Monday, August 29, 2011

Hollywood Just South of Dallas Highway

As a Pointy-Haired manager working for a technology firm, like many I have the perk of "working from home".  "Perky" in that the commute is tolerable and the dress-code wide open.  "Not So Perky" as the human desire of having a real conversation while looking someone in their not-over-the-web-cam-eyeballs wells deep and I generally have no way to lance this boil of managerial angst.  Especially since those precious souls on my team span several timezones across several continents.  Surprising perhaps to the peeps under my leadership, I am in fact human and thus have the primordial instinct to be socially connected.

Which prompts me to write about an extraordinary chain of unfolding events that has become a beacon in my otherwise mundane and oatmeal-colored day(s).  About a week and a half ago, I am sitting at my home office which overlooks the street in front of our house.  Noticing a dark SUV with three or four people driving slowly up and down the street, I found it odd that it stops directly in front of the house, the three or four people engaging in seemingly lively conversation, then pulling out cameras and taking snapshots.  Soon enough they drive away, and I have a fleeting thought of "maybe it's the HOA updating the web site or something".

Two days later, the single SUV is replaced by three or four SUV's, and the passengers of said vehicles are walking up and down the street with notebooks and cameras gesticulating wildly, writing furiously, and snapping veraciously. Mostly in the direction of our house.  "OK, this is just too weird", mutter I under my breath, and promptly get out of my desk chair and stride purposely to the front porch.  "These crazies are gonna see that someone is home".  Like I said, primordial juices flow in my veins; "A Man's Home is His Castle" (subject, of course, to the Deed to Secure Debt) and in my bare feet, cut-offs, and tee shirt (it was casual day at the home office that day) felt a need to defend my territory!  After noticing that my presence had the desired effect among the Horde of Hun, I retired back to the salt mines in front of my laptop with a smart semi-slam of the front door.

Five minutes later, a young man and lady from the Hun platoon walk up the front walk, ring the doorbell, and begin with an unexpected introduction:  "Hi, I'm Maria, and this is Tom.  We're from 20th Century Fox and really believe that your house would be the perfect house for the character played by Ben Stiller in his upcoming movie, "Neighborhood Watch".  Can we talk?"

Fast forward to today (after the director Akiva Shaffer and more artsy folk have a follow up visit), and the North Power Springs Estate here has been chosen and we are on an adventure! 

I now have a great impulse to go buy a lottery ticket and maybe a share of HP stock.  I mean, what are the odds? Millions of houses in the Atlanta area, and they pick little ole us?  Does good karma have a shelf life?  A shelf half-life? 

Would it be appropriate for me to invite my new homeys Ben, Vince and Jonah over for Thursday Family Game Night?  Would it still be OK to have Two Buck Chuck with the Rotel Dip?  Scattergories, or The Game of Things?