From the Desk of J.M. Poole

Last week I was in Phoenix for a few days.  I accompanied my wife while she needed to work at her company’s HQ, figuring I’d have plenty of time to write there by myself in the hotel room.

Don’t get me wrong, I did get some good writing done, but that was only on the first day.  Did I get anything done on the 2nd or 3rd?  Not much.  Why?  Because on Thursday, while I was going over my notes for the chapter, I heard the tell tale sounds of an old fashioned ringer coming from my cell phone.  It indicated that an unknown person was calling me and their contact information wasn’t in my address book.  It meant a client was calling me.

No problem.  I close my notebook and reach for my binder, which has all my notes for computer tech calls.  I take the call and begin the formalities.  He tells me his name (which I really wasn’t paying attention at this time) and told me what type of problem he had.  I listened and then explained what I could do for him.  He was interested and we set an appointment for me to go to his house for a training session on his new MacBook Air.

Again, no problem.  I’ve taken thousands of these types of calls.

Then he starts chatting with me about what his interests are on the computer.  He tells me what types of things he likes to do to pass the time.  I’m thinking, this sounds like a nice guy.  He then tells me that this house I’m meeting him at is his mother’s and he lives in Los Angeles.

The little man upstairs responsible for filing away all the useless information I’ve ever collected finally sits up and takes notice.  My eyes drop back to my notebook and I read the client’s name as I had written it:  Michael Bean.

Rusty wheels begin to turn.  He lived in Los Angeles?  His mother lived here?  I knew that the Biehn family lived in the same town as me and that Michael was related to them.

At this time we said our goodbyes and I hang up.  I’m still staring at my notes.  Had I just been talking to Michael Biehn, the star of Terminator, the Abyss, Tombstone, and Aliens??  How could I verify this?

I had the phone number he gave me, which was his mother’s.  Could I look it up that way?  A quick reverse phone check verified the last name was Biehn.

Holy shit!  Pardon my French, but I had just been chatting with a movie star like we were the best of friends!  A grin split my face and to tell the truth, it hasn’t left it for several days.

Ok, this brings me to today.  I had my appointment with him today.  My wife told me to keep cool and not geek out.  I’m sure I looked like a big goofy idiot when we first met.  We shook hands and he showed me his new computer.

For the next 2 hours I helped him set up his email, configure iTunes, helped set up his cell phone, create playlists, etc.  It was hands down the most surreal moment of my life, sitting so close to Michael Biehn that our knees were practically touching.

The best part comes next.  After we’re officially done, we sat around, with his brother, and talked about movies.  Movies!  We talked about the movies he’s been in.  We talked a lot about Aliens and what it was like filming it.

My big dopey grin is back.

One of the last things he does is to add me to his email contact book in case he has any other questions.  I told him I’d be more than happy to help.  Know what he said to me? “Are you any good on a set?”

Far and away the best tech call I’ve ever been on!!!