Altimexis

I was running for my life. I’d just kicked Dad in the balls, and he finally let go of me as he writhed in pain. But as mad as he’d already been when he was chokin’ the living daylights outta me, that was nothing compared to the way he felt now. I ran into his bedroom, where I knew he kept his gun, but when I got there, there was a naked teenage boy, lying on his bed. Suddenly I felt safe, and then I woke up. At first, I didn’t know where I was. I was in bed – a large bed, much larger than t

“I thought he’d never leave,” Shaun said as we watched Frank drive away. “The last guest didn’t leave until after eight o’clock,” I pointed out, “and then the caterers had to break down and clean up.” “Yeah, I know,” Shaun chimed in. “It’s just that we won’t have as much time as I’d like.” “With any luck, this is only the first of many future sleepovers,” I countered. “And who knows, it could end-up being a long-term thing.” “Except that I’m planning for early graduation,” Sh

I have been to Omaha and I liked it a lot. Yes, i is a cosmopolitan, Midwestern city of about a million and there's a fair bit worth seeing there - certainly enough to spend a few days there. The zoo is excellent, I loved Laurent Gardens, and the area around the Bob Kerry footbridge across the river is exceptional. I figured you must get some Broadway theater, as does Indy, where I grew up - I just couldn't find much online about it, but then everything was on hold during the Pandemic. I now live in NYC and Broadway is just starting to reopen. It's ironic, but most New Yorkers avoid Broadway as much as possible, as it's overrun with tourists, so you may well see Hamilton live before I do. You can look forward to seven more chapters featuring the relationship between J.J. and Shaun, and then the Pandemic will hit as well as other events that upend their lives. I won't say anything more than that for now.

The party at Frank’s house was billed as a pool party and barbecue, so I’d certainly want to bring a bathing suit, but I wasn’t sure if I should just wear it there with a t-shirt and flip-flops. Since Frank mentioned playing games, I decided it would be better to wear shorts and a t-shirt and change into my swimsuit once there. It would’ve been nice if I could’ve driven myself to the party, but I did the next best thing. I drove there with Fran in the car, and then she drove the car home. F

Sorry, but revenge isn't in J.J.'s nature - not that he doesn't have principles, and very strong ones at that. Besides which, what that cop did will seem like small potatoes compared to some of what's coming. Not to give too much away, but crossing paths with his past is a big part of the story, with some very unexpected surprises along the way.

Thanks for your comments on the cars. My only experience with driving something electric has been with a couple of hybrid rentals, so I only had online reviews as my guide. The Ionic is currently listed as having a 170 mile range. I think I got the range from reading an online review, which was probably old. I'll correct that when I have a chance. I agree with your comments about range anxiety and everyday usage patterns, but the mentality is quite different in a place like Omaha. I grew up in Indy and just going hiking in a nearby state park meant driving a couple hundred miles roundtrip. Cincinnati was close enough to be a day trip, but that's over 200 miles, plus mileage within the city. In J.J.'s case, Omaha to Kansas City is 180 miles each way, so a day trip to visit the Rivera family isn't possible with any current electric model, without a recharge along the way. In future chapters, J.J. will take a Midwestern trip to visit old friends and see sites he's never seen before. Later, he'll do a driving trip for a summer vacation, in which it'll become glaringly apparent that compromises are needed when driving an electric car. Who in their right mind would stay two nights in Wall, SD except for the need to use the Tesla Superchargers located there. Unfortunately, most of the top national parks in the U.S. have at most one or two Level 2 chargers within a usable range, and they're first-come, first served. That pretty much precludes seeing the national parks by electric, the Dakotas being an exception. Most rental car agencies will not rent to drivers under the age of 21 and for Hertz, the minimum is age is 25. Even at his inflated age, it'll be a very long time before J.J. can rent a car, so driving his Tesla is really the only option.

“Mr. Gordon, are you aware that Freeman Drive is not a one-way street?” Ms. Livingston asked. It was our first day of driving on the road in driver’s ed, and Jimmy Gordon was having trouble sticking to the right side of Freeman Drive, a residential street that ran in front of Bellevue East High School. We’d completed an extensive course of classroom education, passed a written exam that was far more rigorous than the one administered by the DMV, and spent countless hours behind the wheel of a dr

Okay, here's a quick primer on how refrigeration works. You start with a refrigerant gas (eg. Freon) and compress the hell out of it, which causes it to heat up via Gay-Lussac's Law. You then pass it through a heat exchanger (it looks like a radiator, which it is), which allows the heat to escape into the environment, allowing the gas to cool back to ambient temperature. Then you let the gas expand back to normal atmospheric pressure, which causes it to cool and if it cools below the boiling point of the gas, the gas liquefies. Pump that liquid through another heat exchanger and allow the liquid to warm back up, absorbing heat from the environment, and then repeat the whole process. In effect, you pump heat from heat exchanger #2, which is usually inside, to heat exchanger #1, which is usually outside, allowing you to air condition or refrigerate the inside and heat the outside of a refrigerator or a room. This method is referred to as the reverse Braydon cycle. (A forwared Braydon cycle uses a compressed, heated gas to drive a motor.) Now if instead of using a refrigerant, you use clean air, you'll cause different gases to precipitate out as you cool the gas. First to precipitate will be water vapor, which will precipitate out as water or even ice. Second will be carbon dioxide, which will precipitate out as dry ice. You'll need to cool the air quite a bit to reach a temperature cold enough to cause oxygen to liquefy, leaving mostly nitrogen behind. If you further cool it, you'll get liquid nitrogen. Because you can only compress air by so much in a given cycle, the process usually needs to be repeated multiple times until you're left with what you want. This can either be done sequentially, by passing the gas through a series of compressors, or recursively in which you pass the gas through the same compressor repeatedly. What J.J. was trying to point out is that if you use a reverse Braydon cycle to pump heat out of air, leaving liquid oxygen and nitrogen, rather than using a conventional air conditioner to pump that heat outside, you might as well just dump most of that heat outside in the first place; hence there's no need for a separate A/C. However, as J.J. will soon discover, it's far easier to build entirely self-contained server racks and then to dump the heat extracted from the liquid nitrogen into the server room, and then pump it out using a conventional HVAC system. Often simpler is better.

Oh, I think there are more than two or three side stories coming soon. Don't take anything for granted.

J.J. will discover that they no longer offer it in a couple of years, when he returns from… well, I don't want to give anything away. The Sierra turkey sandwich was a cold sandwich with turkey, chipotle mayo and lime juice. They no longer make it, but the toasted frontega chicken comes close. Obviously, it's with smoked pulled chicken instead of turkey, and it's served warm, on a toasted focaccia bread. There is no lime juice, but it includes chipotle mayo, basil, tomato and onion. It's my new favorite Panera sandwich. However, the flatbread pizzas are pretty good too.

Rob dropped me off Monday morning at the warehouse Applazon was renting. It was immediately apparent that I was way overdressed in my suit and tie. Most everyone on the team was casually dressed, and by that I mean shorts, with halter tops for the women and tank tops for the guys. The reason for that was immediately apparent; it was uncomfortably hot inside the warehouse. The temperature had to be close to ninety degrees. My suit coat and tie were quickly set aside, my shirtsleeves rolled up and

I’d been tossing and turning in bed most of the evening, after waking from yet another nightmare about my dad. Rob was over in Sammy’s bed, snoring away. He could sleep through anything. I, on the other hand, had a lot on my mind, and sleep was elusive. I’d gone to work that morning assuming that my day would be filled with pulling and replacing servers, refurbishing them and occasionally troubleshooting them. If there was any time left over, I was gonna use it to work on the remaining problems

I’m sure it turned a few heads when the stretch limo dropped me off in front of the Gonzalez house in the late evening. It had been nearly ten hours since Mr. Jenkins and Dr. Moorthy had first dropped into the data center that morning. I’d long ago called Rob to let him know I wouldn’t be riding home with him and had enjoyed a light supper with the men from Applazon. I ended up pouring my heart out to them, and although I was sure I’d missed a few details, such as the fact that Missouri had

“So, your father found out you were gay and threw you out of the house?” Mr. Cooper asked as we continued to eat our salads. “As you know, I grew up in the Deep South, but fortunately that never happened to me.” We were at the Field Club of Omaha, reportedly the city’s finest private club, and I was in the midst of lunch with three of the top executives from Applazon. Why they’d taken me out to a private golf club was still a mystery to me. “Yeah, I’m not sure how he found out, but I w

Nearly two months had passed since I’d sent the new, server-design idea to corporate headquarters via Mr. Winters into what I’d presumed would be a black hole from which it would never emerge. In the interim, I’d started rewriting the code for the web interface we used to manage the data center, but that had come to a halt while I worked on completing the math and comp-sci qualifying exams. I’d been hired to do web design but had yet to be given a project even though I was being paid more than a

“There’s more,” Jerry said as we ate our supper – excuse me – dinner together. A week had passed since our meeting with the chair of mathematics at the University of Nebraska, and Jerry was talking about a meeting he’d had with the superintendent of the Bellevue Public Schools. “They knew four years ago, back when he was in third grade. At that time, his achievement-test scores were all above grade level. Math, ironically was the only score that was at grade level, and reading comprehension was

Nearly a month had passed since I submitted my ideas for a new server design. Clarence thought I was joking, and when I assured him I wasn’t, he pointed out a dozen things he found wrong with my plans, most of which could be categorized as being because my design was different from what he was used to. When I didn’t hear back from Mr. Winters, I sent a follow-up email, to which he replied that he’d sent my designs up the chain through the usual channels. I knew what that meant: they’d likely die

Sorry about all the tech talk. Perhaps it's a bit obvious I'm a bit of a computer geek myself.😋 The tech isn't important to understanding the story, but it serves as a window into J.J.'s head. Encrypting his files turns out, not surprisingly, to be a big red flag for the higher ups at Applazon. Fortunately, they'll recognize the extraordinary talent that cannot be allowed to go to waste… or to go elsewhere, but they'll definitely want to know more about his past.

I appreciate the comments, and the truth will eventually come out in the end, but you're assuming the man who raised J.J. really was his father. This guy was living off the grid under who knows how many aliases, with a kid who may or may not have been related, under a falsified identity. We don't even know if the boy's name or birthday were legitimate. Then one day they both disappeared without a trace. We don't even know if his body's been found yet, and even if it was, if there was anything to link him to J.J. It's possible Jerry could find J.J.'s real identity by searching the right databases, but he doesn't even know what to search for, as virtually nothing he thinks he knows about J.J. will be correct.

Thanks for the nice photo. I stand corrected. My mistake was in using Apple Maps, which doesn't bother with labeling all tributaries. I've not only noted the correction, but I've modified the text so that Rob corrects J.J.'s error. Thanks!

“J.J., this is Clarence,” Mr. Winters said in introduction, “and Clarence, this is J.J.” It was Tuesday morning, and after spending all of Monday going through mandatory employee orientation that could’ve and should’ve been done in the comfort of my home, I was finally being introduced to the guy who would show me the ropes. When I shook Clarence’s hand, however, he had the limpest handshake of any I’d ever experienced. My Dad would’ve crushed the poor guy’s hand if they’d ever met. “Hello

Mr. Winters and I headed out the door and into the employee parking lot, where he led me to a Tesla Model 3. Holy crap! He didn’t bother with keys; he used his phone to open it. Of course, I rode shotgun. “Nice car,” I exclaimed, but then I couldn’t help but ask, “How much did this baby cost?” When he told me, I exclaimed in surprise, “Shit, that’s not bad! Not that I have anything close to that kind of money, but it’s affordable, especially when you consider the savings in using electric p

It was funny, but I’d wondered how I was gonna manage sleepin’ in a bed with someone else, but now that I was back to a single bed, already I missed holding Rob or being held in his arms. It had taken us two hours to move everything of Henry’s into Rob’s room and everything of mine, such as it was, into Sammy’s room. No sooner were we done, than Fran appeared as if by magic with all of my new clothes, freshly washed and dried. I made quick work of putting everything away. It turned out that gett

Henry stopped in front of the great-room table, and I placed my hand on his bare shoulder, giving him a gentle squeeze that I hoped was reassuring, then left my hand there as a sign of support. The girls were no longer present, but both brothers and their parents were at the table, literally shouting at each other. The shouting stopped the moment Henry and I appeared. Henry took advantage of the resulting silence and began speaking. “Mom, Dad, Rob, Sammy, while you’ve all been shouting at e

“What’s gotten into Henry?” Rob asked as he drove up Harvell Drive. “I’ve never seen him so excited about anything in his life – besides sex, anyways.” We were on our way to Joseph A. Bank to buy me a new suit and dress clothes. The men’s store was located on the west side of town but about as far from where we lived as one could get in Omaha, yet it would only take a little over a half hour to get there. “Speaking of sex, I actually had to remind him that Darren was coming over.” Laughing,