He's BACK!!

Well, it's only been two weeks, I guess, but still... it feels like I haven't blogged in a month. Seems like the summer weather has finally gotten to everyone around here, as most of the blogs I frequent have suddenly become much more sporadic -- mine included. Of course, if my Net connection weren't through Cox, perhaps I could actually be blogging online right now. As it stands, I'm WordPadding this to be pasted in later, whenever my connection decides to come back around.

I, of course, never planned to go two weeks without blogging, buuuuuut... I've been under a fair amount of stress lately, as I'm sure most anyone who lives in the metro Phoenix area and drives a car has been as well. You can take that stress and copy it in triplicate for me, since I have my own pickup as well as our two work trucks to worry about as well. "So," you must be asking if you're an out-of-state reader, "just what exactly are you talking about?" Well, it's the... drumroll please...

PANICKY FEAR-OF-A-GAS-SHORTAGE GAS SHORTAGE!!

Yes... that's worded correctly... the Panicky Fear-of-a-Gas-Shortage Gas Shortage. For the actual Arizona Republic news articles, you can click here. But, here it is, in as small a nutshell as I can manage: The Valley receives 30% of its gasoline via a pipeline that runs from El Paso to Phoenix. On July 30, this pipeline ruptured just north of Tucson. About a week later, it was closed, to prevent an obviously impending disaster (i.e., the pipeline blowing completely apart). Now that the Valley was receiving only about 70% of its usual gasoline supplies, retailers citywide began to raise prices by the nickel and dime, since THEY were getting the squeeze from the transport companies, since THEY were getting the squeeze from the dealers since THEY had to augment their supply with more expensive "spot market" gasoline. However, mid-grade and premium supplies, which came in largely through the pipeline, were pretty much S.O.L. until the pipeline was repaired.

Nobody figured that, even at 70% capacity, there would be any problem with regular 87-octane unleaded. Unfortunately, as stations began to run dry of 89 and 91-92 gas around last Wednesday and Thursday, our beloved, beloved, beloved newsmedia (okay, not ALL of the outlets; CBS-5 and FOX-10, though, you're as guilty as snot) began to open their newscasts with headlines like, "PREMIUM GAS RUNS DRY; SHORTAGE IMMINENT?" Then the perma-smiling newscasters put on their serious faces and warned people, "It might be a good idea to top off that tank this weekend, as stations are experiencing a SHORTAGE of GASOLINE."

Gak! They said SHORTAGE! The general public HATES words like SHORTAGE! So, EVERYONE ran out on Saturday night and on throughout Sunday and filled up every possible receptacle for gasoline they had!

It was like a scene out of a horror movie. As I was driving around town Sunday, stations were closing up left and right. And if one station closed, the next station down the road saw its volume of cars double. And when that one closed, the next station had quadruple the number of customers, and... it grew exponentially. And since no one really saw it coming, the tanker-truck companies were caught with their pants down. Since almost the entire city (it seemed) bought gas in a 24-hour period, the trucking companies couldn't possibly keep up with the demand. And then -- yes, it gets better! -- as people began to panic, they would drive around "FOR HOURS" (yes, people allowed themselves to be interviewed saying, "Hell, I almost ran out of gas trying to find gas!") trying to find open gas stations. Whenever a truck could make it to a station, cars would FLOCK to the location and back up for half a mile (literally!) from the station waiting to gas up, and they'd run the tank dry in six or seven hours.

From what I understand, the problem is beginning to ease somewhat at this hour (1:30 pm Tuesday). See, it's not that we don't have the gas; it's here in town, just it's out at the gigantic storage facility. They've got trucks running 'round the clock and overtime trying to get it from there to the stations. See, now their major problem isn't the doofuses who ran out and filled up their car, their jet skis and eight gas cans all at once. Now, the people who waited it out like we were told to are running out of gas, and now WE have to follow tankers around in we want to have a shot at getting any. See below for more on that...

Now, back to me having to mind three trucks... sine I take care of the expenses for our kennel, that includes gassing up the main truck (the black truck) and the backup truck (the white truck). I fueled up both my pickup and the black truck on Wednesday, but since I was listening to the media outlets who said there wouldn't BE a friggin' GAS OUTAGE, I didn't worry about the white truck. We only use it once a day at best, anyways, and it's just around the corner and back, from the track to the kennel.

Unfortunately, the white truck was damn near empty already. Oops. So, that was my own screwup. That, and I made two roundtrips from my apartment to Central and Bell on Sunday, even as I watched our gas supply go from bountiful to mediocre to depleted to GONE. My screwup #2. I should have gassed again Friday, but... well... I'm hard-headed.
Anyhow, so Monday morning, I got a severe verbal lashing from Da Boss (my dad) since I hadn't gassed up the white. Lucky enough for me, though, it was 6:45 in the morning, so I hit the road, and the second station I came to (the Exxon at 44th and Van Buren) had been supplied recently. I had to wait three deep in line before I got to a pump, and I ran out of gas pretty much just as I got there. I managed to start it up the two times I needed to and nursed it forward without getting pushed, and I filled 'er up. $1.97 a gallon. Mission accomplished.

However, as I watched the progression go from panic to "uh-oh, we've actually got a problem in distribution here", I began to get pensive about my pickup and the black truck. They both dipped below 1/4 yesterday, with my truck dropping another line this morning. By now, it was too late to drive out of town far enough south to gas up, as I didn't know if I'd have enough gas to get there in either truck. At about 7:45, as rain started to fall, I gave the guys at work a list of things to do, and I said, "I'm going to go find gas. I'll call you when I find it."
No, I don't know what I was thinking, either. It wasn't the most brilliant of plans, but I was starting to get worried, and I don't like to worry. It makes my stomach hurt.
However, my brazen journey paid off. I looped up past 44th and Washington (Circle K: empty) and 44th and Van Buren (Circle K: empty), then up to 44th and McDowell (Arco: empty), hanging a left and passing 40th and Van Buren (7-11 and Diamond Shamrock: both empty). I cruised down to 32nd and Van Buren (some corner store, I think it's called Speedway Convenience: empty) and hung a left. Before I crossed the canal, I noted that the ABC-15 news van was broadcasting from the empty Texaco right there. Over the canal on 32nd, under the freeway, and at the Mobil on the left-hand side—

Was that a tanker pulling in to the parking lot?

Wait! Stay calm... There's no one there yet. Why wouldn't there be anyone there if he's not filling the tanks?

Then, just as I passed by the station, four cars swung into the station and screeched (literally) to a halt at the pumps. Yowza! I flipped the quickest illegal U-turn I could and zipped back to the station. I got in line right behind a guy in a Sentra who had gotten to a pump first. The tanker driver must have felt like Keanu Reeves in Matrix 2 as we drivers all swarmed around his truck as he began to uncoil hose. Yes, he was filling the tanks. No, he wasn't sure how long it would be, but no more than half an hour. "All right," I figured. "I'm game." I had a bag of sunflower seeds, an almost-full liter of Diet Dew and The Tony Kornheiser Show on the radio. I could wait. But the first thing I did was call back to the kennel and told Olivia to tell everyone that, if they hurried (by my roundtrip route, I was barely a mile from the kennel at this point), they could make it to this Mobil at 32nd and Roosevelt without too much of a wait. Yeah, so I was contributing to the very problem I mentioned earlier. But at some point, the cliché "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" comes into play. When EVERYONE is running out of gas, a certain level of community-mindedness is in order.

Olivia, community-minded person that she is (I might use a stronger, less-sarcastic term, but she IS my sister), jumped in her car and lit out like a bat out of accounting, and called back to the kennel and told whomever it was she got a hold of to tell everyone else. (chuckle... Gotta love 'er.) She was at the station within two minutes, and she was barely off the driveway in line, probably fifth or sixth from getting to a pump. (Each pump had two people in line for it, and there was 5 double-sided pumps, so that was 20 people in the initial lines, of which I was in the second 10... so she was 25th or so in line.) By the time word got to the rest of the crew, the line had backed up clear to Celebrity Theatre, according to Greg who had brought one of my aunt's trucks. Danny, on a hunch, zipped right past the station (I saw him fly by on 32nd; I think my exact words were, Where the f*** is HE going?) and went to the Arco at 32nd and Oak. I don't know how he knew they'd just opened; he doesn't have a cell phone or anything. But he was gassed up and back at the kennel before I was. Spooky.

As the trucker filled the reservoir, I chitchatted with the guy in front of me during commercial breaks on the radio. We both commented on how civil it seemed. No one was shouting, no one was pushing in line (although Olivia told me she wouldn't be afraid to use her pepper spray on anyone who cut her off, and she's just crazy enough to do it), and tempers seemed to be holding steady. I think it was the pleasant weather. (It was gray and overcast all morning, with intermittent showers. That's "pleasant" around here.) And no one seemed to mind when the attendant came out and changed the price from $1.95 to $2.09. Whatever. Funny thing is, I'm hearing less in the news about the shortage than I am about price-gouging. Was I being gouged? I don't know. After the guy in front of me put $30 into his Sentra and one gas can he tried to be real clandestine about in his trunk (I don't know why, it's not like they said we couldn't fill them... perhaps he didn't want to look greedy, although if I'd had the foresight to grab any of the three gas cans we have sitting in our shed, I'd've filled 'em, too), I wheeled up and slipped in the ol' debit card. I got ready to punch the digits, and...

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!! "SALE CANCELLED"

GAAAAAAAGGHHH!!

No, wait... breathe... breathe... everyone else is still fueling... then the speaker crackled to life. "Sir, your card wasn't read. Would you like to try it again?"

Well, dammit... could we possibly program our pumps to say, for example, "Card Not Read"? *shrug* Ah well... beggars can't be choosers, after all. I zipped in the card again, and this time it went off without a hitch. Within seconds, that sweet refined nectar was flowing into my truck. $43.27 later, I had a full tank again.

Now, as to the black truck? It should be all right. It was right on 1/4 last night, and we only need to make one roundtrip with it tonight, and, theoretically, it doesn't need to go anywhere Wednesday. Mark's planning to drive down to Casa Grande with five or six gas cans, and Da Boss is going to pay him to fill up a few for the business, so we can use those on the black if need be.

* * * * *

Okay, so I guess that's all I have to say about that. My life's been pretty much average of late. Haven't gotten out much; karaoke was called off last Wednesday, and that's usually my one night to get out and enjoy life. However, I paid Danny and Jose to do my work Sunday night so I could have the night off, and I went and saw Seabiscuit (that was the purpose of one of those round-trips to Central and Bell). Decent enough flick. I'm not much on reviewing movies, but I'd say go and see it, especially if you don't know the story. Unfortunately, nothing came as much of a shock to me; having grown up in the racing world, I'm familiar with the Seabiscuit saga, even though that's, well, horse racing, and I'm not a horseman. But I liked the characters, and how they talked about how The Biscuit acted really struck a chord with me. I know most people will think it's movie BS, and they'll write off the trainer as an eccentric nut, but most of what he says in the movie, about how the horse reacts to outside influences and people and other horses and such, is all true. It's true with my dogs, anyway, so I'd have to figure it's true with horses, too.

Oh, and there's the Coronado Band. You all better watch out for this program. Rebuilding year, you say? Ms. Rich says Screw That. She is, of course, the new director, and her directive is to reverse the direction the band's been directed in the past couple of years. I spent three days up there in Prescott at band camp with them as a volunteer staff member two weeks ago... well, I left for Prescott right after I finished the last post in the blog. The odd phenomenon is, the program may be really, really small this year, but the people who didn't want to be there quit, so the ones left are the ones who REALLY wanted to stick with it. So they're all gung ho about getting everything they can out of THIS season instead of just writing it off and gearing up for next year. The band is blessed in that it's comprised mainly of juniors and below, with only 5 or 6 seniors. So there'll be a solid nucleus of people coming back next year, and if everything keeps going like it is, they'll hit the ground running with an infusion of freshman talent, my little bro included.

Since they had no staff all summer (Ms. Rich was finally able to hire a guard instructor last week, but she has no paid assistants and no perc instructor as far as I know, unless that's changed since last Thursday), the section leaders really stepped up and took the reins. Hell, I've seen so much of Matt Masters in staff meetings that it's easy to forget he's a senior this year. Two of the seniors on the guard line were writing the work until the instructor arrived. But no one's complaining about it, and a big part of that is Ms. Rich's highly positive attitude. Near as I can tell, she's viewing this as a gleeful challenge, and I can certainly appreciate the fun in that... when pretty much everyone's written the band off for this season, she's getting ready to shock 'em all.

I had more coherent thoughts on this last topic, but I'm getting foggy. Nap time. My connection's STILL down, so I'm going to save this and post it later on. It feels good to be back blogging again, though.