hedronist

Easy peasy. Tell them you are a close personal friend of Dr. Frank A. Gerbode and that they should pass that information up the comm line. Dr. Gerbode, better known as Sarge to his friends, is probably the most hated / feared opponent the "Church" ever encountered because he beat them at their own game.

Back in the 1970's and early 80's he was Executive Director of the Palo Alto Mission of the Church of Scientology, one of the top missions in the world (it's where, in 1976, I met Mimi Rogers, the 1st Mrs. Tom Cruise). During the insanity that occurred with the International Finance Police (yes, that really was their name) in about 1983/4, he left and took half the mission's members with him. He then created/refined the tech and wrote the book Introduction to MetaPsychology that lead to the Traumatic Incident Reduction Association. (Ps: it works and is recognized as being a valid therapy for people with PTSD, amongst other things.)

The "Church" sued him and lost. He counter-sued for attorneys' fees and won. They were going to appeal, but found out they would have to post 150% of the awarded amount, something on the order of a couple of million dollars. There was a settlement, but it's sealed. When I asked Sarge for any details he could give me, he said, "They will never darken my doorstep again."

Source: ex-Scientologist (1976-1982) and personal friend of Dr. Frank A. Gerbode since 1978. And I don't get anything from the "Church". Nuttin' at all.

the audio quality is infinitely better than what you hear on LiveATC

This genuinely made me laugh. Going back a few years -- Korea, 1970-1 -- I was with the 284^th AVN ATC attached to 8^th Army HQ. Technically I was 93K20 (Enroute Approach; sort of like ARTCC), but we all ended up working tower (93H20).

When I arrived in late 1970, our tower radios were absolute crap. This was at H201, the VIP helipad for 8^th Army HQ, so you would think they would go the extra mile. Nah, this was the Army.

Then one day Robo arrived. His last name was Wrobowski (I think), but the controllers considered him to be a good friend of the Radio Gods. He did nothing by the book, but suddenly our radios were performing like Chinese acrobats. Saying the difference was night and day is a massive understatement.

There are many wild and weird stories involving Robo, but as the song says, "You don't know what you've got til it's gone." When Robo finally rotated home, we got a new Spec 6 running Commo and he did everything by the book. Our radios went from Heaven to Hell in about 2 weeks. God I missed Robo.

Post the link and I'm in for $10.

if they're a busy professional who don't prefer to hit on women at the bars.

This was a major problem for me and, as it turned out, for her, too.

tl;dr: Getting out of the office and out of our day-job heads was the key.

I was 39, 6-years divorced, had my own software company in Silicon Valley, and a 60-hour workweek felt like a vacation to me. Although my employees were 60% women, I never considered crossing that line. I hated bars, and didn't have the time/energy for many of my old hobbies.

So how to meet women who were interested in meeting men?

My answer: Great Expectations. (This was in 1988, so adjust for the time-warp.)

I went on a few dates, but no click. Then I got asked by a woman. Looked at her portfolio pictures, which were great -- very playful. I watched her video interview, which was a complete disaster until the very end when she ... smiled. That smile undid the rest of the video.

We starting clicking from the first coffee date. She was a Senior Editor at Addison-Wesley and she also thought a 60-hour workweek was a vacation. So we started planning/doing stuff that neither of us would normally make time for, because those activities weren't any fun without a companion/partner.

Six months later we were engaged (and I tricked her into proposing to me :-). We are now approaching our 31^st anniversary.

Read your work aloud

I write erotica for an audience of 1 -- me. But I still do this. You can find all sorts of missing/extra commas, non-parallel construction, or whatever, while doing this. It also makes your characters more 3-dimensional to you ... which often leads to a 10-50 page rewrite, but what the hell.