Continuing… (It's Part 6 in the saga, I fucked up. Sorry.)
So, after a few re-fueling and impromptu cigar-purchasing stops in South and Central America, we wheel up to the deserted jetway at LAX.
“Thought we were going to Elmendorf?” I asked.
“This isn’t it?” the pilot replied, feigning worry.
“No.”, I replied, “Looks like California. Fruits and nuts. All around. What’s going on? One minute we’re off to Texas, then Cali, then Texas again, now we end up here at the California airport of the iconic tower.”
“Yeah, it’s confusing enough haulin’ civilians around. But when we get a call from Virginia, we tend to comply without any questions,” the pilot explains.
“Aw, shit!”, I sort of exclaim, “Rack and Ruin called?”
“Yeah”, the pilot replies, “Figures you’d know these guys. They said they were closer to LAX rather than Texas and had us divert here. In fact, you look over there, see that dark blue Chevy? That’s them; and evidently, your ride.”
I tipped the airman from earlier a couple of cigars as he helped me with my gear off the plane and into the trunk of Rack and Ruin’s plain-Jane blue late modeled Chevy. Had to move the Sidewinder Missiles off to one side, though.
“Most honorable Agents Lack and Luin!” I quipped in my faux-racist greeting. “What the hell, guys? I’ve got to get to Japan and get some newly rigidified digits.”
“Let’s see your hand”, Agent Rack asks. “Nasty.”
“Yeah”, I sigh “And with the medicos in South America and their penchant for plaster, I don’t so much have a left hand as more of an ankylosaur tail.”
“Or Thagomizer”, Agent Ruin tittered. “Anyone gives you grief, and one upside the head should set them right. Or dead.”
“You’re a riot, Ruin.” I replied, “But not entirely incorrect.”
We all agreed that I really didn’t need any extra accouterments to make myself look more dangerous. I mean with my severe haircut, stern beard clip, and perpetual ‘Go fuck yourself’ scowl.
“Yeah”, I replied, stroking the aforementioned beard, “I just can’t get that. I’m such a people person.”
After Agents Rack and Ruin finished drying their eyes from laughing what I thought was en extremis, we finally got down to business.
“So, what’s the skinny, guys”, I asked. “New marching orders?”
“No. Not as such”, Agent Ruin said, still sniggering over my ‘people person’ comment.
I see we’re moving. Agent Rack is just driving casually, like Chewbacca when they were waiting to see if the Empire went for that expensive Bothan code.
“Then, what?” I asked, getting a slight bit piqued.
“Well”, Agent Ruin noted, “When you went to South America, you took some of your artillery collection with, correct?”
“You know I did. You even made some snide comments about my personal choice of sidearms and their ‘excessive’ calibers, if memory serves”, I reiterated.
“And if you are proceeding normally, as you always do, they’re all nestled in the trunk of this very car. All cleaned, quiet, unloaded, and smelling sweetly of Hoppe’s Number 9 and WD 40, correct?” Rack inquired.
“Yes?” I cautiously venture.
“Well, ya’ big dummy, do you think they’re going to let you saunter into Tokyo armed like the Third Fleet?” Agent Ruin chuckled.
“Um…well…I do have a Diplomatic Passport.” I ventured.
“That’s not going to work this time.”, Agent Ruin said, shaking his head. “They’re tighter than Dick’s Hatband about sidearms. Want to bring in your Rigby SXS .500 Nitro Express double rifle? Not a problem. Sidearms, especially in your alien hunting calibers, nope.”
Well, that’s just….*dandy!”, I reply, semi-put out. “Now what the hell am I going to do?”
“Ever think that’s why Ruin and I are here, now?”, Rack asks.
“And here I thought it was just so you could bask in the warm glow of my fucking wonderful personality. Or that you actually cared about me as a real goddamn human”, I joshed.
“Ummm…yeah”, Rack replies, “There’s no way we can answer that without going on some Deadpool list. “
I agreed.
“OK, here’s the deal: you get your sidearms, ammunition, speed loaders, brass knuckles, Asp, laser range finders, Sap, Zeiss scopes, Kukri, Wisconsin Cheese Whittler, Buck folding skinner, Marine K-Bar, those two ultra-illegal Cheburkov Cobra titanium switchblades...”
“Three. Olga the KGB lady sent me one for Geologist’s Day.”
“Ahem. Those three ultra-illegal Cheburkov switchblades, that Wyoming Speedholer, your MASER Time-Distance Computer, garrote, pocket rail gun and whatever else lethal you carry and deposit it in the iron box in the trunk. We’ll ensure that it’s delivered to Esme post-haste. And by post-haste I mean one of our guys will deliver it personally.”
“Well…I suppose”, I conceded, “But best send someone who’s been to the house recently. I don’t know how much bigger Khan has grown since I left on this little fantasy trip. Wouldn’t want a star on the wall in Langley for someone eaten by a mastiff. Want to see a picture….Oh, bother. That’s right. My phone’s at the bottom of fucking Lake Maracaibo.”
“Good point”, Ruin interjects, “Guess we’ll do a little road trip and deliver it ourselves. Best call Esme and let her know what’s going on.”
“I have no objections to your proposals. Please give Esme this when you see her. I had some luck in the Calaveras Casino and if I don’t send her some mad money. Ouch. She’ll never forgive me for not taking her along to Japan.” I asked.
“But I thought Esme hated Japan? Too crowded and too ‘fussy’, I believe was her estimation.” Ruin asked.
“Yes, but once she saw the Ginza, all bets were off. Shopping the likes of which even Allah himself hasn’t seen.” I replied, slowly shaking my head.
“I see”, Ruin said, “Well, since you’re off to Sapporo, perhaps you can do a recon for Esme on the shopping there.”
“Not bad. Not bad at all.”, I smiled, “Now I know why I let you guys hang around with me.”
So, as advertised, I am now standing on the tarmac at LAX, basically feeling naked.
“Can’t I keep just one switchblade?” I moaned to Agent Rack.
“Go ahead, if you’re really keen on donating it to Japanese customs”, he replied.
“Fuckbuckets.” I groused.
“There, there now. That’s the usual Dr. Rocknocker of which we’re all so fond.” Agent Ruin chuckled.
“Remember, you do have that wallet-sized credit card gizmo from the Company. So you’re not entirely ‘naked’. Think of it as an emergency breechcloth.” He smiled.
“I’d like a larger model if you don’t mind. It’s chilly out here.” I joshed.
After Agents Rack and Ruin stripped me metaphorically naked as they de-weaponized me, they handed me a Business Class ticket to Tokyo, and a pass to the Japan Airlines Hospitality Suite and Lounge.
“So sorry you guys can’t hang around and have a few farewell snorts”, I chided, “But you’ve got a bit of a drive, so best be off before the weather turns to shit.”
“Who says we’re driving?” Agent Rack asked as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the ready and waiting C-130 cargo plane currently taxiing slowly in our direction.
“Well, in that case”, I smiled even more broadly, “Let’s invite the flight crew to join us. That’ll make the flight home all that much more interesting.”
After near tear-jerking farewell sentimentalities, i.e., “Piss on you”, “Get stuffed” and “Take a fuckin’ hike”; Agents Rack and Ruin, my weapons and the Agency’s plain-Jane Blue Chevy were all nestled snugger than buggers in ruggers in the belly of the thundering C-130.
Now truly on my own, I trudge the hundred thousand or so centisteps to my departure terminal, make a quick recon that my flight’s still slated to go in a generally westward direction, and hightail it to the nearest courtesy desk to ask for a motorized cart to take me and my remaining luggage to the JAL Hospitality Suite.
Hey. I’m old, infirm, and currently among the walking wounded.
Anyone that disagrees risks an Ankylosaur tail club swat or Thagomizer to the skull.
Finally ensconced in the JAL Hospitality Suite, Polo Lounge of course; I was drinking Tokyo Teas (3 oz. vodka, 2 oz. gin, 2 oz. rum, 1 oz. triple sec, 1 oz. Midori, good splash of lime juice, a slight splash of 7-Up (diet, of course), over ice with a lime wheel) with Pabst Blue Ribbon Extra 1844 chasers and Hangar One’s “Fog Point” vodka on the side, hiding from the brutish realities of this foul year of two thousand and twenty-something, Common Era…
I’ve already called Esme and we’ve had a good, long chat. She still managed to give me her shopping list for whenever I find myself bored on the Ginza.
She’ll be shocked when she learns that I’m not going to be in Tokyo long, but have 1st class tickets on the Bullet Train to Sapporo. Still, I’ll probably find myself in Pole Town or the Stellar Place there, trading piles of US greenbacks for locally produced Japanese curios and clothing.
I can hardly wait.
I order another round of drinks, as the wonderful attendants in the Hospitality Suite were bored out of their skulls because of the COVID-induced drop-in customers flying anywhere that requires a hospitality room stay, and I was virtually the only one around. They tried their level best to outdo each other when it comes to Japanese efficiency and friendliness.
After a couple of hours, they ask if I would like something from the grill, as the day chef had “the COVID” and the night chef just arrived. A quick perusal of the menu and I chose a 28-ounce dry-aged Porterhouse and another round of drinks.
I usually don’t like to eat too much before I fly, but JAL tells me the flight is going to be virtually empty, something like <121 pax, all told, so restroom availability shouldn’t be too much of a concern.
Plus, who am I to say no to a free, blue 28-ounce dry-aged Porterhouse?
There was a bit of difficulty conveying to the chef through the intermediaries of the hospitality just how I wanted my steak.
“Blue,” I said.
“Brue?” was the reply.
“Rare. Very, very rare.” I continued.
Look of total bewilderment.
I drag out my Personal Language Pro, speak “Steak, very, very rate” into the infernal gizmo, and hand the contraption to the attendant.
“珍しい、非常に珍しいステーキ?”[ Mezurashī, hijō ni mezurashī sutēki?]
“Raw! Nama!” I say, louder than need be.
They toddle off to find the chef.
“How is it sir, that you would like your steak cooked?” he asks.
“Very rare. Just a minute or two per side. Inside still cold.” I instructed.
All I got for the trouble was a puzzled smile.
“Give me the language gizmo…” I type in a few words…
“お尻を洗い、角をノックオフして、ここから出してください”
[O shiri o arai,-kaku o nokkuofu shite, koko kara dashite kudasai.]
“Wash its ass, knock its horns off, and walk it out here.”
“OH!” as the lightbulb pops. “Rare. Got it! Excellent!” the chef laughs and zips back to the kitchen.
Like I always say, I’m nothing if not the international ambassador of amity and goodwill.
“Crack tubes!”
Dinner was fantastic. I do wish I could have somehow mailed the Porterhouse bone back home for Khan. After that hambone incident, he might even taste it.
Finally on the plane, in an almost empty Business Class, the flight captain informs us that we’re headed to Haneda Airport Tokyo and anyone not headed in that direction better ‘haul ass off’ the flight or forever hold their peace.
Late-night international flights tend to be a bit more wooly than your average Chicago to Omaha gig.
Especially when the flight’s damn near empty and we have the next 12 hours or so to be best friends.
We taxi, turn and head into the wind. I’m doctoring up a couple of dossiers and keeping my personal cabin attendant, Luna since there were two of us in Business and two business flight attendants, busy with her trying to play ‘Stump the Geologist’.
“I’ll bet you never had this before.” She beamed and handed me a tumbler of very dangerous-looking brown liquor.
I cautiously sniff, take a modest gulp, swirl and glug the rest down.
“Ohishi Single Sherry Cask”, I say with a muffled belch. “Light. Fruity. An Englishman’s drink.”
“Oh. You knew. Let me try again.” She smiles beatifically.
“I have no objections to your proposal.” I smile as nicely as this crotchety old Komodo Dragon could.
She returns with another flagon of spirits; it smells of obsidian, leather, and earth.
I just had some of this back in LAX. I take a snort, smile, and shotgun the rest.
“Hibiki Japanese Harmony…lovely stuff.” I smile. “A little light for my jaded palate, but I’d never turn it down if it were free.”
“Oh, you win again. Wait. One more.” She smiles and skitters off to the galley.
She returns with another soupçon of some more dangerous brown liquor.
“Here, try this. It will make you very popular at social gatherings”. She smiles.
Sniff. “Splendid.” Snort. Swirl. Smile. Shotgun.
“Kanosuke New Born, if I’m not mistaken.” I smile back. “Very nice. I really do like this one.”
“You too good at this. One more!” she stands and stomps off defiantly. She returns in a trice and hands me the glass.
“Hmm…brown. Light notes of earth, leather, dating your daughter, and Kentucky…
“Beam Suntory, right?”
“You know them all!” she says, feigning irritation.
“And I thank you. Those were all excellent. Now, anything in the dangerous clear liquor category? I asked.
Luna smiled as I palmed off a 20k yen tip.
“Oh, no sir. Wait until we land.” She demurred, referring to the gratuity; which is know is not de rigueur in the Orient, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Just in case we never make it to Tokyo”, I laughed, unknowingly presciently.
We both chuckled about that last line as she tried out various sakes and shōchūs and an actual Japanese ‘White Liquor’ (ホワイトリカー), which were all excellent as was the company.
I tell her that I need to get some work done and could she bring me a tall Rocknocker. After explain the origins and construction of the eponymous drink, she brings me one that must tip the scales at 1 or so liters.
She settles down to an empty seat and I get after the work that I need to finish before we land. I’m about ½ way through my drink when it felt as if the plane hit a brick wall. She quivered and quaked and clutched at herself while I made some comments about the pilot’s mental health.
We dropped like a paralyzed falcon, then just as suddenly, felt like it was an express elevator to Angel’s 11. The plane bucked and shimmied, wickedly. Then we slam-danced right and fell a few more stories. It was like we were in a Mixmaster and the owner was trying out every speed.
The emergency lights in the 777-300ER popped on, and the fasten seat belt sign barked loudly so even sleeping travelers could enjoy the show.
Rinse. Spin. Shudder. Repeat.
Finally, the ride smooths out and we hear the captain on the blower.
“This is your captain speaking…ah, we seem to have hit some uncharted turbulence back there.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious”, I muttered.
“Everything’s A-OK. “ he reports.
“That’s good”, I note.
“But…”
“There’s always the but…” I groan.
“…we have a couple of warning lights for which we can’t quite account. So to just be safe and certain, we’re going to divert to Hawaii, get a clean bill of health and resume this flight once we make sure everything here is hunky-dory.”
There were scattered groans and applause. Add them together and divide by two and the average response on the flight was “Meh. Whatever.”
Except for the other guy in Business, with whom I hadn’t shared two words. He began to absolutely lose his shit.
“Oh, man! We’re so screwed! Mechanical malfunction? What does that mean?” he positively fizzed with fear.
The flight attendants tried to calm him down, to no avail. They basically gave up and said they’d report his misgivings to the Captain.
I motioned over to my personal flight attendant, Luna, and asked if I could be of service.
“Oh, Doctor Rock”, she smiled at me, “If you could speak with him. You are so calm, and he is…”
“Losing his bloody mind”, I chuckled as I finished her sentence for her. “Of course, I’ll take a stab at it.”
So, I grab my drink and ease over to my Business Class partner and introduce myself.
“Hey, pal. How’s it going? I’m Dr. Rock, gentleman, scholar, and connoisseur of cigars and things alcoholic. You doing OK?”
He looks at me with an ashen face and his eyes the size of bloodshot dinner plates.
“Yeah. I’m Todd Schotts. I’m flying to Japan for business.” He mumbles
“No surprise there,” I reply calmly and take a slug of my drink.
“But now we’re all going to die. The plane is busted and we’ll crash…” he started off again.
“So, Todd is it? Good. You drink?” I asked.
“Yeah?”, he stammered back.
I asked Luna to make us a fresh batch of my eponymous cocktails.
“OK, Todd, listen up”, I began after the drinks were served, “I have flown literally millions of miles over the last 4 decades. On Aeroflot when it was still the USSR. On TACA (Take A Chance Airways), on Chalk’s in the Caribbean, on Bob’s Verrifast Plane Company in Rhodesia, on regional carriers that don’t even exist anymore. All over the world. Had some bad experiences flying, and me ol’ mugger, this ain’t one of them. This is nothing more than the glitch for this mission.”
I chuckled lightly and complimented Luna on a fantastic drink.
“Yeah…yeah…yeah…but we have to land and check out some lights…” Todd squealed.
“Well now, Todd. It would be rather difficult to do any external assessment while in flight, don’t you agree?” I asked.
“But we’re diverting. We have to land and that adds more risk. We’re going to crash and die!” he was coming more and more unglued.
“I will bet you every cent you have on your person and home bank accounts that that will not happen”, I chuckled.
That took him by surprise. At least it shut him up for a while.
“Look, Todd. This is Boeing’s latest model. They have the most incredible safety record. And if a little clear air turbulence were to be knocking planes out of the sky, don’t you think we’d hear about it as the press went berserk?” I asked.
“But they don’t know what the lights mean! What if one of the engines’s out? How far can we fly on one engine?” Todd stuttered.
Having my fill of a supposedly grown man with inane childlike fears, I calmly replied,
“All the way to the crash site.”
He went white.
“...hope we hit something hard. I don’t want to limp away from this.”
He went limp.
Then I went to my seat and motioned for Luna to prepare a reload.
Of course, 45 minutes later, we land without incident at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Honolulu Hawaii.
We were told to just wait around until they figure out what the problem if any, was.
They had officials waiting at the end of the jetway to check our COVID status and passports before they let us loose in the terminal.
I asked Luna if she knew this airport. She noted that she did.
“Is there a JAL hospitality room here at this airport? I asked.
“Yes, Doctor. It’s the Sakura Lounge. It is located on the third level above The Local, Terminal 2.” She replied.
“Please notify whoever needs to know that that’s where I’ll be for the duration”, I smiled and handed her my business card. “See you soon, I hope.”
“Oh, Dr. Rock”, she replied, “I am sure it is nothing much. We’ll be back in the air within mere hours.”
“Well then”, I smiled, “Guess I’d better get ready to hoof it to the lounge.”
“Oh, Doctor Rock”, she smiled, “No rush. I will call for you a courtesy cart. You are injured, you are Business, you are priority.”
“I love that Asian efficiency.” I smiled back and toddled down the jetway.
At the terminus of the jetway, I show my COVID-clear papers, dates and times of my Anti-Virus vaccine administrations, the letter from Virginia clearing me of all detention, and my red Russian diplomatic passport.
While in the cart, whizzing our way to the JAL lounge, the driver said “Man! You must be some kind of VIP. You were through that welcoming committee in less than two minutes!”
“Me? Nah!”, I chuckled, “Just an old phart of a geologist that they didn’t want to mess with. Not on such a bright, sunny day as this.”
“I see you’re not wearing a mask.” The driver quipped.
“Very observant. There are reasons for that.” I replied.
He careens around a corner and if this were a normal pre-Covid day, I’m certain we’d have killed hundreds. However, the airport, as I’ve come to grow accustomed to, was virtually deserted.
“Yeah? Like what?” he asks.
“Well, Scooter, 1. I have an active and hardworking immune system that I let off the chain every once in a while for exercise. Got to let it know what it’s up against, right? 2. I’ve had all my shots and some that were experimental. They seem to have worked. And 3. I find it difficult to drink and smoke cigars while wearing a mask. However, if you’d prefer, I will mask up. No problem, though it still is optional.”
“Nah, man”, he said, “I was just wondering if you were one of those religious idiots or conspiracy nuts.”
Nope”, I smiled back, “Just another geologist out in the world plying his trade for cash. Y’know, whorin’ around for money.”
He laughs aloud as we skid to a stop right in front of Lounge.
I slip the guy a $20 and ask if he’d listen for the JAL flight I was just on. If we’re going on ahead today, I’d need him to scoot by and putt-putt me back to the plane.
He laughs and pockets the $20 as quick as a mink ruts.
“No worries. I’ll just hang around this area. I hear anything about the flight, I’ll come and let you know.” He grins.
“Good man”, I say, as I hand him my card. “I’m Dr. Rocknocker. Call me Rock”.
“And I’m Kapula Mano, call me Kap” he replies.
“Good man”, I say again, “Hope to see you in a while.”
He grins, floors his electric cart, and peels out at speeds approaching 4.5 MPH.
I wander into the lounge, show my credentials, and am escorted to a post up on Mahogany Ridge.
The bar is very quiet. Besides the bartender, I can’t see anyone else in the darkened and Smooth Jazz-infused drinking emporium.
I order a local drink, a Mai Tai, just for the experience and something a bit different.
It’s served in a goldfish bowl on a stem, bedecked with a slice of lime, a sprig of mint, a stick of sugar cane, a polychromatic orchid, and the obligate paper umbrella.
“Ah. Mai Tai. I will enjoy it.” I said to no one in particular.
One was enough, and I decided to go back to the old standard. Once I explained to the bartender what that was, he made them heroic and enthusiastically.
I’m reading up on a random dossier, making notes in a new file, and puffing away on a Fuentes Onyx double Maduro Churchill cigar.
I hear a slight cough coming from my right, and this here lovely lady, she sat to my immediate starboard and looked at me semi-quizzically.
Not in the mood for shenanigans of any stripe, I give her the obligate Baja Canada nod and tilt of the drink. I return to my dossiers and continue to read and take notes.
“Excuse me!” I hear.
Fearing the worst, either the woman is Karen-oid anti-smoking or a religious fruit-and-nutburger, I slowly turn to face her and reply, somewhat glacially, I have to admit.
“What?”
“That cigar…”
“Here we go…” I mutter, eyes rolling northward.
“Smells exquisite. Could you tell me the brand? My husband would enjoy some like that.” She notes.
Instantly my demeanor switches 180^0.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s an Arturo Fuentes Onyx. Churchill size, or 60 ring x 7” length, double Maduro. Here, take one for your husband. I have an ample supply.” I smile.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t. Could I?” she asks.
“Please. I insist.” I smile the best I could given the circumstances.
“Thank you. You’re too kind…umm…Mr….?”
“Doctor. Doctor Rocknocker. World traveler, oilman, and international ambassador of amity, good drinks, and fine cigars. Call me Rock” I said.
“Oh! A Doctor?” she brightens.
“Yes, of Petroleum Geology and Engineering. Not medicine.” I chuckle.
She chuckles back.
“And I am Hella Aaberg”, as she offers her hand for a quick shake.
“Interesting name, Hella. Scandinavian or Old German heritage?” I ask.
“On my father’s side. He’s Finnish.” She replies.
“But I’ll wager your mother is not Scandinavian, correct?” I ask.
“She was from Truk, an island…”
“In the South Pacific, Micronesia. Was she from Weno city?” I asked.
“Why yes. How could you possibly know that?” she asked.
“Oh, I’ve been there. Great diving amongst the WWII wrecks. I think it’s actually called ‘Chuuk Lagoon’ or something like that now.” I said.
“That’s right! Amazing. Where else have you been?” she asked.
“Anywhere there’s oil, strife, booze, cigars, heavy explosives and typically long distances from whatever most normal people call civilization,” I replied with a chuckle.
Suddenly, I hear a voice booming out behind me.
“Why don’t you save that rapier-like wit for those musky-fuckers back home, Rocko?”
My expression changes. My eyes pop fully wide open.
“Hella?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“May I ask you a favor?”
“You can ask…”
“Thank you. Now, looking over my shoulder, is there a hulking goon of a person, thin up top, paunchy halfway down with the most ridiculously tiny sized shoes you’ve ever seen for a so-called grown man?” I ask.
“Yes. Yes, there is.” She replies.
“I thought so. Many thanks.”
I spin and launch off my barstool and grab Toivo by the hand. He hadn’t seen my left-hand Thagomizer yet.
“Toivo! You old sumbitch. What the flying fennec fox fuck are you, of all people, doing in Hawaii?” I laughed.
“Just keeping an eye on you, Rock!” he laughed equally as loud.
“No, fucking-A, seriously. What the actual fuck? What are you doing in this actual nice place?” I asked.
“Just headed to Tokyo to conduct a bit of service company business. I walked into the lounge and smelled a foul cigar. I figured it can’t be the venerable Dr. Rocknocker. He’s back at some school up north terrorizing geology and engineering grads and undergrads.” Toivo laughed.
“But there I was. Surprise!”, I laughed and pumped his hand.
“What the fuck, Rock. Now what did you do?” he asks, referring to my Ankylosaur tail club left hand.
“Ah, fuck. Long story. Oh, pardon me. Toivo, this is Hella. We were just talking about the South Seas Islands.” I said.
“Planning on running off together?” Toivo laughs, to the amusement of neither party.
“Oh, and this idiot is Toivo, a man with a congenital foot-in-mouth disorder. He’s mostly harmless.” I noted to Hella.
Greetings were shared all around. Hella made some small excuses and said she needed to depart. I gave her another cigar for her husband, shook her hand, and wished her well.
“Here’s my business card. If your husband has any questions, have him drop me a line.” I noted.
Hella smiled beautifully. She said she would. Then she thanked me shook our hands, and like that, there she was, gone.
“Well Toivo, you old bastard. Don't just stand there in the doorway like some lonesome goddamn mouse shit sheepherder, get your ass over here and have a drink.” I motioned over to my perch on Mahogany Ridge.
“Don’t mind if I do”, he says as he deftly winds his way to a seat to my left, snagging a cigar out of my pocket on the way over.
“You might want these”, I say in an exasperated tone, and hand him my gold Dunhill Hobnail lighter and V-cutter gizmo.
He cuts and fires up his heater.
“What you drinkin’, Rock”, he asks.
“Anything with alcohol, as usual. You know that Toiv.” I reply.
“No. I mean right now.” He clarifies.
“Well, I had a Mai Tai. Very nice if you like fruity, flowery drinks. It’s the locals’ favorite.” I reply.
“Sounds good. I’ll have several. And you?” Toivo asks.
“My usual. The bartender is already apprised of the situation.” I reply.
Toivo smiles the smile of one knowing his sobriety is going to be taken out for a swim. Hell, taken out and tossed into the deep end.
Toivo and I sit there, swapping lies, smoking cigars and sipping at our toddies.
Hell, Toivo was slurping them like a sump-pump during an extra-wet summer.
We chattered about family, work, whether or not Tokyo was going to host the Olympics or if the COVID-boogie man scared everyone off.
Toivo, always one afflicted with TB (“Tiny Bladder”) got up to go to the loo for the third time that hour. He left his pocket organizer on the bar and I swear on a stack of Origins of Species, I didn’t touch it.
I reached over to his vacated seat to retrieve my cigar lighter when I looked down and saw in his organizer a tab that reads “Rack & Ruin”.
“Oh. No. Fucking. Way.” I recoiled as I’d just reached out and petted a 6-foot hungover scorpion.
“One of my best friends? Secretly allied with the Agency? No. Not possible.” I drained my drink and called for another.
“No. No. No. It can’t be. No. No fucking way…” as doubt began to dissolve when I thought back to all those times I had just ‘run into’ Toivo.
“But he’s oil patch as well. That could be chalked up to coincidence.” I ruminated quizzically in my brain.
I quickly reflected back on J.M. Darhower: “Yes, you see, there’s no such thing as coincidence. There are no accidents in life. Everything that happens is the result of a calculated move that leads us to where we are.”
She may be the author of the execrable New Adult Sempre series, which Esme likes and I loathe, but she might just be right on this occasion.
Toivo return, lighter in the bladder and good sense. He never even noticed he’d left his organizer out in broad bar light for all to see.
“So, Toivo, when’s your flight?” I ask.
“Oh, man. Was I lucky. The JAL flight to Tokyo from Los Angeles had mechanical trouble and had to divert here. I got a ticket on the plane for that flight, when it continues.
“You mean ‘if it continues’,” I replied.
“Yeah. Yeah. That’s what I meant. Hey! Was that your flight?” he asks innocently. He’s really innocent of fieldcraft.
I decide to have some fun at my old friend’s expense.
“Yep. Hit some CAT (Clear Air Turbulence) and the JAL pilots reported some lighting problem. No apparent ruin to any of the systems. They relay racked their brains to figure it out, but they couldn’t that’s why I here.” I said, waiting for the words to swim upstream in Toivo’s coconut and make some sort of connection.
“Yeah. Double lucky. No problem with the plane and I get to go to Japan early.” Toivo crookedly grins.
“So, no trouble with the plane? Then why haven’t I heard that the flight’s going to resume?” I asked as I pushed a fresh, seriously strong drink to Toivo.
“Oh, must have heard it in the john.” Toivo countered and tried to cover his tracks by taking a huge gulp of his drink and damn near dying coughing.
I pound on Toivo’s back.
“Heimlich time?” I ask.
Toivo signals ‘no’.
“Jesus Christ, Rock. What was that?” he asks.
“Just my usual”, I innocently replied.
“Holy fuck. No wonder you have the reputation of…” Toivo realizes too late that he’s said too much.
“Yeah. They can rack you out. Really ruin a person if they’re not careful.” I reply icily.
“Why, Rock. Whatever do you mean?” Toivo slurred as he realized he’s been caught out.
“The jig is up, you turncoat. You know Agents Rack and Ruin from the agency. Right? You keeping tabs on me for them? You Quisling! You Benedict Arnold!” I almost was on the verge of losing my cool.
“It was nothing. They approached me years ago as I kept being mentioned in your reports. They asked me for some information. One thing leads to another…” Toivo was ready for an Ankylosaur tail club swat to the bean.
“Oh, put your fucking hands down, you asshole.” I smiled and chuckled.
“You’re not mad?” Toivo slurred badly. I had the bartender make him another special drink.
“No, Toivo. Not mad. Just disappointed.” I said, smiling like a Komodo Dragon just finishing up a fortnight-old wildebeest.
Toivo sat there and puzzled and puzzled until his puzzler was sore.
“You’re not going to kill me or anything rude like that?” Toivo asked, half-assedly trying to inject humor into the proceedings.
“Nah. The paperwork’s too ridiculous for me to do another liberation. But, Jesus Fucking Christwagons, Toivo; you could have mentioned it to me. Fuck, I thought we were friends to the end?” I said, dejectedly.
I was really getting through to Toivo. I could tell he was loaded; feeling like shit and massively deplorable.
Great fieldcraft, indeed.
I told him things “are what they are” and that I won’t blow his cover nor his honorarium.
He began to feel better. I often wonder if he was serious about the sanctioning thing.
Then I delivered the strategic missile strike.
“Just remember, Toivo. I wrote your dossier for the Company…”
He swivels to look at me.
“And one for the KGB. Olga says ‘howdy’.” I grin evilly.
Toivo short-circuited at that. Russia is his company’s bread and butter. Now he has the KGB as well as his best buddy looking over his shoulder at every move.
I bought him a few more drinks and continued to needle him about his ’leading a double life’. He was well and truly fuckered when the electric tap-tap driver from before came looking for me to whisk me back to the plane.
Seems it was simply some knocked-out wires on the plane, or slammed bulbs that were generating a false positive, indicating something other than the system that alerts one to something haywire went haywire.
Toivo was pretty much down for the count. I got him sober enough to hand them his ticket and ensure that he was really supposed to be on this flight. Thing was; h e was in Economy, and I was, as always, in Business.
I spoke to Luna, and the plane was going to be even less crowded than previously because some folks could or wouldn’t wait, or didn’t want to go on with the rest of the trip on a ‘damaged’ aircraft, or were just stupid and superstitious.
“Luna, could I pay for the difference between Business and Economy for my less than 100% conscious friend here? He’s had a rough day.” I asked.
“Dr. Rock. Just put him into Business. No one will be the wiser. Luna says so.” As she gave us a grand smile.
“Luna, I owe you. Thanks so much.” I said.
“Now get on board. Your friend looks like he needs all the downtime he can get.”
“Yes, ma’am!” I said and saluted here be best I could which dragging a schnozzled Toivo down the jetway.
I dumped Toivo in a window seat well away from my seat. I know Toivo. He snores like a semi-load of live hogs rocketing downhill locking up the brakes at 88 MPH.
Surprise! There was no one else in Business. Luna looked at me, at Toivo, and gave me a thumbs up.
Whatever I can write to further her career at JAL, she’ll have it before I deplane.
We finally get everyone settled, and with Captain Kangaroo at the helm, we bounced gracelessly off the tarmac, into the warm, tropical Hawaiian air, finally headed for the Land of the Rising Sun.
Toivo was snoring like a chainsaw hitting rusty nails as I worked on the various letters, communiques, and dossiers which needed updating before we reached touchdown. I gave Luna a thick letter with instructions not to open it until we were on the ground and Toivo and I were well off and away into the terminal.
We left Hawaii at 1300 hours, so we should arrive at Tokyo Nareda around 4:00 pm, the previous day. I was so bereft of time and time zones, I couldn’t figure out what time it really was, as judged by my biometric rhythms, so I asked Luna for a stiff drink as I was kicking off my boots and going to attempt to get some kip.
She brought me another liter or so eponymous drink. I was sawing logs by the time I slurped the last swig of that nifty drink.
Suddenly, or later, I have no idea really, some loudmouth drunk asshole from way-the-fuck-back in economy-land toward the ass end of the plane staggered into Business demanding free drinks.
Luna was nothing but civil, and asked him to both shut up and return to his seat. His air cabin hostess, or whatever the fuck they’re calling them these days, will attend to his needs.
“Naw they won’t! They want me to pay for more drinks! I’m broke but I demand more booze! You fucking owe me.” railed the asshole. “I sat at the bar in Hawaii for four hours. Them fuckers charged me an arm and a leg!”
“No, they don’t owe you shit”, I said in a voice that unmistakably loud and clear.
“Fuck you, old man! You stay the fuck out of this!” he bellowed. “Shut up or I’ll do ya’!”
“’Old man’? ‘Do me’? Excuse me. Luna, may I have a word alone with this individual?” I asked sweetly.
Luna shook her head in the affirmative, and I stood up to confront this flagrant asshole.
“Now look, Scooter. You have gone way, way over the fucking line. You are loud. You are abusive. You are obnoxious. And you stink. Plus you insulted a person who is just barely containing his righteous wrath right now. So, I’m giving you one and one only chance to shut up, sit back down before your body spontaneously develops all sort of bruises, contusions, broken bones, and unconsciousness.” I said calmly, evenly, and threateningly.
“What da’ fuck you think you’re going to do…old man?” he screeched, trying to inflate himself into full mammalian threat posture, all 5’ 9” of it.
He didn’t notice Toivo walking up quietly behind him, as Toivo was returning from the head, quiet as a moose.
“Well, Scooter, I am an Air Marshall. Duly appointed, fully trained, and properly pissed off. Right now, I can arrest you, physically detain you, turn this flight around and take you to the Hawaiian police, at your cost for the inconvenience of the entire flight. Or I could arrest you, physically detain you, and turn you over to the Japanese authorities when we land. It’s really your choice. Choose wisely.”
To be continued…⇝

A couple years ago, I was playing poker full-time during a gap year in college. I'm from Jersey (grew up like 15 minutes away from Anna, apparently - took the SAT's at her old high school) and was mainly grinding at Parx outside Philly and Borgata in AC when I wasn't playing online (thank god it's legal here, fuck Sheldon Adelson - wishing death on decrepit old Jews like Kissinger who have receded into the shadows long after their damage has been done is usually weak shit, but I'd laugh if Adelson caught one in the dome), but I was pretty active in the Central Jersey home game scene. One of my good friends was a home game dealer at the time and started working at this juicy game consisting solely of ex-convicts who met up twice a week to lose their drug money to each other. He'd gotten the gig through a connection with one of the game runners who he'd been selling stolen iPhone parts at Rutgers for and told me to drop by since they were always looking for new players. He said the game was "shady" and told me to bring as little cash as possible as there'd be a non-zero chance I got robbed but gave me no details beyond that.
I show up to the game for the first time, hosted in the upstairs of run-down chiropractic office off Route 1, and "fish out of water" doesn't quite do it justice. I'm a sandy-haired twink, 135 pounds soaking wet, and I waltz into this place where everyone has done 5+ years (verbalized by at least three of them, my friend told me pretty much everyone had a record, usually narcotics charges with some domestic abuse sprinkled in) wearing salmon shorts and a button-down. Still, everyone was very cordial, happy to see a new player. Among the cast of characters playing was one of the hosts, an ex-DI defensive tackle who wore the same barbecue sauce-stained wife beater to every game while draped in what looked like 20 pounds of diamond jewelry and rolled up each night in a different Audi A6. There was also "Shorty", a wicked nice guy who'd been wheelchair-bound for over 20 years after taking 5 shots from a Tec-9 for saving his little cousin from getting his shit pushed in (whenever he was dealt 9 5 in Hold' em, after the hand he'd go "man, '95. The year my daughter was born and the year I got shot." which I got him to elaborate on that first night). There was Bri, a woman in her late 30's with an awful weave who'd lose exactly $300 every game in quick $50 increments, always seething on her bustout hand, cursing out the dealer and occasionally throwing chips at them (didn't know why they let her back every game since she brought so little to the game, but it was a very Snot Boogie-esque moment, if you're into The Wire). The only other white person there outside of my friend was "Big D," a paunchy woman in her 40's who'd gone to jail for beating her cheating husband with a baseball bat (omg queeeeeeen slayyyyyy).
I started going most Wednesdays since the casinos were usually slow that night and the Omaha game they ran was very fat. I didn't speak much, and I was mostly known for being a "serious player" and for my ability to snarf down a penne vodka tray faster than "Big Anthony" despite having the effete physique of a John Singer Sargent portrait subject. One night, I'm a few Millers deep (people tolerate you draining thousands from their game better if you're not stone sober all the time) and they started bumping some tunes, not super common at home games but the host was in the mood for it. As I'm sitting there stimming with my chips, my ears perk up when I hear the ethereal melody of "Life's a Bitch" fade in. As an autistic backpacker proto-fantanofag whose music taste was birthed out of the annals of 2011 /mu/, all those Illmatic verses are practically etched into my hippocampus.
I start mouthing the conversation between Nas and AZ at the beginning, and Shorty sees me as I say "cause we spendin' these Jacksons, the Washingtons go to wifey, you know how that go" and tells the table "yo, look." AZ's legendary verse begins and I drill it. 'Visualizing the realism of life in actuality / fuck who's the baddest, a person's status depend on salary..." and the rest seamlessly leaks out of my grapefruit. The whole room erupts out of bewilderment that this skinny nerd just nailed such an immaculate verse, and they're saying "keep going, keep going" during the chorus. I do a clean run of Nas' oft-overlooked second verse and the host is out of his seat yelling at this point as Olu Dara's cornet gently glides us to the end of the track. He goes "let's see him do another one" and the game is de facto paused at this point (very rare as it stops the collection of rake) and turns on "The World Is Yours," very fitting as the next track on the album.
We collectively sing the chorus and then I'm solo when the first verse hits - "I sip the Dom P watchin' Gandhi 'til I'm charged, then / Writin' in my book of rhymes, all the words past the margin" powerful enough lines to carry me through the rest of it. When we get to the third verse, Shorty notices me skip a word in "I need a new nigga for this black cloud to follow / ‘Cause while it's over me it's too dark to see tomorrow" (Jesus, who hasn't felt that at some point?) and at the end of the track, gets his hand on my shoulder and gives the proclamation "anybody who can spit Nas like that can say nigga." The game restarts and I'm asked for an encore, so I do "N.Y. State of Mind", a fortunate ordering since it has by far the highest n-word density of the three. I briefly stumble over "45’s and gauges, MAC's in fact / Same niggas will catch you back-to-back, snatchin' your cracks and black," a difficult string of exact rhymes, but they're equally impressed. The light-skinned drink runner grabs me another Miller and they transition to listening to All Eyez On Me, disappointed I don't have the same proficiency in Pac.
Stopped going to the game when I went back to school. Hope they're still drinking and throwing cards around, they were some cool people.
TL; DR: I can say the n-word because the Dionysian transcends all cultural boundaries.

It's so much easier. I'm in a pretty big club (700 members). Started with about 162 and at 900 now from just two nights of playing (most is made in Omaha games that are super soft)
Only thing is im just concerned what if I grind for a couple months then they for some reason wont or cant do my cash out.
Anyways if it does work out ill probably never play on the online casinos again. This is just way too easy.

Joseph Lee's Letter to Family and Friends - 2014

Joseph Lee
August 27, 2014
I am burdened with glorious purpose. - Loki

Introduction

This is the third straight year that I have written an open letter to my friends and family, and each year, this letter serves the same purpose: to defend the way I live my life and to inspire others to take on a life filled with meaning and purpose. Readers of my past letters may have already grown weary of my preaching, or this letter may be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. You may think that I am not in any position to suggest that my way of life is any better than yours. You might renounce our friendship altogether, or you may simply politely ignore my ramblings. I welcome my friends and family to make their own choice whether to read my letter or not, but I promise not to tone down my hubris. As Kanye West would say, I am the voice of my generation.
Of course, some of this letter is simply intended for entertainment. In particular, I feel I am especially good at telling stories. Last year, I recounted a story about a basketball game I played in middle school. These stories may be obscure references to events in my past, but I hope they help contribute to the mythos surrounding my origin.
Lastly, some portion of this letter, if not the letter in its entirety, will be devoted to flirting with girls. I apologize in advance in any case where these flirtations are unwelcomed.
Figure 1. Reported Holdings Since 2013

Date	Portfolio
December 31, 2012	$97,432.75
March 31, 2013	$110,534.77
June 30, 2013	$124,125.55
October 1, 2013	$147,418.90
December 31, 2013	$177,818.90
March 31, 2014	$184,862.98
June 30, 2014	$214,989.08

Glorious Purpose

Every year I write an open letter to the world, and every year I find that there are more people ready to take up arms against the ideology that I profess. People write to me to explain the flaws in my arguments, and I can tell you, with all honesty, that there is nothing that I enjoy more to read than these criticisms. In addition to those who openly share their disapproval with the way I live my life, I am also aware of everyone else who reads my letters and ignores every piece of sensible advice I offer.
“Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon.” - Benjamin Franklin, "The Way to Wealth"
Whether the reader rejects my ideas explicitly by writing a rebuttal or implicitly through indifference, he or she openly agrees to the following. Each year I will report how fulfilling and meaningful my life has become, and my critics will be forced to measure their happiness in life against mine. The reader may feel confident with this wager. I enjoy the confidence my critics possess. To my critics: I am glad that you are willing to test your ideals against mine. I always wish my enemies well. (See the kind words I had to say about Tom Langan in my letter last year.) I wish you all the happiness in the world, and I hope you will win this bet. I have great fear, however, that you will not.

What's Sauce for the Goose Is Sauce for the Gander

I guess it is only fair that everyone I know feels comfortable telling me the biggest flaw he or she sees in my life. I am told, and always worded the exact same way, “You work too much.” But however annoyed I may be from this usual refrain, I always smile back politely, as if to say, “Hey, go fuck yourself.”
Last year I boasted about how I had not missed a single day of teaching in over a year, despite losing vacation days in the process. This year I am able to continue that boast as I again missed zero classes and lost two more paid vacation days. While I may be saving the tax payer a few dollars every year, I do have some sense that there are probably other very dedicated educators who also eschew missing any day of instruction even if it means less vacation. Therefore, I regard my next boast with even more admiration for my endeavors. I work every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night at a minimum wage job, and I have not requested a night off in over a year. While you may find a teacher who has not taken a day off of work in over a year, find me someone with a quarter million dollars who has not taken a night off from his or her minimum wage job. I am sure there are hard-working minimum wage workers who never take a night off in order to barely feed their families. I also imagine there are individuals who are well-off and still enjoy a part-time job. But I find it hard to believe there is anyone else with my level of economic security who works his or her minimum wage job with as much style as I do without respite.
But back to the critique at hand: let me dissuade any of this silly idea that I spend too much of my time being a productive member of society.
“I speak of that nurse and mistress of all the vices known in English as idleness, that gate to sin and hell – we must avoid it at all costs and instead cultivate a busy and useful life. We ought to concentrate on work, rather than pleasure, or else the devil may take us unawares.” - Chaucer, "The Second Nun's Prologue"
While working so much and spending so little has produced the respectable wealth shown in Figure 1, perhaps the greater consequence has been the abundance of moral character I have acquired. When I work on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, I am not only paid a federally-mandated minimum wage: I also earn an amount of self-respect and purpose in life that one does not earn sitting on his or her couch watching football or drinking beer at a bar with friends. I do not mention these activities to highlight their moral depravity (I have already done that in my previous letters), but instead to simply contrast how I choose to spend my free time with how my critics might suggest I spend it. I remain highly convinced that spending my time working is the moral way to live my life.

Family, Duty, Honor

I think some of my critics try to justify their sinful lives by somehow suggesting that the time they spend with their families is more valuable than the time I spend pursuing my limitless ambition. My critics think maybe that instead of working every weekend, I should be painting my toenails with my sisters and giggling about cute boys we met during the week. I am sure my family enjoys my company, but my family also understands what I provide for them in place of my charming personality is far greater.
Imagine, for example, that you went to your family and told them you would spend as much time with them as they wanted, but they would have to pay you $7.25 per hour for the privilege. Your family would find that condition offensive, but it is exactly what my critics are suggesting for me. The money I make working on the weekends does not go towards a fancy new car or a big screen television. (Yes, I will endure yet another year of Josh complaining about my television.) Every penny I make from my part-time job goes directly into the pockets of my younger sisters. Those who tell me I should be spending my weekends with my family are really trying to steal this money straight from my sisters’ pockets.
People who argue that my younger sisters would prefer to spend time with me rather than earn this steady income are simply divorcing themselves from any sense of rationality. The only reason your siblings do not suggest you get a part-time job to support them is because they know you would rather pursue your own sinful life. My sisters know, on the other hand, that I have no wish to lead a sinful life – that my happiness comes from the moral and righteous life that I live and the limitless ambitions that I pursue.
Of course there are more people in my family than just my two younger sisters. However, do not think that anyone else in my family wants any less for my younger sisters than I do. My mother, my father, my older siblings – they want all the same things that I want for my younger sisters. My family – every single member – would gladly sacrifice spending some time with me so that my younger sisters receive all the things you deny your sisters.

The Flower and Fruit of a Man

Everyone knows I love my family, but that does not mean they can’t be infuriatingly obstinate when it comes time for my birthday or Christmas. My mother is probably the worst offender when it comes to this offense, but she is definitely not alone. My family knows I hate gifts, but yet they get them for me anyways. Christmas after Christmas, I would politely unwrap all of my gifts, and then after the traditional ceremony was over, I would neatly pile all of my gifts on my parents dresser and inform them they should return all of these presents. (In fact one Christmas, I believe Tom scored a Nintendo Wii out of this Lee family tradition.)
Now I do not just tell this story simply to reminisce about past Christmas holidays: I tell this story to introduce an even greater annoyance my family now perpetrates. Instead of buying me gifts, my family now resorts to cards explaining their feelings for me. And to be quite honest, I’d almost prefer some shirt that I would never wear.
“What do I want? A little bloody gratitude would be a start.” - Tyrion Lannister
“Jugglers and singers require applause. You are a Lannister.” - Tywin Lannister
Not just to my family, but to everyone: please do not get me a card that explains the greatness of my character. It is the silliest card that I can imagine. I already know exactly how great you think my character is, or I know that you are a bad judge of character. Do not get me a card that says what a wonderful brother or son I am. Other moms, dads, brothers, sisters – they get these cards for their family members, too. If you buy me a card that says how special I am, then I will know that I am not. I am sure there are plenty of amazing brothers out there that deserve praise, but do not mention them along with me.
Do not get me a card that explains how grateful you are of some contribution I have made in your life. This card infuriates me on multiple levels. First, it means you think as little of me as a juggler or singer. Second, and maybe more importantly, while you are writing that you are grateful for this or that, you will certainly miss the only contribution I care to make in your life.
“I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial or transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins.” - Henry David Thoreau, Walden
If you are thanking me for this or that, it means my aroma has not overpowered you the way I desire. The point of my life is to have my fragrance waft over you – to inspire greatness that you thought before was unachievable.
You want to acknowledge that I have made a meaningful impact in your life? Pursue something greater than before. Do not buy me a gift. Do not write me a card. Show me that you have been inspired. Buy a share of Coca-Cola, or any other Dow component stock. Read a piece of literature, and explore the ideas of Emerson or Thoreau. Ask a girl out who is ten times prettier than any girl you think you should be dating. Do something that I would have done – that I would do. Inspire me in return. Why should I not enjoy your fragrance as well?

Man Thinking

“Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship. In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar"
People who do not read my annual letters probably understand almost nothing about real mathematics. (Before I go any further, I should probably mention that this is not the portion of the letter than introduces some mathematics. That portion will come later. I insert this preface to make sure readers do not immediately skip this section. Although, skipping my section on mathematics is surely a crime that the gods will judge harshly – the old and the new.) I point this out to make my next comment more understandable: my talents as a mathematician are really average at best. Again, do not confuse this statement with some newfound sense of humility. In general, high school math teachers have degrees in education and not mathematics, so it would be almost impossible to consider these people mathematicians. Even people with master’s degrees in mathematics might know little real mathematics. I am quite convinced if you compared my knowledge of mathematics to this cohort, that mine would contrast quite favor- ably. However, it is also fair to say that I am very many years of studying away from being at any doctoral level of knowledge in mathematics.
While my talents at mathematics may be modest, the benefits of even a small understanding of mathematics are immense. I have friends with doctoral level degrees in other fields, and they use their knowledge in amazingly meaningful ways. They use their knowledge to make children better when they are sick. They use their knowledge to protect women’s rights and guide people through the complex legal system – they do great things. Compared to mathematics, however, all their knowledge seems superficial.
I believe I mentioned that I work at a minimum wage job. Imagine the customers who purchase their movie tickets from me. Most people go through their entire life and they never meet a mathematician. Customers at Village Pointe Cinema, however, cannot see a movie on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night without first meeting one. Imagine how my co-workers might feel. Unlike our customers, they know I stylize myself as the greatest mathematician they will ever meet. Here is the question my readers should ask themselves: would my co-workers rather work with someone with an M.D., a J.D., or an M.A. in mathematics? The former two are doctoral level degrees, but they do not seek to unravel the secrets of the universe. The former two are practical degrees, but the latter is the study of art, of beauty, of something greater.
The entire discussion of mathematics is intended to shed some light on my current studies. Last winter, I enrolled in an American literature course. This fall, I am taking a British literature course. People always ask me, “When are you going to get your Ph.D.?” The criticism is fair – my friends have doctoral degrees, so why don’t I? The short answer is a Ph.D. in mathematics would require significant sacrifices, and the outcome would be largely the same – I would continue to be the only mathematician you know. I do not rule out pursuing a Ph.D.in mathematics, but at the same time, I have opened the possibility to pursuing degrees in other fields – English or philosophy. There is great precedence for mathematicians doing great work in other fields. Lewis Carroll published both literature and mathematics. Abraham Lincoln propelled himself to the White House with his background in mathematics. My ambitions, on the other hand, are limitless.

Dating

“Am I going to have a problem with you, Mr. Bond?” No, don’t worry. You’re not my type. “Smart?" Single. - Casino Royale
In 2012, I bragged about how little I ever associated with girls outside of work. In 2013, I cautioned my female readers that I would be perfectly willing to take them out and let them experience some- thing they would not get with any other guy. But while I openly courted all of my female readers, I can report that so far all of these advances have been rebuffed.
Readers may wonder if this lack of success has in any way dampened my spirits or reduced my willingness to date. I can assure my readers it has not. To my female readers: you may decide this year to alter your life forever and go on a date with me, or you may wait twenty more years: my willingness to show you what you have been missing all this time will not change.
Readers may think I can withstand twenty-nine years of rejection, but that thirty years will cause me to throw in the towel. These readers could not be more wrong. I am like Beyonce – I only get more attractive as I get older. My readers may not be ready to leave their boyfriends or husbands at the moment, but as their partners grow old and tired and loathsome, I only become more passionate and vigorous and full of life. Let my annual letter become a yearly reminder that all of this could be yours.

An Apology to My A.P. English Class

Recently I’ve been reading a lot of literature, and it has me reflecting on my A.P. English class in high school. To some extent, any transgression I committed over a decade ago in high school is probably water under the bridge at this point. At the same time though, through my annual letters, I have given myself an amazing opportunity to express any regret I may possess about my behavior in the past. The reader may wonder, however, if an open letter to the world is the best place to make an apology. It may seem more heart-felt if I were to reach out to each of my classmates individually with a much more personal statement of regret. The problem lies in the fact that I do not remember a single person in my senior year English class. So let me add this statement: if I could remember who one of you were, I would certainly come to you to ask for your forgiveness. Unfortunately, I cannot remember these details in the story. The remainder of this section is devoted instead to the parts of the story that I do remember.
The story begins a year earlier in Ms. Kelly’s junior year honors English class. Let me describe Ms. Kelly: Ms. Kelly was the greatest English teacher at Burke High School. This is in no ways meant as a slight to any of the other English teachers at Omaha Burke. All of the English teachers I had were caring individuals who showed me respect throughout my high school career, and I thank each of them for the education they provided. Ms. Kelly, however, in addition to being a caring individual, had a wit that cut like a knife. Besides learning a great deal about language and literature, I know I would have enjoyed any English class with her.
In addition to my teacher, my classmates are also an important part of this story. My junior year English class was filled with classmates that I enjoyed on many levels. From old friends to new, these classmates were people who would have important roles to fill in the long course of my life. Tom Langan, our class president, I mentioned in detail last year. Blake Conant was a friend who I will explain in a minute. Erin Brummett is a childhood friend who I feel has always been on my side. Rachel Hansen, little did I know at the time, would go on to post the cutest Indian wedding photos on Facebook. (Maybe next year I will write about the good things that happened to people later in their lives who played youth basketball with me.) More than that though, I have been told on good authority that she also secretly supported me in high school. These were my classmates in my junior year English course – a class I enjoyed immensely. Let me relate just one story from that year.
In 1999, the greatest sci-fi action movie in history was released – The Matrix. In 2003, my junior year of high school, its two sequels were released. The first of these sequels, The Matrix: Reloaded, opened on May 15th (during the school year). By my junior year, my older brother had enough confidence in me to pass down the responsibilities to skip school and secure our first place in line for the movie. I waited at the front of the line all day. After school, my brother, Tom, and everyone else joined me at the front of the line for the midnight release of the movie.
Now, every time there is one of these big opening night premieres, the local press will come out to write a story about the big new movie. Of course, the Omaha World Herald reporter wanted to get a quote from me for his story, as I was at the front of the line. He was never going to succeed at this endeavor, though. I had little interest in talking to people in general, and I certainly was not going to talk to this reporter. Tom, however, had no problem filling the reporter in on the details. He told the reporter my name and how long I had been waiting at the front of the line. The story in the paper the next morning did not indicate the contempt the person at the front of the line held for the author of the story. Instead, the story opened, “Joe Lee was first in line at 6 A.M. for the midnight show of The Matrix: Reloaded.”
How does this relate to English class? From time to time, some brown-nosing student would bring in articles from the newspaper that related to something we were discussing in class. Now, Blake was not a brown-nosing student. He did, however, bring Ms. Kelly this World Herald article. I had not seen the newspaper, but in class the next morning, Ms. Kelly announces that Blake had brought in an article from the newspaper. She read the opening sentence and proceeded to good-naturedly inquire about my absence the previous day. This was my English class junior year.
As I have already mentioned, I do not remember as much about my senior year English course. What I do remember, however, is one of my other teachers, Mrs. Grill – you know her – pulling me aside and asking me if we needed to change my schedule so I could be placed in a different English course. It was passed on to her that I did not like my English class so much that she should intervene. It was apparently obvious to my English teacher at the time that I could not stand any of my classmates. Honestly, I doubt I had any grievously bad feelings toward any of these classmates, and that my antisocial behavior was just the normal amount of disdain I possess for people in general. In any case, my schedule was changed, and I was placed in a different class. But looking back at it now, maybe I was even more antisocial than normal to these classmates. Apparently I was. And with that said, I hope anyone in my original A.P. English class will forgive my unfriendly behavior. As I have already said, I certainly did not intend to be more antisocial than I normally am anyways. I hope if any of you find this letter, whoever you are, that you will accept my sincere apologies.

The Fault in The Fault in Our Stars

While writing these letters, I feel I have an obligation to share some mathematics. Readers may think I put this section in my letter simply to show off, but in fact, offering some beautiful mathematics each year is entirely in keeping with the goal of this letter. As I have stated previously, I write this letter to defend the choices I make in life, and one of the biggest choices I made was to pursue an education in mathematics. Of course, my critics will say, “You should have studied to become a neurosurgeon or something like that,” but I will respond: is a neurosurgeon going to share beautiful mathematics with you like me?
One of my YouTube reviews (visit youtube.com/limitlessjoelee to see all of my YouTube videos) this year was on the young adult romance movie The Fault in Our Stars starring Shailene Woodley. What I found most compelling, and most troublesome, about this movie was its attempt to tackle the cardinality of infinite sets. Cardinality is just a fancy math word to describe size. Shailene Woodley’s character discusses the cardinality of infinite sets as the centerpiece of one of her big monologues in the movie, and here’s basically what she said:
There are different infinities. The set of numbers between zero and one is infinite. Think 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, and so on. However, there is a bigger set of infinite numbers between zero and two. Isn’t that cool?
Different infinities... sounds interesting. Unfortunately, it turns out someone showed Shailene Woodley she was wrong about this idea about 400 years ago. His name was Galileo. Here’s Galileo’s argument:
There are exactly the same number of numbers between zero and one as there are between zero and two. Don’t believe me, Shailene? Well, you take all the numbers between zero and two, and I will take all the numbers between zero and one. Take every single one of your numbers (don’t leave any out!) and divide each of them by two. What do you get? All of my numbers. And there are not any duplicates. Each of your numbers, divided by two, is a unique number that is one of mine. Thus, we have the same number of numbers.
So far this dialogue is interesting, but the true beauty comes from the revolutionary mathematician Georg Cantor. He argued that yes, some infinities are the same size, like the ones Shailene cited, but there are infinities that are bigger than others. Here is Cantor’s argument:
Consider the following two infinite sets: the set of natural numbers {1, 2, 3, 4, . . .} and the set of real numbers between zero and one. There more real numbers between zero and one than natural numbers, and here’s how you can show it. Imagine we try to do what Galileo suggested and match each of your numbers - you get the natural numbers, {1, 2, 3, 4, . . .} - with each of my numbers. Here’s what we would have:
1 → 0.x_{1,1} x_{1,2} x_{1,3} x_{1,4} ...
2 → 0.x_{2,1} x_{2,2} x_{2,3} x_{2,4} ...
3 → 0.x_{3,1} x_{3,2} x_{3,3} x_{3,4} ...
4 → 0.x_{4,1} x_{4,2} x_{4,3} x_{4,4} ...
where each x_{i,j} is a digit in a decimal expansion. If it is possible to make a list as such, it should have every possible number between zero and one. I know for a fact though it does not, because I can think of a number that is not on this list. My number is
0.y_{1} y_{2} y_{3} y_{4} ...
where each y_{i} is determined the following way:
y_{i} = 4 if x_{i,j} = 7 and y_{i} = 7 otherwise.
Notice my number is not on the list. My number is not the same as
1 → 0.x_{1,1} x_{1,2} x_{1,3} x_{1,4} ...
since if its first digit is a 7, then my first digit is a 4. And if its first digit is not a 7, well then my first digit is a 7. It’s also not the same as
2 → 0.x_{2,1} x_{2,2} x_{2,3} x_{2,4} ...
since if its second digit is a 7, then my second digit is a 4. If its second digit is not a 7, then my second digit is a 7. You can see now that my number is different from every number on the list, (if you cannot see it, re-read this section until it make sense - there will be a quiz) so it proves I have more numbers than you. And thus, my set of infinite numbers has more numbers than your set of infinite numbers.
As I said in my review, it was nice that they mentioned this idea in the movie, but they could have done it right. Just imagine if all the theater-goers were able to appreciate the mathematics I just offered you.

Proposition Bet

Lastly, I need return to a subject I bragged about two years ago – the fact that I would never move out of my mother’s house. My mother sold her house and moved halfway across the state. As such, I moved into my first apartment on August 1st. So, for everyone who had prop bets on this subject: if you had bet I would still be living with my mother when we had our ten year high school reunion, congratulations. If, however, you wagered that I would still be living with my mother when I turned 29, I am afraid you lost that bet.

Hello Poker Friends,
I am an avid and regular poker player - live and online. I live in Kansas City and the poker scene here is great! I know a few groups of players who host home games and the casinos have great action too. Harrah's and Hollywood are where it is at for the juicy games. Ameristar isn't too bad but overall not as hot as the other two.
​
I try and play poker on every trip or vacation I go on. Sometimes just one session unless I base the whole trip around poker like I do when I went to Las Vegas twice.
​
Cities I have played in:
Many rooms on the Las Vegas strip, all the major ones
Daytona Beach Poker Kennel Club
Seattle Fortune Poker
Omaha Horsehoe
Downstream OK
​
So overall it has only been a handful of cities but I want to expand that. I went to Vegas twice last year and was so excited to go again in April until it was shutdown. Too bad. But now I am more pumped than ever to go and I cannot wait.
I have a lot of fyler points and can do at least 3 more trips. I want to go to Las Vegas once more of course but I really want to try to do a trip where I visit a city for just two nights and visit 2-3 poker rooms during my time in the city. Can you guys suggest good poker rooms in your cities to play in? Maybe we can have a meet up! Here are the cities I am thinking.
​
Chicago
Houston
Tampa Bay / Orlando
Somewhere on the East Coast
Los Angeles
Maybe Seattle again
​
What do you guys have in mind?

Love is in the air, Omaha!
​
Or maybe that's incense and dirty socks! And that's okay too. We have something for everyone this weekend, and see the full event breakdown at www.postomaha.com -
***
Thursday – 2/13/20

• at 5pm – Girls Nite Out 2020 @ Hilton Omaha
• at 630pm – Trivia Night – 90’s Romantic Comedy @ Henry Doorly Zoo
• at 630pm – A Blue Valentine Tribute to Tom Waits @ The Jewell

​
Friday – 2/14/20

• at 545pm – Valentine Chocolate Walk @ Papillion Downtown Business Assoc.
• at 7pm – Speed Dating @ Barchen Beer Garden
• at 9pm – Lemon Fresh Day @ Horseshoe Casino Council Bluffs

​
Saturday – 2/15/20

• at 7am – Trek Up The Tower 2020 @ First National Bank Tower
• at 12pm – Winter Beanfest @ Infusion Brewing Company SW
• at 4pm – Whiskey & Wings Bar Crawl @ Dubliner Pub

​
Sunday – 2/16/20

• at 1030am – Brunch Is A Drag @ Crescent Moon Ale House
• at 420pm – Fresh Drunk Stoned Comedy Tour @ Funny Bone Comedy Club
• at 5pm – 14th Annual Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards @ Slowdown

​
\*Weather Report*\**
“A high of 16 today, but by Sunday a high of 50, I don’t know much about weather, but that’s pretty nifty. These guys know about weather.“
​
Pick of the Week
Ok so I go to The Down Under Lounge a lot, I get it, but this is honestly where I will be. Lucy and Charlie are awesome performers and since I have no girlfriend this year, again, I think this is a good place to drown my sorrows around that fact. And who knows? Maybe I will find the courage to get up there and sing a tune on stage? Or talk to that cute gal at the bar? Probably not. But I will be drunk surrounded by live music so I got that goin for me which is nice.
Sunday 2/14/20

• at 930pm – Lovers & Laces Karaoke + Charlie & Lucy Duet @ The Down Under Lounge

​
This Next Weekend in Omaha…
A short preview of what’s coming next week for those that like to plan ahead.

• Jordan Davis @ Horseshoe Casino Council Bluffs
• Floyd @ The Waiting Room Lounge
• Burger Fight III @ Block 16
• Beertopia’s Ultimate Beerfest @ Ralston Arena
• Pączki Day Lunch @ The Polish Home Omaha

​
Omaha Famous
Local music, food, and people, you should know
Cascio’s Steak House – Still There Since 1946
A steakhouse sounds fitting for this Valentine’s day, and why not pick the oldest one in town (I think)? Cascio’s has been around for generations and your grand pappy won’t let you forget that fact. It’s the feature this week.
***
Fun Fact: Historians believe Valentine’s Day actually began in Ancient Rome as a pagan fertility festival called Lupercalia, with the celebration dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, and Roman founders Romulus and Remus. According to History.com, the day was celebrated with activities that included sacrificing animals and whipping women with animal skins until they bled, signifying their fertility… And not much has changed today!
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Like this blog? Support it here https://www.patreon.com/sembly
Cheers!

SUP OMAHA -
I finally got around to featuring Block 16 this week for Omaha Famous, hope you like it. Will warm up this weekend so lets go out and get it!!! via www.postomaha.com
***
Thursday – 2/20/20

• at 6pm – Picasso -Master In Clay @ El Museo Latino
• at 7pm – Passages Series: In Praise of Wasting Time @ KANEKO
• at 8pm – Jordan Brown @ Horseshoe Casino Council Bluffs

​
Friday – 2/21/20

• at 5pm – Winter Luau Party @ Caddy’s Kitchen & Cocktails
• at 830pm – Floyd @ The Waiting Room Lounge
• at 9pm – Omkara w/ DJ Ragavan @ Slowdown

​
Saturday – 2/22/20

• at 2pm – Beertopia’s Ultimate Beerfest @ Ralston Arena
• at 5pm – Burger Fight III @ Block 16
• at 7pm – Freedom of Speech Open Mic Night @ Culxr House

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Sunday – 2/23/20

• at 11am – February Winter Farmer’s Market @ Nebraska Brewing Company
• at 12pm – Pączki Day Lunch @ The Polish Home Omaha
• at 1pm – Girl Scout Cookie and Beer Pairing Event @ Mars Bar and Grill

​
\*Weather Report*\**
“Cold today, but warmer thereafter, with a weekend high of 58. I won’t be here this weekend, but for you guys, that’s pretty great. Does anyone ever click on this weather link?“
​
Pick of the Week
I saw this band last year and was absolutely blown away. It’s truly an authentic Pink Floyd experience, and knowing the band’s music pretty well, that is no easy feat to pull off. Pink Floyd has lots of keyboards, effects, and sounds, dings, dongs and wazooos, that make their music so unique, but Floyd does such a good job delivering. If I was in town this weekend, I would be here. Also, big props to the guy in the crowd last year who let me take a hit of his vape pen. If you go to this show, I hope you find that same guy and that he can elevate your experience like he did mine. BLESS YOU, you mysterious vape-bro.
*Friday 2/21/*20

• at 830pm – Floyd @ The Waiting Room Lounge

​
This Next Weekend in Omaha…
A short preview of what’s coming next week for those that like to plan ahead.

• Brett Young with Matt Ferranti @ Orpheum Theatre
• Colt Ford @ Slowdown
• Omaha Mom Prom 2020 @ Soiree Room
• Satchel Grande @ The Waiting Room Lounge
• Dierks Bentley @ CHI Health Center
• Dweezil Zappa @ The Waiting Room Lounge
• Zac Brown Band @ Pinnacle Bank Arena (Lincoln)

​
Omaha Famous
Local music, food, and people, you should know
Block 16 – Street food, imagination, and mayo
Without a doubt Omaha’s most famous restaurant, and for good reason. These guys are ridiculous, and god bless them all. They are our feature this week.
***
Fun Fact: Nearly 60-percent of all sandwiches sold worldwide are actually hamburgers. INSANE via News9
Sign up here to join the beta test for my new local app, Sembly!
Like this blog? Support it here https://www.patreon.com/sembly
Cheers!

Get a hotel in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It's across the river from Omaha and you can get a room DURING the CWS for as cheap as $75 a night.

Hi, Kansas City native here. My wife and I have been to a lot of places in and around KC, which is making her birthday this year harder to figure out. She wants to take a small day trip or overnight trip somewhere within a few hours of KC. We have a baby at home and don't want to leave him with anyone more than a day. Most likely be grandparents.
Anyway, here is a list of places we have been on trips to: Weston, Rochport, Hermann, St Louis, Des Moines, Omaha, Branson, Springfield, and even Bentonville (will want to be closer than three last 3 probably).
We have also stayed at that chateau place in the Legends area as well as at a casino in the river, and a hotel downtown. I'm looking for something a bit different this time around. Wondering if the fine people here know of any other good places we could check it for either a day trip or a one night stop.
We also like biking and hiking. We like small towns and outdoors and are pretty open to things. Does anyone have any good ideas?

[H/FS/FT] Selling from Omaha, NE, shipping not included in prices.
Board Games
- Apocrypha with The Devil and The Flesh and KS promos - $100
- Arboretum Deluxe - For Trade Only
- Bang! and Death Mesa PnP expansion - $8
- Battle for Sularia with Expansion and Promos - $12
- Cash n Guns 2nd Edition NIS - $20
- Clinic with Medical Dossier #1 and #2 - $75
- Codenames - $10
- Commissioned - $25
- Defenders of the Last Stand - $70
- Deluxe Dirty Minds - Just shipping
- Deluxe Pit - $6
- Entropy Kickstarter Edition with Ronin Expansion - $20
- Escape Curse of the Temple with Queenies #1, #2, #4, and #14 - $40
- Escape the Room: Mystery at the Stargazer's Manor - $12
- Forest of Fate - $25
- The Game of Chips! - FREE with any purchase
- Game of Thrones (2nd Edition) - $30
- Going Going Gone! - $10
- The Heavens of Olympus (NIS but has a hole in corner) - Free with any other game purchase
- I Hate Zombies and We Hate Zombies Too expansion - $5
- J'Accuse! - $5
- Knee Jerk with Movies, Sci-Fi, and Time Travel Expansions - $5
- Lost Legacy: The Starship - SOLD
- Man Laws and Woman Rules - Just shipping
- Martians: A Story of Civilization - $50
- Mottainai (Deluxe KS edition) - $30
- Muse with Factory and Dice Tower Promo - $25
- One Night Revolution NIS - $10
- Pixel Tactics 4 with Promo Pack - $18
- Project: ELITE with Alien Pack Expansion and Dice ToweSpawn a Boss Promos - $110
- [redacted] Package: - $30
[redacted], [redacted]: Garden Party, [redacted]: Mercenaries
- Risk - $12
- Romantic Rendevous - Just shipping
- Shadowstar Corsairs - For Trade Only
- Skyway Robbery - $75
- Slap .45 Mini - $4
- Specter Ops with Preorder Promo - SOLD
- Spyfall and Spyfall 2 with Ice Hockey Promo - $20
- Star Wars Imperial Assault with Twin Shadows Expansion and Broken Token Insert - SOLD
- Swords and Bagpipes with KS Promos - $60
- The Ninth World Kickstarter Edition - $50
- Time Stories: The Marcy Case - SOLD
- Tiny Epic Galaxies KS Edition with Beyond the Black and Satellites and Super Weapons Expansions - $50
- Town Center - SOLD
- Truth Be Told - $8
- Tuscany (Non Prima First Edition) - $40
- Twisted Kicks Kickstarter Edition - $8
- Unlock! The Formula - $7
- Unlock! The House on the Hill - $7
- Witch Hunt KS Edition NIS - $10
- World War Z - Just shipping
- Zombie Fluxx -$5
- Zombicide Package:
Zombicide, Season 2: Prison Outbreak, Season 3: Rue Morgue, Angry Neighbors, Toxic City Mall, Compendium 1, Moustache Pack #4, Audrey, Benny, Curro, Miss Trish, Nikki, Oksana, Patrick, Thiago, VIP #1, Ultimate Survivors #2. Will consider parting at the right price.
Promos (Primarily looking to trade these or sell multiple at once)
- Asgard's Chosen: Artifacts - $5
- Battleground Fantasy Warfare: Monsters & Mercenaries – Ancient Blue Dragon - $2
- Betrayal at Baldur's Gate Promo Card - $6
- Blood Rage: Hili - The Even Handed Promo - SOLD
- Booze Barons: Lookout Tower Promo - $2
- Bunny Kingdom: Collector - $12
- Catacombs: Dice Tower 2018 Kickstarter Promo Pack - $15
- Brook City: The Secret Cabal Promo - $12
- Downforce: Lucky Promo Card - $8
- Dragon Castle: The Dice Tower Promo - $5
- Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar - Secret Cabal Promo Cards - $12
- Fruitcake Fun Pack - $4
- Get Rich Quick: Dice Tower Casino Promo - $2
- Good Cop Bad Cop Equipment Pack #3: Tower - $3
- The Grimm Forest: Enchanted Ale Promo - $12
- Heroes Wanted: Dice Promo Card - $5
- Mage Wars: Dice Tower 2015 Promos - $10
- Mage Wars: Dice Tower 2016 Promos - $10
- Mascarade: Usurper - $3
- New Salem: Tom Commands - $2
- Operation F.A.U.S.T.: Dice Tower Personalities (First edition) - $5
- Pie Town: Special Order Micro Expansion - $5
- Police Precinct: Richard Austria Character Board - $3
- Raiders of the North Sea: Outsiders Promo - $10
- Robin Promos - $3
- Sagrada: Promo - Man vs Meeple Window Pattern - $10
- Sentinels of the Multiverse: KNYFE Rogue Agent Promo Card - $3
- Shinobi WAT-AAH!: Saitenza Promo Card (English edition) - $2
- Sheriff of Nottingham: Prince John's Sword Promo - $3
- Space Freaks: Prophecy - The 19th Head Promo - $10
- Speechless Dice Tower Promo - $3
- Star Realms: Promo Pack 1 - $7
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows Of The Past – Fugitoid Promo - $5
- Terraforming Mars: Atmo Collectors Promo - $10
- Terraforming Mars: Jovian Lanterns Promo - $10
- Terraforming Mars: Lunar Exports Promo - $10
- Terraforming Mars: Penguins Promo - $3
- Veggie Garden: Harvest Festival Expansion - $4
- Vikings Gone Wild: Dice of Destiny promo card - $12
- Vikings: The Board Game – Dice Tower Kickstarter 2016 Promo - $3
- Viral: Rampage Mutation Promo Card - $5
- Viral: Vaselitus Promo Card - $3
- Wasteland Express Delivery Service: Rocker - $12
- Wazabi: Dice Tower 2017 Promo - $3
- When I Dream: Bonus Card Gold/Dwarf - $3
Trade Wants:
- Bruges: The City on the Zwin
- Twilight Imperium 4
- Rococo
- Wingspan
- Kingdom Death Monster

My dream starts with me and my wife watching the news of US and Russia taking down Chinese fighter jets in an unknown region. I looked at my wife and told her to drive to Norfolk, Nebraska at the first sign of this escalating into something devastating. Later that night we went to a casino by the airport here in Omaha, Nebraska. We had a good time, I sat down at the bar and took a sip of whiskey as I looked outside and that is when I saw a large red mushroom cloud coming from the direction of Offutt AFB. I grabbed my wife and we ran to the car, I told her we have to grab our kids and get out of here. I was driving down the interstate until I had to stop due to a collapsed bridge (Edit: the bridge was over the Missouri River, the river was filled with debris). I got out of the car, started to cry and heard the sound of tornado sirens. A flash of light happens and I wake up. I usually don’t have vivid dreams like this but this one really messed with my head to where I had to post this here within 10 minutes of waking up.

I'm visiting Omaha, NE, for the very first time in May 2015. I'm meeting up with my long term long distance girlfriend. I'd love some suggestions from friendly redditors on what we could get up to while I'm there. I'm an 18 year old girl I love food and historical stuff but I'm not interested in sports. Thanks all!
EDIT: I should probably mention my gf and fam are not well off so budget days out/local parks and free activities would be great. Thank you all for your helpful replies <3

I don't think John DeCamp gets everything right, especially his claims about satanic groups, but in 1988 we learn about the Franklin Coverup, which Wikipedia describes as:

"The Franklin child prostitution ring allegations began in June 1988 in Omaha, Nebraska and attracted significant public and political interest until late 1990, when separate state and federal grand juries concluded that the allegations were unfounded and the ring was a "carefully crafted hoax."[1][2].

From the NYT:
(12/18/88) A Lurid, Mysterious Scandal Begins Taking Shape in Omaha

In the Executive Board's public session Monday, Mr. Chambers said the activities of Lawrence E. King Jr., the credit union's manager for the last 18 years and the central figure in its collapse, were ''just the tip of an iceberg, and he's not in it by himself.'' But Mr. Chambers added nothing that would shed light on his cryptic assertion....Mr. King is a 44-year-old Omaha resident who wholly or partly owns several small businesses here and lives with his wife and school-age son in a large house in one of the city's better neighborhoods. He is a tall, expansive figure well known for his costly style of dressing, lavish celebrations and extensive travel, sometimes in chartered jets and often with an entourage of young men.In 1972 he headed a national political organization, Black Democrats for George McGovern. But he gained greater prominence after he had switched parties a while later, serving for a time as vice chairman of the National Black Republican Council, an official affiliate of the Republican Party, and becoming a familiar figure on the Republican social scene.Mr. King has maintained a $5,000-a-month residence off Embassy Row in Washington and has also entertained generously at Republican National Conventions. At the 1984 gathering, in Dallas, where he sang the national anthem on the convention floor, he rented the ranch where the television series ''Dallas'' is filmed and organized a party there for black Republicans....Mr. King's trouble with the authorities came to the surface early last month when officials of the Government's National Credit Union Administration, acting on information from the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service, arrived at the offices of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union and shut it down. Then, on Nov. 14, the agency, which oversees the nation's federally chartered credit unions and insures their deposits, filed the Government suit against Mr. King, whose salary as Franklin Community's manager had been less than $17,000 a year.

(1989) Washington Call Boy Scandal

Craig J. Spence (1941 – November 10, 1989) was a Republican) lobbyist who was found dead in a Ritz-Carlton hotel room in 1989.[1][2] ...Spence was implicated in a gay call-boy ring scandal, that arranged after-hours visits to the White House, the Washington Times and other papers reported in June 1989. Afterward, Spence committed suicide in a Boston hotel....Spence's name came to national prominence in the aftermath of a June 28, 1989 article in the Washington Timesidentifying Spence as a customer of a homosexual escort service being investigated by the Secret Service, the District of Columbia Police and the United States Attorney's Office for suspected credit card fraud. The newspaper said he spent as much as $20,000 a month on the service. He had also been linked to a White House guard who has said he accepted an expensive watch from Mr. Spence and allowed him and friends to take late-night White House tours.[4]Spence entered a downward spiral in the wake of the Washington Times exposé, increasingly involving himself with call boys and crack,[5] and culminating in his July 31, 1989 arrest at the Barbizon Hotel on East 63rd St in Manhattan for criminal possession of a firearm and criminal possession of cocaine.[6]Months after the scandal had died down, and a few weeks before Spence was found in a room of the Boston Ritz-Carlton Hotel, he was asked who had given him the "key" to the White House. Michael Hedges and Jerry Seper of The Washington Times reported that "Mr. Spence hinted the tours were arranged by 'top level' persons", including Donald Gregg, national security adviser to Vice President George H. W. Bush at the time the tours were given.[5]When pressed to identify who it was who got him inside the White House, Spence asked "Who was it who got [long-term CIA operative] Félix Rodríguez) in to see Bush?", agreeing that he was alluding to Mr. Gregg.[5]Gregg himself dismissed the allegation as "absolute bull", according to Hedges and Seper. "It disturbs me that he can reach a slimy hand out of the sewer to grab me by the ankle like this," he told the reporters. "The allegations are totally false."[5]

I'll let you decide how credible you find any of this so far. It should be noted that many of the people implicated in these affairs -- Wilson, Singlaub, Moon, Casey, Rodriguez, Bush, Stone, and Gregg -- were also involved to varying degrees in the Iran Contra Affair, which illegally raised money for anti-communist terrorists in Central America through the use of death squads, rape, and drug sales. One does not necessarily equal the other, but sexual blackmail and human trafficking don't seem like much of a stretch.
An article by The Guardian notes:
Czechoslovakia ramped up spying on Trump in late 1980s, seeking US intel:

In summer 1987, Donald and Ivana Trump visited Moscow and Leningrad, following a personal invitation from the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Yuri Dubinin. The trip was arranged by Intourist, a travel agency that was also an undercover KGB outfit. Soon after returning from Moscow, Trump announced he was thinking of running for president. That presidential bid failed to materialise.In October 1988, on the eve of the US election, Ivana Trump visited her parents in Zlín, known at the time as Gottwaldov. According to the files she “confidently” predicted Bush’s victory to her father, who in turn passed the tip to local StB officers.“The outcome of the election confirmed the veracity of this information,” StB field agent Lt Peter Surý wrote, in a document dated 23 January 1989 and marked “secret”.The prediction came “from the highest echelons of power in the US”. Ivana was “not only a well-heeled US citizen” but moved in “very top political circles”, Surý stated....It is unclear when the KGB began a file on the future president. In Prague about 60,000 StB documents were declassified in the mid-1990s, after the collapse of communism. The StB destroyed most records.However, secret memos written by the KGB chief, Vladimir Kryuchkov, in the mid-1980s reveal that he berated his officers for their failure to cultivate top-level Americans. Kryuchkov circulated a confidential personality questionnaire to KGB heads of station abroad, setting out the qualities wanted from a potential asset.According to instructions leaked to British intelligence by the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky, they included corruption, vanity, narcissism, marital infidelity and poor analytical skills. The KGB should focus on personalities who were upwardly mobile in business and politics, especially Americans, the document said.

Another article in the Chicago Tribune notes:
Czechoslovakia secret police file: Trump sure of presidential win — in 1996:

A year before the 1989 collapse of communism in many parts of Europe, details about Ivana Trump's 1988 visit back to her homeland were recorded in a classified police report. The Oct. 22, 1988 report claimed that Trump refused to run for president in 1988 — despite alleged pressure to do so — because he felt, at 42, he was too young. But the secret report said he intended to run in the 1996 U.S. presidential race as an independent, when he would be 50."Even though it looks like a utopia, D. TRUMP is confident he will succeed," the police report said, based on information from an unspecified source who talked to Ivana Trump's father, Milos Zelnicek, about her visit.It was unclear where the alleged "pressure" was coming from. [Note: In "Get Me Roger Stone", Stone claims he was the one who convinced Trump to run.]...Trump's first wife was born Ivana Zelnickova in 1949 in the Czechoslovak city of Gottwaldov, the former city of Zlin that just had been renamed by the Communists, who took over the country in 1948. She married Trump, her second husband, in 1977. As she kept traveling home across the Iron Curtain on a regular basis, Ivana became a tempting target for the powerful, deeply feared Czechoslovak secret police agency known as the StB.

And by at least 1989, Trump himself was in the social circle of both Iran Contra figures and the father of Epstein's alleged "madame", Ghislaine Maxwell:
(This is from a previous post I made, seen here. Some of the links are subscription only, but are provided for accuracy)
NY Daily News - May 5, 1989:

“Everybody, but everybody at the party aboard British media mogul Robert Maxwell’s yacht Wednesday night had to doff their shoes before boarding the plush-carpeted “Lady Ghislaine.” Maxwell insisted, and his guests cooperated, including Donald Trump (minus Ivana), who has a much bigger yacht and was happy to compare notes with Maxwell. [Note: This is in reference to the Kingdom 5KR, originally owned by Adnan Khashoggi, international arms dealer and uncle of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi.] There were John Tower [Republican Senator in charge of the Tower Commission, which investigated Iran Contra]; ex-Navy secretary John Lehman [Reagan appointee 1981-1987], now with Paine Webber; lawyer Tom Bolan [law partner of Roy Cohn]; literary agent Mort Janklow [clients include both Nancy and Ronald Reagan for their memoirs]; UN envoy Thomas Pickering [currently a board member at the world’s biggest pipe company, OAO TMK, in Moscow and Chairman of the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation, “a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC that supports programs to improve the health of children worldwide”]; and Peter Kalikow, owner of the New York Post [awarded the Israel Peace Medal in 1982; created a super PAC for Herman Cain that was later revealed to be entirely financed by his donations]; Maxwell’s daughter, Ghislaine, and his niece, Helene Atkin of Macmillan, the publishing house Maxwell recently took over."[Note: This sentence wasn't in the Daily News article but shows up in a St Louis Dispatch piece a week later]: “Maxwell, who weighs about 300 pounds, went over the guest list personally.""No one could tell who didn’t make the final list, but we do know that Martha Smilgis of Time was disinvited by David Adler, public relations chief at Macmillan. She wrote the profile of Maxwell which he apparently did not like.”

Who was Ghislaine’s father?

Ian Robert Maxwell "MC (10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991), born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch, was a British media proprietor and Member of Parliament (MP). Originally from Czechoslovakia, Maxwell rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire….Maxwell had a flamboyant lifestyle, living in Headington Hill Hall in Oxford, from which he often flew in his helicopter, and sailing in his luxury yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. He was notably litigious and often embroiled in controversy, including about his support for Israel at the time of the 1948 Palestine war. In 1989, he had to sell successful businesses, including Pergamon Press, to cover some of his debts. In 1991, his body was discovered floating in the Atlantic Ocean, having fallen overboard from his yacht. He was buried in Jerusalem. Maxwell's death triggered the collapse of his publishing empire as banks called in loans. His sons briefly attempted to keep the business together, but failed as the news emerged that the elder Maxwell had stolen hundreds of millions of pounds from his own companies' pension funds. The Maxwell companies applied for bankruptcy protection in 1992....Shortly before Maxwell's death, a former employee of Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate, Ari Ben-Menashe, approached a number of news organisations in Britain and the U.S. with the allegation that Maxwell and the Daily Mirror's foreign editor, Nicholas Davies, were both long-time agents for Mossad. Ben-Menashe also claimed that in 1986, Maxwell had told the Israeli Embassy in London that Mordechai Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear capability to The Sunday Times, then to the Daily Mirror. Vanunu was subsequently kidnapped by Mossad and smuggled to Israel, convicted of treason and imprisoned for eighteen years.Ben-Menashe's story was ignored at first, but eventually The New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh repeated some of the allegations during a press conference in London held to publicise The Samson Option, Hersh's book about Israel's nuclear weapons. On 21 October 1991, two MPs, Labour's George Galloway and the Conservative's Rupert Allason (also known as espionage author Nigel West), agreed to raise the issue in the House of Commons under Parliamentary Privilege protection, which in turn allowed British newspapers to report events without fear of libel suits. Maxwell called the claims "ludicrous, a total invention" and sacked Davies.[44] A year later, in Galloway's libel settlement against Mirror Group Newspapers (in which he received "substantial" damages), Galloway's counsel announced that the MP accepted that the group's staff had not been involved in Vanunu's abduction. Galloway himself, however, referred to Maxwell as "one of the worst criminals of the century....The Maxwell companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992. Kevin Maxwell was declared bankrupt with debts of £400 million. In 1995, Kevin and Ian and two other former directors went on trial for conspiracy to defraud, but were unanimously acquitted by a twelve-man jury in 1996.”

Epstein's own weird history has been spoken of to some degree, and I'm not sure I have much to add at this point, but perhaps it's important in context.
Financier in sex abuse case went from math whiz to titan

He taught calculus and physics at the prestigious Dalton School, a prep school in Manhattan, from 1973 to 1975, despite not having a college degree. Attorney General William Barr's father, Donald Barr, was headmaster at the time...Epstein left Dalton in the mid-1970s for a job at Bear Stearns at the urging of a student's father who arranged a meeting with the chairman of the investment bank, according to published reports. He later began his own money-management business, J. Epstein & Co....Epstein has long obscured the source of his wealth. Even after his arrest, he refused to provide authorities with even basic information about his income and assets. His attorney said Epstein's lawyers intend to provide the information but want to make sure it is correct first.This much is clear: "He is a man of nearly infinite means," federal prosecutor Alex Rossmiller said in court....Epstein also forged a relationship with Leslie Wexner, the retail titan behind Victoria's Secret, The Limited and other store chains. He started managing Wexner's money in the late 1980s and helped straighten out the finances for a real estate development Wexner was backing in a wealthy Columbus, Ohio, suburb.It was through Wexner that [in1996] Epstein acquired his Manhattan mansion, a seven-story, 21,000-square-foot former prep school less than a block from Central Park. It has been valued at about $77 million.

Around the same time, Trump started dating Marla Maples, who was working at his Atlantic City Taj Mahal Casino:
(1988) The Untold Story of Trump Model Management (Part 1):

Donald Trump, for his part, was becoming increasingly restless, and reckless. Despite fathering 3 children and having a devoted wife, by all accounts he didn’t spend much time with any of them, preferring work and play to the routines of domestic life. In the 80’s he made at least two life changing decisions-to step out on his wife publicly, and to expand his negligible empire into Atlantic City casinos. He built Harrah’s at Trump Plaza in 1984, and a partially completed building that became Trump Castle in 1985-a property that would be managed by his first wife, Ivana. He also scooped up the Taj Mahal in 1988, which at a cost of $1.1 billion made it the most expensive casino ever built at the time.

Some weirdness starts to pop up here, at least allegedly. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:
(10/27/83) GROUND BROKEN FOR RESORTS' 2D N.J. CASINO-HOTEL

Resorts International, which opened the city's first gambling hall 5 1/2 years ago, broke ground yesterday for a second casino-hotel that will cost $250 million to build and will contain 1,000 hotel rooms and the world's second-largest casino.

According to Wikipedia:

Resorts International was a hotel and casino company. From its origins as a paint company, it moved into the resort business in the 1960s with the development of Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and then expanded to Atlantic City, New Jersey with the opening of Resorts Casino Hotel in 1978.

So how did a paint company morph into a multimillion dollar casino company? We're going to have to go to conspiracy theorists again. Make of it what you will:
Goodfellas: The Hidden History of Resorts International:

Resorts International was largely a family affair that grew out of a company called the Mary Carter Paint Company."Mary Carter (she never existed) was pretty much a family affair controlled by Jim Crosby, two of his brothers, and his in-laws. Based in Tampa, Florida, the firm included in its directorate James Crosby, John Crosby (a plastic surgeon in Mobile, Alabama), William Crosby (a Tampa realtor), and the Murphy brothers, Henry and Tom, who'd married the Crosby daughters. Henry owned a funeral home in Trenton, New Jersey, while Tom was board chairman of Capital Cities Communications, a successful broadcasting business founded by explorer Lowell Thomas. The explorer too was an early shareholder in Mary Carter Paint, as was Republican Thomas Dewey." (Spooks, Jim Hougan, pg. 381)Acclaimed researchers Sally Denton and Roger Morris note: "... the Mary Carter Paint Company, which was widely considered to be a CIA front that laundered payments to the Cuban exile army in the early sixties..." (The Money and the Power, pg. 284).This is certainly quite plausible considering Mary Carter was then based out of Tampa, a hub for joint CIA-Syndicate efforts to assassinate Castro. As was noted before here, Tampa don Santo Trafficante, Jr. was one of the gangsters initially tapped by the CIA's notorious Office of Security to arrange for Castro's untimely demise. Trafficante, a close associate of Meyer Lansky (whom we shall return to again), had been deeply involved in Cuba's gambling operations prior to the revolution and would later become even more deeply immersed in the world heroin trade. As was noted before here, he was very close to the emerging Cuban Mafia, which provided ample recruits to the CIA during the early 1960s despite much suspicion that Trafficante was a double agent for Castro.Certainly the Mary Carter Paint Company would have been well positioned to assist Trafficante in these endeavors in Tampa. And such a connection would also explain why the corporation, in the mid-1960s (as CIA Cuban operations were winding down), abruptly sold off its paint business and boldly delved into gambling. By the end of the decade it was managing one of the most profitable casinos in the world on the Bahama's Paradise Island.What it amounts to is that by the late period James Crosby emerged as not only the CEO of Mary CarteResorts International, but as an extremely well connected figure within the GOP and beyond."... Crosby was himself uniquely situated in Republican circles: a sometime guest at the White House, he'd donated $100,000 to Nixon's 1968 campaign. He was also a friend of, and frequent host two, Bebe Rebozo (with whom he banked). Moreover, Crosby's private intelligence agency, Intertel, was even then working with White House aides and ITT executives to discredit Jack Anderson's revelations anent ITT and Chile. At the same time, Intertel was the de factocustodian of the demented billionaire Howard Hughes (his own $100,000 donation would later result in two volumes of Senate testimony in the Watergate affair). Indeed, the ties between Paradise Island and Richard Nixon's administration were of the sort that bind: Allan Butler, owner of the failing bank that was his namesake, claims the Nixon was a silent partner of Crosby's in his Bahamian ventures, sharing a healthy chunk of Paradise Island bridge revenues with yet another secret partner, Bebe Rebozo. And by by no means finally, James O. Golden, Resorts' vice-president and one of Intertel's founding spooks, had formerly served as Nixon's Secret Service shield, later taking charge of security for the Nixon forces at the GOP's 1968 convention in Miami Beach. That Paradise Island is a special place, and had a special place in the heart (or what passed for a heart) of the Nixon regime, is abundantly clear... (Spooks, Jim Hougan, pg. 180) ...And that brings us to possibly the most curious aspects of Resorts, namely its ownership of its own vast private intelligence network.It was known as Intertel, short for International Intelligence, Inc. Intertel was incorporated in 1970 as an almost wholly-owned subsidiary of Resorts International and hit the ground running. During its heyday, Intertel had an impressive roster and an international reach. It would turn up in host of intrigues throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Curiously, it had its origins with Robert Kennedy's "Get Hoffa" squad."... Intertel, known especially and remarkably for its composition of former organized crime strike force attorneys from Robert Kennedy's Justice Department... The IRS considered Intertel... 'an organized crime enterprise of some type aimed at the Bahamas,' as one account summed up the agency's view. Roberts Peloquin and William Hundley, Kennedy's top crime fighters, had joined the firm and recruited operatives from the CIA, FBI, IRS, Secret Service, and other intelligence agencies. Staffed exclusively by what one author called 'Get Hoffa agents,' it was likened into a corporate CIA.' (The Money and the Power, Sally Denton & Roger Morris, pg. 284)...Intertel's other ventures include spying of muckraker Jack Anderson) for ITT, investigating the Chicago Tylenol murders and the Bhopal disaster. Even more ominous, however, were its dealings with a shady Belgium-based private detective agency known as Agence de Recherche et d'Information (ARI). As was noted before here, ARI was linked to members of the neo-fascist terror organization known as the Westland New Post, a few of whom had also been implicated in drug trafficking and pedophile rings. Intertel reportedly hired ARI to do some work for them during the 1980s....What is of great interest to us here is Trump's third Atlantic City casino: the Taj Mahal. While now widely associated with Trump, thanks in no small part to it leading to his first bankruptcy, it was not in fact Trump who started the casino. That dubious distinction lies with Resorts International.The company had begun construction on the Taj Mahal in 1983, but had run into persistent difficulties in finishing construction in the following years. Then, in April 1986, James Crosby died suddenly. This left Resorts in turmoil (allegedly) and Trump stepped in. Trump bought a controlling stake in the company in 1987 and was promptly named its chairman of the board.Let that sink in for a moment: Donald J. Trump, the current President of the United States, was briefly the chairman of a corporation long suspected of being a CIA front, that had decades-spanning involvement with the Syndicate, numerous "rogue" financiers, various drug and arms traffickers and which owned a vast private intelligence network...."

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:
(07/22/87) TRUMP COMPLETES THE DEAL FOR RESORTS INTERNATIONAL

Developer Donald Trump took control of Resorts International Inc. yesterday in a $79 million deal that gives him his third Atlantic City casino, including what will be the largest gaming hall in the city.Trump sealed the deal in New York with those connected to the estate of the late founder of Resorts International, James M. Crosby.Trump paid a cash price of $135 a share for 585,068 shares of Class B stock, which has 100 times the voting power of Class A stock.He is expected to make a formal tender offer for the remaining 167,230 shares of Class B stock within the next several weeks at the same $135-a-share price. Owning all the Class B stock would give him 93 percent of the company's voting power.At a board meeting immediately after the transaction with the Crosby estate, Trump was elected chairman of the board of Resorts International, replacing Henry B. Murphy, Crosby's brother-in-law, who resigned.

And his relationship with Ivana was falling apart:
(1989) Ex-Wife: Donald Trump Made Me Feel ‘Violated’ During Sex

After a painful scalp reduction surgery to remove a bald spot, Donald Trump confronted his then-wife, who had previously used the same plastic surgeon.“Your fucking doctor has ruined me!” Trump cried.What followed was a “violent assault,” according to Lost Tycoon. Donald held back Ivana’s arms and began to pull out fistfuls of hair from her scalp, as if to mirror the pain he felt from his own operation. He tore off her clothes and unzipped his pants.“Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than sixteen months. Ivana is terrified… It is a violent assault,” Hurt writes. “According to versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, ‘he raped me.’”Following the incident, Ivana ran upstairs, hid behind a locked door, and remained there “crying for the rest of night.” When she returned to the master bedroom in the morning, he was there.“As she looks in horror at the ripped-out hair scattered all over the bed, he glares at her and asks with menacing casualness: ‘Does it hurt?’” Hurt writes.

In 1992, Trump would divorce Ivana. It's this same year that we find him arranging a party of 30 for himself, Jeffrey Epstein, and 28 young aspiring calendar girls:
(1992) Trump Was Alone at a 1992 Party with 28 Girls and Accused Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein

Part of a “calendar girl” competition organized at Trump’s request, the party was put together by a businessman named George Houraney, who spoke with the New York Times for a story published Tuesday.Houraney was also one of many to accuse Trump of sexual harassment, this time toward his former girlfriend and business partner, Jill Harth, who described an incident in 1997 as an attempted rape by Trump.“I arranged to have some contestants fly in,” Houraney told the Times. “At the very first party, I said, ‘Who’s coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming.’ It was him and Epstein.”...Before the “calendar girl” event, Houraney warned Trump about Epstein once again.“Look, Donald, I know Jeff really well, I can’t have him going after younger girls,” Houraney recalled telling Trump in the Times interview. “He said: ‘Look I’m putting my name on this. I wouldn’t put my name on it and have a scandal.’”

[EDIT: MSNBC reports on 07/17/2019 on newly discovered footage of Trump and Epstein discussing women at a party in November of 1992.]
The Boston Globe reported:
(1992) The pageant of Donald Trump’s dreams

It was a snowy night in Manhattan, December 1992, and the festive group was embarking on a circuit of exclusive clubs after a sumptuous dinner at the Plaza Hotel’s Oak Room.As the limo wove through the city, Trump discussed his views on dating, according to one of the women riding along. The billionaire casino mogul declared that “all women are bimbos” and said most were “gold diggers” who would be smart to go after men with money. Like him.Rhonda Noggle, the model who relayed the story to the Globe in an interview, said that, at that point, she had had enough. Speaking sharply to Trump, she said, she asked him to stop the limo. The car grew silent.

(1989-1995) The Untold Story of Trump Model Management (Part 1):

1989-1995 just so happens to be the same time period in which Donald Trumps world and empire was falling apart at the seams. In the beginning of the decade he was facing the end of his first marriage and a looming court battle. Despite his purportedly active dating life, by many accounts Trump was being rejected by many, if not most, of the women he pursued-including Carla Bruni and Jill Hearth. Marla Maples, after years of being the secret mistress and repeated rounds of being dumped and publicly humiliated by Trump, was starting to lose her patience. And the big gamble he took in Atlantic City was, by all accounts, failing miserably-a direct result of his jaw droppingly awful business practices and general incompetence. In 1991, his Taj Mahal Casino filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. In 1992, he again filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy again, this time on his Trump Plaza Hotel (also in Atlantic City), at the time owing $550 million dollars. Recall that he would report an almost 1 billion dollar loss on his 1995 tax returns, according to the copies obtained by the New York Times. Indeed, the early 90’s were not a very good era for Donald Trump. In light of this fact, it’s worth noting that the sexual assault allegations against him are all clustered within this very time frame. [Note: This article was written in 2016, prior to more allegations]...By the time “New York Magazine” did a front page profile of him in 1988, Casablancas reputation for bedding young models was established and begrudgingly accepted (a price to pay in exchange for his “genius”) within the New York social scene, but the expose came as a shock to many outside the bubble. John Casablancas would soon find out that he was not as untouchable as he thought he was. In the article-which ran under the title “Girl Crazy”-Casablancas was portrayed as a champagne guzzling pervert, singularly dedicated to the “new look” department of Elite where he spent his days ogling the scantily clad, sometimes naked bodies of teenage girls. In light of Donald Trump’s more alarming comments and decisions around his daughter Ivanka, this quote stands out:"Casablancas talked about his seventeen year old daughter, Cecile. He said Cecile had been solicited by a photographer last summer on a beach in Ibiza. The photographer asked her to pose in a bikini, and Casablancas raced over to try to get a $2,000 fee for the shot. “She’s got a great little body” he told his models."Another quote that brings a chuckle and a nod of recognition in this story is Casablancas’s bizarre pride over never having changed a diaper. Donald Trump would make similar boasts in a Howard Stern interview a few years later. Compelling proof this is not, but I do believe it’s a hint at the kind of Don Juan persona that Don, far from a Juan, actually a dejected, balding husband with a crumbling empire....But the scandal did not end there, nor did it begin. Less than a month earlier 60 minutes aired a prime-time special on the abuses of underage girls in the modeling industry. Investigative reporter Craig Pyes portrayed the modeling industry as infested with agents who were notorious hustlers and playboys. His report revealed that both Claude Haddad- the head of European scouting for Ford- and Ford’s Paris-based agent Jean-Luc Brunel had been accused of horrific sexual misconduct by many models. [Note: Brunel's name appears multiple times on Epstein's flight manifests.] The special aired the interviews of dozens of women who accused both Brunel and Haddad of a litany of crimes, ranging from racist invective towards black models to violent rape. And in fact the hidden camera footage captured in filming the special caught it all- from Xavier lamenting about n**er models, to Haddad chuckling about drugging and raping 13 year old girls. According to Model At a retreat soon after the one-two punch delivered by the coverage, Haddad, Jean Luc Brunel and Casablancas were once again overheard (albeit not taped this time around) laughing about their crimes. Alternatively they were angry when confronted by interim scouting manager Trudi Tapscott - ”I’m a man and I have needs, I will not apologize for that!” Casablancas is said to have declared....Over time Donald Trump would emerge from the ruins of his empire with a new approach to business, and a new source of income-in 1996 he bought the rights to the Miss Universe franchise, and became the central figure in the running of these pageants. And in 1999 he started a modeling agency - T models, later changed to Trump Model Management. The correlation of interests is quite clear-for a man awkward around women but dependent on his public image saying otherwise, a stable of women under his employ was a way to boost his image-and even better, he was able to lock all of these women into non disclosure agreements, ensuring that his behavior with them had little chance of becoming public knowledge. It also appeared to have served as a useful tool regarding his business transactions-which, in the aftermath of his bankruptcy, were increasingly dependent on some less than savory characters. How he did this, and the breadth of this activity, will be explored in the next installment. But for the time being, there is one final aspect of this story that is breathtaking, and speaks more to the character of Donald Trump than anything else.

More in Part 3.

I made it to Pittsburgh late last night after a long 12 hour drive through Indianapolis and Columbus. I thought Columbus was just a little city like Des Moines or Omaha. I had no idea it was so big, I ended up getting stuck for about 40 minutes in rush hour traffic, made me appreciate the toll road in northern Ohio and Indiana more, at least you don’t get stuck in that kind of traffic.
So I guess we are trying to get to Gold Lot 1 in the NE corner by Tony Dorset Dr (A Cowboy?) and Reedsdale. I will be there with my keg of beer lugged all the way here from Iowa. And I’ll have another cooler full of bottled water from Hy-Vee to keep us hydrated. The lot opens at noon. So I will be there around 11:30 tomorrow morning ready to drive in. Today I will be going to Rivers Casino and maybe a few breweries and getting some lunch. I’ll be in section 115 tonight so let me know if you want to meet up or anything pre, during or post game.
Finally if you are paying cash for the game ticket be sure to bring it with you to pay our friend DG Lewis for going through the trouble of buying us group tickets. Other than that, see you tomorrow afternoon!