November 2003 Archives

Dear lord, read this... one of the funniest things I've ever read...

http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0202/suspense/

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Few quick things that must be said before I conk off for a short sleep before a long ride to Rhode Island in the morning...

Survivor was fucking amazing.

And HBO denied a third season of Project Greenlight... but before a tear could be shed, it looks like Bravo is going to sweep down and pick that bitch up.

God bless Bravo.

First Queer Eye... then Celebrity Poker and now this...

Celebrity Poker has me quivering... absolutely quivering. It looks to have carbon copy production of the amazing World Poker Tour on Travel channel... but with celebrities! Instant ball drainer right there! We're talking Ben Affleck and Don Cheadle playing no limit hold em here... INCREDIBLE.

From "Flipped" ... a novel I'm reading...

My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you, and you're floating. Floating in midair.

...

I hate when I read lines that could have been plucked, word for word from my novel... that's all.

Happy Thanksgiving

Poor Stephen King's spending his Thanksgiving in the hospital with pneumonia.

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Today was... surreal as hell.

Last day of filming on the special. I'm really interested in how this special is going to turn out now. I believe they now have a good 8 hours of footage of our family for this damn thing... and we're only part of the show. We are definitely the main focus though.

Interesting to note: I saw the Concorde jet... floating on a boat down the Hudson river this morning.

We started off filming a million shots in front of the New York Public Library. It was stupendously cold. So, with how cold I was for the interview... I should look pitiful and freezing in every shot of the special!

These shots were cornball, I tell you this. Shots of us walking down the stairs, fake conversing. Pointing up-"Hey look at dat!" Taking family photos in front of the lion statues. Ordering coffees together at Starbucks--as a family! Yeah! (Free Starbucks is more delicious than purchased Starbucks.)

Shots of us walking this and that way... as a family! Yeah!

Then they filmed something with my mom looking in a window of a building... and then security came at us.

Then they filmed us walking through some sort of holiday flea market in the middle of this park. This was some cornball shit now, I tell you. Us checking out all the horrible garbage. Ornaments from India and what not. We had to get excited over junky shit... as a family! Yeah!

It was then more shots of us walking past the camera seperately. So get ready for the Dateline shot of me walking alone through a park.

Also... I should mention that the wind always blew my hair into my face as we walked... all 4 million different shots today... so that should be funny! They should make a montage!

They got a shot of me reading in the park... I was really reading... so it should look really boring!

After that, it was off to New Jersey to film in the house of a food network "food stylist." They filmed a bunch of documentary style cooking and all that. Also... more and more inserts. My dad raking. Re-enactments from the fat days of him grabbing donuts. A little of everything.

This took every hour there was to take... I tell you this.

The food network called during all of it. The network's president OFFICIALLY greenlit the show today. Which basically means that we are now allowed to talk about it. That there's no going back on their word. They want my father's agent to contact their legal department on Monday for contract negotiations.

So you see... things are happening now... and it's freaking me out.

All the people that were staring at us when we were filming in the city... it was a taste of what's to come. The week after the View airs, the People article will come out and then the week after that the special will air... it's going to be a lot of exposure all at once.

The producer of the special said that I should look forward to quite a lot of fan mail.

Tomorrow night... 11pm on the History channel... "Dead Reckoning: Buttons and Bugs" is on... it's a forensic show by our special's crew.

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Emode is fantastic! Not sure I would ever actually meet someone on there... they'd have to really stick out at me... but it sure is fun anyway!

Six girls told emode they want to meet me... so it asked if I wanted to meet any of them...

Now these girls... it's an interesting lot, I tell you this...

First off... you've got the complete idiots...

Those would be the girls from...

1. Australia
2. The Phillipines

How the fuck do they find me? Maybe I'm just so unique that when they did a compatibility search... I was the only match in the entire fucking world...

Then you've got the girl from Pleasantville, NY... she's turned on by tatoos... that's a plus.... allrighty... and she's turned off by "goofiness, long hair and sarcasm." Oh... so she's turned off by ME then.

There's alway this other girl with her black lipstick, Marilyn Manson posters and this list of things she can't live without. "Music. Lesbians. Converse shoes."

The fifth girl's picture is one I wish I could post here... and that's all I'll say on the matter.

And the sixth girl was normal enough.... Thank God... don't want to be some kinda freak magnet.

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So the young and stupid blond left The View months and months ago... that would be why there wasn't one at our last filming.

Today, they finally found a permanent replacement...

Elisabeth from Survivor Outback.

ELISABETH... cute-as-a-button, old man befriending ELISABETH.

I don't think I need to explain the unhealthy obsession with her I had during those 39 days on the island... no maam.

And now... next month when we go on The View again... I will meet her.

It's quite beautiful really.

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Some girl from Pennsylvania sent me an "icebreaker" off of emode.com's dating service.

Oh sure... let's go out for tea darling. I'll just get in my car... you'll get in your car and we can meet halfway... let's see now... halfway to PA... that's only 130 miles!

Dummy.

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Interesting thing... went to Barnes and Noble to sit down at the cafe, have some coffee and write... but there were no open tables. There were people everywhere. People like to read here... it's unusual. --------

Long hiatus there. Sorry, yo.

No matter how I go about this, this will end up the abridged version of the last week. It's hard to write out the longest days of your life... The two days Adam Bolduc, Jeremy and I (and halftimes Jaun) scoured New York City.

I'd almost rather keep the memories to myself and say "fuck you" to the blog, because at this point it's all a mess in my mind.

I know we started things off looking for a place to eat lunch for over an hour. I remember looking at old looking pizzas in at least three different pizza restaurants twenty blocks apart before settling on a deli/salad bar exactly not as good as the first place we had walked in an hour before.

I finished my meal with a delicious banana. I them complained about ending a meal with something as filling as a banana.

We then found our way to ground zero. Not the most uplifting moment of our trip. Definitely drove the whole 9/11 experience home for us.

Don't want to dwell... so it's...

Off to Battery Park and looking at the Statue of Liberty from really far away. Also-a line of guys with briefcases try to sell us Rolex's. One guy after the other... like we've immediately changed our mind since that last shady dude.

Interesting to note: You can't just walk up to the stock exchange... not gonna happen Sally. Not if them barricades have anything to say about it.

Whoa... just read Jonathon Brandis hung himself the other day... unrelated to our trip to NY... but crazy all the same.

Finding our way back to our hotel wasn't hard... all we had to do was follow the line of people waiting for the Britney Spears signing at Virgin the next day!

The next morning, Adam and I take turns hitting the snooze button on the alarm every five minutes for over two hours. These were some glorious five minute tidbits of sleep, I tell you this.

Off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art... it's huge. HUGE. So much art. So much culture. How the hell do we get to the cafeteria with all this fucking art in our way?

Let's see now, past the big ceramic dog-looking thing with holes in it. And then keep going past that really amazing looking book that you never took the time to read about. Down them stairs. Ahh there it is!

And it's only fourteen dollars for my chicken tortilla wrap lunch! And don't mind it's puke-green tortilla. The puke-green is a sign of tastiness!

Jaun shows up... after taking the wrong subway to the wrong side of central park.

I am in a museum. The very place we go to learn from the past. And yet, I eat another banana to finish another meal.

So then, there's like this whole three hour timespan where we like, look at art and crap.

Actually... it's amazing. According to THE woman, the Metropolitan Museum of Art holds over 700 drazizzlzillion pieces of art. We see a good half of them. It's an incredible place that I am far too tired to write about.

We then take the subway to SoHo/Chinatown

Interesting to note: There's a store in SoHo where you can buy beaver skulls by the jar-full.

Now Chinatown, it's so very Chinese. There are markets everywhere... and they all sell the same thing... really dried stuff. Dried fish. Dried fish heads. Dried fish eyes. Everything that you can think of... as long as all you can think of is dried fish parts.

And the language... it's Chinese! In America!

But this doesn't stop us from finding a place to sit down for dinner. The four of us eat delicious chinese food and it only comes to 21 dollars... or the price of one and a half puke-green chicken wraps at the museum. We are pleased.

The rest of the night... well...

The rest of the night found us...

At a bar named Ear... drinking.

At a different bar... still drinking. Arguing. Drinking. Being closed upon.

At a third bar. Home of "famous musician Al Bundy." ...drinking.

Jaun screams "love is beautiful" to two kissing men.

Jaun tries to explain a movie idea to a taxi driver in our four minute ride... he doesn't finish and we get out.

Jeremy and Jaun argue in the streets of SoHo.

Jeremy and Jaun argue in a subway car.

Jeremy and Jaun argue in Times Square.

Jaun rants about Jupiter to a bum.

We eat McDonald's.

No more arguing. We all love each other again.

In the morning, Jeremy vomits in Grand Central Station.

And we all go different ways. Adam back to Florida. Jaun back to his father's house. Jeremy and I back to Norwalk.

A few days later now... Jeremy went home that next day... and I'm really tired right now. So I'm trying to wrap this up.

Got a library card. I feel empowered now. Interesting to note: their library cards feature the library's red dragon/spokesman "Hot Stuff."

I started writing again tonight... only slightly... but the floodgates are coming open.

Goodnight.

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The four of us went back into the city yesterday. We found ourselves stuck in traffic for the always-ith time going there. My father had a lunch meeting with the producer of his series, so we stopped a quarter of the way there and took the train.

Ran to board a leaving train in true movie fashion. It’s hard to run wearing a shirt, sweater, jacket, scarf and messenger bag.

And in the end… it wasn’t very cold out. Something about scarves—you don’t want to be the only pussy in the entire city of New York wearing one.

First time riding the train, it’s a very gooshy ride. There’s this gentle splish splosh of your insides from side to side for forty minutes. It’s not uncomfortable, just slightly… gooshy.

I walked the city for five hours straight. Nothing was accomplished. Saw the Naked Cowboy playing guitar in Times Square for the second time in three days. Went nine stories up in Macy’s… had no idea what the fuck Macy’s is all about.

Finished the night with a free dinner at Gallagher’s… where we filmed for the special a few days ago. Ate half of a thirty-nine dollar steak. You have to order everything separate… so each vegetable you add will cost you another nine dollars. A first course salad, eleven. Dessert, I have no idea. So yeah, now I know what thirty-nine dollars tastes like. So do my dogs, who finished the other half of that steak.

Anthony left today, despite the fifty mile an hour, icy winds of despair that came a blowin’ in. The winds were almost tropical storm strength, but with no tropical storm creating them, and with no tropical warmth.

Didn’t stop me from driving around though… Went to the local Barnes and Noble. Big, giant, now hiring sign inside. They could use the sign to hire someone to wear the sign, it was so big. Didn’t really come prepared to ask for a job though (no ID on me and what not), so I did not inquire at that time. Was disheartened to see that most of the employees seemed unapproachable. Not sure I want to work where everyone wears a turtleneck and knows who the hell Depak Chopra is.

Went with my mother to Stew Leonard’s. Stew Leonard’s is gigantic and the sign says, “World’s Largest Dairy Store! As Seen in Ripley’s… Believe it or Not!” So add that to the list of things my new home’s got. I’m really going to have to get into Stew Leonard’s now…

First off… the sign is bullshit. This place is definitely large… Wal-Mart large. But it’s certainly not a dairy exclusive store. I guess it made Ripley’s because it was just a dairy store at one time. But then it grew outward like a fungus.

So yeah, they have live cows in the front for everyone to see.

They also have a labyrinth. Just so you know. You grab a cart to go shopping and you walk in and then… BOOM. You’re under their control. No aisles… just a maze. Like some kind of Publix / Halloween Horrornights haunted house mixture. If you forgot to grab some relish… then you best backtrack a few miles.

But the other thing about this place. Animatronics… everywhere. It felt as if the man that opened Wall Drug in SD came and created this place. There were spinning acrobats and talking celery and all kinds of crazy things.

I went to grab a bunch of bananas and was immediately hit up by a singing banana robot. It was loud and frightening, I tell you this.

Also, tried to keep a straight face long enough to walk past a person in a chicken costume. This is impossible, and I failed.

Otherwise, a normal day.

Have to wake up in the morning to take a family after picture for People Magazine. That’ll freak my shit out; seeing myself in People.

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Phone line is back in business… so I posted yesterday’s blog as well as this one…

Set decorated our house for filming today. Still didn’t have our furniture delivered. My dad called them a million times… a million times they promised they were on their way.

At five, the film crew showed up… to our empty house. It was horrible. Five minutes later our furniture showed up. We carted it into the house like mad. In the end, they didn’t even film the interviews in the living room… they filmed them in our nice kitchen.

With the door open to bring in the furniture, the house came down to about two degrees… perfectly cold enough to film an interview in short sleeves. I’ll be very surprised if I’m not visibly shivering in my shots.

They asked me some QUESTIONS too… I tell you this. They’re a CBS news crew, so they probed. Asking me if I was depressed when I was fat and what not. I was trying to keep things upbeat!

They had to stop my mother’s interview because they made her cry. I have no idea why though… I had fallen asleep in the other room.

The good news is that the special is done filming, save a cooking demonstration with just my father that they haven’t even scheduled yet.

As of now…

My father is on the radio in Cleveland tomorrow morning.

There’s a story on us running in the Orlando Sentinel Friday or Saturday.

We’ll be in the January issue of People Magazine… which should come out in late December.

December 16th the whole family, including Anthony, will be on The View again.

January 4th at 10pm the Food Network special “The Low Carb Revolution” airs.

April… my father’s Food Network series begins airing.

We’re all going into New York again tomorrow. My parents are having lunch with the producer of his series and Anthony wants to go to the top of the Empire State Building. It costs eight dollars to do that though… and I’m scared of large buildings… so I think I’ll skip that.

Good day-

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Phone line is out again… will have to post this later…

Funny thing about the phone line—it just stopped working this morning. My father was convinced it had to do with the security system throughout the house. It’s setup to dial ADT when you actually pay ADT for service. So he starts smacking random numbers on the security system’s keypad… hoping that this will somehow make our phone have a dial tone. Instead, somehow, he arms the system.

Funny thing about armed security systems—they don’t like to go unarmed without a code. We don’t have the code. So naturally we open a window, to see what will happen.

So yeah. Please do this for me… please imagine the worst sound you’ve ever heard. NO-better… please imagine the worst sound you’ve never heard. Hold it-

It’s the day after Christmas and you accidentally step on your new kitten’s neck.

That’s a pretty bad sound. But I need you to forget about the kitten.

I need you to run the squeal of a pig being slaughtered, on a loop, through the universe’s largest guitar amp. Then for good measure, crank that treble all the way up. Then for final, you gotta wear that shit like a hearing aid.

This high pitched tone, this weapon of a sound, it’s trying to kill us. And worst of all, without the code, there’s no way to stop it.

I stand in the kitchen, my hands over my ears, hoping the sound will cause one of the eighteen windows in the “Florida Room” to shatter. Hoping a shard of glass will land in my head; take me away from such a horrible tone.

Reagan shakes uncontrollably in the corner.

Anthony comes running out of the bathroom in just a towel. He is obviously confused and seconds away from jumping out the living room picture window.

Somewhere, I can make out some mish-mash of computer voice that makes no sense when covered up by so much TONE.

My father locates the wall unit emitting this thing and rips it from the wall.

And then silence.

And then, “Fire in zone 95. Breach in zone 40. Fire in zone 95.” It’s the main security keypad and apparently it’s concerned about a fire in zone 95!

So my father does what is completely necessary at this point. He quiets the system by systematically cutting twenty wires from the security system’s box in the basement.
And then lasting silence.

But the phone still doesn’t work. Hopefully they’ll fix that in the morning.

Drove into New York for filming today. On the way… got a call… more about that later.

The first setup was at an upscale steakhouse right there in Manhattan. It is there that we met my father’s loyal message board devotees. It was quite strange actually. It felt wrong. These two women… they basically worship us… our whole family. I’m talking… back home there’s a package waiting for us with a holiday wreath, decorative soap and tapestry calendar, from them of course. It makes sense though. We chose them to come on the special. They were more excited than us to be on the Food Network and it was our doing.

Anthony and I skip out on most of the day of filming to walk around Manhattan. I finally find my hat and gloves at a Gap in Times Square.

We see Jack Hanna outside the back entrance to David Letterman.

I finally see the Empire State Building… which evaded me on my last visit.

We walk by the tiny office of Troma films. Anthony comes up with the idea of barging in and handing them a dvd of Robert Cake and so we decide to give it a shot. We ring the bell for the Troma floor of the office building and the door immediately unlocks. We explain our plan to one of the Troma guys and he gives us a full tour. This tour consists of “here is my desk,” and “here’s a wall of autographed stuff.” But it’s just cool to be in there.

When Anthony pulls out our dvd he immediately recognizes it. We don’t even remember sending them the movie. He decides to prove it and takes us to the room with all the independent submissions, but searches through stacks of movies and can’t find it.

Back in the main office, he shows us some more unimpressive stuff… and then stumbles upon a video of Robert Cake in one of the desks. They DO have it.

It’s proof that Anthony’s poster design was definitely memorable… seeing as he recognized it immediately.

Also a pretty direct link of our movie to South Park… with all that lawsuit stuff… considering Matt Stone and Trey Parker are always involved with Troma. And considering that video looked like on the very first.

On the way out… the guy grabs us a few Troma dvds.

At six we meet back up with our parents and the film crew at CBS studios. They stage a fake seminar and bring in a small audience from who knows where. Once again… more star treatment. Very weird stuff.

Anyway… all the filming went great… an all around good day.

And about that call in the morning. It was the Food Network’s programming director.

My father got the weekly series.

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I feel I'll catch this thing up to the present, even though I have to be up in the morning to film the Food Network special in New York.

Anthony flew in this morning and we all visited relatives I've never met before. My ninety-five year old great aunt and her two daughters in their seventies. This was, as you might expect... awkward. Them being so old and strangerish and all. But they were nice and treated us like we've been a part of their family all their life instead of just... just now.

We then went on a great gloves, hat and scarf expedition at a 9 story mall in downtown Stamford. This thing was gigantic, circular and 6 of the stories went underground. In the end, I found a nice scarf at American Eagle... but waited to go to Target for the gloves and hat...

We spent two hours looking for Target, gave up... went grocery shopping and then passed one on the way home. It's the closest one to the house and it's in White Plains, New York... so I doubt I'll be seeing much of Target in the future.

Something I've noticed over the past few days... even walking around that huge mall... I'm seeing very few people my own age... especially of the opposite sex... that's no fun... no sir.

I'll buy those hat and gloves somewhere in Times Square tomorrow... and I'll freeze on the way there.

They say it could snow in the morning.

Have to sleep now.

Christian

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Ahh… a backlogged blog.

Hello world. Let me catch you up…

-FIRST-

How to get to my new house in three easy days.

When our U-Haul is two thirds full, we realize that we should have gone for the bigger truck. Even after selling, giving and then eventually trashing seventy-seven percent of our belongings, there’s still an overwhelming load to come along for the ride. My dad becomes obsessed with a real world truck-loading variation of Tetris, that I will dub Pack-tris. It is the fine art of fitting everything we own into everything else we own and then all that owned stuff into all the other owned stuff until everything is one solid cube… until everything fits into our tiny truck.

Lifting the piano, my father squishes the artery in his wrist… it’s really gross and I hide in the garage so he’ll stop showing it to me.

Squishing silver platters into a space of the truck where they do not want to fit, my father splits his nose open as one flips back up, into his face. Note: his nose will be on television 6 days later. Double note: it’s mostly healed now.

When everything is finally in the truck, everything still didn’t fit in the truck. We had to pack smaller items throughout the orifices of my car, hitched behind it. My ab ball sat in the driver’s seat, pretended he was driving to Connecticut all on his own.

Tuesday morning… it’s a day later than we planned on leaving, but we set off. Two days to Connecticut… one night in a hotel in between. My father driving the truck… an animal carrier carrying the cats riding shotgun. My mother driving their car, me shotgun, both dogs panting on the backseat. They pant like mad all the way to DC. There is no air conditioning.

In Daytona, we realize that the trailer my car is on has a tire ready to explode. We spend hours finding a U-Haul place and having them fix the tire. This is the worst way to start a road trip.

We stop two dillion times. We stop for coffee. We stop for food. We stop to pee. We stop so the dogs can pee. We stop so the cats can pee. We keep the cat’s litter box in the trunk of my car. When we stop, it’s placed on the floorboard of the truck and the animal carrier is opened for them to use it. They never did. Everywhere we stop, someone has to stay with the dogs. This makes it impossible to eat inside any restaurant.

Although, I do eat dinner with my mother at the Denny’s in South Carolina where we met Natalie’s father after filming that whole monkey-creature trailer.

Anyway, Two days on the road becomes three and it’s really quite hell and it’s days behind me now… so let’s move on.

Random, quick fact about my new home: Norwalk is only a few miles from the real town of Sleepy Hollow.

-SECOND-

-What’s a radiator, and can you place a bed up against it without burning the house down?

We arrive Thursday night… the third night on the road. It’s dark, raining, and super duper cold. It is the worst way to get to your new home.

The house looks unimpressive on the outside, but amazing on the inside. A big living room. Beautiful cabinets in the kitchen… spinning doohickeys and hidden drawers behind them.

The “Florida Room,” as my parents call it, in the back of the house is gigantic and surrounded by eighteen floor to ceiling windows. I do not approve of the name… as I do not like attaching Floridian themes to cool-ass window rooms.

And then I notice the lack of central air. For the first time in my life, no air conditioning. And even though it’s thirty degrees outside right now… I know that the summer will still bring on the hot and that scares me.

And then… the radiating heat vents. They’re everywhere. On at least one wall of every room… oozing their warmth for all and scaring me to death. Evidently, they work by circulating burning hot oil throughout the house. This oil is supposedly refilled by a magical man that we have no knowledge of, but are sure exists. They are not hot to the touch, but my mind says “STAY AWAY.” I’ll drop something on the ground and then think… but what if it got kicked under THE VENT!? What if I burned the motherfucking house down?

Moving on… the basement is scary in a whole different way. It’s low ceilings, dark lighting, and dirty red checkered tile give off a condemned mental hospital feel at all times. I will say though… the basement is huge… as big as the entire house and clean enough to live in, even though it freaks me out.

We kicked in the locked door of one of the many closets down in the basement and found boxes of stuff that went eight feet back. Hanging in the very front was an old yellowed dress about three feet tall. A dress that most definitely belonged to the dead little girl skeleton I was positive we were about to uncover. But in the end it was a bunch of stupid Christmas shit from the last tenant… so we relocked the door and will now pretend that closet doesn’t exist.

Random, quick fact about my new home: All bottled drinks aren’t taxed, but have a five cent bottle deposit. Crazy bottle eating machines in front of all grocery stores count your empty bottles and spit out cash redeeming slips. Also no tax on clothing purchases under seventy-five dollars. That has nothing to do with the crazy bottle eating machines… but something to note.

-THIRD-

-Traversing the spider web of doom.

On the main street my house is off of… there are little shops. Delis. A mom and pop video store. A newsstand with porn… everywhere! So I decide I’ll drive past them… see if there’s any real shopping to be found beyond them.

Of course, I make a wrong turn coming out of my own driveway and end up lost in Norwalk, Darien and Stamford, CT for almost four hours.

I start off driving through neighborhoods for nearly thirty minutes. The roads are narrow, sometimes un-lined, and ridiculously hilly and fork laden. Every intersection is a fork and there’s never a street sign when you want it… so you can’t tell which side of the fork is the continuation of the road you are on… and which is a different road altogether. Every turn you make is life threatening, because no matter where you are… oncoming traffic will be down a hill so you can’t see if anyone is coming.

One second, I’m driving through winding residential hillsides and crazy cemeteries, the next I’ve somehow come out exactly at a Best Buy. It was this incredible moment of glee that I will not soon forget. And although the Best Buy doesn’t actually open for two more weeks… the thought of it’s soon-to-existness is all I need.

So after getting over all that I set off again… and find myself in “Historic SoNo!” or Southern Norwalk. This is the home of lots of traffic that makes my car want to overheat and trendy little stores that business people and me eat up.

I end up at some Harbor.

I end up back in the residential hills of doom.

I end up in the middle of a funeral precession. Not behind one. IN one. I’m talking… several cars in front of me, driving 15 mph with their hazard lights on… several more behind me. Now this is incredibly embarrassing. I’ve somehow cut into this line of cars. In my mind there is no excuse for this and I turn off of the road… even though I was sure it was taking me in the right direction.

I end up back at Best Buy and drive past it to find… Barnes and Noble, CompUSA, Circuit City, Wal-Mart and everything else that doesn’t belong in such a crazy small town.

In Wal-Mart I buy 120 dollars worth of weight equipment and a map of Norwalk to find my way home. I find that I’m really close, but still get lost and have to stop two times to look at the map on the way back.

Random, quick fact about my new home: The front door of my house locks automatically when you shut it. This resulted in me being locked outside, barefoot, in the forty degree cold for two hours the other day!

...still more to catch up on...

Christian

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