"Believe you can and you're halfway there"
Theodore Roosevelt
Behind the Scenes
Questions for me
If you wonder how I came up with something or anything else, just shoot me an email! Even if I don't remember, I'll get back to you.
Playing with Mike
Background Information and Details
From the first chapter to the last, some info about the creation process of this story. Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Philadelphia Eagle fans have a bad reputation, and while not all of them are terrible, they have had some very poor moments. Did they cheer a (now) Hall of Famer when he had a career ending injury? Yes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1999/10/12/fans-criticized-after-cheering-hurt-irvin/51ecc0d2-160e-4807-9e8d-7193e31408fd/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5635e95bc112
Did they really throw snowballs at Santa? Again, yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh2DwRkLIQE
Have they used poor judgment at other times? Of course, like punching police horses and throwing batteries: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/eagles-fans-are-the-absolute-worst-and-here-are-9-times-they-proved-it/
Shiner Bock – It's considered one of the best Texas beers that is nationally distributed. One of my favorites too. And, it's the oldest independent brewery in Texas. https://www.thespruceeats.com/shiner-bock-review-352958
The cheerleader outfit – Vera Wang designed the 2013 outfits. There a few styles which could be mixed and matched depending on the weather or situation. Zoe is wearing the skirt from the girl on the left and her top is 4th from the left. https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2013/09/15/philadelphia-eagles-cheerleaders-vera-wang
Here's a pic of the top from the front: https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/jBBQipzASHlwxKxudiRfc5of90I=/1400x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/E3GE5HJCRHRB2YAON7GURVTGUM.jpg
Bears defeated the Lions. Week 10, 11-11-2018 actual score. I was hoping to get this story out before that week, but it didn't happen. So, I inserted the score after the story was written. I needed an early game and picked the Bears as a nod to my novel, Pushing our Boundaries, where the main characters love the Chicago Bears. One minor change I made was that the Cowboys were home when they actually played at Philly.
The details I made up about the low scoring game I wrote over a month before Dallas played at Philly. It didn't get altered and my prediction was very close to what actually happened. 3-0 Dallas after the 1st quarter, and 13-3 Dallas at halftime.
Chapter 2
The outfit Mike was wearing when Zoe noticed him at the gym:
https://www.underarmour.com/en-us/mens-heatgear-armour-mid-compression-shorts/pid1289566-35
Chapter 3
Dallas Love Field, DFW's little brother when it comes to airports in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. It's mainly serviced by Southwest Airlines. While you could have arrived on separate flights on Thanksgiving (2018) from Birmingham, Boise, and San Diego, only Birmingham with a stop in Houston got you there at 11am. There are a number of restaurants inside the security check area closer to the terminals but very few places to eat before the security, where I wanted Jeff to wait.
Name game: Shannon
I was intentionally vague when I picked out Mike's friends' names. I didn't want Jeff to know who he was picking up. I wanted a non-gender specific name for Shannon and Alex. Jeff would think Alex was a guy and that he was picking up a female, Shannon. Hopefully, if he was lucky, he might have some eye candy.
Shannon's left ear stud:
(from quora)
Originally Answered: Which side of the man’s ear being pierced means being gay? Is there even such a thing as a gay piercing?
In the 1980s, in the US, when earrings for men became more mainstream, there was a tradition "Left ear buccaneer, right ear queer", or "Left is right and right is wrong", but there was also a tradition "Right is right and left is gay". It was mostly straight male paranoia rather than anything arising out of the gay community, it varied from place to place, nobody was ever quite sure what it was supposed to be, but you could still get beaten up for getting it wrong by the standards of your area.
In the gay community in the 1970s (in SF at least), if an earring meant anything, it reinforced the Handkerchief code, where left=active/top and right=passive/bottom. (That may have contributed to "left ear buccaneer" because in many people's minds, being a top isn't nearly as gay as being a bottom.) But there was no consistency and often it was just jewelry.
– I chose the left to reinforce that Shannon, like Mike, is a top.
Chapter 4
“Enough food to feed Coxey's army”
The phrase refers to a march in 1894 protesting unemployment. But now it's usually meant that there is more than enough food prepared than is needed.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coxey%27s_Army
Trex's composite decking. Tiki Torch is close to an unstained Red Oak tint. If I ever change out my old wooden deck it would be something similar to this material:
https://www.trex.com/products/decking/transcend-decking-and-railing/
“wax on, wax off”
---famous scene from the movie "The Karate Kid" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynryUjGFt8
Mike's floor lamp. This isn't the exact lamp that Mike has in his bedroom, but it is very close to this design.