The Dickerson Pondit

The Briefcase: New Age Research

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 16:45:00 +0000

Although The Briefcase is a work of fiction, I decided to incorporates many real locations and real entities that were practical and would not find me in a lawsuit. When I started The Briefcase, I was living in Westchester County, NY. For whatever reason, the only logical place I could think of for a person to find a briefcase floating in the water was the Florida Keys. Why I did not choose nearby Long Island, the Hudson River or the New Jersey shore is beyond my comprehension. I know all these places. I have been to them hundreds of times. The closest I have ever been to Bahia Honda Key is a technology conference boondoggle at The Breakers Resort in Palm Beach Florida. The Briefcase action all begins in the most southwestern part of the Florida Keys just east of the city of Key West. The only way I can do this is with the help of my research assistant:

Google

I used Google to search facts, places, view maps and verify some of the technology I used in the novel. Readers of The Briefcase are forewarned that the fact that I could not verify some factual point did not alway prevent me from including it in the novel. A case in point is that in The Briefcase the plot is enhanced with the use of an underwater drone or very small unmanned submarine. I needed this drone to be able to go very long distances that were beyond the range a battery powered engine. I conveniently added a fuel cell system to propel the drone. I am fairly certain such a system is not technically practical for a small drone. Hopefully, this will slip by for most readers. After all, it is not as fantastic as Scotty's Transporter needed to move those Star Trek episode along.

A place where I did use Google to make certain a critical prop in the novel was possible is the briefcase itself. This is not a spoiler. The promotional material for The Briefcase clearly states that the briefcase contains money, lots of money. I envisioned the money in the briefcase to be $1,000 bills. This was fine, until a friend of mine mentioned that although $1,000 bills are in circulation, they are now longer minted and are rare to find. I now was faced with a choice. If I switch the to $100 bills, how much money can I get into the briefcase. If I change the amount, I have a gazillion other changes to make in the novel. The novel also loses some of its punch with less money. I got to use my four years of scientific and engineering higher education. Although a normal executive attache case is not large enough, a briefcase used by an attorney or accountant is large enough. So I leave in the briefcase and leave it up to the reader make their own mental picture of what the briefcase looks like.

The Briefcase: "Open wide, I am your editor and this won't hurt."

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 16:41:00 +0000

Dr. Joel Feimer is my editor. He is a fine gentleman with a gentle nature (most of the time). He read my 120,000 word first draft and praised the plot as it existed at the time. Praise is always a good way for an editor to help soften what will come next when dealing with an author's ego. I believe it is safe to say that the typical author's ego rivals that of a politician's ego.

Next he gently mentioned he would like to know more about some of the characters. He pointed out that sometimes he could not figure out what was motivating a character's actions. He said the most interesting books he had read -- this is from someone whose home is like a library and who rents a storage locker so he can rotate books in and out of storage and the house. Joel is not capable of walking past a bookstore without stopping to browse it's contents. He recommended I create a biography for all the major characters. This would help me create patterns of actions for the characters based on their personal motivations. If there is an action that is out of character, it will need explanation. I begrudgingly started these biographies, but questioned their worth since in my mind this was not moving the novel forward.

Once I had started this task and shared what he said was an ongoing task -- the biographies must be updated as they become more complex characters, he next pointed out a passage where one of the major protagonist was talking to his wife. He pointed out that I wrote they were on the patio of their home. He assumed I had an idea of what that patio looked like. Readers will not be able to read my mind on how that patio looks. I have to give them enough information so the reader and I have a shared vision of the patio. There will always be room for the reader to enhance the scene, but I should not have a twenty by twenty foot patio in mind and the reader a one hundred foot long multi-leveled patio overlooking an ornate swimming pool.

So I start chapter by chapter revising Word for Mac manuscript. Joel and I were working on one shared document. Soon the documents had more notes and comments than actual text!

I will add more in my next post.

The Briefcase: The Editor Cometh

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 16:14:00 +0000

After I finished my first draft of The Briefcase, I knew it now needed the touch of an editor. Here are some correspondences that portray my search:

This is an email I sent out blindly to a potential editor:

On the advise of her agent and editor, my friend and author, Maggie Barbieri, suggested your website (bookdoc.com) as a place to find an editor/mentor for my manuscript. I have just finished a first draft of my first novel. I am pleased with what I have produced, but am very aware that it needs help. I am not a very disciplined person and have been told that in my writing there is not one tense I do not like. I have written a mystery/suspense novel with what I believe is an interesting, fresh perspective. Of course, this is my opinion. I have written about 120,000 words and focused mainly at moving the plot forward rather than attention to descriptions and character development. My education background is in chemistry and business. I finished my career working in operations for a dot com company. I wrote my first short stories a few years ago after retiring at age 62.

What do you suggest for the next steps I should take? I am currently in Naples, FL. I will return to Westchester Count at the beginning of May.

Here is the response after sending him my 120,000 word first draft:

Thanks for the files. You have a very inventive plot, though it (apparently) seems you are still in search of an ending. After careful consideration I have concluded that whatever I bring by way of editing to the book will not sufficiently enhance its chances of being published to justify your investing in my time. My sincere wishes for good luck as you more forward with completion of the book. Thanks very much for thinking of me.
I have erased your files in order to prevent any inadvertent disclosure of your material,

Best regards,

So I tried another editor. He had edited books for Robert Ludlum:

I want to move ahead. I will send you the double spaced manuscript along with a check for $2,000. I need an address to send these materials. I am not good at proofreading my own writing. It is too easy for me to read over my mistakes. Word has helped me correct quite a few spelling mistakes, but the auto correct feature has made some interesting substitutions for my typing mistakes. I will go to Office Max on Friday to make your copy. I believe it is 292 pages.

I hope we can forge a good partnership in this endeavor.

FYI - The vast majority of the book was written with me sitting at my computer and just typing away. At times my race to keep my line of thought forced me to move the plot ahead rather than setting the scene or developing the characters. I hope you find the story intriguing and get to like the characters.

This was done and I received a synopsis initial assessment. It does not include the 281 specific recommendations he gave to met:

Dear Mr. Holt,
             I’m afraid I can’t be encouraging about The Briefcase. You obviously know your horseracing – the betting scenes, although there are too many of them, are the best in the book – and you use of the drone is intriguing. But, no disrespect, you are simply not a writer, thereby joining the 99.9% of Americans who aren’t either. Your dialogue is particularly weak. You’ll have to learn to use contractions, to avoid using characters’ names when they’re speaking face-to-face, to get your past and present tenses in line, to get inside your characters’ heads rather than simply telling us what they’re feeling.
             Your two main male characters – Chet and Patty – need development. You’ll have to give us a psychological motive for Chet to keep the money; greed isn’t enough, he’ll have to need it, and the device of the dream isn’t strong enough. The way you present him now, he’s unattractive (particularly after his adulterous adventure), and unless the reader sympathizes with him, your story can’t work. Patty is a potentially more interesting man. I like it that he’s censured by the Agency and so winds up siding with Chet, but we need much more of his emotions, his ambivalence, his rage at his wife, his self-doubt. I realize you’re intending the book as a comedy, but genuine feeling and real life situations will only help. Anna is to date the most attractive character in the book, and she shouldn’t be – she’s a subsidiary figure. But at least she’s capable of introspection, something Chet ands Patty desperately need.
             I hope this helps. In your e-mail to me to say that you just sat at your computer and typed away. That’s not way to write a book. You have to outline it so that things planted early pay off later; you have to write biographies of your characters so they remain true to your vision of them; you have to study each sentence to make sure it’s a clear and well written as your can manage. The writing of a book takes a minimum of a year – my guess is that you wrote this in a few weeks. Anyway, call me at 1-203-341-8607 with your questions and comments.
                                                                                     All best,

These were hard rejections for me. It took me some time and a lot of reflection to realize the two professional were correct. I found an editor I could work with and trust. He teaches writing at a local college in Westchester County, New York and is the author of several books. He is also a friend who lived in the condo on the floor above where I resided.

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 00:47:00 +0000

The Briefcase: Germ of an Idea

As mentioned in the previous post I started to write in 2008. I shared some of my earliest short story ideas with a friend in the publishing business. He immediately recommended several books to help me in my quest to become a writer. I read the material, some were helpful and some just too tedious to get through. One book was an anthology of short stories by John Cheever. This book was inspirational and way beyond what I was writing. But it set a standard. I understand what good writing is supposed to be.

I then started a short story that grew too long. It was set in the condominium where I lived. It was an impressive place built as a vacation hotel for NYC white collar workers in the early 1920's. the place was built from quarried stone near the Croton Reservoir in Westchester County, NY. The grounds included 740 acres and a 40 acre pond 35 miles north of Manhattan. I came up with a fairly good plot and some interesting characters. I shared my novelette with an author friend. She was supportive, but suggested the addition of several deaths to enhance the story! I took this to heart but put the idea on the back burner.

My next idea was The Briefcase. The spark of the story is a recurring dream I have had for years. I decided to pattern my novel as a James Patterson work using many short chapters. I raced through several chapters with only one objective -- moving the plot forward. I did not know where I was going or how to get there. The book had no outline. I kept no character list. I was at the helm of a ship without a rudder. But I would include deaths.

More to come.

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 17:33:00 +0000

The Briefcase by Charles Holt

I wrote the post below just overnight years ago. My new novel, The Briefcase was just released on August 9, 2017. Over the next few weeks I will share the hows and whys of this long gestation period. You can find both print and/or ebook versions of The Briefcase at Outskirts Press, Amazon Books, Kindle Nooks, Barnes and Noble, Nook Books and Apple Books.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Author, Author

The Dickerson Pondit has not been at all faithful to his blog. Shame on him! It is not that he has abandoned the pen and paper or more truthfully the keyboard and Microsoft Word. While traveling across the northern US of A this past June and July, the Pondit decided he would spend some time writing stories. In the past six weeks he has written two short stories and started his first novel. The two stories are fully finished in draft form and he has asked some friends to help him with editing the stories. The novel is still in construction mode but he has made significant progress. The plot line is developing nicely, at least the Pondit believes it is, but with the transition from short stories to a full blown novel, there will need to be a great deal of follow-up work to do a better job in developing the characters in the book. For reasons unknown to anyone including the Pondit, the novel is set in Key West Florida. Perhaps he has a fixation on Hemmingway or he just isn't as clever as he should be.
His first story is set in Valeria, the home of Dickerson Pond. This is place well known to the Pondit and made the writing of the story a little easier. He did not have to spend hours using Google Maps to find names for locations and try to fathom what was north, south east or west from the point of action in the story. The second story is part of a proposed trilogy on technology. The technology in the second story is texting. It is fairly short and raises some concerns about privacy in this new world of instant communications. The Pondit is hoping that he can get some of his work published. The Pondit also heads out when he sees a rainbow to try and find the pot of gold that the leprechauns hide at the end of the colored arc.
I am going to share chapter one of the novel, The Briefcase, with my blog followers. Feedback from the highly intelligent readers of the Dickerson Pondit is as always, gratefully accepted. So far the novelist has penned thirty-one chapters of his first book

FYI: I will not be sharing parts of my copy righted book on this blog.

Seats for Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 21:03:00 +0000

Seat for Sale, Seats for Sale

Let this post be a harbinger of things to come. The good (read that as poor) people of Collier and Lee Counties in southwest Florida are in the midst of primary elections for the 19^thCongressional District. We elected Trey Radel, a freshman congressman, last election. His most pertinent experience was that of a Conservative radio talk show host. He resigned his seat when a cocaine using scandal was about to go to the House Ethics Committee. Well in our district, the only race that counts is the Republican primary. There are four bona fide candidates in the race. Three of them and some Super PACS have jammed our TV with venomous attack ads. One has said nothing, but he does stuff envelopes and send out campaign information aka the 1950’s. God bless him! Besides the mudslinging, the only message I have heard during the campaign ads of all three candidates is that, “I will repeal Obamacare!” I believe this is a reference to the Affordable Care Act. Now these candidates are running for a seat in the House of Representatives. I might have lost track, but hasn’t the House of Representative voted over fifty times to repeal this “law of the land?” Perhaps they are confused and think they are running for the Senate? Forgive me for I have seriously meandered. Be aware, the upcoming midterm elections will ruin TV watching for almost all America.

But to complain, and not offer any alternative solution is not the Pondit’s way. I want to use this space to present a framework of an alternative. It is sketchy, but forgive me for not thinking it through fully. If the plan gains any traction, I will gather some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to fill in any gaps.

I want to propose a Fantasy Congress. The focus will be a more efficient and effective manner to chose our House representatives. Except for the serious negative impact on broadcasting advertising budgets, I believe this might be the best thing since sliced bread. Keep in mind; this plan is only a framework. Here are some key points of the plan:

There is no election with voters going to the polls. This might ruin a day out for the 38% of potential voters that actually cast a ballot each election plus the even fewer even who turn out for primary elections (less than 20%). Hey, no pain no gain. $KACHING$: It costs districts millions of dollars to hold an election. Without these elections, all taxpayers are saving money.
Each Congressional district will hold an auction for its Congressional seat. Lobbyist and other special interest groups will bid (A televised auction with paddles will make better TV than CSpan could ever hope for.) $KACHING$: I can only begin to imagine the amount of money the Federal, or make it State, governments will make from these auctions. I do not believe $10,000,000 per seat is beyond reach. If that were indeed the number every two years would bring in $4.35 billion.
Each successful bidder would have to make a matching donation to pay down our national debt. $KACHING$: That is another $4.35 billion.
Like before Congressional districts will be allocated by states with each district being equal in population. Most districts will be in the shape of the winning bidders choice. Many might be outlines of elephants or donkeys. But it is easy to imagine major corporate logos such as: Target, BP, Shell, Nike, UPS, Coke, Disney, FedEx, CitiGroup, DuPont, AT&T, Ford, Mercedes Benz, Boeing, GM, McDonalds, IBM, Apple, GE, Kraft, … Perhaps major lobbying group logos such as: American Bar Association, Institute for National Gas, the coal industry, Citizens United, Marijuana Legalization, Green Peace, NRA (perhaps a district in the shape of a 45 Colt Automatic), Halliburton, BBB, Cruise Ship Industry, … We might even consider foreign bidders: Saudi Arabia, Chinese Manufacturing Association, French Wine Industry, … And even individuals: Koch Brothers, Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet,… $KACHING$: All political maps in print, online or on TV would have to include these symbols. A price of $5,000,000 per symbol seems reasonable.
All expenses of the new congressmen including salary, staff, traveling, housing and other are paid by the organization that appoints the congressman. Congressmen cannot live in or about Washington, DC. Fulltime residence must be in their home districts. House sessions, committee meetings, sub-committee meeting all will be done via video conferencing. $KACHING$: These savings are hard for me to estimate, but we have to be looking in $100,000,000 range.

This might not be a perfect solution. Consider what we have now? Does this sound any worse?

Vineyard Cottage Somewhere in Central California

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 17:20:00 +0000

Vineyard Cottage in ~~Templeton~~

Vineyard Cottage in ~~Paso Robles~~

Vineyard Cottage in ~~Cambria~~

Vineyard Cottage Somewhere in Central California

Barbara and I are on our fourth stop of our summertime California trip. We are staying at a lovely cottage near Paso Robles (www.vrbo.com/170229). This cottage is as nice as the one we rented in Los Olivos (see previous blog post) and actually more scenic. A renowned silversmith, Randy Stromsoe (www.randystromsoe.com) owns the cottage. Randy and his wife, Lisa, live in a large “barn” down in the valley below the cottage. The first floor of the building is his workshop and the family lives upstairs. They have several acres of grapes under cultivation and a friend and neighbor actually takes the grapes after harvest to make some fine wines.

The cottage is located on a property at the intersection of Old Creek Road and Route 46. Old Creek road winds, and I do mean winds, about twelve miles to US1 near Cayucos. Route 46 runs from Templeton to US1 just south of Cambria. The drive to Cambria goes over the mountains protecting the shoreline at 1,741 feet and has some spectacular costal vistas. We have done most of our food shopping in Templeton, but the town lacks a full grocery store, yet has a Trader Joe’s. We also found a local fruit stand with delicious heirloom tomatoes. Next to Trader Joe’s are a fish store and an adjacent meat market. Both are small but adequate.

The afternoon we arrived, we had lunch in the center of Paso Robles. The restaurant food was okay, but we had a wonderful bottle of wine, Epoch Estates Blend. We wondered if we would come across the winery in our travels. We were somewhat shocked at the restaurant, Artisan, when a toy poodle of one of the women sitting in a booth across from us jumped up on their table. Soon after the dog was on the booth seat lapping water from the owner’s water glass. After the meal we mentioned this to the hostess, who seemed not to be concerned. She said the poodle was a “service dog” and thus allowed in the restaurant. I wonder what service except companionship a toy poodle can provide. We cancelled our Saturday night reservations at the Artisan restaurant.

Did I mention that it gets very dark at night up on our hill? It does. We have had no moon in the early evening and there are more stars visible than I can imagine. It is possible to sit out on the front porch after dinner and enjoy the evening breeze with little or no harassment from insects. The only break in the evening silence is the buzzing of insects in the trees and the occasional car traveling along RT46 about 1,500 yards away. I did have one insect visitor in the afternoon that I wish I had missed. Walking to our car that we park about 50 yards from the cottage – the driveway up to the cottage is not one where you want to use reverse gear at anytime. We park at an area we can turn around easily to head back down to civilization. Coming back from the car I noticed something ambling along a large graveled area at the side of the cottage. Taking a look, it was a spider, a large, very large spider. Using my foot it took about three kicks to get the beast back into the forested back of the house and into the fallen oak leaves. Heading straight to Google, I was able to ascertain that I had encountered a California tarantula. I am not a big fan of spiders.

We played golf twice this week. It was the Ying and Yang of golf courses. The Links at Paso Robles was rather “rustic”. No water, no sand in the traps, no benches, no shade and long. The gas golf cart sputtered and belched every time it was started. The only foliage besides grass were coyote bushes. Beyond the rough (and everyone knows I play beyond the rough) were expanses of hard packed soil. Your ball could roll another 50 yards in this outback area. The clubhouse is a double wide. It was cheap, $33 each with a cart. We did get to see a rocket launch that took place at Vandenberg AFB while playing! Two days later we played Hunter’s Ranch merely a mile and a half from the links. This was a very nice course. Like most California courses we played, it was not set up for a woman’s game. Barbara found it very hard. The slope rating is 131 from the white tees. I shot a 93 even though I shot a double bogie each of the four par fives (with a good drive on each of those holes!). We went through three bottles of water and four Coors Lights during the round and were glad we took the pro shop’s advice to fill our cooler with ice at the restaurant. We walked off the course and the temperature was 102. Dry heat or not, we were roasted.

I am really rambling on this post. Let me sign off with one more light coincidence. Remember that nice bottle of wine we had at our first meal in the area? Later that afternoon we headed from the cottage to Templeton to purchase some groceries. Less than two miles from the cottage, Barbara notices a billboard up on a mountain surrounded by trees indicating the next left turn is the tasting room for Epoch Wineries. The next day we stopped in and tasted and bought three fine wines. The 2009 Reserva Tempranillo and the 2010 Authenticity are the two best wines we have had on this trip.

Back at Fig Cottage in Los Olivos

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 17:10:00 +0000

It is August 2017 and we are back at Fig Guest House for the third time. We love this are of California. We are much more familiar with the area now and have discovered most of the better restaurants and wineries. Nest Sunday we fly back to soggy Naples, Florida.

Barbara and I are on a two-month trek to escape the heat and humidity of August and September in Naples, Florida. Ironically our first stop was a six-day visit to Las Vegas. Out for lunch on our first day in Vegas, I checked my weather.com APP; it was 102 degrees in Las Vegas and only 92 in Naples. Yet the “feels like temperature” was reversed for both locations. A quick read from us about Las Vegas – it is a good long weekend stop, but six days is a little too much.

We left our Las Vegas timeshare one day early to drive to Lompoc, California for a visit to my daughter and her family. We had a very comfortable stay. Lompoc is near Vandenberg Air Force Base and is subject to the Pacific Coast marine layer for its weather. You wake up every morning with a layer of fog, not ground fog, but low cloud cover. It is cool and damp with temperatures in the 50’s. Around ten thirty, the cloud layer has passed and the temperature rises. By three o’clock it might be 74 degrees. There is always a breeze and golfing is very pleasant. After three, the marine layer reappears and temperatures slowly drop back into the fifties. A drive “up the valley” is about twenty minutes and if you get to Santa Ynez or Solvang, the afternoon temperatures are in the high 80’s. That’s enough about the climate.

We stayed in a very interesting cottage for the week (http://www.vrbo.com/402225). It is located about three quarters of a mile north of downtown Los Olivos. Keep in mind that Los Olivos is a town with zero traffic lights. Los Olivos does have a couple of good restaurants and one inn. There is a tack store and a post office. What is does not lack are wine tasting rooms. There are twenty-seven tasting rooms spread over three streets. Actually, we only visited one. We are purist and prefer tasting rooms at the actual wineries. But it is an excellent way to try many too many wines and not have to drive.

We checked into our cottage a little after 4 PM. After unpacking we headed into town for dinner and were back on our wrap around porch to share some wine, enjoy the cool evening and watch the sunset. As the moon began to rise, we finally realized we were sitting on the side of the house facing east. It was a fabulous full moon. We went off to bed, probably around 9:30 PM. The cottage has a nice bedroom and adjoining bath. We closed the blinds put on a light in the bathroom and drifted off – there is no TV in the bedroom. A short time latter I awoke to the sounds of a pack of coyotes and what I believe was a chicken that was in the act of becoming a late dinner for the coyotes. It was a bit unnerving. After drifting back to sleep, I need to visit the bathroom. The light was no longer on, since the cottage lights have timers with motion detectors to turn off the circuits after about thirty minutes of no activity. I successfully found the bathroom door. The rest of the week we left a lighted candle in the bathroom.

Most mornings there was early cloud cover and the browned grass was covered with dew. I did have early morning visitors one day. There were about twenty birds in the covey and it stayed in the area for about twenty minutes. Around eight thirty the morning clouds give way to clear blue skies. The temperature makes a gradual rise to the eighties, but it is a perfect time for a morning walk. We took our walks on Figueroa Mountain Road. One morning we headed back toward Lompoc to play a round of golf at the Village Country Club (http://www.villagecc.net/v2/golfcourse.php). This is a private club, but after a short conversation with the pro, Bob Kotowski, we were able to book tee times. The club is casual and has a fine course layout. It is higher up the valley than downtown Lompoc, and the morning fog allows a sunny environment for any tee off time later than 10 AM. Insert golfing picture. This morning we were paired with two club members. On the very difficult eighth hole, 408 yard, dogleg right with a large oak tree in the right center of the fairway about 125 yard from the tee box, my planned high soaring tee shot aimed over the tree to get me past the dogleg was executed perfectly except for the altitude part. My solidly struck low flying drive went right at the center of the massive oak just high enough to clear the area where two openings are made as the main branches begin. Not a leaf was touched. I was left with 168 yards to the pin from the middle of the fairway. Somehow I was able to not over swing with my five iron and the ball landed on the green rolled one yard and was sitting ten feet slightly below the hole.

I could see it now – a bronze plaque nailed to the mighty oak:

Through the tree, for a birdie three.

CPH 8/20/13

What I got was a cocktail napkin with a hand penned message:

Through the tree without a mar, had to settle for a two-putt par.

CPH 8/20/13

Latter in the week we played at the Alisal River Course in Solvang. This course was made famous for a hosting a couple of scenes in the movie Sideways. It is much too long a course from the red tees, over 5,700 yards. There was a persistent 20 mph wind throughout the afternoon.

The best part of the week was driving along Foxen Canyon Road and taking in the summer beauty of this massive stretch of farm and grazing area. Houses and ranches are few and far apart. Wineries, vineyards and horse ranches are spaced far apart and stretch all the way along this road from Los Olivos to Santa Maria. We did find some favorite wines during our travels. Insert picture of wines.

On Saturday we had a BBQ at the cottage with my daughter and her family. It was a great finish to a great week.

Big Brother Reading Our eMail ... Who Woulda Thunk It?

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 23:06:00 +0000

I wrote this short story back in 2009. I never did anything with it until now. In light of the news headlines and activity with Verizon, I thought I would share this unedited short story! Enjoy it, but remember...This is my work and you can link to it, but please do not copy it.

deTEXTives

513-555-8754: OMGYG2BK ##

859-555-7732: HONEST TO GOD, SHE WAS BUCK NAKED ##

513-555-8754: IN THE BOARD ROOM? I SO WISH I WAS THERE. ##

315-555-0213: CARRY ON BOYS, I HAVE TO GO. TATA. ##

It was now almost 7:30 PM and Brendan Parker was ready for his lunch break. Brendan was a junior systems administrator at Verizon. He worked at a non-descript building just outside of Utica New York. He along with a group of sixty employees were the people who kept the Verizon texting service up and running for over twenty-five million US customers. This is a twenty-four hour, seven day a week operation. Brendan is twenty-six years old, and lives just outside of Utica, near the old Utica Club brewery, along with Janice Fanelli another junior administrator. Janice is a small and attractive young woman with auburn hair and an ashen complexion. She is a year older than Brendan. Their living together was merely a financial necessity.

The only fringe benefit of the job from Brendan’s point of view were those times when things went smoothly and he got a chance to read through some of the racier text messages that were stored at the Verizon datacenters located in ten cities throughout the country. The snippet above was one of six thousand lines of text messages from the headquarters of Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati that were sent via company Blackberries just yesterday. Brendan peered at his computer through his trendy black rimmed glasses and continued to format a report requested by Fifth Third. They wanted to know the volume of text messages being sent by their employees. Most people who use Verizon texting service do not realize that for billing purposes, Verizon captures and records every text messages sent through their service. There is a gigantic data base that stores these messages. Those millions of messages are kept for six months. A group of very smart developers and database administrators have created search engines and tools to help Verizon text administrators like Brendan and Janice help the accounting team with any special billing inquiries.

Even the savvy CIO’s at banks like Fifth Third Bank did not realize the wealth of information hidden in the midst of the senseless drivel that are the make-up of most text messaging exchanges. Of course, Homeland Security is fully aware and although Brendan cannot confirm this, he is absolutely sure that federal agency has full access to the entire texting database and more than likely keeps more than six months of texting history in its databases. But Brendan’s thoughts at this moment were on what was that woman doing naked in the Board Room and what did she look like?

At the end of the day shift and start of the evening shift, Edna Woodward had scheduled a meeting of all administrators. Edna was a true blue Verizon lifer. She had gray hair, small stature and is a high energy fireball. Edna is not what most of the young admins imagined for the director of the operation. But that is what she was. This was not a regularly scheduled meeting and it is very usual for meeting to span across work shifts. Brendan hoped he wasn’t about to get laid off. He was still at least six months from climbing out of the credit card debt he created for himself the first eighteen months after graduating from SUNY at Binghamton. Brendan’s curly red hair and freckled face belied his willingness to support a local bookie during the end of his college days and his first year of work at Verizon. He needed his job.

At 8:05 Am Edna convened the meeting in the drab, windowless conference room, “Please people, lighten up! I called you all together to help me find out why our service has been running slow at times over the past six weeks.”

The large Smart Board at the front of the room came alive and there was a graph showing small dips in the average transmission time for text messages starting the third week of April. The changes in times were in milliseconds. These delays were not ones that could be detected by individual users. But to big providers like Verizon, they are troublesome. Edna continued, “As you can see this is not a critical issue, but there is some industry buzz that one day in May, the AT&T texting service was down for one hour and the cause was not a ‘network’ failure as the Bell Boys reported to the press. We do not want our service to be down for even a few minutes.”

A hand went up near the back of the room. It was Dharmesh Patel who is by far the nerdiest of this room filled with card carrying, certified nerds.

“Miz Woodward, you point to several places on the chart where there are ten to twenty minutes of time with delays, but it appears that there is a consistent delay every day between 1:00 AM and 2:59 AM. Is that not more of a concern?”

Edna quickly replied, “The delays at those times are a know anomaly. That period of time is not a concern to you or me. Is that clear? What I need now is your awareness of the issue. Please log any work you are doing that touches our database servers. Keep track of any inquires you run against the database. We have to make certain we are not the cause of the problem. That is all, sorry for keeping some of you past your shift.”

As the group filed out of the room, Edna added, “Brendan and Dharmesh, can you come to my office for a few minutes.”

Brendan paled and thought once again about being fired. Geez. But surely they cannot let Dharmesh go. Edna settled down behind her desk. She was one of only three people in the group with an office. The rest of the team is all assigned identical six foot by six foot cubicles. She motioned to Brendan and Dharmesh to sit down across from her. Edna’s black eyes darted back and forth between her two administrators and finally began, “This is a serious situation. I want the two of you and Sandy Blumberg of the afternoon shift to resolve this issue. I will rearrange your work schedules to free up time for you to work on the problem. I already had the developers write some artificial intelligence programs that will help you search the database for possible misuse. Brendan, I want you to take on the responsibility of coordinating the work and keeping me informed about any progress you are making. Your work on this project is between the four of us. I will speak to Sandra at the end of her shift. Brendan please report to my office when you come in tomorrow and join me when I speak to Sandra.”

Brendan was glad to be back in his shared apartment. Janice, who worked the afternoon shift along with Sandy, was still asleep in her bedroom. He was dying to tell her about the meeting and his new assignment. Brendan reflected, what am I thinking? Telling Janice is probably not a good career building decision and by the time he heard movement in Janice’s bedroom and finally the rush of shower water in the bathroom, he had come to terms with the fact that this is one work situation that he could not share with his roommate. Brendan was apprehensive about working with Dharmesh. He was so smart but was even more naive. He was certain Edna asked him to work on this project only because she knew Dharmesh needed a babysitter. Sandra Blumberg is another situation. Brendan would love to have to babysit Sandy. He has had a crush on Sandy since she started work last July after her graduation from RIT. Sandy is a friend of Janice and has even been to the apartment a few times to meet Janice before they went out together. Both are by far the best looking nerds at Verizon. Sandy is tall and slim with long blond hair. Her age is very hard to pin down. Sandy could pass as a high school sophomore or as an extremely attractive soccer Mom depending on how she arranged her hair and applied her makeup. In fact, when Brendan was reading the Board Room text message earlier in the day, the naked body he envisioned was the one he imagined was under the jeans and halter top he had seen Sandy wearing when she was at the apartment two weekends ago. Brendan thought Edna could not have picked two people that would be harder for Brendan to ‘manage’ than Dharmesh and Sandy. One is much too smart and the other much too sexy.

Brendan arrived at Edna’s office at 11:45PM Thursday night. Sandy was not there yet and Edna took this opportunity to share some additional information with Brendan. “You have done good work these past few months. I am considering you for a senior administrator position that was recently authorized and funded for our department. If you can handle the extra responsibilities of the assignment and provide the team leadership required, I will have no problem putting this promotion in motion. I hope this is just the extra motivation you need to resolve the sensitive problem we are facing.”

Little did Edna know that for Brendan, just not being fired was as motivated as he needed to be.

Brendan asked, “With all the work Verizon has done with its firewalls and the periodic verification of their security, how would someone from the outside be tinkering with our database servers?”

Edna continued to look down at the paper work on her desk and then raised her head to look directly at Brendan, “Did I say the problem was coming from outside the firewall? You must keep an open mind if you are going to be successful. Perhaps I am the perpetrator.” Brendan forced a chuckle, but immediately knew that the work he and his team were about to undertake, might not make them the most popular kids on the block.

There was a knock on the office door and Edna cried out, “Come on in.”

Brendan’s heart skipped a beat. He was thinking how fortunate he was that he worked a different shift than Sandy. With her in any adjacent cubicle, he imagined his work ethics would dissolve to mush. Edna filled in Sandy with the objectives of the team and again stressed the confidentiality of the work. In less than twenty minutes Sandy was going home and Brendan was starting a new work day.

The following day Brendan spent the first two hours of his shift thinking of ways to attack the problem at hand. How to use the assets he had, the immensely intelligent Dharmesh and captivating Sandra, was the first task he tackled. He decided he would assign Dharmesh to review and try to determine any patterns in the anomalies that they saw on the Smart Board yesterday. He knew he did not have to give Dharmesh much direction in the endeavor. He was confident that within a couple of days, he will know more about any relationship between the periods where the texting service was slowing down than he wanted to know. Dharmesh was thorough and tenacious. He will ask Sandy to review and start to work with the artificial intelligence algorithms Edna made available to the team. Having some experience with the tools prior to Dharmesh recommending where to apply them was necessary preparation. Brendan reserved an activity for himself. Part of that reservation was very selfish and had been one of his secret desires for months and months. Brendan also decided that the team needed a place to meet that was outside of their Verizon facility and one where their anonymity was more or less assured. Such a place existed for Brendan. The old Utica Club brewery made famous by their singing and dancing steins, Schultz and Dooley, was back in the macro micro brewery business providing out-of-date retro beers for specific concessionaires. The brewery had renovated its in-house tavern and it was now a popular meeting place for the younger Utica area crowd. Big sellers for this operation were all associated with New York City baseball teams, Ballantine Ale for the Yankees, Rheingold Beer for the Dodgers and Knickerbocker Beer for the Giants.

After his vending machine lunch, Brendan started his own research. The massive database of text messages was too imposing for systems administrators like Brendan to search. Poorly constructed searches adversely affect the performance of the texting services provided by Verizon. But small controlled searches can go unnoticed by performance monitors and are only found after the fact if there is a reason to do a use audit of the system. Administrators were not to seek and read text messages unless authorized. Now Brendan had carte blanche to search the database. Edna had given him a list of the cell phone numbers of each Verizon employee located in Utica. The first number Brendan searched was 315-555-4589, Sandra Blumberg’s cell phone number. Limiting his search to the past month, Brendan was soon looking at a list of 789 text messages. He sorted the messages by the cell number of the other texting partner and found over two hundred to 315-555-0231 which he knew belonged to Janice Fanelli.

315-555-4589: GF, WHAT ARE YOU DOING 2NIGHT? ##

315-555-0213: NIFOC, SOME GAMING. ##

315-555-4589: NASTY. IS ADONIS THERE? ##

315-555-0213: NW. HE IS AT THE UC TAVERN WITH WILL AND JIM. WANT TO COME OVER? I’LL DRESS :) ##

315-555-4589: OK SEE YOU IN 15 ##

The thought of Janice Naked In Front Of Computer was exciting enough, but for Sandy to reference him as Adonis was beyond the scope of possibility. The tagline of ‘Adonis’ might be the height of sarcasm. This thought quickly brought Brendan back to reality. Another message cast a ray of hope for Brendan.

315-555-4589: GF, GOT A MINUTE? ##

315-555-0213: FOR U ANY TIME U NEED SANDY ##

315-555-4589: R THERE ANY GD MEN IN UTICA. ##

315-555-0213: ANOTHER BAD DATE ##

315-555-4589: DISASTER ##

315-555-0213: I’LL COME OVER, WE CAN TALK ##

315-555-4589: GR8. I HAVE TISSUES AND CHARDONNAY ##

That was enough for now. Brendan knew he had to start expanding his search and made a list of key words including: network, database, search, money, meeting, performance, dangerous … He planned to pass this list onto Sandy and ask her to run it against all the telephone numbers on the list he also provided. He called Sandy and Dharmesh and set up a meeting at the Utica Club Tavern for four o’clock the following Saturday. Ah, his first date with Sandy. Ugh, his first date with Dharmesh. Friday afternoon Brendan saw Dharmesh at their shift change. He confirmed the Saturday meeting and verbally explained the first task that he wanted Dharmesh to tackle. He would not see Sandy until the Saturday meeting.

Two hours before the team’s first meeting, Brendan was in the kitchen mixing a protein shake. Janice was just up and showered and asked Brendan to sit at the table with her for a minute. “Brendan, September is going to be my last month in the apartment. I just put a down payment on a condo over at the Beaver Valley Golfing Community. I move in the first of October. Sorry to spring this on you like this.”

Brendan was glad to be sitting down. The thought of not having someone to share his rent was the first thing on his mind, but wondering how Janice who cannot be making any more money than he was buying a condo had his head a twirl. “A condo? In Beaver Valley? That sounds so plush. Did you hit the Mega Millions?”

Janice shook her head, “No, I have just been watching my nickels and dimes and I think investing in real estate at this time makes sense for me.”

“I wish you the best of luck. I am having a hard time investing in lottery tickets, no less a new house. Any ideas on whom I can get for a new roomie?”

“Sorry Brendan, I know this stinks and I should have given you more notice, but things just happened. I will give the new roommate question some thought and get back to you.”

Brendan was taken aback and somewhat pissed that he did not get more warning from Janice about this life changing move. He made a mental note to review more of her text messages to see just how spur of the moment this condo purchase was for Janice.

When Brendan arrived at the tavern, he noticed that Dharmesh was already sitting at a table with a large manila folder next to his glass of beer. Just as he arrived at the table, he spotted Sandy. She was wearing tight fitting pink Capri pants and a white halter top. She, as always, looked stunning. Brendan had no recollection of what, if anything, Dharmesh was wearing. They both waved her over to the table and quickly ordered three more beers. Brendan recommended that they set aside this time every Saturday to meet. If additional time together was required, any of them could call a meeting. Finding time other than a weekend will be difficult, since each works a different shift at Verizon. They also agreed that there will be no email or texting communications about the project. Brendan spoke, “It is my impression that Edna believes that someone on the inside at Verizon is very involved in this issue. I have to agree with her, since the security on our systems is truly A1. Someone probing our database from the outside will surely show up on one of our periodic intrusion tests.” He pulled out his own manila folder and handed it to Sandy, “Here is a list of all the cell phone numbers for our Verizon workers. I also included a long list of key words that might be associated with suspicious behavior. Can you use the AI program to run against both of these lists?”

Sandy answered, “I will do it first thing Monday afternoon. Is it alright if I add some additional words to the list? Anyway we can find out if any employees have a non-work cell phone and can we get the cell phone numbers for their significant others?”

Brendan lamented wishing he had a significant other. “Yes and yes. I will get those for you early next week.” “Dharmesh, what is in that large pile of papers you have there?”

“I have already associated every poor performance period for the past six months with any work submitted by the database administration team, any regularly scheduled database queries and any searches that can be initiated by the accounting department. I am unhappy to report that most of the poor performance periods do correlate with known database inquires. I will continue to look into those that do not correlate. Perhaps when Ms. Blumberg has finished her work we can look more closely at the one thousand or so unidentified problem areas.”

Brendan rocked back on his stool, “One thousand, I thought you had things narrowed down?”

“Oh I do, I have already eliminated six thousand five hundred and twenty-eight poor performance periods.”

Sandy interjected, “That does make our work easier Dharmesh, and please call me Sandy.”

“Yes, Miss Sandy. You should both know there is another area that troubles me deeply. Edna told us not to look there, but I fear we must.”

Dharmesh then shared some details about the forbidden time period between 1:00 AM and 2:59AM each day. Each day at exactly 1:00.00AM performance drops noticeably. Four days out of seven the performance is degraded until exactly 2:59.59AM. The other days the drop in performance stops at any time up to thirty minutes before 3:00AM. That was until about two months ago. Since July 15^th, the performance remains poor right up to 2:59.59AM each and every day.

Dharmesh stopped to ask, “This is not strange? What could do this and why is there this change the past six weeks?”

Sandy spoke, “Perhaps there is a maintenance task going on during this time or… No, we are the system administrators; we have to know if there is scheduled maintenance. And why was Edna so secretive and abrupt about these two hours. She makes it sound like a state secret.”

Brendan mused; it probably was a state secret. He more and more liked his Homeland Security theory. At this moment, he wished Janice was part of the team. Her specialty was network administration. She of all the people save her partner and her supervisor had to know if there was data or access granted any government agency. But he was sitting at the table with all the resources at his disposal and three of the four people he can trust on this project. Janice was not one of those people. Brendan ordered one more round of beer and some chicken wings. They at least could enjoy the fruits of their expense account. Brendan focused the next thirty minutes on Sandy and if he was not mistaken, she seemed to enjoy his attentions. Dharmesh was busy texting continuously with who knew who, and in what language?

The next week each team member was busy at their personal piece of the puzzle. Dharmesh stayed a little late after his shift and asked Brendan if he could have a quick work with him in the break room. It would not take long. Dharmesh reported that there were no database queries running against the database during the forbidden hours. If he had to guess (Dharmesh’s guesses are usually money in the bank) was that someone was ‘merely’ reading from the database at that time. Since the read was at a steady state for one hundred and twenty minutes, he believed someone was copying raw records from the database. On Tuesday Sandy called Brendan and asked if they could have breakfast together after her Wednesday morning shift, “Café Utica at eight twenty, sure thing.”

At the Café, Sandy reported that she has found some suspicious patterns in some of the texting conversation the artificial intelligence algorithm has already searched. She has refined the key word list and added several additional financial terms. She has noted this search refinement has yielded an abnormally high number of text session from the 513 and 859 area codes. She asked Brendan, “Can I get Dharmesh to help me narrow down these messages. There are thousands of them and finding ones that might be pertinent is like opening oysters looking for pearls. Dharmesh might be able to find a way to do this much more efficiently. We might also need help from Edna and the Verizon security team. If you give us the OK, we will let you know by Friday what other help we need.”

“I will speak to Dharmesh tomorrow when I come to work. I will prime Edna on getting the security help. I will also press her a bit about the one AM to three AM time period. It looks like we cannot ignore this time period. We should have breakfast more often, I am enjoying this.”

“Are you flirting with me Mr. Parker? If so, please continue.”

That brought a warm feeling to Brendan’s loins, he continued, “Sandy, did you know Janice is moving out? She says she has purchased a condo at Beaver Valley. That area is quite pricey, isn’t it?”

Sandy paused, not wanting to violate any confidences and then added, “We have not seen that much of each other the past few weeks. She has been awful busy. Buying a place might be the thing occupying her free time. I kind of miss her company. But, you are right, Beaver Valley is expensive. You have to get home and get some rest. Thanks for breakfast. Bye”

“My pleasure, see you soon.”

Dharmesh had called Brendan early on Saturday afternoon and asked if they can change the meeting time until four thirty. Brendan said, “No problem Dharmesh, get there when you can.” The idea of spending a half hour alone with Sandy was no hardship for Brendan. He arrived a few minutes early and was surprised to see Sandy already at a table. She was dressed in a red and white checkered blouse with white short shorts. Her hair was done up in a rather retro style that Brendan just could not place. As soon as Brendan arrived she took his hand and led him over to a section of the room dedicated to the Miss Rheingold contest. From the years 1942 through 1964 the brewers of Rheingold beer held a month contest to elect the Miss Rheingold girl of the month. Local New Yorkers filled in and mailed hand checked ballots to the brewer each month. At the end of the year, the public would then vote for a Miss Rheingold for the year. This was quite an honor for any New York girl. While still holding Brendan’s hand, Sandy stood still in almost a pose near the row of pictures listing the yearly winners of the Miss Rheingold girls. Brendan almost gasped as he looked up at the 1964 winner and swore he was looking at Sandy. In fact both Sandy and the winner in the picture were identically dressed and it now was clear why Sandy’s hair looked different. The picture was captioned Brenda Weiss, Miss Rheingold of 1964. Sandy said, “This is my Mom! She was a student at Barnard College in the sixties and entered the contest. Pretty, wasn’t she?”

Soon Brendan realized his mouth was agape. He looked at the picture and then at Sandy. He immediately wondered if human cloning was possible or perhaps Sandy’s father had no significant genes. The two women were dead ringers. “Pretty, she is a knockout. Can you get me a date with her? Ouch, ouch, I was just kidding. Stop hitting me. Your resemblance is uncanny. If the contest was still in place, you would be Miss Rheingold of 2009. Wow.”

Over on the other side of the room was Dharmesh waving his arms and calling their names. Sigh, it’s back to business. Dharmesh was excited. He said he was late because he woke up at three this morning and went in to work to run some advanced queries he had developed. He had the results and was eager to share them.

Dharmesh started, “I am certain there are bad people in Cincinnati and some in New York City whose names should be given to the SEC. I believe they are using text messages to get insider information on pending leveraged buy outs, mergers and acquisitions. I am not so sure about the people in New York City, they just might be stupid but honest people. But those in Ohio are bad.”

Dharmesh went on for twenty minutes before either Brendan or Sandy could ask any questions. He was apparently able to mine data from conversations originating from workers at Merrill Corporation, a printing and internet company that handles merger and acquisition activities for many global companies; that on surface was nothing but when many text messages are agglomerated they give very good indications of pending M&A deals. None of the individual text messages is in itself incriminating, but using artificial intelligence and looking at hundreds if not thousands of these “innocent” messages the principals and some of the terms of the pending deals could be figured out. This information was worth millions when carefully planned trading was done on the deal participants’ common stock. Text messages complaining of working late, missing happy hours, numbers of documents that needed to be printed or scanned, waiting for deliveries from London or Copenhagen, long conference calls with Singapore were all snippets of information that could help identification of the principals involved and the scope of the pending deal. As far as Dharmesh could determine, there were also other people in the Cincinnati area that seemed to be celebrating some victories but were very careful in not disclosing the nature of the actual victory. They did include detailed descriptions of the nature of their celebrations.

When Dharmesh needed a gulp of beer, Sandy quickly asked, “Dharmesh, but we did not find anyone making queries against our database from either inside or outside of Verizon. How can this be?”

“Miss Sandy, not against our copy of the database, but do we know if anyone else has a copy or copies of our database? Brendan, we have to meet with Edna and share this news.”

“I agree, Dharmesh, but there is one more piece of work we need to do. There has to be someone inside the Verizon family that is a part of this scheme that is providing access to our data or they are getting into another authorized copy of the database we do not know about. What can we do to find out more about this?”

“That will be very hard. I do not know where and how to begin.”

The three ordered burgers and a pitcher of Rheingold beer in honor of Brenda Weiss. Brendan promised Sandy and Brendan he would approach Edna Monday afternoon about a meeting between the four of them.

When Brendan got back to the apartment, Janice was sitting in the living room watching TV. “Where have you been? You seem to have a standing date Saturday afternoons?”

” I met some friends over at the Utica Club Tavern. We had some beers and an early dinner. Nothing special, do you have any roommate suggestions yet?”

“What about Sandy Blumberg, she mentions your name once in awhile. I know she is a little stretched paying for rent at her apartment. And believe me, this place is a real step up from her place!”

“Thanks, I like Sandy. I will ask her about it. You know Janice, you Sandy and I all make the same amount of money more or less. I am just amazed you are considering purchasing a condo on our salaries. Who would give any of the three of us a mortgage? Did your rich uncle die?”

“Good guess, actually a maternal aunt of mine in Villa Hills Kentucky just across the river from Ohio passed away and left me some money. If you remember I had to make several weekend trips to that area late this June and early July. Almost all of my mother’s family lives in the area. I have several cousins in the area who are doing very well. I thought it was time I stepped up my life style a bit. That is hard to do in Utica! Hopefully, I can afford the place in Beaver Valley.”

Monday, Brendan scheduled a lunch meeting with Edna for Wednesday at noon. Tomorrow Brendan was going to come in on the day shift and meet with Verizon security experts from headquarters in New York City. Monday afternoon, Brendan faxed a list of all the cell phone numbers Dharmesh had located in the Cincinnati area that included both the 513 and 859 area codes. He asked if the security team can match names with those numbers. If the phones were corporate numbers, that will be even more help in the investigation. Still, Brendan thought he was missing something. He walked into Edna’s office and asked if they could speak for a few minutes.

“Edna without naming names or agencies, does Verizon provide our databases to other parties? If so, how is it done?”

“All I can tell you is that we follow all federal laws and all executive directives. If the government wants information we have and has the legal rights to the information, we will provide it. If that information helps in our security, we provide it very willingly.”

“So it would not be unfeasible that information from our database was transferred to the government on a regular basis.”

“That sounds feasible to me.”

“But Edna isn’t it odd that the randomness in the time it takes to make that transfer has suddenly changed the past six weeks?”

Edna stood up at her desk, “It has? Whey wasn’t I told?” She was fuming.

“Why weren’t you told, Edna no one on the team knew there was data being transferred? Remember, those two early morning hours were out-of-bounds to our investigation. Let’s pick this up at tomorrow’s lunch meeting.”

That night Brendan reviewed all the information the team had gathered. He also started to review the spreadsheet the Verizon security team had sent him in an overnight package with the list of names and companies associated with the cell phone numbers Dharmesh had identified in the Cincinnati area. Nothing was out of the ordinary except for a high correlation of First Third Bank Blackberries and the list of suspected cell numbers. He finally shut off the light and went to sleep. He was up early, but did not have to go to the office until eleven that morning. He was sitting at the kitchen table when Janice walked in. He offered her a cup of tea, chamomile, which she gladly accepted. He politely asked Janice questions about her aunt. It seems Aunt Mildred had six boys of which three were bankers like their father. He was a vice president of the Third National Bank in Cincinnati. He had done well and so were his Irish boys. The family name was Farrell. One of the other boys was an investment banker and the last two were partners in a corporate law firm. Yes the Farrells had done very well. Janice was apparently the daughter Aunt Mildred never had.

Today was reckoning day. The meeting was held at the Holiday Inn on Eire Boulevard in the heart of decaying Utica New York. Edna welcomed everybody and introductions of all in attendance were completed in the first five minutes. Brendan, Dharmesh and Sandy moved to the front of the room and attached Dharmesh’s laptop to the Smart Board provided by the hotel conference staff. It took nearly thirty minutes for the investigative process to be explained and another twenty minutes to explain the results to Edna and the security bigwigs. Brendan got very nervous at the silence in the room. They had not been asked any questions. Finally, the Senior VP of Security asked Brendan if any of the names or companies they had sent to him correlated to any Verizon employees. Brendan said he found no connection. He did point out that there are high suspicions that personnel at Fifth Third Bank are involved, but there was no smoking gun in any of the thousands of messages they had reviewed both by eye and using the AI program. Dharmesh stood up and asked if he could pose a question to them. Brendan quivered.

“Mr. Preston, sir; is there any reason you know of that would explain that during the past six weeks the randomness of the time spent transferring data from our database to wherever had disappeared?”

Preston shot a glance at Edna and she just shrugged her shoulders. “That fact was just made available to me yesterday. I made inquiries through channels but have not heard back as of this morning.”

Jim Preston recommended a recess and told everyone to reconvene back at the Holiday Inn at three o’clock. The security executives went to their rooms with their laptops and cell phones. The Utica team headed back to the office. Little was said, and it was very evident that Edna was on pins and needles. Brendan was thinking separation was more likely than a promotion. Dharmesh and Sandy went off to see it they had missed something.

Brendan was totally deflated. He could do nothing but stare ahead into a blank space inside his mind. He longed again for those slow periods when all he had to do was sit, search and read the sex fanned text messages that were imbedded in the huge texting database that was at his constant disposal. Just a couple of weeks ago this activity had taken him the titillating Board Room sight of a naked woman. When was that? Brendan sat up and activated his keyboard. He remembered the incident was at an improbable time like three in the morning. He then remembered the phrase “buck naked”. He wrote a quick query: SEARCH for “BUCK NAKED” BETWEEN 01092009:0250 and 30092009:0330. In seconds there it was:

859-555-7732: HONEST TO GOD, SHE WAS BUCK NAKED ##

Brendan then went into the full database at this point in time to see if he could recreated the entire conversation. He wanted all the salty details. In the next fifteen minutes here is what he reconstructed from this three way texting session:

513-555-8754: HI CUZ, WE ARE CELEBRATING. ##

859-555-7732: THIS WAS OUR BIGGEST PAYOUT YET. ##

315-555-0213: U COULDN’T WAIT FOR ME 2B THERE? ##

513-555-8754: NO AND GUESS WHOS GIRL FRIEND WAS WITH US? ##

315-555-0213: NOT THAT BLOND FLOZZY. ##

859-555-7732: WE WENT TO THE BANK AND ENDED UP IN THE BOARD ROOM. ##

315-555-0213: WITHOUT ME, UR A SCUZ. ##

513-555-8754: NEXT THING I KNOW, STELLA HAS ALL HER CLOTHES OFF. ##

513-555-8754: OMGYG2BK ##

859-555-7732: HONEST TO GOD, SHE WAS BUCK NAKED ##

513-555-8754: IN THE BOARD ROOM? I SO WISH I WAS THERE. ##

315-555-0213: CARRY ON BOYS, I HAVE TO GO, TATA. ##

Brendan stood up like he had seen a ghost. He almost wished he had. It was now two thirty. He quickly dialed a number on his cell.

“Are you up and about? Good. I have a big favor to ask, can you meet me in the lobby of the Holiday Inn on Erie Boulevard at three o’clock for a few minutes. It is very important. Great, thanks.”

He then rushed to the parking lot to meet Dharmesh and Sandy. While driving to the motel, he asked if the number 859-555-7732 was on his list. It wasn’t. How about 513-555-8754? Yes it was and it was a number for a Blackberry at Fifth Third Bank. Brendan blurted out, “I think that is good news for us, not so good for a friend of ours.”

Sandy looked at Dharmesh and squinched up her face as they pulled into the motel parking lot. It was now almost exactly three o’clock. Brendan looked at both of them, “Go ahead; I will be there in a couple of minutes.” Just as they left down the hall to the conference room, Janice entered the front door and saw Brendan in the lobby.

“Brendan, what is this all about? This is so not like you.”

“Bear with me Janice. I need you to join me for a few minutes. I am meeting with Edna and you can help me out.”

“Edna is here and she is meeting with you. This better be good.”

Opening the conference room door and apologizing to all for being late, he quickly introduced Janice Fanelli to everyone in the room. Edna looked puzzled and Jim Parker was slowly turning crimson. “Mr. Parker, Janice is an employee here in our Utica office. She is a junior network administrator. I suspect she is a very competent network administrator and probably is very over qualified for the work she is doing. Dharmesh can you load the slide that is on this memory stick and bring it up on the Smart Board”

Everyone’s attention turned to the slide now projected for the entire room to see. Jim Parker’s face and neck were crimson by now. Brendan turned to Jim Preston’s second in command. “Jonathan can you look up the names and companies associated with the three phone numbers that are included in the text messages on the screen before us?”

Jonathan Bane went to his laptop and retrieved this information:

513-555-8754: Sean Farrell of Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati Ohio

859-555-7732: Ian Farrell of Farrell and Farrell in Florence Kentucky

315-555-0213: Janice Fanelli of Verizon in Utica New York

Brendan slowly turned to Janice who suddenly did not look to well. “Janice do you know these two gentlemen?”

Janice spoke in the softest of voices. Brendan prodded, “I did not hear that can you speak up?”

Janice repeated for all to hear, “They are both my cousins.”

“That was a pretty lurid text exchange you had and at quite a late hour. Dharmesh tells me it was the same day that BP Gas announced the takeover of Conoco Oil. Was that the cause of the celebration? Please tell us all how you did this, you and your cousins.”

Janice broke down and told the entire story. She knew of the transfer of daily information the Homeland Security database in Waco, TX. She knew how the data was transferred and that it was impossible to intercept once the transfer was initiated. The technology for this transfer was developed by the NSA and was minimally invasive to the Verizon system. Janice realized the days where the full data transfer finished in less than two hours provided an opportunity to piggyback a transfer to another location. After working with a covert database administrator, Janice found a way to stream a subset of the entire database to a hosted server that was owned by the Farrell and Farrell law firm. That subset extracted financial information from a list of financial firms in a cleverly designed query written at the network level to hide the query and its activity from all security audits. The query was almost identical in content to the one Dharmesh used to retrieve the information that had uncovered the operation.

That evening the police authorities arrested Janice Fanelli. The next morning the Securities and Exchange Commission security team rounded up the Farrell brothers and charged them with several incidents of insider trading. Edna was on cloud nine and Jim Preston was a hero down at corporate headquarters. Brendan knew his promotion was set.

Edna told Brendan, Dharmesh and Sandy to take the rest of the week off. First order of business for the three of them was dinner at the Utica Club Tavern. It must have been the Tavern and the beer that brought them the luck to solve this Gordian knot. At the end of dinner, Brendan asked Sandy if she would like to spend the next few days at the Turning Point Casino Hotel in nearby Verona, NY. She did and a wonderful time was had by all.

Now all Brendan needs is to find a new roommate, or has he?

End of story

January 2013 on the Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:42:00 +0000

~~December on the Bench~~

~~January on the Beach~~

January 2013 on the Beach

The Dickerson Pondit is now a full time Florida resident. Last week I sat for a few minutes on the bench overlooking Dickerson Pond in Westchester County. New York. I was taking a break from emptying our belongings from our condo prior to turning over the keys to a new owner. It was a sunny afternoon with the temperature a sweltering fourteen degrees. I did not even want to know the wind chill temperature. Back in Naples the thermometer was nudging eighty degrees. I have officially exchanged Dickerson Pond for the Gulf of Mexico. I now sit on the lanai and gaze up the coast to Sanibel Island just outside of Fort Myers Beach.

Early Thursday morning, I left for La Guardia airport around five in the morning. The rental car thermometer read nine degrees. When I stopped to fill the gas tank in Yonkers, I wrapped my bare hand around the gas pump handle and was worried about leaving my skin on the handle. Getting back to Naples was the only thing on my mind -- well getting back with all my skin and no frostbite.

I am back. Today the anticipated high temperature is eighty-four degrees. There is a slight breeze of the Gulf of Mexico. Barbara and I have already been out for some morning errands. We had to drop a car off for some cosmetic surgery. I had a little close encounter with a chain link fence back near Dickerson Pond. This type of repair is everyday business in Naples. The chances of getting out of any supermarket parking lot without a new scratch or dent is around 23.9%. Since Barbara and I do most of our marketing daily, I will set up a monthly appointment with the body shop. This was an unexpected monthly expense for us, but over the past three months we are averaging only $93 per month for gasoline. Yesterday I played none holes of golf without losing a ball. If I can keep that up, between the gas savings and lost ball expenses, we will cover the bodywork on the car.

Once I am done with our legal battles, I have an interesting story to relate about hazards of being a spectator at a golf tournament.

Whatever Happened to that Novel?

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:51:00 +0000

Everyone including the Pondit has great expectations (hey another book title idea). But the gap between expectations and achievements is often significant. Some of you have noticed that chapters one through ninety-eight which were posted on this blog have disappeared. The Pondit got very spooked while driving up US41 in Naples to go golfing and listening to NPR. The piece was about self published books on Amazon. The topic was specifically erotic novels. These novels are the top selling self-published books. Many are written by the same author using different pen names. As it turns out many of those works were plagiarized from other sources. Since Amazon online novel royalties are never that great, it is very hard for the original author to fight this practice. I decided that no more posting of The Briefcase.

I am once again writing on a regular schedule. I start before the Florida sun rises in the east. Today I finished chapter one hundred and nineteen. My scratchy and flexible outline has me finishing the first draft with chapter one hundred and twenty-six. I should be done in ten days or so depending on my golf and winter visitor schedules.

For those of you who were following the book's progress and are still alive, he is some information on what has happened. Patty continues to go downhill. He was demoted at work and is not in favor with the DEA brass. He continues to be obsessed with the Rivera case. He is in the middle of a divorce. Chet, Anna, Harry, Cindy and Theresa have been to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby. So has Agent Finnegan! Finnegan has been involved in another sting operation that went badly. He was injured in a gunfight and his partner was killed. That evening Patty made a career decision. The Mary Immaculate Star of the Seas School had a very successful fundraiser event. Patty has been forced to resign from the DEA. Chet is planning a laundering trip to the Belmont Stakes. Theresa and Harry now are in a serious relationship.

Updates to follow. Does anyone know an editor or publisher looking for a new, exciting book to review?

Holy Mackerel!

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:50:00 +0000

Yesterday Barbara and I joined four friends for a half day fishing charter out of Marco Island. I have to say that getting up at 5:45 AM just a few days after the start of daylight savings time, gives you plenty of time before the old sun rises in the east. We were almost to the Marco Island bridge before an pink-orange sun popped over the mangrove keys to the east of Fiddler's Creek. We got to Rose Marina at 7:50 and after a quick bathroom stop, we were off on the Wild Thing under Captain Randy's command. After ten minutes at no wake speed, the engine roared and we were off to somewhere out in the Gulf of Mexico. We appeared to be about a mile off shore when the engines slowed and we had all just finished our first beer of the day. Not bad for 8:30!

The boat was stocked with light spinning tackle each with a jig on the leader. We were to add a piece of sliced live string to the hook and cast and jig to our heart's desire. Within minutes the first Spanish Mackerel was hooked and in the boat. These fish can hit the bait no matter what speed it is moving at. I was slow to realize that you did not need to set the hook yourself. If You just keep moving the jig after you notice a strike, eventually the mackerel or jack will hook itself. Early on one of us hooked a larger fish. Line streamed off the reel. About ten minutes later Captain Randy pulled up the tired fish and it was on the deck. It was a fifteen pound Bonita which we released. They are not a good tasting fish.

This was Barbara's first experience fishing. She was somewhat dismayed at hooking her first fish, but by here third one, she had the knack of fighting the fish and getting it to the boat. In all we must have landed over thirty fish. We released all but sixteen that we planned to have for lunch. Captain Randy also used a few of the injured mackerels to be bait an a line he dripped over the back of the boat on heavier tackle. Three times, it appeared that a large fish was on that line, but each time after a few minutes of fight, the line went limp. The bait had been grabbed, but the head of the fish with the extremely large hook had not been swallowed. I can only assume that when you fish with a bait fish that is twenty inches long, the fish you are going to catch will be large!

I lost four jigs completely when the mackerel bit through the monofilament leader. I also hooked a Bonito but the damn fish ran outward then turn and swan toward the boat. I tried to keep it down deep as it was near the boat, but it eventually swan under the boat and dragged the line into the rudder. I should have moved to the rear of the boat to reel in that fish.

Captain Randy did a fine job filleting our fish after we docked. Several pelicans were hoping he would drop more of the fish parts onto the dock, but the barely got enough mackerel to qualify for an appetizer. We carried half of our fillets to a local restaurant, The Snook Inn, where the chef cooked the mackerel in three styles for us. What a great meal. I hope to see Captain Randy at least one more time before heading north.

Month Three In Naples

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:26:00 +0000

I realize not to many people are using a lot of their time following this blog. The Dickerson Pondit has not been faithful to this publication. I arrived in Naples on January 10th and have been enjoying the beautiful weather ever since. A couple of weeks ago I got back to writing new chapters for my novel, The Briefcase. I now have almost fifteen new chapters written.

You might also notice that older posts are disappearing from the site. I am no longer going to post chapters on the blog. I am pushing ahead to finish the novel and then I will make a decision on how you all will get a chance to read the final product.

My focus at this time is getting my golf shots from going either right or left and paying my income tax. I will head back north at the end of April. The Briefcase should be done in draft form by then.

January on the Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:01:00 +0000

So…..Below is a quote from my last post. It has come to my attention that this post was actually created and submitted by my recently formed “Super PAC” – OldFartinFlorida.com. I believe it is my responsibility to check the facts in the quote.

I have to confess that I always thought escaping to Florida was for the weak of heart and that real New Yorkers enjoyed the challenges of winter weather. Well I was living a delusion! How did I equate ice fishing with surf casting, snowshoeing with winter golf, sidewalk dining with soup and hot chocolate aimed at warming my insides. Wearing silk underwear instead of Tommy Bahama shirts and flip flops? What was I thinking! I will attempt to maintain my dignity this winter. I will avoid the temptation of the early bird special and refrain from joining a game of Florida “lob” tennis. There will be no pink flamingos on the lanai. I will drive at or over the speed limit and limit Kmart visits to no more than once a week. I will not purchase and wear wrap around sun glasses and will continue doing the NYT daily crossword puzzle instead of the daily word search game in the local Naples paper. If available, I will support the Occupy Naples Movement when and if it ever comes to be.

· equate ice fishing with surf casting – at the time this was written, I had never been ice fishing in my life. Except for those of Norwegian heritage living in the frozen upper Midwest, no one goes ice fishing. Can you think of a colder less active sport than ice fishing? Now, I have tried a couple of days of surfcasting. The muscles on my now longer right arm are killing me. The closest I have come to catching a fish (mammal) was one cast that landed three feet from a porpoise leisurely fishing off shore.

· snowshoeing with winter golf – I have tried snowshoeing. This was done in northern Vermont at Smuggler’s Notch. It was a great way to get four hours of walking exercise in a twenty-minute stretch. If you need snowshoes to go out walking, stay at home. Winter golf I have yet to try. Since arriving in Florida on January 10^th, I have spent most every day baby sitting contractors and shopping for home furnishings. We are already into Bed Bath and Beyond for over $1,000. Is there a kitchen gadget I have not yet purchased?

· sidewalk dining with soup and hot chocolate – Sidewalk dining is an activity we have tried quite a few times since getting to Florida. This we like. The temperature has been so fine; we usually sit in the sun. Remind me to put on more sunscreen! I have been eating soup for lunch, but prefer ceviche to hot chocolate while in Florida.

· Wearing silk underwear instead of Tommy Bahama shirts and flip flop – The PAC got this right. Silk underwear are a northern golfers last resort to try and end the season on a positive note. That strategy never works.

· I will avoid the temptation of the early bird special and refrain from joining a game of Florida “lob” tennis – Unfortunately in Florida there is a fine line between getting to a restaurant for the early bird special and arriving after seven o’clock in the evening to find the restaurant dark and the staff vacated. We are still working on our dining timing. As for “lob tennis” please refer to the bullet point about “winter golf”.

· There will be no pink flamingos on the lanai – Once again the PAC is on the mark. This is only due to the strong influence of my wife.

· I will not purchase and wear wrap around sun glasses and will continue doing the NYT daily crossword puzzle instead of the daily word search game in the local Naples paper – Since we arrived in Florida about ten days into the winter season, every store we checked was out of the sunglasses. I thought I could find a pair someone might leave in a restaurant (you know we of a certain age) but everyone seems to have them tied to their head. I wonder if they sleep with them on? I have been sticking with the NYT crossword puzzle but miss doing them on paper. It is not the same using my iPad APP.

· If available, I will support the Occupy Naples Movement when and if it ever comes to be – I hear it exists. Rumor has it they congregate at the Walmart in north Naples. There are no tents, but a plethora of webbed beach chairs. The crowd breaks up around one in the afternoon and usually heads directly to Denny’s for the EBS (Early Bird Special). Similar to Occupy Wall Street in NYC, it is hard to pin the group down on their demands. I did hear talk about wider turning lanes and roadside signs to remind people which day of the week it is.

You gotta love Florida!

December on the Bench

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:50:00 +0000

Here is a lost posting, I found in my files. It was written on December 19th.

December on the Bench

The Pondit is alive! It is almost noon on a sunny but brisk December afternoon. The breeze is coming in from the west –- unfortunately that means it is blowing into my face – and the keyboard of my MacBook Pro is more than a tad chilly. The sound of The Doors singing “LA Woma”n is the only thing besides my fleece jacket that is keeping me warm. Tomorrow the Christmas tree is purchased, erected and decorated with the help of family and friends. Although it might appear that The Pondit is hunkering down for a frigid New York winter; that is far from his reality. On January 9^th The Pondit and his beautiful bride board the AutoTrain outside of our nation’s capitol and head on down to warm and sunny Naples, Florida to spend four months on the Gulf of Mexico making sand castles instead of snowmen. Although I am a firm believer in global warming and even the controversial and yet to be proven theory of evolution, waiting for tropical winters in Westchester New York is out of my frame of reference. I will finish The Briefcase drinking rum and cokes and gazing northward toward Sanibel Island on our lanai in Naples. How appropriate, The Doors have morphed into Sailing sung by my brother, Russell, on my iPhone.

It is too cold to write more.

Alive and Kicking (Paddling)

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:18:00 +0000

I have taken quite a hiatus from my blogging responsibilities. Apparently, I am a cold weather blogger. Barbara and I just returned from a week on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida. We stayed in Bonita Springs but visited Naples, Boca Raton and Coral Springs. We got to play two enjoyable rounds of golf in 80 degrees weather and took the resort launch out to a private beach area to catch some refreshing gulf breezes, lounge in the sand and swim in the medicinal salt water. We visited with both Barbara’s brother’s family and my brother’s family. The family visits were the highlight of the trip. We actually spent an afternoon looking at condo open houses in the Park Shore region of northern Naples. There is nothing like the first chill of New York air to spark the interest in finding a warm refuge from old man winter.

A cool and windy afternoon a few days prior to leaving for Florida, The Pondit grabbed his fishing gear and headed off to take a rowboat our on choppy Dickerson Pond. The pond had seen several days of morning frost and I judged this might be the last chance to fish this year. Rains earlier in the week had filled our fleet of wide bottomed aluminum rows boats with about twenty gallons of water. I had nothing with me to bail out our reliable behemoths. I did spot our Grumman aluminum canoe that was also inundated. It however could be lifted up on the dock and tipped over to separate the canoe from it unwanted cargo of rainwater. I accomplished this in minutes. I snatched a paddle and one floatation cushion and headed out to troll the pond. Handling the canoe solo sitting in the rear seat on a windy day while watching your fishing line was a challenge. Every time I hooked a perch and needed to reel him (her) in and dislodge the hook, the canoe would be somewhere I didn’t want it to be – usually tangled in beaver fallen tree limbs on the shore of the pond. As I reached the far end of the pond – the far end of any pond or lake is the place you are mysteriously attracted to, but is as far away from where you eventually need to be as humanly or nautically possible.

Here as the sun was beginning to set, the forty-two degree temperature winds began to stiffen. I was having trouble keeping the bow of the canoe pointed into the wind. As I tried once again to swiftly paddle the boat to turn windward a gust of wind raised the bow and within seconds the canoe’s only passenger was adrift in Dickerson Pond. I quickly assessed my fate. I was sopping wet but uninjured. The canoe was totally awash with only the tips of each end out of the water and I hanging onto one edge of the vessel. The paddle was still in my one hand but the seat cushion floatation devise was now about ten feet away and moving southward in the wind. My fishing pole was gone, but the vinyl tackle box was floating within the confines of the canoe frame. My fishing net was drifting nearby between the seat cushion and me. Did I mention that the water was damn cold!

The nearest shore point was about 100 yards to the west and although Dickerson Pond is not a deep body of water, I was not able to reach the pond bottom with my sneakered feet. I was wearing jeans and a fleece jacket at the time. My first morbid thoughts were of hypothermia. I did mention that the water was damn cold! My next thought was that nobody knew I was out fishing and there would be no people who would notice or hear me in this corner of the pond. I decided that the seat cushion would be more important to me than the swamped canoe. I let go of the canoe in order to swim the relatively short distance to the drifting seat cushion. As I let go of the canoe and tried to raise my feet to get into a swimming posture, all I did was start to sink below the surface of the pond. With my jeans, fleece jacket and sneakers, I was basically a lead sinker. I reattached myself to the rim of the canoe and tried to use the paddle to reach the seat cushion. There is probably a physics law – Heinrich’s Arm Stretch Law - to explain this, but the four-foot long paddle and my five-foot reach did not allow me to snag the cushion that was now at least twelve feet from the canoe. My next brilliant Idea was to try and kneel inside the swamped canoe. Again turning to the laws of physics, there must be a theoretical place you can place your knees in a swamped canoe and not actually tip the canoe over in the water. If you find that exact swamp you must remain totally motionless. Two realizations became evident: first, I was not going to find that magical spot and, second, if I did, then remaining motionless forever was not going to help my situation. I quickly abandoned this tactic and tried to lay semi-diagonally across the beam of the submerged edges of the canoe. I was able to do this and keep the swamped canoe steady. I looked over my right shoulder and watched as my vinyl tackle box drifted slowly away from the canoe. I wondered how long it would stay floating?

About five to eight minutes had passed and I had accomplished very little. I lost my seat cushion and my tackle box. I was getting colder by the minute and the sun was continuing to set. Although my seat cushion, net and tackle box were being blown to the wind to the shore at the south end of the cove, the heavy swamped canoe and its soggy passenger were merely inching along. My ETA for windblown landfall was about twelve hours. I needed a plan, even a bad plan. If I moved further across the rims of the canoe with one side across my mid thighs and the other at my chest, I could actually move my arms a bit. Choking up on the paddle handle, I could gently, ever so gently, make a small, shallow padding action using only my wrists. Whenever I tried to increase my stroke, my upper body tilted into the water and I feared the canoe would tip over. I did not want to try to use an upside down canoe to use as a floatation device! Did I mention the water was damn cold?

After about twenty-five to thirty minutes of mini-paddle stokes my craft and I were reaching the shoreline. Of course, I came to shoe amid another tangle of beaver induced fallen tree branches. After two failed attempts to sidle off the top to the canoe and stand in the water (even ten feet from the shore I could not reach the bottom of the pond – perhaps my legs had shrunk), I was standing in the primal ooze of the pond bottom. Crawling onto the shore, I took stock of my situation. First I was not injured or shivering. Those were good signs. I removed my fleece jacket. This was something I should have done about three minutes after falling into the water. I checked my brand new iPhone to see if it was operational – NOOO. I realized that my dickersonpondit.com baseball cap and my glasses were still on my head. In fact I had on my sunglasses and soon realized it was not nearly as dark as I thought it was! The canoe was not going anywhere. I started walking toward the trail that encircles the lake carrying my fleece jacket in my hands. I now realized that not only was the water pretty damn cold, but walking in the woods sopping wet in the wind was also on the cool side.

I walked briskly hoping the pace would warm my up. In another twenty minutes I was opening the front door to my condo. Stripping out of my wet clothing, I headed straight to the bathroom to run a hot bath. It was a good bath! I did notice that the clear water was turning slightly green as I lay soaking. I was sporting a couple of black and blue marks from where I was laying of the rimes of the canoe, but all-in-all, I was feeling OK. I put on warm, dry clothes and hung my fishing wardrobe to dry in the laundry room. Tomorrow I would head out to rescue the canoe and try and recover my tackle box. Some people never learn.

The Girl from Marine Park and the Boy from Highbridge on the Riviera

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:40:00 +0000

The Village of Eze

The Pondit has been preoccupied these past few weeks.  Getting to the computer to turn his thoughts into computerized words has not been a priority.  This morning I find my self twixt the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.  Looking up from my laptop I see only sea – waves and a few white caps and eventually the endless line of horizon between the deep blue water and the azure sky.  The waves are rising up the hull of the ship as the Silver Wind spends a day at see traveling between her last port of call in Taormina, Sicily onto the island of Korcula, Croatia.

Barbara and I are on our honeymoon.  It started with two glorious days in Eze, France.  We stayed in the Château de la Chèvré D’Or in old Eze village.  This hotel is in a part of the city where there are no cars or trucks.  The village is situated on a mountaintop high above the French Rivera coast between Nice and Monaco.  We spent every minute of these two days within the village.  We did walk around the town, or better put, up and down the town.

Our room, like most of the hotel room was remote to the common service areas of the hotel.  Room 34 was up some steps, always steps, and around the corner from the reception and the restaurant area.  Our balcony overlooked the bar and fountain area and had a breathtaking view of the Rivera coast a good 1,200 feet below us.  Breakfast on the balcony was a treat both days we spent in Eze.  The meals at the hotel were some of the best we have ever eaten.  Those French know how to throw some grub together.

Unfortunately we did need to leave this fairytale setting to head to Monaco to meet our cruise ship.  That trip was only six kilometers.  Arriving at the port, we easily got settled in our room on the Silver Wind.  We caught a taxi to head into the city to do some emergency shopping.  Due to a poor choice of electrical converters, Barbara’s usually tame hair curler transformed into an inferno powered hair burner (Her hair was actually fused to the curling iron!).  Although both her head and the device seemed to recover from the incident, the curling iron was no longer to be trusted. It is now locked inside our room safe on the Silver Wind. An attempt to find a curling iron in Eze was like trying to find a glass of water in an Irish pub.  The taxi dropped us off several blocks from the very upscale Metropole Shopping Plaza near the casino in Monaco.  By the way, everything is upscale in Monaco.  We did find a device that was a distant cousin to a curling iron that was very accustomed to using 220 volts of power.  This ten dollar hand held electrical device found in most Duane Reade drug stores in Manhattan cost seventy-eight Euros in Monaco.

Well Monaco is a very crowded city that is build straight up a mountain.  The narrow roads wind back and forth with no apparent plan as to their location, width or direction. We waited at two cabstands where empty cabs just drove on by.  We called the number our portside taxi driver gave us to use to request a return trip.  The number did connect us to a recording announcing there were no cabs available.  The late afternoon sun bounced off the heat saturated pavement and buildings while Barbara and I trekked back the two miles to the dock and our ship.  Apparently the only reliable transport in Monaco is a chauffer driven Bentley or Mercedes coupe.

But one bad incident does not ruin a wonderful start of our cruise around Italy.  I will try to find some time to chronicle each of our stops and include some photographs of the voyage. The Internet connection on the ship is quite slow and adding photos to the posting is beyond tedious.

The Briefcase, Chapter 89

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:03:00 +0000

May I be thunderstruck! Almost two years ago the Pondit added a post to this blog on the subject of his frustration with a fickle aberration of nature, the trumpet vine. In that post (http://dickersonpondit.blogspot.com/2008/08/strumpet-vines.html ) I lamented that it had been five years since I planted two of the vines near my patio area and was still waiting for the first flower to appear on these rapidly growing plants. I vowed to burn the vines in the fall of 2008 if they did not yield a flower that summer. Alas, it was just a paper threat. I waited all summer of 2009 and now have given up hope for 2010 since I have seen other trumpet vines in the area with flowers from the end of June. What do I do? I feel as badly as Patty Finnegan: see chapter 89 below.

Lo and behold!

Here is a link to the first chapter of The Briefcase posted on my blog:

[ http://dickersonpondit.blogspot.com/2009/08/author-author.html ]

Chapter 89

Patty Finnegan was devastated. It was now an hour and a half after his call with Janet Grissom and Bob Walsh. Patty was sitting in a darkened bar about six blocks from the DEA office. He was staring into a shot of Jameson trying to unravel the events of the past several months. What was most baffling in this case were the number of leads the DEA had and the fact that almost all of them lead to nowhere. In fact, following what ended up as blind leads, consumed most to the energy expended on the case. Patty was not in all his faculties and he realized this. But in the back of his mind he wished he could take large model of the tracking transmitter and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine in the anatomy of the entire DEA technical team. How many hours did he and his team spend tracking that transmitter just to have it stop its signal just when it was most needed? It was like the devil himself was turning it on and off.

Patty ordered another shot of Irish whiskey and then let his mind drift off to Connecticut. What in the world did Anthony Costanzo and the Mafia have to do with this case? Sure there were marked bills found in Mystic and at the Foxwoods but did that trail actually lead back to Miguel Rivera? And he was totally perplexed by Ernesto and Pablo; all that time in the tomato fields of Immokalee and not a “marked” dollar to show for it? Why were they hiding from Miguel, if they did not have the money?

These were baffling events but not nearly as eerie as what happened in Santa Anita – one million dollars of DEA money winding up at the race track during the Breeder’s Cup. How did the money get there? Who brought the money there? And what was the purpose of wagering that money at the racetrack? Although still convinced that there was some inside hanky-panky going on at the track that day, the chances of uncovering that connection was getting slimmer and slimmer. What seems so obvious and neatly packaged had completely unraveled for Patty and his team. Life wasn’t fair and the Jameson was helping him confirm that observation.

Patty ordered another Jameson with a Smithwick’s chaser. He now had to make a career decision. He knew he could not let this case just drop. In fact, he could not even imagine how easily Janet Grissom was letting this go. That woman did not have a heart. No wonder she had earned the nickname, the Ice Queen. But Patty was very aware that Janet would be watching him. She knew as well as anyone that this case was under Patty’s skin. He had to be careful if he wanted to continue on the case. He did want to do that. He had no choice. He had to continue. He decided to dedicate his Saturday mornings to the case. He would not involve anyone else at the agency. He pushed away the last half of his ale. He realized he had only the rest of the day to work on the case in an official manner and knew he had to make some requests for information that would be consuming his next several Saturday mornings.

Turning to the bartender, Patty asked, “Sean, can you get me a cheese sandwich and a large mug of black coffee?”

Sean turned toward Patty, “It is about time. I thought you were going to drown in your whiskey. I guess I do not have to ask how things are going at work.” Sean chucked and walked off toward the kitchen area. In the morning, He was both bartender and cook.

Reaching inside his jacket pocket for his notebook and pen, Patty started yet another list:

Copy of betting records at Santa Anita
Copies of video of counting area in the betting pit
Copies of videos of at least two of the betting windows at the track
Log of all times the briefcase transmitter was active
Copies of the videos with Anthony Costanzo at Foxwoods

If he could get these copies today, he will be able to review this evidence outside the prying eyes of Janet Grissom. They had to have missed something that was in these pieces of evidence. Patty was also considering some field trips he might take. One would be to the Grand Caymans to check out those private banks. Another trip might be to confront Miguel Rivera in Cali. Obviously this last idea was either desperation or the Jameson doing the talking. Visiting Cali would be a suicide mission and not a side trip! Whatever, but Patty knew that Miguel Rivera would know his name before long. No one kills one of Patty’s agents, steals his money and gets away with it.

Patty ate his sandwich and had two mugs of coffee. One long visit to the men’s room and he was headed back to his office with his list in his pocket.

Where the Hell is Nevis?

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:21:00 +0000

I am somewhere east of Puerto Rico and west of Casablanca. The island of Nevis is only a short boat ride from the southern point of St. Kitts and is a fairly round dot in the middle of the Caribbean. The center of the island is dominated by a dormant volcano that is over 3,200 feet high. I am staying at the rather comfortable Montpelier Plantation Inn on the low hills south of the volcano. This has been a dry February for Nevis. The cold air up in the United States is keeping warm tropical air trapped to the south. This posting is emanating from poolside – a rather inactive poolside where my fingers typing away seem to be the only human activity except for some occasional breathing by several other guests. Most of the guests are from the United Kingdom. Nevis/St. Kitts is still a Commonwealth country loyal to Queen Elizabeth (but I am not certain they know that this is Queen Elizabeth the second!).

Getting here from New York City last week was a bit of a challenge. Originally we were scheduled on an early morning flight Friday to San Juan and then an afternoon connecting flight to St. Kitts. It is very hard to find flights to Nevis although they do have a small airport. The weather predictions in New York led us to change our outbound San Juan flight to Thursday afternoon. That we did but our three and one-half hour flight took us over seven hours to complete. We spend at much time on the runway at JFK then we did in the friendly skies. We stayed in San Juan and caught our scheduled Friday flight to St. Kitts. The trip after deplaning is more of a logistical challenge. The airport is about ten minutes from the capital of St. Kitts where there is a twice a day ferry to Nevis but it is about thirty mountainous miles to the beach on the south end of St. Kitts where you can arrange for a water taxi to take you to a beach on Nevis. That was our choice. Michael, out cab driver met us outside customs at the airport. With hardly a word he took us over the winding coast road to a dirt path that led to a short dock in the middle of nowhere. In front of us was a dive boat moored at the pier. There were people on the beach enjoying the sunny weather. Looking out we could see Nevis just a short boat ride away. After dragging our five bags through the sand to the dock, we boarded the rather large dive boat. We were handed two Carib beers and were glad to be sitting down with Nevis in sight. We waited about twenty minutes and were into our second bottles of beer when four young day trippers joined us for the ride across the channel.

We docked in Nevis and paid the boat operator $80 and tipped the crew. Our prearranged cab driver was waiting for us as we disembarked. She was anything but quiet, a feisty Brit fro Yorkshire who has been on the island for eighteen years. The ride to our inn was about twenty minutes with each turn off the highway leading to roads of less and less attention. The final two miles were two parallel strips of concrete with a grassy path in the center. Mind you this was still considered a two way road and we did encounter a truck coming at us from the opposite direction. We made it to the hotel; then we settled into our gorgeous room and were able to make cocktail hour -- a Pernod for me and chardonnay for Barbara -- before moving out to the west terrace overlooking Charlestown for a scrumptious dinner.

I have added some pictures and will continue our vacation saga in another posting.

Here is Nevis from the southmost point of St. Kitts. Those are clouds and not fumes on the top of the volcano!

Living full time in Nevis is a real temptation. Life is soft and easy.

Nevis has been waitng for years for a visitor of distinction. Little do they know he is on his way.

This is a great shot of Barbara! Our taxi is visible in the distant. If there was a road to the beach, that would also be in the picture. We arrived on a goat path.

Off on our voyage to paradise. The background scenery was included in the fare.

This is our water taxi crew. One of them is supposed to be steering the boat!

A view from the field just west of our room's porch.

Same area looking north toward the volcano.

The reknowned croquet courts at the Montpelier Plantation Inn. This is the site of the 1824 Commonwealth Croquet tournament.

The Dickersonpondit hard at work creating a literary feast for his followers.

Florida Trip 2010: Naples

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:29:00 +0000

At last, civilization: I am now visiting Naples, Florida. Traffic is adequate but not stifling, weather is peaceful and calm, New York Times is available in the 7-11, the beach is almost empty for a morning walk and parking is illegal or costly everywhere. Naples reminds me of midtown Manhattan (the NYT and parking only). I once again am staying with good friends, this time they are from Croton-on-Hudson, NY. I arrived mid-afternoon yesterday, spent an hour and a half on the beach about a mile from downtown Naples and after a wonderful dinner of fresh fish chowder headed off to the Universal Unitarian Church for the initial session of a weekly evening lecture series. The topic this week was the present state of politics in Iran, or the end of the Islamic Revolution given by an Iranian college professor teaching out of an Illinois university. He was interesting and there were over one hundred people in attendance. Bottom line: the current Iranian government is on the way out and almost powerless, religious influence on the state is in flux and decentralized through many minor ayatollahs, the drive toward modernization out trumps nationalism and Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons. These are the speaker's opinions. For me, "To shah or not to shah, that is the question."

I listened to the State of the Union address after the lecture. I had a very big issue or lack of one: I am retired and do not want a job. What is the federal government going to do for me? Perhaps I ought to think about starting a small business? It will be interesting to see if the trickle up economic model is any more successful than the trickle down economy was. As far as trickle down goes, I know Maxwell House coffee is good to the last drop, but I do not think I got any drop of the trickle down spoils.

This morning I was on the North Gulf Shore beach of Naples by seven o'clock. The sun was not quite up and the air was fresh and cool. I walked the beach for an hour and one-half. I collected about a dozen sand dollars and successfully exfoliated the bottoms of my feet. I am now five ounces lighter. After a shower and breakfast, my host and I headed to downtown Naples to walk out the fishing pier. Along the way we stopped at the old Naples train station and visited with an enthusiastic collection of Lionel model train buffs. They had an impressive display of model trains in the old station (see pictures below). This was truly childhood revisited for me.

After lunch we went to the Naples Nature Conservatory for a meaningful commune. We took an electric boat ride through the mangrove swamp and then watch the three o'clock feeding of a five month old loggerhead turtle. Talk about excitement! My heart rate was up to 58 beats per minute. Now it is time for pure relaxation at the pool at the edge of the local golf course. My Myers Rum and Coke is tasting mighty fine. By the way, how was the snow in New York this morning?

Here are a few pictures of the latest days of my Florida visit:

Home of the Lionel Train Club of Naples.

Part of the layout of the model trains at the Naples Train Depot.

Notice the motor cycles at the model train layout.

The Naples City Fishing Pier.

Mangrove trees in the swamp behind the Naples Nature Conservatory.

Florida Trip 2010: Minigoldendoodles

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:52:00 +0000

I have spent my last couple of days in the city of Longwood which is about two thirds of the way between New Smyrna Beach and Orlando. This is an upscale are and located near several of Florida's fresh water springs. I am visiting a long time fraternity brother (Sigma Alpha Epsilon at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) along with another fraternity brother and his wife who live in Orange County, California. You cannot imagine the number of enhanced fraternal memories we have shared. It is amazing all three of us are all still alive and out of prison.

I have played golf two days in this part of central Florida and yesterday visited Blue Spring State Park near Orange City, Florida adjacent to the St. John's River. This fresh water spring pumps about 110,000,000 gallons of 73 degree water into the St. John's River each and every day. With the recent cold weather in Florida lowering the river temperature, manatees have congregated into the stream running from the spring into the river. We saw nearly thirty manatees warming up in the spring yesterday. These immense river slugs do very little. The main activity I saw was warming themselves in the spring waters and sunlight. I stood near the edge of the observation platform for twenty minutes with a wet herring in my mouth waiting for one of the manatees to jump up and grab the stinking fish. One did cruise over and pass gas right beneath me. I do not recommend one of these animals as a pet.

The spring runoff had water as clear as glass. You could see the many fish that took advantage of this stream of fresh water. There were also large turtles and a very large alligator in the waters. Swimming is permitted in the stream running from the spring to the river. There are, of course, signs asking people to leave the manatees alone and that there are alligators in the area that should be avoided. As I observed this signage, I came to realize why the population in Florida is primarily white English speaking Caucasians and Hispanic. The alligator warning signs were prominent and the warnings rather firm. The only two languages on the signs were English and Spanish. Imagine a new immigrant from Greece coming to the park on a warm day and thinking (in Greek), "What a nice day and a nice spot for a swim. Look at those large gray swimming mammals and the large swimming Geico gecko in the water. Let me jump in and frolic with the animals." That guy is alligator lunch in three minutes. I believe Florida alligators are killing off all the non-English or non-Spanish speaking immigrants that come to Florida. This could be an oversight by the Florida government officials or a hideous plot to control voting patterns in upcoming elections. I cannot make that call, but Florida voting results always seem to make national headlines.

Oh yes, minigoldendoodles. My hostess with the help and support of her family raises dogs. These dogs are crosses between golden retrievers and miniature poodles. Artificial insemination comes into play here for genetic reasons. (I believe the physical size limitation of the male minipoodle stud is also a factor – but I am no expert and the stud does have a four foot vertical jumping height.) The outcome of this comingling of breeds is wonderful dogs. Great temperament, reasonable size and above average intelligence combined with fur that actually stays on the dog and not your clothes and furniture is a big plus. Spending two days with five adult dogs in the house with two other mothers and their new liters in a warming bedroom was quite a treat and you could not find more affectionate dogs. Thank goodness all the puppies are spoken for! Check this web site out for more information and pictures:

http://www.springviewminigoldendoodles.com

Here are a few pictures of the latest days of my Florida visit:

Here is my aunt and uncles condo right on the beach at New Smyrna Beach.

Florida has this right. They are handling the "clunker" situation with the kind of vision you cannot expect from the federal government. They encourage people to park on the beach at low tide and six hours later at high tide the clunkers are on their way to the coast of Africa. Cost to we taxpayers, nada!

Here we are at Blue Spring State Park waiting to see the manatee tricks.

This is the only manatee that approached the herring I was holding in my mouth. One witness claims he jumped two millimeters toward the fish as he passed me. That would be a new manatee world record.

Here is the largest ~~pod, flock, gaggle, pack, covey, herd~~ assembly of manatees I will ever see. There must be thirty animals in this ~~pod, flock, gaggle, pack, covey, herd~~ assembly of manatees.

This is one of the signs Florida is using to control the number of non-English or non-Spanish speaking immigrants living in the state.

Thank goodness I chose a car and not a motorsycle for this three week trip to Florida.

Florida Trip 2010: Mickey to Smyrna

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:34:00 +0000

There is no way to compare Key West to Orlando. Key West seems so rooted to me and Orlando is pure fantasy land. I could never settle down in Orlando, even if for only a month. I am certain there is good value in the time spent in the major theme parks. This trip, I did not visit any, but I have in the past. The real show is in the fast food and chain restaurants. Watching the horde approach, circle and then attack the breakfast, lunch or dinner buffet is seeing humanity at the best of its human instincts. Why eat two eggs and a strip of bacon, when there are pancakes, fried chicken and French toast with fructose syrup just there for the taking? Thank goodness the path to the plain vanilla yogurt is always unobstructed.

Thursday I visited friends with other friends up in Nancy Lopez's favorite town (now a city) the Villagesday. The place is a Mecca of senior activities. They have a full newspaper full of activities and special interest clubs. My new desire in life is to become the sixty-five year and older pickelball champion of the city (and thereby the entire world). A more ambitious goal is to be the captain of the Precision Golf Cart Drill Team and become a legend of polo halftime entertainment fame. Seriously, life at the Villages demands the careful consideration of anyone wanting an active, congenial retirement.

Today I am at New Smyrna Beach on Florida's Atlantic coast. This is a wonderful, quiet beach town. I ended last evening with a four mile round trip walk on the beach and started today taking that same walk. There are plenty of Harley-Davidsons in the town as well as a mixed of retired northerners and comely bikinied teenagers. Being near the ocean listening to the surf is very satisfying to my ears and spirit.

Here are a few pictures of the latest days of my Florida visit:

Me enjoying a chesseburgeer in paradise at Jimmy Buffet's original restaurant on Duval Street in Key West.

My life was in the hands of Captain Tim as we sailed out of Key West harbor into the dangerous Atlantic Ocean.

Another schooner sailing by us on our sunset cruise in Key West.

This is the closest I got to a birdie on any of Florida's numerous golf courses.

Here is the dream of every Villages resident. The ultimate in designer golf carts.

There are plenty of golf carts to choose from, in fact it is the largest retail industry int he Villages!

Florida Trip 2010: Life in Key West

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:41:00 +0000

I can see why Ernest Hemmingway, Tennessee Williams, Harry Truman and Jimmy Buffet spent so much of their time in Key West. It is an intriguing and charming little city. The old town has kept its charm. New McMansions are not permitted. Duval Street reminds me of a slimmed down French Quarter in New Orleans. The pace is slow, the tourist trade is doing fine and the cruise ships just keep on sailing in. Yesterday Barbara and I took a trolley tour of the entire island. We learned it is only two miles by four miles and has a population of over 23,000 residents. Most of the island is made from land reclaimed from the mangrove swamps. This practice is no longer allowed and it appears what is now Key West will always be Key West. The seafood is terrific. There are many fine places to eat and it appears even more places to drink.

Friday night we ate at the Café Marquesa. This restaurant is cited in the novel I am writing, The Briefcase. It is an upscale restaurant for Key West. No one was dining in shorts, tee shirt and flip flops. We also saw the Mary Immaculate Star of the Sea school where Anna Harte teaches fourth grade in the novel.

While on the trolley tour we learned that at one time Key West had the largest per capita income of any city in the US. The money came from rolling cigars and salvaging wrecks of the reef on the Atlantic Ocean side of the island. Needless to say, those industries are no longer driving the Key West economy. We also learned that Key West seceded from the United States for a short period of time in protest of border closings at the top of the Florida Keys. The Conch (pronounced CONK) Republic was short lived. Our guide told us more about this but, the line between truth and fantasy was getting very jagged as his stories went on.

Today we head out for some nautical adventures!

This is the Key West Bed and Breakfast, our Key West home.

This sign at the airport proudly exclaims Key West's independent status for a brief period in 1828.

Here I am standing near Spong Bob Square Pants maternal grandfather.

Barbara out in front of the B&B on Williams Street.

The Cafe Marquesa from our tour trolley.

Florida Trip 2010: Coral Springs to Key West

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:20:00 +0000

I just finished eating my "take out" dinner on the deck outside my room at the Key West Bed & Breakfast on Williams Street in the old town section of Key West. This beats drinking hot wine in a Snuggie huddled in the living room of my Westchester condominium! I got to spend two days with my brother and his wife in Coral Springs, Florida. It was a great visit for us. I am not used to a home with four pets and kept counting them to make certain none were hidden in the room where I was sleeping. I hear that cats can sit on your face and suck the breath of life from you. Their dog on the other hand was looking at my leg with a very wanton look, and this is a female dog! Ahh, how great are the joys of "petdom"?

Except for the fact that 40% of the trip downward on the Florida Keys was in construction zones, it was a pleasant drive. The view for the most part was not as spectacular as I imagined. Mangroves on the side of the road blocked the view for too much of the trip. My first stop along the way was at the Brass Monkey Lounge in a strip mall near a Kmart in Marathon at mile post 50. This is the site of a couple of the racier chapters of my novel, The Briefcase. The bar is a bit seedier than I imagined, but will do fine as the setting I need in my novel. I have some pictures of the Brass Monkey below. I was a little shy about taking photographs since many of the early afternoon patrons appeared to be candidates for the witness protection program.

My next stop was about twenty miles further southwest at Bahia Honda Key. There is a state park on the key that is the sight of the discovery of the briefcase the novel is based upon. After visiting the park, I will have to do some editing to get my protagonist, Chet Harte, to the site of the discovery of the briefcase. The site is even more remote than I imagined. I also stopped at Sugarloaf Key where Chet and Anna Harte have their home. The sun was trying to come out today, but it did not quite make it. The temperature did reach a respectable 68 degrees on my arrival to downtown Key West. The B&B I am staying at is in the Old Town on Williams Street, very close to Duval Street. My next posting will focus on some of my Key West experiences.

No day of golf in southern Florida can start without a stop at Pollo Tropical for chicken wqith rice and black beans for breakfast.

After a week of high temperatures in the 40's, this is typical golf wear for a Floridian. I was wearing slacks and a short sleeved golf shirt.

Whoops, I believe this was a framing error.

This is the photo I meant to take. Two of the chapters of my novel take place in this venue. Classy?

The bar inside the Brass Monkey. The guy in the ponytail testified against the Gambino's. The guy in the cap is his US Marshall.

The band area at the Brass Monkey.

A deserted beach on Bahia Honda Key. Very similar to the area where Chet Harte found his briefcase.

Florida Trip 2010: The Long State

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Holt) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:45:00 +0000

I am writing today's blog from the Sunshine State – still rather cool, but it is sunny. I drove across the sliver of Georgia I needed to cross before reaching the top of the state of Florida. So far this trip I have crossed most of the states on their shorter axis. Florida stretched out before me from above Jacksonville all the way down to Key West. That is about five hundred and sixty-eight miles by car. That is a lot of real estate. The only mountains or hills I saw while heading south on I-95 were two large landfills. With the weather they have been getting in Florida this past week I expected to see chair lifts running up those hills and hundreds of Floridians in ski parkas coming down the new ski trails.

The temperature actually hit sixty-two degrees this afternoon. I remained in jeans and a sweater all day, but did feel the warmth of the sun on my face as I sat poolside with my brother while sipping a rum and Coke. I spent the remainder of the afternoon reminiscing with my brother. We did not solve any worldwide issues but did agree to blame most of our personal problems on our parents.

I look forward to tomorrow and not having to drive all day – well I might be playing golf and will have to do some driving. Hopefully those drives will be long and straight just like today's drive down I-95. I am staying in Coral Springs, Florida. It is sort of an extension to Fort Lauderdale and provides a buffer for that town and the alligators of the swamp that starts at the western edge of Coral Springs. I have yet to see any coral or a spring in the town, but I am certain they are somewhere to be found. I took no photographs today. I will do better tomorrow. I am too tired to keep on writing. Pleasant dreams to all I love and care about.