The Volunteer, Part Two: Sudden Knowledge of Good and Evil

Hi Rhonda-

 Nice seeing you yesterday. You look great.

 As we discussed,  I am checking to see if Ben available to help with an event on Wed, June 24th. We are having a Donor Reception and Keli needs 3 or 4 volunteers to assist with set up, registration and various tasks. The event is from 6-8 and the address is 6600 C--------- Parkway which is is off of B------- Road. She needs him to help set up at 4. He'd be finished no later than 8:30. As I told him- he'd get community service hours for the drive to and from too.

We'd love to have him. Let me know asap.

Thanks, Rhonda.

;) Julie

Rhonda, by the way, is apparently "my" mom. By the time I got this email, though, I had forgotten all about the coookies experience.

I have to say, and I hope you don't think me cruel, but I chuckled often today thinking about you saying if that snake came near you it was gonna be thrown overboard...I knew you were serious and I could just picture you chucking that thing a mile...so funny but your threat worked!  

always fun, fun at the I-------..

hopefully I can let you know tomorrow about this.

 Hey Julie - I just looked at this...Ben is spending the night out tonight but I will pass on to his email and followup with him tomorrow.  Rach and I will be at UF tomorrow and wed...thanks for thinking of him...
Rhonda 

Like I said, I had totally forgotten about the coookies when I wrote this:

I am totally down to volunteer those days. See you there,
Ben 

And good ol' mom made me remember:

Good, so you know that they are reaallly counting on you and it would be awful if you didn't show up..all those beautiful children with such devastating home situations..they really need you to be there...since you didn't show up last time you need to really think through this.... are you really able to keep this comittment and handle this emotionally ...they've got you down so if you need to back out...let us know.  Why don't you call me at 2--------- to discuss.   

Again, I suppose people don't talk about these things outside of email, even with their progeny. But even given the fact that poor Ben's own mother doesn't know his email address or confirm affairs in real life, I actually felt pretty bad after reading this. Which briefly affected my conduct the next time I got such an email. Briefly.

The Volunteer, Part One: Who Do You Love?

Dear Wrestling Families,Our final wrestling match before the break is this Wednesday, December 17 at 6:30.  Come out and see our Sharks take on the Dragons of the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind.  There will be special Dave and Busters holiday give-a-ways and lots of exciting wrestling action!!
We'll need two volunteers for the Concession Stand :  5:30 pm - approx. 8:15pm.  If you haven't volunteered yet, please consider doing so... it's really a lot of fun and we'll make sure you get to see your son's match!  Thanks so much!  Go Sharks !!Kelly

People love email formatting. And no one understands the things they love. Well hey, I happened to be free that Wednesday and I certainly wanted to see my apparent son's match. Why not volunteer?

I will bring coookies if anyone's interested. Just a suggestion. I love you. 
--Ben

The "coookies" was actually a typo that made me laugh, so I decided to keep it. And then to be one step sillier. This was still early in the game, when I was naive to the effects of my actions. And to my relationship to the people involved.

Benj- did this come from you??? who is making the cookies and who do you love??? mom

And one more, from the coach:

Ben

Here is the email string I mentioned to you this AM.

Also, can I get a copy of some of your best cookie recipes.

Coach M-------

This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder whether people communicate outside of email. Did any of these people ever talk to Ben about this? Join us next time to find out!

Camping at the Bach

It all began with a few New Zealand "spa buddies" who didn't proofread their emails:

Hi my spa buddies!
Now that we know each other sooooo much better after Becky's party (if you don't know what this means, don't ask! ;-)  ), wondering if anyone is keento go camping by the beach for the Xmas to New year break?
This is a tentative idea, as I know many have other plans (Bruce K. and afew included).  It's open to anyone in Life.
I was thinking of somewhere up North with a beautiful beach, good campingground, sparsely populated - impossible at that time of year!!???!!  Anyoneknow of such a place?  The ideal would be a free bach!!! ;-)
Will need to get sorted soon though and book a place if there is interest.

Cheers,
Teresa 

Another member suggested some camping spots, which is how I realized where they lived:

Dear Spa Spunk,
You are becoming more risqué by the day!
Camping by the beach is a great idea - there are some awesome beaches out on the East Coast near Gisborne.  Sparsely populated with a good camping ground is easy, and tenting is a definite go, but I could find out about a house/batch if that were required. 
Would be a real bonus for me as my family live in Gisborne and would be great to be able to catch up with them enroute at some stage.  Could do New Year in Gisborne, Tolaga Bay (Whale Rider), Tokumaru Bay, Ruatoria (Rastas), Te Puia Springs (Hot pools), Onara Bay (paradise), East Cape (lighthouse) ... Te Kaha ... or any other great spot along the way if people are keen. 

Cheers,
Martyn 

I promptly plugged some of these spots into Google Earth to help with the planning:

As far as free bach goes, I don't think we should have any trouble with that, since he's been in the public domain before it even existed! Recordings, though, still require royalties to the players, but there are some great cheap (yet well done) recordings everywhere, especially if you buy used (I found Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for FIFTY CENTS on the discount rack at a VIDEO GAME STORE!! Don't know how it ended up there, but it was still in the shrink wrap and everything!). It might be more fun to try to PLAY some of his music... anyone up for it? I don't know how many of you guys are musical ;-)... but we could always start easy. I've got a portable keyboard we could bring up north!


And as far as that goes, I do think we should go up north... Gisbourne is alright, but if you really want to feel like you're getting away, that's not the place to be. Plus, I don't think they call it "Poverty Bay" for nothing, lol.
-- E>
Ben

 To which I received the following reply:

Hmmmm..did i spell "bach" wrong ;-) ...or is it batch (but that's like"I'll bake a batch of muffins" ;-)  What should it be????
Cheers :-)
Teresa

No, you spelled Bach perfectly. But you still can't spell "beach."

Oh, whoops, I thought you really meant Bach :-(

Well, the offer still stands
-- E>
Ben

They ended up caming up North after all. I'm glad to know that I could help the mildly illiterate Spa Spunk (gross) get to know each other sooo well.

Introduction

Back when Gmail was in its beta stages, when it was invite only and folks only got ten invites at a time and those invites had yet to cascade, I was lucky enough to know someone with a Google hookup and secured an email address right off the bat. I went the simple and professional route: [firstname.lastname@gmail.com], which name I will not actually provide here. This seemed like a fine idea at the time, and I stand by the decision, but it was only then that I realized how common my name was. I also realized that people don't pay attention to the email addresses of their friends, coworkers, sons, lovers, etc. This blog is a testament to that fact. What follows is a list of examples of what can happen when you mistakenly contact a troll.