Odd notes from a dark morning

During a recent move, I unearthed a notepad at my desk that had some old scribbles from a meeting on it (something about a verbal contract vs. a written contract, who know)

At the bottom, and written sideways, I had put these terse notes:

Both down

USAir – pentagon
maybe
one more on way
to wash
(747 down in PA)

State dept

That day, we couldn’t access any of the traditional news sites due to our network connection being overloaded with folks wanting news. IIRC, I pieced the above together by accessing a financial web site that was relaying the news from the Northeast. I had reached my sister by e-mail, she had listened on the speaker phone a replay of the last call from one of the flight attendants to their control people.

It was all too real.

Movie theme night!

It was Saturday, we’d been busy (let’s just say we had already been halfway across Texas by 2:00, just in time for a Mega Fun Pizza Birthday Party we had been invited to).

My wife was nursing a headache, my kids were “bored,” and I was a little desperate.

So, I did what any desperate dad would do: we went and rented movies! And then went to the grocery store to buy alcohol (that’s the effect that renting movies with children has on me).

We went home and ate tons of popcorn while watching:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

X2

and

Failure to Launch.

The theme, of course, is “mutants.”

Got what it takes?

The FBI had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews and testing were done there were 3 finalists. Two men and a woman.

For the final test, the FBI agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun.

“We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances. Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Kill Her!!!”

The man said, “You can’t be serious, I could never shoot my wife.”

The agent said, “Then you’re not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home.”

The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes. The man came out with tears in his eyes, “I tried, but I can’t kill my wife.”

The agent said, “You don’t have what it takes. Take your wife and go home.”

Finally, it was the woman’s turn. She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow.

“This gun is loaded with blanks” she said. “I had to beat him to death with the chair.”