Hard Chrome Annotated Read-Along · Chapter 1

End Notes

1. 1
   Sebastian is an employment attorney who represents plaintiff employees and mostly works on large, complex, class actions. This was my day job for a dozen years, so I gave Sebastian a lot of the things I’ve done in my career. Moving to certify a class, especially in an employment discrimination case, is a huge project that takes months of work. I’ve worked with several experts in my cases and that’s a shit ton of work, too. Dr. Walsh here is a labor economist. He never shows up in this story, but you’ll hear more about his work from Sebastian’s point of view.
   
   Ellen is the name of a fellow associate at the firm I worked at for a while. Read in context ↩
2. 2
   Sebastian could have flown into Portland or Bangor and the drive would have been shorter. But there are more options for flights between San Francisco and Boston than from SF to either Portland or Bangor. Read in context ↩
3. 3
   What’s that quote attributed to Mark Twain, I think? “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” It’s not…entirely accurate but I have been in both places in the summer and Maine could easily be hotter on any given day. Read in context ↩
4. 4
   We’ll get a better view of this in Chapter 4! Read in context ↩
5. 5
   I think there actually was an engine on a pallet in the lot outside the shop I took the photo of. Read in context ↩
6. 6
   The band is Halestorm. I listen to a lot of hard rock and heavy metal music while writing, so I gave Krystal the same taste in music. Halestorm is one of my favorite lady-fronted metal bands and I’m pretty sure Krystal would love them too. I saw them in concert in 2018. Read in context ↩
7. 7
   This is totally blaming the victim here and Sebastian doesn’t really believe that a woman who wears a low-cut shirt is asking to be sexually harassed. But his work as a plaintiff’s attorney has started to color his perspective on all his daily interactions, much like it did mine. Read in context ↩
8. 8
   My parents owned a Ford Fairlane when I was a girl. A 1984 light blue station wagon that I learned to drive on. My best friend at the time named the car Osric, after a minor character in Hamlet(? I think?). I loved that car and I’d totally hire Dylan to restore it, if I still had it. Read in context ↩
9. 9
   I needed another type of classic car to serve as Samuel Campbell’s usual ride. I can’t even tell you how long I spent deliberating over options. Read in context ↩
10. 10
    Yes, this an homage to Patrick Swayze. RIP. Read in context ↩
11. 11
    These are the literal part numbers for each pedal kit in the MAC’s catalogue. The rabbit holes of research I find myself going down…sigh. My editor looked them up to verify them, too. Read in context ↩
12. 12
    There was a huge white hydrangea bush outside the house we stayed at in Greenville, which I stared at for days while writing part of this book. No hideous garden gnomes outside that house, but I’ve always kind of wanted a garden gnome myself. Read in context ↩
13. 13
    Dylan nicknames everyone he cares about. So does my wife. Usually not terribly flattering nicknames, either. Read in context ↩