Huffington Seminar

I'm at a seminar hosted by Arianna Huffington. I'm not exactly sure what she's presenting, but it's a fairly crowded house. There are two guys who seem very interested in the seminar and have coments to present. I find them rather arrogant and they've apparently been to some of Arianna's previous seminars. Arianna starts playing some music and they make the comment something to the effect of "this isn't that music by so and so is it?" Arianna is a bit flustered by these guys, but doesn't let it show. I walk over during a break and have a little conversation with her about them. She and I are pretty much in agreement that they are jerks. After the break, I take a seat near the guys. We are sitting on the floor. Gordon walks in and takes a seat near them, too. One of the guys makes some comment to Gordon. It's not a very nice comment, but Gordon doesn't respond. After awhile, the same guy who commented to Gordon puts his feet on me. I push them away and tell him to stop, but he puts them back. At this point I get up and tell the guy to stop being such a jerk. He stands up, too. I tell him to take a seat. He dares me to say that again. I don't recall saying it again, but we start fighting anyway. I find in my dreams I'm horrible at fighting. I have a very defeatest attitude and all my punches feel like I'm hitting the guy with a nerf bat or something. I'm wearing steel toed boots, but that doesn't come into play. At least not that I know of. The fight just sort of fades out. I think the assumption is that I lost, but I don't feel bad because I stood up for what I believed.

Office Friend?

I'm working at InterContinental Hotels Group one day and I'm out on a break or something. I get on the elevator to go to the lobby and I start having a conversation with a guy on the elevator. He's someone I vaguely recognize from Worldspan, but I'm not quite able to place him. I'm not sure what we were talking about, but it was an interseting conversation. I continue to talk with him after we reach the lobby and we end up walking over to another elevator and getting in. I notice that this elevator doesn't go up to the 24th floor, but stops at the 8th floor. I tell the guy I'm talking with that I'll just go up with him and then head back down. We continue talking and when we reach his floor he asks if I'm going to the meeting with him. I find that somewhat odd, but I say that I'm just going to go back down. Later that day I get an email from the guy. He basically asks if he had fun today following him around and that I can't do that anymore. He says he works for Hilton and it's just not appropriate to be going around with me. I'm offended by the email because I had no intention of following him to whatever meeting he was going to. I was just enjoying the conversation. I send him back a note saying basically that. I write the whole thing off and prepare to leave for the day. On my way out, I see the guy. I ignore him and start heading out to my car. As I'm going out, another guy yells out to me that he wants to play some racquetball sometime soon and he wonders if I'll join him. I say sure. At that point, the guy I was talking to in the elevator comes over and appologizes. Apparently the fact that I'm doing something with someone else doesn't make me a desperate fool looking for a single friend. That makes it okay for us to be friends. I say okay, but the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Backyard Camping

I'm in the backyard camping with my brother (I don't actually have a brother). We're around 10 years old, though I'm the younger brother. My brother decides we should sneak into the house. I follow his lead and we sneak into the house. The house is actually my grandmother's, though the door leads into the den where there never was a door. I take off my boots and follow my brother down the hall towards the kitchen. There is some intense security in the kitchen. Two motion sensored guns attach to the ceiling, and there seem to be other sensors around, too. We are only concerned about the guns, though. We duck behind the counter and try to stay out of the view of the guns. I try to sample how much reaction time the guns have by throwing stuff out in the open. The gun closest fires at the object, but the kickback from the blasts make for unpredictable fire in other directions. We are almost hit be some of the random fire. I pull out a dishcloth in order to cover the sensor of the gun with it. After trying to distract the gun and place the dishcloth over it a few times, I finally succeed. We're both pretty shaken up by the gun experience. Now, my brother says he wanted to break some stuff because our father hadn't been paying enough attention to him lately. Now, though, he's changed his mind and just wants to get out of the house. He gets no argument from me. At this point I have some concern that our conversation may be being recorded by one of the other sensors. I make some outrageous comment that might confuse the recorder if it is. We head back down the hall and into the den. I put my boots back on, but my brother tells me I'm making too much noise. He fears our father will wake up. I hear some noise coming from across the hall (my grandmother's old bedroom, now occupied by my father). We run out of the house and jump into our sleeping bags. I realize I'm still wearing my coat, so I try to cover that fact up when my father yells out to us to see if we're okay. We say that we're fine and let out a sigh of relief.

The next morning I'm watching TV and there's a news report about a break-in at my place. They play some audio clip from the break-in and it's my brother's voice and mine. I'm very worried about this thing and I run to get my brother and show him. The clip doesn't say anything incriminatory against us, but we are concerned that there might be more. At dinner that night, the break-in is the height of the conversation. My brother eventually can't handle it anymore and confesses that he's the one who broke in. Not only that, he points to me and says I was with him. For some reason, we both know that our niece Maeby (clearly an Arrested Development reference) was in on the break-in, too, but I decide not to incriminate her as well. We both seem on the same page in that. Our father is most displeased with this and puts us both in the attic to think about what we've done. He calls the police and lets them know what he's found out and to stop the investigation. We're up in the attic and I ask my brother if he'd like to play a game while we're up here. We're both kind of reluctant, though, because we're up here for punishment and it would be bad if our father walked up while we were playing games. Our father eventually comes up and lectures us about the break-in. I think somewhere in this lecture, my dad realizes that he's been neglecting my brother and he lets us know that he'll spend more time with us.

Sesame Street Connection

I've been at my job for about 3 months. Throughout that time I haven't really been given anything to do. What I have been given has been pretty boring and unimportant. On Friday, my boss informed me that my role will be solidified and I will find myself busy again. Of course, the position isn't the best, but should be temporary. That's enough for the background.

I'm in the lobby of the company waiting for the elevator. I look around and see Bob from Sesame Street. Apparently he works at the company, but in the entertainment section because he stars on Sesame Street. Nevermind that my company has absolutely nothing to do with PBS or entertainment, but he was there and part of the company nonetheless. We started talking and he mentioned that he has a big influence in the company and would love to smooth things over with the boss of my boss. He was going to tell them how talented I am and that I should be doing big and important things. I'm feeling somewhat hesitant about the whole thing, but I'm not about to tell Bob that I don't want his help. This is Sesame Street Bob after all. You don't tell him to go away. We take a ride up in the elevator and get to my floor. He sees that the director is busy with some other people in a meeting of some sort. So, we wait outside. I decide to go put my laptop down at my desk. The director looks suspiciously like Gianni. I'm worried that Bob going in there and talking with him will look like I'm the one complaining, not Bob. This worries me because just last Friday we came to an agreement on my role, so this might seem really bad. I head back over to the director's office and the meeting appears to be going on still. I look around for Bob, but I can't find him. After a few minutes, the meeting begins to break up. I'm thinking about going back to my seat when Bob shows up. We both go into the director's office and Bob starts talking about what they need to do with me. Bob's celebrity status clearly has some pull, but I sense the director is very displeased with this situation. I don't really remember how it turns out. It's nice to have Bob on my side, though.