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HomeCerebrumObesity: Matter Over Mind?
Obesity: Matter Over Mind?
The mystery begins with an epidemic of obesity in an era obsessed with dieting and exercise. The suspects in the drama are ever-changing: a plethora of fattening foods, labor-saving devices, misguided mothers, lazy lifestyles, and modern man's flabby willpower. Alarmed citizens have acquired an arsenal of diet books, diet pills, health club memberships, and exercise equipment; yet the toll of illness and death related to obesity keeps mounting. It is time to hear from a different kind of sleuth, with a different set of clues: brain lesions that turn mice into blimps, people who cannot gain and keep weight, and people of "normal" weight who exhibit signs of starvation. Suddenly we are on the track of a very different malefactor.
Author: Jules Hirsch, M.D.
"Globally, a billion people are obese," reports the New York Times. "In the United States, about 60 percent of adults are overweight or obese, as are nearly 13 percent of children. Some 300,000 Americans a year die from illnesses caused or exacerbated by obesity."1 Newsstands never lack for headlines announcing new diets and drugs to counter the hazards of obesity, but the magazine rack is lined with publications advertising a superabundance of tempting foods. The diet of our great grandparents might have featured a couple of hundred different items during the year; the modern supermarket puts at our fingertips thousands of fresh foods from every corner of the earth. We are urged to purchase every delicacy and bring every new labor-saving device into our homes, but warned, at the same time, to become more physically active and to eat with greater restraint.
It seems plausible to blame the high prevalence of obesity on this changed environment, which, at every turn, seems to favor the storage rather than the expenditure of calories. Still, most of us persist in finding the fault in human frailty. A recent letter to the Wall Street Journal asked, "What happened to the human will?… a will to stay thin must come from some motivation…few people in this country have sufficient inner motivation to become and stay thin, in defiance of overwhelming cultural forces to the contrary…human nature, and the nature of human eating behavior, will trump any diet plan eventually."2
While so many of us have viewed obesity as a drama of temptation versus discipline, scientists have responded to the epidemic with a steady stream of publications on the nature of obesity and basic biological mechanisms that may be at fault. A recent computer search for scientific articles on obesity unearthed 48,481 entries since 1966, including 2,444 just in the first half of 2002. They comprise roughly 40 percent of all scientific reports on health problems of wide public concern, such as cancer, heart disease, and AIDS.
This research has revealed a biochemical system in both experimental animals and humans that is efficient at storing calories and preventing starvation. Hormones have been identified that control food intake and energy expenditure. It has become reasonably clear in experimental animals that genetic endowment can lead to marked obesity, and that human obesity is an inheritable disorder. Can self-discipline alone override the genetic and biochemical systems described in the scientific literature?
Some years ago, after a lecture to medical students in which I emphasized how molecular biology was deepening our understanding of energy metabolism and obesity in humans, and summarized evidence that the level of fat storage is determined by genes and molecules, a student asked me if I believed in "free will." That unexpected question led me to urge him to examine the problem of obesity and food intake behavior first with scientific observations and hypotheses, which are simpler than the complex philosophic considerations that surround the concept of free will. I urge the reader to do the same, joining me in a brief review of what is known about obesity before I revisit the question of free will.
How to Eat 14 Tons of Food Without Gaining Weight
Obesity is an excessive storage of fat, beyond the 10 to 15 percent of body weight that is considered normal. The material stored in adipose tissue is triglyceride, an energy-rich fat containing nine calories per gram as compared with four calories per gram of protein or carbohydrate. Triglyceride is broken down to fatty acids for transport to muscle and other energy-requiring sites by a series of chemical steps that are exquisitely sensitive to our nutritional state as well as to our momentary needs for energy in situations of fear or arousal. The storage of triglyceride is accomplished by a reversal of the steps that occur in this breakdown; fatty acids ingested or synthesized from dietary carbohydrate can be readily stored as adipose tissue triglyceride.
Measuring obesity by body weight alone can be misleading. A better method is Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a person's weight divided by the square of his body height in inches times 703. A BMI greater than 25 is considered overweight and greater than 30 is obese.
Over the long haul, our level of fat storage fluctuates amazingly little. In a lifetime, an individual may consume 70 million calories—about 14 tons of food—and expend the same number of calories to produce body heat and engage in physical activity. The relative constancy of our body composition in the face of this enormous flow-through of calories is shown in the illustration. The coupling of food intake with utilization of energy (burning calories) to maintain a virtually steady state does not occur by chance: It is ensured by a remarkably accurate system of controls. A persistent error in this system of as little as one percent would lead to either gargantuan obesity or wasting away.
The truck is loaded with what must be consumed over a lifetime to sustain a person of average size. One of the surprises of nutritional science is the relative constancy of our body composition, level of fat storage, and weight. We owe this, in part, to a neural control center in the brain that helps to regulate our food intake.© Karina Berg
We do not understand exactly how our bodies achieve this balance, but one thing is certain: No explanation is acceptable that violates fundamental scientific laws. Vitalism, which invokes explanations outside physical or chemical forces for the way living creatures produce heat and work, suffered a great setback at the end of the 18th century with the discoveries of Antoine Lavoisier, a founder of modern chemistry. In New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the head of a grand staircase, hangs a large, brilliantly colored painting by Jacques-Louis David portraying Lavoisier and his wife at a table crowded with glass retorts and various instruments. In this workshop for the measurement of gases, Lavoisier dealt a fatal blow to Vitalism and, by implication, all explanations of obesity that seek to ignore thermodynamics, the science of calories and energy. He proved that the production of heat in animal systems follows the same chemical steps as the burning of wood or other fuel. Whatever behaviors govern how we eat, our bodies deal with all we eat according to the laws of thermodynamics; energy that we store as fat must be the difference between what is taken in and what is expended as heat and work.
Lavoisier's life was tragically ended in a guillotine of the French Revolution, but 150 years later, at the University of Michigan, L. H. Newburgh did experiments proving Lavoisier's observations true for all humans, obese or not.3 No exception has been found to the rule that reducing caloric intake leads to a decline in the storage of fat. When we consume a calorie-reduced diet, there may be fluctuations in our body weight that over brief periods appear to violate known laws of thermodynamics, but these fluctuations turn out to be the result of transient shifts in body fluids. One simply cannot invoke exceptions to the laws of thermodynamics to either explain or treat obesity. Nevertheless, to this day nostrums, fad diets, and drugs are routinely proposed to "melt away fat."
Fat Rats and Bad Habits
In 1948, when I began my medical career, the official nomenclature used in medical records divided obesity into two types: endogenous and exogenous. Endogenous obesity was thought to be caused by some internal aberration in the mechanism for storing calories, while exogenous obesity was thought to be driven by food choice and lack of physical activity. People often referred to an obese person's problem as "glandular," whereas, by implication, another obese person simply ate too much. Newburgh championed a different view, writing that "we wish to commit ourselves to the statement that obesity is never directly caused by abnormal metabolism, but that it is always due to food habits not adjusted to the metabolic requirement— either the ingestion of more food than is normally needed or the failure to reduce the intake in response to a lowered requirement." Newburgh was underscoring the inviolability of caloric arithmetic. For fat stores to enlarge, the intake of calories must exceed the outgo. In this sense, obesity is always exogenous. This truth has been used to lay blame on our choices and behaviors as the sole causes and full explanation for obesity.
Ten years after Newburgh's work, an experiment was reported that gave pause to all who believe that obesity is fully explained by human caprice and sloth. If a specific portion of a rat's brain, the ventromedial area of the hypothalamus, is destroyed, the rat becomes hugely obese.4 Unless prevented, these rats eat so ravenously immediately after surgery that their stomachs can rupture. At three to five times the weight of control animals that have had a sham operation, these monstrously large creatures barely waddle around their cages. Here, at last, appeared to be the determining factor in food intake: a neural control center. When this center was destroyed, removing its braking force, food intake increased hugely. The consequence was obesity.
As scientists studied this arresting experimental obesity, they learned that after the rats with the brain lesions had achieved a high level of fat storage and body weight, their eating slowed; they maintained their new, high weight but did not increase it. If starved briefly, however, so that they lost weight, they would defend their post-surgery weight by overeating again. Another clue was that fattening an animal before brain surgery markedly reduced the high level of food intake after the surgery. The animals seemed to be overeating after the surgery only to reach a specific new level of fat storage ordained by the brain damage. It seems that food intake behavior is important, but only as a means of altering levels of fat storage that are called for by the brain mechanisms that dictate the level of that storage.
This has been called the set-point theory of obesity. To some, it contradicts the supposedly obvious idea that obese people are driven by hedonistic pleasure in eating. I can only say that scientific inquiry sometimes finds truth that initially offends common sense. (How obvious to common sense is the extremely rapid rotation of the earth on its axis?)
Although the experiments with a hypothalamic set point were with rats, earlier clinical observations had shown the importance of hypothalamic function in humans, as well. Certain rare brain tumors, and also encephalitis impinging on the hypothalamus, can lead to the sudden onset of overeating and obesity in humans. For many years, the research revealing that the operation of these neural centers was closely coupled to fat storage was largely ignored; most believed that whatever role these neural centers played in human obesity, the central issue and the roots of obesity remained psychologic aberrations or bad habits. Behavior, more easily observed than alterations in the hypothalamus, was still seen as the villain.
Psychoanalysts explored the symbolic importance of food and eating in the conscious and unconscious realms of their obese patients. One psychiatrist favored the concept that some parents used food inappropriately to reward infants and children, so that eating became a psychological symbol of pleasure or comfort, rather than a response to the normal physiologic need for calories. Studies in animals and humans were reported that examined whether eating was for "taste" or for "calories." Psychologists and sociologists theorized that obese subjects were less attuned to internal signals for food intake than to external events that drove them to the obese state.5 Perhaps, it was suggested, they did not appropriately sense gastric contractions or emptiness, but were driven to overeat by the attractiveness or good taste of food. These studies became central in the development of behavioral modification as a treatment for obesity.
Brain Trumps Behavior
After World War II, rising rates of heart disease and diabetes drew attention to obesity as a risk factor for illness. Scientists at the University of Vermont proposed to induce obesity experimentally in humans to see how it might change human chemistry to provoke diabetes or heart disease. Surely urging people to eat an abundance of tasty foods and avoid physical effort would make them obese. Were such behaviors not common among Americans? For their experiment, the scientists recruited a captive population: inmates in a state penitentiary who—with full understanding of the experimental goals and nature of the study—eagerly volunteered to get fat. Although some volunteers gained weight, it was extremely difficult for them to become significantly obese. The few who did so, quickly and spontaneously lost the weight they had gained. Apparently, one's usual lean weight resisted change.
If people who are lean cannot readily be made obese, is it surprising that people who are obese will resist change, as well?
My work on obesity has been shaped by the discovery that fat storage is tightly controlled by a biological system that may have evolved to protect us from starvation. This system must have a means of sensing a body's level of fat storage and also a means of influencing eating behavior and metabolism. I wondered if the nature of this regulatory system could be clarified by comparing the metabolism and behavior of obese individuals before and after weight loss. Working with obese patients at Rockefeller University Hospital, my colleagues and I found that patients in their obese state had no specific constellation of behavioral abnormalities or psychologic aberrations; nothing convincingly implicated any psychiatric or psychologic disturbance as the cause of their obesity.
Our bodies store energy in some 30 billion fat cells, mostly beneath our skin and around our abdomen. If we are obese, we have more of these cells and each is larger. The very obese may have 75 billion cells with about 50 percent more fat in each one. When an obese person loses weight, the fat cells shrink but their number is unchanged. © Karina Berg
After these same patients lost weight, however, they manifested many behavioral and physiological alterations.6 They developed a marked preoccupation with food and dieting; and their physical and mental activity generally slowed down.7 Changes in our patients' perception of the passage of time suggested that an internal clock had slowed.8 Their body image also became distorted. Weight-reduced patients who viewed photographs of themselves, and could "correct" their dimensions by means of a lens that distorted the image they observed, restored their thinned image to a larger one: their former obese state.9 Other physical signs and symptoms included slowing of heart rate, reduction of white blood cell count, intolerance to cold, and cessation of menstruation—all similar to the effects of starvation. To all appearances, our weight-reduced patients were experiencing starvation, although the level of caloric storage in adipose tissue had been reduced only to a supposedly normal level.
When our body weight stays constant, our total energy expenditure (TEE) is in balance with our intake of calories and is dependent on the mass of tissues that expend most calories (fat free mass, or FFM). This orderly relationship is not altered by obesity that occurs spontaneously, but when either obesity or weight loss is deliberately pursued (for example, in an obesity experiment or a diet program), thus changing our usual weight, changes in energy expenditure occur as our internal control system strives to restore the level of fat storage.© Karina Berg
On still closer examination, the changes in the cells of their adipose tissue confirmed my suspicion that weight reduction had not restored them to some "normal" state. The fat cells of obese individuals differed in two crucial ways from the fat cells of people of normal weight who had never been obese. The obese patients had a greater number of fat cells and each cell stored more triglyceride than the non-obese individual's cell. When the obese lost weight, decreasing fat storage, their fat cells shrank but the number of fat cells did not change.
Most fat cells are laid down early in life. With starvation and emptying of the cells in adult life, the number of cells does not decrease. In mild obesity, cells may be enlarged without increasing in number, but with more serious levels of obesity, the number of cells is always increased. At exactly what stage the number of cells in the body increases has not yet been established. The discovery of a persistently increased number of fat cells even after weight reduction led to this hypothesis about how the brain might control eating behavior: Perhaps changes in adipose tissue (cell size, cell number, or both) were being detected and relayed in some way to the brain.
Using the new techniques of molecular biology, we have learned that hormones such as leptin, derived from adipose tissue, increase or decrease in amount as adipose tissue mass (and hence fat-cell size) alters. By means of these hormonal changes, levels of fat storage are conveyed to the brain, leading to modulation of food intake and energy production. Strains of mice and rats with defects in either the synthesis or secretion of leptin or in its detection by the brain become markedly and persistently obese, but very few obese humans have these genetic defects in leptin secretion or detection; in fact, they usually have a superabundance of leptin. Animal studies that include analysis of spontaneously occurring gene mutation and experimentally induced gene "knockouts" show the importance of several peptides in the control of fat storage: neuropeptide Y, cholecystokinin, melanocortin, and agouti-signaling protein. There are regular additions to this list, attesting to the complexity of the control of food intake at the hypothalamic level. Abnormalities in the production or detection of any of these peptides remains a rare cause for human obesity, however, and controlling their levels has not been shown to cure obesity.
Because the system is harder to probe in humans than experimental animals, we took another tack. We studied the balance, or equilibrium, of food intake, storage, and energy dissipation in humans, particularly during the state of quasi-starvation that occurs after weight reduction. Examining obese patients hospitalized in the clinical research center of the Rockefeller University Hospital, we ascertained how many excess fat calories they had stored, then divided by the number of days and years it took them to gain their excess weight.
What is striking is that the additional amount that must have been eaten per day to produce obesity, compared with what was needed to maintain body weight, was not very great. Apparently, a few bites more or less per day can make one either obese or lean. Moreover, measuring food intake in obese and non-obese individuals at their usual levels of physical activity reveals that once people achieve their obese level, they do not "overeat" to continue weight gain; they eat appropriately for their new body size.
The body weight of an obese or nonobese person tends to remain constant. When the system for controlling fat storage is challenged by experimental over- or under-feeding, energy expenditure alters as a counter force "bucking" the change. The overfed person increases fat storage but burns more calories, which acts as a brake on further accumulation of fat mass. The reverse occurs with weight reduction; a decline in body fat storage leads to a decrease in the burning of calories.10 Although we have seen this regulation of caloric expenditure to maintain a "usual" level of fat storage, whether lean or obese, in every subject (more than 50) studied over recent years, we still cannot be certain that it occurs in every obese person forever, regardless of effort to lose or gain weight.
As body fat stores shrink or enlarge, the compensating changes in energy expenditure may amount to 15 to 20 percent of one's usual caloric intake. In bygone ages, this automatic regulation of the burning of calories may have protected caloric reserves when food was scarce. With today's abundance of food, however, we can more easily control fat storage by how much we eat than how much energy we expend. An individual can easily double or halve dietary intake, inducing rapid changes in caloric balance, which is almost impossible to achieve by any alterations in physical activity. Nevertheless, the smaller changes that we observe in energy expenditure when we change storage by experimental force feeding or under feeding can be considered "markers" for the complex control system of fat storage. Among the components of this control system, the behavior of food intake has a prominent role.
Thus we see that a behavior usually ascribed to subtle psychologic mechanisms is profoundly affected by an internal biological system that regulates storage of body fat. This system resists dieting or other attempts to reduce the large fat accumulation typical of an obese person. I have learned that this conclusion is hard for many people to accept. Eating is so much a part of our daily lives that it is difficult to believe that our choices of food, both in type and quantity, are the result at least in part of an impersonal regulatory system instead of our own "bad" behaviors. When we eat our way back to obesity after weight loss we punitively label it recidivism.
The Roots of Obesity in Infancy
The truly relevant question is not why obese people fail treatment; it is how their level of fat storage became elevated and then regulated at a high and unhealthful level. When and how is this neural regulatory system, with its associated behaviors, formed and put in action? We know enough now to venture some good guesses.
Obesity is probably rooted in infancy and childhood, when strong genetic determinants are shaping a still-plastic organism. Unquestionably, American prosperity has made possible an environment that is outstandingly successful in promoting growth. Recent generations of Americans are not only taller than their forebears, but develop faster—as evidenced, in women, by the earlier onset of menstruation.
Animal experiments show that early nutrition is pivotal. Adult rats purposely overfed or semi-starved have predictable increases or decreases in their fat storage, but the changes are rapidly eliminated when the animal resumes feeding at will. If, however, the nutritional intervention is done in the earliest weeks of life, the effect is long lasting.11 For the remainder of its life, the rat over or underfed as a pup will have an altered body size and fat storage. Thus, early overfeeding makes for a persistently larger adult rat, which stores more fat than its underfed brothers. This is reflected in the number of fat cells. There are a large number of fat cells in a larger animal; the size of cells, however, is unchanged by the infantile experience. Apparently, early nutrition events are powerful enough to make major changes in the way the individual's genes influence fat storage. An animal experiment illuminates this nature-nurture interaction. The Zucker obese rat is a genetically obese strain, but a given rat's fatness in adult life will be reduced by roughly 50 percent if the rat is briefly underfed in infancy.12 In adult life, a similar brief fast produces only transient weight loss.
Does this occur in humans, as well? Our long, gradual development as infants and children, which scientists call neoteny, offers abundant time for alterations in food intake and physical activity, as well as illnesses and other events, that might influence growth and development. The individual's neural apparatus for fat control is "set" as genetic endowment and experience combine to shape development, including behaviors related to our acquisition of food and our attachment of complex symbolism and meanings to eating. As these are inscribed in the developing cerebral cortex, the hypothalamic/adipose-tissue regulatory circuit remains a basic foundation for controlling food intake and calorie expenditure. With time, however, the hypothalamic system is joined by other control systems that are more widely distributed in the cerebrum. It is not surprising that searching the molecular pathways of only the archetypal hypothalamic regulatory system has failed to yield a full answer to the problems of preventing or treating human obesity.
So what of free will? Regardless of genes or early experiences, there are saints and heroes who can conquer eating behavior by self-imposed starvation for religious or political ends. Lesser souls may respond to injunctions for brief fasts or diets, but for the great majority of us, exercising our will is no long-term answer to the worsening problem of obesity. What should be our perspective on this persistent, trying, often embarrassing problem?
First, keep in mind that eating is one element in a complex set of behavioral and metabolic changes that create and sustain obesity. The roots of the problem seem more and more likely to be found in gene-environment interactions in early development. As adults, complex functions of our brain are at the interface between our environment of abundance and the set-point for fat storage that is a legacy of our patterns of food intake in early life. Our challenge in combating obesity is not to manipulate one or another element in the adult diet, nor to rely on new drugs to alter some element of the biochemical controls of fat storage. Most certainly it is not to make dieting a cultural obsession and an incessant individual preoccupation. Rather our challenge is to use information from nutritional science and molecular genetics to learn how and when the interaction of nature-nurture creates obesity. As the many clues harvested from the molecular-genetic revolution come together to illuminate that complex interaction, we may reasonably hope, one day, to understand how to intervene successfully in early life to maintain all the good of environmental opportunity without the penalty of lifelong obesity.
Grady, D. "Hormone that causes full feeling is found." The New York Times, August 8, 2002.
Feldman, D. "What happened to human will?" The Wall Street Journal, Letters to the Editor, August 13 2002, A21.
Newburgh, LH, and Johnston, MW. The nature of obesity. Journal of Clinical Investigation 1930; 212:197-213.
Hirsch, J. "Hypothalamic control of appetite." Hospital Practice 1984; Feb.:131-138.
Grinker, J, Hirsch, J, and Smith, DV. "Taste sensitivity and susceptibility to external influence in obese and normal weight subjects." Journal of Perspectives in Social Psychology 1972; 22:320-325.
Glucksman, ML, and Hirsch, J. "The response of obese patients to weight reduction: I. A clinical evaluation of behavior." Psychosomatic Medicine 1968; 30:1-11.
Glucksman, ML, Hirsch, J, McCully, RS, Barron, BA, and Knittle, JL. "The response of obese patients to weight reduction: II. A quantitative evaluation of behavior." Psychosomatic Medicine 1968; 30:359-373.
Grinker, JA, Glucksman, ML, Hirsch, J, and Viseltear, G. "Time perception as a function of weight reduction: A differentiation based on age at onset of obesity." Psychosomatic Medicine 1973; 35:104-111.
Glucksman, ML, and Hirsch, J. "The response of obese patients to weight reduction III. The perception of body size." Psychosomatic Medicine 1969; 31:1-7.
Leibel, RL, Rosenbaum, M, and Hirsch, J. "Changes in energy expenditure resulting from altered body weight in man." New England Journal of Medicine 1995; 332:621-627.
Knittle, J and Hirsch, J. "Effect of early nutrition on the development of rat epididymal fat pads: Cellularity and metabolism." Journal of Clinical Investigation 1968; 47:2091-2098.
Johnson, PR, Stern, JS, Greenwood, MRC, Zucker, LM, and Hirsch, J. "Effect of early nutrition on adipose cellularity and pancreatic insulin release in the Zucker rat." Journal of Nutrition 1973; 103:738-743.
Poverty and the Developing Brain
Our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about pain can affect the actual physical pain that we feel. What does pain look like in the brain, and how are new research findings leading to effective new treatments?
The Miracle of Light
A Q&A with Karl Deisseroth, a winner of the 2021 Lasker Prize in Basic Medical Research for his pivotal work in optogenetics and author of the widely praised book, Projections: A Story of Human Emotions.
Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate
Poetry of the Brain
This year's winning entries on the 20th anniversary of the annual Neuroscience for Kids Poetry Contest, which is designed to help kids learn about the brain through creative writing.
Mental Health for Refugees
All refugees fleeing armed conflict and danger share the same, almost unbearable human anguish, thirst for justice, and for the fraternity of others more fortunate.
The Debate Over Safe Injection Sites
Editor's Note: A Final Good-Bye
Words of thanks and farewell from Cerebrum Editor Bill Glovin
Cerebrum Spring 2022 Issue
Table of contents, with links, for this issue of Cerebrum's emagazine
Cerebrum Winter 2022 Issue


This looks like the author lives in 1999!
one must disable ssh root access to save server from basic hacking attempts.
Hi Ravi – The site looks really fabulous as it answers almost all Linux queries, a very great job, special thanks to you and the team of yours.
I am a new member who registered just 30 mins ago. I love Linux.
Adding Google's "Google Authenticator" PAM module is a real bonus IMHO – you can use their free smartphone app to prompt for a one-time passcode in addition to your password if you attempt to log in without an RSA/DSA key – very useful if you're connecting via an untrusted machine.
Displaying an SSH banner is unforgivably annoying and interferes with scp even in quiet mode forcing script writers to redirect the output of scp to /dev/null and therefore losing possible error reports that could otherwise have been sent to root.
Another good security tip is to run sshd on a non-standard port. See the "Port" option in /etc/sshdconfig. This will vastly cut down on login attempts by crackers.
This is hardly any improvement. It will help you to get rid of script kiddies. If someone does portscan on the machine, it is the same as if you were running it on 22. Also this setting can confuse those who use ssh on daily basis.
Besides, scripts kiddies can do portscans too.
From my own experience, using a non-default port for ssh completely eliminated login attempts by crackers. Works for me.
I don't doubt that changing default port can reduce number of tries but completely eliminating attempts seems too strange to me.
My point was, if someone targets your server and tries a little bit more than a quick blind attempt, it doesn't really matter which port you are running ssh on.
That's true, but every bit helps. A long time ago I had already done the items listed in this article to secure my ssh server.
Is it necessary to use any of these when CSF firewall is running?
If CSF is running then no need of any, but I recommend you to disable root login.
Also wanted to let you know that I really enjoy reading your posts and learn a lot from them. Keep it up!


As you can see, there are a number of ways to do reporting out of the box with CRM Online. Each of these offers both pros and cons. It's widely known that Microsoft Reporting Services offers an extensive and robust framework for managing reports, commonly known as SRS.
Some of the advantages of SRS is the built in Visual Studio Report Designer and the server application to host the reports for access via a web browser. There are a good number of reasons to want to use SRS to manage CRM reports. The heart of an SRS report is RDL. RDL stands for Report Definition Language. RDL is defined using XML. RDL allows user to build reports similar to how html allows users to build web pages.
Get on with it already….
To start, let's define the steps we need to take to use SRS to host a CRM Online Report.
1. Extract CRM Data and make accessible to SRS.
2. Create SRS Report based on the data.
3. Create a report in CRM Online that points to the SRS report.
*The solution assumes you have your own instance of SRS.
The first option you might consider is to create a copy of the data from CRM Online to a local SQL Server. This to me is the least reasonable choice because it will require some pretty serious kung fu to move all the data plus build a new database in SQL to hold the data. Also, moving large amounts of data across an HTTP connection is not really sufficient.
The next option to consider is to build an ODBC connector that used CRM Web Services calls on one side and exposed an ODBC interface on the other. This is not a bad option but I wanted something that could build reports in the background also. Plus the last time I wrote an ODBC connector , well let's just say I've changed keyboards a few times.
So we are left with our third choice, XML. ( Who would have thunk 'd it ).
XML is the lingua franca of data exchange ( just say no to tables ). It's entire purpose is in describing data exchange. Industry approved. Respected, liked and loved by all.
At this point, I should point out that when using the SRS XML data source you must specify a web url to be used to load the data. File protocols are not supported. However, you can store the file on a web server and access using HTTP.
Now, we need to determine how to get our data out of CRM Online and into to scantily clad XML.
Back to the out of the box options for a moment. You could create advanced find views and export the data into an Excel file and use Excel to save as xml. A bit manual but should work fine.
This option would require you to create a web service that accesses CRM Online for data and return it as XML. I like this option from an architecture but not crazy about since I can't schedule a web service to run automatically to update reports. Plus requires a server to host my web service and there are more security considerations. One advantage is you might be able to reuse the web services in other applications needing CRM data.
This option is to create software that runs locally that will pull data out of CRM and store in a XML file. I like this option the best since the reports can be scheduled run off hours and automatically. In addition, I find it the simplest of all the development options if your building the data extract yourself.
Another option would be to look at 3rd party integration tools such as ScribeSoft.
I decided to use a custom application or also known as agent/service/application.
I've built a tool previously, FetchIt Part 1 and FetchIt Part 2, that allows a fetch xml query to execute against CRM Online and have the results written to a file. It's a simple console application that can run anywhere. It's a simple in design. The development effort is relatively low and there is lots of sample code for how to make a fetch call. A console application can be scheduled to run automatically using the Windows Scheduler. It can be run on any machine with internet access. It can be run multiple times on a single machine ( once for each query ). The only thing needed is to change the fetch query statement in a configuration file for each report.
Fetch XML is an important part of the solution since it can be used to make complex queries into CRM Online. The prevents the need to have all the data local to do complex queries using SQL server. Fetch XML is part of the CRM Online web services and software SDK.
Here's an example of querying all opportunities records in CRM.
Here's an example of querying all open opportunities records in CRM and joining data from the account record.
2. Create SRS Report based on the extracted CRM Data.
While I won't build the report in depth in the blog, I will point out the process I used. One of the reason I wanted to create an SRS report was to do computations in the report. Notice in my sample report that I sum the estimated value of all the opportunities for each user and provide a total count. This is just to demonstrate some of the computations you could do in a SRS report.
The first step is to create a shared data source to be used by the report designer. Notice that xml file that I used FetchIt to create is stored on my localhost web server.
This can be any URL other than file protocols.
Here's a look at the Report Designer for my report.
On the Data tab, be sure to set your Data Query for you report to be empty. <Query></Query>. See SRS documentation for more info. Basically, we want all the records in the XML file. You could use this query to query the xml data.
Next load your report into SQL Reporting Manager. Be sure to create a data source for the report in the SRS Manager.
Next, create a report link in the SRS Manager. Copy the link and use in CRM Online. I found this easiest to open the report in my browser and copy the address.
A nice feature of the built in CRM Online Reporting is that I can create a report that points to a web page or a file. The file option works nice for Excel documents and Word docs. I can use the web page option to specific my SRS Report.
Opening the report from CRM Online will open the report in SRS.
You can build SRS reports for CRM Online in 3 easy steps.
Fetch XML allows you to build complex queries to sort and present your CRM Online data. It's part of the CRM SDK, easy to use and well documented.
Using Microsoft SQL Reporting Services to report on CRM Online data is possible with a little effort. SRS gives you the ability to create rich reports using charts, computations, and text/images. In addition, you could use SRS to schedule reports to be automatic and emailed. There are many advantages to using SRS.


The tiny piglet was a sad sight as she lay flat on her tummy in a filthy pen full of rusted roof sheeting, wire and rubbish. She was all alone. Her back legs were splayed out on either side of her body. She looked up as Toni Brockhoven, head of Beauty Without Cruelty South Africa, reached out and gently picked her up. The little pig snorted in Toni's ear and immediately became Snortie. Toni had negotiated with the farmer of the backyard piggery in Cape Town to release the pig into her care and into a new life at the Greyton Farm Animal Sanctuary.
When I took Snortie from Toni and placed her on my lap, she snuffled her snout into my neck and I was completely in love. I knew that we had to do everything we could for this brave, trusting little girl. It's hard to believe that she can be so affectionate when all she's known is neglect. Had the farmer tied her back legs together, temporarily, shortly after birth she would have been able to walk, but this didn't happen, leaving her paralysed.
We placed Snortie in a small paddock with another pig called Big Bella Boo, who'd come to us as a former pet pig but become so obese that she had fat blindness – her eyes were forced closed by the fat around her face. Under our care she'd lost a lot of weight but she was fragile as a result of her past and didn't move around much. As we'd hoped, Snortie soon found comfort and warmth in Bella's still quite large, round tummy, and that night she was snuggled up to her, protected against the cold winter's night.
We took Snortie to the vet the next day for x-rays and her skeletal system was found to be intact. She does, however, have compressed vertebrae from arching her spine to pull herself forward with her front legs. We pulled the legs together with soft, wide elastic and then thought about therapy. We approached Pets in Balance in Somerset West where there's a hydrotherapy tank.
At her first session, Snortie showed a willingness to work hard and she was soon standing, buoyed up by the warm water. The therapists fell in love with her as quickly as I had and offered to sponsor her sessions. We did three months of intensive therapy, three times a week. It was a big commitment, the journey taking one hour each way, but we all did it for Snortie.
We took plenty of videos of Snortie in the tank and then being dried off. She absolutely loves the treatment and a video of her being towelled dry went viral with over 500,000 views. Her cute pink snout and happy demeanour have turned her into quite a poster child. The artist Marius van Vuuren has been commissioned to build a huge sculpture of a sitting pig in London and he's asked Snortie to be his model.
Snortie suffered a setback when her friend and adoptive piggy mom, Bella, passed away after a short illness. Sadly, the health conditions of her past caught up with Bella and we were devastated when she left us at the age of just seven. Snortie's grief was plain to see in her face. Her usually happy demeanour changed into one of quiet sadness. That night we rolled Bella's sleeping bag into a big ball with a pillow inside to give Snortie a replica of the friend she'd lost – just to help her over the next few nights. We didn't leave her side for a few days and tried to find ways to raise her spirits.
After a week she started to perk up. We opened the gate of her paddock which leads to another space where yet another formerly obese pig, also called Bella, lives with her friend Ollie, a black pot-bellied pig. Ollie and Bella no. 2 accepted Snortie and she now lives with them, sometimes returning to her paddock to sleep but always happily joining her new friends during the day.
We don't know if Snortie will ever walk, but we're determined to keep trying as long as she's happy for us to do so. She now has a trolley that we use for therapy to try and get her back legs used to the rhythm of walking. If she fails to walk then we'll get her a permanent set of wheels so that she can roam around the farm for as long as she's comfortable and happy.


text:
Re: Community notification emails have stopped.
Community notification emails have stopped.
The last Community notification email I received was at 5:40PM EST yesterday. Since then, there have been many replies and such that have prompted notifications within the Community itself, but no email notifications to accompany them.
I've reset the Community email notification settings, but that didn't make any difference.
Good morning folks,
Thank you for your patience while we continue to investigate. While we currently can resolve this issue as it pops up on a user by user basis, we're still working on pinpointing the root cause of this forum notification issue to apply a permanent and universal solution. I'll keep this thread updated on news as we get it.
If you notice your e-mail notifications not arriving when you should be receiving them, please let me know ASAP; posting in here is fine. Include the approximate date and time of the notification received in the community that didn't arrive as an e-mail notification.
Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.
Thanks Gabe!
I'm just making sure I get everything straight, please correct me if I'm wrong:
-All test e-mails sent directly from the HN account to your MSN account arrived immediately except for last night's which came the next morning.
-7 community notification emails arrived in the HN account, but only 3 successfully forwarded to MSN.
-The first successful forward had a 15 min delay, but the other 2 were immediately.
-No bounce or emails indicating an error for the 4 notification emails that failed to forward to MSN.
@Liz
That's all correct.
For some reason, the only time I get a failure notification is when it's a direct email to my MSN, and then only when it actually fails outright, and when that happens it's nearly always right after I try to send it that I get the failure note. This is why I figured the ones from last night might actually still make it, which they eventually did. There are never any failure notifications from the forwards that don't make it.
OK thanks for the confirmation. Maybe failed forwards don't trigger error emails, but hopefully our e-mail admins can see something more on their end. I'll let them know about this as well as the persistent incorrect inbox indicator.
Good morning Gabe,
I have some requests from the e-mail admins regarding the forwarding issue and the notification issue:
About forwarding, can you please e-mail me the full header of the first forwarded email that was successfully was received but was 15 min late? The header might not fit in PM so you can paste it into email or even forward the email itself to us at communitysupport@hughes.com.
For the notification issue, for troubleshooting purposes, is it OK for the e-mail admins to mark everything in the inbox as read?
@Liz wrote:
I no longer had it at my hughes.net address, as I've been deleting emails there for the purpose of both trying to make it easier to keep things straight regarding all of this and in an attempt to fix the Inbox indicator issue, so I had to forward it from my MSN mail. I hope that's okay, though this may be what you wanted. It sounds like they want to be able to see the past emails for troubleshooting purposes, so I'll stop deleting them from my hughes.net webmail.
Yes, this is fine.
OK great! Once you're able to get a copy of a delayed forward (if it happens again) please send it my way.
I'll let the admins know they can mark your emails as read.
So, for the sake of clarity, what I just sent was what you needed, and if it happens, resend the new one, and in the same way?
Or, do you need me to forward it from hughes.net itself and not from MSN?
Ah, I see your email. The e-mail admins would like the header for the email. You may have to check in the email properties or expand something at the top of the email to view the full header. They're more interested in the info in the headers than the body of the email, so doesn't matter from where you send it. I hope that made sense.
Okay. Sorry, I'm not very versed in this stuff. I'll grab the header from the MSN forwarded copy and send it to the same address.
Edit: Sent. It didn't keep the same format when I pasted it, so I hope they can get the information needed.
Thank you, I received it, this should do it.
Just in case you or they may need to know this, I tried sending two direct test emails late last night, as in from hughes.net to msn.com. Both failed. They were sent at 10:58PM and 1:59AM. The failure notices came through at 5:32AM and 5:46AM, respectively.
Thank you for letting me know. The e-mail admins confirmed that MSN is blocking e-mails from your IP at the moment and they've reached out to them to address this. I'll keep you posted.
I questioned the e-mail admins as to how forwarding can fail while sending works if the IP is blocked. You brought up an interesting situation where forwards to MSN don't work while direct mails still do.
Can you please try sending a test email from the HN account to your MSN and let me know if that succeeds? Then also try forwarding to MSN to see if that works. I think the e-mail admins would like to see current attempts now that they've confirmed the IP block.
kitnbob
I have been following this thread,
So I sent a new message AND a forwarded message as @Liz suggested and they were both sent without error from the SMTP server.
there was no server error at send time and no bounce message from MSN returned to me thru the pop server.
Neither of the messages showed up in my MSN inbox.
They just vanished.
Edit; after checking my logs, the messages were successfully received in the MSN inbox last on 12/10
Edit 2: Both messages arrived to the inbox 13 hrs after being sent
You brought up an interesting situation where forwards to MSN don't work while direct mails still do.
That should be "sometimes still do". The two on Friday failed, with an eventual failure notice, and when the others came through they were more often than not many hours late.
I just sent two emails directly from hughes to MSN. They were direct test #11 and #12. They were sent at 4:57PM and 4:58PM EST. They have not come through. There was no immediate failure notice, which likely means that they'll show up sometime later, though there's still the possibility that they'll fail, like the last two.
Gotcha. I met with some of the e-mail folks today for our now weekly check-in. Simply put, forwarded e-mail take a different path than direct e-mail and thus would refer to a different IP address.
They're still working on this block, so I'll keep you posted.
Direct emails #11 and #12, which were sent at 4:57PM and 4:58PM respectively, were both received at MSN at 2:19AM EST, which is nearly 9.5 hours after sending them. They were received in reverse order (12 then 11).
I sent email #13 and #14, both at 2:35AM. They have not come through yet.
@GabeU
I have similar results.
My outgoing mail Does eventually arrive in the MSN inbox.
Yesterday 6 hrs later and the last 2 arrived 13 hrs after being sent. They havent been returned anyway.
Reminds me of receiving text messages on my cell phone. I would get some texts the next day. So much for instant messaging. I have never used MSN Messaging have you?
Edit: Now that I think about it, I have received No Email notifications from the Community for 6 days. Last one was 12/09. Isnt that what this discussion is about?
In response to kitnbob
Just a thought on this mystery: Sometimes emails will get rejected for some reason so the sender tries again in a set amount of time. that time could be an hour, could be 24 hours. Could also be it keeps trying and finally gets accepted 24 hours later.
I'm thinking that this was initially set for a single try, which is why things were failing immediately. Someone went in and changed it for a series of retries, which is why things are now showing up much later.
@MarkJFine
A good thought and Well explained. I have seen a misspelled username being returned for days previously. Till they stop trying. .
Are you receiving Community notification emails today?
I've been getting them all along, best I can tell.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A closer look at code completing features of WebStorm.
In WebStorm, you get the same popup complete after a '.' or on pressing Ctrl-Space. In addition, if you start typing the first few letters and press return, if there's anything matching those first few letters then it inserts that text or shows you possible alternatives.


While investigating a question on returning unmatched rows between two tables I set up an example where both tables had indexes, which could be used to speed up the query and hopefully return the result set in less time than required for a full table scan. To my surprise when the index was used on the table with the missing record the query returned no rows. Not understanding this behavior (as I KNEW there was at least one row in the data range that wasn't in the smaller table) I checked the execution plans for queries that worked (meaning they returned the correct 'missing' row) and the ones that didn't. We'll go through my investigation and reveal the reason for this unexpected result.
Obviously, after seeing this example, putting the date restriction for table B in the WHERE clause was incorrect thinking on my part.
Another comment stated the first working query was not the same as the first 'nonworking' query; they are not supposed to be. My goal was to determine why one set of conditions using the index on table B produced no rows and another set of conditions, in general absent that same restriction, produced the correct results. As stated earlier in this article my thought process was a bit flawed as my presumptions with respect to including a date restriction on table B in the WHERE clause may not have been correct.
In the first example both tables are used to create in-line views of the desired data range; those individual result sets are then joined to return the 'correct' result. In the second example the two select statements use the MINUS operator to again return the 'correct' answer.
Is this a bug in Oracle 11.2? I suspected that it was; it certainly seemed strange that the outer join was converted to an inner join when an index on the 'smaller' table, the one with the missing data, was used. It turns out that a misstep in my logic caused at least one of the empty result sets. Correcting my logic and query produced the correct answer.
With a product as complex as Oracle some bugs are bound to be present; of course sometimes the 'bug' is in the logic behind an apparently misbehaving query, which does teach you to pay careful attention to the results a query delivers. Even though the queries that produced the incorrect results are syntatically correct you can't be certain that Oracle won't do something 'behind the scenes' that can produce the wrong answer and reveal an error in your logic. My gratitude goes out to those who paid enough attention to make comments on this article and point out places where I went wrong so I could update it with corrected information.


New developments for sale and rent in the London SW4 postcode. Latest news and offers for apartments, houses, offices, shops, restaurants and much more.
Areas: Clapham; parts of Stockwell.
Abbeville Place is launching on Thursday 25th April and Saturday 27th April 2019. Prices starting from £425,000. Help to Buy is available. Register your interest with Inspired Homes.
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Parkside Place offers new 3 and 5 bedroom houses with private outdoor space and off-street parking. Prices start from £875,000. Contact Dexters and JLL for sales.
All affordable apartments are now under reservation.
Final phase of Macaulay Walk launching 4th February 2016! A selection of 2- and 3-bed warehouse style apartments. Register your interest at Macaulaywalk.co.uk.
Help to Buy is available for flats at Listello Buildings development in Clapham, SW4 - 5% deposit is all you need to buy! For more information please visit www.bellway.co.uk! Via Homes & Property, Evening Standard, 5. November 2014.


text:
15 April 2009 - eTurboNews
Gala Ceremony On May 5, 2009 At Monarch Hotel
World Travel Awards to be held in Dubai
By eTN Staff Writer | Apr 15, 2009
The tourism industry's highest accolade, The World Travel Awards, will be held in Dubai this year on May 5, 2009. The event, which has been hailed as the "Oscars of the Travel Industry" by the Wall Street Journal, will celebrate the travel and tourism industry's best practices by recognizing achievements from over 100 travel and tourism brands from across the Middle East.
This year's event promises to be the most hotly contested ever as leading players address the global downturn by raising their standards even higher. The World Travel Award recognizes leading airlines, hotel operators, hotel developers, tourism boards, travel media, destination marketing campaigns, MICE businesses, and several other companies that make a difference in the quality of travel and tourism.
The World Travel Awards, established 16 years ago, encourages travel and tourism organizations to set new boundaries for customer service, value, and innovation in their quest to create the ultimate travel and tourism experience. Winners are decided by votes received from agents and travel professionals from around the world.
Commenting on the choice of Dubai for the Middle East ceremony, the president of the World Travel Awards, Graham Cooke commented: "By hosting the event here, we are clearly making a statement – that the travel and tourism industry believes in Dubai and we stand firmly behind it, even in these difficult times. In less than a decade, Dubai has created a world-class destination. This city is known over the world for its innovative tourism offerings and world-class service that have set the benchmark for the industry worldwide. Therefore, it is fitting that we will host our Middle Eastern regional ceremony here again."
Speaking on behalf of the host city, Mr. Eyad Ali Abdul Rahman, executive director, media relations and acting director, business development at Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), said: "It is an honor to have such a prestigious ceremony hosted in Dubai, which remained a destination of choice for the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) industry. The World Travel Awards are an icon of the travel and tourism industry, and we are proud that the best of the industry will be in Dubai to receive their awards. The hosting of this award clearly reflects the continued world confidence in Dubai and its vibrant tourism industry, especially in these economically-challenging times."
Last year's World Travel Award winners included Etihad, Dubai, Jumeirah, Royal Jet, Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, Rotana, Orient Tours Sharjah, and Regency Travel & Tours Qatar and was attended by over 800 senior travel and tourism executives.
The Middle East ceremony, hosted at the Monarch Dubai, kicks off the World Travel Awards Grand Tour 2009 with seven events across seven continents including Durban, South Africa (Africa Ceremony); Singapore (Asia, Australasia & Indian Ocean Ceremony); Riviera Maya, Mexico (North & Central America Ceremony); Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (South America Ceremony); Óbidos, Portugal (Europe Ceremony); and culminating with the Grand Final in Jamaica.
Source: eTurboNews
Middle East Gala Ceremony 2009
Participating Media
CNBC Arabiya
Business Traveller Magazine UK
Business Traveller Magazine Middle East
AmeInfo.com
Arabian Travel News
Breaking Travel New
Al Raya Newspaper
Al Watan Newspaper
Al Sharq Newspaper
Al Arab Newspaper


text:
Category Archives: Short shorts
General Fiction, Short shorts, Uncategorized
November 24, 2018 Alex McGilvery Leave a comment
That summer that everything happened. Bob could have dealt with one disaster. It was the way they piled up in an unending collision of disasters that had him feeling punch drunk. First his son rolled the car. Scary, but Rick wasn't hurt and the insurance company was understanding. Then the storm knocked out the power across the entire county and dropped a tree on his boat. He wanted to sell it anyway, but the insurance company was a little less phlegmatic about it. Still, he had fire wood to last him through the next decade.
The robbery at the bank his wife worked at was shocking. No one was hurt – physically, but Marsha was one of several tellers who just couldn't go back to work. At least the disability was a different insurance company.
While all this was happening Bob still had to keep up with his business. He was an agricultural consultant. He travelled through the entire area helping farmers deal with their stress. Grains were at an all time high, but with oil prices up, so was the cost of fertilizer and running equipment. The meat producers were looking at huge increases in feed cost and wondering if it was time to retire. Bob helped them sit down and look at their options and make decisions that were good for them and their family.
Bob was so busy doing his bit to make the world a better place that he really didn't have time to deal with the pain in his leg that was nagging at him. After all it wasn't anywhere near his heart. But it didn't stop; it got worse. Bob found himself driving with his left leg to ease the pain. After a near miss on the highway when he got his feet tangled while trying to brake, Bob decided it was time to visit the doctor.
The doctor wasn't encouraging. She told Bob to stay off the road or she would pull his driver's license and set up an MRI. Rick enjoyed being his dad's driver for half of the first day. Then it got boring. Bob called his clients and apologized for cancelling, then asked Rick to take them home via the electronic store that stocked his son's new favourite video game. They bought the game and a hot dog from the vendor to stave off starvation. Peace once again assured, at least for the night they arrived home to find the house surrounded by police cars.
In a panic, Bob hobbled to the door to find his wife in tears and the police packing up. The sergeant took Bob aside to explain that his wife had been sure she had seen the bank robber in the bushes. The police had responded to learn that the neighbour's son in law was home for a visit and had decided to trim the hedge between their homes. He gave Bob a card to direct him to Victim Services, and suggested a change of scene might be a good idea.
Marsha packed her bags and went off to visit her mother and Rick went with her. Bob agreed an immanent nervous breakdown was much more serious than a pain in the leg, no matter how inconvenient. That's why he was alone in the house when the pain suddenly flared up and left him screaming in agony on the floor. Fortunately the neighbour's son in law was finishing up the hedge and heard him. Soon the house was again surrounded by flashing lights while the paramedics carried Bob out and took him to the hospital.
After emergency surgery to remove the gargantuan blood clot in his leg, he talked to Marsha and Rick on the phone and reassured them that he was indeed still alive. Bob was lectured by an endless stream of doctors and nurses about how lucky he was. The social worker was more help. She suggested that he try a convalescent home or similar place rather than burdening Marsha with his care when she needed to do her own work. Bob was looking distastefully at brochures when his boss came in the door.
"You don't want to go to one of those places," he pronounced, "They are full of old, sick people. You need to get out in the sun. You want to relax and meet some new people."
"What do you have in mind?" Bob asked, his boss always had a plan or several up his sleeve.
"My church runs a camp every summer. They have adults who come as chaplains for the kids. We are short people this summer. You could go sit around in the sun. You get your own cabin, meals and everything. There is even a nurse on site."
"What would I need to do?" A summer camp certainly sounded more inviting than an old folk's home.
"Nothing!" his boss shouted, "That's the beauty of it. You just sit around and let the kids talk to you if they want."
"Sounds good. Where do I sign up?"
So that's how Bob found himself at Camp Menesetatchi sitting under a tree watching the children play. His leg woke him the first day early in the morning; but the sight of the sun rising over the lake and the numinous cry of a distant loon distracted him from its ache. He got in the habit of sitting on the deck and watching the sunrise. The camp was so good for him that he called and invited Marsha and Rick to come. She was glad to escape the loving but smothering care of her mother. Rick had met the girl next door and decided that Grandma needed him.
So Bob and Marsha sat in the campfire circle and learned to sing the Kumbya Blues. They toasted each other with flaming marshmallows, listened to the songs, laughed at the skits, and began to heal.
This is a story I wrote a few years ago for a contest I didn't win.
campdisasterhealing
Humour, Short shorts
A Cure for Writer's Block
January 14, 2017 Alex McGilvery Leave a comment
This is a story I wrote some time back in response to a challenge about – you guessed it – writer's block. It did middling well, but I like the idea behind it.
A Cure for Writer's Block:
A sure fire method for getting past writer's block. If it doesn't drive you insane.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. Of course, being a lazy dog, it lay there and ignored the whole undignified scenario. The brown fox, really more of a reddish colour, rolled her eyes…
"What a complete waste of time," Matthew Q. Stanhaus said. (The Q. didn't stand for anything, but his agent had told Matt that he should have an initial. It added class. What it didn't add was the ability to come up with a second story to match the first surprise runaway bestseller.)
"This isn't going to work"
"Sure it will," Bill said. "Free form writing always gets the juices flowing. All my authors get stuck, and this is how I get them going again. Give it time."
"I haven't got time," Matt rubbed his eyes. "I need to have this first draft in to my editor tomorrow. "
"Then you had better get started." Bill showed no mercy. He sat back with his coffee and waved at the keyboard. Matt grunted and started banging on the keys again.
"I am the quickest, baddest brown fox ever to run circles around any dog, lazy or no. In my corner of the jungle no one lays a hand on me. I don't care if you are Cujo or a taco dog; you ain't comin' close to this fox…."
"That's even lamer than the first one. All we need is someone singing about bluebirds to make it complete." Bill didn't respond other than by wiggling his fingers in typing motions. Matt howled in frustration and turned back to the keyboard.
These hounds weren't lazy. They were all bark and growl and teeth. They had my scent and were in full cry. I needed to be better than quick if I wasn't going to end up as their sacrificial fox. I ran and dodged through the concrete and steel that made up my jungle. I could hear them on my trail. Tires squealed and men shouted at each other. An occasional silenced shot buzzed past my ear. I was getting tired, and these dogs weren't going to give up. They were getting paid to bring me down, and the people paying them didn't care whether it was alive or dead….
Matt leaned back and groaned as his vertebrae crackled and popped.
"It's trite." He said. "The editor will probably laugh and throw it away."
"Let me worry about the editor." Bill made more finger wiggling motions.
Matt muttered an obscenity, not quite under his breath, and returned to the computer.
Renard Brown staggered through the bayou. He could hear the hounds baying in the distance. A helicopter pounded almost overhead. He had no idea why he was here. One minute he was resting in his cell, the next guards were hustling him into a chopper.
"Shot while trying to escape." The guard they called the Bear had grinned evilly at him.
"I'm not trying to escape," Renard said, struggling against the guards holding his arms.
"You will." The Bear laughed as he pushed Renard out of the chopper…."
Matt sat back and stared at the screen.
"That doesn't make any sense. Why go through all the fuss of the chopper and dogs if they were going to kill him anyway?"
"I don't know." Said Bill. "You're the writer. So write."
Renard Brown was quick, but he was also smart. Even the fastest fox needed to go to ground once in a while. He needed to wait for that dog to get lazy again. He sat in his prison cell, pretending to read, while the guards walked by looking for some excuse to enforce the rules. There were a lot of rules…
"No, no, no." Moaned the author. "That won't work." He cracked his back again, and looked at his agent. Bill was carefully not looking up.
#@$#@((*%(*@#$ Thought Fox Brown as he looked over his shoulder again. He had worked very hard to get arrested. Right now jail was the safest place for him. It wasn't that Lupe didn't have people on the inside, but they were lazy. They were up to a shiv in the lunchroom, or a bit of violence in the showers, but Lupe intended to keep him alive until he led her to what she wanted. So she had her pet D.A. cut him loose. If it was just money, Fox would have given it up a long time ago. He swore again as he spotted a couple of her hounds on his tail. It was time to get the jump on these dogs…
Smiling, Bill fell asleep to the music of rattling keys and the sotto voce muttering of Matthew Q. Stanhaus.
dogfoxtypingwriter's block
General Fiction, Science Fiction, Short shorts, Uncategorized
Aggie and the Robot
August 29, 2016 Alex McGilvery Leave a comment
Aggie walked to the brow of the hill that overlooked the city. Aggie had never been to the city, but she loved to watch the traffic bustle in and out. Airplanes circled overhead waiting their turn to land, the dull roar of their engines muffled almost to silence by the distance. One day she had watched so long that she had seen the lights come on one by one until it was lit up like a fairy kingdom.
Today she arrived at the hill to find an enormous metal man leaning against the edge of the cliff. He was watching the city.
"Excuse me," she said politely, "you are blocking my view."
With a great grinding and clanging noise the metal man turned to face her.
"Who are you?" he demanded in a voice that was so deep that Aggie could feel it in her teeth.
"I'm Aggie," she said, "I live with my mom and dad over there." She waved her arm vaguely over her shoulder.
"You should go home," rumbled the iron man. "This is no place for little girls."
"This is my place," Aggie said, "And you are rude."
"Rude?"
"I told you my name. You are supposed to say 'Pleased to meet you Aggie my name is…'" she paused, "What is your name?"
"Name?" said the metal man, "I have no name. I am a robot."
"What is a robot?" asked Aggie.
"A robot is…." the metal giant paused. "I am a robot."
"From? I am from nowhere. I was built over there from metal and glass." The giant man pointed into the mountains.
"Why?" rumbled the robot, "To destroy the city."
"The city?" cried Aggie. "Why would you want to destroy the city? It's wonderful."
"My master hates the people in the city. He says they are evil and selfish."
"But even if they are selfish, they don't deserve to be destroyed."
"My master wants them destroyed. So he built me to destroy them."
"But you can't destroy the city."
"It is what I am made to do," said the robot. "I must do what my master made me for."
"But it's wrong."
"I don't know wrong. I only know obedience."
Aggie walked to the edge of the hill and looked out over the city. She felt tears forcing their way out of her eyes. The cars and planes blurred. She thought of all those buildings broken and burning; people hurt and crying.
"No!" she shouted at the robot. "You can't do it. Your master is wrong."
The robot bent down further with more clanking. She could smell oil and electricity.
"I am not built to know what is wrong. I am built to obey. I cannot disobey."
"I disobey my dad sometimes."
"Your dad didn't build you well."
"Dad didn't build me," laughed Aggie, "I was born."
"What is born?"
"I'm not sure. I asked my dad once and he just turned red."
The robot shook his head.
"Whether born or made, we must do as we are told." He turned again to look across to the city. The sun glinted on windows and winked from airplanes. A breeze blew the faintest sounds of activity to the hill.
"We start out doing as we are told, because we don't know anything," Aggie stepped up to the edge of the cliff. "But the more we learn, the more we need to choose for ourselves."
Aggie heard the metal grind as the robot nodded his head.
"Come with me," he said and held out his hand. Fearfully, she stepped onto his hand. He curled his fingers to protect her. "We will go and learn."
Aggie was sure that his footsteps shook the earth, but she couldn't feel them away up in the air cradled in the metal fist of the robot.
"I am listening to them," said the robot after a while. "They are laughing because some geese are crossing the highway and traffic is stopped." He walked on.
"They have seen us," he rumbled. "But they won't attack because they see you. They won't hurt a little girl even to save themselves." They arrived at the edge of the city. Police cars and fire trucks were lined up across their path. Planes circled overhead.
"It is time," the robot said, "I must obey."
"But you can't."
"Then you must stop me."
The whole city watched what happened next. How a little girl stood in front of the colossus with tear streaked face and pushed on the robot"s foot. Miraculously it tottered, then fell backward with a great crash and lay still.
"He could not choose to disobey," Aggie told them, "but he could choose to fail."
destructionfriendshiprobotshort
Sascha limped into the bar and took a table where she could sit with her back to a wall facing the door. A young girl came and deposited a mug of beer on the table. Sascha used a scrap of sleeve wetted with beer to clean the blood from her face. The girl appeared again and left a cleaner cloth. Shascha smiled thanks and went back to her ablutions. She drank what was left of the beer and settled in for a long wait.
A polished steel shield hung on the wall. From what she could see of the bartender in it he looked more troll than human. Sascha wondered what he thought of her. She knew even with her best efforts, blood caked in her eyebrows and hair, turning fiery-red dark. Fortunately none of the cuts and tears in her clothes were in places which could cause trouble.
Well after moonrise, Jacko slid into the seat across from her. The room had filled up and they were able to talk under the boisterous crowd.
"What happened to you?"
"A couple of bravos thought they needed my purse more than I did."
Jacko winced, "Did you have to let them bleed all over you?"
"One thought he could hold me while his partner finished me. I had to cut his throat." She shrugged. "It was messy.
"They must have been desperate."
"I wouldn't know."
"After all that you didn't even check their purses?"
"Whatever else I might be I am not a thief."
"You could have taken enough for some new clothes."
Sascha stared at him until Jacko looked down.
"OK, OK, You'll do anything for gold but steal it. I don't get you, Sasch."
"You don't need to get me." She leaned forward across the stained wood of the table. "Did you get the information I asked you about?"
"I did, the old man's holed up in the old monastery outside the south wall."
"Thanks" She dropped a handful of coins on the table. "Buy yourself a decent meal."
Her stained and ragged clothing helped Sascha blend into the shadows well enough the guards didn't notice her climb over the south wall. The moon shone bright enough to reveal handholds, but not so bright as to make her stand out. She reached the bottom and stretched out the cramps in her hands.
The place was more ruin than monastery. Walls and roofs now jumbles of stone. The only building still standing was the crypt for the monks who never left their retreat even in death. She pushed on the door and found it barred from the inside. She smiled, neither corpses or ghosts had any reason to bar the door. With the blade of her thinnest knife she lifted the bar and eased the door open.
The faint gleam of moonlight didn't show anything but dust and bones. She entered the crypt and followed the faint scent of cheese. An old man waited for her.
"Robson sent you."
"He wants the stone."
"Ah," the old man nodded. "Want some cheese?"
Sascha shrugged and took the chunk of cheese from his hand. She bit into it and almost cried at its sharp flavour against her tongue.
"There is water if you wish to clean up." He tossed her a bundle of cloth. "My fellows won't mind if you borrow a robe. The smell of death disturbs me."
"You're afraid of dying?" Sascha asked through the splashes of water on her face.
"I was hoping you would be. "
"So I would just give you the stone?"
"I don't want to kill you."
"But you will if you have to."
"I will do what I need for Gold."
The old man looked at her sadly.
"I don't see greed in your eyes."
"Nonetheless."
He reached into his robe and puled out a tiny bundle wrapped in silk.
"Silk is the only substance that the stone won't effect. Be careful." He handed it to her.
Sascha allowed the silk to move from the stone and touched it against a bone that lay on the floor. It turned into pure yellow gold.
"You are at the very edge of darkness. I didn't want to push you over."
"Then you understand."
"Goodbye Sascha, you're almost free."
"Without Gold, I will never be free."
"Remember the silk." The crypt went dark.
Sascha found herself outside the crypt. She shook her head and patted the small weight of the stone in her pocket.
Robson was waiting for her in the room he called his throne room.
"You have it?"
"Gold first."
He snapped his fingers and one of the thugs beside him pulled a little girl from behind Robson; her hair the colour fine gold.
"Mommy!" the girl cried.
"Hi Gold."
Robson took the little girl's hand and kept her from running to her mother.
"The stone first."
"This is the last time," Sascha said holding up the tiny bundle.
"Sascha, Sascha, you can trust me. Let me see the stone, then we'll talk." He let go of Gold and the girl ran to her mother.
Sascha tossed the stone to Robson and swept up Gold in her arms. She used the bit of silk to wipe the tears from her daughter's eyes.
adventureGoldlove
Horror, Macabre, Short shorts
Two Creepy Tales
A friend Jason, who runs the Howlarium, asks interesting questions and curates responses from writers out on the net.
This month's question is:
"The Tibetans don't encourage meditating right away, actually. They insist that you know something. They say Listen, if you go meditate right away as an ignorant person, you will deepen your ignorance […] a kind of quietism that a lot of […] people get into where—they find the world jangly and bothersome, and then they withdraw into a place where they don't have to think about it. It's like a wonderful kind of Prozac. […] there's no compassion in it. It's a kind of narcissistic thing, actually. Great danger in meditation. […]
"Your writing is a kind of meditation." –Dr. Robert Thurman, first American ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk
In the West, meditation tends to be thought of as an act of personal wellness, and some of us might view writing the same way.
Q: If you meditate and/or write (either one) to keep yourself well and sane, how can compassion for someone else play a role in that? Does it need to?
If so, how? If not, why not?"
These stories are part of my answer.
Petrov walked into the room and looked around. Well set out if unpretentious. A close inspection showed the beginning of wear on the upholstery. Old photos of peasants in the fields or uninspired watercolours hung on the walls . The fragrance of baking in another part of the house made him hope his host would see fit to offer something to eat.
The thought of his host made him shiver. The man was a hero of the war. Of several wars if the truth were to be told. Yet he lived alone on this estate far from the city. The mother country had come through some hard times, but now as things began to turn around, they could use someone of Dimishky's stature to show the Revolution moved forward under the new generation of leaders.
It was a great privilege for Petrov to be here, even if his mission was to beg for the old man to come to Moscow to allow his name to be used in the service of the Soviet.
Petrov examined for perhaps the third time the photos of the peasants. The old men and women posed stiffly and stared at the camera with a fatalism belying the idea they formed the foundation of the revolution. How could such a lethargic people have risen to overthrow the Imperialist regime?
The door behind him creaked, and Petrov turned slowly and nodded politely at the old man. One didn't get as far as he had in the service of the Soviet without learning to school oneself.
The old man led in an equally old woman who carried a tray with the hoped for baking as well as an rough tea service. She placed the tray on the table and left.
"Please sit," Dimishkysaid, "I regret keeping you waiting, but I had some business to complete."
What urgent business urgent could he find here? It didn't matter. Petrov sat at the table and waited for Dimishky to join him.
"I suppose you are here to impress on me the need the Soviet has for my face and my name." Dimishky poured tea into Petrov's chipped cup.
The astringent odour made Petrov almost wrinkle his nose. He didn't usually add anything to his tea, but he sweetened this brew and added cream too. He tried to ignore the sneer on the older man's face. Still, the old man pushed a plate of biscuits over and he helped himself. It melted in his mouth; as sweet as the tea was bitter.
"I've no interest in shoring up the political regime," Dimishky said, "I am content here." He waved his hand out the window. For all the hand was thin and spotted, Petrov suspected strength still lurked in it.
"The government has need of you."
"You mean they need of a face and a name." The old man drank his tea straight. Petrov shuddered. "They wish to hold up a monster from the past and suggest there is still some truth in their threats."
"They are not to be trifled with," Petrov said, "The secret police…"
"Oddly, for the secret police to be effective, everyone must know they exist." Dimishky stood and put his cup down. "Come with me. We will walk. If you still wish me to come to Moscow after, I will give you my word I will go with you. Perhaps it is time."
They walked out of the house. Though Dimishky hadn't said anything , the old woman waited with a coat and hat for the old man. She gave Petrov a look of equal part pity and disdain.
Petrov hadn't dressed for the weather, but he was used to the cold. They walked out of yard and down the road toward the village.
"The people who live here are the same kind people as the ones in those photos you admired so." Dimishky's rasp startled Petrov.
"You mean their descendants?"
"There are no descendants from those in the photographs."
They reached the village and the people looked up at them, then let their eyes slide past as if Dimishky and Petrov were only visible for the slightest second.
"You see," Dimishky said, "they are cattle. They know what I am and what I do. They could come to my house and kill me in my sleep. Yet they send their own to cook for me and serve my needs." He spat on the road. Without breaking step the old man opened a gate and led Petrov to a small house. The yard was sprinkled with with colour, rocks had been painted bright colours and placed in the grey dirt. They walked in through the front door without knocking.
The smell of baking was here too. A young man sat with an older woman, probably his mother. He looked up and seemed to be about to speak, but the woman put her hand on his. She got up and looked at Dimishky with the same eyes as the people in the photographs. Dimishky turned and walked away, the woman following him. The young man's hands shook, and to Petrov's horror, tears streaked his face. Petrov left him and hurried after Dimishky.
He stayed back until they came to a black building on the edge of the village. The old woman followed Dimishky inside. Petrov hurried to catch up. The inside of the building was no warmer than the weather outside, yet Dimishky carefully took off his coat and shirt and placed them in a wardrobe. He took out a long black coat, stiff with dirt. The woman simply stood and looked at Petrov with fatalistic eyes.
Dimishky, once satisfied with his coat, pulled wire out of the coat's pocket and tied it around the woman's wrists. He looped it over a hook attached to a chain.
"Over there," Dimishky said, "Ratchet the chain up tighter." Petrov hesitated. "You can tell your superiors how you failed your assignment, if you wish." Petrov turned the handle until the old woman's arms stretched over her head. The woman never looked at him.
"Tell the important visitor what is going to happen." Dimishky said to the woman.
"You are going to kill me, like you killed the others."
"Why don't you stop me?"
"You have guns. You could kill all of us. Maybe you will leave someday."
"This man thinks I should go to Moscow and be an important person in their government."
"Then people will die in Moscow like they die here."
"You see," Dimishky said, "Cattle. No imagination, no spark." He pulled a knife from a hook on the wall. "You are fortunate that this important man from Moscow is in a hurry." He casually reached out and cut the woman's throat.
The rich smell of blood wasn't something he hadn't encountered before. People died. In his work, rather a lot of them died. Few died to as little purpose as this peasant woman. He bit down on any comment he might have made.
"Many people have died in our history," Dimishky said, "and there is always a need for those who are willing to kill." He wiped the knife on the coat and hung it back on its hook. "I confess I used to get more pleasure from it, but I am old and cannot work like I used to." He went to a corner and broke the ice on a bucket of water to wash his hands.
"Will your superiors will appreciate my work?"
"I don't think they care," Petrov said.
Petrov looked at the corpse hanging from the ceiling and shrugged.
"If you don't hurry, we will be late for the train."
"The people here will bless you for taking me away."
"And others will curse me for bringing you to them," Petrov shrugged again. "Some kill, some die, it is of no matter."
They walked out of the building and left the door swinging in the cold wind.
My children ran wild with anticipation. There were hordes of them. I stopped trying to count them. The desire to go on this outing would be enough to get even the most obstreperous on the bus. Whoever said children were angels hadn't met my brood.
The last layer of necessities laid in my case and I closed it up. I didn't need the bag, other than to set me apart from the others. I climbed the steps of the yellow bus and sat behind the driver. He sweated in the heat, or perhaps from nerves. He rolled his eyes like a steer being lead to slaughter. Whichever, he honked the horn quick enough when I tapped his shoulder.
The children screamed with excitement and ran toward the bus. They pushed and fought to get on, then continued their battle for the best seats. A grossly fat boy deliberately sat on a waif thin girl. His smug grin turned to a pained grimace, then panic. I allowed myself a smile. She must have found a tender part. The boy lumbered away. She sat up and wiped her mouth, then gave me a cheeky grin. Clever girl; I'd need to watch her.
An especially brave imp chose to claim the seat beside me. There was one on every trip who foolishly thought to claim a part of my space. The others watched to see what I'd do, so I smiled and patted him on the head. He made the mistake of looking at me. They all do. His grin faded, then the rest of him until I sat alone again.
The level of chaos on the bus dropped far enough, I tapped the driver on the shoulder again. He closed the door and shifted the bus into gear. The wailing of those left behind came faintly through the glass.
The children always wanted to know how far, though they never dared ask. The truth? I couldn't answer. Far didn't have any meaning here, neither did long. The ride felt like an eternity because crossed a piece of eternity.
Yet not quite eternal. I felt the sudden heady pull of time. We'd arrived. The driver lasted long enough to put the bus into park before entropy took over and he fell to pieces. The children poured off the bus into the light of the created world. Some of them couldn't hold themselves together in the time stream and vanished. Most managed to adapt and spread out into the world to explore and play.
The mortals surrounding us were unaware of our arrival. A couple of the more sensitive wrinkled their nose at what might have been a smell of death. Even if they could see us, they wouldn't believe. We've been relegated to the status of fairy tales and a certain class of fiction. Fights broke out between mortal children who'd been playing peacefully. My children were quick learners.
I looked around the park and spotted the person I wanted. They were always there; torturing themselves with their temptations. His desire oozed from his pores. I sat beside him and soaked it all in. The furtive looks, the aborted searches on the web, the fear someone like him might find his own children, the envy of the ones who dared to act on their desires. I left him staring avidly at a little blond child who played in the sand while two bigger children threw sand and punches at each other.
While the man clenched and unclenched his fists fighting his desire and fear, I sauntered over to a woman eating an ice cream as she watched the children play. I stood beside her and watched too. My children had thinned out. Causing strife was easy, but once done, it was done. No real sustenance to it. A punch, a few tears and it faded away. The ones who didn't learn quickly faded away and discovered the trip back much shorter than the journey here.
The real food lay in the struggle to choose between desire and restraint. The woman beside me frowned as one child, larger than the others, struggled to keep up. I glimpsed her view of herself in the mirror. She buried deep her loathing for all her perceived imperfections; a wrinkle here, a bulge there. Even the ice cream she ate tasted of both guilt and vanilla. The woman wanted to throw the cone away, but feared wasting food more than eating. The turmoil was delicious.
A disturbance on the other side of the playground caught my attention. A tall thin woman berated the man who'd been watching the little girl. Waves of self-righteousness washed over me from where I stood. The ice cream woman gathered her children and took them away. Her internal struggle over the sweet forgotten in fear for her children.
The waif from the bus stood to the side of the arguing pair. She saw me watching and shrugged, then went back to her feast. More subtle than the others, but still with a lot to learn. The shouting match drew in others and sound of sirens approached. There'd be plenty of drama, but it would vanish as quickly as it built.
I walked away from the park. The tiny blond girl followed me.
"Why do you do it?"
"You know why," I wanted to be anywhere but here, talking about this. She was new, probably on her first trip.
"I know what they tell us."
"It sustains us," I said.
"You don't need it," she said, "The light would sustain you."
"The light!" I choked on the word. For a moment I felt the cloying light which permeated everything, the pull to let it in, and the fear of what it would reveal.
She shook her head sadly.
"It would set you free," she said. She reached out a hand as if she were going to actually touch me, but stopped. The last thing I saw were the tears running down her face.
The familiar darkness and fire surrounded me. Others surrounded me sensing weakness. I growled and disemboweled one while I tore out the throat of another. The rest backed away, this time.
The girl was right, the light would set me free, after opening all the shadowed depths of my being and cleansing it of the envy and pride. The mortals think hell is fire and brimstone, but is is worse.
Hell is knowing what I could be, and what I have chosen to become.
deathevilhorror
General Fiction, Mixed Genre, Short shorts, Uncategorized
Cheese and Whisky
Joe leaned his cane against the counter and put the kettle on for tea. He put some biscuits on a plate and sliced some cheese to go with it. After a moment's thought, he put a jar of jam out as well. Cups and plates completed the setting. The door bell rang; he took a final glance at the little kitchen. It would do.
He picked up the cane on the way to the front door. A young women stood on the other side of the door. Everyone looked young to Joe now, but she couldn't be thirty yet. Youth glowed in her red hair and blue eyes. She smiled when she saw him. Joe liked that, even better were the faint smile lines around those blue eyes. He revised his estimate of her age upwards a decade.
"Hello, Mr. Baldur," she said, "My name is Gina, I talked to you on the phone yesterday."
"I remember," Joe said and opened the door, "Come on in. I've put water on." He led the way back to the kitchen. She put her purse under her chair and laid a pad and pencil on the table.
"Do you mind if I tape the interview?" Gina asked, "It's helpful to make sure that I don't misquote you."
"Fine by me," Joe said, "What do you take?"
"Just milk thanks," Gina said as she fished a tiny recorder out of her purse and placed it at the top of the pad. "Gina Stapopolous, interviewing Joe Baldur, January 28, 2010 at his home. Anything you don't want recorded just let me know and I will stop the recorder."
"Thanks for coming by Gina," Joe said, "It's nice to have a new audience for my old stories."
"I should start off with a few questions then. How old are you?"
"According to my birth certificate I am one hundred and fifty one this year."
"That's an extraordinary age Mr. Baldur."
"Please, call me Joe."
"OK then, Joe," she said, "Do you have any other way of proving your age? It isn't that I doubt you, but the oldest person on record is one hundred and seventeen and they live in a nursing home."
"I'm afraid that anyone that might remember the day of my birth is long gone." Joe smiled her. "I have no interest in trying to claim any record. I'm not interested in going through the media circus that would entail."
"Yet you took my call and invited me here…"
"I wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to have a pretty young woman give me her undivided attention."
Gina laughed and marked a point in the air with her finger.
"So tell me what it's like being your age?"
"Boring?"
"Not many people are interested in the elderly anymore. Getting other people to take care of your parents or grandparents is big business. Put them in a safe place and get on with the important work of living. No one gives much thought to what it's like for the old people who're pushed to the edges. The last decent conversation I had was with the paper boy. He was collecting his money and told me all about the hockey tournament he'd played in on the weekend. That was five years ago. Now the paper is delivered by a girl in a car and I pay online for the paper."
"Sounds lonely."
"That too," Joe admitted. He pushed the plate of biscuits toward his guest. "Help yourself."
Gina took a biscuit and put a slice of cheese on it.
"So if you are bored and lonely, why live by yourself and not talk about your age."
"All the fuss about my age would just add annoyed to bored and lonely. I don't want to be Methuselah."
"Methuselah?"
"The only thing anyone knows about him is that he lived to 969 years and was Lamech's dad. That would be me. I would just be 'the old guy'."
"So, what do you want to be known for?"
"That's a good question." Joe took a long sip of his tea and looked up at the ceiling. Gina picked up the biscuit on her plate and took a bite.
"O my, this is good," Gina said, "Where did you buy them?"
"I make them myself," Joe said, "I can teach you how."
"Really?" Gina gave herself a shake and looked at Joe. "Sorry, I didn't mean to distract you from your answer. What do you want to be known for?"
"A baker of really good biscuits wouldn't be a bad start," Joe said, "Try the jam, it's from the strawberries I grow out back."
Gina dutifully spread some of the ruby red jam on her biscuit and bit into it. She closed her eyes and sighed.
"Heaven," she said, "So what else can you do?"
"I make most of my own food from scratch," Joe said, "It isn't like I don't have time to give what I'm doing my full attention." He bit into his own biscuit and sighed.
"That sounds like good advice. My dad used to tell me something similar."
"Sounds like he's a smart fellow."
"He is, but he lives on the other side of the country now and I don't see him much."
"Don't have time?"
"He's pretty busy too," Gina said, "He's always off golfing with his buddies."
Joe just looked at her.
"All my friends are my age. They are just happy not to have their parents telling them how to live their lives anymore."
"Yes, that is a weakness of the elderly."
"Not just the old," Gina said, "You wouldn't believe how many times my girlfriend tries to tell me what to do with my life."
"Is her advice good?"
Gina laughed, "Heck no, she's into relationships like an alcoholic is into beer."
"Right, so it's about the effect not the taste." Joe took another bite of his biscuit. "So you put up with bad advice from your friend, but not good advice from your father?"
"Just because he's older doesn't mean the advice is better."
"True." Joe got up and opened the fridge, pulled out a tiny block of cheese and brought it back to the table. He carefully cut a slice. "Try this."
Gina took the tiny sliver of cheese from him and popped into her mouth. Joe watched as something close to ecstasy passed across her face.
"What is that?" Gina whispered.
"That is a ten year old cheddar," Joe said and passed her another sliver. "Some things, like cheese and whisky improve with age. If you have the patience and the knowledge to enjoy the difference."
"And you're saying that people are one of those things."
"Some people, in the right conditions," Joe said and cut himself a sliver of cheese. "I guess what I want is to keep improving with age."
Gina looked at him and smiled.
"I think I could say the same thing."
"It's no easier at my age." Joe cut her another slice of the cheese.
"But you manage."
Gina pushed the stop button on the recorder. She looked at the blank pad that sat in front of her and picked up the pencil.
"You offered to teach me how to make these biscuits, how about you give me the recipe, then you can teach me how to make it work."
"Only if you promise to make some for your dad and…."
"Come back to visit me." Joe looked at her, his heart thumping with nerves. He didn't want to be disappointed again.
"I think I can promise you that," Gina said.
Joe grinned, "I'm feeling a hundred years younger now." He went to the cupboards and began pulling out bowls and ingredients. "The trick to good biscuits is in how you mix them…"
agecheesefriendshipwhisky


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