Wednesday November 24, 2004 is a day which my wife Julie and I will never forget. That day, I bought a lottery ticket while on my lunch break at work. The following morning (Thanksgiving Day), I checked the lottery results online and was shocked to learn that I held the lone winning ticket for the $234,000,000 jackpot. The following Monday, Julie and I both...
Michael is a good friend of nearly 20 years. We grew up together, and have stayed in touch over the years. Michael is a driven professional, working hard, playing hard, and not knowing much in between. This is based on a story he told me, told here in first person, about a crazy experience he had on a recent trip. The names have been changed, but gist of the...
Preface It had been raining all day. It was a grey, steady, depressing rain that seemed to wash all the colours from the city, reminding you just how much of the city was built of stone, solid gray and unyielding. Paris had survived the rule of Louis XIV, had watched her citizens rebel in the French Revolution. She had been witness to the German tanks on the...
Jean-Claude Rouland, known as JC by his close friends, put down the phone after talking with his dealer in Paris. Odile had been doing a great job since he signed with her last year and just told him of a special commission she just accepted for him from a very wealthy collector who already purchased 2 large paintings of his and now wants him to work on a wa...
I sit back sipping a cognac and smoking a fine Cuban cigar. I need a break and need to unwind. I try to think but so many choices remain undecided. I look into the fire and I am mesmerised by the sights and sounds of the crackling embers. I then notice the globe next to the fire place, I decide to spin it and then I plant a finger on as it slows down, and I...
You may have noticed, I don't plan my storylines, I just kind of let them happen. This one took off in a completely unexpected direction, and I wasn't real happy with it at first, but I kinda like the way it ended up. Let me know what you think... * * * * * Resistance Is Futile...But Pleasurable Chapter Three "Computer, activate emergency medical hologr...
Hey, Buddy: How did you like Paris? Did you have time to take in all the sights, since I'd already essentially closed the deal with Areloc and this was just a formal congratulations-all-around meeting for those who had done all the work on the deal?—which, if I'm not mistaken was me for Hadley Inc. rather than you. Still can't figure out how you pulled the...
It is the last day of our vacation in Paris. "What shall we do?" I ask my wife and daughter. "Let's go to the Louvre one last time," my wife says. She loves the Italian Renaissance, especially Da Vinci. "Oh no!" my daughter whines. "Not that old Mona Lisa again!" We had been in Paris for most of August. That had meant a trip to the Louvre every week! "I...
Snow Bunny Laura John and Laura began their vacation just as they had before, meeting in the city of Paris. He flies in from New York in America and Laura from Moscow in Russia. John arrives a couple of hours before Laura in Paris and anxiously waits for her at the terminal. He sits in the Brioche Dorée restaurant, having a light sandwich and pastry. Too ne...
June, 1915 Paris, France "A toast! A toast to Robert," cried Sergei Hoffmann, over the din of well-wishers. "Hear, hear!" was the response from several corners of the room. We were gathered in the private room of a well-known Paris restaurant for the traditional bachelor's night, and the good food and copious amounts of spirits in all varieties had made...