Andrew Q Gordon

Cheater - half a face in Black and White?? But since it's only half a face, you're right you don't look half bad

Thanks -- hopefully you read chapter 1 if not, it's posted now. Really can't say why BOTH didn't post at once or why some folks could read it and others couldn't but it's there now.

Fan -- thanks for the note. It took me a bit to wrap my mind around writing this - a bit close to home work wise. But I think it ties up the story - or at least answers the question about what happened to Jordan and the others. Thanks again - Andy

Hmm tough critic Chapter 1 better be up when I wake up, or I'm gonna have to figure it out. But yeah, I REALLY would like your thoughts. I tried to go for realistic, but sometimes that's a tad boring so I tried to spice it up some and to keep the actually boring parts out. Gonna see soon enough if I did it well. Thanks for the Note. Andy

@Sharon - I think I read that in the bazillion baby books we've gotten lately, but I'm gonna remember that. Thanks for the comments. @Nephy - as IF I wouldn't?? This place is gonna be my five minutes of sanity - yeah scary thought he? @ Anyta - You might want to explain that to Mike, if I say it, he'll think I'm making it up

Kevin, some how I screwed up and Chapter 1 didn't post with the Prologue. I set it to post tonight at midnight so I hope it works. If not I'll post it first thing in the morning. And you are most welcome for this. If you read my forum, hopefully I'll get back to these characters etc, but I have a few things I'm doing right now that I need to finish before I can tackle another project. Andy

Martin returned to his office, followed by his 'entourage' as Belle called them. Somehow he couldn't see Daniel Hember as a member of anyone's posse. "That went quite well," Daniel said when they entered Martin's office. "The jury didn't seem to buy Jordan's defense if you ask me." "It's still early." Martin muttered, looking around for his nerf basketball. "Here." Mary shoved the orange ball under his face. "Don't bother Dan, he's in his, 'I screwed up' mode." "Screwed up?"

Martin adjusted the blue and purple tie his wife selected to go with is 'best' grey trial suit. Satisfied it was straight, he unconsciously fixed the cufflinks that didn't need attention. The studs were a Christmas gift from his girls, no doubt bought by their mother, though she swore they selected this set. A hint of azure in the silver squares always forced a smile. It was why he wore them during important cases. Opening statement, pretrial issues, expert testimony, all seemed to swa

This is the companion trial story to Second Shot. It is from the prosecutor's point of view and it will take us through a couple witnesses and verdict.

Can't believe it's been like six weeks since I last posted here. Guess the old adage that no news is good news is apt. There is nothing exciting or annoying to report on the baby front. The surrogate is doing well. She had her last ultra sound two weeks ago and everything looks good. She goes back on Monday and then every two weeks until she, the baby, is born. Then again, we are at week 32 so that means only about 3-4 visits - not too bad. Right now work seems to be the biggest issue. For reasons I can't quite grasp (other than management has their collective head up their ass) my suggestion that I take half days the last two weeks of my paternity leave was met with near hostility. I figured that if I come in half days, not only will it ease me back into work, it will also allow then to assign me cases either the week I get back or the week after. Here's how the conversation went: Boss (: What if we need to send you to court during those two weeks? Me (M): You can't, I'm only here half days. B: but what if we need you to go? M: I don't see how I can if I'm only here until noon. B: That seems unworkable M: How so? If I don't take half days, I'll take full days and I won't be here at all so you still can't send me to court B: That's fine, we'll manage M: But doesn't it seem like a good thing to let me work half days so I can be up and running when I come back? B: No, just take your time off and we'll deal with it when you get back. M: Are you planning to just hand me a stack of cases and shove me back in court the week I return? B: We'll handle it when you get back. The ass't boss, who is the trial supervisor, thought it was a great idea, because she can assign me cases for the first full week back. She was overruled. So stupid. Oh well, the HR person says I can do it, so I'm submitting my time as I want and HR said they'll explain it to my boss. Evidently mothers do half days for a couple weeks all the time so they can't deny me. Things are moving forward, so much to do, so little time. We are taking parenting classes, we figured it can't hurt so we did it. While talking about changing diapers, the instructor asked Mike what would he do if he checked the diaper and saw a poop. His answer: 'Andy, the baby needs to be changed.' Cradle is up and next to the bed. Somehow it is being stationed on my side - I am so not in charge in this household. We set it up early so we could move the dog beds around and let the dogs get used to the new set up. They seem fine with it now. We got the cradle and a bunch of other furniture from my brother and his wife. They bought expensive stuff and gave it to us for free because they didn't want to pay to ship it from Philly to Vegas and because they are really nice people. That said, my brother lost, threw out, never kept, whatever, the instructions. That was fun trying to put it together - surprisingly it didn't take long and we figured it out with no screw ups. What we did learn is that a) we have no cradle sheets, lots of crib, no cradle, b ) my brother not only lost the instructions, he lost the hardware to the crib. Luckily it was only $25 to order the parts. Last on the baby front is parents, as in Mike's and Mine. My mother is a rather assertive person. So much so that I nearly tossed her out of the house over the 4th of July holiday when she took offense to my telling her to stop offering her opinions when I told her I didn't want them. Big cry fest, I didn't care, Mike told me to apologize etc blah blah blah. So I did. Like she was gonna be fighting with me and miss being there for the grand baby - never gonna happen. Anyway, my parents are super excited. This is their fourth grandchild and it is Mike's parent's first. My parents are renting a condo in San Diego for 4 weeks sandwiched around the birth so that we can stay with them with the baby and not have to fly home right away after the birth - super nice of them. Save us a shit load on hotel costs. Very appreciated. One problem, it cuts Mike's parents out. Then my mom ask/told me she was flying home with us and staying with us for 2 weeks to help out. Again, very much appreciated. Again, it cuts Mike's mom out. She was slow on the draw and my mom beat her to it. So while I was away for a week, Mike's mom says to Mike, she'd can't stay over when the baby is born because there's room because my mom is staying. Mind you his mom doesn't live THAT far away but for those familiar with DC, they are in VA well outside the Beltway. Basically the opposite side of the beltway and a haul during rush hour. So what does Mike say? Yeah too bad mom. We have 3 or 5 bedrooms depending on what you do with the rooms in the basement. But upstairs there are three, ours, the guest room and what will be the baby's room. As mentioned above, we don't have the parts for the crib yet so we haven't set up the baby room yet. Clearly we have room, but he wants to set up the crib now. Like she's gonna be using that right away? Baby is gonna be in the cradle for 4-6 months and in our room. Eventually I convinced him to call her back and tell her we had room if she wanted to stay. She does and she will. Great - both mothers will be here. Happy happy joy joy. Lastly, we wanted to board the dogs at the new kennel we found for a couple days before we go to California for two weeks so they'll get used to going and coming home. We needed a short trip. We decided to go to Pittsburgh this weekend to spend a day with Anyta and family. Woo Hoo. Very cool. Life is still beautiful.

Bout time I convinced you to join. Text or call me if get truly confuzzled Andy

Mike and I are discussing this - I see nothing wrong with calling us both dad - he wants different names - I don't see that happening to be honest, but time will tell.

For all that Ramsey was playing politician, Granger is quite astute himself, just not in the finer, more nuanced points. Granger knew enough to include Nelson in the repairs but didn't seem to understand the issue of the discrepancy. The lost of Captain Sommers and his large presence doesn't seem to be bother granger that much right yet - perhaps there was too much else to distract him. My money is on Gatling being in love with Roberts. I'd say ' or Sommers' but Sommers doesn't seem the type. AND it fits with why Roberts insisted he be sent back to Belvidera - he knew what he was about to do and couldn't stand for Gatling to be either at risk or get captured. Poor kid.

Having just gone out to look at rings today, I don't envy you buying a dress - lord I had my choice in about 5 minutes - the classic wedding band in Platinum. But we had to look at, try on, compare like 30 rings. I hope you don't have the same situation with the dress, they take way longer to get in and out than a ring. That said, I second Rustle's comments. I think is kickin you two are doing this your way and would be pleased to see which one you select. Since Joshua doesn't want his picture on line we won't see him in it , but at least let us see which one you picked. I wanted to do our wedding at my Aunt's beach house on Fire Island in shorts, polo shirt and flip flops - or Jandals as my dear NZ friend Anyta would say, but I was told I had to dress up. So much for getting to do it my way. At least you two agree on what to wear

Funny how you put Jason's personality. I don't think I consciously thought of him as an all or nothing type, though he is fond of the the expression 'all in'. I think that is a spill over from the 'author's personality' I'm very much an all in type. If I decide to do something, I do or I don't. Interesting observation indeed. Gonna have to watch that in future writings Thanks for reading and commenting Maria.

Generally I read the first chapter of almost anything knew that I see. I confess to not seeing a lot of 'new' authors because they're still not out of Peer review. I also make it a point to read people who comment on my work. Might be a bit self promoting but honestly if someone took the time to give me feed back I try to do like wise. Then there are authors I like who don't comment on anything. But since I like them, I read. I'm not totally into one genre as you can tell from my writing. I kinda like variety. Second Shot is nothing like Purpose which isn't much like Archangel which is completely different from my fantasy writings like Not for Hire or The Price of Love. So genre isn't a biggie for me. So yeah, I'm so dag gone helpful aren't I? Andy

If had even a whiff of Scottish in me - the bf does - I'd insist we wear kilts - I totally have the legs. But I so not Scottish it'd look silly.

I don't even own a pair of flip flops, sandals, jandals, whatever. I once own a pair of teva's but the do chewed them and I didn't much wear em anyway. At work I wear Allen Edmonds Dress shoes, still made in American and worth every penny they're so comfortable even wearing em all day in court. Outside work I have three pair of shoes I wear, a pair of Merrill Low Cut trail shoes, extremely comfy for long days walking, lotsa support and feel good. Or my Adidas Samba's been wearing them for 20 odd years now and go through a pair every year or two. And my white - well whitish Chuck Taylors - I remember wearing them as a kid so I bought me some and almost feel 12 again walking around in them.

Wow Tejun, quite the introduction. Mine was so bland by comparison - er... wait, I never actually did one, Welcome and enjoy Andy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!! Hope you had a great day! Figured you might need the big letters now

Read Chapter 1 and was really quite impressed with your writing. Nothing really to over in that regard. The characters felt real, the dialogue believable, the emotions were there. One complaint - the time jumps - the whole going to the Corcoran [very cool place by the way] then zing - he's there and back and meeting Chance again in like two paragraphs. It took me three or four reads to figure out what happened. A suggestion - give us a clean break i.e. make it clear this scene is over, new one is starting. I usually give a double space, then a few *** then and another couple spaces and move on. But that is really quite minor. I second Conner's comment about the strength of characters. I have to say that the opening, followed by flash back makes it a bit sad - there is an over hang of impending doom because we know everyone is gone - except Mason whom we haven't met yet. That's good writing to get that emotion out so fast while still keeping us engaged with your story and characters. Andy

Okay, I'm gonna go out on a different limb here - yeah I'm such a rebel aren't I. IF the bf wants to wear a wedding dress - what's the big deal? It's their wedding. My only problem with helping is I have zero fashion sense. it's a good thing I only need a tux for our wedding, A black tux is easy to pick - um I take the black one with the white shirt and black bow tie. Sorry dude, all three you had look fine with to me lol.

Okay so I missed a few, but welcome to everyone. Glad to see new faces and hear new stories are coming.

Gotta say I was NOT expecting that from Doc. And I really wanna know what's going on with Jed and Bill though I have a bit of an inkling. I suppose David is looking better and better. - ugh you're a cruel man Jim, a cruel cruel man.

You know I was good with this chapter until you added that last word at the end of the end notes. Seriously that's not nice. I think Bill is a decent sort and I think T.R. going over shows enough that he liked Bill but then you add that maybe. Hmmm Maybe I'll just stop reading