Sunday Newscape Magazine

Let me begin by saying that YES, I am aware that what I’m about to say sounds crazy. And not just any kind of crazy. We’re talking Stephen King nuthouse crazy - a room with padded walls and a warden named Large Marge who goes about 6’6” and 250 and hasn’t smiled since the Reagan administration, partly because her moustache gets in the way and partly because that tick of hers prevents any form of facial expression.

So I’m growing a beard. I’m not sure how I feel about it, to tell you the truth, and it’s not just because my beard hasn’t come in all the way. See, I’ve got all these splotchy patches - parts of my face where there should be beard but isn’t - so to the casual observer it looks like I’m either midway through transforming into a werewolf or I’ve been making out with a lawnmower.

Congratulations! You have been randomly selected to complete a survey on Job Satisfaction. The following questions have been expertly crafted by a team of professionals and by “team of professionals,” I mean one person who decided that creating a survey on Job Satisfaction would be a great use of valuable work time to avoid doing anything that resembles “real work.”

When I first told people that my wife Julie and I were going on a two-week safari to Kenya, the typical comment would be “whyinthehell would you go a country where mosquitoes make up 75% of the population?”