Judge Swing

              I was bicycling and debating with the pretty brown-haired Judge. It was after dark so I didn't want her to have to bicycle home alone, especially since her bike didn't have a light on it. She rode in front and I had loaned her my wind-up light so she could see the road ahead. My bike had a working tail-light so I rode right behind her.
              During the trip, we were discussing the case of a student who posted a link that led to a video of a comedian who was reading the preamble to the constitution, translated into “Ebonics.” Not in and of itself a problem, except that the video was profuse with profanity. The parents, of course, sued the school district for violating the student's first amendment rights. A fairly complex case, because the words and video, were not in fact the students. The link had been accompanied by a warning about the profanity, and it was only posted in the comments section of a class forum.
              I made the argument that the removal of the video from its site would be a first amendment violation, if the creators had posted it. The Judge indicated that the school owned the forum and therefore had the right to remove the offending link and discipline the student. I listened to her argument, and told her that I had to agree, up to a point. The infraction was one of bringing a profanity laced publication into a discussion, to which it was, in fact, relevant, not one of misusing a computer in an attempt to harm the network or affect another's use of the system. So the schools punishment, a semester banished from using the computer, was akin to a school punishing a “Playboy” recommender by telling them they couldn't read anything for a semester.
              She asked what I thought a proper punishment would be.
              I told her that I didn't really believe in punishment as much as restitution. So in this case, I would say an apology was in order, a reiteration of the code of conduct as it involved the classroom forum, and I would tell the student that otherwise they did a good job of using their specific skills they'd learned to branch out into the realm of public discourse, which is, after it's all said and done, exactly what we want them to be able to do.
              The judge nearly crashed her bike and I had a hard time braking in time to keep from piling on.
              “You just made me change my mind. No one ever does that.”
              “You're a judge, I thought you were supposed to keep an open mind.”
              “You don't have to after you've made a decision. The parents would have been much better off having you as an attorney. You conceded the First Amendment point by going completely around it and went right to the meat of the matter. They didn't think the punishment imposed was appropriate. Too bad they didn't argue that.”
              “It gets into the whole mandatory sentencing thing, where we forget that we are human beings with human failings and that justice is a human concept not a natural concept. We end up trying to eliminate the human from justice in the name of fairness, but then lose that essential part of the whole idea of justice.”
              The Judge just looked at me, an odd expression on her face. “There's street lights, I'll race you home,” and with that she took off like a shot.
              I took off after her, but was no where near in as good a shape as her, and with her head start she vanished around the bend before I could see where she went. Fortunately I remembered the name of the street where she lived and was able to brake and turn in when it came up. The house, I thought, was going to be tough to find if I didn't see her bike outside.
              There was only one house with lights, on, though, so I rolled up to the house and knocked on the door.
              A teen opened the door, I hesitated, as the judge didn't have any children. The teen was very perceptive, and smiled, “She's my aunt, come in.” The teen skipped into the front room where there were piles of luggage and the rest of her family.
              The teen's father, I was guessing because of the age difference and similar hair and skin tones, greeted me, “So, you're the one my baby sister is in love with.”
              I blushed. “We're friends, just biked home from visiting my wife and I.”
              At that point the judge came into the room, having all ready taken off her jacket and with a towel around her neck. Her blouse was a very silky looking shimmer of creme that clung to her breasts and hung damply from her erect nipples. I tried not to stare. She took my arm and introduced me around.
              “I have your flashlight in my room. Come see the rest of the house, you haven't been here yet.”
              I followed her on a tour of the house. I pretty much forgot it all when we got to her room. A large mirror made up the headboard, and the canopy bed was done up in leopard patterned sheers with a chocolate brown cover. There was a trapeze or swing seat at the foot of the bed which she raised up out of the way with the soft whirr of electric motors.
              “Wow, sexy,” I turned to take in the whole low but warmly lit cream and brown experience. I suppressed the urge to make a swinging comment.
              “Not what you expected from a middle aged Judge?”
              “You're not yet middle aged, and no, seeing it, I have to say it fits you.”
              I looked into her eyes and immediately saw trouble. She was, in fact in love with me, or at least lust.
              “I have something else for you, just a moment I have to make sure our trip gets off. Wait right here.”
              I waited a moment or two, and then the whole house lurched and swung. I felt a slight acceleration and stepped out into the front room. “Where's...”
              “She's gone to make sure the connections are set.” The older brother pointed to the front door. “She said we should all wait her until she returns." The house rocked gently.
              “Right. I have to get home, though, so I'll see if I can catch up to her.”
              I opened the front door. The whole house had been set down on a rail car and was rolling towards a siding. I could see the judge up ahead along side the tracks, ahead of the electric engine that was pulling us. The front door was attached to a long horizontal pole, steel with the yellow enamel warning stripes peeling in places it was at least twenty feet long. The pole looked like it was about to catch onto brush along side the tracks so I stepped out and pushed the door shut behind me.
              “You're going to ruin the surprise!” came a shout from far ahead in the darkness.
              “I have to get home.”
              “Come with me, we're vacationing in the Rockies this year, three weeks.”
              “N's going to be waiting for me.”
              “I've been waiting for you. My whole life.”
              I walked along side the slowing house, realizing that my bike was back in the yard, so I would have to walk all the way back and I had the idea that was pretty far now.
              “I haven't anything packed.”
              “I'll keep you warm, and happy.”
              “I have no doubt, and that's really an attractive offer. I don't have words for how attractive. But you really wouldn't want a man who would drop his commitment to you for the first highly educated, intellectually stimulating and sexy woman who came along, would you?”
              “How often has that happened to you?”
              “Twice, I married the first one.”
              “But, you're the right one for me, and you know it.”
              We stood across the switch control looking into one another's eyes. I could feel the longing.
              “I have fallen in love with you, mister.”
              “And I with you, despite by best efforts not to. But I have made other promises...”
              “Which you will keep, making me love you all the more.”
              She wrapped herself around me and I held her as the house creaked to a stop behind us.
              “Let's call N and let her know I'm sending you home late.”
              "I don't know that she'd go for that." There was a large part of me that was concerned that this was a ploy to get me back in the house where I would be trapped. Even if it wasn't a trap, I didn't know that I would have the strength to leave again.
              “Or, better yet, let's call N and invite her along.” The Judge took my hand and lead me back towards the front door.
              I pulled out my cell phone, which brought a pout (a very sexy pout) to the Judge's cherubic face, my suspicions deepened.
             

Beach Party Reunion, Alien Visitor

              I dreamed that the old College Days group was having a beach reunion. All of us 40 and 50 somethings were there with our spouses and had been sponsored by Speedo. Yes, all of us were in Speedo swimwear, as were our wives and husbands and children. There were cameras and reflectors everywhere as the company recorded our reunion party. Some of us do not look good with any amount of flesh showing, let alone as much as is revealed by a Speedo. Yikes! I think those shots would have to be used for a “please, don't” campaign. While we were running up and down the beach and playing, poorly, frisbee, I got a call.
              When my phone rang several of the people reached for their own phones. Digging frantically into beach bags or purses.
              “It's for me!” I shouted out for everyone so they didn't have to keep digging. The phone call was from our Learning portal administrator. The site had been hacked and she didn't know what to do. Neither of the engineers, nor the analyst were answering their phones. “It's Saturday, of course not. We don't pay anyone to be on call. Let me look at it.”
              I brought up the web site, sure enough it had been vandalized, every graphic had been modified to show swastikas or naked people, all rather poorly drawn. I couldn't see that any text had been modified, but there are over 1400 individual class sites to be checked. I let the administrator rattle on about how horrible it all was for a couple of minutes.
              “Contact Blackboard and have them restore from backup.”
              “What?”
              “We don't manage the site any more. We gave it back to the company, remember?”
              “But I can't log in!”
              “The Hackers removed your account or changed your password. I never had admin access since we moved over, so I can't do anything about this. Blackboard can, call them and let them take care of this. Have them change all of the administrator's passwords while they are at it. No point in restoring the site in hackable condition.”
              “Are you going to come in and supervise this?”
              “I don't have administrator access any more, so what is it that you think I could do?”
              There was silence from the other end for a moment.
              “This is an IT thing not an LSS thing.”
              “The IT support end is subbed out to Blackboard. So, let's get the portal administrator to call them.”
              “I'm the portal administrator!”
              “What's the contact name and number?”
              She gave me the information, and I wrote it in the wet sand with my toe. I called the number and told them our site had been hacked. I wasn't on their security principal's list, though so they asked me to have the portal administrator or the programming liaison call them directly.
              I called the administrator back, and gave her the good news. I then called my boss back to let him know what had happened, so he could call them and rant at them. And so he would know that I did what I could, because I knew that the complaint from the admin wouldn't be about the engineers and the analysts she couldn't reach, but about the person she did reach, who didn't have the authority or access to do anything about the problem.
              N told me I should put in a time sheet. The other tech geeks in the group agreed. “Over time rate. It's the weekend and you aren't even supposed to be on call.”

              Later I dreamed that I met an alien visitor, and we just seemed to click. (We're talking alien from another world, not just another country.) It was summer time, so I was off work, the aliens hired me to drive their investigator around. The investigator looked a great deal like TC, or Zap Savage, and admitted that they had seen the web site and decided they liked that image. That was how they had gotten in touch with me, as I was the most common author of the Zap Savage and the Hackers stories.
              We were in a Panera, video conferencing when a VC call came in from the State Department. They wanted to meet with the alien investigator, I handed the call over to him. The State Department flunkie seemed flustered to be face to face with the alien. He barely managed to get out his request.
              Without even pausing to think about it the alien replied “Ten o'clock, I couldn't possibly.... I have gazpacho with the Methodists.”
              I laughed so hard I woke myself up.

Other-world Casino and Cardboard Boat

              I dreamed I came into possession of a large number of gambling chips for an off-world casino. I managed to trade some of them for a round-trip jump ticket and bundled myself into my star boat and let myself be flung a quarter of the way across the galaxy.
              I had intended to just cash out the chips, but there was some issue with the time that they had been out of the casino, so I had to play them into games and take out the current version before I could cash them out. I spent most of my time on the video poker sort of machines, as they advertised a ninety eight percent payout. Soon I had turned about half of the chips into twice as much money, so cashed them out.
              I decided to just blow the rest of the chips on something high-stakes and exotic. I joined up with a game that seemed to combine Blackjack (well, a Blackjack like game) and Chess in some way, ignoring the first rule of gambling, “Never play a game that you don't understand.” This, of course, led to trouble.
              I was playing very conservative, I thought, watching the other players, watching the dealer, a position that you had to buy into, it seems. I didn't understand enough to be the dealer, so passed on that opportunity. The game progressed and each play with the dealer involved betting for or against the dealers current contest with the other players. Robot croupiers kept the chips flying and my stack rapidly grew smaller and larger in fits and spurts. Violence broke out between two of the players, both of whom had gone broke betting on a third to lose to the dealer. It appears there was some sort of collusion and the dealer had, unexpectedly, gone bust on a half dozen hands of Blackjack. There was the smell of ozone and both players collapsed. Croupiers turned security dragged all three of the players away from the game pit.
              It took a couple of moments to get the fine covered chairs filled with new players and then the dealer turned to me. I chose the chess challenge, which seemed to be a set number of moves and then the croupiers would tote up what they felt was the advantages and disadvantages of each side and pay out wins and take losses. Again, I set out about a quarter of my “tainted” chips and reserved my good winnings to cash in later. I was about ten percent in the hole at that point. I figured I should lose quickly and get the heck out, it wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped. We started to play. It wasn't exactly earth chess, so I had to keep checking the rule sheet. Bets rapidly piled up against me, the dealer choosing to cover them double and most of the player accepting the raise. I covered the ones who bet against me, too, figuring I could unload the rest of the “tainted” chips and return home with a tidy nest egg.
              The game took a bad twist and several of my opponent's powerful pieces jumped over my shoddy defenses. Five moves had been played and the stakes at the table doubled. The dealer could tell I was a neophyte, and only raised his stakes a little, fully expecting me to bow out, I believe. I put all but about 5K of my “tainted” chips in to cover. We resumed play, and I promoted a piece that had been ignored because of my impending check.
              The pit erupted, no one had seen the move, as it involved invoking a somewhat obscure rule, one that had been in the rules I had just read. Security came over to verify that the rules were just print and nothing that analyzed the game. I noticed the red dots of security rifles trained at my chest. The move stood, and the targeting lasers vanished. The dealer looked nervous and several players started to argue and try to cover side bets on my winning to mitigate their possible losses, but since most had bet against me with the house, there were not really any takers. A crowd had gathered, and that made me nervous. I didn't like the extra scrutiny, as I wasn't sure I had come into possession of the chips in a completely up and up way. I really wanted to lose them and get out of here.
              I studied the board. Instead of putting up a defense, the dealer chose to press his advantage, after all, there were only three moves left in the session. I moved one of my few defenders out to place his tower in check (not kings in this version.) The crowd craned to see the board, so the casino brought it up on a holographic display above the pit. I glanced up to see the board, and both of us, five times larger than life. I gave my attention back to the board, certain that my next and probably last move could not be prevented. I wasn't positive, but I felt that using another obscure rule, one involving the swapping of a pair of pieces, that I would actually be in a position where I had as much threat on my opponent as he had on me. I figured it would come down to the calculations of the croupiers to determine the actual standing at the end of the round.
              My opponent made a move that seemed random to me.
              I blinked, shook my head. The crowd grew silent. I reached for a piece that seemed locked in place, and swapped it for a much less powerful piece, but one that directly threatened his tower.
              The dealer looked at the board in shock. Red analysis line were projected onto the board and the threatened tower was shown to have been actually mated, the random seeming move had discarded his only blocking move. Low expressions of awe flowed into the pit from the gathered crowd. I comforted the dealer, “New players sometimes play so oddly that random chance comes into the game. Thank you for the game.”
              The croupiers indicated that I had the option of buying into the dealer's seat, but I really didn't want it. I took my winnings, and tipped the dealer the standard percentage, and then tossed in the last few K of my “tainted” chips as a thank you. The player immediately bought his way back into the dealer's seat with the extra chips, his translation device telling me that he would forward a percentage of his winnings, or pay me back in full.
              “Thank you, that won't be necessary, I've learned a valuable lesson from you.” I grabbed a waiter and bought everyone in the pit a round. I climbed out of the jungle smelling pit, using a vine to haul myself up to the casino floor.
              I found that I suddenly had lots of new “friends” on my way to the cashier. All told I had quadrupled my stake.
              I grabbed one of the “escorts” for a dinner date, choosing one of the less high class looking ones so we wouldn't stand out too much and used her presence as an excuse to slip quietly out of the casino. She did accompany me to dinner, where I paid her full night rate, but explained that I just needed her company until I could get back to my boat. She had the grace to appear disappointed and was such an accomplished actress that I almost had to believe it.

              Later, I was back on earth, money safely invested and home and vehicles paid off. I was out on the ocean swimming when I heard a shout for help. I swam out to where SV was paddling around his overturned boat. He wanted help righting it, but even when we managed to get the thing righted, I pulled myself aboard and tried to bale out enough water to allow SV to get aboard. The back flaps kept opening up and letting water in. Even with the flaps closed, I realized there would never be room enough for two of us, the displacement was barely enough to float me. We righted it again and this time I did it without getting in. We still couldn't keep the back flaps closed and the cardboard boat was becoming water logged to the point that I was concerned that it wouldn't hold its shape. For some reason only the outside of the cardboard boat had a waterproof coating.
              “Look, I swam all the way out here, we can just swim back.”
              “I can't abandon the boat. I can't swim that far. There are probably sharks...” SV carried on while swimming along behind me. I had all ready slowly headed back to my beach, disguising my motion as righting the cardboard boat one more time. I tipped it up so the open end was out of the water.
              “Just hold on to the front here, the extra floatation should help us make it to shore, especially with both of us pulling.” I grabbed the bow line and began to swim in earnest for the shore, towing the boat with SV swimming right along side the boat, keeping the open end out of the water.

Ant Farm

        Been a long couple of weeks. N has been in for surgery and is recovering. (Delivered up a 1.5 pound Freddy “The Benign” Fibroid with no complications.) Lots of dreams but no time to write them down. It is quiet for the moment so I am going to dash this one out.

        I was in the wood-panel and velvet walled house in the Dream city. (The one that crosses two short downtown blocks.) I was remembering an essay I’d read one time where the writer was complaining about how sad the ant farm she’d ordered in the mail was. The ants that were shipped didn’t include a queen, so the colony was destined to die after just a few short weeks. What had triggered this thought is that I was removing some large red ants, and their little dirt cone like structures, from a sliding window frame. I thought about putting them in a glass showcase in the front hall, but realized I didn’t want to go digging around for their queen.

Somehow that got me thinking about what if people in the city were like an ant farm.

        The queen arrived in the mail (Not sure how that worked.) She was all ready pregnant, and soon delivered quadruplets. Shortly after she was pregnant again and delivered more children. This was a human-like woman, delivering quick growing human-like children. I was struggling to find enough diapers for them, fortunately there was a baby supplies delivery service, though they must have thought it weird that I was suddenly ordering baby supplies for dozens of children all at once. As they grew I found that I had to lock up my walk in refrigerator.

The sudden population boom was creepy and only got more so when burglars broke in and soon found themselves swarmed by babies with mandibles. I had quite the time separating the burglars from their attackers, as I didn’t want to hurt the babies. I only momentarily thought about letting the ant babies eat the intruders, but decided I really didn’t want them developing a taste for human flesh, seeing as how I was one myself.

After I got the burglars into custody I decided I needed to have a talk with the “queen” about population control, and perhaps some sort of territory limit.

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Home Invasion Nightmare

        Last night was a night for nightmares. The one I remember involved a pair of ski mask wearing robbers breaking in. N was propped up in bed from her surgery and I had just stepped out of the shower. Things got violent. Apparently robbers don’t expect naked people to fight back.

        This dream was very much the exception to my normal “guns don’t work for me” theme. I handed the robber N’s jewelry box to distract him from her calling 911. I was able to grab the robber’s gun hand and force him to shoot himself several times until he let go of the gun. Lots of details in this dream, such as, I noticed that robber was left-handed. I was then able to force the other robber to surrender, even though I really just wanted to shoot him, I didn’t think I would be able to get away with that. N was all ready on the phone with the Sheriff’s department. (And I was pretty sure they could hear everything.)

        This was also one of those highly detailed dreams where I could feel the air moving across me, my wet hair hitting my back and shoulders, and I could smell the robber’s body odor despite his antiperspirant. I could feel the weight and texture of N’s jewelry box, (I had tipped it before handing it to the robber so it was off balance, which is how I was able to distract him enough to grab his gun hand.)

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Bruce Bond

        I dreamed I was driving the bat-mobile off of a ferry behind a large group of pedestrians. While most of them managed to find their way to the sidewalk, there was one woman who couldn’t seem to get out of the road. I finally rolled down my window and asked if she needed a lift somewhere.

        “Fourth street,” she said, referring to a piece of official looking paper.

        “I am headed there, myself.” I opened up the passenger door and she walked around the front of the car and got in. “There’s going to be a little bit of a detour, a shortcut, really.”

        I pulled over into a narrow ally and we dropped about 15 feet in just a couple of seconds. I drove through the underground tunnel to where I parked under the Bond building, on Fourth Street.

        “I never knew this was here!”

        “It’s a private driveway.”

        When I got out I realized there was something out of order in my garage and signaled her to stay put. I closed up the car, including the window shields and stepped into the dark garage. Before I could reach the light switch I was attacked by two hooded intruders. I concentrated on protecting myself from their blows as much as possible, while collecting tissue samples for testing later. I was glad they were not armed with guns. They left me bleeding on the floor, seriously cut up and bruised, but alive. They raced out into the morning, satisfied with the damage they’d caused.

        My passenger opened up the car and raced to my side. I didn’t know if she was part of this or not until I realized she was on the phone with the police and trying to get me to tell her the address.

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Scene Construction, Navigating by Eye

        I had two memorable dreams last night. In the first I found myself back at my old work site. The kids were putting on the 15^th “Visions and Voices” and construction was underway on five different shows at once. I decided to make a tour of the sets, just for old times’ sake.

        Unfortunately, some of the scenery wasn’t being put together with performer safety in mind, so I asked to talk to the construction leads and the designers, as the drama teacher wasn’t available. While I was waiting for them a little 2 or three year old with curly red hair jumped up on my lap out of nowhere. We chatted for a little while and she decided that I had to meet her mother. “To find out if you can be my new daddy.”

        This made me chuckle, I tried to explain that it really didn’t work that way, and I might be better suited to be her “grandpa” may be. Her mother turned out to be the prettiest red-haired freckle faced woman I’ve ever seen. The three of us finished touring the set construction with the construction leads, as she was the sort of parent volunteer, as her kid was in one of the plays. She was, in fact, single, and since she knew me all ready, she told her daughter not to rush things, we would think about it.

        I sort of brushed that off and got to the business of making sure the huge upstage wall that was being constructed was properly braced so it wouldn’t fall and crush anyone. I met with the designer and suggested that they might try a lower wall with the door in it, with a batten drop for the upper portion. I grabbed a sheet of paper to illustrate how that would work. The two year old grabbed an oil pastel and helped color it in.

        “You’re really good with her,” the mom observed, “but I should have known you would be.”

        This morning, I dreamed I was laying in my bunk, looking out through the upper dome as we accelerated on our journey into the vast deep of space. I began to try to identify some of the stars through the tens of thousands that were visible. I called up a program to chart the current position of our probes, and to collate some of what they were seeing. We were looking for planets which, if they couldn’t directly support life, they could be mined for materials and energy so that we could continue our search. We had recently made some progress in material composites that would allow us to build another ark, but with nearly one third less mass.

        I watched the computer overly the current position of the probes and the solid line for their previous path and a sort of translucent cone for their future possible courses. Even as I was doing my work, I couldn’t help but think that our first orbital insertion would be overseen by our children, and that the new ark we built, the prototype, anyway, would likely be a retirement colony.

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Bride and Groom, Jungle, Meteorus (Clip Show)

              Bride and Groom, I dreamed Thursday morning of being at a party in a public place where there was also a wedding reception happening. On our way out of our gathering we all poked are heads in and offered a toast to the happiness of the new couple. The bride, with a really cute short blond haircut, was about six inches taller than her groom, and her heals were only an inch or so. She had a delightful smile, just absolutely charming. Then we went on our way, and the dream ended.
              Another dream, another forest, lots of action but no discernible plot other than trying to stay away from the swinging vines that were really snakes and not vines at all.
              Then another dream, this time I was with N on El Norte Parkway, headed for home when we passed a beat up dark blue vehicle with the groom and his bride arguing. Their car sputtered and they pulled over to the side of the road. I asked N to stop, as I felt that we should do something for them. The way the bride smiled when we walked up made me think they were in for a rather long haul as a couple.

              Friday's dreams are lost to the hubbub of an unusually busy day.

              Saturday morning, I woke from a dream where I was Meteorus, patched skin, hand tailored clothing, and gravelly undead voice and all. I was stalking a group of muggers in a gas-lit alleyway. The muggers had been terrorizing the locals for about two weeks, and I had been hired to clear them out. I doubted that they would attack an obviously powerful mage, so had chosen to stalk the alleyway while invisible. Turned out to be a wise choice. When I stepped into the alleyway, they were also invisible, thus placing them in the same phase as myself. I laughed and summoned my stooges (mirror images in the WoW universe.) That made things five on five and the battle was far shorter than I expected. I was shot a couple of times, but, being undead has its perks, one of them being that little bullets don't actually stop you.

Fey Assult on Medical Building.

        I dreamed I was in a recently abandoned medical building. (Went to the dentist yesterday, so I know where that came from.) I was with a small group of people who had sought shelter from the weirdness going on outside. Centaurs and other fey creatures were on a rampage, tossing cars around, chasing people, pulling hair and tripping them.

        We wandered through the building, looking for a good place to set up camp for a bit, someplace where we could barricade the hallways and allow us to defend ourselves if we needed to.

        I tried to explain that the Fey would not come into the building after us, so we really didn’t need to worry that much. One woman took a very vocal opposition to my statement.

        I then explained that I was preventing them from entering. She didn’t believe me, of course, so I asked what it would take to prove it to her. While she was thinking up an angry retort, I stole her clothes, leaving her cute round body in white lacey lingerie that was a nice contrast to her dark hair (which was cut into a little bob with a under flip just below her ears.) I also couldn’t help notice that she had cute full lips and chocolate brown eyes.

        When she finished complaining that there was no such thing as psychic powers I held up her clothes.  The resulting tussle was very exciting and I did make my point. She ended up in a frilly white dress with red polka dots. She also ended up being much more pleasant.

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Library Lady, Old Journals

        This is the second night in a row that I dreamed of the red-haired Library Lady. LL and I were sitting together in the dark library watching a re-run of an old Science Fiction television show, one that I believe has no actual tape available. Still, there we were, snuggled up together, watching very old, very bad television.

        “At least the performers are going at the material with gusto.”

        “They’d have had more luck with a paper shredder,” the LL replied.  I could tell she was enjoying the show, though.

        I opened up another window and discovered that I had new files to review. We’d set up the automated scanner to scan in several of my old journals, and the process had finished, leaving me with several .pdf files and a ton of .xml markups of whatever the OCR software could figure out. I wasn’t expecting much, as I had written in several different styles during the time I had been journaling, sometimes all on the same page.

        I opened up the first file, and although the handwriting was obviously mine, I couldn’t remember a bit of what was written there. There were notes for a video game that seemed to involve a tentacle alien harvesting “love” from the nearby human population in order to refuel its space pod. There were notes about N and our lawyers (I quickly skipped over that part,) and notes about which cats were going where, as we had to find homes for 4 of the cats, as we could each only keep two each.

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Ice Road to KO in a Box

              I dreamed I was driving over to the island where my girlfriend lived. The city was covered with snow and the roads were icy. There were two spans of bridge to cross and the bridge was also covered with ice. The heater in my car didn't work well, and so I was bundled up, but apparently not enough because I was still freezing.
              After the first span of bridge, and sliding a couple of times, I stopped on the first little island and got out to check the chains. They were iced over the iced over tires. I couldn't stand being outside the car for more than a minute at a time, so kept having to hop back in and hold my hands over the heat vent. I managed to break some of the ice off of the chains and then moved the litter buckets around in the back of the car to put more weight over the wheels. I didn't know if it would really help, as the car was a front wheel drive.
              I managed to stay on the second bridge span to make it into the small town where the girlfriend lived. When I got to her apartment, she had a box in the front room. I opened it up and KO, a former HS classmate was tucked inside. She smiled and asked me to help get her out of there as she was pretty stiff.
              I told her she was pretty limber for someone who was fifty, and complimented her on the fact that she looked about thirty. The three of us sat and chatted for quite a bit about our time in high school and it came out that KO's and my first kiss were one and the same. We both had the same reaction, too. It was very startling because there was a definite connection, and at the same time, we felt like we were kissing a relative. It was just so overwhelming and confusing that we never actually dated again. We all pretty much laughed through the rest of the evening, telling other embarrassing tales.
              As I was waking up from the dream I found myself wondering who the heck my “girlfriend” was, as I could not place her as someone I know.

New WoW Character, Uncooked Chicken

        I dreamed I was playing World of Warcraft with my online friends when we ran across a player who was desperate for someone to play the role of his butler. After some typing back and forth, we realized he really needed a “porter” not a butler, but that conversation didn’t really bear much fruit as the other player didn’t really seem to get the concept. (Had never heard the word “porter” before.)

        I often advertised my low level runs as requiring a porter so my friends thought this semi-failed conversation was funny.

        We each decided to re-roll a low level toon and all apply for the position. I created a young Worgen rogue named Monreaux McMacMack (apparently the new version of WoW in the “Dreamlands Edition” adds the surname field to its database for players) and ran him from the starting area over to Stormwind. I sent him over a tuxedo and some 20 slot bags.  I showed up for my interview in the outfit. My friends cried “foul” but I got the job, and asked if he would “hire” my other two friends as a groomsman and maid. I explained that we were sort of a package deal.

While we were preparing for our journey, one of the street lamps exploded and we had to run around stomping out the little fires, and collecting small stones that were cast out from the explosion. The stones looked more like chicken tenders or tater tots. That lead to some rather funny dialog. While the player who’d hired us was more or less ignoring the other players who tried to interact with him, as they weren’t part of his story, it didn’t limit us in the least. The fact that our employer ignored them allowed us to play him off as eccentric and snooty, it was a blast.

        I have to give the other player credit, he ran us around our starting quests and got us up to a level high enough to run our first low level dungeon in less than an hour. By the time three hours had passed we were all around level 19 and had much nice blue gear from Deadmines. (We ran several times in character, which was pretty funny after the third or fourth time.) We spent about an hour in town helping him impress his lady with both his wealth and very polite and helpful “staff.” Then the two of them took us out for a spin along the coast of Westfall where two of us took turns killing quest mobs while the other “served” a romantic dinner to the couple.

        My friends and I decided that we would reserve Sunday afternoons for this trio, and informed our new boss of our availability, we then gave him some reasons he might want to contact our mains in character, as we’d all enjoyed playing with him.

        I fell back to sleep, after N took her ticking abomination of a clock out of the bedroom; we had a four hour power outage. I dreamed I was cooking chicken for my lunch at work. I made my way through most of it, but found two partly un-cooked parts which I had to stand in line at the microwave to re-cook.

I didn’t wake up until the sun was shining into the bedroom, making me an hour late for work.

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Teddy Runs Away, Tour to Small Town Dreamlands.

These are the notes I made to try to remember this convoluted dream:

Teddy Downtown Dancing around and then running away.

Gym is locked up.

Tour guide named N is very cute, and delightfully disappointed that my wife has the same name.

We set up lunch off the bus, see a parade (for a wedding).

The tour guide's house starts on fire and we have the truck from the parade roll over to put it out.

The dream actually started in a downtown disco. The scene was classic 70’s, but I wasn’t. The flashing lights and loud music began to take its toll and I decided that, although I was having fun, it was just a bit too painful on my ears. I managed to round up Teddy, who was a big hit with the women, and we made our way across the dance floor. As soon as he spotted an open door, he launched out of my arms and raced out into the night.

I stepped out after him, Leaving the pulsing violet and orange lights behind. Sadly there was no getting Teddy to come out, not with the loud music behind us, and the women who were trying their best to coax him out of hiding. Finally I had to call a halt to the hunt, knowing that I would be able to come back later after everything was closed. I checked the alleyway for stray dogs, not wanting him to be in any more danger than he was in. Everything looked pretty quiet.

One of the women gave me a lift back over to the gym where my clothing was in the locker room. The gym was locked up.  I had keys, of course, but they were in the locker. As we walked around I spotted another member, and asked him to bring me my stuff, as I knew he wasn’t allowed to open up the gym for me.

I then let myself in and changed quickly out of my angel flights and into my street clothes. I got out of the gym just in time to get on the tour bus. I’d wanted to check one more time on Teddy, but didn’t think he’d be allowed on the tour bus anyway.

On the tour bus we rode out of the city. The tour guide was a really cute little brunette with coal black eyes and bobbed hair. She was giving a good show about the local sights and history. Another guide took her place and she walked down the aisle and sat next to me. We talked for a bit, and I found out her name was N.

She looked very disappointed when I exclaimed “that’s a lovely name, but I’m biased, that’s my wife’s name, too.”

The tour bus arrived in the morning at a small town. There were tables set up alongside the bus station with breakfast foods on them. The main street was cordoned off for a parade. The tour guide invited myself and a couple of others to come over to her house in a half hour or so, and we’d get a good seat for the parade. She offered to let me come over early and share breakfast with her, but I thought it best to stay with the group. We watched the fire trucks roll up the street, preparing for the parade. We ate a few pastries and drank some orange juice. I worried about Teddy.

After a bit I wandered over to the tour guide’s home, enjoying the police and fire trucks lined up ready for the parade. I arrived to find the tour guide outside her home in a panic.

“There’s a fire in my kitchen!”

“Well, there’s fire trucks right there,” I said turning back to the parade route to flag one down.

“It might not be that bad,” she pulled me back towards her house by the elbow.

I saw that there was plywood covering her patio, and there was smoke and flames inside. “I think it is now.”

We ran over to get the fire truck. While they were putting out the fire, the tour guide admitted that she hated her little shack, but didn’t mean to burn it down. She offered to take me back to the city so we could look for Teddy. After we emptied her place of whatever was salvageable, we piled into her car and headed back to the city. I somehow knew she was going to end up at my house.

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Time Lost

              I dreamed that I woke up in a cluttered two bedroom apartment south of Poway. I knew that something was wrong, as I couldn't remember what day it was, or where I worked. I went to find my car, but the only keys I could find had the Plymouth key on it, not the Honda key. I got up and fed the two strange cats. They acted like they knew me, and were very affectionate, but I didn't recognize either of them.
              I brought in the newspaper, and the date was August 24, 1986. The paper itself was new and fresh. I realized that something was very amiss. I drove up to the school district offices, where no one knew me, but a couple of people asked where I'd been, and what I'd been up to. Apparently I hadn't worked for the school district since I'd gone back to school. (Which I, of course had no recollection of doing.)
              Things got fuzzy and things got blurry, and I found myself back on the road, this time not in the Plymouth, and not the Honda either. I pulled over in front of a Seven-Eleven and paid for a paper. The date was still August, 24, but the year was 2010. I drove back over to the school district offices, where they were even more surprised to see me this time. It seems I had died in a boating accident in Wisconsin in 2006 or 7.
              Finding that very awkward, I made my way out to my car, and then realized that I had no idea where I should go. I checked the address on my driver's license and drove home. The problem was, that N wasn't living there any more, and the only familiar thing was a scrawny T-Rex who made his way out of the Juniper Jungle that is in the front of the house to greet me. The current owners came out to ask me what I was doing.
              “Just petting T-Rex, he's the only thing left from when I used to live here.”
              “You used to live here?”
              “N and I, but I don't know what happened. Where are the other cats?”
              “She took them with her, but this one keeps coming back.” They looked at me, suddenly uneasy, “What do you know about an orange toy box in the rafters?”
              “I had one of those when I was a kid. I think there were some badly aged plastic road strips and some other toys, like the old red, white and blue Tupperware building blocks. Probably some of my grade school papers as well.”
              “We thought you were dead. Your wife never came back for that or the suitcases full of D&D stuff.”
              “Do you happen to know where she went?”
              “I think you need to leave now.”
              By this time, T-Rex was quite attached to my neck and purring so loud I'm sure everyone on the block could hear him.
              One of the neighbor 's older boys walked across the street. “Where did you come from? We went to your funeral. Are you D's brother?”
              “No, I think something has come unstuck in time. It's me, but this might not be my time-line.”
              While I was talking to C, the new residents brought out my gaming cases and the orange toy box. They wanted me to take them, and the cat, back to N. I agreed to do so and headed over to a condo address near the college, near our friend J.
              I never got there, but even though the location and time (I presumed) changed, the gaming cases and T-Rex remained with me. I was starting to get very frightened. I didn't want T-Rex to be lost somewhere, but I had no idea what was happening, and how I might have any control of that. The rest of the stuff, I realized, was just stuff, but I didn't want to lose T-Rex as he was my only connection to my right time-line and the possibility of getting back to N. While I was rustling up some cat food and water for T-Rex my cell phone rang. (Not the work phone I currently have, I noted.) The FBI wanted to know where I was currently located, they said I should stay put and they might be able to answer some questions. I told the voice on the phone that I didn't want to go anywhere, especially without my cat.
              The problem was, I didn't know where I was currently located. I was back in the Honda, Little Red, but was parked in a KOA campground with a tarp closed in the windows and stretched out over the back of the hatch and held on the ground by my orange toy box. I had some sort of fold out cot structure that I was using for a bed and the hatch was being propped up by my old costume wizard's staff.
              Out of curiosity I opened up the toy box pushing the tarp up a bit with the lid. The toy chest was full of clothing, including long thick socks and various kilts. There were also a couple of notebooks in the chest. For some reason I found myself describing this as I went through them.
              “Don't read anything!” The voice on the phone warned. “That seems to be what triggers the changes for most people.”
              “You mean this is happening to lots of people?”
              “Not lots, but enough to keep a couple of us busy.”
              “Do you know how to stop this, to get me back to my real home?”
              The voice hesitated, “Uh, we're working on it.”
              I idly flipped open a notebook and immediately recognized the handwriting, it was my own version of the 'Stop' typeface, meticulously lettered around a complex drawing. I felt T-Rex climb into my lap, smelled the cat food on his breath. I flipped a page and read the titles on the next page “Obvious Differences,” and “Similarities,” and written in all caps under neath “D - FILL THIS OUT AS SOON AS YOU/I CAN! IT WILL TRAVEL WITH YOU/ME, IN SOME FORM”
              I saw the words “2012, PDA replaced by paper notebook, Police State! As the last line of the 'Differences' page. And a string of “T-Rex, Orange Toy Box,” under 'Similarities.
              I was about to ask the FBI caller how the Constitution was these days when everything shifted again.
              I was still sitting with T-Rex in my lap, but the world was a gloomy blend of dark purples and deep forest greens. The Journal was my old Leather covered Journal, this time with a thick notebook made of graph paper in it. I quickly penned in some notes for the last place, what little I'd experienced, and the differences I noticed in this place. The Orange Toy Box was not in my range of vision and I knew, somehow, that I would be here a little bit longer. I pulled out my wallet to see where I was living, or at least what was recorded there. I flipped back to the complex drawing, actually several of them, and discovered that the further apart myself, T-Rex and the Orange Toy Box were, the longer I stayed in a place. I found a note page that indicated that when T-Rex was in the box the time in that realm was estimated to be mere seconds. “DO NOT REPEAT THIS EXPERIMENT, ALMOST LOST T-REX!” was written under the illustrations. And “Always keep food and water in the box!”
              It was T-Rex howling that made me realize that we were sitting in the overgrown wreckage of my current home. He was reacting to the presence of another animal. A raccoon was watching us from the thick Wisteria bush. I stood up, frightening the animal off. T-Rex tried to burrow into my armpit. It was chilly, so I looked around for something to throw on. Everything in the place seemed to be covered with a thin layer of dark velvet, mold, I realized, and carefully made our way out into the street. The whole neighborhood was over run with mold. Even the sky seemed tinted by it. I pulled my shirt up over my nose and let T-Rex climb in underneath, using the notebook to give him a place to sit. I started looking for my car, or any way out of this particular place.