Humor

In-Flight Reading

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I never looked for his book online or in a bookstore. He showed it to me, or he showed me a galley proof of it. And now, a decade later, I do not remember his name or much about the book.

We were on a plane, and 98% of my personal air travel history dates from the years 2000 to 2004, when I moved from upstate New York to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and twice a year I returned home for holiday visits. The typical route was Eastern Iowa Airport to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to Stewart International Airport (or sometimes Logan in Boston), because there are no direct flights between Iowa and anyplace else I have ever lived. The book author was across the aisle from me.
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A Meal Fit for a …

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I don’t know how science works.

To the best of my knowledge, electricity can be explained thus: Step 1, flowing water or wind turns a turbine which looks like a giant screw, and Step 2, I walk through my front door, pick up a black rectangle, punch a red button, and “Dah dahdah, dah dahdah,” Sportscenter is on. (I wrote technical documents—white papers—for electrical engineers for five years and instruction manuals that were used in home construction around the nation. You’re welcome. Expertise takes different forms, and mine is in forming sentences. The engineers supplied all the science-y numbers that make buildings happen.)

Cooking is among my top several favorite activities to pursue for when cooking is something to be done. I reminded my girlfriend of this recently:
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If I Send in a Penny, Can That Save Columbia House?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

If I still had access to the storage unit—which I do not not, because rental companies enjoy it when one pays rent regularly, and I did not, so they auctioned the contents many years ago—if I still had access to that unit, I might be able to help out Columbia House.

The company that owns Columbia House, something called Pride Tree Holdings, Inc., announced today that it would be selling off what remains of the former music retailer at bankruptcy auction because it owns assets worth $2 million while it owes more than $63 million. (Pride Tree’s website is cheerfully ominous: it features a photo of an enormous, top-heavy, tree, a paragraph about the company, and a “Contact Us” button. And that is it.)

In that storage unit of memory there sit probably 100 CDs purchased from Columbia House for, oh, not a dime. Not even a thought of sending money, at least not a penny more than the penny I affixed to the cardboard order form I sent in every so often when I wanted to plump up my music collection.
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