Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Best Girl by BJohn
   Chapters 16 - 20
   Chapter 16
   SEAN{br} (Sunday 5/14)
   Moving day!  We staggered out of bed and dragged into the bathroom to do
our pee calls and showers.
   We had a huge breakfast; the last one here for now.  Kate only got me
twice with her fork while she was stealing stuff off my plate; a good
improvement overall.
   After breakfast, Marge showed us her panties; no diaper.  She told us,
"George and I checked things out yesterday.  I get plenty of warning and
can literally 'put a plug in it,' so I'm gonna go this route.  Now I can
use that thirty pairs of cute panties Maura and Teresa gave us."
   We crowded around her for a few minutes and ensured she got rewarded
with lots of hugs, caresses and kisses.  The panties she was wearing looked
really cute and fit nicely over the cutest, most caressable baby butt in
the world.  Best daughter!  Best girl!
   To change the subject, I told them, "I'll get the office broken down. 
How about we dump everything from the office on the back porch and in the
back yard and work from there?  I wouldn't doubt everything needs dusting,
and I don't wanna take the chance of invoking Marge's three-tooth wrath by
putting dusty stuff in her clean den."
   Marge grinned, "You're getting smarter, Sean.  We'll handle the clothes
and other stuff in the meantime."
   I unplugged, unhooked, coiled cables, wrapped keyboards and dumped the
cables in a box.  It took maybe fifteen minutes, and the ladies kept
themselves busy with the clothes.
   They were still going at it after I was done.  There appeared to be some
discussion of how the clothes would be sorted in the closet, the layering
of shoes and how all the baby clothes would be stored.
   I guessed there was at least one hundred different sets of baby clothes.
That was full matched outfits and didn't count all the shirts, socks,
shoes, rattles, panties and other baby paraphernalia.
   Anyway, once they decided, the stuff disappeared in a hurry.  Lots
better than dragging it downstairs, dumping it in a car or truck, driving
over then lugging it in on the other end!
   Marge asked if I was ready to send the office stuff.  After I told her,
"Yes," it vanished very quietly over fifteen seconds.  Yowsah!
   We took a last look around both suites.  After rescuing a last few items
like hairbrushes, we left and went down to the front desk.
   I told the Eavan, the weekend day manager, "We should be out of there
now.  Go ahead and turn the crews loose.  If they find any extra stuff,
dump it somewhere and let me know."
   She told us, "We're gonna miss you guys here; you've kept this place
pretty lively.  On the other hand, Sean, we won't miss your hat at all."
   Eavan was Clann with a touch of Talent so I gave her a good going-over
in the office behind the desk.  Kate whispered, "She's on the list!  Go
ahead and warm her up good."
   We drove the Beemer and Volvo over while we enjoyed the weather on the
way.  Marge could have ported them, but there was no particular reason to
do so.
   While the ladies did the important work of sorting and arranging
clothes, I went to work on the office stuff.  I popped open every computer
case and blew out the dust bunnies; I found I could create a nice air blast
or vacuum with an arrangement of touches, so it worked out fine.  Any tight
dust such as on the fan blades, I could work off easily with another touch.
   I reset all the boards and connectors and scrunched down any chips; they
tend to work loose at times.
   I dusted off all the cables, monitors, keyboards, printers and
everything else.  Yeh, five years was a long time between cleanings for
some of it.
   I did the same with the bookshelves, books and filing cabinets.  Once
that was all done, I was ready to put everything in place.
   Since the den had a couple windows to the back yard, I could touch a lot
of stuff in.  Elizabeth had gotten several desks delivered so I grouped
them around and started installing the systems.
   Starting with the Linux Internet firewall interface system, I connected
the DSL and ensured it worked.  The phone company had come through and it
was live.  That was a real goodness!
   I worked out from there, laying out the server and the workstations then
cabling them up with generous doses of contact
cleaner/lubricant/anti-oxidizer.  Once the printers were hooked up, most of
the work was done.  I strapped up the cabling so it wouldn't be such a
rat's nest (and to avoid the Wrath of Marge) and laid out the power strips
for each desk.
   We had four workstations including the one to handle the server and
Linux box.  I ensured we had cabling and space to set up at least three
more in the den.  With the Wireless Access Point, we could run several
laptops in other areas of the house so we had a decent amount of room for
expansion as we needed it.  I set up Nana's old laptop so she could
continue her research where she'd left off if she wished.
   Smoke test!  No smoke.  I hadn't really expected any problems, but
computers tend to be like that; somehow I think they dislike moving as much
as we humans.
   I had everything up and operational within an hour.  Not too shabby!
   The (dusted) books went on the new bookshelves; Marge ported in the
(dusted) file cabinets and I arranged them.  Good enough for now; they'd
probably move things around later to fit some unknown plan but I didn't
worry about it.  We were operational!
   ------
   EILEEN
   Eleven times!  Jaysus, I was glad Kate was there to take half the load;
I probably wouldn't have survived otherwise.  Yeh, my body was getting into
the best condition it had ever been but still -- Sean had always been in
excellent condition and with his genetic line of war leaders, he had
tremendous strength and endurance.
   He told us, "Sorry, ladies.  I know I'm not really up to speed yet.  I'm
gonna have to get back in condition; I've slacked off the last five years."
   Holy shit!  Twenty-five or so major head-thrashing, muscle-locking
orgasms plus a couple out-of-the-body excursions was about all I could take
-- plus sharing all of Kate's.  I was sore all over!
   Of course, Kate and I had some responsibility for it all, too.  We'd
kept asking for more, after all!  Maybe Margie'd been right; perhaps we do
need some more harem women!  Grin.
   Fortunately, breakfast helped a bit.  With the champion teleporter in
our midst, we didn't have to do much physical work, otherwise we'd have
taken all day.
   Sean handled the office stuff while we girls handled the clothes and
other things.  I didn't have a lot of clothes at the Arms so most of it was
actually Bridget's stuff.  Kate had only a few things since most of her
stuff was still at her apartment.
   Sean had an adequate amount; suits, shirts, ties, shoes, etc.  He had
several leprechaun outfits and a half-dozen bowler hats.  Margie just
ported it all over; we dumped most of it on the bed to sort out there.
   After we got to OTL, things worked out fine.  Sean did his techie stuff
with the office while we sorted and stored the other stuff.  Even with what
we had and all Nana's and my stuff which was already there, there was still
plenty of room.  We put most of Sean's stuff in the honoring room and any
of Kate's in her room so it all worked out fine.
   We went through the place and made a shopping list.  Of course the
kitchen was pretty much bare so that was a major list in itself.
   We had a few pieces of furniture to get yet including some chairs or
lounges for the back yard.  We'd decided yesterday we liked the three-wide
lounges at Kat's place; we could do quite a bit of hankying and pankying on
'em!
   The Jacuzzi was full but not warm yet.  The pool guy had left a note
saying it was treated and safe but would probably take at least another day
to warm up.  The floating thermometer said it was 75 degrees.  While most
Jacuzzis are set around 104, we decided to keep it lower so we could use it
to keep cool, too; we decided on 80 for the first trial.
   As we were listening to the heater roaring away, Kate said, "I've got a
dumb question."
   Margie immediate told her, "Ask away.  The last 'dumb question' you had
resulted in a major breakthrough -- we'll go over that later."
   Kate asked, "As I recall from high school, isn't temperature just the
molecular motion in a material?  The faster the motion, the higher the
temperature?"
   Margie told her, "Yep."
   Kate said, "When you teleport, you add or remove energy to account for
the angular momentum.  Can we add or subtract energy directly to the water
to raise or lower the speed and thus directly control the temperature? 
Seems we could control it a lot faster and save on the gas bill."
   Margie laughed.  "Good one.  I don't see why not.  Let's give it a
shot."
   At her suggestion, we got a pail from the garden shed and filled it with
water.  Margie pushed in a bit of energy and yes, the temperature came
right up!  She told us, "Actually it takes less than I expected; it's
pretty efficient."
   She practiced adding and bleeding off energy for a couple minutes then
told us, "Piece of cake.  Let's try the Jacuzzi now; the amount should
probably be in a ratio of the water volumes."
   Oh, yeh.  It worked fine.  She had the temperature up to 80 in a couple
seconds.  "Do it fairly slowly and over a large volume.  Otherwise it'll
tend to boil or flash to steam.  You can remove energy to cool it down the
same way; spread it out or you'll have ice cubes floating around."
   We rung Sean into the deal and we all practiced.  He pointed out we
could do the same with the house hot water heater if we wished and perhaps
the air conditioning, too.  What the hell, if we could save several hundred
bucks a month on utilities, that'd buy lots of dinners!
   Speaking of food, we ran out in the Volvo for lunch.  We were still
hungry from last night so we packed it in pretty good.
   We (girls) decided we'd head to the Great Indoors in Burbank to check
out the lounges then we'd go grocery shopping.  Margie told us, "I've got a
4:00 meeting to finish up the teleportation training check sheet so that's
the only constraint I have."
The Great Indoors had exactly what we wanted.  We picked up two of the
three-wides, several other lawn chairs and tables along with some other
goodies.  Sean pushed the cart around back where we had the Volvo parked.
   Margie looked around; no one watching and no security cameras.  She
ported the entire load to the OTL back yard.  Sure did save a lot of time
and effort!
   Margie ported Sean back home so he could work on his email and
newsletters while the rest of us went grocery shopping.
   ------
   SEAN
   Did a lot of catch up and research.  Everything was working okay; the
DSL was a touch slower than the connection at the hotel but was well within
the livable range.  It's not as if we were doing a lot of large-file
transfers, after all.
   Stats were doing well.  Jim at Ladies' Leather said they'd probably have
the last establishment points set up by Thursday or Friday and were talking
with a lawyer about purchase proposals.  Lookin' good!
   Eileen and Kate came rolling in around 5:00 with a car-load of
groceries. By running the car into the garage, we could close the door and
just touch everything into the kitchen.  When we learned to teleport, it
would be even simpler.
   Marge'd gone to meet the teleportation team so she'd be back later.
   We did an all-hands to put the groceries away.  Working as a team inside
a shield was really efficient; also, we all ended up knowing where
everything was stored.  They'd probably change it around some, but it was
all workable for right then.
   We started the oh-by-the-way list for the next grocery run; stuff like
cayenne pepper, cinnamon and other spices.  Eileen and Kate wanted several
different sets of china and utensils for every day, back yard and various
levels of formality.  Fine by me; they'd have one hell of a good time
shopping!  I pointed out any entertainment items should go on the company
card as a probable company expense.
   Mother's Day!  Well, we had several mothers floating around.  I
sponsored a blow-out dinner at the Outback (steak house) for us, the Nolans
and the Bardons.  We stuffed ourselves, talked a lot and praised the
mothers for how well they'd raised their kids.
   When we got back to OTL, I went to the back yard and put the lounges
together while the ladies distributed the other goodies throughout the
house and around the back yard.  To start, we grouped most of the chairs
and tables near the Jacuzzi; the lounges we put almost next to it.
   There was still plenty of room in the den, so we scooted a couple sofas
and chairs around a table so we'd have a place just to sit, snack and talk
-- similar to the sitting rooms at the hotel.  Things were shaping up
really well, in my opinion at least.  Eileen and Kate were talking this,
that and the other thing about arrangements and so on.  I decided to take a
leaf from Mario and Bob's book and let the womenfolk decide all that.
   Marge popped home around 6:00 and settled down on Eileen's breast for
her dinner.  She told us, "Good meeting.  Fortunately, all the
teleportation and the VPN stuff have lots of common basics, so we got a lot
done.  Let's start with the VPN area since that's simpler.  But first, I
think a soak in the Jacuzzi is in order; we've been working hard all day!"
   ------
   EILEEN
   Kate grabbed towels (only-Jacuzzi towels went on the list), and we
trooped out back.  Sean demonstrated the various controls like simple
recirculation, air bubbles, water jets and the like.  The floating
thermometer showed 78 degrees so we decided to start with that.
   Sean set the water to simple recirc.  We stripped down and climbed in.
Ah, nice.  We could smell the chlorine a bit but got used to it quickly. 
Bridget finished up both sides; Kate cuddled and burped her.  Nice mom!
   The seats were wide enough so if we sat upright, the water came up to
just below Kate's boobs.  Slouch a little and our boobs floated!  Margie
just used a touch to keep herself up; she could "float" her cuties, too.
   With the three adult bodies, there was still plenty of room.  We figured
we could fit four more adults in with no real crowding so it made things
just right for us and the N&Bs.  Of course, we'd chosen the size for that
reason.
   Now if we tried to fit the nieces and nephews in too, several would have
to be either in the middle or on some laps.  Kate told Sean, "I know which
lap the girls will want."
   He just smiled and said, "All in good time."
   Sean turned on the pulsating water jets, and Kate damn near levitated
out of the water.  Apparently, one jet had really hit the spot!  She
settled back down, wiggled a bit and flushed up.
   She leered at us and said, "Nice.  Puts it right under the hood. 
Constrict the flow a little or split it a couple ways and...  yum!"
   She was right.  I got my jet going good then we settled back and enjoyed
while we shared our delight with Sean and Margie for twenty minutes.
   We let our bodies settle out for a while then took a shower.  Note to
self: Make an outside shower like Kathleen's.
We settled out in the den with a few snacks while Bridget got a
nourishment update.  Margie told us, "I asked Maura or Teresa to pop by
about now.  I figured I could teach you guys then she could teach her
families."
   Teresa popped in a minute or so later.  She asked Margie, "So, you got
goodies for us?"
   Margie grinned and said, "Sure do.  Pull up a chair; we're gonna talk
about VPNs.
   "What Clann Reynolds came up with last year for very private
conversations such as probe runs was a Virtual Private Network connection.
It's basically a physical connection between two spirits which carries
mental messages; it's highly encrypted, difficult to spot and after a few
design changes, damned near impossible to tap.
   "It's physical.  It's just like the network cabling we use in the office
here to connect the machines together.  If there's any doubt where one
goes, you can trace it 'hand over hand.' Same with the VPN; we can trace it
in the physical universe."
   "However, thanks to our clever Mama Kate's question, we came up with
another way of doing the same thing without a lot of the complexity of
creating and maintaining spiritual-to-physical interfaces with tons of
encryption.
   "As we're communicating right now, we're in light spiritual contact with
each other so our communications are due to our direct connection.  If one
of us wanted to talk with Maura right now, he'd locate her spiritually then
simply communicate directly with nothing passing between them in the
physical universe; that's one of the ways we control our leakage.
   "It doesn't need security or encryption since both ends are known to be
safe, and there's no way even to know it exists without being 'inside' one
of the spirits at each end.  If there's a firewall up, like we all have
right now, the firewall permits the initial setup then is bypassed
completely with the connections inside the firewall.
   "This connection is maintained solely by intention and we usually have a
lot of attention on it.  Once it's established, it stays until we decide
it's no longer needed."
   "We used a communication and a power VPN for long-term connections so
they don't require constant attention.  A power VPN can be used to carry a
communication channel as needed like George and I are doing between our
bodies and us.  Both still exist in and through the physical universe.
   "At Mama Kate's prompting, we came up with a much simpler and even safer
method.  It's kinda like the difference between using a telephone with a
wire to the wall and a cell phone."
   Create a structure, much like a computer programmer creates one.  It has
information spots for co-ordinates, name, long-term/short term, all that
sort of stuff.  Just like you'd have a phone book; it has blanks for the
information and you just fill it in.
   If you want more than one "node," just copy an existing one; no need to
re-design or create it from scratch.  Create the initial node then fill in
the blanks!  Once each end has the node established, it needs very little
attention to maintain it.
   Program a little maintenance routine to handle all the nodes you've got.
At least several times a second, "ping" the other end to establish it still
exists.  If your data, such as your physical-universe location, changes,
the routine simply sends the change across to the other nodes you've got.
   If one of the other node ends change, it will send the changed data to
your node.  It's just a matter of practice then becomes "automatic" just
like breathing.  Since all the nodes are inside firewalls, they're secure.
   We didn't even have to create the first one!  We just copied a blank one
from Margie along with her maintenance program and set several up.
   We replaced our foursome's power VPNs with nodes.  Teresa said when her
group got their nodes set up, we'd upgrade the power VPN and communication
VPN between our groups.
   Piece of cake after the first couple.  Since there was no need for
encryption on either end and was actually a simpler setup, it used even
less power and attention than the original VPNs.
   The individual cellular-level firewalls and body shield connections were
set up with the same type of node except it was spread out through the
cells.  Worked exactly the same way, though!
   Teresa took off back home.  Margie told us, "George and I have the new
nodes set up between us.  Like the one between us and the N&Bs, it's just
like an open phone line.  Bob and Natalie actually started out their
communications this way except they didn't use the node concept.  They were
so 'in tune' with each other it required very little attention.
   "I make a motion we award Mama Kate a Soo Laid for bringing this up in
the first place."
   We agreed unanimously and gave Kate a foretaste of things to come (grin)
for a couple minutes.
   Sean asked, "We should be able to set our house shielding the same way.
Right?"
   Margie said, "Just do it."
   We talked it over a little then set up a single firewall and physical
shield throughout all the grass, trees, bushes and so on throughout the
property.  Since we could program the shield, we set up separate ones to
cover the entire property, the house only, back yard only, sound shields
only around various locations, that sort of stuff, including a light one
over the Jacuzzi to keep out stray leaves and debris.
   With nodes from the four of us, any of us could control any of the
shields and all would power them.  They were actually fairly easy to set up
and even simpler to maintain and use.
   This called for a little celebration so we broke out the Irish whiskey
for a few rounds.  Margie got her few drops on her gums.
   ------
   SEAN{br} (Monday 5/15)
   We set up the house shield then went to bed at a decent time.  We just
cuddled and slept.  Plenty of room for all of us on the new bed!
   I got us a pleasant breakfast; I think we were mostly caught up from
Saturday night.
   Eileen started Bridget on some baby food in the morning.  She told me,
"It's okay.  Not a lot of taste from anything yet so that's not an issue."
She was able to work most of it back to her throat to swallow.  She made a
nice mess and had a lot of fun smearing it over her face and shirt.
   We'd set her up with a high chair so she could lord over us at the
table. Kate told her, "You clean up your own messes!" She did.
   The ladies hit the books while I went through the emails and
newsletters. The guys weren't slacking off; the weekend stats were fine.  I
found a couple items in the newsletters I thought could use a bit more
research and made a note of them.
   The entire computer system seemed to be working fine so I guess we'd
done a good job of it.
   I told the ladies we'd probably do our business rounds on Thursday and
Friday.  They all said they'd be ready with their hats on.
   Our new node communications appeared to be operating just as designed.
Nothing had "gone down" overnight and the N&Bs had their connections to us
established and working.  The OTL shield was still functioning "as
designed" so I marked it up as a good test run.
   At 9:30, I called Francis at Collectable Arts and told him, "I've got a
friend who'll be contacting you about appraisals on some comics and cards."
   I gave him a brief description of what I'd seen.  He told me, "I'm
drooling just hearing about them!"
   Anyway, he said he'd pass the word to Francine and Simon about it.  I
told him they had plenty of money and he might be able to talk them into
doing an exhibition.  I said, "They're not collectors themselves but really
understand how someone could really love the field.  Possibly with proper
promotion, which you know how to do, you could make money on the show."
   That got him very interested.  I told him if they hadn't contacted him
by Wednesday night to let me know and I'd follow up.
   I let Kat know they were ready for her.  She told me, "Good.  We can
take them over right after school today."
   ------
   Ana was fine with us coming over after lunch.  We decided not to work me
too hard so we stopped by In and Out on the way.  Good stuff; we all passed
on the fries since we'd had plenty of carbs over the weekend and weren't
dying for them.
   Ana was ready for us.  Donal and Aileen were working the Probe Patrol so
we went into the kitchen to work there.
   Okay!  DNA tracing is so clever!  We were easily able to zoom in that
far and keep the pattern in mind.  She gave us several samples and we
individually found each one in only a couple seconds.  She told us the
story of the hair from a Chinese prostitute and how Bob had steered
everyone onto Donal.  Fun.
   We didn't have any trouble with the paint chip sample either.  We were
just looking for a different structure; it was really just pattern
matching.
   Ana said, "You guys are doing great.  Kate, I know you go to school on
Monday nights, so one of these folk will fill you in on the STD checking
we'll be going over.  It's really in the same category as the DNA tracing
you just did."
   We headed back home and relaxed for a little bit.  Marge asked, "You
guys about ready to do some of the teleportation training?"
   Foolish question.  We were ready.  Henry had sent me an email in the
morning with several encrypted documents so I brought it up.  Marge knew
the password so I extracted them into the component PDFs and printed out
four copies.
   Yep, one was clearly titled as the check sheet; the other documents were
references.
   Marge told us, "Just go ahead and start.  Most of the references are
either in the documents which came with the check sheet or are readily
available on the Internet.  The purpose of having a check sheet is so we
can simply hand it and the supporting documents to a newbie, walk away, and
they come back later as an operational teleporter.
   "If you have questions or comments on the layout, style, missing steps
or references, let me know so we can update the data.  It's really meant to
be stand-alone."
   Sounded good to me.  We decided to go for a couple hours then do dinner
well before Kate had to leave for school.
   The first step was a lot of definitions such as intention, attention,
Relative Reference Point, mass, momentum, angular momentum, energy and
those sorts of concepts.  Each was either defined in the reference
documents or from a standard dictionary.
   Next came several drills on placing attention and intention with
pinpoint accuracy in an object we could physically see.  That was some work
but our experience with spiritual communication helped a lot.
   Then came the drill of expanding the attention from that point to cover
the entire object.  This was working from the inside to the outside.  The
drill covered objects from a small smooth stone up to the house we were in.
We had to write down what parts of something we'd excluded and why, such as
all the telephone and electrical wires running from the house to the
street. All real good stuff.
   We ended off about then and went out to dinner in the Beemer.  We talked
about the check sheet and assured Marge that everything was quite clear as
far as we'd gone.
   After dinner, we piled back into the Beemer and took off.  Marge ported
herself, Eileen and me back to OTL while Kate continued on to school.
   ------
   EILEEN
   This time at the Clann meeting, we all knew each other.  No, that's not
the biblical "knew" for you dirty-minded folk out there!  Most everyone
asked where Kate was; they were happy she was going to school but said they
missed her already.  Good folk!
   Lots of announcements on how different projects were going.  The
stem-cell research was getting ready to expand into human clinical testing.
Ana told us, "We've got volunteers running out our ears, so that's not an
issue at all."
   She'd gotten a blood sample from Bridget and George on Saturday; she
told me their stem-cell types and concentrations were right in line with
all the other samples from her age group.  Apparently getting picked up by
an aware spirit (George) didn't change that aspect.
   She told everyone, "One thing we did notice is that while George had a
critical incident with his breathing the first week, his body had no other
illnesses.  No colds, colic, ear infections, that sort of stuff.  He did
have the germs and viruses, but just his being knowingly in control of his
body apparently enabled it to produce the antibodies it normally would
without a lot of the symptoms.
   "We've got a bit more research going on in that area; news at eleven!"
   Dr.  Karen Gold talked with us about STD checks.  "First, while we
require a quarterly STD check for Clann members, we're going to be more and
more in the 'outside' world as time goes on.  With the Seniors graduating,
they'll be exposed even more.
   "Granted, they are sexually-transmitted diseases, but as most of you are
aware of, all many of them actually require is a fluid transfer.  With our
body shields, there shouldn't be an issue from wounds.  Swapping spit with
someone does qualify as a 'dangerous' activity from this viewpoint, though.
   "The Clann Cullen has a core group of ones of us who have been getting
quarterly blood tests, but it also has several hundred members who don't.
The risk to them is actually pretty high.  So, what we've come up with is
field test for STDs and other infectious diseases and conditions such as
diabetes, leukemia and pretty much any other condition which can be
discovered with a blood or tissue sample test."
   She went over how a laboratory did the various tests with chemicals,
direct examination and other tests.  She directed our attention to several
research labs at the various universities and at the CDC on the east coast.
   "You've all done the DNA tracing training.  This is a direct offshoot of
that.  Among all these labs, they've got samples of everything -- there's
probably some military or government labs which have more; we'll add them
to the list as we go along.
   "Just run down the list.  Get the pattern for the disease you're
checking for, scan the target body and compare.  If you've got a match or
even a partial match in some cases -- that's on the list as a note --
you've got an issue.  No matches means there's an extremely high
probability they're clean.  Let's give it a shot."
   She directed our attention to one of the "skid row" residents in
downtown Los Angeles.  Each of us went down the list and looked for the
pattern.  Oh, yeh.  She had half a dozen STDs plus diabetes.  Not a good
candidate for an extended lifetime.
   Karen told us, "Now, even with Oscar and me doing the coaching on each
item, that actually took less than five minutes.  You've got the list now.
Here's five other people to check; drill it."
   Okay.  The one I picked first didn't get any matches so I did another
one.  The second one had a mild Candida infection.  One of the others had
no matches and the other three had matches to several different things.  By
the time I hit the last one, it was taking me less than thirty seconds for
the entire list.
   Oscar picked up here.  "Notice the more dangerous or more infectious
diseases are at the top of the list.  You can do a 'quick and dirty' check
in only a couple seconds and that speed will pick up with practice.  Note
your speed might be different from the person next to you.  Don't worry
about it; with the power sharing we're doing, your sensitivity is just
fine.
   "Karen and I will check out the list at least once a week to see if
there's anything new.  Flu viruses, for example, tend to mutate; that's why
several items on the list call for a much looser match to give a positive.
   "Obviously you can check your own body any time.  Note if you check
someone else with a cellular-level firewall, you'll need the permission to
get through it.  We've added another tweak in the firewall program to give
that permission.
   "We do not want a sterile environment all the time.  The body is
constantly developing antibodies and tolerances to almost everything. 
Probably very few of those immunities are genetic, so your children would
be even more susceptible than otherwise.  Breast feeding passes on many of
the antibodies which is one reason it's recommended.
   "If you do find one of these conditions, let us know.  We're gonna be
working on methodologies to handle a lot of them."
   This was a Real Good Thing!
   ------
   SEAN
   Being of the nasty and suspicious mind we were, the four of us
immediately checked out Rosheen, Eavan and Jackie; I'd swapped spit with
them.
   All were clean as a whistle.  Rosheen had a touch of diabetes but was
handling it with diet.  Clever lady!
   I had a quick talk with Bob and Kat.  They'd taken the comics, cards and
pictures to Collectable Arts.  As we'd predicted, the staff was drooling
within seconds.  I told them, "They may try to talk you into doing an
exhibition.  That's entirely up to you.  Done properly, it could make a few
bucks or at least break even.  Not big money, but it would cover expenses
which wouldn't ordinarily be tax-deductible."
   Kat asked, "We'll look at that as it comes.  Even at an exhibition, we
can put up shields so security wouldn't be the issue.
   "Now, Sean, we're really interested in the management polices you told
us about.  How's the best way to get us a working knowledge of them so we
can see if we want to fit them in to JRD?"
   Of course, that was a seminar.  I offered to do a free one for JRD, but
they turned it down.  "Yeh, we're friends and all that, but this is your
livelihood.  We'll pay full pop."
   Okay by me!  It would also give Eileen, Kate and Marge experience in
delivering the seminar.  With a few quick scheduling checks, we decided to
do it next Sunday at JRD.  They'd have the JRD Executives so it would give
us around a dozen people.  No sweat, the nieces and nephews could pump out
that many copies easily this week.
   Speaking of which, I brought up the topic of updates and manual
maintenance.  Kat said, "We'll get you an introduction to the process and
documentation company we've been using.  Probably within an hour, they can
give you a recommendation."
   Sounded good to me.
   ------
   (Tuesday 5/16)
   In the morning, Bridget tried using her own spoon to feed herself.  She
had lots of mishaps, dropped the spoon several times and in general had a
great time.
   Things were starting to heat up.  Good, enough of this just laying about
and making love to beautiful women.  Grin.  The ladies started their
studies while I went over my email.  Nothing real exciting or needing
immediate attention.
   I called my lawyer about setting up a non-profit organization for Clann
Cullen.  She told me, "Sounds interesting.  Actually the only reason you'd
need one is for taxes, but it would make those a lot simpler.  Give me an
hour for research and I'll find a name."
   I worked on The Book updates and finished them off by the time the
ladies were done studying.  I got them together and showed them how the
manuals were constructed with the various MS Word files.
   They took turns doing the final spelling, grammar and formatting checks.
They caught a few errors and corrected them.
   I showed them how I made a PDF for the entire manual then how to print
it.  My big printer could take over a thousand sheets of paper so we got it
rolling.
   The lawyer called back right on schedule.  We agreed on the name, "Clan
Cullen LA." (Clann Cullen Los Angeles) That would give other Cullens not in
our particular clann the opportunity to use the name too.  She said it
might take a week but shouldn't be any problem.  "Once we've got it, we can
get with your accountant to file for tax-exempt status."
   Good.  I hopped up on GoDaddy and set up "ClannCullenLA.org" with no
sweat.  I set up several email accounts and published a placeholder web
page.  Mona had been more than happy to do the work on the site so I sent
her all the IDs and passwords to the site.  Let it rip!
   I called and arranged for two busses for the wake on Saturday.  They had
wheelchair access so that would work out well.  This went on the personal
card; can't see how it could be a company expense.
   We went off to Office Depot in the Volvo on a shopping run.  We got a
case each of plain and 3-hole paper, binders and section dividers.  I
steered the ladies towards the office equipment and told them, "If your
chair at home is even the slightest bit uncomfortable, try another one out.
I'd recommend a fabric mainly because it passes the body moisture a lot
easier."
   Kate picked out another chair; Eileen was already happy with hers and
Marge didn't need one yet.  Mine was still doing fine, too.
   We upgraded Eileen's cell phone so she could use a wireless ear piece.
She'd been getting lots of calls about the wake plus there was a wedding
coming up.  What the hell, it was a company expense anyway.
   We shoved everything in the back of the Volvo and took off for lunch. 
As soon as we were out of sight of nosey eyes, Marge ported most everything
to the appropriate locations.  She told us, "I wouldn't recommend porting
an operating cell phone just yet.  With all the electrons running around,
you'd probably end up with a lump of stuff."
   When we got back to OTL, they fed the printer again.  I got Kate
brushing up on her QuickBookPro skills while Eileen and Marge took off to
pick up goodies for Mona's night.
   By the time they got back, all the printing was done so Marge ported it
over to the Nolans along with the binders and index tabs.  They knew what
to do from there.
   We got most of the dinner preps out of the way and the roast in the oven
then continued on the teleportation training.
   This set of drills was on placing and expanding attention and intention
on objects out of sight.  Started out difficult then got easier.  We ended
up being able to do it with the Empire State Building in New York!  Not
that we were planning on porting it anywhere, but...
   ------
   Since John, Patrick and the young 'uns hadn't been to OTL yet, we had
the entire Core Clann for dinner.  We gave them the 25-cent tour and they
were duly impressed.
   With their memories coming back, the kids were great.  Granted, they had
young bodies with all that energy, but they were quite mature.  None had
real recent memories so they weren't up to the adult culture, but they were
learning fast.
   Of course they loved the Jacuzzi!  Since we'd gotten a stack of large
towels, they got right in.  Swimmin' suits?  They didn't need no stinkin'
swimmin' suits!
   After their showers, we had dinner.  My ladies are wonderful cooks!  I
praised them as much as I could -- after all, I didn't want them to have
the faintest idea I could do dinner as well as breakfast.
   We got the dishes in the dishwasher and had a brief session with the
others about the new node technology.  Very nice; no one had any problem
with it.
   Kate showed them the house shield and how we'd set it up.  They
immediately decided to set up shields around their places.
   We kicked back and set the young-uns loose to terrorize the neighborhood
and the park.  We adults hit the Jacuzzi.  After we'd showed them the trick
of heating and cooling the water, we climbed in.
   Yep, it held us all just fine.  With three guys and five gals, there was
a little mismatch, but the ladies took turns snuggling so no one felt left
out.
   Kate got Maura and Teresa arranged "just so" then hit the pulsating
water jets!  Lots of shrieking and laughs in a hurry!  They immediately
volunteered to come over several times a week to ensure the quality control
stayed in and the pumps weren't wearing out.
   We brought them up to date on Marge's teleportation training.  As soon
as we'd run through the check sheet and everyone was happy with it, we'd
give it to them.  After that, any of them could "drop by" pretty much any
time.  Of course, we could drop by their place any time too.
   We went over the wake preparations.  We'd had thirty RSVPs so far and
expected at least another twenty.  John and Patrick told us the Tavern
could ramp up easily to seventy-five on a couple hours notice.
   ------
   EILEEN
   All our visitors except Mona left around 8:30; this was Mona's night. 
After they left, we settled back with Mona and talked.
   Physically she was almost eleven with the long legs and arms, straight
chest and waist and the large head of an early adolescent.  She was pushing
five feet already, though; I guessed she'd end up around Maura's height of
5' 10" since John was up around 6'.
   Mentally and spiritually, though, she was a nicely-mature young lady. 
She was smart, she'd been raised with free communication among her and her
four "parents" and had gotten quite a few of her long-term memories back
over the past week.
   She told us, "It's a strange mix.  This lifetime is clear as a bell. 
Just from talking with my friends, they've gotten a lot of strange ideas
about sex, relations, races and other stuff I just never got.  The Moms and
Dads always encouraged me to look at things and research them -- sometimes
on the Internet -- not just believe.
   "With the memories of actually being in some of the events we've gone
over in Social Studies, even the histories people seem to take as Gospel
I've decided are always a bit suspect."
   Kate grinned and dug out The Book.  She showed Mona Sean's blurb at the
very beginning about "They are true only if they are true for you."
   Mona laughed.  "Sure.  That's the way I've been brought up.  I'd guess
it was a lot of Sean's influence.  Moms and Dads always let me know if what
they told me was pretty much a fact or their opinion.  It's been pretty
easy to sort out."
   Sean talked with us about what he'd found about the differences among
data, knowledge and understanding.  "The more you use your memories and are
able to integrate the data you have, the easier it will be just to do
something or know some action is correct for you.  You're not stuck in the
past; you're using the past to help make present-time decisions about the
future.  That's how it's working for me."
   Enough of talk; we had a virgin to deflower!  We sent Sean off to do a
final clean up, and we girls dragged Mona off.
   She was really up for it.  "I've dreamed about this a long time.  I've
lots of memories of sex and loving, but they were usually pretty screwed up
with inhibitions, musts and must-nots.  I know this will be wonderful!"
   We checked her out pretty good.  Margie removed one or two wild hairs
from her small, neatly-fluffy bush, and we ensured everything was sparkly
clean.
   She'd brought along her "outfit." It was in a lovely slinky white fabric
with a short top, lacy panties and thigh-high stockings.  By the time we
got her dressed, she was already wetting down her panties and pushing out
the top with her sweet nipples.
   We brushed down her shoulder-length, slightly-curly hair.  A small pair
of stretch sandals completed the scene -- no heels, her legs were long
enough already; they reached from the floor and went all the way up to a
heavenly tidy tush; her skin was flawless everywhere.
   Maura and Teresa joined with me; after all, the social secretaries
needed to ensure the event went as planned, right?  We five "older" women
joined very lightly with Mona, guided her to the honoring room door and
knocked.  We left her there and went back to the main bedroom to watch. 
The rest was between her and Sean.
   Her mild fantasy was a Prince and Princess.  She really looked like a
Princess and we knew Sean was a Prince!
   Sean was totally loving and gentle.  He treated Mona like she was a
beautiful artwork worthy of complete admiration and love.
   He spent a good forty-five minutes just caressing, kissing and nuzzling
her while they blended nicely with a sweet glow and lovely rainbows.
   Jaysus!  It turned the rest of us on so hard!  We restrained ourselves,
though, and just enjoyed.
   By the time they were ready, Sean hadn't even touched her sweet pussy
yet; it was fully engorged and spread open while she panted in
anticipation.
   Wisely, she was on top the first time.  There was a tiny twinge from her
small, thin hymen and the rest was history.
   Hell, we all came with her the first several times; we had to lighten up
our joins or we would have been overwhelmed with the delight and
tenderness. Her warm climaxes rushed through us time and again, setting us
off, too.
   They worked it up until she was coming hotly and almost continuously;
and so were we.  Janey Mack, it was nice!
   After several scorchers, Sean finally spent in her; she shrieked,
convulsed and forced herself and Sean outside!  A wonderful grand slam!
   ------
   We didn't join them; this was her night.  She'd had lots of fun with
Aile and Deidre the past couple years, but this wasn't the time to
introduce her to other women.  Margie, Kate and I had to make do among
ourselves; it was a chore but we survived.  Grin.
   Mona woke Sean up a couple more times during the night.  Sean was
cooperative; he drove in several home runs and ended up with another grand
slam!  Mona was glowing, happy and totally satisfied by morning.
   We served her and Sean breakfast in bed.  We called her "Princess Mona"
and she laughed.  We did drag her off to the shower though, she had to go
to school.
   We fawned over her and got her dressed in her normal school clothes.  By
then, Sean (good man!) had gotten breakfast ready.
   Mona ran to him, hugged him, laughed and said, "Oh, Sean!  They molested
me!  Protect me!"
   Everyone else laughed and we volunteered information.  "Bitchin' boobs!"
"Fantastic fanny!" "Bodacious butt!" "Sexy woman!"
   Sean hugged and kissed her thoroughly then fed her five breakfasts.  She
was a very happy camper, especially after Sean gave her a shamrock pin and
pendant!
   Chapter 17
   SEAN{br} (Wednesday 5/17)
   Mona had been delightfully tasty and so full of love, wonder and joy! 
She was a rich, deep spirit who I knew would do wonderfully well in life.
   Now that it was "out of the way," we'd put her to work really hard on
the web site.
   Study time.  The ladies hit the books for an hour then we spent two
hours on the teleportation pilot.  We twinned up and spent time targeting a
source then targeting the destination with the same size and shape.  Part
of it was ensuring there weren't any other objects in the way, we weren't
trying to port into someone else's port already in progress, were there
outside observers, stuff like that.
   We studied the angular momentum theory; it made sense.  The next drill
was to select sources and destinations with different angular momentums and
sense or perceive any energy vector differences.  We didn't really have to
measure, actually, we could tell the difference by direct comparison.
   Once we got that, we drilled mocking up either creating the needed
energy or setting up a place to bleed it off.  Since we already had the
perception of the required energy vector, we simply matched the feed or
bleed to it!
   Yes!  Now we did some simple, local ports with no angular momentum or
other fancy stuff.  Small rocks, some sponges, a couple washers, that sort
of stuff.  The only things we had to do was to evacuate the destination of
air so the item wouldn't self-destruct and pick up the object slightly and
let it down at the other end.  Neat and clean!  We ended up with several
nice pops each from the collapsing air.
   It was lunch time so we headed out for a quick bite.  Afterwards, we
headed to Los Angeles to get some QuickBooks Pro references for Kate. 
Opamp Technical Books was in a pretty seedy neighborhood, but I had the Hat
Ladies to protect me so I didn't worry.
   Opamp was a nerd's delight; it had tons of books on just about
everything.  Kate found several books covering what she wanted, and I found
a couple on business theory and thinking.  What the hell, it was all
deductible anyway.  I had her pick up several books on Excel; I wanted her
to be a wizard there, too.
   Marge found several math and physics books; Eileen picked up several on
Lean Engineering and Six Sigma.
   Back to OTL for the afternoon fun and games.
   ------
   EILEEN
   Kate had only one more article to study to finish The Book so we pointed
her at it.  When she was done, Sean gave her the final checkout on the
entire thing.  Our clever lady nailed it and Sean proclaimed her to be "The
Book Certified!"
   Sean had me make First-Class reservations for all of us to fly to
Phoenix, AZ early next Tuesday to return late that evening.  We asked him
why but he just grinned and told us, "Hey!  Where's your sense of
adventure? Just as a hint, it'll all be deductible."
   Okay.  I remembered he'd told me he'd been in Mesa on a project for four
months just before we met so it was probably business.  Dayum iron-headed
Irishman!
   I called The Clean Place (a JRD company!) and arranged for a
house-cleaning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  With Kathleen as a
reference, they fell all over themselves helping us out.  The first cleaner
would come this Friday.
   We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon working.  He set Kate to
work on her QuickBooks and Excel stuff, telling her, "You need to be a
wizard in both these.  QB just gives us raw data in the accounts.  While it
is able to generate reports, graphs and that sort of stuff, Excel will give
us more flexibility.  We need to be able to work the data into aligned
knowledge so we can understand it.  Granted, each business is different,
but most of the accounting structures are almost identical."
   Sean pointed Margie and me to several industry newsletters he subscribed
to and told us, "A lot of the businesses I set up are based on what I've
found in these as well as some specific stock market investments.  I've
made a couple pretty good killings based on some projections I made.  On
the other hand, I've stepped on my dick several times, too.  Overall, I've
ended up around 750K ahead in the last five years so I can't complain too
much."
   He gave Margie and me some notes on areas or businesses to research on
the Internet and turned us loose.  Margie and I split them and went to
work.
   The first thing he pointed us to was an article on the various Internet
search engines available.  He already had several favorite search engines
plus a couple programs to do multiple searches.  He told us, "This is what
I've been using.  It's a start, but I want you to feel comfortable using
whatever ones you decide.  It'll be your call."
   Now that was work!  With my exposure to business stuff in college, I was
familiar with a lot of the terms and concepts.  However, there was lots of
new stuff too, so I spent some time catching up with recent concepts,
innovations, buzz words and regulatory requirements like Sarbanes-Oxley.  I
didn't need to know them cold but had to know what they were.
   Company size mattered but not that much.  Even smaller companies could
use a lot of the methodologies so they could expand easily beyond Mom and
Pop.
   Since Nana had kept up with her research and studies, she was familiar
with researching.  Sean told her to continue with her math and physics
updating if she wished.  "You've already helped us with some major
breakthroughs.  You might as well keep up with it; there might be more."
   We worked until early evening with several snack-and-snuggle breaks.  We
took a dinner break then sent Kate off to school.
   Sean had me send out emails to half a dozen of his active businesses; we
were coming to visit tomorrow and Friday!  He had Margie print off the
statistics for them for the past week, month, quarter and year so we'd have
some basis for discussion.
   After we got that done, Margie and I studied some more on the detailed
manuals.  We'd gotten two done so far, something like ten more to go!
   ------
   SEAN
   Since The Book was now updated, I went through my seminar notes to
ensure they reflected the new or changed information.  I made a couple
updates to the presentation slides, loaded the presentation on the laptop
and was ready to go there.
   The nieces and nephews had already completed putting the seminar manuals
together so I had Marge port them back over.  I spot-checked several; they
were just fine.  Marge ported back five envelopes with $25 each; it was a
lot of money for an hour's work for each of them but what the hell, it was
deductible anyway, and I knew they liked to spend money.
   ------
   EILEEN
   Sean had me contact the company handling JRD's documentation about some
consulting on publishing and updating our manuals.  It took me about
fifteen minutes to track them down.
   They were headquartered in Toluca Lake (by Universal Studios) so they
were pretty close by.  I negotiated a flat fee of $1,000 for a consultant
to come over, look at our stuff and make recommendations for improvement,
publication and maintenance.  Great, we set it up for all day next week on
Thursday.
   Okay, it looked like we were getting busier all the time.  Margie and I
figured out how to make calendar entries in Outlook with no problem; Margie
seemed to be able to suck all this techie computer stuff down faster than
an Irishman could go through a bottle.
   Now, how to share all this stuff.  Margie talked briefly with Mario.  He
popped over and took a look around our server.  "Looks like you're using
the server for data storage right now.  We could easily migrate it up to
handle that and all the Microsoft Exchange email stuff.  The issue with
that is you wouldn't be able to work with it from outside your network; DSL
ISPs don't let you host a site server like you need."
   Sean got us on his web hosting service page.  Mario poked around then
told us, "They can host Exchange.  From the looks of it, we can set up and
remove email accounts so we can control it.  It's faster, easier and
cheaper than setting up your own server here -- it would take a high-speed
data line just to start and that'll probably run around $1,000 a month. 
For a total of $350 a month, they can host everything.  You'll get the
outside access with OWA (Outlook Web Access) so you can look at it from any
Internet connection, and Maura, Teresa and anyone else you wish have a
clear shot at it too."
   Margie cleared it with Sean.  He told her, "Pretty much anything you
wish to do.  If something's less than 5 grand, just do it." She placed the
order; Exchange should be ready for our configuration by late Friday.
   Now we had to fit the setup into our suddenly quit-busy schedules; we
agreed on Saturday the 27th.  With a quick round of talks, I invited Mario,
Bob, Kat and Sherry over to OTL for a dinner evening with Clann Cullen --
plus Jacuzzi!
   ------
   Right after an early dinner, I made a run to Shane's Shop.  I'd been
notching up the power to Sharon, Cecelia and Jack every day since last
Monday.  I got there just before closing.
   Nice!  They were talking with each other, were expanded out well beyond
their bodies and were ready to pop!  We closed up the front and gathered in
the back room for a chat.
   I told them, "Seems like you folk are doing pretty good.  Interested in
doing more?"
   They were.  Sharon said, "Betcha this is something Sean came up with."
   Celia and Jack laughed too.  They'd been impressed with him just from
working with him for half a day.  I gave them a brief history of how we'd
"done it," some information on Clann Cullen and the other Clanns we'd
found.
   Anyway, I got them popped outside and with an hours' training, they were
ready to rock and roll!  Since they didn't leak, they were safe to go
exploring, have fun and practice a lot.  I filled them in on what our
leakage had caused; they got a really good laugh out of it.
   Megan, Art and Dan from Clann Reynolds had told us they were more than
willing to train people so I introduced them all.  They decided to get
together tomorrow evening and work some more.  Since Megan, Art and Dan
could port themselves, logistics wouldn't be a problem.  By the way, they
were training the N&B young-uns, too.
   We agreed to check back with each other on Friday and I left them to
discover the fun and joy in being free.
   ------
   Kate got back from school around 9:30.  She was using the Beemer; so far
the vehicle logistics had been working out fine.  With our ability to
teleport coming along really well, maybe we could get along with only two
cars.
   We all had a quick shower; we'd been working!  We three girls snuggled
up to Sean on the bed so he couldn't escape.  Kat told us, "This feels
really nice.  There's no pressure among us for sex or loving, we seem to be
getting along great and we've got lots of things going.  I think it's been
a week now, so can we check out our compatibility again?"
   No problem with that.  Kate had been with us only a week, but she felt
like a really old, good friend -- and that was before we tossed in all the
love and admiration.
   Oh, yeh, we very formally did all the various compatibility checks. 
Hell, everyone's glows were up a lot and any gray dissonances had
diminished to almost zilch.
   With the four of us blending, the florescence was brilliant -- almost
blinding.  Kate had only a small gray spot on having children and perhaps
finding a mate solely for herself.  Sean told us, "I talked with Evin a bit
about the legalities of a polyamourus relationship and children.  He has
several legal models we can use so we can be 'next of kins' with each other
and any children would be protected.  So from the legal standpoint, it's a
non-issue."
   Kate sighed, kissed and hugged us all then said, "Then I'm in if you'll
have me."
   The rest of us immediately put her in the middle of the pile; we
snuggled, caressed and kissed her thoroughly.  I told her, "We all love you
so very much.  We really want you with us."
   We all agreed.  Kate was part of us now.
   Since she was already in the middle of the pile we decided to work off
the Soo Laid she had on account.  Sean had gotten some coaching from Bob on
something called a Journey to the Gates of Heaven so we decided to give it
a good shot.
   Janey Mack with several Hail Marys and Be Jaysus' thrown in for good
measure!  The principle was to have as many orgasms as desired but avoid
the final blow-out at the end for as long as possible so it would have lots
of energy in it!
   We each had several turns nuzzling Kate's delicious center, caressing
and admiring her scrumptious breasts and titillating every other erogenous
spot on her we could find.  Our blend was so stable and solid we all felt
everyone's climaxes and fed ours back to the others -- all without blowing
ourselves outside!
   About an hour along, Margie told us, "I'm feeling orgasms of my own now.
They're not real big, but they're there!  They're a-wunnerful and have
entirely different sensations from sharing another's.  I love you all so
much!"
   We took another two hours of having and sharing each others
head-thrashing, sheet-pulling and juice-squirting climaxes -- always
teetering on the edge of a grand slam.  Jaysus, we were all shaking even
while we were resting a little and drinking down water.
   Sean had seven major climaxes in her before we tripped over the edge. 
The "tsunami" swept us outside and up so far and fast we ended up bouncing
around the Asteroid Belt!
   The surf-ride down was even more agonizingly-sweet than the Journey up.
We shed orgasmic energy almost faster than we could tolerate it; I don't
know what would happen if we'd done it any faster.
   All the Nolans and Bardons and a lot of the Clann Reynolds popped out to
share our joy.  We wove intricate patterns of dances with each other while
moving among the literal blasts of energy and surfing down along them.
   Finally the wave washed gently ashore, letting us rest a bit.  Our
bodies were all over the place!  Sean was on the floor, Kate and I were
tangled together all over the bed, and Margie had somehow ended up on the
top shelf of the closet.
   Oh.  My.  God.  Bob told us, "Now, when you can do four of those in a
night, you're up with the rest of us." Grin.
   Kat whispered to us, "He's slagging you.  Four is the most any of us
have done, and that was once with Bob and me -- I think Bob, David,
Elizabeth and I are the only ones who could physically survive it."
   We crawled back on the bed -- to hell with the wet spots -- and
collapsed.  Sean touched in wet cloths and towels and wiped us down.  Best
man!
   We let the bodies sleep and took off outside exploring.  We hadn't done
a lot of it before so it was still pretty new and exciting.  Since we had
oversight visits set up for Thursday and Friday, we looked over all the
shops.  We found some outpoints (points that should be in place but
weren't) and noted them down.  Of course, we found plenty of pluspoints,
too (points that should be in place and were).
   Being lazy, we "stopped by" the DMV.  Margie ported three of the DMV
Change of Address forms to the OTL den; saved probably a half-hour of time!
   ------
   SEAN{br} (Thursday 5/18)
   I'm not quite sure how we survived all that.  Yep, it definitely went on
our repertoire; I figured we try some of the smaller waves next time
around.
   We still staggered out of bed around 7:00.  I ducked in the shower first
so I could start breakfast; I was betting the ladies would really be
hungry.
   I was getting stuff on the table just as they came wobbling out.  I had
to jump back to keep from getting my hands or arms shoveled in their mouths
along with the breakfast!
   Everyone (even Marge) complained of sore muscles from coming so much.  I
said, "I'm a touch sore myself.  I'd say to prevent that, all you have to
do is say, 'No.'" That got me a lot of "fat chance" looks.
   I kept stuff coming; I used up all our eggs and bacon along with a
couple pounds of waffle mix.
   Bridget was feeding herself a lot.  Standard baby food, but she was
pretty good at it already.  She could somewhat manipulate a spoon with her
hands but had tons of fun playing airplane with herself with a touch-spoon.
Some of the sounds were just like the planes landing at Bob Hope Airport!
   Maura and Teresa had given Eileen some supplements to help ease her
drying up.  By now, she was feeding Bridget around half the time she'd done
before.
   When we were done, I rinsed and put the dishes in the dishwasher then
fired it up.  We relaxed in the den for a couple minutes.
   We talked about last night and watched Marge do her morning "exercises."
Every couple days at least, she'd run through all her body controls, seeing
what was working and how well.  Looked like she was doing isometric
exercises!
   Kate asked, "Are all our controls pretty much the same?  That is, do we
all have the same ones or do some have additional or fewer ones?"
   Marge told us, "From talking with George about the Clann Reynolds
'experiments,' we've all got the same controls.  What seems to vary is how
well we develop and learn to use them to their best plus whatever innate
physical talents we have.  Right now, I've still got quite a few that don't
seem to be connected or are extremely sloppy.  For example, my voice is
still just a noise."
   She made several squawks of various pitches and volume.  "I think it's
just the nerves and muscles haven't developed long enough."
   We watched her a while longer and offered to tickle her til she peed to
see if those nerves had developed properly.  She demurred for right then.
Kate asked her, "Do you run through a list of them or as you think of
them?"
   "I've got a list of all the physical senses I've ever known or heard
about plus all the muscle sets.  I run through each one and see if there's
a response.  If there is, I work on it at least several seconds to tweak in
the sensitivity."
   Kate said, "Interesting.  Since I was a late starter in puberty, I'm
actually still in it even though I'm 22.  I know I feel and act pretty
awkwardly sometimes.  Bet George, Dermot and the kids in the throws could
do the same thing and handle the physical changes a lot quicker and
easier."
   Eileen said, "Margie, in your copious free time, why don't you work up a
check list or check sheet?  Us old folk would probably benefit from it
too."
   I put in my two cents, "Over the last thousand years or so, the Clann's
adopted quite a few Orientals.  Some of them brought along some martial
arts skills.
   "The men especially had a series of exercises we'd do several times a
week.  Actually, they're similar to today's martial arts 'katas' or
exercises.  Armed with weapons, unarmed and things in between such as
offense and defense using anything to hand.
   "My body now would probably fail miserably at most of them; I haven't
worked on the control much at all.  All the katas work first on the actual
control at a slow speed then add speed and power later.  While we might
never need these physical skills since we have the spiritual capabilities
to handle pretty much anything, I can think of several circumstances they'd
be useful where we wouldn't want to explicitly expose our spiritual
abilities."
   Margie said, "I'll get with Ana and the Drs.  Gold and work up a
physical check list and training guide.  Sean, maybe you could get with
Toro, Bob and others a bit to see if they have any training routines or
whatever they've worked on.  I agree with Kate, anyone at any age could use
them."
   Okay.  On my To Do List.
   One special thing I had to do; I'd talked it over with Eileen and Marge.
I'd gotten another Claddagh Ring so we presented it to Kate.  I told her,
"This is from all of us; wear it as you will.  While our legal system
prevents any of us from marrying you, you will always be a part of our
marriage.  We love you, Kate; this is but a small way of showing it."
   She cried and put it on her right hand facing her.  We spent a wonderful
fifteen minutes in sweet snoggings, caresses and blendings before we got on
with the business of the day.
   We did the next several teleporting check list steps.  We learned to
leave a set of touch buffers behind at the source after it was gone. 
They'd gradually collapse quietly and leave no noise or air currents
behind. We did the same for other media like water.  More solid media like
dirt or earth we treated the same; didn't need earthquakes or ground thumps
left behind!
   The destination side was in reverse.  We learned to put up buffers to
make room for the teleported mass without creating a shock wave there. 
This was all interesting because we worked outside the actual volume of the
teleported mass; it took into account the surroundings and several other
factors such as air and media pressure at both ends.
   All right!  The next step for tomorrow would be to port stuff with the
touch buffers at both ends.  Lots of progress!
   Kate had come up with several QuickBooks and Excel add-ons some of the
references had recommended.  If we bought all of them, it would run only
around 3K.  I told her the same as I'd told Marge, "If it's under 5K, just
do it.  If one of them saves you ten minutes a couple times a month, that
adds up to a hell of a lot of time saved you could spend on analysis and
business thinking.  You've got a company debit card, do what you wish."
   On the Internet, the adults did changes of address for mail forwarding.
Eileen and Kate sent off a letter to their banks, and I made up minutes to
add them as signers on the Cullen Enterprises accounts and to change the
address.  Since we had the DMV forms, we filled them in and sent 'em off.
   The morning was still young, only 10:30.  We got dressed with our hats
and took off.
   First stop was the bank.  Eileen and Kate added their signatures to the
Cullen Enterprises account, and I gave over the change of address notice.
   We set up an OTL household checking account with the three of us.  I
seeded it with $10,000.  The ladies objected a bit; they thought we should
contribute equally.  I told them, "Later.  When we're in maintenance mode,
we'll do something like that.  For now, please let me do this.
   "I've been busting my butt the last ten years preparing to support and
please a mate.  Now I have three of the most wonderful spirits and
beautiful bodies in the world as mates.  Please let me use at least some of
what I've built for you."
   They agreed.  If we hadn't been in the bank, I thought they'd jump my
bones right on the floor.  As it was, the three of them kept snuggling up
to me every chance they got.  Hmm, they seem to do that anyway.
   We got in two oversight visits before lunch.  At each place, I
introduced the ladies and told the staffs, "They speak for me.  They'll be
doing a lot of the reviewing I'm doing now, and they'll probably be a lot
harder to please.  Ask your questions of them first; if they don't know,
they'll ask me.  I'd advise you to treat them nicely; in case you don't
know by now, Irish women are stubborn, obnoxious and hard-headed; you do
not want to cross them.  To compensate, they're also the most wonderful
creatures on Earth -- or any place else I know of."
   It didn't hurt the guys almost drooled over them; married or not.
   We had a quick lunch and carried on.
   Pretty much everything was running smoothly.  Jim at Ladies' Leather was
ready for us.  We went over the points that should be in or were in
progress.  If the ladies were happy with them, so was I.
   All righty, then!  We were ready to wheel and deal.  They'd done their
homework pretty well and had come up with an offer.  I counter-offered,
pointed out some things we could do slightly different to both of our
advantages (financial or otherwise) and agreed on a set of final contract
points.  One of them was consulting from Cullen Enterprises, not just from
me alone.
   We agreed to meet for the final look over on Monday.  We would get the
accountants and lawyers together for a final approval.  If everyone agreed,
we'd do the deal.  Off the top of my head, I figured to make about $500K
clear profit over the next several years -- and they'd be more than happy
about it!
   We finished up the rest of the planned visits about 4:00.  Maura and
Teresa told us they were ready to move on the wedding plans so we decided
to meet at OTL around 4:45.  Maybe I could catch a nap while the ladies
decided what I was gonna be doing.
   We brought home pizza and soda.  That's a good Irish meal, isn't it?
   They'd decided on Saturday, June 3d.  The wedding would be at the park
at the end of OTL at noon and the reception at Eire's Tavern.  The Tavern
could overflow easily to handle up to four hundred people in the afternoon
between the banquet rooms.  Maura said, "Not a lot of lead time, but
whoever wants to be there, will."
   We (they) decided on the wording for the wedding invitations.  They'd be
engraved with the tissue paper, double envelopes, all that stuff.  There'd
be a bit in Irish about it being the Clann Cullen Ceann's marriage expected
to produce the next heir.  I wisely kept my mouth shut; they'd already shot
me down in flames when I'd asked if I could wear my bowler with Da's kilt.
   I had a handwriting font on the computer so we didn't actually have to
address or sign them by hand.  If someone didn't like it, fuck 'em!
   We had a local printer (one of my companies!) who could do the
invitations.  The ladies mocked up exactly how they wanted them to look;
Teresa said she'd drop the sample off tomorrow morning.  From experience,
we could have them in a couple days.
   I gave Teresa a personal check for $10,000.  I told her, "Do whatever
you want with it.  Eileen'll want to fund it all herself so don't let her."
   Maura said she'd make the arrangements for the park and the Tavern
tomorrow.  We decided to get the same busses as we were getting for the
wake so the oldies wouldn't feel left out (and could get shit-faced again).
   When we told Maura and Teresa Kate was now firmly part of our
relationship, they mobbed her!  They spent a good ten minutes hugging,
kissing and crying with each other while admiring her claddagh ring.  They
assured her I was a nice guy despite my hat habits!
   They decided right away to have a new-girls' night along with the
nieces. Translation: Girl food, chick-flick, girl-talk and
Kate-and-Mona-molesting.  Unfortunately Kate had to leave for school at
6:40 so I didn't get a chance to warn her before she accepted.
   After Kate left, the rest of the ladies did more plotting and planning.
Where to get flowers, dresses, shoes, hair and nails (Jackie's, of course,
on my tab), table centerpieces, guest gifts, all that stuff.  I contributed
my expertise by flopping my body in my desk chair and letting it snore away
while I checked out the recent house wiring and made diagrams.
   When Kate got back from school, they sucked her in again.  Jaysus, such
talking, giggling and laughing.  Being used to the Cullen Sisters, I didn't
offer my opinions on anything; I just went to bed around 10:00.
   Eileen, Kate and Marge piled on me later; I ensured they still had their
boobs and butts.  Since nothing had been lost, we snuggled up and slept the
sleep of the innocent -- must have borrowed some from somewhere.
   ------
   EILEEN{br} (Friday 5/19)
   We felt quite a bit better this morning; maybe we're getting used to all
the loving!
   Marge flitted around to all of us, shoving her little hand under our
noses and telling us to smell.  Pussy juice.  She told us, "Mine!  I even
got myself off once last night!  Granted, they're small but they're there!
Sean, now can I get equal time?"
   We hugged and kissed her soundly.  Sean told her, "Sweetheart, we're an
equal opportunity family.  Prepare to be molested tonight!"
   Kate and I agreed enthusiastically.
   The Clean Place cleaner showed up right on time.  We showed him around,
agreed on what we wanted and turned him loose.  Phil seemed to be very
trustworthy (especially since we inspected him down to his toenails) so we
gave him a key and "programmed" him into the house shield.  We might not be
at home all the time.
   The next steps on the teleportation check list were porting with touch
buffers on both source and destination.  Piece of cake after a few times!
   Then we tossed in the angular momentum corrections; with the gradient
we'd built up, those went great!  So far, we'd done only inanimate objects
like stones, rocks, dirt, that kind of stuff.  Adding in living things like
a plant was interesting; they had a slightly different feel but were just
as easy.
   Margie told us, "Animals and people will probably feel pretty much the
same.  You're definitely on the down-hill side of the training!"
   We'd gotten early appointments for trims.  The shop girls were just as
subservient as before -- while smiling and showing nice cleavage.  Hell,
Jackie'd left off her bra.  I knew what she was thinking about.
   When we were done, she asked Sean to step into her office for a quick
"business consultation." Of course, we watched while he took full advantage
of her upper-body condition.  By the time they were done "consulting,"
Jackie had come three times -- and he hadn't touched her pussy!
   She wobbled out with her nipples still stiff.  Good thing they had that
air purifier going; she was also dripping through her panties.
   After a quick talk among us, Kate put a power connection into her and
notched it up.  We figured by our next appointment, she'd be ready to pop.
   ------
   SEAN{br}
   Jackie would make an excellent free spirit.  She was intelligent,
ethical and had plenty of Talent.  The fact she was physically sexy as hell
didn't hurt either, in my opinion.
   We did the second set of oversight visits.  The ladies were very-well
accepted; there was a lot of drool on the floors from the male staff -- as
well as a couple of the females.
   At Collectable Arts, Francine told us, "Bob and Kathleen brought over
their comics and cards.  Damn, we were drooling all over them!  We've got
about half of them evaluated; some of those cards are gonna take a lot of
research.  Only a couple of our contacts were even aware they existed and
there are a couple no one knew about specifically."
   That led right into the collaboration project.  Simon said, "I've talked
with twenty dealers across the U.S., Canada and Europe.  They all really
like the idea.  Most of them think $250 a month subscription would be
great. Some thought that was a bit high for how often they'd use it, so I
came up with a tiered subscription based on the number of queries per
month."
   He proposed a web site with a server-side database.  It would have
queries, browses, PayPal for subscriptions, password access and user
forums. With a setup cost of around a hundred dollars, I didn't think we
could go wrong.
   He said, "I've looked at the NASDAQ structure.  It's really great for
down the line a bit.  We should be able to take the proposed database and
migrate all the data up to something like that if it gets popular."
   I looked over the database structure.  With Marge looking over my
shoulder and offering a few suggestions, we came to a final design.
   We talked about an organization to handle it.  I said, "Let's start out
informally.  When it's established a bit more we can look at a corporation.
Who'd be running it?"
   Simon had built a couple web sites but said he wasn't particularly good
at it.  "I've got a couple neighbor kids who're really sharp at this stuff.
That is, if you think it's okay to use young people on something like
this."
   I told him, "My ten-year-old niece is building our Clann's web site. 
'Kids' work just fine; they don't have our biases and are often better at
it than we are.  Just keep good records; use them as consultants.  Any of
them good at collectibles?"
   "Ted loves cards and comics; he's got a decent little collection
already. I was thinking of using him for data entry and updates since he's
got a lot of knowledge already."
   That was totally fine.  I cut him a Cullen Enterprises check for $1,500.
"You know how to keep records.  Use the current version of QuickBooks Pro
you're using for the shop, set up a new company and start out right.  If
you need more money, let me know."
   We talked about ownership.  We agreed Cullen Enterprises would be a
silent, 51% partner.  He, Francis and Francine would be the other 49%. 
Francine would work up an agreement and email it to me.  Lookin' good!
   We stopped by Shane's Shop on the way.  They were very happy to see us.
Sharon gave me a solid hug and snuggled right up.  What the hell, my hands
discovered she had a great butt; she purred, hugged me harder and tried to
drive her stiff nipples through my chest.
   I told her, "You're lookin' and feelin' good, sweet lady.  Seems like we
gotta start shopping for a man for you."
   "I've got my eye on several my age.  A couple of them have some Talent,
so I've already started enhancing them.  I assume that's okay."
   "I trust you completely that way, Sharon.  Go for it."
   Celia didn't back off on her hug at all so I invested a bit of time
exploring her back and bum.  I asked her, "You guys doing okay?  Is it
getting time for that baby?"
   She told me, "Shit, Sean.  Jack and I've been ready for years.  We're
not sure yet if we're stable enough financially."
   I told her, "Celia, if couples waited until they could 'afford it,'
mankind would die off.  For what it's worth, this place appears very
stable. You might even explore opening another shop in, say, Burbank that
you could manage or even own."
   "Hmm.  Since we actually live in Glendale, that's an interesting idea."
   "Then go for it and talk with Sharon.  Communication is the key; you
don't know if you don't ask."
   "I think we'll do that tonight."
   I invited the three of them to the Tavern that night, our treat of
course.  They were quite interested and accepted.  Should be an interesting
evening.
   Our last stop was the Altadena Arms.  Kate picked up the mail then we
all circulated around for a look-see and to talk with the staff.
   Mary Murray was on shift.  I guided her off in a quiet corner, played
with her butt and asked, "Well?"
   She hugged and kissed me hard.  "The home pregnancy test shows I caught.
I've got an OB appointment for Tuesday!  We're so happy!  Thank you!"
   I laughed, "The old gods are still strong, Mary."
   "Yeh, right.  That was really something, though.  Maybe we can try it
again sometime?"
   "Perhaps.  You'll need to run it by my social secretaries, though.  It
seems they have every minute of my day planned."
   She immediately took off to find Kate.  Oh, what trials we Ceanns must
endure!
   ------
   A quick consult with Maura decided we were going leprechaun to the
Tavern.  I got on my full-bore green and plaid while Eileen and Marge got
their vests and green bowlers (and the green Bridget rattle.  They'd found
a really cute pair of curly-toed shoes for her.).  We'd managed to find
something suitably outrageous for Kate on the way back home from the
Altadena Arms.
   We went out in the back yard and practiced some hat routines.  No magic
but there were several touches tossed in.
   We got to the Tavern just as Sharon, Celia and Jack arrived so we went
in together.  Eileen told them, "We do a gig onstage towards the end of the
night; that's why we're dressed up."
   The N&Bs rolled in a few minutes later.  The ladies (including the
nieces) had ended up dressed alike.  They had plaid (Cullen tartan) flippy
skirts, green blouses and nicely-wobbly breasts!  Yum!
   Mona gave me a very un-chaste hug and wiggled everything against me. 
"Thank you again, Sean.  It's been wonderful this last week; I'm still
coming down off the high."
   "Sweet Mona, you've gotta find someone -- or two or three -- to help
out. I don't think Aile or Deidre are quite up to your speed yet.  Then
again, I could be wrong."
   "Oh, they're quite willing to help out.  Caden and Connor have already
volunteered their services."
   "Hey, nothing wrong with that!  They're all disease-free and you know
about birth control.  On the other hand, is there anyone at school?"
   "Yeh, there's several guys -- and girls -- my age with some Talent. 
It's just difficult to get together."
   "Hmm.  How about you make a talk with the Moms?  Clann Reynolds has a
full-blown tutoring service starting up in their middle school.  It'll
probably go down to the elementary school level pretty quick.  With their
'Inner Circle' of free spirits as tutors, none of the parents have any
backoff with their young-uns being together a lot."
   She said, "Now that's an idea.  Several of them are in the fifth grade
with me.  If we start now, we'd have the entire summer together then be
together in middle school."
   "Yeh.  That could set up the other four there too for next year.  You'd
all be able to get a lot of nice nookie -- and maybe find someone who
really matches up with you.  You're not just an eleven-year-old little girl
any more; we just have to play some of the society games."
   "Yes!  I think we'll have a talk with Moms and Dads fairly lively!"
   I ensured Sharon's gang got introduced around.  Maura and Teresa had met
them already; somehow they'd shown up at Sharon's Shop a couple times
recently.  Everyone gave them firm hugs and solid welcomes.
   Since the Reynolds crew had taught them the language trick, they were
picking up on the Irish floating around.  In about fifteen minutes they
were right in with the rest of us chatting and making jokes.
   We had a great dinner as usual.  The place was almost completely full;
maybe they were expecting another magic show?
   Show time.  Carrying Bridget, I followed seven delightful female bottoms
onstage.  Caden and Connor were along with us so the whole famn damily was
there.
   I introduced Kate as "a wonderful addition to our lives." She got a very
nice round of applause, pinked up and made her breasts wobble a bit more.
   We sang and danced.  My goodness, everyone found out the ladies were
wearing bright-green panties.  The young-uns fit right in; since they'd
been dancing and singing from before they could walk, it was no surprise.
   By no means were we up to Bob and Kathleen on the dancing, but we put in
some spins and lifts we hadn't had before.
   Near the end, I told the audience, "Sorry we don't have our friendly
magician to help us out this week.  You'll have to put up with us."
   I spun my hat out over them; it twirled away and came right back to my
hand.  "I've kept it dry this week so you don't have to put up with an
Irishman's drunken hat.
   "By the way, you'll notice Eileen, Kate and Bridget are wearing hats
like mine.  They're part of Cullen Enterprises with me.  They're the Hat
Ladies and don't take no messin' with!"
   They got a round of applause which Eileen and Kate answered by flipping
their hats in the air with a finger.  The hats took a couple tumbles and
ended up on the opposite head.  Impressive, even to me.  Bridget waved her
hat around, chortled and shook her rattle.
   Bridget got on my shoulders and held on to my hair and ears while
Eileen, Kate and I did the routine we'd practiced.  We did a three-way hat
throw, flip, catch etc.  with body spins and under-the leg throws and
catches.  They showed a lot of leg and lots of panty-flashes.
   We ended up with several Frisbee throws over the audience.  The final
throw ended up with our three hats stacked atop Bridget's hat!  She
laughed, gave us leg kicks, arm waves and rattles as we trooped offstage.
We were happy with the performance.
   ------
   EILEEN
   We got back home and took a quick shower; dancing's hard work!  In the
bed, we piled on Sean so he couldn't escape.  Margie said, "Sean, would you
do me a bit?"
   Sean told her, "With pleasure, My Princess.  I will touch you with
love."
   We ladies purred.  Kate and I backed off to the side, joined a little
and watched.
   He mapped her body with slow, gentle kisses, licks and touches with his
fingertips.  She was sexually sensitive just under her ears, at the base of
her neck on both sides and on the insides of her elbows.
   We felt the pressure build; light but it was there and recognizable. 
When he moved down on her chest, her tiny nipples were sensitive to
everything.  They popped up like little peas; she cooed and moaned with
delight.
   Her navel had a little hit as well as a couple toes and behind her
knees. Pretty "standard" so far and delightful.  We had a nice pressure
built up.
   On her back, she had a hot spot just above her butt crack.  Neat, just
like me.  We gently peeled her panties off and checked out her dainty
cheeks and tight pucker -- nicely sensitive.
   Her tightly-closed cunny was damp on the outside.  We could see her clit
hood swollen up a little and poking out the top.  Through Sean, we smelled
a delightful light odor of female.  Hell, by now Kate and I were wet too
and our nipples were up hard.
   She had the "usual" spots on the inside of her thighs.  Her cunny lips
were puffed up and pink; when Sean ran the tip of his tongue up, we tasted
her sweetness.  No doubt about it, she was aroused -- besides, we could
feel her sexual tension built up.
   When he spread her lips, we could see the pink inside glistening with
moisture; her scent spread.  Gentle licks built the pressure up and her
clit hood swelled up more.  Licks on it built the pressure more.
   Sean gently peeled her hood up; we saw her clit as a slender rod with
the end the size of her nipples.  It was really sensitive.
   She had a light, very small hymen -- we'd seen it before while cleaning
her.  Everything was sensitive!  She tasted divine; light and sweet.  With
a minute of light licking over various parts (her clit gave small jolts of
pleasure), she tensed up.  We felt a smooth warm rush as she climaxed.  We
moaned quietly as we shared her pleasure.
   The tip of Sean's tongue in her miniscule opening extended her climax to
almost a minute.  So sweet, loving and wonderful!
   Her body promptly fell asleep.  She told us, "Oh, yeh!  Now that's
pleasure!  It's almost all from the attitude and intention.  Sean, you are
truly My Prince and I love you all so much!"
   We gently hugged and caressed her sleeping body.  Best daughter!  Best
man!  Best friend!
   We spent a long time drifting in the solar wind while blending,
caressing each other and creating wonderful rainbows.  Life was very good.
   Chapter 18
   [Intersects with Sorcerer: Interesting Times Ch.  3]
   SEAN{br} (Saturday 5/20)
   Our daughter was a true delight!  She was so sweet, loving and adorable.
Never mind she's a dirty old lady, too!  That just added to the fun.
   Saturday morning, we were on the downhill side of the teleportation
training, living stuff.  We moved from plants to small animals.  Quite a
few of the neighborhood's stray cats and dogs had some surprises! 
Squirrels, mice and other wildlife in the park didn't have much choice
either.
   No sweat; they were all the same.  The feel was different from inanimate
targets but it all worked.  The last step was to port an animal with fleas
or something but leave the pests behind.  Totally cool!  (rad, neat,
whatever current phrases are for completely awesome)
   We gave our darling daughter a quick molesting (so sweet!) so she'd last
the afternoon, got cleaned up and dressed (business casual) for the wake.
   The Tavern was ready and the busses rolled on time.  Eileen, Kate and
Margie stayed with the bus on OTL while I rode the roving one.
   We checked off people on the RSVP'd list as they came aboard.  Yeh, some
needed help; that's why we were there.  A few had an extra person or so who
asked to come.  Usually it was a friend or relative who'd known Nana.  No
sweat, plenty of room.
   One frail lady with a walker (one of Nana's "sexy" friends) pretended to
glare at me and asked, "Who are you?  How do I know you're not gonna abduct
me and have your way with me?"
   I grinned at her, took off my hat and kissed her hand.  "I'm Sean
Cullen, Eileen's fiance.  With such a delightful lady as you, perhaps I'll
take you someplace private and have your way with you!"
   She looked me over, cackled evilly and said, "I'll wear you out,
youngster!"
   "It'll be our pleasure!" Grin.
   We found everyone on the list plus a few extra; I'd done a quick
inspection of the area and had found a few people who hadn't been in Nana's
address book but had talked to one of invitees and were interested.  We'd
picked their phone number out earlier and had called them.  Leave no one
behind!
   As the busses rolled to the Tavern, we gave them a quick summary of an
Irish wake.  Everyone had heard of one but only a few knew much about one;
they thought it was sit around, eat, get drunk and get rowdy.  Pretty
close, actually.
   We ended up with 58 guests at the Tavern; a few had a relative or friend
drop them off.
   Eileen stood up and introduced everyone.  Bridget, of course, was the
great-granddaughter while I was her fiance and Maura, Teresa and the others
were friends.
   We had a large picture of Margaret we'd found in her album; she was in
her 90's and was grinning away!  Her urn was sitting right next to it.
   We had several waiters to help out.  "Don't be afraid to ask them for
help, they've got plenty of experience.  This wake is for you."
   There was an open bar with plenty of Irish whisky, Irish beer, Irish
Cream -- anything Irish ("If you'd like something else, just ask.").  We
had a buffet with all sorts of goodies from main entrees to knoshing finger
food; of course with a server behind to help out as needed.
   Eileen started out with a couple Nana and Snapper fun stories then many
of the others talked about some of their "adventures" with Nana, how she'd
helped them so much and how much they'd loved her.  With most of them, Nana
filled us Core folk in on what had actually happened ("He left out the part
where we screwed like bunnies all that weekend.  Hehehehe.").
   With almost half of the guests being former lovers, there was a lot left
out!
   Yeh, there was wailing and keening to let the grief out.  We cried right
along with them.
   There was an outside patio for smokers (tobacco is de rigueur at wakes);
it was a fine May day so everyone was happy.
   With most of them in their 80's, there were a lot of body aches and
pains.  Maura, Teresa, John or Patrick took them individually into a quiet
private room and gave them injury energy bleeds.  There were a lot of
happier campers from that!
   Eileen, Bridget and I circulated around; we ensured we talked to
everyone somewhat privately.  Eileen and Bridget dispensed a lot of hugs!
With Bridget now at 22 pounds (lots of muscle), she lightened herself up so
they wouldn't have to support the weight while she was giving baby hugs and
kisses.
   Often they would cry a little so we gave them comforting thoughts and
acknowledged their grief.
   With each one, we get a gestalt then Eileen would talk about their
personal relationship with Nana; Margaret/Nana would fill us in on some
details (some very personal!).  Eileen would usually tell them to the
effect of, "Nana talked about you quite frequently.  She thought you were
really special and loved you a lot."
   With her former lovers, she'd often say, "She said it was a wonderful
pleasure when you visited." With a totally straight face, too, even while
Nana was telling us the gory details.  Dirty old woman!
   John, Patrick and I flirted outrageously with the frail lady who'd been
"afraid" I'd abduct her.  I think she had a wonderful time because her
panties were pretty damp after several minutes.
   We flirted with every lady who'd like it.  Maura, Teresa and Kate did
the same with the guys.  They loved it!  Eileen and Bridget, however,
stayed "with the program."
   One couple, Brian and Ellen Keavy, were Irish and had a large dose of
Talent!  They and Nana had figured out they were somewhat related.
   They were in their upper 80's and were in wheelchairs.  A stroke or two
apiece wasn't helping their longevity probabilities.  After a
quarter-second conference with us, Marge put a power connection to them and
notched it up.
   They'd not been lovers, but Nana had been very close to them both
because they were related and were very intelligent, ethical and so much
fun to be around.  Good enough for us!  If we could get them enhanced and
outside before their bodies gave out, they'd save themselves countless
lives of wandering and confusion.
   ------
   EILEEN
   So many wonderful people!  I knew quite a few of them already but hadn't
really had much contact with them, especially the last five years.
   Kate, Maura and Teresa were especially helpful.  While they hadn't known
any of them before, they would claim, "Eileen mentioned several times how
happy Margaret had been to know you." They always pushed them up and made
them feel special -- which they were.
   We gave each person or couple a small framed Nana picture.  I slipped
each one out and wrote a little note of thanks.  We'd imported the nieces
and nephews with digital cameras and everyone got some "formal" pictures
taken with Bridget and me.  They noted the picture number and person's name
so we could get them out properly.  Best nieces and nephews!
   I got out the last of my grief for Nana.  Nana got hers out for leaving
her friends and lovers.
   Brian and Ellen were the only ones with Talent.  They were wonderfully
alive even though their bodies were so frail.  Right after Margie put her
power connection in, we "invited" ourselves over next Wednesday afternoon.
By then we figured they'd easily be ready to pop.  Bridget/Nana and I gave
them extra-special hugs and kisses.
   Bridget was down to four times a day on breast feeding so it was pretty
"safe" for me to have several shots of Irish whisky over the afternoon plus
puff on a light cigar outside while visiting the people there.  Bridget
claimed her gums were sore so I shared several drops of each shot with her.
   Sean and Kate stayed cold-sober; they said they were there to help.
   I invited each person or couple to our wedding.  If they were
interested, Teresa checked them off on the list to get an invitation.  I
assured them we would provide the same type of transportation if they
wished.  Nice, we added another forty to the guest list.
   Of course we stuffed ourselves with food; it was good and it was paid
for!
   Yeh, by the time the scheduled time was up, there were several
shit-faced oldies.  John, Patrick and Sean used the extra wheelchairs as
needed and had a "race" to the buses.  Everyone tied.
   The guys rolled off with the busses to help pour them into their own
homes.  Kate and I stayed at the Tavern to help finish the cleanup.  When
it was done, we tipped each of the servers, waiters and cooks $50; they'd
earned it.
   Margie ported us home where we vegged for a couple minutes until Sean
got back.  He told us, "I think it's Jacuzzi time." Yes!
   Nice!  Seems Papa Sonora had slipped someone in today (I remember
letting a crew in through the shield) to install our outside shower.  Hot
and cold water in a couple seconds with both overhead and pussy-level
shower heads!
   We got nekkid and in.  I'd had just enough whiskey I was feeling no pain
at all; Kate and Sean had to hold me up so I wouldn't slide off the seat.
   Sean told us, "We had to pour most of them in their homes.  I'll
confess, we cheated a lot with touches once we got them inside.  We got
them in their comfortable chairs with their shoes off and let them start
sleeping it off.  Might have to do the same after the wedding!"
   Margie told us, "Some party, eh?  I think it went very well.  I remember
Fergus's wake; it really did help to end off and to get the grief out of
the way.  [Fergus had been Margaret's husband]
   "I'm still pretty sober now so I guess I'll survive.  Definitely was a
lot of stress though -- even though it was for me."
   We laughed again at attending one's own wake.
   After an hour, we were pretty well water-logged so we got out and took
showers with the new outside shower.  Talk about communing with nature --
the park was right across the back fence!  I was doing okay by then, but we
still piled on the bed and took a nap for an hour.
   Sean told us we were set for the seminar the next day, so we relaxed the
rest of the evening.  We dug out "Return to Me" and laughed and cried a
bit. Interesting how some people think the person is the body or body part.
We thought in the same circumstances we'd have been delighted to know our
spouse's body had helped save another's life.  Oh, well, we just had to
suspend disbelief for a bit.
   We sacked out fairly early.  Kate and I had our turn at giving Margie
some slow gentle loving.  She was sweet, delicious and so loving in return.
   It turned in to a gentle free-for-all loving which lasted a couple
hours; we were celebrating the fact we were alive.
   We left the bodies to sleep and spent the rest of the night exploring.
Yeh, there's some truth in the legends of lost cities in the Sahara Desert!
That led to exploring several of the Egyptian pyramids; there's still lots
of hidden passages and chambers no one's found yet!
   ------
   SEAN{br} (Sunday 5/21)
   In the morning, we did more teleportation training.  We were up to
porting horses, cattle and other large living things along with some
surroundings.  They didn't seem to notice unless we put them in a barren
landscape with nothing to eat.  Of course, we put them back where they
started from.  Next step is porting people; Marge told us, "Should be a
piece of cake."
   Marge ported us to JRD; no need to use a car.
   The conference room was ready to go.  We had a good setup, just as I'd
asked.  We had a separate white board for "talking" as well as the
projection screen.
   I taught the Hat Ladies how to set up a projector and laptop since I
figured they'd be doing it a lot down the line.  They learned how to bring
up the PowerPoint presentation and how to use the remote control to page
around.  "There's lots of stuff buried in hot spots if we need it; I'll get
you really familiar with this before you do it on your own."
   The JRD folk showed up promptly on time.  All but three we knew from the
Clann Reynolds meeting; the three were from the JRD office.  Two were ones
of us and the other a high Sensitive used to mental communication.  All to
the good; we'd go a lot faster than usual.
   ------
   EILEEN
   We got started right on time.  We did a round of introductions,
including Margie.
   All righty, then.  Kate, Margie and I would be interested spectators and
apprentices; Sean had told us we'd probably be giving this same seminar.
   Sean gave us a quick agenda summary and asked for questions.  Barbara
O'Banain popped her hand up and asked, "What's with the hat, Sean."
   We laughed.  Sean smiled and told her, "Bingo!  You win a prize!" He
tossed her out a good-sized packet of M&Ms.  He continued, "With most
seminars, it takes three or four hours for someone to ask or comment.  You
are now the record holder!  You're a winner!"
   He went on to explain Attracting Attention.  He pointed out the Hat
Ladies' hats and said, "Now, think about applying that principle to JRD. 
What kind of attention do you want to attract?  Do you want to attract
attention?  Public attention?  Only your owned or controlled companies?  A
combination?
   "We'll have another exercise later called the Administrative Scale of
Importances for your company.  That'll help decide what to promote and how
to promote it -- if you want actively to promote it."
   Good.  He pointed out the "true for you" blurb and stressed its
importance.  "I'm neither a god nor a prophet.  So far, I haven't found a
company or organization these principles won't fit -- including an
individual!  Some may have more impact or importance, depending on the
organization, but you'll need to look at all of them to see how they
apply."
   He went into the study process.  "This seminar isn't a substitute for
studying the materials.  It will help executives get a firm idea of what's
in there and possibly how to apply the information.  Executives especially
need to study the details.
   "Now, since you guys have set up very successful tutoring systems in
your schools, do you have the actual study technology you use documented
and in a check list you can hand someone?"
   That stirred up a couple minute's discussion among Bob, Kathleen, Sherry
and a couple others.  Yeh, they had a methodology with pretty simple
principles, but it wasn't really documented and didn't have a training
check list.
   Sean said, "I'd recommend getting that done.  Your Brain Trust folk
probably spend a lot of time training others and you could get some
variances.  Now, when you do get it done, come make a talk with us about
including it in The Book on a royalty basis -- maybe as income for Clann
Reynolds."
   It immediately went on the JRD To Do List.
   Sean went over a company's organization.  "Every organization needs an
organizing board, Org Board or Org Chart.  It needs to be published and
prominent so a person can tell at a glance where he and everyone else fits
in."
   He went over various departments.  "Depending on the organization's
size, you can have as few as three departments up to 21.  No matter the
actual number of departments, the organization must account for all the
functions.  Even the three-department organization needs to account for all
the functions covered in the 21-department model."
   He pointed out the various models in The Book then went on to the Admin
Scale.  It covered Purpose at the top down through Statistics and Valuable
Final Product at the bottom.
   "The organization as a whole has a Scale.  Each department then has a
scale.  To create one, work it up and down until the points align within
the Scale and to the organization's scale.
   "Many organizations actually don't know what they produce either on a
company level, a department level or a post level.  That's the Valuable
Final Product; it's the product or service the area exchanges to customers
usually in exchange for money.
   "So, to start with, who or what are what are JRD's customers?"
   It turned out the "customers" were the companies it owned or controlled.
Sean asked, "Now, what product or service does JRD exchange with it's
customers for money?  Just the fact you own or control the company doesn't
cut it.  Everyone could just quit and you wouldn't have a company.  If you
don't exchange something that's valuable to them, they'll resist you,
ignore you and possibly even try to sabotage you because all you are then
is a pain in the butt.
   "So, lots of questions, eh?  Needs some work?"
   They laughed and agreed it did need work.  Sean said, "We've developed
hands-on workshops for Org Boards, Admin Scales and several other areas
we're gonna cover.  Any of the four of us will be qualified shortly to
deliver them.
   "On the other hand, you can work on the areas yourselves and get a
pretty good handle on what you need then get some consultation time to
polish them up.  It's up to you."
   He whispered to Kate, Marge and me, "That's you folk who will be able to
do them!"
   He told them, "Soon, any of us will be qualified to deliver most
everything.  Marge has the issue that most mundane companies couldn't
handle her qualifications so that really leaves the three of us."
   Marge preened and told them, "I serve as eye candy and an arm ornament!"
Good laugh.
   That covered the first section of The Book.  We took a break then went
back at it.  Now we went into the various functions or departments such as
Treasury, Public (advertising or promotion), Operations (production),
Quality Control and the like.
   He covered the high points in each section.  His PowerPoint presentation
had lots of bullet points; he didn't read them off because they were right
out of The Book.  JRD ended up with lots of items on their To Do List!
   We continued.  More principles, more questions.
   "Beware of delivering what you promise.  You've gotta do at least that!
Word your deliverables so you can deliver even more!  Promise a Honda and
deliver a Lexus!  You may contract for a Model X Rod Buster machine with
Revision 6.8 software.  Ensure they're willing to accept at least that.
   "It could well be they already have ten Model X's with Rev.  6.8 and
simply want another to fit in because they've got their lines set up to
handle exactly that.  If you delivered a 'better" Model XI, they may bust
your chops.
   "On the other hand, they might be expanding their product line.  The
Model X might handle it okay, but the Model XI might handle it twice as
fast.  Find out.  That's part of your salesmen's jobs -- find out what they
really need.
   "Of course, if they want only and exactly the Model X Rev.  6.8, ensure
you can deliver it before you write the contract.  It may already be so old
you'd have to revamp your production line to make a one-off Model X; that
could cost you even more than you'd make in profit.  You did archive the
Rev.  6.8 software, right?"
   Advertising and promotion: "Who's your public?  Do you promote The Clean
Place to preschoolers?  Middle-class adults?  Affluent individuals or
families?  How do you find out who your actual public is?  Are there more
than one public for a product or service?  Can the same promotion cover all
publics?  Do you need separate lines to handle the different publics?  How
can a company find JRD so they can offer to sell themselves?"
   More items on the To Do List.
   What Human Resources covers.  Treasury and how it should be organized:
"You need an account for incoming payments.  It'll handle the checks until
they clear.  Now, when do you actually earn the money?  Is it when you
receive it or is it when you deliver the product?  Do you pay bills as soon
as they come in?  Cash or Accrual basis for accounting?  Your policies have
to fit it."
   We finished the last forty minutes up with questions and answers.  Sean
started it out with, "Now this is a lot of material to implement.  I gave
Mario a CD with PDFs for the twelve detailed manuals; it's more
cost-efficient for both of us to have you print a set.
   "Now, is it worth implementing?  All I can tell you is I've developed
over thirty retail businesses using these principles, most from scratch. 
We -- Cullen Enterprises -- have sold 20 of them at an excellent profit. 
We carry the paper on ten of the ones I've sold.  We've still got eleven we
own totally -- and we hope to sell.
   "Yeh, setting each one up was hard work.  It took time, money and
patience.  However, since the Statistics part of the Scale truly measures
how well they're performing, the ones we've financed and the ones we still
own simply send in their statistics three times a week.  We can spot
desirable and undesirable trends almost immediately then help reinforce the
desired and stomp out the undesired.
   "Since we've trained the staff on a lot of The Book, over 90% of the
time they've already taken action on a down statistic by the time they've
sent it in.  So, we're in the mode of looking at the statistics, evaluating
them and doing some oversight visits to ensure principles are in.
   "We spend two normal workdays a week running around to the eleven owned
businesses and maybe three or four hours a week reviewing statistics and
accounting data.  The financed companies take a couple hours per week
review, and we run around to them every couple months for an oversight
visit; that's all in the sales contract.
   "Among those 21 companies, we average about $120K a month pretty clear
profit.  I've single-handed it up to a week ago -- you tell me if it's
worth putting in the time."
   ------
   SEAN
   I'd say I did my job.  They ended up uncomfortable about their company;
that's what they needed so they could change.
   I saw the Hat Ladies lapping it all up.  They'd studied it all, but this
had been a summary with very leading questions designed to make the people
think.  JRD came away with a decent To Do List; I'd bet we'll be hearing
from them within a couple weeks -- or at least by summer time.
   And 12K for a day's work, not counting several hours' setup and a set of
manuals, wasn't too shabby.
   We chatted with the JRD folk as we packed up our stuff.  I asked Bob if
he knew of any physical training exercises or katas they'd developed.  I
told him what Marge was doing; he and Kat were very interested.  Kat said,
"George of course will be interested.  I agree, while Dermot and the older
young-uns are pretty well-coordinated, this would probably help a lot. 
It'll also help us older folk optimize our body control."
   Bob said he'd put it out at Monday's Clann meeting, "I'll give them the
'Sean Cullen's been thinking...' routine.  That usually leads to some
interesting stuff happening."
   Kathleen laughed.  "Yeh, you'll also get hammered with the normal
responses, too." She told us the usual reaction of the people protesting he
made them work while he sat back.  "So far, though, someone's dug in,
worked and came up with Real Good Things.  This'll probably be the same. 
We've got a somewhat similar question out there now, and this'll fit right
in."
   Since it was 5:30, it was getting dinner time.  I invited all and sundry
to the Altadena Arms for a "victory" dinner; my treat.  Bob immediately
asked about the "victory." I told him, "Victory over being comfortable. 
Uncomfortable people work hard to produce really good work and ideas." He
laughed and agreed.
   We ended up with the Hat Ladies, Madeleine and Dermot McKenna, the
Baxters (including George) along with Bob, Kat, Mario, Sherry and me.  I
called the restaurant and reserved a small room.
   We ate and talked; Bridget nursed.  Madeleine was the Global Sales
Manager while the Baxters were Regional Managers; they were right in the
middle of things and most of the questions had really hit them.
   They asked intelligent questions and made intelligent observations.  I
let the Hat Ladies handle most of the questions; it was good experience for
them and gave them some more confidence.
   Though Marge hadn't had a lot of direct business experience, she knew
how to teach effectively with leading questions, gradients and the whole
bit.  Betcha I know who I'd have make up the workshop materials!
   After dinner, I took them on a quick tour of the Arms.  Eileen spilled
the beans on Cullen Hotels then pointed out some of the The Book principles
which weren't really obvious on the surface.
   Madeleine asked, "Not to be personal, but what kind of income does this
produce?  This is pretty much a quiet, off-the-beaten-path neighborhood."
   I'd have palmed that off on Kate except she wasn't doing the Cullen
Hotels books.  I told them, "It nets around $500K a year after taxes up to
now.  I'm gonna put Eileen or Marge on figuring out how to promote the
restaurant as an outside attraction.  Right now, about 98% of the clientele
are hotel guests.  That's fine, but you'll notice the room was only about a
third full tonight and it's dinner time."
   Madeleine said, "We found a JRD company something like that.  JRD
Recording was actually utilizing only about 10% of its resources.  After a
little cleanup and renovation, plus some decent promotion a couple months
ago, it's already over doubled its production.
   "Offhand, I didn't see any outpoints in the decor, service or the food.
The prices were really reasonable for a hotel restaurant, too.  Most hotel
restaurants I've been in charge an arm, two legs and part of a boob for
barely okay food."
   Marge told them, "Over the years, I've done quite a few hotels.  I got
so I wouldn't even bother with the hotel restaurant except maybe for a
breakfast buffet if I was in a hurry.
   "As a by-the-way, we've got at least fifteen Clann Cullen folk working
here.  I think that helps overall since they tend to be very trustworthy.
Then again, with something like half of them being women, I think they're
really here hoping Sean will get in their pants.  Hehehehe."
   Argh.
   We broke up and the JRD folk ported off.  Marge said, "I'm gonna go with
George to his place for a while.  We're gonna try some hot sex!"
   Eileen and Kate immediately whispered to George and told him where her
"hot spots" were.  He laughed and said "She's a sexy tart, ain't she?"
   Marge ported us back to OTL before she left.  We hit the Jacuzzi and let
the day's stiffness from standing (me) and sitting (them) all day work out.
Eileen and Kate sat on the water jets for a while making noises.  Then they
sat on me while we all made noises -- several times.
   We hit the bed and dropped right off to sleep; it felt a bit odd not
having our smallest family member draped over us.
   We heard the shower briefly around midnight.  A few minutes later,
Bridget drifted in, latched on to Eileen's breast and nursed.  A few
minutes later she fell asleep.
Eileen: "Hot date?"
Marge: "Aye.  He kept trying to get in my panties."
   Pause.
Kate: "And it just so happened you weren't wearing any panties, right?"
Marge: "Right.  He kept after me and after me."
   Pause.
   Eileen: "Then those small bruises on the inside of your thighs are from
you fighting him off, right?"
Marge: "Right." Grin.
   Pause.
   Kate: "Remember sweety, his skull's still really soft.  You'd better not
squeeze him too hard."
Marge: "Right.  We found that out.  Fortunately we were able to push his
eyeballs back in." Grin.
They drifted off into girl-talk about young-male-body stiffies and
possible orgasms, recovery times, how strong his bones and muscles had to
be to get a finger in her twat or up her butt, using touches to enable
same, how nursing gives a strong mouth and tongue and several positions to
try next time.
   I kept out of it; I figured if they wanted my opinions, they'd tell me
what they were.  I just smiled and thought about how much I loved my sweet
ladies.
   ------
   (Monday 5/22)
   We staggered out of bed at the usual time; we had plenty to do. 
Everyone chowed down breakfast pretty good.  Marge had a good nursing and
scarfed down some solid food; she ended up with a distinct bulge in her
cute belly.
   Only a couple more steps on the teleportation training!  Now we got to
do people -- us.  We twinned up and practiced teleporting the twin's body
somewhere.  We found out the differences between being inside the body,
outside and outside with a streamer.  If we were completely outside, we
"lost" the body for several milliseconds until the connection nodes updated
the locations.  If we moved at the same time the body got ported, we had to
look for the body since both ends of the node had incorrect data.  Moral:
don't do both at the same time.
   After doing the previous steps, there were no problems at all.  When we
got to porting our own bodies, it was even easier since we knew the target
location and could update the node data on the fly.
   No, the spirit didn't actually teleport with the same mechanism, we just
moved right along with it -- if we wished.
   We finished up with group ports.  Yeh, we could all do ourselves
individually, but if we were all going to the same place, it was quicker
and easier to have one person do the honors for the rest.  That way, there
was only one person hunting around at the target location.
   The final steps were porting a moving body, either some else's or our
own to both a fixed or moving destination.  No big deal, really.  Just add
or remove the energy vector.  Several airplane bathrooms got good workouts!
   Now we were ready to rumble!  We did a quick run through the check sheet
to ensure Marge's notes were up to date.  She said she'd finalize the notes
and work them over with the other committee members on Wednesday.
   ------
   I showed the ladies how to download the wake pictures from the digital
cameras; there were several hundred.  Using the notes the young-uns had
made, we put each person's in a separate directory on the server.
   With a bit of training for the ladies, we swept through them, picked the
"best" ones, did some crops and edits then printed them on photo paper.  We
stuffed each set in a separate envelope with the person's name then laid
them out on the dining-room table.
   Time-consuming, yes.  Next time we'd probably be able to trim the time
down by at least a third.
   Teresa told us the wedding invitations were ready.  She'd pick them up
then Maura and she would meet us at OTL around 2:00.  I told her, "We've
got a lawyer's appointment at 12:30 so if we're not here, come right on in.
The Jacuzzi's ready if you are."
   We had a quick bite for lunch then headed to Ladies' Leather.  Jim, his
lawyer and our lawyer were all ready.  The Hat Ladies and I scrutinized the
contracts, asked a couple questions then Jim and I signed.  Cullen
Enterprises would carry the financing; Kate made a note on the expected due
date (direct ACH deposit) and it was a done deal!  To Do List: Get the
other ten businesses ready to sell.
   ------
   EILEEN
   We got back to OTL in good time, stripped down and slid into the
Jacuzzi. Maura and Teresa rolled in and joined us.
   Lots of catch up.  We girls scooted down to make our boobs float; Sean
immediately came alert, made the rounds and ensured all nipples were
acceptably perky, including Margie's.
   Between moans and groans, Teresa said, "The invitations look great!  We
had 600 printed up, just in case.  I know we've added quite a few to the
list since we first went over it."
   Kate "mentioned" Margie's hot date.  Maura and Teresa immediately
demanded details so we gossiped while ensuring the water jets still worked
properly.  Margie had the problem she was too short to sit on one with her
head above water.  She made do with getting passed around to various gentle
fingers and mouths.  Good thing we had the sound shield up!
   Back to work!  We bailed out of the Jacuzzi, had a quick shower then
went after the wedding invitations.
   Sean had added the wake invitees to his database, so he simply fed the
invitations and the envelopes through the printer with his handwriting
font. We girls got the job of stuffing the envelopes.  No big deal with
five of us.
   We laid the ones going to Olive Tree Lane on the dining room table; if
there were pictures for the person, it got matched to the pile.  These we'd
deliver by hand that afternoon.
   We put stamps on the rest (the "personal touch"); Kate did the honors
and teleported them to the post office outgoing mail.  Any of the pictures
going outside Olive Tree Lane, Maura ran through the postage meter.  I got
the honor of porting them to the post office.
   Total time, 2 hours.  Not too bad!
   Now we had time to talk a bit.  Teresa had a real good draft of the
Clann Cullen customs, both public and private.
   The public publication had a Clann history as well as containing the
Ceann's hereditary aspect and some of his public duties such as handling
disputes, "blessing" marriages and other helpful functions.  It covered the
blood, marriage, associated and invited membership current rules -- with
some of the background history behind them.
   The contingencies for the hereditary Ceann were laid out too.  Hell,
they took up two pages!  Maybe we'd have our lawyer look at it; we'd
probably left something out.
   The private customs publication was quite a bit different.  It covered
the anything-goes-if-it's-consensual concept and laid out the honoring
custom with mutual consent, emphasising the consent.  As a long appendix,
Teresa had laid out the origination of the custom and how it had changed
over the years.
   Kate asked, "So how are you looking at 'distributing' the private
customs?"
   Teresa laughed, "Bush telegraph for now.  I'm gonna have a good talk
with Rosheen Kelly.  Of course I'll emphasise the confidential nature, but
she talks with a lot of Clann people.
   "If Sean approves the content, Mona's gonna publish the web site on
Wednesday.  It'll have the public customs like we see them here and a hint
at contacting Rosheen for our 'secret' customs.  I'd say we do a mailing
pretty soon to all the Clann addresses we have to promote the web site.
   "Once these wedding invitations hit the mail, we'll know in a week or so
which addresses to correct; we asked for address correction service on them
for that very reason.
   "If we get ambitious, which we probably will, let's have a couple big
Clann meetings to promote both the web site and the customs.  Maybe we'll
have some of the lineages worked up by then so folk can add information;
that'll help the project.
   "Rosheen's already agreed to work on the genealogy; she has an elderly
computer with a dial-up Internet connection, but it'll do for right now."
   Sean said, "Sounds great!  The lawyer should have our Clann
incorporation papers ready pretty soon.  When they're ready, we can create
a bank account then be able to handle a lot of costs as a deductible
contribution.
   "We'll get Rosheen a modern system and a DSL connection; any of the
other young-uns interested in this sort of stuff?"
   "Oh, yeh.  All four of them are bumping elbows to get on the two systems
we have now."
   "Great!  How about as an early whatever present, I get each of them a
good laptop.  I'll have Mario and Marge set you all up on a wireless
network along with a good-sized file server; since your places are right
next door to each other, there shouldn't be any issues.  You got room for a
couple printers?"
   "We can make room.  What do you have in mind?"
   "A color laserjet at each place.  Fry's has smaller ones than this one
so they won't take up much space.  That'll handle Clann stuff -- which
we'll pay for -- plus homework and other stuff."
   "They're all very responsible even now, with their memories coming back.
We haven't had any issues on anything since they got outside last Saturday
-- they've been getting better every day!"
   "Good.  That'll give a good excuse for installing the network.  I'll
toss in a system each for the four Moms and Pops; if you're happy with what
you have now, you'll have some spares."
   Kate laughed and told them, "Seems to me Sean will deserve a Soo Laid
from the Nolans and Bardons after that."
   Maura, Teresa, Kate and I looked at each other.  "Hmm.  Good idea."
   I told them, "On the other hand, Margie, Kate and I haven't been able to
wear him out in a night.  Maybe it'll take all ten of us gals."
   Sean just looked around innocently.  He said, "I'm not in really good
shape right now; you gals would probably kill me."
   Kate snorted and said, "Fat chance.  A couple of those grand slams you
hit put me away for a good day and a half."
   Maura and Teresa were immediately interested in grand slams.  We started
in on home runs and Journeys then Sean cleared his throat quietly and said,
"Sounds like an interesting topic for a middle-of-the-night hen party, but
we've gotta get some daytime work done."
   We thought of pummeling him a bit, but he'd probably be able to take us
all on.  He was right, though.  We agreed on a social secretary meeting at
1:00 tomorrow morning.
I tried to get the discussion back on topic.  "After Mary's fertility
rite, Sean remembered many times when he was Ceann.  Maura, Teresa, you
have any Clann Cullen memories?"
   They looked thoughtful for a few seconds.  Maura said, "At least fifteen
times right now."
   Teresa volunteered she had around a dozen.  She said, "I'll ask the rest
of the family, too.  Now then, since those memories are there, they would
be an excellent source of past customs and history.  Sean, you're elected
to transcribe what you remember and we will too.  Send it to me when you've
got some.  We'll do the same.
   "These can be pretty much anything.  Housing, housing arrangement,
household and village setup, clothing, weapons, training, education, crop
layout, hunting, war tactics and war parties -- not just the
women-screwing. We'll do the same, and I'll see if I can sort them out so
they make some sense."
   Made sense.  Margie, Kate and I said we'd do the same.  So far as we
knew, Margie and I weren't in the Cullen lineage, but who knew until we
looked?  Kate said she'd been told she was related and that she'd look,
too.
   All right!  Something to do in the night besides screw.  Not that it
would slow down the screwing at all...
   I brought up the Shane gang.  "You've met Shane, Celia and Jack.  How
about we make them the first ones we invite to the Core?"
   We agreed unanimously.  I got "elected" to do the presentation since I'd
been around Sharon the longest.  To Do List: Wednesday?
   Sean told Maura and Teresa, "We're getting a full email system set up
this Saturday.  We're gonna have email, calendar, tasks, all that stuff. 
We'll probably assign Margie as the administrator since she goofs off so
much otherwise."
   Margie laughed.  "Well, that stuff seems to come to me okay.  I've gotta
do a lot of those kinda things because I can't be a public person.  Gotta
earn my money somehow.  By the way, Mom, how about my allowance?"
   I poked her a couple times and said, "Feel lucky I feed you so you don't
have to go scavenging."
   We got a decent chuckle over it.
   That was about it.  Margie told the Cullen Sisters, "We've gotten
through the teleportation checklist just fine.  The committee'll be making
the final polish pass at it Real Soon Now then get it to you ASAP."
   We sent them on their way and got ready to do the rounds on the
neighbors.  Business casual; Kate and I even wore bras so we wouldn't look
like loose women.
   We'd decided to cover this block; we had the invitations and pictures
for anyone on it.  Since we'd laid out the invitations and pictures on the
dining room table, we'd just port the appropriate set to us as needed.
   We visited the entire block.  Nana would fill us in again on what she
knew about a family/person, check the table for pictures and an invitation,
get them as needed then go up and do our spiel.
   We'd introduce ourselves (Kate was a "special friend." Nary an eyebrow
was raised) and said we'd be living there now.  We gave them a quick
rundown on being part of an Irish Clann so we'd be having some meetings
there on occasion.
   If they were getting pictures or an invitation we'd hand it over then
maybe chat a little.  We gave them a card with our names and numbers so
they could get a hold of us if they needed.  On to the next one.
   We took most of the late afternoon and early evening with a dinner
break. I did the honors for dinner and ported us to the Sizzler in
Pasadena. Piece of cake; just look around real good for eyeballs or cameras
before you do it.
   ------
   We made a late visit to Rosheen's apartment to pick up the rest of
Kate's clothes.  Before she could stop him.  Sean gave her another good
going over -- she loved it!
   While Kate gathered stuff and ported it home, Sean and I talked with
Rosheen about doing the genealogy research on Clann Cullen and on Kate's
and my line.  She was more than happy to add us to the Clann Cullen stuff.
She'd already surfed around a little to various sites and had been thinking
about it.
   Now it could be an actual project.  Kate told her, "As soon as the
incorporation papers come through, we'll get the bank account set up and
get you some money; it'll help with the rent next month.  Right?"
   Sean told her we'd be setting her up with a faster Internet connection
soon.  We ensured she had Mona's and Teresa's numbers so they could get
together for more plotting and planning.
   ------
   SEAN
   Some Real Good Things going on.  Looks like I'd have my hands full with
the detail manual updates and the customs transcriptions.  I could do a lot
of that in the night when the ladies cut me off.  I decided to wait a bit
on the detail manuals; maybe the documentation consultant Thursday would
have a better way of setting them up.
   Kate asked, "What do we take tomorrow to Mesa?"
   I told them, "Basically your beautiful bodies.  Blouses with skirts or
slacks; hats and a small purse.  We probably won't need anything else, but
we'll port it over if we do.
   "Be prepared to do some walking on grass or sand so have wide heels on
your shoes.  Look like a successful business woman.  We're gonna do the
Seagull Consultant routine."
   Of course someone bit.  Marge asked, "Whazzat?"
   "Fly in.  Crap all over.  Fly out."
   Good for a decent laugh.  Eileen asked why we were doing the airplane
bit when we could port over.
   "One step at a time.  a) we didn't know we'd be at this stage when I set
up the visit and b) we all need to have the first-hand experience at what
we'd go through if we flew a lot.  Besides, part of it could be fun."
   They still made several attempts to find out what Mesa was about; even
going so far as threatening to cut me off if I didn't tell.  I just grinned
and said, "Time will tell.  If needed, I'm sure Mona would let me spend
several nights with her; maybe Maura or Teresa would take pity on me."
   They pretended to glare and growl but laughed anyway.
   We sent Kate off to school while the rest of us went to the Clann
Reynolds meeting.  Bob told the group I'd been thinking and got the ration
of shit back he'd told me to expect.  I let Marge take the heat while she
explained what we needed and wanted.
   Dayum, she brought up the Israeli Krav Maga (dirty street fighting). 
Sounded good to me.  Bob put in a twist at the end; can we come up with a
technology to record and play back body perceptions?  Can we save and play
back spirit-pictures and sensations?  Verry interressting!
   Chapter 19
   EILEEN{br} (Tuesday 5/23)
   The Clann Cullen social secretaries met at 1:00 in the morning.  We'd
sent Sean off to chase up some rainbows and find a couple pots of gold;
this wasn't his business -- yet.
   We tried to pump Maura and Teresa about what was in Mesa; they claimed
ignorance.  "I guess if he'd wanted you to know, he'd have told you.  All
we really know is there was a major project there he spent several months
on.  He went to do a seminar in late December, came back here for the
holidays then went back again until late April.  We couldn't get much out
of him ourselves."
   Oh, well, still a mystery.
   We gave them the info on home runs, grand slams and Journeys.  They both
said, "We need to schedule ourselves again.  Since we're part of the social
secretaries, we need to abuse the right."
   Looking over who was in the queue for new Clann members, we found the
Shane Gang, Jackie, and the Keavys.  The Shane Gang was ready.  The rest of
us had looked them over and Kate figured we could invite them to the Clann
maybe Wednesday.  Depended on the schedule.
   We were enhancing the Keavys and Jackie.  We already had an appointment
for a social meeting with the Keavys on Wednesday.  Margie'd been pumping
up their power slowly, and by then we expected them to be able to pop right
out; they were already talking with each other a bit.
   Jackie was stirring around pretty good, too.  Maybe we could get
together with her Wednesday.  If all went well, we'd invite her to Tavern
night on Friday.  If she was okay, we could invite her over the weekend. 
More people for the Core!
   We finally got to the honorings.  Teresa said, "I suggest we do a quick
probe run through everyone we've got on our wedding invitation list.  It
has everyone we know of right now.  Let's check for Talent and
contributions to the Clann.
   "If they've got Talent, start enhancing them -- maybe a few at a time.
That'll expand the Core as well as making the Clann stronger.
   "During or after that, I'd say we do the honoring mainly by their Core
membership, Clann contributions and by their closeness to the Ceann's blood
lines.  Some combination of those should give us a decent hierarchy of
importance.
   "If they're Core, they go to the top of the list; it'll make the Core
more solid.  Since the Talent really helps their effectiveness, it'll help
the Clann a lot, too."
   Made a lot of sense to me.  Kate pointed out her slight hesitancy to
participate because of her inexperience.  Maura gave a good spirit-snort.
"Shit, girl.  You're a Ceann-Mate; if a guy or gal got the worst lay
they've ever had, they'd still love it.  Remember, we're talking the high
honoring here where you fuck their socks off, not just a little groping and
necking.
   "They'll take anything as an honoring.  Even the acknowledgement they
exist like a smile and a nice greeting is honoring them; it doesn't have to
be sexual.
   "Eileen's a slightly different story.  Since she plans on getting
pregnant ASAP, let's get her married with a bun firmly in the oven before
she starts doing anything; that's a good reason to have Kate in the mix. 
This way, there's no doubt in anyone's mind anywhere it's not the Ceann's
child."
   ------
   We were on the earliest flight to Phoenix, so we had to get up early. 
Groan.  Fortunately, the bodies sleep very well when we're outside so they
were as fresh and bright as could be expected.
   Before we left for the airport, I got on the airline's web site and
printed out our electronic tickets.  One less hassle because we didn't have
to go through the ticket line.
   We took the Volvo to the airport.  Sean told us, "It'll be in the
parking lot all day so it'll be less conspicuous than the BMW.  Even at
that, we'll put a shield around -- it'll even stop a thief."
   We carried Bridget in her car seat/carrier; Sean had told us we were
taking a taxi at the other end and a safety seat was required.  No sweat.
Margie just lightened everything up to weigh just a couple pounds.
   The wait in the security line was a drag; it took a good half hour just
to get to the metal detectors.  Take off your shoes, belt, all that crap. I
had to carry Bridget through the detector while her carrier went through
the x-ray.
   Then we had to put everything together and on again.  Pain in the butt!
   We waited around the gate for another forty-five minutes.  Okay, I
guess. We people-watched most of the time and commented to each other about
them.
   We spotted some Talent.  Shamelessly invading their privacies, we
inspected them pretty good.  Nice.  One was from North Hollywood and one
from Pasadena.  Kate noted their names and addresses; we'd turn the North
Hollywood one over to Bob and investigate the Pasadena one ourselves.  Both
were nice people even if neither was Irish.  Grin.
   Since we were in first class, we got the first boarding.  Sean carried
Bridget -- fully in her wonderfully-behaved-baby persona waving and smiling
at everyone -- and I hauled the carrier along.  Kate and I had brought very
small purses with our identification etc.  along with the diaper bag.
   Kate carried the diaper bag.  No diapers in it any more, but it had baby
food, a couple spare panties and other baby stuff for appearances.  At
least the security folk hadn't confiscated the baby food.
   The boarding gate put us out on the tarmac where we walked a little ways
and climbed some stairs to the airplane.  One of the attendants claimed the
carrier to store it away.  Better than one of us trying to get it in the
overhead.
   We'd gotten in the same row at least.  Sean had the window seat next to
Kate on the aisle.  Bridget and I got the window seat on the other side
where she sat in my lap, chortled and waved at everyone going by.
   Our Pasadena Talent got the aisle next to us!  As soon as she got
settled, Bridget was all over her.  We introduced ourselves while Bridget
did her full baby shtick.
   Pretty much everyone called Betty (Elizabeth) Bright "BB." She was the
oldest of three siblings so was used to handling babies.  She teared up a
little from Bridget's attentions and confessed she wanted kids of her own.
   She was 27, single (as were the other two siblings), unattached and
lived in Pasadena.  She had her BBA just like me and had worked at JPL (Jet
Propulsion Laboratory) in Human Resources the past five years.
   That exchange took only a couple minutes; the rest of the passengers
were lined up in the aisles waiting to seat themselves so I couldn't
introduce Kate and Sean yet.  So, we settled in and got to know each other
while Bridget napped on her shoulder.
   She was going to Phoenix for a college class reunion.  "I've read all
sorts of stories about reunions.  Fortunately, the people I knew in college
were all pretty laid-back.  We didn't have many cliques or snobbery so I
don't think we'll have any one-upmanship going on.  I've done okay."
   Finally everyone got seated.  The attendants did their spiel about the
seat belts, exits and seat cushions -- pretty familiar after movies.  I
introduced BB to Kate and Sean; they smiled brightly at her.  We'd already
decided to attempt to "bring her into the fold."
   The attendant had me hold Bridget in my lap for the taxiing and
take-off. She laughed, waved her arms and legs around and had a great time.
   The takeoff was a bit noisy and we could feel the acceleration.  No big
deal.  Sean told us, "Open and close your jaws a few times while wiggling
your ears.  That'll help equalize the pressure change across your
eardrums."
   Old hat to Margie but new to Kate and me.  BB'd flown before so was
accustomed to the pressure changes.
   Dayum, it felt like we were going up at 45 degrees at least!  There were
a few bounces and such but no big deal.  Bridget and I watched out the
window while everything got smaller.  Sure, we'd all "seen" it while
exploring but it still was new -- and fun.
   BB marveled a bit at how well Bridget took everything.  Kate told her,
"She's really a special young lady.  It seems we discover more talents in
her every day."
   That led into the discussion about our relationships.  BB took our
three-some without a blink or extraneous thought.  She loved our claddagh
rings.  She had a few interesting private thoughts about Bridget's but
nothing nasty.
   She was very interested in our business relationship inside Cullen
Enterprises.  After I gave her a business card, she said, "Oh, yeh!  I've
heard about the Hat Man.  Ginny and James both work in his businesses.  So,
now I can tell them I've hobnobbed with the big wigs!  I should have
recognized you all from your hats.  Bridget, how do you keep yours on?"
   Bridget just laughed at her and blinked her eyes.  Kate told BB, "Just a
bit of Irish magic.  In case you haven't noticed, we're Irish; she must
have picked up something from a leprechaun sometime."
   BB didn't look very convinced but didn't say much.  She just thought,
"Yeh, right.  These guys are a bit, uh, advanced."
   Well, we could help her out with that.  Margie'd already put a
connection node to her and was pumping power lightly.
   We talked about JPL.  She told us, "Since it's actually run by Cal Tech,
the place is like a college campus.  Everyone's actually Cal Tech
employees; another girl and I are up there as liaisons.  We don't actually
do a whole lot, just changes in benefits, W-4 changes, that sort of stuff."
   She enjoyed the atmosphere, was happy with being in a leading-edge
industry but had been getting a bit antsy the last year or so.  She really
wanted to do more with herself.  Hmm.  Definite prospect for Cullen
Enterprises staff.
   She asked why we were going to Phoenix.  Kate, Bridget and I glared at
Sean and told her, "Something to do with business.  Sean refuses to say
exactly what -- maybe it's a cat house or something." Sean tried to look
innocent while BB laughed at us.
   The air time was a bit over an hour so by the time BB'd gotten really
relaxed with us, we were on the ground after a small bump and some tire
squeals.
   Taxi some more, wait for the ladder, get Bridget's carrier back then
file out and into the terminal.  We arranged with BB to give her a call
after she got back to Pasadena to set up another meeting with her.  She was
quite happy about it.  After a final round of hugs, Kate, Margie and I
watched her check out Sean's butt as we left.
   ------
   Okay, now we're in Phoenix.  We got in the taxi line, waited a couple
minutes then took off with Bridget settled in her car seat.  Sean handed
the driver a business card.  The driver said, "Yep.  Know exactly where it
is; I've taken several people there."
   Mesa appeared to be fifteen or twenty minutes from the airport.  It was
sunny and pretty warm with lots of desert.  Altadena had been a bit cooler
but not so desert-like.  Guess this was high desert.
   The taxi pulled in a driveway by a sign saying, "Waystation 1." Okay. 
We pulled up to a large low building.  Kate said, "It looks like a school."
   Sean told us, "It was an elementary school.  There was a lot of
redistricting and that sort of stuff so it was 'surplus.' We got it cheap."
   There were young kids (pre-school-age) on the playground and quite a few
adults around.
   Sean paid the taxi driver, got a receipt then led us inside.  The
receptionist was an elderly lady; her eyes lit up, she laughed, came around
the desk and laid a big hug on him.
   Sean hugged her right back and told her, "Alice, this is my fiancee,
Eileen McLennan, our special friend Kate Hanlon and Eileen's daughter
Margaret.  They're Hat Ladies now."
   Alice laughed again and asked, "Will you be as hard to please as Sean?"
   I passed Bridget over for some baby lovin' and told her, "Probably. 
We'll find out when we know a little more about what's going on." We glared
at him.  "He hasn't told us a thing about this place."
   Alice grinned.  "Sounds like him.  He likes to tease.  Anyway, Vera
Leonard is probably the one to tell you; she's been here from the start. 
I'll give her a call to tell her you've arrived."
   She made a call then gave us some stick-on guest badges with our names.
The title was Very Special Visitor.
   Vera was a middle-aged lady with a CEO sign on her office door.  She was
ready for Sean and laid a big hug and kiss on him -- which he returned
promptly.  She told him, "You've been gone a whole month, Sean!  I'd almost
given up hope of seeing that silly hat again." She looked us over quickly,
laughed and said, "Now their hats aren't silly."
   Of course we inspected her a bit; she had a nice dose of Talent!  While
Sean was returning her greetings, he told us, "Eileen, how about you start
pumping her up pretty quickly.  I'd like to have her outside by 1:00."
   No problem with that; it was almost automatic by now.  Sean introduced
us and we got nice hugs from her.  Bridget laid a good baby-love on her and
she teared up.  She told us, "I'm so glad to see you here.  Sean ran
himself ragged for months; he really can use help."
   We grinned at her.  Kate said, "He's already working our tails off. 
He's even got Bridget scrubbing floors.  Now, what exactly is here?  Sean
hasn't told us a thing except it's a business of some sort."
   Vera glanced at Sean.  He waved an "It's your story" at her.
   She said, "Sounds like him at times.  Have a seat and I'll give you a
quick overview."
   We got settled.  Alice brought us sodas while Bridget napped on Vera's
shoulder.  Vera told us, "It started late last December.  Sean put on a
Small Retail Business seminar which I came to -- I was looking for
something beyond a standard job."
   "Anyway, I got stranded after the seminar.  I was the last one out and
found I'd left my purse inside.  Sean had shut the door after us and we
were locked out.
   "No keys, no cell phone, nada.  Sean took me home and we talked on the
way.  We laughed a little about my getting stranded then he asked a key
question, 'How many people do you think get stranded in Mesa and Phoenix
with no place to go?'
   "We guessed quite a few.  Hell, I got pregnant in high school -- many
years ago -- and my folks kicked me out.  I literally had no place to go.
The father lived way the hell the other side of town and had already told
me it was 'my problem.' We kinda lived out in the sticks so it was miles
from any of my girl friends.
   "I spent the night freezing my butt off behind a bush waiting for
someone to come along, rape me and kill me.  Not a fun night at all.
   "Anyway, the next morning my dad came looking for me, and we got back
together.  I stayed in high school, had my baby after I graduated then
later found a nice man who loved both me and my son.  My son's ready to
graduate himself this year.  I've always remembered that night -- the fear,
panic and uncertainty.
   "Larry, my husband, is an investment banker and as a family we're in
decent financial condition so I don't have to work to make ends meet.  Our
son -- and later, two daughters together -- are bright, talented and no
trouble.  I'd worked off and on here and there but really hadn't found
anything I wanted to do for a long time.  That's why I went to Sean's
seminar.
   "We got together the next day for lunch.  Sean knew I was looking for
something so he basically asked, 'What are we going to do about this?'"
   Her husband had known about her night "on the town" years before and was
interested in helping too.  They set up Sean in her home office and they
started researching statistics.  After a week of research, they came up
with idea of a waystation.  Not a homeless shelter or soup kitchen but a
place where someone temporarily distressed could come for help.  It wasn't
an alcohol or drug rehab center, either.
   Vera and Larry had lived in Phoenix and Mesa for over thirty years so
they knew the area pretty well.  At Sean's suggestion, they went around to
most of the community churches with the idea.
   They'd gotten agreement from six churches to support the idea.  Since
the churches were already tax-exempt, they could easily set up a joint
tax-exempt organization.
   She told us, "Sean worked the Phoenix and Mesa governments over pretty
good.  They already had a homeless problem and had a pretty good idea what
the mix was.  They figured a good 50% were hardcore homeless and the others
were on the streets through various bad luck or unfortunate circumstances.
   "It's probably the same in California.  Can't get a job without a home
address and can't get a place to stay without a job.  Lots of the homeless
were in that condition and many had young children to handle.  You can
guess it was a mess.
   "The city governments were handling things as best they could with their
limited time and budgets.  Many churches had small outreach programs and
were doing what they could on a case-by-case basis.  This would get some
organization in.
   "Sean did ninety percent of the grunt work.  He found this school had
been 'surplused' because of its age and the redistricting.  He got Mesa to
lease it, found state and federal grants, did a tremendous amount of fund
raising and helped us start it up."
   The place had needed renos.  Sean found contractors and other volunteers
to donate their time and materials.  Since it was a tax-exempt organization
from the start, it had worked out pretty good.
   Vera said, "Sean even managed to work with the city courts.  There's
lots of cases where the judge assigns community service in lieu of a fine
or jail time.  We got a lot of people that way -- and still do.
   "So, what we've basically got is a short to medium term organization to
help get people on their feet.  Someone can show up for two nights with no
questions asked; singles, single parents with kids or full families.  I'd
say 30% of our population are very short-term.
   "We've got fifteen unwed mothers in our medium-term program.  Twelve are
still in high school -- their parents disowned them.  Ten are still going
to school every day; the other two are getting their GEDs.  We've got an
entire computer lab set up just for job searching and on-line education.
   "There's three high-school-aged pregnant couples whose folks kicked them
out.  We're working with their families, but so far it doesn't look good.
They are all still going to school for now.  One couple is in their
sophomore year.  They're bright and are looking really hard at getting
their GED and filing for emancipation.
   "We've got three or four people who are staying with friends and come
here in the evening to study.  No problem with that.
   "We've got a working arrangement with almost all the taxi services in
the area.  They'll bring someone here and either donate the fee or we'll
pay for the trip.
   "We work pretty closely with Children's Services.  Especially the older
ones, they can stay here a couple days easily with little additional
supervision.  We'd take younger ones if we had 24/7 child care, but we
haven't gotten to that yet.
   "Sean's been in the middle all the way.  He's given three of his
seminars and donated half his profits -- about $300K.  He's drywalled,
wired, computerized -- donated systems -- set up a huge network and
ramrodded pretty much everything including doing lots of counseling and
training counselors.
   "We've got around 200 'clients', 50 full-time staff and around 25
part-time staff, either volunteer or community service.  We figure there's
room to handle up to 600 clients and expand the staff to 75 or so
full-timers with 30 to 50 part-time volunteers including the
community-service folk.
   "We run the place by The Book, and it's worked out wonderfully."
   Jaysus!  Kate, Bridget and I piled on Sean with hugs and kisses.  After
we settled down a little, I told Vera, "I was almost in that condition
myself.  When my husband died, it was me and Bridget.  I was working retail
-- run by The Book by the way -- and if I hadn't been able to keep Bridget
with me all day, in a very short time I couldn't have afforded to keep an
apartment and day care at the same time.
   "I've got a degree but would have had no way to do efficient job
hunting. Fortunately, Sean came along before all that happened and he took
us in.  Now we're working together and are engaged.  We were within a
couple weeks of being on the street ourselves."
   Vera smiled and said, "Then you've got a pretty good idea what most of
our clients are up against.  How about you, Kate?"
   Kate thought a moment then said, "My parents died when I was a sophomore
in high school.  My aunt took me in so I didn't have to go the foster care
route.  Sean's Clann Cullen helped me find a place to live with another
clann member when my aunt died.  I was close to that situation but managed
to avoid it.  I can feel your pain, though."
   We chatted another half hour, agreed to meet for lunch then Sean led us
away for an oversight tour.  "You folk know The Book.  Look for pluspoints
and outpoints.  Any questions, ask."
   He showed us the Organizing Board outside Vera's office.  After a couple
minutes study, we had a good idea of who did what with and to whom and what
each department produced.
   The security office was right next door.  Everyone had an electronic
badge; even the kids had a pin-on badge with their name and the parent's
names.  They controlled access to the computer labs, cafeteria and berthing
areas with the badges.  Sean said, "It's actually not so much for the
organization but the clients have a much better feeling about having their
kids or spouse in an area with at least some protection.
   "We have a night-time security patrol -- donated by the local security.
The day-time security handles our fixed assets and computer tracking."
   There was a room full of shelves and racks with clothes.  "Most people
arrive with only the clothes on their backs.  We can do loaners while they
wash clothes in the laundry next door or an outright grant if the clothes
are too bad.
   "For job interviews, we've got dressier clothes and shoes.  Almost
everything's donated in some way or other.  Lots of manufacturers send
stuff here rather than to their outlet stores.  The lady here keeps track
of the loaners and who got what; it keeps in accountability.  If she needs
something special, she can usually get it in a day.  Bras are the
most-frequently needed articles since they seem to be so individual."
   Lots of people seemed to know Sean.  He introduced us everywhere.  The
cafeteria was clean and bright.  He took us into the kitchen.  One man
spotted us and said, "Sean!  You're back for dishwashing duty!"
   Sean laughed, shook his hand and said, "Maybe we'll come in after lunch.
These ladies need to learn how to run an industrial line."
   The kitchen was definitely commercial.  The head cook told us, "We serve
a good 600 meals a day out of here.  We can ramp up to a couple thousand
with more staff." The majority of the food was donated or came from state
and federal sources.
   Sean said, "Most of the community service people spend a couple days in
here.  We've even had a few volunteer to spend all their time.  Two have
then found positions in commercial kitchens."
   The computer lab had about 50 computer stations.  There was a
maintenance room off it with computers in various stages of disassembly. 
Sean said, "Volunteers with one full-time staff.  Usually the volunteers
are high-school folk who have some hardware knowledge.  We get donations of
old computers, fix them up, put on Linux and several open-source
applications and put them out into the lab.
   "There's a dozen Windows XP systems so people can run through a course
on it and become familiar with the interface and programs.  There's courses
in basic finance like keeping and balancing a checkbook and budgeting.  Got
a brief overview of income taxes so they're at least aware of some
fundamentals."
   The computer lab had on-line (CD or DVD or via the network) courses in
operating systems, MS Office, OpenOffice (open-source), QuickBooks Pro and
other business programs.  The ones working on their GEDs did the online
parts here.  There was a classroom next door with an evening supervisor for
the book learning.
   If someone was interested, there was a course for The Book.  Sean said,
"I put that in during March.  There's one couple already looking at
starting their own business -- they're doing grant research for it."
   Big gym/auditorium with basketball hoops and pull-out bleachers.  Sean
said, "I did the last seminar here.  Worked out just fine."
   There were men's, women's and couples berthing on the second floor.  For
singles, they were dormitory style.  Sean commented, "Not a lot of privacy
but no one really complains." Couples had small rooms with doors.  "Not
soundproofed.  Bet there's a lot of pillow-biting."
   Singles or couples with kids either had kid beds or the kids slept with
the parent.  Sean told us, "We've got three gay and two lesbian couples. 
They've got couples rooms.  There's been no gay-bashing or other stuff,
either.  Everyone knows -- and is told -- everyone here is in the same
boat.
   "We've had several relationships sprout up.  If a couple becomes
formally engaged we try to get a couples room for them.  If we run out of
couples rooms, they have to go back to their individual dorms.  There's
three engaged couples now; one with a newborn and the other two with one on
the way.  That's 'on the way' from before they got here.
   "Birth control and planned parenthood counseling is free.  For some, it
was too late but at least now they know how it happened, not just 'the
stork brought it.'"
   The second floor had community bathrooms.  Obviously they'd added lots
of showers during the renos because they looked completely modern.  "We're
not up to unisex bathrooms yet, but that may come."
   There was a good-sized daycare center with room for up to 50 kids.  Sean
said, "We can expand it as needed.  Most of the children are here during
the day.  Occasionally, we've got someone working an evening or night job
so there's a few during those hours."
   If a couple went on a "date" they could leave a child there if there was
already another one.  Most of the time, some other client would baby sit.
   The local Transport Authority had put in a stop right in front of the
Waystation.  Clients had free bus passes (monthly).  All the students rode
the bus to and from school.  Since the busses ran from 6:00 in the morning
to midnight, at least 95% of the clients' transportation was handled.  Not
as convenient as having a car but tough darts!
   There was a six-station unisex hair salon.  Sean told us, "Three local
beauty schools authorize this for their internships.  We also have short
courses in makeup and other appearance-oriented skills like color matching,
hygiene and social manners.  By the time someone's ready to go on a
position interview, they're usually pretty well-trained in something, know
how to comport themselves and look decent."
   There was a decent-sized medical clinic.  There was an R.N.  on call
24/7; a family doctor came in for four hours three times a week.  Most of
the "cases" were usually child-related like a scrape or scratch, ear
infection and the like.  There was a nutrition and diet course available as
well as an ongoing Red Cross first aid course.
   There were three social gathering areas.  One was quiet and somewhat dim
for chatting (and probably light snogging).  Another was for board games,
card games and the like while the last had several good-sized televisions.
Sean said, "Donated cable.  We do an occasional movie, but we encourage
more educational stuff like Discovery Channel, History Channel and PBS.  In
fact, we're lining up a local telethon for the Waystation."
   Sean told us, "Remember The Book says to get in construction, fire and
zoning codes so you have the minimum hassles with the local government. 
One of the first things we did before we started the renos was to get the
Fire Marshall and County Health people in.  We ran a modern fire sprinkler
and alarm system and got the kitchen upgraded a bit.  It was a lot easier
to do it then.  The Fire Marshal comes out once a week for inspection --
she gives a little lecture and demo on fire safety and handling small
fires.
   "The County Health agent has given us an A every time so far.  He's been
able to point out a lot of potentially unsafe areas and practices.  One of
the last things we want is to get shut down even temporarily because of
major fire or health outpoint.
   "The zoning wasn't even an issue.  It was already zoned properly for
what we needed.  We get free utilities since we're part of the government
organization to a great degree."
   ------
   Lunch time with Vera.  I'd been upping her power level every half hour
and she'd already been picking up thoughts and emotions.  Good on her!
   We took off to lunch in her car (Sean's treat).  We discussed a lot of
subjects from local schools, gangs, municipal governments to Medicare.  By
the time lunch was done, she was already talking pretty well with us.  She
was almost not surprised.  "If Sean's involved, something strange and
wonderful is gonna happen."
   Back in her office, she held her calls for a while as we got her
outside. We gave her the "instant hat" on movement, inspection, probes and
shields (in and out).  We alerted the N&B young-uns they had a new one to
train.  We introduced Vera to them; they made an appointment to meet with
her that evening.
   We introduced her to Margaret and Nana.  That she was impressed with. 
Kate told her, "Mona will tell you all about that.  There's some other
stories they'll probably spin, too.  The more outlandish, the more probable
they're true."
   We left her in her office contemplating her new freedoms while we went
outside.  Dayum it was hot; probably 10 or 20 degrees warmer than what we
were used to.
   Anyway, we took a spin around the building.  The little bit of grass was
watered with recycled water.  A gardening service came in once a week for a
quick cleanup; most of the time the community service people gave it a cut
with the maintenance engineer supervising (not a janitor though he did do
lots of cleaning).  If he didn't have someone "sharp" enough to control the
mower, the gardening service cut it -- and charged the entire thing off as
a charitable contribution!
   A lot of the front and back was desert-decorated with cactus, rocks and
bushes.  Sean said, "Hey, it's a desert!  Does grass usually grow on a
desert?  The small plot of grass is just decoration."
   The playground and parking lot surfaces seemed in decent repair.  There
were a couple small holes here and there in the parking lot, but the lines
and concrete stops were in good shape.
   The small basketball court was paved, but the rest of the playground was
sand.  There seemed to be plenty of it around.  Everything was clean as a
whistle; in most parks in L.A., I could see litter, old bottle tops and
that sort of stuff.  Sean told us, "Our community service folk again.  They
did a major pass through the playground and sifted the sand down a foot
deep.
   "We do a cleaning run on the outside three times a week.  Litter does
get blown in.  You'll notice around the trash dumpsters it's clean, too. 
Our community service people get a good work out."
   There was the start of a paved bike trail leading off both ways behind
the playground.  It was part of a city-maintained network of cycle paths.
   Kate asked, "Sean, how long was this place vacant before you got working
on it?"
   He told us, "About six months.  Plenty of time to get trashed out pretty
good and several windows broken.  There were a couple local gangs who'd
made it their smoke and dope hangout.  After a couple, em, attitude
adjustments, we get along just fine.  They don't come around any more and
we don't chase them."
   I grinned at him and said, "I suppose those attitude adjustments had
nothing to do with a big ratchet, right?"
   "Right.  It was back in Altadena.  I made do with an aluminum softball
bat.  Now with the security guards around with their batons, they don't
mess with us at all."
   There were half a dozen pre-school-aged kids on the playground, most in
the shade of a couple palm trees.  Sean said, "Sunburn is a little issue.
The parents or sitters have mostly grown up around here so they're aware of
the danger."
   We went back inside where it was cooler.  Margie asked, "How efficient
are the utilities.  I noticed solar water heaters on top; how about air
conditioning and lighting?"
   Sean told us, "Pretty good on the lighting.  During the initial renos,
we replaced almost all the lights with energy-efficient bulbs.  We put in a
lot more insulation in spots, thermal film on lots of the windows,
insulated the hot water piping and checked out the air conditioning really
well.  The couple months stats we've got show we're well in alignment with
similar buildings and schools.  So, at least we're not wasting too much."
   Sean took us to the finance area.  There was a phone room with six
ladies talking away in front of computer terminals.  Sean told us, "They
mostly do fund raising.  Every month we're open, our stats are better. 
With a demonstrable product -- people released with a workable job is the
main product -- we draw in more.
   "We'll get the facility development settled out in another month or so,
then our stats will be more predictable.  Since we're running by The Book,
we're really pretty efficient.  We shall see."
   He introduced us to a middle-aged man in his own office.  He was the
Treasurer and handled almost all the duties.  Nice; he had a shot of
Talent. Sean told us, "This is an excellent place for him, then.  Make sure
we alert Vera; after she gets trained up herself, she can take a good shot
at enhancing him."
   Aloud, he told Kate, "Kate, how about you sit with him for a while and
see what kind of accounts he's set up.  See if you can find out the
similarities and differences between here and a small retail business."
   The man didn't object at all.  He openly admired Kate and told her,
"Hopefully you don't have to leave until well after 5:00." Kate laughed,
wobbled her boobs a little and told him, "I'm spoken for, but I'm sure
we'll get along just fine."
   Sean, Margie and I took off.  He steered me and Margie to the day care
center while he took off to the kitchen.  He told us, "They'll probably put
me to work mopping the floor.  Looks like they're a couple people short. 
We'll probably leave about 6:00 to catch our flight; do whatever you wish.
Nose around and ask all the questions you want.  They know the hats."
   Margie took one look at a couple infants crawling around and decided she
wanted to do that too.  After a couple false starts (backwards), she got
the coordination and timing pretty close and managed to go a foot or so
slowly forward before she toppled over.
   She said, "Shit.  Reminds me of the guy on the tricycle on the old TV
show Laugh In.  He'd come to a stop then topple over."
   She laughed anyway and kept practicing.  Our daughter is now a rug rat!
   "Curtain climber is next, Snapper.  Just you wait!"
   She went on another foot then stopped, picked up something and popped it
in her mouth.  She managed to pick up some speed but kept picking and
popping.
   Sitting up in front of me she opened her mouth wide; it was full of
carpet lint and other assorted unidentifiable (and probably gross) baby
goodies.  She shut her mouth and swallowed.  "Yum.  Intestinal roto-rooter.
Gotta keep the gut clean, ya know."
   As a new mom, I was horrified.  As Snapper, I knew she was rattling my
cage.  I told her, "If you get plugged up and explode, you get to clean off
the walls, not me."
   We spent another half hour checking out the various toys.  We agreed
they were fine for the age ranges, but it wouldn't hurt to have more.  "Can
never have too much breast milk or too many toys."
   We investigate the hair salon.  One young lady offered a trim and
Bridget took her up on it.  I told the girl, "We've got a lady in Altadena
who normally does it.  She's young, mean and will know where you live." She
was very careful and took only a few snips here and there.
   Bridget put on her happy-baby show when she looked in the mirror.  We
had goo ankle-deep.  Not a bad place at all.
   We checked out the game room.  They could use several new packs of cards
and a new Monopoly set; the ones there were getting pretty worn.
   Drifting back to the kitchen, we found Sean deep in conversation with
the head cook while he mopped the floor.  Yeh, they did seem a bit shy of
personnel right now so I grabbed an apron, a sponge and cleaner and got
after horizontal surfaces.
   I plopped Bridget on top of a big metal table.  She sat up, looked
around, waved her rattle and egged us on.
   After a half hour the cook tossed us out.  "I'm getting dinner ready. 
I've got plenty of help for that so you Hat Folk go hassle the
inhabitants."
   Sounded okay.  Kate was still busy with the Treasurer (they were
flirting with each other and laughing -- he was happily married for 20-some
years, so no harm, no foul).  We left them to their fun and went looking
for clients.
   We talked with several in the computer lab.  Sean asked, "What do you
like best?  What do you like least?  If it were possible to change three
things here, what would they be?" Straight satisfaction surveys.
   Somehow they all knew about the hats.  Maybe it had something to do with
that big picture of Sean with his bowler Vera had outside her office.
   Anyway we spent the next couple hours doing those types of interviews.
As dinner time got closer, more people showed up from school or work. 
Interestingly, there appeared to be quite an age spread from young teens to
several who must have been in their 60's.
   The older ones tended to look after the younger ones.  There didn't
appear to be any friction among the ages; in fact the younger ones tended
to ask the older ones lots of questions about Real Life.  They got "war
stories" about how they'd screwed their lives up and things to keep watch
out for to avoid the pitfalls.
   Bridget and I got a long talk with one of the young pregnant couples. 
They were both 14; their birth control had failed.  Guess the pill doesn't
work very well when taking antibiotics.
   They were bright and alert and still looking forward to their lives. 
They were studying online courses as much as they could until their
situation got settled.  Children's Services had purposely been
"overlooking" them since they were doing so well here.
   The young man told me, "It all comes from the same budget.  We're doing
well, not causing any trouble, and they're working with our parents.  Even
if we get back with them, we'll still be working our butts off doing what
we're doing now.  No education means digging ditches, sweeping floors or
washing dishes for the next fifteen or twenty years while we're digging
ourselves out of our mess."
   Yeh, they'd much preferred she wasn't pregnant.  They'd considered all
the options and were going to make one hell of a stab at raising their
child.
   Bridget decided to fall asleep while sprawled across their laps.  Both
had damp eyes watching her.  I told them, "Bridget does happen to be
exceptional.  Don't count on every child being as well-adjusted and under
their own control as she is.  Keep an eye on the other infants here, read a
lot about child development and do your best.  That's what I did the last
five months, and I've got only a few scars to prove how well I did." Grin.
   We took dinner with the clients and staff.  Vera joined us and said,
"Neat.  Our Treasury guy has Talent and I've spotted two more staff and
three of the clients with some.  Should be very interesting."
   The food was quite good.  It was buffet style with two main entrees, a
decent salad bar and some low-carb and regular desserts.  Vera told us,
"Sean found a retired Navy Master Chief Cook to train our kitchen staff. 
He comes in a couple a times a week with his uniform jacket -- hash marks
up to his shoulder -- and spreads terror."
   Sean said, "He's not so bad.  It's gotten so only two of the girls pee
their pants when he's there.  We haven't had a nervous breakdown the last
two months." Grin.
   After dinner, we spent some more time with Vera, mainly telling her the
client interview results.  Vera said, "Good.  One excellent thing Sean did
at the very beginning is to get the staff to realize all these people here
were clients, not discards of society.  Our thrust is to get results with
them, not browbeat, preach to or terrorize them.
   "We've had only one fight -- he was a gang member.  It lasted five
seconds before ten other clients piled on him.  With the ethics and morals
spelled out really well and accepted, we've got very little friction."
   Sean told us, "In a lot of the cases, this is the first opportunity
they've had to step back from life, take a deep breath, sort things out and
get help in creating plans and executing them to make things start going
right.  They can find out what's been ruining their lives and start
remedying it with either education in most cases or just identifying their
issues.
   "The half dozen people we've had 'graduate' so far have gotten rave
reviews from their new employers.  We're able to use their success stories
and the employers' recommendations of the Waystation to get more funding
and cooperation everywhere we turn."
   I asked, "So next time, what would you do different?"
   Vera and Sean looked at each other.  Vera said, "Start promoting it a
lot sooner and wider.  Once we have the location and the Organizing Board,
the promotion gets it widely known.
   "We can do free public service radio and TV ads, get write ups in the
local papers and maybe some billboards for a while.  With the idea and
location widely known, people and companies are a lot more willing to
contribute.
   "We think the next one will be a slam-dunk with the legalities and
tax-exempt status.  Since we have churches promoting it, we can start
getting some clients and community service people right away.  They can
help out with renos and such right from the start.
   "Sean's idea of getting some retired service people in to supervise and
train made a lot of difference.  Even local contractors learned a lot from
them.  The organization is sound, the legalities are sound and the
community needs and wants the program.  By the way, that's one of the first
things Sean did; he did quite a lot of surveying to see if was needed and
wanted.  In this location, it was."
   ------
   We took off back to the airport right at 6:00.  We'd promised Vera we'd
be back soon; Kate told her, "We've got some interesting tricks you'll find
out about in the next several days.  They make things happen a lot easier
and faster."
   The half hour ride to the airport was fine.  Fortunately, the security
checkpoint line only took fifteen minutes so we waited around the boarding
gate for almost an hour.
   Bridget practiced crawling around and standing up against peoples' legs.
She got lots of smiles; funny how no one seemed to trip over her.
   We did our people-watching.  A couple sparks of Talent in some going by
but none on our flight.  Didn't spot any hijackers, bombers or other
nasties so no one got heart attacks.
   The flight back was an hour.  It was a bit different because it was
getting dark as we neared Burbank.  We watched the city lights spread out
to the coast and enjoyed the bouncing around in a bit of turbulence over
the mountains.  Bridget had a great time laughing at the bumps.
   We rode the shuttle out to the parking lot, collected the Volvo (no one
had tried anything with it) and headed home.  Yeh, after seeing all the
clients at the Waystation, we really appreciated having a home.
   We got quick showers and sat around the den talking.  The main question
Margie had was, "Sean, I'm gonna ask the obvious stupid question.  You put
four months of your life into the Waystation probably pretty much 24/7. 
What have you gotten out of it?"
   Sean told us, "I was able to help.  I was able to make a difference in
good people's lives who were in confusion without having any idea their
situations could change for the better.
   "I do that with my businesses, but they are more limited in many
respects.  A business runs for the good of the owners; with The Book,
everyone involved wins including the customers.
   "The Waystation is a broader scope in the community and can be another
major oasis of sanity in our world.  For every client you saw today, there
are probably five others who haven't heard of it or are so beaten down they
wouldn't consider it on their own.  A lot of them are very good people
given any sort of opportunity.
   "Yeh, the Waystation provides the organization and helps resolve the
confusion, but it's still the client, the individual who has to do the
work. Just as in any business.
   "Why does Clann Reynolds run ramontheeye?  It's completely volunteer and
sometimes several probers give up the JRD paid probes just to do it.  How
about PVC, Mary, Madeleine and Dermot doing those sickening DNA traces?
   "Probably the same reason.  They could help bring some sanity.  Sharon
let Eileen bring Bridget in the shop every day.  She knew you'd be taking
the time to care for her, but it was important to her to help.
   "I want to help the able become more able.  If a person isn't willing to
change himself, fuck 'em!  We can help one or a few people at a time
personally or a lot of people more rapidly with a good organization. 
That's one reason I'm expanding Cullen Enterprises into larger businesses.
   "I knew none of you back in December, but I wanted to know when I died
that I'd contributed to making a saner, better world for my grandchildren.
Marge, maybe when your children come along they'll find a slightly saner
world or at least be able to find some sane environments.
   "Will we make the world sane?  I doubt it.  But, with lots of able, sane
people, the criminals will be more easily spotted and handled and have a
lot less influence.  The media would have us live in fear and uncertainty
from the world's terrorists.  Neither we nor our Clann nor our descendants
need live that way.
   "With the Waystation, I was able to help and got the satisfaction of
being able to influence lots of people's lives by doing so.  That's what I
got out of it; very little money but lots of wonderful friends and changed
lives."
   Chapter 20
   SEAN{br} (Wednesday 5/24)
   We slept well.  I was very satisfied with the Waystation's progress so
that helped.
   Mona talked with us while we were having breakfast, "Vera's got her
basics now.  The entire family has Talent so she's enhancing them all;
we'll get together with them tomorrow evening to help.  They're really good
people; looks like you've got another clann started there, Sean."
   I told here, "Great.  Thanks for your help.  Did she show you around the
Waystation?"
   "Yep.  Very impressive.  We're glad we don't have to use it, but it's
wonderful it's there.  You gonna do something similar here?"
   "Guess that's a $64,000 question.  We haven't discussed it yet.  I'd say
it's a discussion for the Core sometime."
   "Well, we young-uns are willing to help.  Once we get the Leonards
somewhat trained we'll ask Vera to give the Moms and Dads a tour so they
know what it's all about.  I know they're curious.  It was pretty mean of
you to keep all that secret, Uncle Sean."
   I told her, "Could be.  It really has to be a show, not just a tell. 
That's the main reason I kept my mouth shut.  Besides, it was something I
could yank your Moms' chains about -- Lord knows they do it to me often
enough.  Go ahead and tell them what you know.  Once you get the
teleportation check list done, ya'll can 'drop by' there any time."
   "Yeh.  And you all love slagging each other.  Well, we've gotta head out
to school.  The Moms are gonna contact the school councilor today to see
about starting a Brain Trust.  It's gonna be exciting!"
   She took off with the rest to school.
   I asked my ladies, "So, what about flying?"
   Kate piped up first.  "The flight was fun but the security's a pain.  By
my watch, after you factor in the travel time just to get to the airport,
we spent two hours at each end just to get on the plane.  I guess 10
minutes taxiing at Burbank before we took off.
   "Tack another 45 minutes or so in Phoenix to land, taxi, get into and
out of the terminal and to the Waystation and you've got a good five hours.
Not real productive, if you ask me -- which you did."
   Eileen's take was, "Yeh.  I'd say unless we've got a compelling reason
to physically fly -- like as part of another group or for pure
entertainment -- we just bypass it all.  During their Cabo trip, the JRD
folk ported luggage and other goodies back and forth just fine.  My vote's
for using the teleporting, especially now since we all can do it."
   Margie said, "I'll vote for the porting.  We don't have to tell people
we didn't fly; we can always do a little song and dance."
   Settled that.  Besides, the air fare had been over a thousand dollars
for us.  Deductible, but why even spend it and subject ourselves to an
airline's scheduling and booking fiascos?
   Before we got into study time, Kate looked over our appointment
calendar. She told us, "We won't be sitting around bored.  We've got your
wedding on the 3d, Blake and Louise's on the 10th then Bob and Kat's on the
17th.  Toss in lots of oversight visits, bachelor and bachelorette parties,
enhancing, Clann invites, training, Tavern nights and several honorings and
we've got a schedule that doesn't slow down for a while.
   "Glad we're getting in the Exchange this weekend; a lot of the stuff
needs to be synched with the N&Bs.  If/when we get the Shane gang, the
Keavys, Jackie, BB and whomever else we enhance, it's gonna be fun getting
things done.
   "Sean, here's a list of stuff you've got on the agenda today.  Eileen
will get hold of BB and set up a meeting maybe for next Sunday or even
Monday -- it's Memorial Day.  Since she works a J O B, we've gotta fit in
around her schedule."
   Hell, she gave me three pretty hefty cycles to handle just today.  She
was right, though, we'd already set them up to get to today.
   I took a quick look at my email.  Kathleen had sent off their approved
study technology check list.  Great!  I downloaded it and put it into The
Book in the spot I'd saved for it.  I sent it to Maura and Teresa, too, so
they could get it to the young-uns.
   With the check sheet, they had more ammunition to encourage the school
counselor to allow them to set up a Brain Trust tutoring service.  I talked
quickly with the Cullen Sisters; they had a meeting scheduled with the
school counselor tomorrow morning so it was perfect timing.
   Also in my incoming email was a batch of stuff from Mona.  She and
Teresa had been busy the last couple days; she'd sent a whole slew of
material for me to review and approve for the web site.
   Okay, handle it right now.  It took maybe fifteen minutes and seemed
great to me.  I'll bet they'll put some twists in here and there when they
actually get it on.  I sent Mona an email, "Go for it, sweetie.  You're my
favorite webmistress!"
   My lawyer called.  She'd gotten the paperwork back fine for the Clann
Cullen LA organization.  She told me, "Elect a President, Secretary and
Treasurer.  If you want a bank account, ensure you make a minute
authorizing it.  Once you have those, get your accountant started on the
non-profit stuff for the IRS."
   Sounded good to me.  I talked with Teresa briefly; she was the Treasurer
for Cullen Motels so she was the logical choice for the Clann.  She told
me, "Let's get a quick Core meeting and we'll handle the elections."
   It took maybe five seconds to hook everyone in.  We hadn't talked about
it specifically, but with the young-uns out and about, we considered them
part of the Core, too.
   Margie said, "I nominate Sean for President, Maura for Secretary and
Teresa for Treasurer.  Seconds?"
   Five seconds came in.  "Other nominations?" None.  All were elected as
nominated.  Okay, I've got me another post.
   We broke up the meeting; the young-uns were in the middle of class. 
Maura told the rest of us, "I'll whip up a couple minutes on the election
and for a bank account.  Use the same bank as the hotel and Cullen
Enterprises?"
   Sounded fine to me.  I called the lawyer back and told her one of us
would drop by to pick up the paperwork from her.  She said, "Pretty fast
work there, Sean.  I dunno if I can keep up with you.  By the way, want me
to send the State changes of address for Cullen Hotels and Cullen
Enterprises since you've struck out on your own?"
   I told her, "With all these women around, I've gotta keep on my toes. 
They run me ragged as it is.  Please send out the changes; I think that's
all we have."
   Teresa and I arranged to get together in a few minutes to do the bank
stuff.  I took the time to arrange a quick meeting with the Shane gang at
the shop around noon time.  I printed off a set of customs to show them.  I
figured they'd be interested.
   I called Teresa back, "You ready, you hot woman, you?"
   "I'm always ready for you, Sean.  On the other hand, Maura's working on
the bank minute and I'm not dressed yet.  Give me another fifteen minutes
-- unless you've got something else in mind before we go."
   "Let's see how our time works out, honey.  I've got a heavy schedule
today."
   "Tease.  Come whenever."
   I called our accountant.  He told me he needed a set of the
incorporation papers and a list of members.  "Sometimes the IRS wants a
member list; I can give them a sanitized set if we need it."
   No problem.  I did a data export of the wedding invitations and emailed
it to him.
   I got my papers together, told them where I was going and after a quick
snog, ported over to Teresa's.  Maura was still pounding away on the second
minute for the bank account authorization.
   Teresa told me, "I'll be ready in five."
   Fine.  I eyeballed around her place and over to Maura's to get a good
idea of how the computers could hook up.  Plenty of room even with the
young-uns.
   While I was waiting, I talked with Mario and George about the laptops
and what I wanted to do.  They basically told me to get the laptops from
Dell and pick up the rest at Fry's.
   Okay.  Maura had printed out the minutes and Teresa was getting dressed,
so I used Teresa's system to get onto the Dell site.  After setting up a
business account for Cullen Enterprises, I looked over their laptops, set
up a configuration and ordered twelve.  There'd be plenty for the N&Bs plus
spares to use at OTL as needed and for Rosheen.
   What the hell; I ordered next day delivery to OTL.  Dell had no problem
taking my MasterCard for $26K.
   Teresa was dressed by then (darn it).  I gave her a good snuggle and
snog then told her, "Great butt, hon."
   She purred at me but said, "Let's go.  Time's awastin'"
   After a quick look, I ported us to the hallway outside the lawyer's
office.  Yeh, it was a lot faster than driving and parking.
   I hadn't had time before in the last several weeks to check out Lena
Severin thoroughly.  She'd been my corporate lawyer the past five years and
was very competent as far as I was concerned.  She knew Teresa of course.
   Nice, very nice.  She had an excellent dose of Talent.  While she was
talking with us, Teresa hooked up a node to her and started pumping in the
power.  We both thought she'd make a great Core member.
   She was a nice blonde lady (not an airhead) and in good physical shape
at 34.  She'd been widowed in the Iraq war; no children.
   Her paralegal assistant, Jean, had some Talent, too.  Teresa and I
decided to let Lena do the honors with her when she was ready.
   Anyway, we got the corporation papers and a couple copies.  Jean had a
corporate seal on order; it would come to OTL.  I gave her Evin's contact
information at JRD.  "He's been the route for another group.  He's
corporate like you."
   We gathered the papers, gave Lena a hug and left.  Jean got a quick hug
on the way out, too.
   Out in the hallway, I ported us around the corner from the bank.  We
walked in, set up a Clann Cullen checking account, seeded it with $10K then
ordered the checks and debit cards.  Piece of cake.
   We ported to the back parking area of Shane's Shop.  They were ready for
us.  I handed out the public custom document and told them, "Here's the
first pass at the Clann's organizational customs.  If you're interested
after this, we can go on."
   Teresa and I looked around the shop while they were reading.  Lookin'
good!  Teresa spotted several items she wanted and gathered them up.
   In the back room, they'd finished the first read.  Celia told me, "We're
interested.  We've talked things over with Sharon and are tentatively
planning to open up another Shane's Shop in Burbank.  If we can swing the
financing, Jack and I will own it as a franchise.  Whether we're here or in
Burbank, we're still interested in being part of the Clann."
   I told her, "That's great!  There's a very good Clann in Burbank; you
can have joint membership if you wish.  If you need financing for the
business, give me a shout.  I think between Sharon and me, we can cover it.
Now, those were the public customs.  These are the private, confidential
ones." I handed out the green papers.
   Teresa did more shopping while I nosed around more.  Sharon had tweaked
in the traffic routes a bit more and had an attention-getter set up in each
major area.  Well-done!
   When we went back in, there was plenty of damp-female odor floating
around.  Sharon told us, "We consent.  When do we get started?"
   Teresa and I laughed.  Teresa told them, "I figured it wouldn't be any
problem."
   I snuggled up Sharon and Celia for a few moments.  Teresa and Jack had
no difficulties at all getting friendly.  I told the ladies, "My social
secretaries handle everything so they'll definitely be in touch.
   "We've got thirteen already in our Core; we'll probably have several
more in the next week or so.  Welcome to our little world.
   "Now for some other business.  I've done some minor revisions in The
Book, including a study-technology check list.  I'll get some copies over
to you ASAP.  Jack, Celia, you need to get through The Book at least. 
Sharon will check you out.
   "How you arrange things is pretty much up to you.  There's several new
paragraphs on franchising; this'll be a good pilot for it if that's the way
you decide to go.  I know there's a decent store front opening up next
month under the new condos on First Street in Burbank."
   I noted down the address and leasing agent information.  "It probably
won't be open long; they just had a cancellation.  Check it out.  If you
get any hassle at all on your credit history, let me know and we'll ring in
Cullen Enterprises."
   We talked a few minutes more, mainly about finding replacements for here
and getting them trained up.  I told Sharon, "Stay in touch with us pretty
closely; we've got quite a bit of new stuff coming down the pipeline you'll
need to get trained on."
   I ensured I had the Hanes' contact information then Teresa and I headed
out for a quick lunch.
   ------
   EILEEN
   We're gonna have a tight schedule for sure.  We had the Keavys this
afternoon, Frank's wake in the evening plus Kate and I needed to do some
shopping for the house.  We needed a TV/DVD system for the den; we'd been
missing our chick-flicks!
   I got hold of BB the first try.  She was really happy to hear from me.
We hemmed and hawed a bit over getting together; we were both very willing,
just needed to fit it in.  She was doing a Memorial Day get-together with
her family so that left Monday out.
   We finally arranged a Tuesday-evening dinner meet at OTL; she'd come
right over from work.  Great, that would let Kate be here, too.
   Kate had Monday off classes since it was a holiday.  We talked about her
class schedule for a while.  She had two more courses to do after she
finished her current one then she'd have her degree.
   She told us, "I'll talk with Sean.  What I'd like to do is take the
summer off and finish up the last two at the same time during the fall
semester.  That'll give me a good three months to get things grooved in
here pretty good.
   "Besides, I'm getting the distinct impression we'll be really busy. 
Granted, we're doing a lot of 'social' stuff right now with new Clann
people, weddings and the like, but I think the business end will get that
way too fairly lively."
   Yeh.  Margie said, "If nothing else, we'll probably be doing a lot of
seminars.  We may start up a Waystation or couple in the L.A.  area.  All
speculation for now, but we'll be busy.  It's a good thing we can actually
do stuff 24/7 or we'd be really hurting."
   Well, we've got some planning to do with Sean, all right.
   I confirmed our get-together with the Keavys for 4:00.  That should get
us a decent amount of time with them before Carmel got here.
   We got our study time in.  Margie and I were on the fourth detail manual
while Kate was well into the second one.  Lots of great stuff!
   We got a quick bite of lunch and got dressed for shopping.  I told Sean,
"We're off to Fry's to look at TVs and the like.  Need anything?"
   "Actually, yes.  How about you borrow George for the occasion; I've got
a list of stuff to set up the network and other systems at Maura and
Teresa's."
   He and Teresa were at a restaurant doing lunch.  He ported over a list
full of arcane computer stuff like Wireless Access Points, switches, and
the like.  I recognized the color laser printers at least!
   George was at JRD with Dermot.  Both were more than willing to come
along.  "Spend time with gorgeous Irish ladies?  Count us in!" They ported
right over.
   We ported to the temporarily-empty ladies room at Fry's.  George looked
around and asked, "Hmm.  Just us chickens.  We got time to get frisky?"
   Dermot admired our chests and offered his services.  We took a rain
check, though.
   Kate and I got an infant each while Dermot led us around.  He said,
"Definitely a guy-toy store.  I've checked it out several times.  TVs and
such are straight back."
   George knew the store cold, too.  "Dermot and I have spent several
nights here."
   We picked up a shopping cart and began the journey.  Yeh, plenty of TVs
and such.  Kate and I switched bodies with Dermot and George so they could
argue bandwidths, resolutions, scan densities, frequency analyzers and all
that neat guy stuff with the salesman.
   Dayum they were good!  They popped our nipples up, wobbled our boobs and
kept him a bit distracted while they talked.  I steered Dermot's body
around eyeballing the cables and other stuff.  Looked like wires to me!
   Guess they came to some agreement.  They showed us what they'd come up
with.  George said, "Not the extreme high end but excellent quality.  Now
for the important question -- how does it look?"
   Kate (in George's body) and I looked it over thoroughly.  It looked
really good without being bulky or outrageously high-tech.  We accepted.
   Dermot (in my body) told the salesman, "We'll take the lot.  We've got
some computer shopping to do first." The salesman printed up the invoice
for payment and pickup at the dock.
   All righty, then!  George looked at Sean's list and steered us to
another section.  Kate and my bodies reached and grabbed lots of boxes,
cables, connectors and other stuff.
   The computers were right around the corner.  George (Kate) talked with a
salesman about a server.  After some back and forth, we loaded another cart
with several large boxes and headed towards the checkout.
   Dermot told us, "Best we have to offer in girl stuff is small
appliances, refrigerators, washers, hair driers and that sort of stuff. 
Then again, they've got DVDs, too."
   Okay.  We turned around and headed towards the DVDs.  Since we could
look at Sean's collection (and it was somewhat organized) we could avoid
duplicates.
   We switched back to our normal bodies; this was girl-time!  There were
some really neat collections and individual DVDs.  Sean had been right,
Maura and Teresa had done a lot of chick-flick shopping.  The best we could
do was a complete Lucy collection.
   Anyway, we filed through the check out line.  They hadn't any issue with
taking our household account card for something like $4K.  The other stuff
went on the Cullen Enterprises card.  The checker just noted down my DL
number and got the manager to approve it.
   We wheeled the cart around to the side; less traffic there.  We paused
behind a large windowless van.  Funny, the stuff in the cart just vanished!
   Okay, now pick up the home theater stuff.  We refused help getting it in
our vehicle (we didn't have one) and carted it off into the parking lot on
a big flat cart.  That spot behind the van must be a black hole or
something; everything but the cart vanished.
   I took the cart back to the collection area while Kate and the others
ported back to OTL.  I got back a couple minutes later.
   Kate had sweet-talked Margie, George and Dermot into setting up the home
theater.  I don't know for certain what she'd promised, but it probably had
something to do with a certain fluffy red bush and puffy nipples!
   They unboxed, un-plastic-wrapped, touched stuff around (we had them move
it exactly where we wanted) and plugged cables.  In fifteen minutes they
had it displaying the Discovery Channel.  Very nice!  It was the perfect
size for kicking back on the sofa.
   They ported the empty boxes into the attic (save them for warranty
service if needed) then I served up a round of ice cream.  Margie and
George made a happy mess while Dermot had a bit more control -- not a lot
more but some.
   We bathed their small bodies in the shower then spent a very fun hour in
Kate's room.  Dermot introduced Margie and George to the "Dermot Special."
Tiny knuckles rubbing your G-spot kick up quite a commotion, you betcha!
   George and Dermot declared all the ladies' nipples to be delicious and
the two red bushes to be delightful.  I didn't know George was Irish; it
must have rubbed off somewhere!  Dermot definitely learned what my breast
milk tasted like.
   Margie wasn't left out, either.  They double-teamed her for fifteen
minutes while she moaned and wailed.  No knuckles for her yet, but there
were plenty of tongues and fingers working her over.
   We ducked in for another shower then trailed back into the den.  Sean
was sitting there looking over the instruction manuals for the home
theater. He grinned at George and Dermot and thanked them effusively. 
"They've dayum near worn me out.  It's wonderful to have such handsome,
sexy and enthusiastic men to assist me."
   Margie, Kate and I all got him with our pillows; he wasn't that fast.
   It was 3:00 and we had a 4:00 with the Keavys.  Margie said she was
getting together for a few minutes with the Skunk Works to review the
teleportation check list; she'd be right back.
   She vanished.  Kate and I gave George and Dermot a minute's thank-you
snogging then booted them back to JRD.
   Since we were already dressed and the Keavys were right down the block
we had plenty of time.  Kate brought up her class schedule; Sean agreed it
would work out fine to finish up during the Fall semester.  "We might be in
the middle of whatever, but you'll have a lot more experience by then, too.
Let's do it that way."
   We checked the mail.  I'd gotten a check for $375K from Nana's annuity
death benefit.  It wasn't from Sheila's company so I hadn't expected anyone
to bring it over.
   I called Sheila and told her I had more money to invest.  She told me,
"Great!  We'll make you into a wealthy lady of leisure before we're
through. When can we get together?"
   Dayum.  Back to the schedule again.  Okay, Saturday morning looked okay.
Her schedule was open so it was a go.
   It was time for her so I located her, put in a power node and started
pumping her up.  I had no doubt she'd be ready by the weekend.
   Margie popped back in.  She told us, "Done deal.  Henry emailed the
final check list to us.  He's distributing it to Clanns Reynolds, Way and
Fuerte.  We'll handle us."
   She hopped on the computer system; the check list was there.  She
emailed it off to the Nolans, Bardons and the Shane Gang.  She told us, "No
real changes; just a couple format tweaks and a bit of word-smithing."
   Okay, off to the Keavys.  We strolled down the block three houses and we
were there.  Sean told me, "It's pretty much your show; we'll hang around
in the background."
   Quite a nice little place inside.  It was optimized for their
wheelchairs; they didn't have to use them all the time, but they had
physical spells every so often when they were weaker.
   They were really happy to see us.  Their three kids had flown the nest
years ago.  They were still in Southern California but with families of
their own and an hour's run each way to visit, they didn't see a lot of
them.
   We handed over the pictures and the wedding invitation.  They decided
the pictures were really nice.  They were on the Internet so we said we'd
send them the electronic copies so they could send some to their kids. 
Nana told us, "The kids are good.  They do their best to visit as often as
they can."
   They were boiling with energy.  They'd been talking and sharing with
each other since Monday, and it had been getting better and stronger each
day.
   While helping someone free themselves is never really "old hat," it was
a known routine.  It took maybe forty-five minutes to get them outside and
trained enough so they wouldn't be leaking all over Altadena -- or wherever
they wanted to go.  They loved it and they loved having Margaret back!
   We took off on a visit to the kids.  Everyone was doing quite well from
appearances.  One daughter and her husband had Talent!  Their two children
were also Talented.
   Margie trained them up in setting nodes, pumping power and general
enhancing.  "You can do it fast or slow; it doesn't seem to make a lot of
difference.  The more Talent they have, the faster we can push.  Seems like
it's more a matter of scheduling ourselves to be there for the initial
training than the actual doingness.  Go for it, guys!"
   They knew the young-uns from the wake; now they met them as instructors.
Aile told them, "We'll take really good care of you.  How about we get
together right around 7:00; we'll have our schoolwork done by then."
   Fine by them.  After a set of careful hugs and solid spirit-hugs, we
left them to enjoy themselves.
   Since it was still fairly early, we strolled up to the park entrance at
the end of Olive Tree Lane.  Gotta get there more often; it was a nice
place to sit and relax.  Nana and I remembered we saw a few animals every
once in a while.
   We headed home after 15 minutes and got ready for Frank's wake.  Carmel
was due in around 6:00 so at least she'd get to meet Kate before it was
school-time.
   Carmel rolled in right on time; she'd had no trouble finding us.  Yeh,
she looked like Frank's sister all right.  Mid-40's, spinster and even had
Talent!  Margie noted, "If she has Talent, maybe Dad had some, too.  Maybe
he's got another body around here or is still floating around.  Might be
something to talk with the Skunk Works about -- can we find a specific
unaware spirit in a new body?"
   I introduced Sean and Kate; since they hadn't known Frank at all, they'd
told me they'd hang out in the background unless they were needed.  Carmel
wasn't at all disturbed either by Sean and I being engaged or with Kate
being part of our relationship.
   Bridget really laid the baby-lovin' on her.  She told me, "She's a nice
lady."
   Carmel was really impressed by her strength, health and development. 
She told us, "I see so many fat babies around.  Bridget's really doing
well."
   She carried Bridget around on our two-bit tour.  She liked the house. 
"There's not a lot of older homes around in this good a shape.  The
Jacuzzi's a nice touch." She spotted the outdoor shower and had the
appropriate raunchy thoughts about the knee-level shower head.
   She really liked the den set up.  "This is great.  Most home offices
have cable strung out all over just to get power." She and Sean spent a few
minutes going over the network setup.
   Carmel was an IT administrator in a small aerospace company in Van Nuys.
Hmm, another techie; she and Margie would get along just fine.  She wasn't
unmarried by choice, she was simply pretty picky.  Being Irish-stubborn
myself, I knew how that went.
   Anyway, we seemed to get along just fine.  Carmel and Frank hadn't been
particularly close, especially after they'd gotten out of high school.  No
animosity, they'd just gone in different directions.
   Sean and Kate brought out a light dinner and served us while we all
chatted.  Bridget had a good time making a small mess in her high chair
while she laughed and put on a happy-baby show.  After Kate burped her a
little, she settled down on Carmel's lap and played happy niece.
   Kate ported off to class (from her room) around 6:45.  She'd developed
several takeoff and landing areas at the college like women's restrooms and
quiet corners on the campus.  No driving, no parking or parking fees and no
walking across the bridge from the parking lot.
   I dug out what I'd kept of Frank's stuff, mainly what I thought would be
memorabilia like his Army papers, medals and family pictures.  Carmel had
brought along a good-sized box of family papers to go over.  We told her a
bit about Clann Cullen and that I was having a friend do the McLennan and
Sullivan family tree research.
   She said, "Maybe this stuff will help.  I'm afraid both our parents are
a bit out of it with a touch of Alzheimer's along with getting a bit
spacey. They do okay, but I have to keep an eye on them." They lived in a
retirement community near Calabasas.
   Sean immediately got their address and made up a wedding invitation --
Carmel had gotten hers and told us she'd be there.  "If they're anywhere
near a good day, I'll bring them along since neither of them drive much any
more."
   I told her, "That would be wonderful.  If they can't make it, we'll make
a run to see them; at least we'll have made the effort to have them meet
their grand-daughter."
   Sean told us, "Seems we've got another task for the social secretaries.
We've got Sarah, perhaps Sharon and now Carmel who could use a nice Irish
husband." Yeh, he was right; I put it on the To Do List to go over with
Maura and Teresa.
   I put a power connection node into Carmel and started pumping up the
power.  She didn't have to be at work tomorrow until 10:00 so we figured
we'd pump her up all night and see how she was doing in the morning.
   Okay.  Sean cleared the table, I brought out Frank's picture and we
"formally" started the wake.  Sean (as Ceann) gave us a short talk on
honoring the departed -- it was one of the Ceann's duties.
   Yeh, we shed some tears while we talked about Frank's life.  I told
tales of our college days, we drank quite a bit of Irish whiskey and puffed
a couple light cigars out back.  Bridget hung right in there with Carmel
and wept a few tears along with us.
   We talked very little about Frank's last year; I went over the bare
facts on his illness.  I told her, "I'm not gonna remember him that way;
I'm gonna remember the man I loved and married."
   Carmel agreed.  She told us, "Even with Mom and Dad having some bad
spells now and then, I'm determined to remember the good times more than
the bad."
   We broke out the family papers she'd brought.  Every so often, a picture
or something would bring up more memories we could talk about.  One could
rarely call a wake "fun," but after a couple hours we weren't feeling any
pain (Irish whiskey helps) and were laughing a lot more than we were
feeling badly.
   From what little knowledge I had of doing genealogies, the papers would
help.  Carmel told me, "Mom and Dad have some more stuff stored away.  I'll
gather it up and bring it along to the wedding."
   Kate got back at a bit after 9:00.  As we went on with the wake, Sean
and Kate joined in with us more.  Carmel had been lonely the last ten years
without a group outside work.  Sean told her, "Since Bridget is Frank's
blood daughter, that brings your entire family into Clann Cullen by
marriage.  If you're interested, we'd be more than happy to have you be
part of us."
   Carmel cried a little and told us, "It would be wonderful.  Just from
meeting you three, I can tell you're all good people.  I've felt pretty
alone for a long time, especially with handling Mom and Dad by myself. 
I've got friends at work but they're not family."
   We fed her more Irish whiskey, talked for another hour then tucked her
away for the night in the guest room.  Kate, Sean and Margie poured me into
bed.
   We snuggled up and settled down.  I told them, "Thank you so much for
being here.  I think I've gotten everything out of my system now."
   ------
   We stayed pretty close during the night.  I kept an "eye" on Carmel; she
was enhancing nicely with a lot of stuff stirring around.  I kept pumping
up the power every hour.
   While our bodies slept, we went back to work.  I started research on
ways of getting the Altadena Arms restaurant operating more as a public
dining area.  I figured it was more a matter of promotion than in improving
or changing the way it operated.
   After an hour of Internet work, I had a list of possibles.  Advertise in
the Yellow Pages -- both online and paper.  Put up a "Public Welcome" sign
outside (free parking!).  Fliers or coupons around local businesses.  A
flier or so in the local newspapers.
   The other Cullen Hotels owners weren't "occupied" so we took a little
trip over, eyeballed the dining area and discussed possible ways of making
it even more interesting.  Find old pictures of Altadena before the Arms
was built, pictures of construction and pictures of how it had changed over
the years.  Get a short written history.  Post it all in the waiting area
and some in the hotel lobby.  Promote the chef's training.  Find and post
restaurant reviews.
   We thought if we could give the idea the entire Arms was both steeped in
history and modern it would help both the occupancy -- which wasn't shabby
even now at 85% -- and the restaurant.  I'd gotten costs from the various
Yellow Pages sites and enough information from the local newspaper sites we
could make a relatively decent cost estimate.
   The owners gave it a go-ahead.  Maura would design the ads over the next
couple days; we'd turn the young-uns loose on finding historical pictures
and history.  It'd keep them out of mischief -- yeh, right!  -- plus put a
few bucks in their pockets.
   I took a few minutes and shot off the Keavys' pictures to them.
   While we were doing all that, Margie started in developing the workshops
for Administrative Scales and Organizing Boards.  We'd gotten through the
detail manuals covering those, so she had the data.
   She kept it pretty much in a draft form for now.  With our documentation
consultant coming in, we'd see how the final should look.
   Kate started in on her class material review; her final was a week away.
No sweat at all; with the study technology she'd gotten under her belt, she
just flew along.
   ------
   SEAN{br} (Thursday 5/25)
   During the night I studied newsletters and made notes.  After Kate had
finished her studies, she went over the statistics emails.  I'd decided to
push the sale of the other ten businesses up in priority; they did take a
fair amount of attention.
   She made up a list of outpoints and inpoints for each one.  Three had
all the major points in place (the older companies) while the rest needed
some work before I was ready to market them.  Since she knew The Book, she
worked up a template check list and started filling them in.
   If she didn't have a within-the-last-month QuickBooks file for the
company, she sent off a request to have them send it in.  She started
running reports, extracting financial data from QB and doing cross-checks
to see how clean the accounting was.  Apparently, the most common bug was
misapplying which account an expense went to.
   With the add-ons she'd gotten, pretty much everything was easy to
identify.  She didn't make corrections right then, just identified the
types of entries needing fixing.  She told me, "I'll have them hold off
making entries over the weekend.  I'll get the current file at close of
business Friday, work on it over the weekend, then send it back.  That'll
keep us in synch." Smart lady!  She sent off the emails warning them of
what she was going to be doing.
   All righty, then.  We were up and at it at our usual 7:00.  We nudged
Carmel awake; no hangover!  She told us, "That's somewhat unusual.  Not
that I get bad hangovers anyway.  Jaysus, I dreamed all night about Frank
and the Clann Cullen."
   I fed everyone.  During breakfast, Eileen gave her the final pumping. 
She was already expanded well beyond her body.  After breakfast we dragged
her into the den.
   Eileen did the honors with her.  Carmel popped right outside and was
immediately happy as an Irishman discovering the leprechaun's gold!  We
gave her a quick half-hour's training, introduced her to the young-uns for
further training then pushed her out the door just before 9:00.  Definitely
one happy camper!
   Our documentation consultant knocked on our door right on the button at
9:00.  Ben Talbert was older WASP (late fifties) and one of us!
He got the round of introductions then looked us over and rolled his
eyes a little.  He told us, "Jeez, you guys are everywhere!  Beautiful
witches and handsome warlocks."
   The ladies pinked up with pleasure.  Marge told him, "And you're not
even Irish!"
   "Nope.  Lots of Scotch, though.  The Celts have been around.  You folk
seem awful familiar though.  A couple weeks back in the middle of the night
-- that was you, right?"
   He'd nailed us.  This time Eileen really blushed; we'd really been
hanging out.
   Anyway, we laughed.  He said, "We'll do just fine.  Now, I've gotta earn
my pennies.  Whatcha got?"
   We gave him a real quick tour of the place, told him about Cullen
Enterprises and Hotels and settled down in the den.  He looked around and
said, "Looks like you did a full electrical reno in here."
   Yep, he was sharp.  I told him how they'd done it; he was impressed.  He
pushed us right into the work, though.
   I explained what I'd developed, the seminars and some of the areas we
wanted to look at.  Ben took a copy of The Book and literally flipped the
pages of several sections.  He checked out several of the detail manuals
the same way.
   He told us, "The consistency looks pretty decent.  With a few
exceptions, the headers and footers look the same size with the same type
of content.  Looks like Word; is that what you use?"
   Yep.  I went over how I'd been doing the manuals, how I'd been
distributing them and the issues we thought we needed to cover.  Ben sat at
my workstation and told us, "Gather round or link up a bit.  Let's take a
look-see."
   We went over the directory structure and file naming conventions.  I'd
used a Word template to start all the manuals; Ben pulled it up.  He turned
on and off the Show All command a couple times and pointed out why he
normally worked with all the codes showing -- it showed up strange spaces,
unusual page breaking, unneeded tabs and the like.
   We looked back and forth at the printed version several times.  I'd been
using Word styles for formatting most of the time.  Ben said, "Very well
done.  Most people I run into might have heard of them but don't have the
faintest idea of why and how to use them."
   He recommended we put the Cullen Enterprises logo on each page in the
header.  "Branding.  You want to ensure the users know exactly where this
stuff comes from."
   We looked at page layouts, margins, header and footer content.  He
pulled up several of the actual source files and showed us how to turn on
the style display on the side.  "Normally, I just use it when I'm reviewing
stuff.  You've got a decently-consistent use here."
   We developed a new basic template with larger margins and the logo in
the header.  "White space.  You want lots of white space.  First, it looks
better -- there's hundreds of years of experience showing lots of white
space simply looks and reads better.  Next, this is a reference work, not a
novel for entertainment.  Betcha lots of people make notes in the margins.
Also, since you targeted three-ring binders, it'll leave plenty of room for
the holes without looking cramped."
   We talked single-sided printing vs.  double-sided and fonts.  We ended
up using Book Antiqua for better reading legibility rather than the default
Times New Roman I'd been using.
   We made another directory set to play with the new template.  Ben hopped
up on his Yahoo site and downloaded a template and another Word document.
"This has tons of macros or programs for Word.  I've developed and used a
lot of these over the past fifteen years."
   Okay.  We brought up the first document with lots of text; actually the
first article after the study check sheet.  Yep, it looked familiar all
right.  Ben ran one of the macros which let us pick out documents, apply
the new template, reset the page margins and refresh the styles to the new
font.  Bang; ten files updated.
   He popped into the code editor and wrote code to bring in the Cullen
Enterprises logo to the right place, put the proper wording in the header
and footer and set up the footer properly.  Neat -- and fast.
   He showed us how to make a custom toolbar with common macros.  "While
you're converting these, the change template and update logo macros can be
right there.  Once it's converted, you simply don't show it 'cause you
don't need it."
   We took a break for a soda -- I made up a pot of coffee for him.  We
discussed distribution for a while, how we created the PDFs and other
things.
   Okay, back to it.  One thing he had us do is put the document revision
date right at the top of each article.  "Now you can tell anyone to look at
a given article and read off the revision date.  You can tell right away
whether or not their manual is up to date."
   With the sections arranged the way I'd had, if there was a change, the
client just had to reprint and replace only that section.  Ben showed us
how to put in section numbers and get the Table of Contents to reflect
them.
   Okay.  We printed the first article and compared it to the current one.
Quite a difference!  While it had an additional page, it already looked
easier to read.
   Each of us took a turn bringing up the next article, updating the
template and so forth and making a run through it for consistency.  We
found several sentences and paragraphs where I'd pushed text to the next
page with empty paragraphs.  Ben hinted something at Marge; she promptly
slapped my wrist and said, "Naughty boy!"
   He showed us the Keep With Next paragraph attribute and when to use it.
"That'll make the pagination pretty automatic.  Add or remove your text,
look at the print preview and you're pretty much done without having to go
through manually formatting the article.  Once it's set up, it just
reformats itself."
   We finished up the first section (ten articles) and took an early lunch
break.  We kept talking shop.  Ben said, "What my company actually does is
offer solutions.  This documentation you have here is a subset.  Most
companies don't have the foggiest idea of the difference between polices,
processes, procedures, desktop instructions and the like.  Everything is
lumped together, is usually maintained by someone who indents with tabs or
the space bar, underlines like a sales brochure and doesn't give a hoot
whether or not something is useable.
   "It appears you've got a mature policy set here.  That makes a world of
difference.  Frequently we have to go into a client and start from the
bottom finding out what they actually do.  Then we find the processes they
use, map them out and let them decide whether or not they need updating.
   "I'm usually the one who does the documentation production and clean up.
Then I train at least a couple people in how to maintain it -- just like
I'm doing here.  That way, we can walk off into the sunset and the client
isn't dependant on us for every little tweak or change -- and I don't get a
frantic call in the middle of the night to come to Plano, Texas, to make a
five-minute documentation change for an audit."
   Back to work.  Ben created a new document from the new template and
showed us how to build a section Table of Contents in as much or little
detail as we wanted.  "Since you already use Word heading styles, it's
really a piece of cake."
   Okay, now produce the PDF.  We discussed a couple alternate methods and
settled on one -- use the Master Document feature.  Ben told us, "It's
really crappy to use for direct maintenance but we're just using it to
output the PDF, not maintain it."
   Word moaned and groaned for several minutes then brought up the finished
PDF.  Nice.  The Table of Contents was hot; the user could click on the
line and go directly to an article.
   We went over PDF bookmarks, distribution for small, intermediate and
large quantities.  We already had 23 clients with manuals, including JDR.
We discussed sending out DVDs, email (not practical because of the size) or
downloading from the Cullen Enterprises web site.
   We decided for now to put it on the website with download passwords. 
I'd let Mona figure that out -- make her the webmistress for that site,
too, at double her current pay (which was zero).  Grin.  No, I figured we'd
pay her with cookies or something.
   There was a knock at the door.  UPS had a bunch of boxes for us.  A
dozen laptops in their packing boxes do take up a lot of room, but the
dining room handled it.
   We got back to work and set up a log of releases.  Each would have a
list of changes, at least for the manual and section.  That way a client
could download, print (as desired) and distribute only the changed
sections. We'd then send an email to each client with the release notes;
they could decide to update their manuals if they wished.  We sure couldn't
force them!
   We talked print production.  For runs less than about 30, the young-uns
could handle it just fine.  Above that, my printing company could do it
faster and less expensively.  Since I would only be printing The Book and
the client could print the detail manuals as it wished, we figured it would
work out fine.
   If we knew we were going to do a lot of seminars with (hopefully) no
revisions between them, we could probably get a price break on printing a
lot at one time.  We'd keep the inventory then ship them to the seminar
location.  Of course, our "ship" would be a teleport.
   Ben was really interested in the teleportation.  "That solves a lot of
distribution problems for you -- not to speak of travel expenses."
   We spent until 5:30 doing questions and answers, getting shortcuts and
other routines and a general methodology of keeping all this stuff up to
date.
   We went over data backups for the entire system.  I currently used a 300
gig external hard drive.  I had three of them and rotated them every week.
I stored the two oldest at Maura's and Teresa's (one each place) and kept
the most recent here.
   Ben suggested we archive the most recent at least every quarter.  Put it
in a safe deposit box or somewhere even safer than our homes.  Good idea.
Besides, an entire drive was only a couple hundred bucks at Fry's.
   We unilaterally elected Margie to be our system administrator.  She
accepted with good grace but demanded at least one Soo Laid a week for it.
"Hell, I'm getting no money in my pocket now; I'd better get something."
   She was right.  In fact, she didn't even have pockets in her panties.
   Ben laughed a little at the joke.  He said, "If you have a financial
person, you could set up an UGMA for her.  That's a Uniform Gift for Minors
Act account.  Even if she can't spend it now, it would be hers."
   Eileen promptly noted that idea down to talk over with Sheila.
   Now that Ben was off the clock, we talked with him a bit more about the
Talent and the Clanns.  He'd "run into" quite a few of what was probably
Clann Reynolds over the last several months but hadn't approached them.
   I offered to give him an introduction and he accepted.  His office was
in Toluca Lake (near Universal Studios and around Burbank) and he lived in
Sylmar.  Clann Reynolds would be a lot closer.
   We offered him supper but he demurred.  "I've gotta get back home.  Got
stuff to prepare for tomorrow.  We're working on four JRD companies and
probably will be getting more."
   
  
Best Girl 16-20