A Simple Plan.

I woke up Kat when I got back to Jill's office, and she could see that I was still a bit shaken up. I told her not to worry about it, that everything was fine and she settled back to sleep. But it wasseveral more hours before I could, even after writing that last post.

This morning started out like most others. We gathered in the Cyber Café for breakfast as we always do. Today, I offered to "make breakfast," which basically consists of reaching into the vending machine or refrigerator and getting out whatever anyone wants. The glass on the front of the vending machine didn't last long once it was discovered that we were going to stay here.

"I closed the door to the conference room downstairs last night," I presented to the room. I had realized that I needed to talk about what had happened and my feelings on it or the guilt would eat me alive. If it was a person, a real live person, in that conference room...

"Oh?" Bryan asked absently. I always wondered if Bryan paid attention to anything that happened around here. But then again, I wonderd that half the time long before the streets were filled with walkers.

So I told them the whole thing, how it moved around and I saw it, or at least part of it and how I locked it in there. "But, you know, what if it's not, you know... one of them. I mean, what if it's just someone--"

"Someone who hasn't come out of that room in what? What is it, eight days now? Well, six since we went down there, anyway." This was Gregg. "Come on, John. It's not possible. How could he--"

"Or she," interjected Elisabeth. "He could just as easily be a she."

Gregg turned on her. "You wanna argue about gender equality now, Lis? Come on! Jesus! Seriously, guys. I mean, come on, it's not possible that anyone could survive for eight, no even six days without--"

"The vending machines!" Everyone turned to Kat. She generally didn't say much at mealtimes anymore. She'd never been able to get a hold of her husband and had really quited down since then. Before all this shit went down, Kat was always laughing and cracking stupid jokes and singing '80s songs. Hell, she even had an inventory of her 700 different karaoke songs. But ever since, and especially since I'd heard from Lin; if you count understanding one word hearing from... "I totally forgot about the vending machines downstairs," she continued. "They have way more than we do up here. Someone should have plenty to eat if they are staying down there."

"But you guys went down there," said Sara. "To keep the doors locked. And I know Gregg has been down there since then and, I mean, why wouldn't he... or she, have called out or said something."

"Maybe they can't," I offered. "What if whoever it is is hurt or injured to where they can't talk and can-- look, I'm not saying it's likely, I'm just saying that it's bothering me not knowing. You know, not knowing for sure."

"You know, guys," Gregg said after a moment. "Even if Johnny-boy here is wrong and it is one of those things, well what an opportunity. I mean, come on, it's right under our noses all this time. If it's one of those... those... what did you call... oh yeah, streetwalkers, then, I mean, look at it. It's been down there, what, six, maybe eight days and it hasn't left that conference room?"

"That we know of," threw in Elisabeth.

"That we know of," Gregg conceded. "But we've been down there, and I'm telling you... you all saw this... those things swarm at us when they can see us. Damned near knocked the doors down trying to get at us. But that fella just stayed in there. Maybe knocked a few chairs over and stumbled around. He must be in pretty bad shape." And now he leaned forward and had a devilish grin on his face. "If we could get our hands on one of them then maybe we can figure out what the hell is going on out there!" He waved dramatically toward the windows where that green mist still hung in the air. He then leaned back dramatically and put his hands behind his heads. "And if it is someone alive, someone like us, we can see how good a medic Bryan really is."

"What? No, I mean, I took like one CRP training course," Bryan said looking around startled. "It was required for management. I'm not--" but then everyone broke out laughing; well everyone except for Mr. Cain. Even Kat cracked a smile at that one. It was good to see her acting a little more alive. Mr. Cain continued staring intently at his coffee. That was one thing we certainly had plenty of. Coffee and bottled water.

So it was settled then. Gregg decided that it was our duty, in the name of humanity and/or for the sake of science we needed to either rescue a wounded man or capture a live specimen. It's what I wanted, I guess, but it just feels kind of weird, now. Like Gregg turned it into some kind of a game. He was certainly prancing around the floor with a lot more animation than usual.

I was reading The Surrogates #1 again, trying to speculate where they may have been going with it, since it was likely never going to be finished now, when Gregg swung by. He swatted me casually on the top of my foot, which I had resting on the corner of my desk, and pointed at me. "We're heading down after lunch, big guy, to save your friend's life. It's you, me, Kat and Elisabeth on this one." And just like that, he was gone.

Bryan had either opted out again, or had not been invited. I don't honestly think he's left the floor since this whole thing went down. Knee surgery or no knee surgery, shouldn't he at least do something? Of course, Mr. Cain and Sara hadn't really contributed much either. Well, Sara contributed to the drama, so I guess she's got that going for her. Should look great on a resume.

Follow-Up.

I saw something fall down in the Conference Room and I thought it was coming toward the door. It was a person, or at least it looked like one. I saw it briefly as it passed in front of a shaded window that allowed a bit of light to penetrate the room. I know I saw an arm coming up, but then it was going down sideways and I lost it in the gloom. I sure as hell wasn't going to take any chances what with being by myself and weaponless like that. Stupid is what that was and I'm damned lucky to be alive and writing this right now. Well, I guess I am. Shit, I really don't know anything about anything that was going on in that room. I just know I was scared out of my mind. God, I'm actually coated with sweat.

I don't think my heart beat once in the time it took me to race across the lobby. And I don't know how I found the nerve (though not thinking about it at all probably helped), but I sprinted straight for the Conference Room and swung the door shut, heard it latch and then grabbed a heavy wooden chair that was sitting nearby and propped it under the handle.

So, I guess I either locked in a streetwalker, or I locked in someone who's hurt or injured or just needs help and was reaching out to me. Shit. But I was all alone and I didn't know and... Shit!

Sitting.

I'm sitting in the lobby now. Just me. I came down here to think and, I don't know, to make this all somehow real. Sitting up there looking out the window, it's like watching a movie or something. There's some new ones here, now. The fat lady's gone, but there's an old man now banging on the door with his cane. Somehow, he hasn't lost, let go, or just plain forgotten about it. And she's still here.

I'm calling her Crystal because she reminds me of a girl from the neighborhood I grew up in. She has this sweetness in her eyes. I won't be able to stay here long, I can already see their numbers growing as they push harder and harder against the glass. Even Crystal's mouth is open in a snarl now. How many days has it been. My god, maybe we were wrong. I mean it's how many degrees out there every day and there they stand but they're not decaying or atrophying or rigor mortis-ing or whatever you'd think dead bodies would start to do. Even the fellow on the floor is starting to decay... and smell. But they don't eat then, do they? How long has Crystal been standing here with nary a bite to eat. Why, she's got to be positively starving.

But I remember enough about Romero's "Dead" movies to know what they probably want to eat--

Shit, sorry, lost my train of thought. there was a noise off to the left and I thought someone had come down. Oh, that's right. We never did find out what was making that noise in the Conference Room. And me with the lobby desk between me and the stairwell. Can't even see around it to see that side of the lobby, sitting on the floor. Listening as hard as I can, but I can't hear anything.

I can't see anything in there now. Of course, standing up like this, keying into a Blackberry with a pen lid like a moron, whatever's in there can probably see me. It's pitch black in the depths of that room. Maybe I should just close the door and bar it with a chair.

Shit, if it's been in there all this time and it hasn't been eating then it's gotta be

Lin.

Oh my god, it was Lin. I saw her name and I couldn't believe it. I don't know if I've breathed since--

I couldn't make out much, but it was her voice. I know she said Alex' name but she was crying, but was it joy or sorrow or what and I tried to talk to her but then I just wanted to listen, remembering that someone had once told me I can't hear them talking if I'm talking on a cell phone. Hell, I don't know I'm stupid about phones, but it was her and I could hear her, but the signal was shit.

When it faded to static and I'd still not made out anything comprehensible save Alex' name, I started shouting, I love you, I love you, I love you into the phone. She's alive. Somehow, somewhere and maybe it's okay where she's at. Maybe it's just fucked up here and maybe she and Alex and Boka and Copper and everyone is okay out there and god can you imagine?

What if it is just here and they're coming and the world is going on as normal out there somewhere and... I've gotta tell Kat. Maybe she can reach her husband, now. Maybe it's

Tension.

Everybody stinks, everybody has cabin fever and these people all suck! Man wasn't meant to spend this much time with coworkers. Elisabeth and Sara got into it today. Sara's the Accountant's secretary. His name is Mr. Cain. I'm sure he has a first name, but he's not deemed us worthy of knowing it, I guess, and Sara hasn't offered it up either.

I came in late, and didn't know what they were arguing about, and just walked on by because quite frankly, I don't care anymore. Sara has tried picking fights with everyone on the floor at one time or another. She did it to me once and I just turned around and walked back to my office without saying a word to her. Inside and locked the door. She shouted through it for awhile, but eventually walked away. Didn't talk to me the rest of the day. Maybe I should walk away from her more often.

I made my way to my old desk. Kat and I had gotten to calling the office we slept in our office, but this day I went to my original desk. I sat there for a bit, sketching up some cartoons and trying to write a little bit until I couldn't take it anymore. "Jesus fucking Christ," I shouted. "Just shut the fuck up or go outside and fight about it!"

This was our new solution to any bickering or arguments. For whomever was fighting or getting on our nerves to go outside. Funny, stuff I know. I never did find out what they were arguing about, but it ended with an office door slamming. This time it was Sara who slammed the door, as Elisabeth stomped past me and to the windows by Virginia's desk.

I tried again to concentrate on the poem I was trying to write, but her breathing was heavy and I just knew she was breathing that way on purpose so someone would go over there and let her vent. God, I finally gave it up altogether and got up quiety and went into the Cyber Cafe to work. Gregg and Bryan were in there playing that stupid collectible card game they'd found and now played all the time. I tried to sit in once, but they told me there weren't enough cards for all three of us to play. I waited a moment to see if either would offer to get up and let me play, but it didn't happen. I don't even ask anymore. I swear to god, if it weren't for Kat being here, I think I might go mad. Locked up for day son ends with geeks is hard. Even if I am a geek myself, which I'm sure I am. It's something about historic wars and having Charlemagne go up against Genghis Khan or Napoleon or whatever.

So now I'm back in the office and the poem is gone so I'm writing this. Haven't been updating as much, but I think I've been in a bit of a funk. Same thing every day. I'm so fucking sick of snack machine food I could burst. I can see the little convenience store in the lobby of the Met Square across the street. Only a couple hundred streetwalkers between me and food variety. I would kill for one of Tarzan's rope vines right about now. Swoop down from the second floor to the first over there and eat like a king. How the hell I'd get out is another matter altogether.

I've been turning on my phone only for about thirty minutes each day to check messages and stay alive. I seem to have a signal, but still can't reach Lin or anyone. Haven't found a charger that works for mine here but... holy shit, it's ringing!

Happy Anniversary.

We've been trapped in this damned building for a solid week now. People are starting to smell, and Gregg's breath is positively reeking! Plus, he's been out of cigarettes for a few days and he gets really pissy when he doesn't get his fix. I'm glad the offices lock so I can get away for awhile.

Calgon, take me away!

Inventory.

Let's see...

Graphic Novels
The Kindaichi Case Files Volumes 8- 11 @ $9.99 ea. (Tokyopop)

Comic Books
Johnny Caronte: Zombie Detective & The Revolver @ %5.99 (Alias)
Last Hero Standing #5 (of 5) @ $2.99 (Marvel)
The Legend of Isis #1 @ $2.99 (Alias)
The Legend of Isis: Beginnings @ $9.99 (Alias)
The Losers #25 @ $2.99 (DC/Vertigo)
Lullaby #3 @ $2.95 (Image)
Machine Teen #2 (of 5) @ $2.99 (Marvel)
New X-Men: Hellions #2 (of 4) @ $2.99 (Marvel)
The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Fantastic Four 2005 @ $3.99 (Marvel)
The OMAC Project #3 (of 6) @ $2.50 (DC)
Outsiders #25 @ $2.50 (DC)
The Pact #3 (of 4) @ $2.95 (Image)
Pakkins' Land #2 @ $2.99 (Alias)
Penny and Aggie #1 (of 4) @ $2.99 (Alias)
Planetary #23 @ $2.99 (DC/WildStorm)
Runaways #5 @ $2.99 (Marvel)
Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #3 (of 4) @ $2.99 (DC)
Fantastic Four #528 @ $2.99 (Marvel)
Shaun of the Dead #1 (of 4) @ $3.99 (IDW)
Solo #5 @ $4.99 (DC)
Spawn #147 @ $2.50 (Image/TMP)
Spider-Man/Human Torch #5 (of 5) @ $2.99
The Surrogates #1 (of 5) @ $2.95 (Top Shelf)
Tenth Muse #2 @ $2.99 (Alias)
Witchblade #86 @ $2.99 (Image/Top Cow)
Wonder Woman #217 @ $2.25 (DC)
X-Men #172 @ $2.50 (Marvel)
X-Men: Kitty Pryde: Shadows & Flame #1 (of 5) @ $2.99 (Marvel)
Young Avengers #5 @ $2.99 (Marvel)
Zombie Tales @ $6.99 (Boom!/Atomeka)

Books
A Gentleman's Game: A Queen & Country Novel / by: Greg Rucka @ $24.00

(that last comic book there could come in handy... maybe some helpful tips.) someone here is reading The Da Vinci Code, but I'd already read that. Wish they'd had Angels & Demons as I hadn't gotten to read that one yet. Boredom is setting in something fierce.

This is good and valuable stuff.

On The Streets Of St.Louis.

Kat and I have developed a game. See, many of the streetwalkers stay in generally the same area. They wander around, bumping into each other, and occasionally even doing things that normal people would do: picking up a paper, rummaging through the trash. We even thought we saw one of the homeless people doing this, and considering the state of this woman before, we couldn't be sure if she was a streetwalker or still her old self.

Kat started it. She pointed out a female and male streetwalker who'd been walking around the corner where the hot dog stand is set up; or what is left of it. The female bumped into the male and Kat says: "Oh, excuse me. I didn't see you there."

The male tripped and fell down, then stumbling back to its feet. It turned back toward the female and stood there, rocking back and forth. "Not at all," I said in a chirpy British accent. "Wouldn't have happened if I hadn't downed that bottle of scotch."

The female turned and walked away. I shouted: "Well... well, fine then! Knock a guy over and don't even offer him a shag?"

Little vignettes of normalcy. God, we need to raid the rest of the building for books, DVDs, music, anything. I'm already bored with everything I've found here. That, and we need to find food. But everyone's afraid to be on the 19th floor and have the power go out or otherwise find out they got in. We couldn't know if any other floors were secure; we know the 12th floor isn't thanks to our friend Bob Scheifler, the accountant.

Lockdown.

We passed the test. The building is secure. We sent Gregg down, on account of it was his assurances that we were in the clear, and he came back stating that the doors were still locked. However, there was another clang in the direction of the conference room, so the building may not be as secure as we think; or maybe there's just one straggler. Either way, we're safe to face another day, and I think I'm going to do just that by sleeping through just as much of it as possible!

Romero Was Right.

"Romero was right," Gregg said, as we all stopped, despite ourselves, in the lobby. The sight of the little girl clawing at the glass and raging at us with those eyes devoid of any innocence had simply sapped our ability to move. Mission accomplished, but whatever euphoria we'd felt in the confines of that little office were gone now in the face of the mob in the darkness, cast in an eery glow by the lights coming through the glass from within the buidling. Dashed by one little girl.

"What?" Elisabeth was asking, but I didn't need to. "You don't really think they're--" I asked, but he cut me off. "There's no other explanation, is there. I mean look at them. Look at her." He was pointing at the little girl again. He was right, of course he was right. But, I mean, he couldn't possibly be right. How could he be right.

"What the hell are you guys talking about," Elisabeth shouted. Her voice broke through the daze and I spoke up, "We should probably get back upstairs. Maybe after we leave they'll stop trying to get in so hard."

"Yeah, maybe." We made our way to the stairwell without incident and got back up to the second floor. Gregg fumbled a bit with the access code, while I kept looking downstairs expecting something to come slithering up from the depths of the basement, or worse. But nothing did and before too long we were working the codes and opening the main doors. Kat screamed when the door opened, but we came in so quickly, she couldn't do much more. Still, she chastised us for not calling beforehand to warn them.

Apparently they'd watched the mob coming toward the door downstairs, but didn't know what it meant and for awhile wondered if they weren't getting in. Kat hugged us all, me last. While still embracing me she said, "You idiots could've called and told us what was going on."

"Well," I smiled. "We fixed the locks. Well, actually Gregg did." Kat let go and gave Gregg a high-five. Bryan had turned back toward the window. "They're dispersing a bit," he said. "The ones furthest back mainly, but it looks like they're not as interested in getting in here as they were while you kids were down there."

"Thank god for that," Gregg said. We hadn't mentioned the body on the floor, nor the burns, nor especially the litte girl, nor Gregg's comments about Romero. At her insistence, I pulled Elisabeth aside and explained what Gregg meant by that. I convinced her that it was best not to tell anyone about our theory and she agreed. But just as I told Kat shortly thereafter, I have no doubt that she told Bryan and maybe even the accountant and his secretary. Hell, if they had truly killed that guy in the lobby, they maybe knew better than any of us.

It's almost seven o'clock. Man, I did not intend to stay up all night writhing this. Wow, just checked outside the office here and it looks like everyone else is still up, too. Playing card games. Moment of truth, I guess. Time to see if Gregg earned his paycheck.

Paint a Picture.

Allow me to paint you a picture. While it was dark outside, the lights in the lobby reflected on the streetwalkers outside the doors. I spent five years of my life in college, and two of those living in a college dorm, so I know what drunken college kids look like. Except for the fact that they were of all ages, including children and the elderly, the faces and eyes of the streetwalkers exhuded little more than the dull, bloodshot, unfocused, bleary expression that the eagerly toasted on campus display.

The assailant of our two new tenants upstairs was lying prostate on the ground, face down, feet extended back toward the door he had purportedly forced his way through. It was his appearance that had elicted Elisabeth's scream. There was a pool of blood around his head, but that wasn't the most startling thing. Approximatley three quarters of his head appeared to have been severely burned, along with a good portion of his clothing. It was hard to tell from this distance, but as he clearly wasn't moving and the blood indicated that even if alive he was in no shape to be any real danger, so Elisabeth and I crept closer.

I'd never seen a real live dead body; well, not a human one anyway, and so I found myself inexplicably drawn toward this man's final resting place. I didn't even register the activity beyond the glass windows and doors not two feet from where is feet lie. The right side of his body was bloody, scraped and torn; his shirt and jeans hanging in tattered shreds. His shoe was missing from that foot as well, and what remained of his sock was scarcely enough to cover one toe. Gregg was rummaging around behind the security counter.

He popped up with a couple of flashlights and a keyring. "Maybe there's a key to their server room on here," he offered. While we both glanced up and acknowledged his words, Elisabeth and I were too engrossed in the sight before us to respond with much more than a non-committal grunt.

There was no way the accountant and his lover could have done this kind of damage, no matter what weaponry they may have had. But what--

"The explosions," Elisabeth suddenty said, excited like a student who's suddenly stumbled upon an elusive solution. "Remember, Johnny, when the fog hit? When all this shit went down, there were all those explosions. Maybe this guy was caught in that."

And of course, she had to be right. I knelt down closer to his face, careful to keep the toe of my shoe from the dark stain on the carpet. How could someone who'd taken this kind of damage in an explosion several days prior showed up here today, trying to fight his way into this building? And why? His face was turned to the carpet, and I gently pulled, so as to get his mouth out of his own blood. With a thick squelch, his head popped free and flopped over to the other side. With an audible gasp I skidded back on my butt, and found my hand involuntarily going to my mouth, just like an eighteenth century lady gasping daintily. Embarassed, I let it drop.

The man's right-side was horribly charred and blackened. His cheek was torn, or burned, down to where I could see some of his teeth poking through. His ear was little more than a misshappen lump with a black hole, while his eye socket was a gaping maw in which something reddish-pink could be seen in its depths. Elisabeth gasped as well and I could hear her breathing increase as well.

"I know," I started. "It's horrible how--" but she cut me off. "No, not that. Not him. Outside!" She was on her feet and backing away from the front doors. I turned from one horrid sight to behold one its equal and yet so far beyond in multitude and implication, that I was stunned motionless. Elisabeth kept moving back toward Gregg, who having gathered what he was interested in from the Security counter was making his way toward the far corridor away from the elevator banks toward the building office.

"Come on, Johnny," I heard Elisabeth's petite voice pleading. "We're agitating them. Come on!" She was right. It had to be us. When first I'd glanced to the glass, I'd noticed the hundreds of bodies walking along the street and the sidewalk, but hadn't paid them much more attention than I had when viewing them from the windows above. But now, now they were most of them pressing against the glass, scraping and clawing at the windows, as if trying to shatter the glass with their very fingertips. Their eyes that had been vacant and directionless were at this moment boring directly into me with a vile hatred and loathing I've never seen on any face before.

Suddenly, with a bang, a very heavy set woman pounded into the glass, knocking several others to the side. She began to pound and I swore I could see the glass shaking, though I imagine this was impossible. Still, there were so many of them pushing and fighting. The woman's impact broke my stasis and I scrambled to my feet, slipping once in the pool, kicking my heel directly into the vacant eye socket, before achieving my feet and running toward Gregg and Elisabeth.

We skidded around down the hall until the corner between us and the front doors blocked our sight of it, and presumably their sight of us. We argued for a bit on whether or not to abandon our mission, considering the risk of them getting through that glass with the determination they were now showing, but realizing that they were virtually guaranteed entrance come seven the next morning, we presevered.

The fifth key Gregg tried opened the office. Once inside, things went much smoother than they had any right to. A post-it note on the monitor provided a username and password into the system (high-tech security system my ass), and then Gregg went to work. Within minutes we achieved a ninety percent certainty that we had disabled the automatic override that would unlock the doors at 7am, and thus secured the building indefinitely, or until the power goes out. Unfortuntely, due to the nature of the security door, none of us knew what might happen in that events. Either it would stay locked, or it would unlock.

I didn't remember if there were any bolt locks on the doors, Gregg certainly had more keys we could test, and was hesitant to say anything about it because, frankly, I didn't want to have to get that close to those doors with the streetwalkers banging all over the glass just outside. When we made it back into the lobby proper, it looked like they'd somehow doubled the number of them that were up against the glass now. Down toward the left, Gregg noticed and pointed out a little girl, couldn't have been more than eight. Her dress was torn and bloodied and one arm hung useless and broken at one side, but she didn't seem remotely bothered by, or even aware of any of this. I could swear that she was looking at us, and with her good hand she was clawing at the glass.

Security.

Working in a downtown metropolis (HA!) such as St. Louis creates certain security risks. As such, most office buidings are equipped with state of the art security systems. For example, the Millennium Building, where we are now, has secure doors. During non-business hours and on the weekends, these doors do not open unless you swipe an electronic security card over a card reader. However, every work morning at 7am sharp, the security lifts and the doors are open to the public. As Monday is July 4th and a Holiday, the doors remain locked on Monday, but come Tuesday morning, it should be business as usual. Automatically.

This revelation struck us about eleven o'clock last night. That gave us eight hours before the lobby and elevators and stairwells would be filled with the revelers outside. We'd been enjoying the luxury of being separated from them, and even though we'd still have the added security of our own secure doors on the second floor, that wouldn't stop them from taking over the rest of the building. Now, we're a bunch of techheads here, right? No big deal, right? Well, except none of us knows even where the computer systems for the buiding are, much less any passcodes or User IDs to access them, and looking for them will inevitably lead us to the lobby. The lobby with the ten foot glass windows and the doors leading out to the street, now dark and teeming with malevolence and violence. We can no longer kid ourselves that what's going on outside isn't a murdering, rampaging mob. An eery, silent mob, but murderious nonetheless.

Earlier today, we watched a car come barrelling down 6th. I figure it must have come from one of the nearby parking garages. This guy was just running down the street, knocking the streetwalkers over as best he could, but there were just too many and he lost control of the car. The sight of someone running down people in his car is enough to knot your stomach and bring a scream keening to the back of your throat, but was he really the bad person down there? There were five people in the car. We know this because the mob pulled them out of the car and then swarmed on them like a mosh pit, or ants piling on spilled ice cream. It got to where we couldn't see any of the people anymore, but we could hear them. I know it's cliché, but sometimes I think I still can. It's like a phantom background noise you can't tell if it's real or not. The worst was a young woman, probably in her early twenties. Her screams were so high, like a child. Reminded me of Alex and I just prayed and hoped that they are nowhere near anything like what we are living, but god I fear that they are.

We decide that it should be Gregg, myself and Elisabeth who go, mainly because Katrina is suffering with a migraine, a chronic problem for her, and Bryan is still recovering from knee surgery and walks with a cane. If things get harry down there, we'll need to be able to move fast. Kat suggests we take our cell phones, but I remind her that no calls are getting through. "Well, have we tried calling each other?" she asks.

Sometimes the most obvious things are staring you right in the face. Kat calls me and, amazingly, the call goes through. While the others are testing their phones, I try and call Lin again, but still goes straight to voicemail. I don't know what's going on with the voice circuits for Cingular, but I can bet I can't reach Lin because she let her batteries die again. In face, and that's when I realize my batter power is getting low, too. After this trip, I need to shut it off. I have a charger in my car (cigarette lighter adapter) but none for the office. Maybe I can find one in one of the cubes. Otherwise, I'll have to go on reserves if we're going to be here much longer.

The new kids on the block don't even offer to help. In fact, since we let them in they've done nothing but eat, the refrigerator and vending machine are both stocked pretty well, but we're trying to be smart about it, and sleep. Even now, they're in Jill's office with the door closed. An accountant from upstairs and his secretary. Apparently they went downstairs in an attempt to leave the building earlier today, having run out of food on their floor by Saturday night, and had an encounter. They were in hysterics through much of their explaining, it having just occurred, but what little I could gather was that they opened the door and one of the streetwalkers got in and ultimately they killed him. This went over surprisingly well with our crowd. They'd been high enough in the building that they'd not seen what we could see from the window, so had no idea how bad things were. They say they were hiding out, but I think the old man was boffing the hired help. Hell, probably still is. He's got a fat, gold ring on his finger while hers is bare. I know, I've got nothing to base that on and it's patently unfair to the both of them, but my gut is my gut and it's usually right.

Elisabeth listened at the door for a few minutes before giving the okay. We crept silently through the door and into the hall. Out here, with all the doors into our area locked, there was very little area out here and really no places that anyone could be hiding. The first thing that struck me was the silence. For two days we'd been listening to a constant movement of bodies punctuated with bouts of destruction and human screaming. The screaming had mostly abated so we figure anyone left in the surrounding buildings is holed up like we are. Strangely, we'd not been able to get a hold of anyone in the MetSquare. Darek should be over there, and I'm sure there's some lawyers and legal assistants and their secretaries. Hell, Word Processing works practically 24/7 so they should've been fully staffed. But internal email went down Sunday night and never came back up. Either Darek never got to it, or it just suddenly didn't seem like such a priority. I reminded myself again that I did have at one time a printout of everybody's cell phone numbers in IS. Ever since we went to a Public Contacts folder last year, I'd not bothered printing it out, and just relied on it when I needed to get a hold of someone. Like a crutch, I guess, only now it's been swiped out from beneath me.

The same process of listening and then creeping silently was employed for the door to the stairwell. Gregg took the lead followed by Elisabeth and myself in the rear. It was my job to keep an eye and ear open for anything coming down after us. The first thing I noticed as a fifteen foot ladder leaning in the corner, strapped in. I imagined it had been there for years. I've worked here for nearly three and a half years, coming up and down these stairs every day (exercise, yay!) and had never noticed it. At least it tells me I'm being more alert, now. At the bottom, we clustered around the door, listening. We could hear the muted murmer of the streetwalkers outside, but more specifically there was nothing outstanding for a few moments. Then we heard a clatter off to the right, followed by a thump. Off in the direction of the little Conference Room that sat behind the Starbucks on Sixth. The door opened to the left. We'd have to get out and look over there quickly if we were gonna do this. Nobody said anything, but their faces told me their thoughts mirrored my own.

"I don't wanna do this. We can always go back upstairs. What if one of them is in there?" But then: "But one is one is one. And if we don't do this, come 7am it won't be one but hundreds and thousands. One's not so bad. The door opened outward to the lobby, so Gregg stood to the right. I grabbed the fire hydrant mounted on the wall behind Elisabeth and took point on the left side. Gregg motioned the same plan I had formulated. He'd open the door and I'd dart out as quickly as I could and survey things to the right, where the noise had come from. He had picked up a large gray washer, and by large it looked like it weighed at least twenty pounds; it's weird the stuff that's lying around in the stairwells of some buildings. He had my back.

How I wound up volunteered to go out first, I'll never know. It all happened too quicky for me to realize I should be protesting this vehemently. Instead, the door swung open and I leapt out into the foyer and turned to the right, with Gregg and then Elisabeth slipping out behind me. There was nothing to see. Maybe the sound had come from inside the Conference Room. Though the door was open, the lights in there were off. It was then that Elisabeth began to scream.

Happy Birthday To America.

Happy Birthday To You.
Happy Birthday To You.
Happy Birhtday To America.
Happy Birthday To You.

America is 229 years old today. I am 29 years old, turning 30 next Sunday. This is one fucked up birthday, America. Me, I'd have wished for cake and maybe some nekkid dancers. Sorry, but it looks like no fireworks this year. There does appear to be a fire, though, down the street, so you're halfway there. Hopefully, that won't spread. Shit, I can't even talk about this right now. Oh, we've got two new people on the floor now. The Firm would be pissed to find out we let people through the security doors who don't work here. The three day weekend's almost over. Back to work tomorrow!

Dear Linny.

I don't know what you've seen or what you've heard or where you are but I pray that you are well and that Alex and the pets are well. Nothing has changed and everything has changed for us today. In the daylight, we've seen much clearer what is going on, and it's worse than anyone could imagine. Most of the Internet sites are down now; hell I don't even know if these posts are making it anywhere. It looks like the phone systems in De Soto are down, too. God, I hope you're alright. If you're able to get online and happen to come here, though why you would I don't know, unless to see if I'm posting, call me. Please call me because I can't call you and I don't know where anyone is. Maybe it hasn't come out there, or maybe it's not so bad out there because there's so fewer people. You're smart and resourceful, so I'm sure you're okay. Take care of the family for me. I'll see you as soon as I can.

Love always,

j---

Bryan's Office.

When we got into Bryan's office, we found both Gregg and Elisabeth in there with him. The three of them are on a different team than Kat and I, but still we felt as if we'd been left out of something. They'd been in here for hours talking and finding out whatever there was to find out, and we were out there, in the dark. At least, I know I did. It's not that we didn't get along with them, our worlds just didn't intersect that often.

Bryan was behind his desk, Elisabeth sitting on the end of his desk, and Gregg was sitting in one of the chairs off to the side. The overhead light was off, but he had his lamp on. The whole scene as I look at it now reminds me of those back room scenes in mobster movies. All we needed was a strip club out front and a fog of cigar smoke in the cramped office. Oh, and for the guys to be in suits and the chicas in low-cut sequined dresses. Well, at least there was smoke. Gregg was a good one for taking four or five cigarette breaks in any given day, and he was puffing away when we went in there, even though this was a No Smoking building.

"Hey, guys," Elisabeth looked up, startled at our abrupt appearance. "I didn't know you two were still here," Bryan followed. "Where've you been?"

"Way to watch out for the team," Kat chided. "Geeze, we could've been killed and you wouldn't have even noticed." Normally, a comment like that would have elicted at least a few chuckles, but a grim silence met it this time.

"Well, it's not like we were gonna go out for a walk. So, any news?" I asked him, nodding to the computer monitor.

"Nah, well, yeah. But it's spotty. All the sites have these emergency home pages now, and CNN and Excite are down altogether. Whatever it is, it's not just here. I got an email from my brother in New York a few hours ago. He didn't say much, he was asking me what I'd heard like it was the blackout again. Mentioned the fog and the explosions, but not much more. I replied, but... nothing."

"CNN has a quick blurb advising of a fog alert and warning people to stay indoors and not approach strangers and that they are getting scattered reports of violence from various places. But it hasn't been updated in, like, two hours. To be honest, we stopped looking. What's going on out there?"

It was actually pretty peaceful in here. In here you could almost pretend none of it was real. We told them what we'd seen. Eventually, everyone decided we'd stay the night, see what the morning brough. Everyone kept their cell phones on, we double-triple-checked the doors were locked and holed up in the offices along the wall with Bryan's and Sharon's. Kat and I wound up here. It is almost peaceful and quiet now. Maybe when we wake up tomorrow, everything will be back to normal and we can find out what the hell happened. Maybe.

Separate Posts?

I don't know why I'm doing some of this crap in separate posts. I mean, it all already happened. Kat, Bryan's office, the phone lines in De Soto, but... it's just trying to wrap my brain around it, I think. Hell, I don't know why I'm still writing this, except I can go back and reread these and remind myself that this is really happening. At least it's quiet now, in here. Kat's asleep, I think everyone is now. Restroom break and yet another post forthcoming to catch you up to date. Hopefully there is a you. If nothing else, maybe you can read this and if you're part of the military or police or government or something, you can read what's going on here and do something about it. If there's anyone out there left. Or are we nothing more than stray, random Saturday workers trapped in buildings around the world.

Kat.

So I headed down to see Kat. As I was walking, I heard a horrendous squeal of metal and smashing glass. Looking out the window, I could almost make out around the corner and barely visible, what looked like a city bus toppled on its side. Had those people just tipped that over? Jesus, is this like those riots you see on the news? Could this be happening everywhere? Looking at the mass of humanity and listening to the occasional scream or yell and being somewhat afraid to even go downstairs to the lobby with the big glass front doors, much less go outside, is all very surreal. It's impossible to explain, but there's just something in our guts that tells us going out there would be a bad idea right now. Hell, if it is just some strange riot gone out of control, we're smarter to stay indoors. Mob mentality can be a frightening thing.

I've heard some sirens in the distance from time to time, but really very little in our visible spectrum here. Kat was just sitting at her desk starting out the window when I got there.

Before I could say anything, and without turning around (we always could see one another in the glass, though) she says, "I just watched one rip someone's arm off."

"What?!"

"Well, it was a few minutes ago. Maybe a half-hour. Over there," she points to where the doors to the Metropolitan Square building reach the street. "Some people came out from there and as soon as the doors opened, they swarmed on them. There was a lot of yelling and I watched someone's arm get ripped off. I think it was a woman." She was still pointing. "It was lying right there, I swear it was." She turned now and looked at me. "Or am I going crazy? Is that what all this is?"

"I don't think so," I said remembering the guy from Starbucks. "I think I watched them kill someone. It's all such a blur, though."

"I know what you mean. I mean, it's dark now, it's been dark for how long and-- I don't know, it just seems like it just happened, you know. The fog and the explosions. But that was--that was hours ago."

We sat there, in the gloom for awhile, until we heard the sound of glass shattering behind us. We went back to the corner cube I'd holed up in. They'd shattered the display glass at Famous-Barr and were climbing in. "Jesus Christ," I muttered. "What the hell is going on out there." I looked at the heater vents. "And why hasn't it gotten in here yet?"

"Have you heard from Bryan about anything, yet?" I asked her. She hadn't and really we hadn't heard from anyone in awhile. There should be at least six people on the floor right now, besides Tony. Attempts to contact him have gone straight to voicemail, same as me calling Linny and apparently Kat calling her husband, too, from what she says. Besides me, Kat and Bryan, we should have Gregg, Elisabeth and Darek over here somewhere. Maybe they're all in Bryan's office. No, I think Darek is over in MetSquare, I'm pretty sure he went over there to check one of the Exchange Servers before it all went down. I guess, hopefully he's still over there; I don't see how he could've come back. But hell, I haven't heard from anyone in how many hours now? Maybe we're all just in shock.

Kat decides to go with me to Bryan's office. If nothing else, it will get us away from the windows. It's like looking at a car accident out there. You don't want to, but you feel so damned compelled.

Holey Shit!

I'm posting this from my Blackberry. We've closed and locked the doors here on the floor; Bryan had propped one open to let some air circulate since the building doesn't turn on any during the weekend. The last few hours have been all different kinds of fucked up, to say the least. The sun's not quite down yet, and the streets are still filled with people. I'm talking more people than I've ever seen this far back; we're at Olive and Sixth street, six blocks from the arch. For as many people as are right here, it's not nearly as loud and obnoxious as you'd think for Fair St. Louis, and everyone is wandering around like they're in a daze. They're walking right in the middle of the street and don't even get out of the way of any stray cars that might come by, though I haven't seen one of those actually in about an hour. But a few times, and I meant totally at random, they like snap and attack someone. I tell you what, if that green fog is some kind of bioterror, we've decided we're sure as hell not going out there. What with this whatever it is hitting at the height of the Fair and with the 70,000 Adventists in town, who knows how many people are prowling the city, and if they're all prone to attacks like we've seen (Rodney King got off light compared to what these jokers are doing!). I can see several hundred from our building, and we've got a pretty limited view of most of the city. If it's like this down to the riverfront and back to tenth or more, well I don't know what the hell's going on but I'm gonna just sit right here and wait for the cavalry.

Oh shit! Oh shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! I mean my god. Okay, right below this window some dude just walked out of Starbucks, or at least from the general direction of Starbucks (it's on the first floor right below us at Olive and 6th. He got mauled by several of these people and I swear to god they just fucking killed this dude. He's gotta be dead. He's lying there sprawled on the ground and he just looks broken. His legs, arms, neck. Jesus Christ! As soon as he dropped, they wandered off. Oh shit, one of them just stepped on him like he wasn't even there. This was a woman and she stumbled but stayed on her feet and now she's walking across 6th like nothing happened. What is wrong with these people? And where the hell is someone to corral them, surely the police know about this by now?

Tony never called us back, either. And he hasn't shown up. With the dwindling light and the damned fog, it's hard to make out what's going on down there, but I'll tell you what: I'm glad our building is card key accessible only and the doors on our floor are coded and locked. Until whatever the hell this is passes and these people start acting normal again, I don't want them coming up here. God, there's so many of them. The twilight is filled with the sounds of them walking around up here. And they're eerily silent (no one is talking to anyone down there, and no one is walking with anyone else either). Only occasionally will you hear a scream or shout in the distance... or not too distant. Mr. Starbucks screamed like a banshee when they attacked him just now. Damn, still lying there. I can't believe I witnessed a murder. I'd call 911, but we've already tried that and all we get is a fast busy, and now our phone lines are down. Cells are still working, but I keep getting voicemail no matter who I call, so I don't even know if the calls are routing all the way to the phones. No one has called me that I know and no new voicemails, but maybe they're trying and can't get through either?

Jesus Christ, have this been going on like this the whole time, these people killing other people at random? How could I have missed that? I'm crouched right now in Virginia's cubicle, in the Starbucks corner of our floor, and I'm the only one here. Bryan killed the lights a couple hours ago when they first arrived. He could tell this wasn't right and they weren't acting normally. With the lights on up here and the odd fog dimming the sunlight, we figured they could look right up and see us. At least this way, it wouldn't be so easy for them to tellthat we're up here.

I think I'm gonna head down to Kat's cube and see what she knows. Good lord, I've been crouched here watching for thirty minutes, only I hadn't really been seeing anything, just in a daze I think. Server process is done, so I guess we can go home now. HA. Our work here is done, but I don't think anyone's left. It's quiet up here, though. Maybe they all left me here and they're down there hanging out with the goon squad, drugged up by whatever's in that fog... if that's what's going on. Shit. I want to power on a PC and see if I can pull up the news. When Bryan killed the lights, he advised us to kill our PC's, but said he'd monitor the situation from his office. Bryan's office isn't against a window, so with his door closed, there'd be no light to penetrate the rest of the floor. Maybe I ought to find him and see what he's learned. Are the police/military/anyone on their way to contain this strange riot? Why hasn't Bryan told us anything. I'm gonna ask Kat if she's heard anything and then head to Bryan's office.

Linny.

I completely forgot to call and check on Linny and Alex. So I called a minute ago and went straight to her voicemail. Dammit, Linny, how many times have I told you to charge your cell phone. Especially if you're leaving the house! I hope whatever the hell is going on here won't affect her there. Hell, it shouldn't, she's like more than 50 miles from here.

And since I sent you the link to this blog, hopefully you can get online and look at it somewhere. If so, call me and let me know you're alright! There's some people starting to show up on the streets here, and they look like they're in a daze. Maybe there's LSD in the fog. Still no word from Tony; you'd think he'd have called by now. Heh, maybe he forgot his cell phone here. One more check on the RAID process and I should be done over here. Then maybe I can go and get high with everyone else.

Got quiet, though. All that screaming and yelling from the riverfront after the explosions has dropped to an almost eery silence. Sure, the occasional yell, but this is a strange crowd. Hell, Tony's probably as fucked up as the rest of them (heehee)!

That Wasn't Fireworks.

Okay, I don't know what the hell that was but it wasn't fireworks. There was a series of explosions just now. Reminds me of the PraxAir explosions a couple weeks ago, but again down by the riverfront. I swear an airplane blew up during the airshow, or they collided and all did. Shit, nothing on the news sites, though. Rocked this building, though. Thank god the power didn't flicker, the server's in the middle of a process I do not want to start over. Hang on, Bryan's shouting.

Heh, I just told a blog to hang on. Like I'm IMing someone. Ha-ha lol roflmao brb fu. Still no word on the explosions but man. Bryan found a crack in the window in Sharon's office. Sharon has the corner office closest to the Arch/Riverfront. It's a pretty substantial glass. I don't know if our glass is bulletproof (this is a pretty old building), but I'd never seen any cracks in the windows before. Oh, and that damned fog hasn't lifted. The boys across the street said it's a real low fog, too. Did I mention that the firm I work for has office space in the building next door. Yeah, it's a Class A building (which means really nice) and we've got floors 30-38 over there. And over here we just have the second floor. So I guess the fog, which looks not too thick because you can see still pretty far in it, it's more like a haze, is only a thin layer. At least it's not 30 stories high. I wonder what it looks like from up there. Probably a lot like when you're flying over clouds in an airplane.

There's all of a sudden a lot of noise and commotion, like Mardi Gras gone out of control outside. We can hear all the shouting out the windows. Still nothing on the news about the explosions, but I'm curious as hell as to what is going on down there. Tony just said he's gonna head out there and see what the deal is. Probably get stopped by police, like what happened when the cornices of this building started coming down, but he said he'd call back with the scoop. I'd love to go, but I have to stay with this process. If it hiccups, I need to be ready.

God, if it's as hot out there as it has been, and with that fog it's gonna be like a freaking sauna. Maybe I'd rather be in here anyway. God, I hope we can finish up on time and go home, though. Linny's gonna be leaving here any minute now to go pick up Boka.

In case you were wondering, the surgery went well and she's fine. Oh shit, beeping on the server. Gotta go see what's up. If it's hung up again, I swear to god I'm gonna fucking scream. "I'm coming, dammit!"

Crazy Weather.

Man, St. Louis is known for some pretty fucked up weather, but this takes the cake. I've read about pea soup fog but never thought I'd live to see it. It like just swept up from the riverfront I guess. Yes, the same riverfront all those damned fairgoers are at. Like I said, there's supposed to be a million of them there or something right now. That and the 70,000 Seventh Day Adventists. Anyway, it snuck up on us real quick. Katrina said something and when I looked up, there was this green haze out the windows. And it's everywhere now. It's like dusk but it's only four o'clock.

Automatic Update.

This is to test if the email to the blog will automatically update without me having to go in and publish it manually from the website (kinda defeats the purpose of email these things in).

Edit: And it worked... YAY! To think, the IT guy missed the checkbox necessary to allow this. I'm so ashamed. I shall turn in my pocket protector now.

Best Day Ever.

Guess what I did today? Yeah, I was late to work this morning. I mean, what did you do this morning? Wake up... kiss the wife/husband good morning... get the kids up, blah, blah, blah, feed the dog, maybe a rub on the tummy and then off to work... yeah, me too. Only I decided to add a little something extra. I hit my dog with the car pulling out.

Okay, let me back up a bit. We have a five foot fence around our house, encompassing about an acre of our fifteen. It's a wire fence with metal posts holding it up, but no top support between posts. Thus, with enough weight and pressure, you could cause the wire to buckle. Boka was good enough to never do this. But after we got Copper, all bets were off. If he wasn't climbing the cattle gate we use at the end of our driveway, he was leaping over the fence, and given a few weeks, he weakened it enough that Boka could go in and out after him. So essentially, our dogs leap the fence every day and chase our car down the street a bit. Good exercise, a fun little race (Boka never wins on her stubby little legs), and they're always back in the yard when we get home... well, almost always.

Still, all in good fun, right? Except that Boka has this nasty habit of getting right. In. Your. Way. She does it when you're walking, jogging and apparently driving. Just as I was accelerating, she ran right in front of the car and thump, bump, whine, slam, squeal, it was done. I backed up, she pulled herself off the pavement and darted on three legs into the woods by the side of the road. Holy crap, is it broken, what's the problem, she's screaming, limping...

But I can't get out of the car to check on her. No, because my emergency break is virtually useless, the car's a standard and our entire road is a hill, so if I get out, the car and my family roll down into the valley by the river about a half mile back. So my wife gets out and goes to check on her. All through this Boka is just crying and crying and if you've ever heard a dog cry it has to be one of the most heartbreaking things you can hear. And if it's your fault she's crying, well you just want to curl up and disappear. I know I did.

Lin (that's my wife, Lindsay but we call her Lin or Skinny Linny) says we can't leave her like this and I'm asking if it's broken and she doesn't know and... I backed the car down the street and back into the driveway. Linny is walking that way and Boka is walking gingerly and on three legs (one hind leg curled up tight under her) as well. She's stopped whining, but I have to look at it myself to know. I tell Alex again that she's fine and she'll be okay and he believes me. Hell, I don't know for sure but I want him to believe it. Maybe if he does, I can, too.

The car parked, I get out and go up to Boka. She's now lying on her side licking at her leg gingerly. When I get close enough to it, my stomach roils and boils. She's licking a bit more than midway up her leg from the paw and it's just torn open. Red, sinewy and I swear to god I can see the whiteness of her bone. How she's stopped screaming I don't know because I find that I want to. Linny can't even look at it, she's a few paces off looking back toward the road. Alex wants out of the car, but he doesn't need to see this.

"We can't leave her like this," I say to her. And then "Shit!" because I've used up so many days at work already. Lin gives me the look that says I don't care what's going on but there's no reason for that kind of language in front of the child. But looking at me is too close to looking at Boka, so she turns back without saying anything. I had thought maybe we could leave it if it wasn't broken until we got home. See we were leaving early this afternoon anyway to take Copper in to get de-manned, so we could just take her up with him to the vet! Copper spent a solid week up at the neighbor's house while her pure-bred Golden Retriever was in heat and talk about frustrating. He's a pure-bred, too but I don't know if the world is ready for the Golden Foxhound, yet.

Linny remembers that the Vet's Office/Animal Hospital has an emergency number posted on the front and they open at 8:30. It's 6:00am now. I look again at the wound. She's pulling it up under her body, and with the burrs and seeds in her fur from running through the woods, I can just imagine the wound filling up with debris and good god that would hurt! We decide that I'll take Alex in to Daycare (they're heading to the zoo that day on a field trip) and Lin will stay with Boka, call the emergency hotline (she asks me to stop at the office on the way and call her with the number).

When I call from in front of the vet's office, she's got the number already, so we go on. Alex asks if Boka will be alright, and I tell him that she should be fine and that we were gonna take her to the hospital that morning. I ask if he's worried about anything and he is. He's worried that I didn't sign his permission slip and he wouldn't get to go to the zoo.

When I get back, the doctor's decided Boka can wait until 8:30, so we wait. She's very quiet through all of this, just lying there, nursing the leg. The other back leg is ripped up a bit, too, but not nearly as bad. We get to the doctor and he checks her out and decides she needs surgery to suture the leg back together. With exposed bone there's a greater risk of infection if we try and treat it as an open wound, which is a cheaper alternative. I don't know what to do, but we have to take care of her and it's my fault and so six hundred dollars later, Boka is due for surgery tomorrow sometime; because she'd just eaten before the accident it is more risky to do it today.

So she's in the hospital, Alex is at the zoo and we're at work and I'm hours behind schedule to get things prepared for tomorrow's project. And half the freaking streets are closed around here because of Fair preparation, so I'm in just a swell mood all around! And I feel absolutely horrible for poor Boka. I just hope everything goes alright tomorrow...

As If It Wasn't Gonna Be Crowded Enough...

This from stltoday.com; the online version of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for anyone who doesn't know. I have edited this down considerably, so for the full article, you might want to head to here.

Seventh-day Adventists will pack downtown
By Tim Townsend
Of the Post-Dispatch
06/27/2005

Beginning Thursday, 70,000 members of the Seventh-day Adventist church will visit St. Louis for a 10-day meeting. In terms of sheer numbers, the gathering will be the largest event in the city in 2005, according to the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission.

The Adventists will use about 59,000 hotel rooms during their stay, said Nancy Milton, vice president of marketing communications for the commission.

By comparison, the 54,000 visitors to St. Louis for the Final Four used 39,500 rooms over four nights. The next two biggest business conventions each will use about 15,000 rooms.

The worldwide conference, which is part business meeting and part spiritual rally, is held once every five years. It will be based at America's Center and the Edward Jones Dome, but also will spread out into the city for events including film, music and Bible festivals. Pastor Don Schneider, the president of Seventh-day Adventist in North America, which is based in Silver Spring, Md., said "the vast majority of people come for fellowship and to worship with others from around the world."

While the visitors will have an effect on Fair St. Louis and places like Soulard, Union Station and Laclede's Landing, Adventists won't be spending extra money on beer and burgers. The denomination focuses on physical health and members do not drink alcohol or use tobacco. Caffeine is discouraged, and vegetarianism is encouraged.

As the church's own newsletter said in August, sometimes residents of the cities where the church holds its meetings are left thinking that Adventists "come to town with 10 commandments and 10 dollars and break neither ..."

Good health, to Adventists, is part of their faith. "It's related to the belief about being prepared for the return of Christ," said Douglas Morgan, a professor of history at Columbia Union College, a Seventh-day Adventist school in Maryland. "It's about the integration between soul and body - what we do with our body is part of our spiritual growth."

Adventists have one of the oldest programs in the country to help smokers quit, and they run nearly 700 hospitals, health clinics and nursing homes around the world. The Adventist diet means catering the event will take special attention. Sunnydale Academy, a church boarding school in Centralia, Mo., and Achieve Foods in Columbia, Mo., were contracted by the church to supply vegetarian entrees for the delegates and visitors at America's Center...

Anyone who knows St. Louis knows that this is a city people work in and then get the hell out of! Show up in downtown St. Louis, during the week, after, say 6pm and you'll see a ghost town. The city is bleeding residents faster than most anywhere else in the nation; in fact a recent study showed St. Louis, Cincinatti and Detroit leading the charge in cities losing residents! So while many of us work downtown, you wouldn't catch us dead around here after the workday ends... and if you did, there's a good chance you'd catch us dead around here for real.

So this weekend is Fair St. Louis, our annual Fourth of July celebration. Twenty-Five years strong and the Black-Eyed Peas will be there this year. It is expected to bring about a million people to the riverfront. And now we've got 70,000 Adventists thrown into the mix. This could be the most crowded weekend this city has seen since the World's Fair of 1904.

Why do you care? Why do I care? I'll tell you why. Because I just found out I have to work this weekend. Yep, to take advantage of the extended holiday weekend, we've scheduled some server upgrade and general system maintenance. We'll start bright and early on Saturday and hopefully be done by Sunday (with Monday as wiggle room for the inevitable things that go wrong). I swear to god, I think we're our own worst enemies sometimes. We cause more problems when we try and upgrade and fix things here than when we leave them alone... I wonder if it's like that everywhere, though.

Oh, yeah, in case I didn't mention it, I work in IT, Information Technology, Info Tech, nerdsville, yeah, yeah, I know. But, hey, I'm married with children so there's hope for you yet :).

Besides, didn't you know. It's fine and dandy to party with the bad boys, but everyone knows when you get that out of your system you marry a nerd if you want a good long-lasting relationship. It's true... or at least that's what the nerds say.

Now I Can Post By Email.

Boy, the beginning of a blog, when you're testing the features, is incredibly exciting stuff! If you want really exciting, I'll hit you up someday with who I am and what I do for a living... which considering I'm at work maybe I should qualify that with a what I SHOULD be doing for a living... :)

This also means I can post to the blog remotely with my Blackberry device or anyplace I can access email. Very nice. Just imagine. I can post blogs from a public crapper in a construction zone if I want to. There's an image to keep in the back of your mind when reading those blog postings. Or better yet, maybe not.

I'm keeping this email/post open here on my desktop while I'm working, not wanting to post it until I have sufficient data to make it worth the posting. Anyway, I just realized I've still not said who I am.

Okay, this posting at work is harder than I thought. People keep interrupting me. Don't they realize I have my vast Internet audience to please. They don't care if you don't know how to bold or italicize your font. Call someone else with your formatting problems!

Family.

It's past eleven now. On a work night and I should be sleeping. We went and got my son this past Sunday for a delayed Father's Day and so he could live with us the rest of the summer. I was on-call for work on the real Father's Day so couldn't make the trip to get him. See, his mother and I have joint custody and now that he's in school we're having the big fight (she likes to call it a discussion, but let's face it, neither of us wants to give him up, so it's a fight, or at least it will be--it's just stayed civilized thus far) over where he's going to go for school. He was with me for Kindergarten, last year. Half the summer with her. Half with me and then with her for First Grade. After that, we have to make a final decision on the rest of schooling. Without involving the lawyers...

See, the problem is we live almost 300 miles apart, which makes this whole situation more of a shitfuck than what most people in our situation have to deal with. I mean, don't get me wrong. We get along well enough... now. We both want what's best for him, we just don't always agree on just what that is.

Still, it's nice to have him home with us now. 2004 saw my wife and I get married, my son start Kindergarten and all of us moving into our new house. And we thought that would be the hard part. Already we've had problems with the neighbors, the police, the... but I really don't want to get into all that. Maybe in another post. Is this blogging supposed to be cathartic?

This post is about my family. Together again. I can hear Alex rustling around in his bed. Probably trying to get out from under Boka. Boka's a part-Chow, part-Rottweiler, and we swear to god believe part-Bear dog. One of two we have. Two dogs, two cats, two hamsters, god help us my wife wants a snake and a lizard and the boy wants fish. We moved out to the country to get away from people and back into nature and wildlife, but I didn't expect it to live inside with us!

Still, a boy and his dog is a classic. Boka was first among dogs. She's loving and whiney and needy but sweet. Alex loves her (I still remember when he put his arm around her and said "you're the best dog a boy could ever have.") But Alex really wanted a hunting dog, so when the opportunity came along to add to our growing family, we jumped on it and Copper joined our happy little clan. Copper is a full-blooded American Foxhound and is everything Alex imagined. Of course, now that he's got the dog he wants the old man to take him out for some real hunting. Like I know anything about hunting, I'm a freaking suburban kid for Christ's sake. But...

God, it's that late already. Heh. Dear Diary, I am sorry I haven't written to you in so long. Ha. I should get a locket for my laptop. Maybe World War III will hit and years from now they'll study my blog. Of course, times have changed. Anne Frank's diary was on paper while this is just bits and bytes in the ether. World War III hits, the 'net goes down and the blogoshpere ceases to exist.

Maybe I should print this shit out...

Welcome To The Blogosphere.

Man, I can't believe you have to put something into these things just to look at them. What if I don't have anything worth saying, yet. Actually, I do...

...or do I?

Damn.

Edit: And I have the ability to go back and UNsay anything stupid I might put in here. Cool. Not sure what I'm thinking here. I never could keep a regular diary, so what makes me think I can keep an online one. The fact that other people might read it? Yeah, right. The day my life is interesting enough for anyone else to want to read about it is the day I join an intergalactic alliance of space pirates and pillage worlds for their whores and alien ale. See, even that was stupid. Ah, who am I kidding. I give it two months and this will become another bad footnote in cyberspace. A classic case of someone who thinks they have something to say only to find out not only do they have nothing to say, but they can't even say it well.