Columbia: Sleep Dreams

• Kickball satellite: This was a toy that someone had given me. It was a round, soft, feather-light ball with a remote control receiver. First, you would program the ball to suit your desires. You could make it track the weather for you, or spy on people from above, or bounce communications from place to place, or a few other options. Once it was set, it was your job to launch it into orbit. The makers sold a sure-fire launch kit, but that was extra (and it was for babies). The whole point of the kickball satellite was to launch it yourself with one swift, manly kick. Usually, it took a couple of tries. It weighed a little less than air and it had some tiny jets that would turn on above a certain altitude.
  
• Star Wars Help Book: I was still working at Amazon, and had written in some great detail about some crossover Star Wars and business book. Cost Accounting for the Empire, or something like that. Someone across the country asked that I mail them a copy of what I had written. I went to Kinkos to find out how much it would cost to print it out and ship it. I was surprised and troubled when I found out it would be almost $100. The guy behind the counter said, "Why don't you just turn this into a book. You're most of the way there. That way, they can buy it for $20 and you can make some extra money." The thought had not occurred to me.
  
• L.A. Times Corn Maze: Wendy and I went to a corn maze that was owned and operated by the L.A. Times. About half-way in, we stopped at a snack bar. The guy at the table next to us was marveling out loud at all the transvestites and cross dressers in the maze, though I didn't see any of them. He was crazy, and Wendy and I moved to another table to be farther from him. "Look! Look there!" he shouted to everyone at the snack bar as he pointed to a busload of exiting old ladies, "There's a whole group of them."
  
• Retro Reality Exploits: Someone I knew as a younger man became famous, so I and our mutual friends had all become splattered by the blowback of fame. None of us minded. TV producers came to us with an idea to do a reality show about all of us, though they wanted us to pretend we were still a close-knit group of friends. Also, they wanted to set the show as a Western. And they wanted younger actors to play us at that age, but then they decided to turn the whole thing into an animated show and use our voices. For those of you keeping score at home, we were to write and voice a past-tense reality show with a completely fictionalized, historical setting. Oh, and they allowed us to choose our own character models. I chose one with a head that was three times the size of my body.