This is a true story.

As I was leaving a used bookstore yesterday, I saw two men approaching.

They weren't dressed appropriately for Mormon missionaries, so I thought they might be Jehovah's Witnesses. But the bright orange piece of paper to which one of them was clinging looked too colorful to be a Watchtower. I quickly scanned my internal databases for information relevant to the situation. One of the guys was black. Are there black Jehovah's Witnesses? Yes, I think so. Are they allowed to make their own flyers? Could neon orange paper be allowed by the church elders? Maybe that's all Office Depot had. Unlikely, though. Do they call them elders?

Whatever the case, I'm pleased with my spiritual choices and don't need to be sold a new religion when both my hands are full of heavy books.

My gaze in another direction didn't deter them.

"Hey, Boss Man!" the guy yelled out. "What kind of cologne do you wear?"

I assume they were selling cologne. If not, I appreciate the compliment.

These things aren't usually any good, but this one is.

Documentaries about old television series are often just collections of clips held together with a bad voice-over by an anonymous announcer. "Lost in Space Forever" is different, though. Actor John Larrroquette, a surprisingly good host, joins the Robot on a reconstruction of the series' primary set. The tribute show's script makes sense of the series' style variations, explaining how it evolved from a black-and-white pilot without a villian to a psychadelic reflection of the time of its production rather than the time of its portrayal. Of course, modern interviews with the cast are there, too. Everything you expect from a retrospective finds its way in.

Before, I go any further, however, I have a confession to make: I've never seen an episode of "Lost in Space". I grew up after it had ended its three-year run and at a time when reruns of it weren't available in my area. I like anything related to science fiction, so when  I found a nice copy of "Lost in Space Forever" on clearance recently, I took a chance. I was pleased to find this presentation makes a perfect introduction to the series. I can't imagine a better way to get into it.

Series fans will likely be pleased to see Jonathan Harris and Bill Mumy briefly reprise their roles as Dr. Smith and Will Robinson for a new scene at the end of the documentary. A behind-the-scenes featurette even shows Harris and Mumy walking onto the new set for the first time. Lengthy clips of special effects film and Guy Williams' original screen test for the part of also included, along with a CBS presentation to potential sponsors that features clips from the original pilot.

The documentary was produced for television to help renew interest in the series to coincide with the release of the (apparently dreadful, although I haven't seen it either) 1998 "Lost in Space" film.

If you, like me, are wondering what you've been missing, this is a great way to pick up a little knowledge of this cult favorite series. Like the Star Trek original series and Britain's classic Doctor Who (two of my favorites), it looks a bit campy, but what's wrong with that? I probably won't rush out to buy the whole series anytime soon, but if I find it on clearance, I might take a chance again.

My future as a writer is my hands, although it is somewhat dependent on where technology and public tastes move in the future.

Opportunities will always exist for entrepreneurial writers in an array of fields, but opportunities for quick money and corporate jobs will be easier to acquire in areas that are in the public's favor. Apparently, I'm not interested in quick money, at least when judged by the fact that I've never really found good ways to get it. And I tried to like the corporate world. I really did. But I really didn't like it. Who can blame me, really? There isn't much about it to like.

For several years, I've been content to use my writing skills only to promote my other works. I've written my own website and promotional materials for my book business. I've carefully crafted the (larger than you might imagine) variety of form emails and documents needed to keep my customers happy. Good writing skills are making every job I do easier and every part of my life simpler. It's good to be a writer.

I'm not content to be a writer only for my own benefit, however. In the last few months -- and several other times in my bookselling career -- I've felt compelled to write more.

I could, I suppose, become a freelance advertising copywriter, allowing my business skills to benefit other entrepreneurs. Perhaps I could become a reporter again, although tedious research and tight deadlines aren't among my favorite things. Recently, I've even considered learning to write fiction, something in which I've never had the slightest interest before. (I don't even read fiction.)

There are even professional bloggers.

While my journalism teachers told me to keep my hands and feet out of my stories, I'd actually like to keep them into a variety of types of writing. I don't know how you can promote yourself or find assignments when you lack a tight focus, however.

Focus. Hmm. Like a wandering and weaving magazine article that dances around a topic rather than confronting it, I'm someone who needs focus.

The phrase "free words" conjures up some interesting images in my mind.

I think of words like "idealic" and "predestination" wandering aimlessly through a nice field, free from restraint. Or if you prefer, "aromatic" and "sensual" have escaped their prison and are now free of their evil captor, "restraint".

Some professional writers who depend on words for their careers don't like to give away words for free. Blogs are free words. While the opportunity to write anytime you want about whatever crosses your mind seems like a boon to some writers, it's the bane of others.

Why should I offer content to the web community for free? You're reading this post now, but you could be reading a carefully constructed magazine article written for money by a seasoned professional writer. As it happens, I am a lightly-seasoned and highly professional writer, and for the moment, I'm okay with the idea of giving away some of my words.

Television series writers sometimes make the argument that (supposedly unscripted) reality shows take TV timeslots away from scripted comedies and dramas. Reality TV, then, is contributing to the declining quality of television because fewer writers are willing to go into a dying field. Others make arguments about expensive writer royalties crippling networks or reality shows being cheaper to produce because they have smaller staffs and fewer sets. My point? I think some consider blogs the reality television of the Internet world.

I consider this blog highly experimental. It's allowing me to find a fresher voice while sharpening different areas of my skills. I'm not charging you for these words, but I don't think I'm taking food out of the mouth of a professional writer by offering a free alternative. You'll by reading more than one thing today, won't you?

I joined Facebook a few months ago with a goal in mind. I wanted to reconnect with some of the people who enjoyed the same miserable high school experience that I did. Many of my peers -- in fact, most -- are on there. I hesitate, however, to call them my peers. We're the same age and came from the same place, but they've all lived very different lives from mine. 

In some ways, I've gotten what I wanted from Facebook. I found those I felt it was important to find and many others. They all appear to be doing well, although some have faced health challenges, divorce and a wide variety of other problems including many, I'm sure, that they haven't mentioned.

No one has rejected me or ignored my friend request. Even after all these years, I thought they might.

I've only avoided contacting one person. Ironically, he was the closest friend I had at times in my life, but his profile picture along with what I remember of his intelligence level suggest that contacting him might not work out. He called me a queer (which I was, in every sense of the word) even when we were friends. Now, he has too many references to hunting and guns on his profile to suit me.

I've been in a stable relationship since I was 17, so I know only a little about romantic troubles and nothing about children or divorce. I have plenty of grey hair, and so do many of the people who went to school with me. When I dare to compare myself with those who were once my peers, I hold up fine. (It's probably not very healthy to compare myself to others, especially with the goal of determining how my life is better than theirs, but I haven't completely resisted that urge.)

In other ways, however, joining Facebook has been rather unsatisfying. Only two people have written me any heart-felt or considered messages. A few others have left quick comments. Most accepted my friend request without comment. And I haven't bother to offer a comment to them either.

I know that Facebook isn't a substitute for a real relationship with anyone, but I'm both very glad and somewhat sad about what I'm finding after a few months on it. I'm glad some of the people who were once constant presences in my life have decent lives. I'm also glad they are willing to share a tiny corner of it with me, at least online. I'm saddened, though, that it hasn't helped me as much I had hoped in opening up some of the parts of my life I've closed off.

Actually, I didn't.

My Master of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Arlington is in Communication, but I completed the broadcast management sequence rather than the journalism sequence, which might seem to you a better choice for me.

That means I took some journalism classes, but only one or two. (I was already writing professionally and learned journalism in high school.) I took broadcast diction and radio production. I minored in business, something useful for anyone. It was all very fun and informative. Really, it was. I even very briefly interned at a TV station, KTXA Channel 21 in the Dallas West End. It felt like I was only there a few times, but it must have been a few more than that. I could have easily seen myself working there, although I felt insecure among even the other two Public Affairs interns because I had less experience than they did and less drive to be involved in broadcasting. I was really only there to complete a requirement for graduation.

I probably had less drive to be a broadcaster than anyone at the station. That's because I never really wanted to be one.

I wanted to be a print journalist, but when I enrolled at UTA in the early 90s, newspapers were thought to be dying away. (A couple of years ago it seemed those predictions were way off base. Now, they're coming true.) The Internet existed at that time, but no one knew it would become a major force in news coverage. Broadcasting, everyone seemed to assume, would surely spawn the next wave of journalism, whatever form it might take. The best career move, most advised me, was to pursue a career in TV or radio, perhaps at an ad agency where jobs were plentiful for beginners and budgets were high.

As it turned out, the "next wave" of media was Internet news and information sites, based heavily on print journalism. Only recently has the web become a venue for audio, video and multimedia-intensive presentations based on broadcasting.

At heart, I'm a print journalist. I'm not a news man, excited by spending hours researching a 300-word story. And I'm not an author with the patience or depth of curiosity to write an entire book based one subject or idea. I've been a news man and I may one day be an author. For the moment, I fall into the category of essayist, commentator and explorer.

Even though I'm fully educated in fades, wipes, the impact of geography and nighttime on AM radio reception and how to make eye contact with a camera, I'm a print guy.

It's the words that excite me.

On October 18, 2007, I wrote a blog about four wild kittens spotted behind a McDonald's. My old blog is long gone now, but the story is worth repeating. It's one of those little incidents I didn't remember at all until I found it again...

I'm consistently bothered by the number of animals killed by cars everyday. It has become even more evident to me since we moved out of the city (where there are plenty of animal deaths on roadways) to a rural area (where there are even more).

Last night, we saw four feral kittens wandering around in some shrubs behind a McDonald's. They looked like they were having a lot of fun competing for the endless supply of tasty crickets. Nothing is more natural than a feral cat chasing its prey in one of our nation's back alleys. But something still doesn't seem right about that image.

Four feral kittens spotted today means hundreds more at that location by next year... but you'll never see hundreds there. A few move on; many are killed by cars and other predators. Perhaps -- and this is a long shot -- a few are rescued. The fact that they are even there in the first place is evidence that we don't value our pets enough to keep them from creating populations of unwanted offspring.

Our home is full of two humans and four cats, so rescuing more animals to include in our household can't happen. So what should I have done about those four little feral cats? What would you have done? If not you or me, who? Calling the local animal control department would get the problem out of sight (if they bother to respond), but it would also mean almost certain death for the kittens. The term "animal shelter" is a misnomer. Most kill more than 90 percent of the animals they shelter. And if the cats are too feral to socialize with humans, their fate is even more certain. In the McDonald's parking lot, they have a chance at survival, but what kind of life is it really? There isn't a no-kill shelter around that area, and we didn't have an appointment (which many no-kill shelters require) anyway.

Capturing feral animals is cruel. Looking the other way while kittens play on a surface meant for quickly-rolling, huge steel machines is cruel, too. What should one do?

After waiting in the drive-thru much longer than I should have, I drove off with the wrong beverage, wishing I hadn't stopped at all.

In a previous blog post, I mentioned that I spend my weekend evenings at Central Market in Fort Worth listening to live music. That post was about my favorite bands and the ones we've lost through the years.

I admit that some evenings at Central Market are more relaxing than others. I can usually settle down with my burger or chicken sandwich from the grill in time to be almost finished with my food before the band goes on at 6 p.m. Sometimes, however, service at the grill doesn't begin until 6 -- and in at least one case, 6:15.

I try to remember not to interact with any of the store's employees. It rarely goes well. I've made the same mistake more than once. I've asked why they were running late starting service at the outdoor grill when there was no sign of a grill cashier at 5:30. At least six different times, I've asked the question. Each time, I get the same answer: We never start serving until 6. We never have. You're remembering it wrong.

Then, I look at name badge of the employee (who thought that being rude and insulting was part of his or her job description): "Two years of service". Or less. I've been coming there as a customer much longer than they've worked there! And since someone else was managing the grill the previous week, they don't even know whether last week went smoothly or was a disaster, so they certainly couldn't know whether it started on time or not.

They can't provide a consistent experience because they don't remember how it once was. I've often though that current employees would be embarrassed by the state of their patio parties if they could see how well organized they once were. There was a time when service began promptly at 5:30. Burgers were always thoroughly cooked. Fries were always the same type, not whatever they decided to bring out. No one would have even considered slicing chicken breasts horizontally in half to make one piece of chicken serve two customers. (The chicken incident was last week. Those are among the reasons I often have salad now -- spending half as much money as I would have if things were more consistent on the patio.)

So is all of this just complaining about a once grand institution that has fallen from its glory? Sure, I'm venting a little. That's what blogs are for. Also, I'm sad that one of my favorite events is declining. This blog post is called "institutional memory" for a reason, however.

"Institutional memory" is, according to Wikipedia (on the day I accessed it) "is a collective set of facts, concepts, experiences and know-how held by a group of people."  (You can read more about it and find some useful links at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_memory.)

What my still-favorite outdoor event is lacking is a healthy dose of institutional memory.

It's a good lesson for anyone trying to run a business despite high employee turnover: Write down your procedures, then train your employees in them.That gives you a chance to refine your systems rather than reinventing them each time they are implemented. That's how you provide consistent service. That's how you develop devoted clientele who always get what they expect. That's how you survive.

I buy most of my inventory from retail stores that are open to the public. Other sellers have other sources -- and I have a few -- but there are plenty of people who do it that way I do it. Believe me. I see them every time I'm out.

I use a barcode scanner with a database to determine whether I want to buy a book or not. Although some sellers mistakenly think stores are hostile to those of us who use scanners or would rather we not use them, nothing could be further from the truth. Most stores welcome anyone willing to buy their stale inventory, and that's what I do. Managers and employees usually don't care that I am electronically assisted. (Customers sometimes express curiosity, but I simply tell them I don't take questions or that I'm shopping for books, then I turn away from them and continue.) Sellers who run into hostile employees should report them to the manager or the corporate headquarters of the chain and resolve it as they would any other consumer complaint. If the manager or corporate spokesperson tells you to take a hike, take a hike. There is no shortage of books in the world.

I use an iPAQ PDA with a Socket Class 1 laser scanner (plugged into the CF slot, not bluetooth) that I bought from ScoutPal.com. I still use ScoutPal, although the Asellertool software has some additional features, but it is more expensive per month. This is not really an issue since the difference is rather small, but I've been with ScoutPal for a long time and never changed over. They routinely promise improvements as well, but they never seem to happen.

I've also set up scanners for two other people. Used PDAs from eBay or usedhandhelds.com work great. For one that I set up, I used a class 2 laser scanner which I'm convinced can see right through the books. The light beam is much more intense than necessary. My mother has an LED scanner from Socket, and it does not work well.

I want to emphasize that my scanner is attached to my PDA, not Bluetooth. The problem with those Bluetooth scanners that work with Blackberrys (or anything without a card slot to accommodate a scanner) is that if you hold the scanner in your hand and a book in the other, which hand do you hold the PDA in? That's why people put the PDA in a bag or purse and use those silly earphones. But if you don't hear a positive beep, you don't pull out the screen and look at it and you don't know that the book you scanned is only slightly outside the criteria you have set up and might be something you want.

Several sellers around here use Bluetooth scanners, and I'm always glad to see them. I frequently visit a shelf soon after a person with a Bluetooth scanner (who can therefore not see prices but only hear a sound when a criteria is met) and pick out sellable items. It is common to set these devices for sound notifications only when books are worth more than $10 and have an Amazon sales rank greater than 500,000. But what about the $95 book with a sales rank of 500,001? Or the $9.99 book with a sales rank of 12? Those using Bluetooth scanners miss both, and I'll gladly take them.