Category: play through

Dear Tareq and Michaele Salahi,

Since I have now taken over the PR storytelling duties for Tiger, you’re next.

So, herewith, five reasonable and acceptable stories to explain your behavior.

Pick one, say it, and then please, on behalf of everyone (I’m asking nicely) go away.

Here we go:

1) Well, you know, that Tareq (Michaele rolls her eyes here), he will *never* ask anyone for directions. I told him I didn’t think turning left back there was the right direction, but he swore up and down this was the right way. We were supposed to be at a nice dinner party over at the Farklebergs. You know the Farklebergs? Lovely couple. Anyhow, I have no idea how we ended up here. Could we get a ride to the Farkleberg party? Margie will be beside herself if we are late! And I know Tareq doesn’t want to miss her famous mini quiches!

2) What? Where am I? Who am I? I was abducted by aliens. The big greenish gray ones. They came into my room, forced me to put on this tux/dress and then there was a bright light. I don’t remember what happened next. When I came to, I was shaking the president’s hand. I really have no idea what happened! I think they may have probed me.

3) Oh heck, haw haw haw, this is all one big practical joke! I mean, everyone was in on it, c’mon, this is all a big press stunt for that reality show (which I’ll refrain from naming)! No seriously, they paid us well and we donated it all to charity. No one snuck past the Secret Service, it was all planned out. Everything is *fine*, hasn’t this all been a great big hoot?

4) Look, now that you have totally blown our cover…we can only say that we are part of a top secret black hole government project and we *may* have perfected the ability to beam ourselves through the space time continuum. It’s not totally perfect yet, Michaele’s face wasn’t quite so pulled back and *tight* when we beamed up, but we’re getting close to a technology that will BLOW YOUR MIND. That’s all I can say. Hush, hush you know.

5) Tiger’s dad told us to. From the grave. It was all very mystical.

And there you have it.

Now scootch along. We’ve other media whores to deal with. Where’s Lindsey or Brittney or Paris? We’re due for a stunt from the professional crazies!

Anyhow, hugs and kisses!

Your pal,

Karen

Dear Tiger Woods,

You seem to be having a skosh of trouble recently with your personal life, and you’ve managed to kick over the rock, allowing all the creepy, crawly, greasy things to begin speculating about you in the media.

The PR people say address it fast and be confident about it, then get it out of the way.

Well, you’ve tarried on the “fast” part of it, thus making the frenzy worse.

But now, my friend, you need a good story, and fast.

As I am a teller of stories, I have come up with a list of five stories you can sell to the media and thus get your fabulous self out of trouble.

You can thank me later.

Herewith, five good reasons why Tiger drove his Cadillac into a tree:

1. The baby was sick and I needed to go to an all night pharmacy to get medication. I was so very exhausted, having been up with her all night, that I accidentally ran into that fire hydrant. I had only the best interest of my daughter in mind.

2. I was sleepwalking. I’m seeing a doctor about this debilitating condition. Please respect the privacy of me and my family during this troubling time.

3. I shanked one! Heh, heh, no seriously folks, since my game has been off a bit lately (bad knee and all) and the Chevron World Challenge is coming up, I wanted to go for a drive to clear my head. Perhaps I was thinking a bit too much about my swing and not paying attention to where I was going.

4. My wife and I were having a disagreement. I stepped away to cool off and whoops, the car got away from me. I’ve since realized that my wife is the best thing in my life (thanks for breaking out that window, dear) and from here out I will strive to be a better man, a better husband and a better father. (an invocation of God at this point would really seal the deal)

5. My dad told me to. From the grave. It was a very mystical moment.

See? This isn’t that hard!

C’mon Tiger, give us a good story and put this crap to rest, eh?

Thanks.

Your pal,

Karen

Management…hamburger style

Currently, at the building across the way, there are some gentlemen hard at work putting a new roof on the two-story structure.

Roofing has got to be some grueling, backbreaking work, and they’ve been toiling at this for a few days now.

About an hour ago, all work went quiet over there. I thought maybe they were on a break. They weren’t on a break.

It appears they were having a little conference. What they’d call in the corporate world, a “root cause analysis”.

I suspect they discovered what, or rather, whom was at the center of the mistake, because I could then hear the supervisor of this project having a one-on-one mentoring conversation, loudly, with his employee.

Let’s keep this a family friendly post…for all the instances of the eff word, I will substitute a more appropriate word.

Oh let’s have fun with it, let’s use the word “hamburger.”

Here we go, a faithful recounting of this clearly very hands on and empathetic manager as he guides his employee through a big error.

Remember: hamburger = eff word

“You hamburgered up. You hamburgered this whole thing up. I didn’t hamburger up. All the rest of these hamburgering guys didn’t hamburger this thing up. What in the hamburgering hell were you thinking? You weren’t thinking and you hamburgered this hamburgering thing all to hell. What the hamburger, man?! What the hamburger happened?”

: sound of employee mumbling, trying to explain his reason for hamburgering everything up :

“You what? You what? Who the hamburger told you to do that? I sure as hell didn’t hamburgering tell you to do that! Now this whole hamburgering project is running behind and that costs hamburgering money? Do you get that? Do get that you’ve cost every hamburgering one of us some hamburgering time and some hamburgering money?”

: more mumbling :

“Aw man, what the hamburger. Get back to work!”

And with that, all the machines started up again, the smell of tar once again filled the air, and the team of folks got back to roofing.

This, among the many reasons why I feel so fortunate to be able to work a white collar gig. I’m pretty hamburgering sure that if my boss ever talked to me that way, I’d have a pretty good hamburgering lawsuit I’d think about.

There but for the grace of…

Every once in a while, you hear about a car accident where someone has managed to get onto a highway going the wrong way.

Generally, the driver is drunk and the consequences are pretty bad.

I’ve always wondered, honestly, how in the hell that could happen? I mean, even drunk, how could you take the wrong ramp for the highway? Isn’t it very, very obvious?

So, I’ve been a bit harsh on this topic. That is, until today.

Today, distracted, but perfectly sober, in broad daylight, I managed to swing onto the wrong side of an onramp/offramp for an expressway.

I’m still not exactly sure how I managed to do this. It is a weird intersection, but that is no excuse.

I’ve driven this intersection plenty of times. I’ve always navigated it fine, but today, I swung the left turn, picked the wrong side of the road, and found myself facing traffic coming head on.

Thankfully, I was able to take quick evasive action and no one was hurt, no accident happened, and I escaped shaken but fine.

But my mind is totally blown by this little event.

So maybe it’s not so hard to get going the wrong way on a major highway.

I’m not excusing the devastation caused by the people who were driving drunk and managed to cause a lot of injury by making this mistake.

But maybe I understand it a little better now.

Going analog

You know, these tough economic times call for a bit of tightening on the ol’ belt.

Have to go back to the old ways. The simpler ways. The cheaper ways.

So with that, from here on, all my missives will come across in analog form.

That’s right. Sure, it will be a little tougher to shove those bits through that cable and out onto the interwebs.

But in tighter times, we all have to work a little harder. Make more of an effort to get there. Put a little elbow grease into it.

And I’m up to the challenge.

Maybe a little more arm and finger strain. Sure. But back in the day, they never heard of no stinking carpel tunnel syndrome! Nope, you just played through! And you liked it!

Ok, no, actually, this little beauty is the reason I traversed the Bay Bridge a couple days ago. I found this on Craig’s List and got a pretty sweet deal on a barely used Underwood typewriter. The guy selling it was cleaning out the attic, preparing to move. This belonged to his wife’s family, that’s about all he knew.

From my research, I have found that it dates to the 1940’s and is in really great condition. The coolest feature is that the bottom of the case has these fold out legs. Basically, the whole case turns into a little desk, a work surface for “in the field” work.

It’s such an amazing work of engineering.

Why did I buy this boat anchor, you might ask? Well, I had an idea. And if it all works out, you’ll see it all come together in a few weeks. Hopefully anyway.

For now, I’m enjoying the smell and sound of this fully manual machine. It has a great *ding* bell sounds and *zip* back goes the carriage. Yep, it’s fully functional! Some of the keys stick, so I’m looking for a shop that can tune it up.

The rat-a-tat sounds reminds me of, sure, that typing class I told you about last week. But it also calls to mind the sound of my mom working the keys. She had an old Royal (pretty sure it was a Royal) and back in the day, my mom was a professional secretary (administrative assistant) and that woman could type like crazy. 100 wpm, no mistakes.

Anyhow, stay tuned. You may see more of this little beauty!