Grounded

When Ms. Brugger was in Michigan on her most recent parent-maintenance visit, they lost internet at their house for several days, so she began going to Live Oak Coffeehouse (which we both frequent when we're there) to do her work. Then, kind of on a lark, she decided it might be "fun" to take her work with her to The Ground Floor, here in Uptown Martinsville. Well, we both love the coffee and vittles at The Ground Floor, so we figured why not both of us? And sure enough. It's a great atmosphere, and sometimes a change of scenery enhances the creativity. Quite by accident, as I was archiving some of my short fiction, I discovered that the MS Word file of one of my old stories — "The Herald at Midnight" from 1991 — was mysteriously truncated. The last 500 words or so were just plain gone, from both the original file and its backup. So, I decided to take the opportunity to clean up the manuscript, and when we got home, I manually transcribed the missing portion from my physical copy of The Last Trumpet. It wasn't really what I had anticipated having to do, but I'm glad I made the discovery and was able to make the necessary repairs.

 

Anyhoo, our little outing proved so positive that I think we'll be doing it again on a more regular basis. You just never know what sort of things might happen.

 

As you can see in the photo above, Ms. B. is starting to feel over-caffeinated, while the old dude is so far from reaching adequately caffeinated that it's kind of painful.

 

Till again. 

Number 1 and Driving High

What a day. What a freaking day. A mixture of the best and the worst rolled into one. It began last night when friend Scott (a.k.a. Diefenbaker) came up from Asheboro to spend the night so we could head northward today to do some serious geocaching. My daughter, Allison, also paid us a visit, and we had an excellent sushi dinner at Yamato. Afterward, we sat up fairly late with various drinks to keep us occupied until bedtime.

Up and at 'em early this morning. Allison and I made breakfast—she made her special scrambled eggs and I cooked up my Damned Rodan's Crematorium-Style Bacon. Then Scott and I hit the road for Rocky Mount and Boones Mill, thirty-some miles up the road toward Roanoke. We found several enjoyable caches, a couple of which took us out on the highest, narrowest, windiest, scariest fooken mountain road I have ever driven. You know those videos of single-lane roads along cliffs, with sheer drop-offs on one side and a high vertical wall on the other? This was kind of like that. Thanks be to Yog Sothoth no vehicles came from the other direction because I fear that might have been all she wrote for us.

At the end of the scary mountain road, we had the pleasure of meeting fellow geocacher, Varunner7, since she and her husband had placed a cache on their property. A very pleasant caching conversation followed, and after a while, off we went again, back toward Rocky Mount. We found lunch at a lovely BBQ joint called the Rocky Mount Smokehouse, where Scott and I both ordered brisket. We found it delightful.

Fun sign in the bathroom at the smokehouse

Several years ago, Brugger and I had gone after a cache on a huge, steep ridge on the outskirts of Rocky Mount. That cache has been long since archived, and a newer one took its place relatively recently. Since it was very close to the restaurant, Scott and I trekked up that remarkably steep incline and finally hit the summit. It's rocky as hell and covered with cactus, which isn't something you typically see around these parts. I indulged in all kinds of acrobatics in precarious settings as I set about hunting the cache—something I haven't been able to do much recently—but after a serious amount of time, we came up empty. Based on some intel we received from Ms. Varunner7, we concluded that the damned thing has already gone missing. Drat and alas.

Also in the "good shit" column, I received hopeful news about one of my recent short stories from a publisher (which I'll remark upon later, when the word is given), and, thanks to the big Bookbub promotion, which I detailed yesterday, Deathrealm: Spirits reached number 1 in sales on Amazon.com in three categories: horror anthologies (Kindle), horror anthologies (books), and fiction anthologies. It held onto that position for a full 24 hours, which is a fair achievement. It slipped a few notches for a couple of hours this evening, but then it climbed back into the lead positions.

It's the little things that make one smile, wouldn't you say?

In the "bad shit" column, which does not make me smile, Ms. B. got laid off from her job of 21 years, ignominiously and with a piss-poor severance deal. Out of respect for Kim—certainly not for the company, which gets absolutely none from me—I'll elaborate only a little. I hope this will prove a blessing in disguise, as leaving one position behind for another sometimes does. I feel horrible for her, though, because she loved that job and gave everything to it that she had to give. That she was shown no more appreciation and consideration than she was is disgraceful (note that this applies only to the parent company, not the wonderful local bunch that we both worked with for many, many years). Needless to say, this puts us in a bigger financial and logistical bind than we'd been prepared to deal with. Still, we're in a better place than many in similar circumstances, so I suppose there's that.

Anyway, tomorrow will bring what it's gonna bring, and we'll give it what for.

Looking down at Rocky Mount from "Rocky Top"

You might have to look carefully, but many of the rocks are covered in little cactus plants

One of the crevices I explored along the cliff face

Old Dude at "Rocky Top" on Christmas Day, 2011, photo by Ms. B.

Bushwhacking, Raining, Wining, and Braining

Friday was my last day of full-time work, at least at The Mailbox. Our boss, Sharon, put together a nice Zoom presentation featuring photos of her ten favorite Mark Moments, which I think we all enjoyed. It certainly hit some of the high points from the day job over all these many years. The idea of retirement hasn't really sunk in yet, since tomorrow would have been just another day back at work, and now it won't.

Friday evening, Brugger and I rode up to Martinsville and met friends Samaire and Stephen at La Plazita, a relatively new Mexican restaurant in Uptown Martinsville. The food was pretty good, the service a little less brag-worthy. Stephen said it's been much better on their previous visits, so I'm sure I'll give the place another try before long. Afterward, we retired to Pleasant Hill, where we put our heads together to come up with some ideas for the upcoming release of my collection, Fugue Devil: Resurgence, which Samaire's company, Black Raven Books, is set to release in the spring. We didn't knock off till sometime in the wee hours, but it was both productive and enjoyable.

Yesterday, Ms. B. and I headed down to Autumn Creek Vineyards, where we met friends Terry & Beth for wine and picnicking. The new owners of Autumn Creek — David & Laura — made us feel very welcome, which we appreciated. The wine is decent; North Carolina wine, to be sure, but decent.

This morning, the usual Sunday geocaching gathering of the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars — Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), and Old Rodan (a.k.a. me) — appeared questionable, given an ominous weather forecast and Natalie not feeling tip-top. However, it wasn't raining at our regular meeting time, and Natalie said she felt better, so off we went, this time to several destinations in and around Winston-Salem. We sought several along the Salem Creek Greenway, all of which were fun, particularly since no rain was falling at the time. Just above, you see me at a cache called "You Shall Not Cross!" (GC9N9HQ). I did kind of want to cross, but since the remains of the old bridge are blocked off, I just opted to stand there for a while.

After that, we snagged a couple of other random caches and then headed to the Muddy Creek Greenway, a few miles west of town. By now, splatters of rain had begun, and once on the trail, it began coming down in earnest. Did this dissuade us? No, because we are tenacious (though I've heard some folks of our acquaintance use any number of other descriptors). We had a fairly long hike ahead of us — about three miles round trip — but we managed to make it somewhat longer and far more difficult. After finding two of our three target caches, we failed to look closely enough at the map to determine that bushwhacking to the next cache without backtracking to the greenway was actually a bad... BAD... idea. The river, we learned, is of considerable breadth and quite in the way. Apart from the plummeting temperature and increasing downpour, we now had dense, tangled woods and lots of deep muckity-muck to complicated our journey. This ended up adding a couple of extra miles of hiking before we could get back on the greenway and backtrack. I'm sure the extra workout in the cold and rain did us a spot of good, don't you think?

It wasn't necessarily fun, but at the end of the day, most gratifying.

This coming week, I plan to put in significant work on my current Ameri-Scares novel and, hopefully, start plotting a new novel for grown-ups. It feels like high time.

Onward.

Big honking railroad bridge over the Salem Creek Greenway

I've not been this wet since the last time we hiked 5.4 miles in a downpour. Some call us tenacious.
Some call us other things.

The Next Chapter

It was definitely not my choice, but it was not the world's worst news — at least not at this stage of life. After almost 23 years of working at The Mailbox, my position is being terminated by the powers that be.

It was definitely unexpected. Especially since we began working at home at the start of the pandemic, I have devoted myself to this career beyond any of my own expectations; I have actually loved it. I have it on good authority that at least a couple of my office mates (well, mates away from the actual office) have long considered me indispensable. The lot of these folks truly are something of a second family, many of whom I've worked with for the entirety of these damn near 23 years. But the decision makers are not part of this family; they're bean counters who reside a long way away, who have no understanding of what it is we truly do — or how bloody perfectly this gang of disparate personalities has meshed and functioned harmoniously together for more years than most folks ever work at one company anymore. It's nobody's fault really; our business operates as businesses will, and when numbers are down, for whatever reason, this is just how it goes.

I can't say I wasn't hoping for at least another couple of years behind the graphic services coordinator's desk before I retired. Still, I have quite seriously considered retirement more than once since our company was bought by foreigners (well, New Yorkers, if we want to be technical). But I realized that, in the long haul, I'd be better off, financially and probably psychologically, sticking with The Mailbox as long as they'd have me.

Well, now they won't, and I reckon it's time to move on. Things will definitely be a bit tighter than I've been accustomed to, but barring a fair number of rugs being pulled out from under us all at once, Brugger and I should make out okay. In some ways, I've been dreaming of this opportunity — to be able to devote myself to writing projects that have been burning inside for some time now — and to grab that opportunity sooner rather than later.

Well, here it is.

To Sharon, Amy, Becky, Jen, Phil, Tina, Troy, and of course Brugger, who deigned to marry me: you folks have been the best bunch I could have ever hoped to work with, and I am proud to call you not just my peers but my friends and family. Well, maybe not Troy, but the rest of you... yeah. It has truly been my privilege — except for on those occasions that you've pissed me off. (Be aware that I have written some of you into stories — and you know how my stories go.) Should I ever achieve wealth beyond my wildest dreams, rest assured that I will buy The Mailbox, and all you good folks will have jobs until you wish you didn't.

And that's it. Off we go.

Another Commute, Another Adventure

This morning's going-to-work adventure:

Dude in a pickup truck driving down the highway in the left lane at about 30 mph, forcing people to go around him on the right. I notice that he flips the bird to everyone who goes around him. Then he speeds up to about 80, thrusts his entire upper body out the window, and starts flipping off the world. Weaves back and forth across lanes since he has no hands on the steering wheel. Comes perilously close to decapitating himself on the center barrier. Slides back into driver's seat, sticks both hands out the window to flip off the world. Then accelerates to tailgate the drivers in front of him for a while before passing them and flipping them the bird.

Last I saw of him, he was hauling away at what had to be 100-plus mph.

I don't know what this cretinous yahoo's problem was, but at least he didn't take someone else out — including me — at the time. Should karma have bitten him somewhere down the road... well, thank you, karma.

The Cryptic Morgue Pit

Yeah, what a hectic week. After months of preparation and planning, the company I work for by day has moved from its longtime digs on Market St. in Greensboro to a new office out by Piedmont Triad International Airport. I can't say I'm thrilled about the change — my new daily commute is actually longer than my drive when I lived in the city of Chicago and worked in the northern suburbs (square mileage–wise, Greensboro is larger than San Francisco or Boston, with almost enough urban sprawl to boot). I suppose I was somewhat spoiled by having to drive no more than 15 minutes to any of my various workplaces in Greensboro since I moved here in 1987, usually with minor to moderate traffic issues. Now, it's the daily Asshole Parade on Interstate 40 and U.S. 29, with few reasonable alternative routes to and from my place. It certainly ain't helping my blood pressure.

That said, this is still the best day job I've ever had or could probably want, at least as long as I'm on someone else's payroll. The pay ain't that great, but the benefits are fair to middlin', and I couldn't work with a better team of folks — except may Troy, but we're not going to talk about Troy. We're not going to talk about Troy at all; we're going to leave him out of it.

However, this isn't quite the end of it. These new quarters are actually temporary, as our permanent space, a couple of buildings over, is not quite ready for us to move in. We'll probably remain in our current location for a couple of months and then go through the whole moving thing all over again. For the moment, though, I kind of like the office where we're situated. It's a cool (read chilly) building, which really sits well with me, and there's lots of space for walking with Ms. B. at break times. There are, in fact, a handful of caches on the premises, though of course I claimed them several years ago when they first came out. However, once I determine whether there's adequate usable space, there's a good chance I'll hide a new one or two nearby.

The past couple of days, with all the upheaval, everyone's been kind of punchy, and our work spaces have been designated as summer camp cabins, with the occupants responsible for naming them. The space I share with a couple of others has become known as the Cryptic Morgue Pit, and I was not entirely responsible for this, a fact that gives me at least some hope for certain of my co-workers.

Busy, busy.