01.2003

The Net is redefining our social space. Hyperbole aside, in the last week I've discovered two new ways to define my net community. Did I tell you I'm reading Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs? Howard has researched the ways technology is changing how we interact. Yet, as a coworker suggested, he writes about it as if he's telling a story. Makes a potentially "geeky" read into a powerful and engaging one. Every so often I get really excited by someone's writing. This is a book I not only can't put down, but one that immediately puts me into a creative trance. Ideas,...