July 2006 Archives

Getting pulled over by the cops at 3am after you've left a party is never fun. Its actually quite a soil-your-freaking-pants experience. I try to avoid that set of circumstances at all times. Yet there I was, sitting on the side of Northwest Radial Hwy on Friday night/Saturday morning. Nice, huh?

I'd been at a party at a buddy of mine's house, where over the course of six hours I consumed enough beer to have a sufficiently good time, but not enough to be illegally driving. And at 3, as the party was clearing out, I took off, turning down an offer to crash on the floor. With my new vehicle exactly one week old, I would not have turned down the offer if I was at all impaired for driving. Not that I would have otherwise, but you get the point -- risk-averse was I, with new $21000 wheels. And I left.

About six blocks from Gilby's house, a cop pulled up behind me. I was at the intersection of Fort and Northwest Radial, changed lanes to turn, and he did the same. After we turned, the cherries came on, and I was busted.

I pulled over immediately, confident that there was nothing I could be in trouble for. Wasn't speeding, had signaled properly, all lights were functional (as it was a new vehicle, after all!), and I wasn't drunk. As soon as the cop talked to me for a few moments, he knew that. A perfectly coherent conversation with a guy who smells of Axe but nothing else, and has eyes that are alert, led him to never question my sobriety for a second. But there was another problem.

Long before I'd decided to trade in The Colorado, I ordered a MacBook. I wanted the black version, suped up with a big hard drive and more memory. I ordered it, and because of their popularity, it sat on back order for a while. During this time, I bought a Honda Civic EX.

The day I drove it off the lot, Apple shipped my MacBook. Two huge purchases in one day. Don't think my bank didn't get a kick out of that. Their fraud protection people were all over it, assuming that because I'd written a down-payment check to Superior Honda AND bought an expensive notebook that surely I was the victim of some fraud. Not so much, I told them.

But the sucky thing is, I don't make big purchases like this all that often, and I like to savor them, maybe get a good story or two out of it that I can relate here. But the day I drove my new car, working title Gandalf the Gray, both for its color and its swift stealthy badassness, to work the first time, my MacBook arrived at 10:30 am on the FedEx truck.

So my excitement over the car subsided, and my interest in checking out the Intel Core Duo power inside my new Mac piqued. What a shame. But it is what it is. Who am I kidding? Its awesome! And the only shame is you had to wait three days to read about the MacBook! You bet.

After using the MacBook for a couple three days, I have two comments:

My new car has been the talk of the office. As I write this after volleyball on Tuesday, I can tell you -- people don't know what it is at first, so they gawk. And then when they see its a Honda, they can't believe it. Hondas have always been known as extremely reliable, durable vehicles with conservative designs. Cars you can drive for 300,000 miles, cars that look mature in terms of styling and features.

Then you have the Civic, which for years and years has been an ultra-reliable entry level economy car. Butt ugly in the 1980s, the Civic became a staple of the roadway nonetheless. Its design in the 1990s was more streamlined, but its uninspiring shape and conservative lines screamed "boring family car". I need something a little flashier, a little more macho, something more than just a utilitarian "gets me there and back" kind of ride.

So, understandably, based on their preconceived notions, nobody can quite believe that thing in the parking lot is a Honda. The conversations with the guys have all been, "Wow, that's a sweet ride. And it gets 40MPG? Damn."

That's all good. A car that looks good, drives good, and gets great gas mileage? That's a winner if I ever seen one.

I will choose to ignore the comments from some of the women in the office, who refer to it as "that cute little car". If I have to emblazon the thing with dragons shooting fire, dammit, my car will not be described as cute again.

After I nearly threw up in my mouth hearing my prized new car described in such a heretical manner, a couple of the guys reassured me. It still gets 40MPG, it still goes really fast, its OK. One of them said he'd drive anything that got that kind of mileage, even an old rust bucket Geo Metro. So I suppose if the tradeoff for a sweet ride that gets bitchin' gas mileage is snide remarks about its cuteness from women, I'll deal with it. Dragons breathing fire or no.

Incidentally, there's nothing wrong with a cute little car, don't get me wrong. But what you call "cute" I call "bitchin", so its a difference in semantics, really.

You bet.

As I watched The Colorado drive off into the distance, I sat in my new car and it was kinda sad. But only for a minute. You must understand, I overly-dramatized the demise of The Colorado yesterday for dramatic effect. And I'd just seen, for the 40th time, the original Miami Vice 2-hour pilot, which has that great scene where Sonny pulls the car over on the way to chase Calderone just to call his ex-wife from a pay-phone and ask, "What we had...it was real, wasn't it?" Great dialogue. So I applied some creative license and co-opted it into my story about the end of The Colorado. I assumed people would pick up on the obvious Miami Vice reference. I assumed wrong. People just thought I was weird and talking to my truck.

Disappointing. But we move on nonetheless.

On December 18, 2004, a jet-black pickup entered my life, and in turn, the life of my readers. For this wasn't just any pickup truck, it was a Chevrolet Colorado Z71 4X4. Not just any Chevy Colorado. The Colorado.

My brother and I always name our cars. My first car, the Buick Skyhawk, was "Captain" Skyhawk like the Nintendo game. The hunter green Skylark I drove next was The Green Monster. Not to be confused with The Green Hornet, the green minivan with only one working door my brother drove. My Grand Am GT was known as The White Shadow (both because the car was white, and because the show of the same name is really really badass).

Well, when I brought home the truck, it oozed so much awesomeness, it was clear it wasn't just another vehicle, nor just another Chevy Colorado. It was the definitive version of the truck. The piece de resistance of Detroit. The Colorado.

Through trips to Kansas City, Minneapolis twice, Des Moines numerous times, and Lincoln many many more times, it treated me very well. And I loved it back, washing it once a week and always polishing the chrome, treating the leather seats, and keeping it in tip-top condition. I installed after-market accessories to make it even more awesome. It was the most well-cared for pickup truck in the world, befitting its stature as The Colorado.

I've often thought that buying a new car was like "Deal Or No Deal". You've got something you want. The banker wants you to have it too, but only on his terms. He's a c___rag. If you're lucky, you get a salesman like Howie Mandel, who's smarmy but ultimately harmless.

Sometimes, buying a car is like "Road House". Like last night, I'm at one of the local Honda dealerships, haggling over a Civic 2-door sports coupe, maxxed out with LCD touch-screen navigation system, XM, subwoofer 10-speaker audio system with amp, the whole thing. I had no intention of buying a car last night -- I still need to go to Best Buy and have my after-market radio and XM uninstalled -- but I wanted their offer so I knew what they wanted to make me pay. Having done my homework on Edmunds.com and Autobytel.com, I knew invoice price, about what I should pay, etc.

So when their first offer came back 7K over invoice, I balked. I love when they bring you their offer from the Banker, who always writes "Great Deal!" next to some bullshit number. Like I'm supposed to believe 5K over invoice is a great deal? For who?

Last weekend, that venerable establishment where Dick, Continental and I often end up drinking, the Homy Inn, celebrated its 50th Anniversary with a big street party. Closing off the street in front of the bar, the Boulevard Keg Van poured drinks outside in the parking lot -- and the street -- for partiers all day. I hear it was an awesome time.

Unfortunately, with me under the weather, and Continental and Dick both out of town, we did not go to the party. Wednesday night, when Dick and I ended up there as the third bar of the night, we made up for it, sorta. We got pints of Coors Light in Homy Inn 50th Anniversary Souvenir Pint Glasses. That's right -- you get to keep the glass. Just like in college when I'd get multiple pint glasses from the Bluejay on Thursday Pint Night; we practically stocked our cupboards with those things.

So to add to my collection of Pint Glasses, add a Homy Inn 50th glass. Look at it, all majestic and what not.

You bet.

Its becoming old hat, really. For a team that started 28-35, and was a bad team in early June when I saw them in person, to be 13 games over .500 six weeks later in ABSURD. Its astonishing, really.

The Twins won again last night. Here's what pisses me off -- since the game we were at on June 10, which they of course lost, they've only lost one home game. ONE. Overall, they're 28-7 in the 35 games since then.

They have the best pitcher in baseball, Johan Santana, who we memorably saw strike out 15 White Sox in person last year. They have the best young pitcher in Francisco Liriano, who went 10-1 to start the year and made the all-star team. They have the league's leading hitter, Joe Mauer, who is 35 points ahead of his next closest competitor. They have a bonafide slugger, Justin Morneau, for the first time since I was 9 years old.

Its good to be a Twins fan, you'd think.

They'd won 8 straight when we left for California. They lost the night we got into San Jose, and then promptly won another 11 straight. That's a 19-1 stretch, for you geniuses out there. In that span, because of those bitches in Detroit and Chicago, they gained only 1 game. Because guess what Detroit and Chicago did over that same span? Went 18-2.

This has never happened before. A team goes 19-1 and only gains one game? Piss me off. Good to be a Twins fan? I suppose, if you're into enjoying wins for what they are and able to ignore the standings.

Here's the funny part. They've cooled off slightly in the last two weeks, and yet gained more ground than during their streak. So while some fans said they couldn't possibly make the playoffs being 10 games out at the break, here we are in mid-July and they're just 5 games out.

They're coming, folks. And like the video game says, All Your Bitches Are Belong To Us. That means you, Detroit and Chicago.

You bet.

Somewhere in my childhood, I missed out on the Transformers. I don't know how it happened, I can't explain it, but someone who knows as much about nothing as me should know something about the Transformers, right?

I don't. Actually, my brother is in the same boat. We were lamenting this fact last night at the bar, well, lamenting isn't the right word, because we don't regret not following the Transformers. We were curious how we never got into it, I guess.

I had one Transformer action figure. My grandma got it for me for Christmas one year, because all the kids were into Transformers and I surely had to be as well. Not so much. I remember that thing as the odd futuristic machine I'd call on when my Miyagi and He-Man adventures needed that extra push over the top (don't ask -- I was 6, it made sense then). It turned into a train, and even had the tracks broken down and attached on its back like a backpack. It had this ridiculous orange claw on one hand, and a laser cannon on the other. Its head was shaped like the cockpit of a fighter jet, with a laser cannon on the front of it. Perhaps the strangest thing was what it transformed into: three pieces. One, as I recall, a laser tank to provide perimeter defense to the other two pieces, which were a rocket base and a rocket.

Thanks to Big Oil and the apparent permanence of $3 gasoline, I've come to the extremely tough decision that its no longer cost efficient to drive The Colorado. Some would argue that it never was, but I digress. When I purchased The Colorado in December of 2004, gas was $1.60 and hardly anyone, myself included, paid one lick of attention to MPG. Within six months, it was $3.00 and everyone worried about their gas mileage.

I know what you're thinking: The Colorado is your signature vehicle, you can't dump it. Well, it costs more per month, with payment, gas and insurance, to own The Colorado than it does my house. That's utterly ridiculous. And it stops now.

I've had my crack legal team combing through my lease papers (yes, I leased, which in hindsight was a tragic choice) to devise a way to wrangle me out of the remainder of the lease. Yes, I understand it will cost me some cash to do, but a short-term cash drain is preferential to long-term huge gas bills.

Provided I can use my powers of persuasion to convince a local dealership to do the early-lease termination-paperwork-shimmy, I'm going to be driving something new before my August payment is due on the 17th. Something brand new, something small with great gas mileage, and maybe even something hybrid. Sheesh. That looks so sissy in type. Hybrid. Yes, Mr. Big Block Grand Am GT, Mr. Muscle Colorado Pickup, could be driving a hybrid.

This is what the Big Oil White House has wrought: a Guy like me considering the possibility of a hybrid. I almost can't bear the thought.

Its just about enough to make me cry. Almost. But not quite.

Imagine...me driving a Volkswagen Jetta. Or worse yet, a Honda Civic Hybrid. Or even a -- brace yourself -- Toyota Corolla. Somebody kill me now.

Tuesday night at volleyball, man, that was a hot night. 90 degree heat is always brutal on sand, but compounding it were several factors. One, I foolishly refused to wear sunglasses. Two, the glare from the side of the steel building -- we were on the side of the building -- was absolutely brutal. Three, I need to get a headband if I'm going to continue to refuse to get a haircut.

 The sun was fierce. I don't know if sunglasses would have helped, honestly -- at 6:30, it was right at that eye-level on the side of the court opposite the building that makes seeing the ball so tough. If my reflexes weren't so quick, I'm convinced I would have been smacked in the face a half-dozen times. As it was, I flailed away like an Octopus using tentacles to shoo lesser aquatic creatures of the sea away. It must have looked hilarious.

 The beer was all free, thankfully, as we had a gift card we were still using, and that made losing 2 out of 3 go down a little smoother. I don't like losing -- ever -- but when you can't see the ball until its on top of you, well, what can you do?

I was all set to give up the "Taxi" jokes, honest. But this is an absolutely true story. Seriously, you couldn't make this stuff up.

Saturday afternoon, I was watching a movie on the basement big screen on HBO-HD. Field of Dreams, I think. Turned the TV off, went upstairs, and didn't turn that TV on again until Sunday. When I came down to watch TV on Sunday afternoon, I flipped on the TV, and discovered I could not change the channel on my set-top HD DVR box. Tried the remote. No go. Tried the buttons on the box itself. Nothing. Yep, it was stuck on HBO. Now, granted, there are worse channels to be stuck on.

Except guess what was on HBO at that time?

You guessed it: Taxi.

In the early '80s, the late Peter Tomarken hosted the annoying-yet-addicting "Press Your Luck", where contestants would answer unbelievably easy multiple choice questions to earn "Spins", which they would then use to play for Big Bucks. You'll remember the square board, with flashing squares of various prizes and dollar amounts, which randomly rotated and changed -- along with your cursor, which you'd hit a button to stop, hopefully while a prize was highlighted, and not one of the dreaded Whammies.

My brother and I used to watch this show all the time growing up. He was always convinced he could win big on it; his hand-eye coordination was top-notch. I was always sure I'd be terrible on the show unless I got extradinarily lucky; my hand-eye coordination is not as quick -- and the joints in my fingers not as responsive. This is why I got my ass kicked in most fighter games on Nintendo growing up, and had to get good at games like Tecmo Bowl and Mario that didn't require as quick a response time, or else I'd have got my ass kicked in every video game.

When we left the story yesterday, Dick and I were preparing for our 60-second skit about the Nebraska chapter. We had settled on the basic premise: do absolutely nothing for 45 seconds. And then announce the leadership retreat was coming to Nebraska in 2008. That's it.

So we're on the docket fourth to last, which would make some people nervous. Not me. I was actually feeding off it. Here's how calm I was: as we were walking up to wait "on deck" next to the stage, I was stopping to chat with people. During the skit immediately preceeding us, I bought a beer at the bar, then moseyed toward the stage, stopping for a fist pound with the guy sitting closest to the stage, who I totally didn't even know. Then it was showtime.

We took the stage to applause -- veteran attendees knew this was about to be epic or epically bad. The clock started. And I stood looking calmly at the back wall. At ten seconds, I walked slowly to the mic, and cleared my throat. Uneasy laughter from the crowd. Dick checks his watch. At 20 seconds, I walked to the mic and sighed. Laughter is louder now. At 25 seconds, a heckler yelled out, "Swear some more!". Nice. At 30 seconds, I walked to the mic and cleared my throat again. Uproarious laughter now. We've spent 30 seconds doing nothing, and the crowd loves it. At 40 seconds, Dick walks to the mic and says, "We're going to need to buy some more time." He then proceeds to pay the judges $5, and they give us 30 more seconds. Which I totally proceed to waste in the same manner as before. The crowd is in stitches now. Finally, at the 1:10 mark, fully 10 seconds overtime, I did something. "The Nebraska Chapter would like to announce that the leadership retreat is coming to Omaha in 2008. Fuckin' A!"

On Wednesday June 21, we headed out to San Francisco for the Leadership Retreat. Cliff Glypha and I were heading out early to see our buddy Kadavy; Dick Herculanuum was already there visiting family in Sacramento. Continental Frutiger and others would follow the next day, and the conference would start Friday.

Before I headed to the airport, I stayed long enough at the office to get a steak and some potatoes -- we were grilling out for lunch that day, and I wasn't gonna miss that. At the airport, Omaha had suddenly turned into a busy airport, as all the garage spots were full. Of course, you don't know that until you get inside. Level after level, we drove around in circles until we ultimately reached Level Six -- the roof of the garage. Plenty of spots available there. Outside parking for inside prices, namely, 12 bucks a day. An omen for the trip?

On the first leg of the trip, Omaha to Denver, I had a jackass in front of me. His seat was all the way back from takeoff to landing. At least I had the window seat. At the Denver airport, we enjoyed pizza by the slice from Dominos while we wondered why there was a Ferrari Testarossa store at the airport. Seriously, I'm not Italian enough to get away with wearing a leather jacket emblazoned with the Ferrari logo on the back. No one is, actually. But at the airport? Seems like an odd place for that store.

***

Friday night, we assembled at The Farmhouse for some beers before walking to the free REO Speedwagon concert in Omaha, Bank of the West Celebrates America! And yes, the exclamation point was part of the name. Three beers a piece later, bottles of Blue Ribbon in my case, we took off. We weren't terribly concerned with being on-time, for two reasons. One, it was free; and two, it was REO Speedwagon. Continental, Dick, myself, Heidi, Cathy, and one of her co-workers whose name I forget. From that list of people, you can see that Book Two now has a first page...

We arrived about 25 minutes into their set, and began the process of working our way up close to the stage. The throng of 30,000 plus had to be the biggest crowd REO had played to since Live Aid in 1985. We eventually pushed up just beside the soundboard, perhaps 350 feet from the stage. And apparently we hadn't missed anything: they played Take It On The Run, Keep On Lovin' You, Time For Me To Fly, Roll With The Changes, Can't Fight This Feelin', and a couple other songs none of us recognized.