The SoapBoxers

We’re winding down 2009. When the year began, The Soap Boxers was in its infancy. I was the sole writer, and the schedule that I set for 2009 was 5-6 articles per month. Obviously, we’ve gone far beyond those expectations. We’ve also gone far outside the original topics of customer experiences, news, sports, and book reviews.

How did this happen?

Largely by chance, actually. The expansion of the staff occurred after I asked Johnny Goodman to write about his experience at The Masters. While I am not a golf fan, I understood how cool this experience would be to a golf fan. I liked what Johnny wrote, and offered him a weekly column to write about sports. If you stop to think about it, it’s a bit odd that a sports nut such as me would bring a dedicated sports writer on board. However, I realized that there is value in having different opinions on issues, as well as the fact that Johnny would be able to cover topics (such as golf) that were of minimal interest to me.

During the course of the year, we expanded the staff incrementally. This was done mostly to expand the breadth of subject matter that we cover, while also taking some work off my shoulders. Early in the year, I decided that I wanted The Soap Boxers to deliver fresh content almost every day – something that would have been impossible if not for my wonderful staff. We have had between 33 and 38 articles in each month between March and November (and are well on the way to 30+ again this month).

Early on, I also made the conscious decision to avoid becoming a niche blog, in spite of the fact that this best way to draw a large audience. I have always tried to run the site more like a magazine or newspaper, including content from a wide variety of topics. If it works for USA Today and The New Yorker, why can’t it work for us?

The Soap Boxers has also given me the opportunity to kick start my fiction writing, after enduring a decade where I wrote very little fiction. It felt a bit rusty at first, as if the fiction neurons had experience some atrophy. Soon, however, it was full speed ahead.

In a largely positive year, there have really only been a handful of negatives. The first was a situation involving plagiarism that I felt the need to deal with quickly and decisively. The second was the loss of a loyal reader who was offended by one of my short stories. Neither of these were things that I had a great deal of control over. The plagiarism was dealt with as soon as I figured out what was going on (hint: don’t copy from a national media outlet), and the story that was deemed offensive garnered positive reviews from many others.

The third negative is that fact that growth of readership seems to have stalled a bit. We seem to have reached a long term plateau. If we’re destined to move forward with this group, that’s OK with me. You’re a great group of readers. It would also be great to have a few more folks as readers, though, so if you’d mention The Soap Boxers to a friend or two this holiday season (or share through Stumble or other social networking), we would be grateful.

Beyond the actual writing, I’ve had the experience of interacting with some cool people – other bloggers as well as readers – during the course of the year. I’ve also had the experience of learning a lot about WordPress, as I took a free template and customized the hell out of it, so that the template designer himself probably wouldn’t recognize it.

So, what will 2010 hold for us?

The schedule may fall into a slight bit of disarray early in the year. My wife and I are expecting our second child in January, and this will of course take time away from my writing and coordination of articles. I’m trying to get a bunch of articles written in advance, so that the schedule doesn’t skip a beat. Logic would dictate that there will be some sort of impact, though. We’ll try to keep it minimal.

The Winter Olympics arrive in Vancouver in February. We will attempt to bring some unique insight and quirky biases (such as my fascination with luge) through a series of articles. Baseball will follow on the heels of the Olympics. I promise to overwhelm you with baseball coverage and make an effort to affect your All Star voting.

I’ll continue to chase down interesting stories and angles. I’ll definitely try to dispatch my alter ego, Scoop Chevelle, for a half dozen interviews during the year. January will bring us an interview with a famous blogger.

I’ll also be reviving the “Fake News Network” segment the debuted on Thanksgiving Day. FNN will bring you fictionalized news events. Some will be (very loosely based on real events; others will be made from scratch. You will probably note similarities between FNN and sites like The Onion. Am I ripping off The Onion? No – I’ve been writing these sorts of articles prior to the existence of that wonderful site.

The sleigh glided down to the snow, touched down for an instant, and hopped back into the air before landing for the final time. The reindeer taxied quickly to their stable, in spite of their exhaustion from the long journey. Their food was close enough to smell. Santa unhooked them from the sleigh and the deer near trampled each other in an effort to get to the food that Mrs. Claus had left out for them.

Santa smiled as he watched the deer hungrily devour the first meal they had eaten in a day. He knew that they would be sound asleep shortly after they finished eating. It had been a grueling day.

The man in the red suit trudged up to the big house. The first order of business was a long hot shower. As usual, his red suit was beyond saving, and would be thrown in the trash again this year. The hot water felt good on his cold skin, and the powerful bursts from the showerhead removed the soot from his skin. Eventually, Claus emerged from the shower, slipped into his pajamas, and searched for food.

He immediately hit pay dirt. There was a pizza box on the top shelf of the fridge. It contained a nearly whole Canadian bacon pizza from the best pizza joint north of the Arctic Circle. There was not time to waste with frivolities such as reheating, so Santa inhaled the pizza cold. He chased it down with a liter bottle of Pepsi. When he was finished, he let out an enormous burp that could probably be heard as far away as the workshop.

Saturday was a completely lost day. Santa slept until 8 PM, woke up long enough to eat and share a few words with Mrs. Claus, and then slipped back into slumber once again. Sunday was a day of leisure that Santa spent watching football with a few of the elves.

Monday marked the return to the normal grind, and it came far too soon. Most of the elves were on a long vacation, so there was a skeleton crew at the workshop, mostly handling the handful of request for returns.

The Claus mailbag was already busting at the seams. Not with gifts from good little boys and girls – those were still many months away. Instead, they were filled with bills from suppliers and solicitations from every whack job that thought they had the next brilliant idea for a toy design and wanted a hefty licensing fee.

Santa tossed the mail from wannabe toymakers into the recycling bin.  He had more than enough designers on staff, and couldn’t afford to license designs from independent contractors.  He tossed the bills to the side, where the accounting team would have to deal with them later. Costs had been steadily rising for the last few years, and funding had really dried up in the wake in the international economic crisis. The non-profit North Pole Toy Company had enough funds in reserve for one more year like this. Beyond that, Santa feared that he would have to start asking children to send a check with their letters.

Santa looked down at his calendar and realized, with great dismay, that he had a noon meeting with Malcom Snogsworth, the head of the Elfen Toy Makers International union. ETMI had been aggressively negotiating in recent years. Snogsworth had been using the threat of an OSHA investigation as a means to blackmail Santa into paying higher wages. OSHA was not aware of the 23 hour work days in December, and he preferred that it stay that way. The OSHA officials typically made their visit in the middle of the summer, when the elves rarely worked more than twelve hour days.

Even worse, Snogsworth always insisted on meeting at Red Lobster, and never picked up the tab.

Santa hated Mondays.

Today, we welcome The Angry Squirrel to the staff of The Soap Boxers.  He will take a liberal stance as a writer for the Political Observers segment.

Christmas Eve is here and “Hooray!” the Republicans decided that they needed to beat the weather to get home to their families instead of continuing to stall the vote on a healthcare bill. Granted, the Senate version is now a whittled down piece of crap with other sweeteners added in to get the last few conserveadems on board for the “needed” 60 votes. The current bill passed by the Senate will now go into conference with the House when Congress resumes after the holiday break and will more than likely look similar to what the Senate is passing or look even worse than it does now.

I mean do we really need to cover costs in Nebraska, Louisiana, and so on just to get this piece of crap through? I think not, but that’s not what they decided to have done.

The only real piece of reform in the entire bill is not allowing insurance companies to deny or drop coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Granted they will be allowed to charge you a nice chunk of change more to be ale to have the privilege to be covered by them now, and guess what you’ll have to suck it up and pay whatever they want to charge you because you are required to.

That leads me to why this is really no reform at all, or more aptly put reform in name only. Mandating coverage without having a competitive mechanism in the system to keep costs down or in check is just asking for the situation to get worse, and it will. More people will go bankrupt because the costs of healthcare will go unchecked still under this bill. If you can’t afford to pay the premium which is required of you will be forced to pay a penalty right now of 2% of your income. Granted like everything else in the bill it won’t even go into effect until a year or two after the next presidential election, but still, just like everything else in the bill the only real benefactor of this is the health insurance industry. Because it is not the government that will pocket these fines it will be the health insurers that will get the penalty.

What really is needed is some sort of non-profit entity, privately owned but government regulated that provides coverage at cost to people. This would be an affordable option for those who would want it and would also keep the costs of premiums across the board in check if they wanted to keep people buying their own product as well. If such an entity would exist it would also be cheaper because it keeps things like profit, executive salaries, a large amount of overhead, advertising and lobbying costs out of your health insurance premium. Granted Washington is tied and likely will always will be to the almighty lobbying dollar of the insurance industry so this would never happen, heck they can;t even get a remotely salvageable “public option” together that passes by the in the insurance industry pocket congressman’s approval.

The health insurance industry makes out like a bandit in this bill, I really don’t see why they are so up in arms about it. Probably faux-outrage on “principle”, but still. They’ll be getting money from every single person in this country, whether you have the coverage you purchase on your own, the subsidy given to them by the government to help lower income families purchase coverage, or the fines you’ll have to pay if you still can’t afford to live and carry their product because the price is still too much and still rising with each passing breath. They also get to keep their antitrust exemptions, and also be allowed to sell policies wherever they want to from wherever they want to. So they could go to a state with extremely loose insurance regulations and sell that policy to a place that has more strict regulations. It’s no wonder why as soon as passage of the current leg of the reform bill in the Senate that health insurance stocks rose.

Then you have the side of the debate that goes into stuff not even in the health care reform bill in the first place. Abortion funding for one, was not a real issue in the bill in the first place, Republicans and Democrats from Republican leaning districts create a false outrage that abortion would be provided on demand on every street corner and the government would have to pay for it if we passed this healthcare bill. This is utterly false and had no place in this discussion.

Federal law already bars the federal funding for abortion, so the need to put wording in the bill for it was entirely unnecessary. However they didn’t feel this was so and went above and beyond their initial call to make wording was in there to not allow for federal dollars to go for abortion. This one of the places where the House and Senate have a difference and the conservatives actually like the House plan more. Under the House bill’s wording no insurer could provided coverage for abortion as part of any policy they offer to the public if they were to receive federal funds, and well since they will be getting a 2% penalty if you don’t purchase their product or receive the subsidy to provide insurance to lower incomes, then they are all going to be receiving federal funding. In the Senate however they have wording to allow for people to purchase entirely separate coverage for abortion, but on the other hand it also will allow states to block insurance companies from offering such plans.

Wholesalely denying something that is still a legal practice is just wrong. If people want to have that as a part of their coverage and insurers are offering it, then so be it. How are you going to say that such and such dollar of such and such premium went to pay for abortion coverage anyway. Hey I might be against people getting coverage for plastic surgery, maybe we should deny people from having that in the bill as well.

In the end tough the bill that looks to be passed in Congress whenever that may be will be a complete piece of crap that is a gift to the insurance companies and will actually lock out any chance of real reform for many years to come after that. I am all for healthcare but this bill is a piece of trash and should be scrapped until we have a group in Washington that actually will reform healthcare instead of making sure it continues to be a problem for generations to come.

On a lighter note, since this is Christmas Eve I would like to wish everyone celebrating it Merry Christmas and hope all is well with your family and friends. Safe travels and well wishes to everyone this holiday season.

Next month my column will be a little more structured than just a free-flowing rambling that it is here today, kind of ended up with less time to put things together than my “grand” plans I originally had thought. Well once again have a safe and happy holiday season.

Right away, I’ll tell you which type of computer to buy. The one that you’re most comfortable with. There really isn’t a right or wrong answer. Now, we’ll move on to the rest of the article, which will focus on the Mac.

Personal Experience
The first computer I ever used was an Apple IIe. I was soon writing code in BASIC, and was allowed to essentially develop my own curriculum when I was eventually able to take a programming class (since I had already covered the course’s subject matter on my own). I was later introduced to Macs, and thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread.

For the last twelve years, I have worked in the systems department of a very large company – supporting a user community that uses solely Windows PC ☺ I even fix broken PCs for co-workers when asked.

Nonetheless, I remain a Mac guy. My home contains two Macs that are plugged in – a two year old (soon to be three years old) Mini that we use for most things, and a seven year old eMac that I write these blog articles on. Peek around the house and you’ll see an old Powerbook 5300, a Mac SE, a Mac Plus, and even a Newton Messagepad. You’ll also see the carcasses of a couple of PCs. I do not have the Amiga any more, as I sold that back to Frank (who, in turn, conned someone else out of good money).

Cost
Oh, you’ll pay more money for a Mac. If purchase price is your sole determining factor, get a PC.

Lack of software
One argument that you’ll hear from the anti-Mac crowd is that there is a dearth of software for the Mac. While it’s true that there is less software, the available software does a pretty good job of covering the bases for most users. If you’re a hard core gamer, you’re probably better off staying with Windows. But if you’re going to mostly use a browser and email client, either platform would be a good choice.

If you’re looking for Office, Photoshop, Quicken – they are all available on the Mac platform. I’m a bit of a tinkerer, and over the years, have played with a lot of stuff on the Mac. I have edited video, run a web server using PHP/MySql, installed a J2EE environment, and even done a bit of coding with the developer tools that are included (at no additional cost) in the OS. Mac OS X is actually built upon BSD Unix – which means that a lot of unix application will run on the Mac. For example, the graphics program GIMP runs on OS X under the X11 environment. At the cost of FREE, GIMP is hundreds of dollars less that Photoshop and provides much of the functionality. (Yes, I hear you, power Photoshop users, it doesn’t provide 100% of the functionality). Many of the graphics on the site (such as the lion header) were created with GIMP (in spite of my lackluster graphic skills).

Single Source
If you buy a Mac, you’re getting hardware and software from the same company. (One quick caveat – in theory, you could hack together a setup that allows you to run OS X on a regular Intel-based machine, but if you have the skills to do this, you’re probably not reading this article.) This means that there are a relatively finite number of possible combinations, and that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. If there is a problem, nobody can point fingers. Regardless of whether it’s a hardware problem or a software problem, it’s an APPLE problem. Contrast this to the PC world, where Microsoft and a PC vendor could each blame each other for a problem.

Speaking of the actual software, Macs come with a full copy of the operating system on DVD. As far as I know, Macs have always come with a full version of the OS. For reasons that I can’t fathom, some PC makers ship computers without as much as a restore disc. If your hard drive dies (and I actually mean WHEN your hard drive dies, because it is guaranteed to die at some point) you have to contact the computer maker to get a restore disc – and pay shipping for the privilege!

Viruses and Malware
For a variety of reasons, viruses and malware are less prevalent on Macs than on PCs. Mac fans say it is due to an inherent superiority while Windows fans will say that it’s because the Mac user base is smaller, and less not as big of a target for hackers. Quite honestly, I really don’t care what the exact reason is – I’m just happy with the result. Several of my co-workers have impressive horror stories about their virus/malware experiences. A couple of days ago, one of them said “Maybe I should have taken [Kosmo’s] advice and just bought a Mac.” I think it’s quite likely that he’ll do that when they buy their next computer.

I run my computers naked (er, I mean to say, without anti-virus software) and have never had a problem with a virus of malware. Is this the safest idea in the world? No – it would certainly be safer to spend the money on antivirus software. I’m willing to take the slight risk avoid the cost of antivirus software. If the worst were to happen, I’m confident in my ability to wipe my system clean and restore data from backups in roughly an hour.

Would I ever suggest that the owner of a Windows machine forgo anti-virus software? Hell no.

Best of Both Worlds?
With the newer (Intel-based) Macs, you can actually install Windows and have a dual boot system. You would have to purchase your own copy of Windows to do this. Alternately, you could use a product such as Darwine which allows you to run Windows application without having Windows installed. I actually tried out Darwine as a proof of concept, and it seemed to worked reasonably well. I just use it that once, though – Darwine sits on my hard drive gathering dust today. I simply don’t have the need to run Windows applications.

In closing – buy whatever computer best suits your needs. I do ask you to take a fresh look at the Mac if you haven’t worked with one in a few years.

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are quickly approaching. I’m really starting to get geared up. Most people are familiar with the more traditional sports of skiing and skating, and today’s kids are familar with the X-games style sports. Today, I’ll introduce you to a few more sports.

Luge

My favorite winter Olympic sport, bar none, is luge. In fact, it’s my second favorite overall sport to watch – behind only baseball. So, then, what is luge, exactly? It’s a bit like the bobsled (bobsleigh) event, except that the repo man took 95% of your sled. You launch yourself from the top of the luge track, quickly get into positon (on your back, feet first) and use your feet to steer the sled as you fly doing the track at speeds that can exceed 90 mph! Sometimes you get to the finish line still atop the sled, sometimes you don’t. There is single luge (my favorite) and doubles luge. I haven’t had the chance to actually try luge personally, but I love watching it. I’ll definitely have my DVR set, so that I don’t miss a moment of action.

I am proposing that The Soap Boxers adopt the USA luge team as our official team to follow in the Olympics. 

Do I have a favorite luge athelete?  Of course.  It’s Erin Hamlin (@ErinHamlin on Twitter).  Hamlin made her Olympic debut as a 19 year old in the 2006 games in Torino.  Hamlin shocked the world by winning a gold medal at the 2009 FIL World Luge Championships.  It was the first time in 15 years that a German woman failed to win at an Olympic, World Championship, or European Championship event.  On December 13, Hamlin picked up her first ever World Cup medal, winning the bronze at an even in Lillehammer, Norway.  I’ll go out on a limb and predict an upset of the Germans and a triumphant Hamlin slide down the course at Whistler.

Skeleton

If you think flying down a hill on an ice track at 90 mph while steeting with your feet … imagine doing it headfirst, on your stomach.  That’s skeleton.  Skeleton, luge, and bobsledding (bobsleigh) all trace their origins to St. Moriz, Switzerland.  Skeleton was an Olympic sport when the games were held in St. Moritz when the games were held their in 1928 and 1942.  In 2002, they were permanently added to the Olympics.  I’m not as much of a fan of skeleton as I am of luge, but perhaps it’s because I’ve been watching Olympic luge since I was a kid.

Biathlon

The biathlon is a sport that involves skiing and shooting.  Seems like an odd combination, doesn’t it?  Who on earth would create such a sport?

The Norwegian military.  It was created as an exercise for soldiers.

Participants cross-country ski a course, stopping to shoot at targets along the way.  If they miss the targets, they face either a time penalty (the time is added to their skiing time) or are force to ski essentially “penalty laps”.

I’m not a big fan of skiing, and really don’t watching shooting events at all – but I’m fascinated by this event, which combines two completely different disciplines.

Writing a novel is quite an undertaking. Trying to put a deadline on yourself is nearly impossible. I recently participated in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) which is a world wide competition to simply write a story of at least 50,000 words during the month of November. I succeeded. This success was documented while I was writing. So what is the next stage? Well first, I have to get people I trust and respect to help edit that work. I have heard that the best method is to let a work set for a while to mellow. I disagree, at least for me. I want to have some sort of finish.

I have found my initial editor in my wife. Although she does not write herself, she is an avid reader of every genre. Besides being well read and well educated, she also has no qualms about telling me when I am wrong. Being a writer also requires a thick skin. I do not understand the stories of writers who have all of these demands and how they must be treated with kid gloves. They are just people like anyone else and should behave as such. Of course if I become rich and famous author, this opinion may change.

My next task is to keep writing. The best way to do that is to just jump right back into it. I have not set a new deadline, and I don’t have NaNoWriMo to help me now. I have decided to change my genre completely. My first effort was a romance. It is hard for me to admit that, but the fact cannot be avoided. My new effort is definitely science fiction. I have many more characters with major roles. I am also trying to be much more diverse in the personalities of my characters. I will continue to try to avoid too close of association between my real life relationships and my characters. Some association cannot be avoided. We develop our ideas of self and others through our personal contacts or plagiarism from other sources such as literature, television, radio and plays. The best we can do is avoid direct copying, from life or from other sources.

During my first Endeavour, I had the benefit of being on travel for work with plenty of time in the evenings, plus hours on airplanes, to write. These opportunities are continuing but will not be indefinite. I am trying to force myself to a March deadline. This will correspond with a change of my travel responsibilities will be changing from long term to short term events. I want to use these opportunities to the best of my ability while they last. This column will document how well I stick to my deadline.

This column will be different from my NaNoWriMo day by day story development. Instead, I will concentrate on areas of writing that I am focusing on or struggling with during the week I am reporting on. I have never been a reporter, not even in high school. I have always written in the ‘create’ way, supporting a poetry publication and short story booklet in high school. Each column will be between 500 and 600 words. So for this first installment, I have concentrated on what I plan to do, both with my next work and with this column. Check again for updates in the near future. –KEEP WRITING–

“Oh, no. Stan told me that you snoop into his stuff, and that he often fabricates his notes in an effort to get a rise out of you. That must be what he meant. He and I are old childhood friends.”

“Right, he mentions that delusion as well. You believe that you and he are old friends, but he never set eyes on you before he examined you prior to your commitment.”

Walker slumped in the chair. “You have to believe me. This was all a stunt for my book.”

“These notebooks, filled with the incoherent ramblings of a madman? You are operating in a false reality. You have constructed a grand illusion to shield yourself from the fact that you are mentally ill. Stanley’s notes indicated that he had concerns about your ability to receive adequate treatment at this facility. I concur with his opinion and will make a recommendation that you be committed to the Springfield facility, where you will have more constant observation.

The next day, Sascha arrived at Lennox for her monthly visit, and Joe shared the dreadful news with her.

“Don’t worry, honey,” whispered Sacha. “The director at Springfield is in on the plan. You’ll be set free as soon as you get dropped off”

Joe perked up at hearing this news, and returned to his normal self for his final few days at Lennox. Finally, the day of his transfer arrived. He gathered up his belongings – mostly consisting of the notebooks – and Rogers drove him up to Springfield.

After Rogers scrawled his signature on a few forms to authorize the transfers, he jumped back in the car for the solo trip back to Lennox.

“OK, this has been fun, guys,” Joe said to the director of the Springfield facility. “You can let me go now.”

“Go where?”

“Go home.”

“You are confused, son. This is your new home. It may be difficult at first, but you will soon grow to like it here. Let me give you a tour.”

After the fruitless discussion with Rogers at Lennox, Joe decided that it would be pointless to continue his plea for freedom. Sascha had been certain that the director of this facility had been privy to their secret. Clearly, some wires had gotten crossed at some point.

Joe expected Sascha to visit the Springfield facility to inquire as to his whereabouts. A few days passed, then a few weeks. To kill time, he continued his writings, using his experiences at Springfield to write several more chapters in his character’s life.

On the last day of the month, Sascha finally came to visit. She scarcely had time to sit before Joe started talking.

“You have to talk to the director, and to the judge who committed me. You have to explain that this was all research for a book and that I should be set free” he pleaded.

“But then I would have to admit that I lied during the hearing, Joe. That would be perjury. I certainly wouldn’t want to go to jail.”

Joe gasped as she continued to speak.

“I’ve decided that I rather enjoy life without you, Joe. The power of attorney gives me unlimited access to your funds, and I don’t have to put up with any of your annoying habits. I can take a young lover whenever I want. It’s a pleasant life, Joe.”

Walker was stunned. “You can’t possibly be thinking of leaving me here!”

“I really have no choice,” she said, giving him a kiss. “You’ve heard the doctors, Joe. You need treatment.”

He received his first disappointment when Banks told him that he would not be able to use his trusty ink pen. A pen could be a dangerous weapon in the hands of some of the residents. Gone, too, were spiral bound notebooks. Joe was dismayed by their replacements – crayons and composition books. Joe reminded himself that a competent professional could succeed with any tools.

Joe spoke with his good friend, Director Stanley Banks, nearly every day. One day Joe noticed that Banks always carried a red notebook with him.

“The associate director, Rogers, is a real snoop. I like to toy with him by pretending that this is some master record of my observations of all the residents at Lennox. Really, I just make up stuff, just to see if he slips up and mentions any of it in conversation. The stuff I’ve written about you is great,” laughed Banks.

A month after being committed to Lennox, Joe felt that he had become sufficiently institutionalized and had begun to learn about the various disorders that afflicted the other residents. He began to write. His novel would be a pseudo-biographical account detailing the daily struggles of mental illness. He decided that he rather enjoyed the look of the crayon writings – they gave the work a juvenile look. Perhaps Vic, the publisher, could retain that unique look and feel for a few small parts of the book.

Time passed quickly inside the walls of Lennox. Other than the near-daily visits from Banks and the monthly visits from Sascha, Joe was completely focused on his book. He spent nearly all his time either writing or interacting with other residents to gain further insights into mental illness. Over the course of a year, he filled the pages of dozens of composition books with his novel. The novel, he reflected, would likely have to be broken into two or three books, even after Vic edited it.

Near the end of his stay at Lennox, he was visited one day by Associate Director Rogers, rather than by his friend Banks. It wasn’t like Banks to take a day off, and Joe questioned the Rogers about Banks’ absence.

“Dr. Banks was involved in a traffic accident last night and remains in a coma. I have looked over Stanley’s notes on you, Joe. It seems that you will not be in our company much longer.”

Walker smiled. “It will be nice to be free once again – to walk in the park on beautiful spring nights …”

“I’m afraid you misunderstand, Mr. Walker. You will be leaving Lennox, but you will not be re-entering society. You are being transferred to the facility in Springfield.”

“No, no,” replied Walker. “This is a mistake. The story of the transfer was just a ruse to cover the fact that I was going to be released. I completely orchestrated a plan to have myself committed.”

“Oh, yes. Here it is,” Rogers said, leafing through pages in a notebook. “’Patient Walker believes himself to be a famous writer. He is under the delusion that he convinced his wife and myself to have him committed so that he could better research an upcoming book’”

TO BE CONTINUED …

Today, I bring you the first of yet another multi-part story.  I really do intend for the Fiction Friday stories to be 500-700 words, but I’ve been having a few of them get away from me lately.  This is the first of a three part story – the other segments will be published over the weekend.  Without further ado, A Crazy Plan.

“Then, at the end of a year, you get me released, and I vanish from the facility.”

Dr. Stanley Banks finished his steaming coffee with a gulp, and then broke into a broad grin as he looked across the table at his childhood friend.

“I’d probably fake a transfer to another facility. It wouldn’t reflect well on Lennox to simply have you walk out the door.”

“You’re on board with the plan?”

“Count me in. It sounds like splendid fun.”

“Wonderful. I’ve always wanted to write a novel from the perspective of an inmate of an insane asylum. What better way to gain perspective that though immersion?”

“You’ll be a resident, Joe, not an inmate. We don’t much cotton to the term asylum any more, either. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot during your year as our guest,” Banks said with a laugh.

Joe flagged down the waitress, who topped off their cups of coffee. The two men clinked mugs as a toasts toward the success of the endeavor.

The next day, world renowned author Scooter Smith – known to his friends by his real name of Carlton Joseph “Joe” Walker – informed his publisher that Scooter would be taking a step back from the limelight to focus on his next book. Scooter Smith tended to avoid the public eye, and had retreated into seclusion several times in the past, so the publisher was not overly surprised.

“Enjoy the time away from society,” same the voice from the other end of the phone.

“You bet, Vic. I’ll have a best seller on your desk a year from today.”

Vic laughed. “That’s what every publisher wants to hear.”

Shortly thereafter, Sascha Walker began the process of having her husband committed to a mental institution. On the night before the hearing, Joe and Sascha celebrated Joe’s imminent detention with a night of wild sex – fueled by a small amount of cocaine purchased especially for the occasion.

The hearing was decidedly one sided. Sascha’s testimony about Joe’s recent spate hallucinations, delusions, and violent behavior made a strong case for commitment. The renowned psychiatrist Stanley Banks testified that he had examined Walker and felt that an appropriate course of action would be to commit him for a period of one year, with a further course of action to be determined at the end of the year.

The judge agreed took only a few minutes to reach his decision.

“At this moment, I feel that it would be in the best interest of Mr. Walker if he were to be under careful observation. I am committing Mr. Walker to the Lennox Estates Home for the Mentally Ill. His confinement will be at the discrection of Dr. Stanley Banks. Until and unless Mr. Walker is deemed to be mentally competent to handle his own affairs, Sascha Walker shall be granted durable power of attorney.”

Joe could barely contain his excitement when they arrived at Lennox. Joe was duly processed, and Carlton Joseph Walker became the newest resident of the east wing. He embraced Sascha, and she promised to visit at least once a month. After his wife left, Joe got to work, actively blending into the population.

TO BE CONTINUED …

Last week, President Obama gave himself a B+. B+? Really? For what? Encouraging people to trade in vehicles that they owned just to have another monthly payment? Of course, I’m talking about the “Cash for Clunkers” program that just intended to bail out the car manufacturers. The funny thing is, most of the new cars sold were NOT American made, but Toyotas and others of the like. But I suppose all of the things he’s intended to do count. Right? I mean, that’s how he “earned” the Peace Prize.

Seems like this Administration is a system of intentions and giving. He intends to do this, intends to do that. I suppose we should be thankful that he actually did something this week … But one thing he actually did was insult the intelligence of every American this week by claiming that if the healthcare stimulus bill is not passed, that “the federal government will go bankrupt.” Really? We’ll go bankrupt if we don’t tax and spend more? I don’t know about you, but in my family budget, we don’t save more by spending more. But what do I know? I’m not a politician, just a working mother. Although I’m pretty sure that if Obama had ever taken an economics course in school, his former professors are doing a *head desk*.

Common sense is something this Administration needs to ask for this Christmas. Why encourage people to go into debt when we’re in a recession? Why claim that we will go bankrupt if we don’t spend more? Looks like common sense isn’t all that common anymore.

I know that Christmas is the time for giving … but not MY tax money. As the Grinch said, “Bleeding hearts of the world UNITE!” Not me. I work too hard to have my tax money given to those who refuse to work. I don’t want MY tax dollars spent to fund abortion. I don’t want MY tax dollars spent for free healthcare … something that I work for.

Bah Humbug. Obama Claus can go back to the North Pole the other 364 days of the year and keep his hands out of my pockets!