So, before I get to the real reason of this quick post, let me drop the knowledge on Video Bo. If you were like me, back when you had your regular Nintendo and that was about it, Tecmo Super Bowl was one of the best games EVER. And who was the best player, unquestionably? Bo Jackson on the Raiders. The creators at Tecmo juiced up Bo to levels unimaginable in the real world. Anyway, I don't want to give too much of Bill Simmons' story away, but I'll say that as I was reading it, I couldn't believe how well he described the game and how fanatics played it. He mentions the Madden Cover Jinx, too. What, you didn't know about that? The last five players to be featured on that year's Madden NFL game box have had terrible seasons, culminatng in this year's Michael Vick cover resulting in... well, you saw what happpened to HIM already. Anyway, click here for the story.

"Richard!... Fat guy in a little coat, Richard!"

I mention that quote because I will be unable to stop myself from saying it while I'm trying on sport coats tomorrow night.

What? I'm buying a new sport coat? "Why?", you ask? Well, I've got THREE dogs in the Quarter-Mile Chalenge finals on Friday night. Walk through some math with me here: There were 18 dogs originally entered, of which I had 4. There are 6 dogs in the finals, of which I have 3.

Not that I'm patting myself on the back or anything, but... well, yeah, okay, I'm patting myself on the back. The ¼-mile distance is kind of screwy, what with its start right there at the finish line. It takes just the right dog (or three... *cough*), because the box literally opens right into the first turn. It's less about a dog who has a lot of early speed than it is about one who is used to exploding out of the box. Many trainers mistakenly simply enter dogs who can get to an early lead consistently, but this can fail them because you have to be able to tell the difference between a box-breaker and a dog who just has average box-popping ability but uses the 110 yards' worth of track before the first turn to power to an early lead.

Anyway, I know I'm boring my audience whenever I launch into a greyhound theory discussion... So, what with our better-than-average odds of winning this thing, Da Boss called me from Kansas (more on that later) and told me to go out and buy myself a new sport coat, on the business. (Hey, I'm all for free clothes...) I've only got the one coat, the gray one I'm wearing in the two photos on my main page, but my dad told me he didn't want it to look like I only owned one sport coat, since I keep getting dressed up for these stake finals. (Even though, you know, I do only own one sport coat, but, well... y'know.) Also, I need a new pair of dress slacks; ask Kristy and Jenn, who were with me the night of the Swift Six match races back in May, and they can tell you all about how I split oppen the seat of my pants getting into the truck leaving my apartment for the track. I've worn my nice black jeans to the last two stakes I dressed up for, including that night. From a distance, you can't tell (sooner or later I'll scan in the pic from that night), but up close it's fairly obvious. So I'll be stopping by Wal-Mart tomorrow, too, to pick up a pair of pants.

Like I mentioned briefly above, my dad's at Wichita right now. Our trainer up there supposedly "up and quit" on us, calling on Saturday morning and informing my dad he had X-number of hours to get up there before she left, because she "couldn't take it anymore." Funny thing is, see, Mark, my uncle who's our co-trainer here in Phoenix, has a brother, Greg, who works for another kennel up there in Wichita. Greg told Mark they'd been planning this for at least a week, maybe longer, and that they had already cleaned all their personal effects out of the kennel by Friday -- before our trainer's alleged breakdown. *shrug* Oh well. Uneasy is the business owner who doesn't have a contingency plan. This didn't come as a total shock, since we knew she was unhapppy. We had a guy here in Phoenix who was looking to get back into the business, and when the boom came down, we let him know, and he's already on the road to Kansas.

So I'm the de facto had of affairs while he's out of town. I had thought (and those who were at the birthday bash Saturday night can attest to this) that it was going to be a big stress-fest, but in reality, it's not a lot different than it usually is around here. I just have to do a little more office work, is all.

Editor's note: Sunzabitches. I thought I saved this before midnight. Oh well. This was technically written Sunday night.

Howdy. Before I get into tonight's entry, let me plug my next entry, which I'll do when I get around to it: Were you as much of a nut about Tecmo Super Bowl as I was? Tune in to my next post. Bill Simmons (The Sports Guy) goes in-depth into the dominance of Video Bo.

Anyway... now on to your regularly scheduled sporadical blogging...

I should really do more entries more often, rather than waiting until I've got six or seven things to write about. I know by the time I get to the end of this post, I'll have forgotten at least two of them. Regardless of that, happy birthday to Jenn, Jung, and Brian. They all turned 21 yesterday, or at least it seemed that way, since there was a giant party at Club 1030 for all three of them last night. In actuality, Jenn and Jung entered official adulthood on Tuesday, while Brian's birthday is really today. But it made more sense to have the party on a Saturday, I suppose. It was fun. The spirits flowed freely, but I left the party with a pleasant realization: My friends up here are a pretty solid group of people. At Kyle & Jimmy's last night, most everyone had a drink or two, while a couple people, well, had more than a few too many. I, of course, as I believe I've mentioned before, don't drink. And the only reason is, I don't like the taste of it. "But trust me," you say, "there's lots of drinks out there where you can't even TASTE the alcohol!" And I say, well, if I can't taste it, why bother with the unpleasant aftereffects? I'm not against drinking, by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't see the point in drinking if I'm just as happy with Diet Dew.

Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. My point I was getting at is, nobody really cares if I'm drinking or not whenever I hang out with my friends. And that's SO COOL. When I went out in Tucson, people seemed to have this really big problem with the fact that I wasn't drunk like they were. Jeff made it a priority to get me to try beer, to the point where I didn't go to any more of his "parties" for the last six months I was down there, after he left the track. You know, Jeff's a good guy and all, and we still keep in touch by phone every so often, but that got REALLY old, having to constantly defend myself for not wanting to slam a few back. Look, I tried beer. I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever taste, until I tried wine. And you know, Mike's Hard Iced Tea doesn't taste ANYthing like iced tea, nor does hard apple cider taste ANYthing like apples. And that's pretty much the extent of my alcoholic experience. When I say "tried," I mean I had a sip or two, and that was enough for my taste buds to let me know they were displeased with me.

Ba-zing! There I go, tangential again. So anyway, I was offered a Mud Slide when I got there, and I said "no thanks," and that was the extent of it. Nobody cared! It was so REFRESHING not having to explain myself or try and make up other reasons when the explanation wasn't good enough. It's nice to know I've got friends like that. It makes me feel like I'm not an outcast... whereas in Tucson, I might as well have been naked and painted with purple polka dots when I was at a party.

Another thing I noticed is that once people were actually getting drunk, Kyle came out and confiscated keys. I noted that I'd never seen that at any of the parties I'd been at in Tucson. Again... makes me glad I'm back in Phoenix, back amongst my friends, because my friends are good people. In fact, while I was leaving the party, I tripped over a rock, and John, who was sitting outside, was quick to ask if I was okay to drive. I had to laugh. "No, no, I don't drink... I'm just naturally that clumsy. But thanks for asking."

You know, speaking of Tucson... like I mentioned, I really never felt like I fit in down there. Now, to a certain extent, I was working six full days a week, and spending three out of every four Mondays up here in Phoenix anyway, so I probably didn't give it a fair shake. It's a nice enough town, as I'm sure Becky wwill tell you. But I noticed something interesting today. I had to stop by my parents' house to pick up some paperwork for the kennel. Usually I wind up lounging around for a few minutes, but it was after weigh-in and I wanted to get back home and eat dinner, which I'd already prepared earlier. So I grabbed the clipboard and the mail I needed to drop off, and headed right back out the door. My mom asked where I was going in such a hurry, and I told her, "I just want to get home, is all. I'm sweaty and I've got dinner waiting."

As I drove west on McDowell up through the draw in the Buttes, I thought about what I'd said... that I was heading home from my parents' house. Oddly enough, when I was living in Tucson, "home" was my parents' house. I would always say I was heading home from "my apartment," or "my place," or whatever. I never really felt like Tucson was my home. But up here, I've got a real concrete sense that my apartment is my home. Rarely a day goes by that I don't have to stop in at my parents' place for something or another, whether it's to drop off the meat invoice on Monday, or to leave a copy of the morning workouts on Monday and Friday, or to make the deposit on Wednesday, or... so on, and so on. It's nice not being far away from it; I'm at 44th and Oak, and my parents are at 64th and Oak. For those of you not here in town, Oak doesn't go through, though. It dead-ends at 48th Street (among several other places, like just down the street from my parents' house at the canal, and at Eldorado Park, to mention a few), so I have to take either Thomas or McDowell. McDowell is usually my route of choice, because there's far fewer stoplights to worry about; it's a smooth trip from 52nd Street to 64th Street up through the draw in the Buttes, while there's three more lights on Thomas, at 56th, 60th, and 61st streets. (There's a light at the 202/143 on-ramp on McDowell, but that cancels out the light at 46th Street on Thomas.)

Hey, look at that... off on a tangent again. Oh well. What I'm getting at is, my home is here in Phoenix. I doubt I could move anywhere elose and really feel like I was at home.

GAS "SHORTAGE" 2003 UPDATE: The worst seems to be behind us. On Tuesday, a report came down that the pipeline pressure test had failed, which seemed to doom us to another weekend of panicky gas buying. However, cooler heads managed to prevail. People finally started listening to the reports that we had enough gas to replenish the stations if they'd stop converging like flies on a carcass every time another station got gas in. Now, I haven't seen a station in two days that's out of gas. There's still almost no mid-grade or premium, but there's plenty of 87 unleaded to be found, as long as you don't mind paying anywhere from $1.99 to $2.17 , depending on where you go. More good news came today in that Kinder Morgan (the pipeline company) bypassed the failed section of line with a smaller-diameter "detour", allowing at least SOME gas to make its way to Phoenix. That bypass opened up today around 10:00 AM, from what I heard, and has started to supply some gas to the Valley, albeit not a whole lot as compared to what we usually get through that line. But every little bit helps. Now, if they'd just get rid of that stupid MTBE requirement, the prices wouldn't be so friggin' high... Yeah, since our clean-air requirements mean we have to buy special gas (you've seen the stickers: "This gas contains 15% MTBE from April to September and 10% ether from October to March" or whatever the specific dates are), and that special gas is specially expensive! Now, by the same token, California's gas is additive-free, but then again, it's more expensive than ours is (usually). Those wacky Californians...

Congratulations to Nichole for passing her EMT Basic Skills exam last week. She doesn't read my blog -- as far as I know, she doesn't even have a computer -- but I figured I'd give her a shout-out anyway.

I didn't attend Coronado on Thursday morning, as I was pretty wiped out from karaoke Wednesday night. No, not drunk... just smoke inhalation, is all. Cigarette smoke. CJ's, the place in Mesa where we've been going for the past few months, has discontinued karaoke because they don't make enough money off of it. Can't blame 'em for not showing up -- the place is a dump. There was no more than seven people in there Wednesday night, and only two of them were smoking, yet the whole place was choked with smoke the whole 2 hours we were there. Eventually, I got too lightheaded to stay inside, just like every time I've gone there, and I had to go outside. Oh well. I'm not going to miss it. I may even take a pass on karaoke for a while; the new has worn off pretty badly. And besides, our winter schedule kicks in September 1st, so I'll be working Wednesdays and having all day Thursday off instead, so I would've only been able to go to CJ's once more anyway. I dunno. The place, aside from being constantly polluted with cigarette smoke, also always reeked of frying grease, like they didn't have a ventilation system over their deep fryer and all those little particles of grease just floated out into the main room. Like I said... a dump. But it was all ages, so other under-21 friends could go.

We're into the semifinals of our August stake at the track, the Quarter-Mile Challenge. It's a 6-dog-race event, over the 440-yard (¼-mile) course, which they accomplish by rolling a starting box out to the finish line, then after the race starts, quickly jacking it up and rolling it off to the apron of the track before the dogs come back around again. Takes a quick breaker, a dog who really gets out of the box quick, because there's inevitably a jam in the turn in these races; you have to be good enough to be in front of it, or talented enough to navigate through it. Guess you could say I did my homework; I've got 4 dogs in the semis out of 12 competitors left, and those were the original 4 I entered. You had to finish 4th or better in the first round to advance, and there were three races. I ran 1st and 2nd in one, 3rd in the next one, and 4th in the last one. Now there's two races on Monday, and you have to finish in the top 3 to advance to the final on Friday. I've got 2 dogs in both races. I'll go into a little more detail if we do well tomorrow night.

Whew. I've said so much, and yet so little in this post, I feel. I could go through and edit out most of the non-topic blather and cut the word count in half. Yet still, I feel like I've forgotten a couple of things I was going to talk about... pretty much like I figured I would. I don't know. Like I've said before, it feels good to put what I'm thinking into text, because it gets it out of my head.

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.

Well, I never got the itch to come back and redo the lost blog from Saturday night. Oh well. I was just mainly going to discuss football, really. Can you taste it? IT'S FOOTBALL SEASON!! The great Mel Kiper once said, "I've always viewed summer as that droll time between draft day and the opening of camp." How right you are. Now that the preseason is underway, I can finally see the cool light at the end of the long, hot summer tunnel.

Buccaneers came out and represented, winning the preseason opener over the J-E-T-S-Jets-Jets-Jets in a laugher, 30-14. It wasn't even THAT close, as the Jets picked up a junk TD late in the game; it had been 30-7 much of the way throughout the fourth quarter. I was pleased, but you always have to take preseason games with a grain of salt, as most of the starters played one series and that was IT. I think Brad Johnson threw maybe 2 passes. However, Marv Levy's philosophy on preseason was firstly to ensure that no regular starters got injured; assessing 2nd- and 3rd-string talent came second, while actually winning the game was 3rd or 4th on his list. The man took teams to 4 straight SBs, so he was doing something right.

So I'm about to head to Prescott and join up with Coronado's band for a few days. Since the staff pretty much consists of Ms. Rich by herself (last I heard, which would have been Thursday, there was still no pit instructor, no drumline instructor, and no guard instructor, so section leaders have a lot of responsibility this year), I moved my time off from Friday/Saturday and combined it with my regular Wednesday afternoon-thru-Thursday-morning break to give myself 2½ days off all at once, so I could spend these next two days up in Prescott. 'Course, I have to work straight through until next Thursday when I get back, but them's the breaks.

I'll give my thoughts of this year's program when I get back. They certainly are an eager group, though. With all the turmoil of the past year, the ones that have stuck it out REALLY want to be there, and they're willing to work. But there's no escaping the fact that this is the quintessential "rebuilding year." It's a fairly young group, lots of sophs and juniors, so we're working towards building a cohesive nucleus as a core for next year's program. But "rebuilding year" doesn't mean "throwaway year," either; we're still going to make the best of what we've got.

Look at me, saying we, we, we. I guess I feel like I'm part of the staff, kinda. I'm just volunteering, though. Once camp's over, I'll only be able to help out Thursday mornings during the week, since I decided to keep my day off on Saturday so I can go and help out at band days and stuff.

Anywhey, I'm going to take a brief snoozer, then head for the hills.

Okay, so I think I'm losing it.

I logged in to blog and discovered that the Blogger interface had changed again. Okay, so I'm used to it varying without warning by now, so I started typing away. A little way in (okay, it was more like half an hour later), I clicked on the "Manage Posts" tab to look up a link for reference, and when I went back to the "Posts" tab... it was gone. All of it.

Sorry... I don't feel like re-typing it all now. I don't even remember all of it. When I blog, it's totally stream-of-consciousness.

Anyway, so I signed out in frustration, but I logged back in to post this post, and.... the interface is back to the old one, where I can go to the other posts without deleting what I'm working on. Go figure.

I'll blog tomorrow, sometime, and try to recapture what I was working on tonight.

Sigh. As long as I'm not getting any sleep, figured I'd blog-in right quick.

There's a maintenance man in my bathroom fixing the AC. It's midnight. I can't go to bed yet.

My AC has decided to start leaking all over the bathroom at odd intervals. It happened Tuesday, called maintenance, no one showed up, happened Friday, called maintenance, no one showed up. Happened again tonight. It picked the wrong time to happen, let me tell you. I had a headache, PLUS I was in a grumpy mood because I failed yet again to strike up some small talk with the waitress I see at Sonic three times a week (see more for below on that... it's not nearly as creepy as it sounds). So anyway, I come inside figuring on finishing my cherry limeade and hitting the hay around 10:15, and I hear the familiar drip-drip-drip coming from the bathroom again. Luckily, I hadn't bothered to put my rugs back down since the first incident on Tuesday, but still, 'twas flooded all over again.

So, yeah, I got a little testy with maintenance this time. They told me that since I hadn't filed it as an EMERGENCY, that it didn't get high-priority status. I said, "I've called twice this week. You mean to tell me five days is about the average for a maintenance call?" Um, yes. More like a week, apparently. "Oh. Okay. This is an emergency, then." Well, the guy shows up 20 minutes later, and now he's in there clanking around (the AC access panel is in my bathroom). Which means I can't go to bed 'til he leaves, and I'm ragingly tired. That, and I have to be at the kennel at 4:45 in the morning.

About this waitress at Sonic... actually, I guess the correct term would be "carhop", but whatever... I invariably stop by Sonic after I get done Thursday and Sunday nights, the nights I just do turn-out. Also, I'll occasionally pop in there on my nights off. I rarely get food, and if so just an order of tots... I get three or four big sodas and stash them in the fridge. Anyway, I ALWAYS get served by the same carhop. (Now, *maybe* I'm parking in the same spot each time... maybe.) SO she's always really nice, though I guess that's part of the job description, but... still... and she's seen me at least 50 times. No exaggeration there. But I COMPLETELY freeze up whenever I try to ask her, say, "So, how ya doin tonight?" or anything along those lines. I'm even nervous about asking her for a drink carrier. And every time, it just makes me want to bash my head into the steering wheel a half-dozen times or so. I don't understand it. Well, I mean, I do... it's a form of social phobia, but still... you think I'd be able to handle it by now. Blegrah. I'm not trying to ask her out to dinner... I'd just like to avoid sounding like English is my second language when I talk to her.

"C-c-c-could I, uh, possibly, uh, g-get a d-d-dr-drink carrier?"

Geez.

So, anyway, Thursday night I'll be over there again probably.

Maintenance guy just left. He said I was right -- the drainpipe from the AC was plugged up. (Well, I had THAT much figured out -- I just didn't want to go disassembling plumbing on my own.) He asked if I changed my AC filter, and I said I pick up a new filter from the office each time I pay the rent every month. (...which is another bone of contention... apparently most apartment complexes provide AC filters. Wow! I've been buying my own for three years in Tucson. Sunzabitches.) So he said it was probably the people before me, since I hadn't been here long enough for it to get that dirty that fast. So, hopefully, I won't come home to an Aqua-Bathroom again for a while.

In other, somewhat more perky news, I'm helping out at Coronado with the band this year. They've finally hired a director, and I've got to say I like her style already. Whoa, did I say "her"? Yes, 'tis true, Ms. Rich is the first female band director in CHS history. Anyhow, I spent much of last night making name tags, as nobody'd done it yet and camp starts, well, today (Monday). I got a couple of extra mornings off over the neext two weeks so I can put in a little more time with the band.

I put people's sections on their tags, but mine reads "NICKEL-PACKAGE CORNERBACK." Anyone care to take a stab at the meaning?

Anyway, I sure feel a lot better than I did an hour ago. I mean, things are still relatively crappy, but it's nice to be able to air it out and get it in print. But hopegully, volunteering at Coronado will be the outlet I need. The walls are starting to close in again, just a little bit.

Boo-yah!

Well, then, now that I have your attention... I'll pull the DeadJournal and say, "current mood - peachy". A confluence of good things have come together to create this peachiness. Actually, truth be told, it was mainly just the dinner going over so well. I could have dropped a spiked bowling ball on my foot today and still have been in a good mood. There's three main parts to tonight's blog effort, so read away. (Yeah, it'll be under Monday... *grumbles about inability to set the timestamp on his own*) Oh, and Lindsay, I owe you an email. It's forthcoming.

1. ¡Está lloviendo!
Tonight certainly looked like it was going to be our best chance for the first rain of the summer. It has literally not rained since I moved into my apartment in mid-April, mind you. It was damn hot today -- not necessarily as high a temperature as we've seen in the past weeks, but just the right combination of heat and wind to make it really hot. And, of course, since it's officially monsoon season, a really hot day breeds volatile thrunderstorm conditions later. The wind really picked up around 7:00 and blew all night, and it was a HOT wind, no cool breeze. As I was leaving the track at 11:00, I saw the first roils of dust moving across the parking lot. Of course, the really big storms get started around 6:30, so this wasn't going too be anything huge since it was already so late. We had a dust storm Tuesday night, too, and that led to nothing, so I was cautiously optimistic. As I was doing my chart work at the kennel around 11:15, I heard a noise which sounded like the wind had really picked up. It continued for a minute or so as I wrote on the whiteboard, until suddenly -- PLOP! I distinctly heard a drop of water fall. PLOP! PLOP! It took a second, but then I went to the door and threw it open, and... TA-DA! It was RAINING!! A LOT!! I was so happy, if all the dogs hadn't been asleep already I would've busted a move. See, when it rains really hard in the summer, water drips in through the swamp cooler vent in the roof (since the AC is on, the swamp cooler is off). So I put a bucket up on top of the crates to catch it, and since I was done with my work, happily dashed to my truck through the rain.

As I drove home, I started thinking about all the wondrous stuff I was going to post in my blog about it all. Then, as I pulled to the light at 44th and Washington, I noticed it was letting up. Well, crap. Like I said, it wasn't a big storm since it was so late already. Here's the fun part, though -- heading north on 44th, as I crossed Van Buren, it went DRY. Not a DROP of rain had fallen north of the Chinese Cultural Center or the 202, let alone when I got to my apartments. Gak! Less than a mile south of 44th and Van Buren, water was seeping in under the kennel's front door. A mile north? A nice rain-scented breeze. (Rain-scented, you ask? Actually, it's the smell of creosote oil from the bushes of the same name. The bushes, which are all over the desert, excrete the powerfully-scented oil, which gets mixed with rainwater and then blown ahead of an advancing storm.)

You gotta love this Arizona weather.

2. Dinner & A Movie
Well, the dinner went over GREAT. The ziti was a little crisp (okay, it was blackened on the bottom), but that was the only major mishap. Everybody seemed to like the Tequila-Citrus Carne Asada, and the Shrimp Sausage Creole Linguini was popular as always. BIG props to Tara, Ann, and Kristy for helping out with clean-up. That was a daunting task which they made significantly less daunting.

Zachary and I had been talking about going to see T3 afterwards, but after having been up since 6:00 AM slicing, chopping, mixing, marinating, sautéeing, baking, deep-frying, boiling, and simmering, we kinda decided we were a little spent. Besides, Z's allergies were acting up, especially after I chopped four different varieties of onion. His eyes swelled up and his nose clogged. Bleh. I had to call Mom and ask her to bring by some medications for him before he went to his card show in the afternoon.

Anyway, even if we'd decided to go, we probably would have called it off, because Jung brought Taboo. Woo-hoo! Word games! Count me in! Zach wanted to play, too, but since he's 13 and everyone else in the room was pretty much around my age, he got left out somewhat. Eh, well... he had fun playing with the buzzer. There was lots of shouting, fist-pumping, and rapid-fire insults... okay, most of it was from me. What?! I LIKE word games! (While Zach was still playing, he was on the opposite team from myself. When he took the card dispenser, I shouted, "Okay, guys, infield in!" ... Took a second, but it was my best zinger of the night.) (We have a loving, caring, older brother/younger brother relationship... I swear.)

So that was grand fun... our team 0WNED theirs. (No "3" in there... not quite as cool as a midget ninja jumping out of a trash can and scaring the crap out of you, I guess.) Oh, I almost forgot to mention... Zachary was finally defeated in Smash Brothers Melee! Rick was the man to do the job. Big ups.

As far as cooking goes... See, I love my job. I may gripe occasionally, but I love my dogs. However, as is the case with many an endeavor, occasionally you just need to get away and refocus. For 36 hours over the course of Friday night and all day Saturday, I didn't think AT ALL about the kennel. I was so focused on cooking, trying to keep on the schedule I had in my head, that I managed to completely disconnect from work. I can get like that during karaoke night, too, but it was SO much more fun doing the cooking because I actually had a concrete result (in the case of the ziti, literally concrete) afterwards. I just enjoy it. I don't even LIKE my own food that much. I'm a Rice-A-Roni and Velveeta Shells 'n Cheese kind of guy. I have 40 packages of ramen in my cabinet. See, I'm extremely easy to please, so if I'm satisfied with Maruchan ramen, why bother making chicken cordon bleu every night for myself? I COULD, but why bother? So, therefore, I'm hosting these dinners to satisfy my gourmet-cooking jones. I had maybe half a bowl of the clam chowder and a serving of the linguini, and one carne burrito, and that was IT last night.

So as long as people still want to come, I'll be doing these feasts fairly often.

3. Iron Chef USA
Yeah, you read that right. Iron Chef USA. Now, I'm sure most of you have picked up that I'm a big fan of Iron Chef. (I have the T-shirt.) I was hooked on the King of Iron Chefs tournament like most people were hooked on American Idol.

I was watching Good Eats or Unwrapped or something I'd Tivoed off of Food Network when I saw a commercial... "Iron Chef USA, this Saturday at 10:00!"... and I saw... William Shatner as the chairman! Zach and I were chopping vegetables at the time, and I must have said "WHAT?!" like 7 times in succession. I was floored. In the words of Jon Stewart, "I started to look around for Ashton Kutcher, for I was certain I was being Punk'd." Happy DAY! NEW Iron Chef, and in English of all languages? You could probably broadcast it in Hungarian dubbing with Portuguese subtitles and I'd still like it. Crazy go nuts!

So I checked my events guide on Tivo. Funny, searching the program list I see no Iron Chef USA. So I go to my Iron Chef season pass and look up what's coming on at 10:00 that night (Saturday), and according to Tivo it's... a regular Iron Chef. The Battle Onion, where Kunio Santo challenges Iron Chef Sakai. (Seen it.) Bleh! However, see, the Tivo updates its program list nightly, but it's beeen incorrect before, where the network has made a change in the programming, say, within a week. Since I hadn't ever seen a commercial for Iron Chef USA before, I decided to bet on Tivo being wrong, and I let it tape the show at 10:00.

So today, I call up the Iron Chef from last night, aaaaaaand...

Yay!

I've honestly only watched 5 minutes of it. It looks like it's going to be so good, I want to wait until I have a full hour to devote to it. (Today I had to watch Last Comic Standing from Tuesday night, since it's almost Tuesday again. That, by the way, is another show you should have been watching. Despite Jay Mohr.)

In closing...
So I guess that about covers it. I've literally been typing for an hour. Why? I don't know. It feels good to stick this stuff somewhere where people could theoretically see it. Steve and Nick got into a fiery debate over on Mark's blog about site usage and people visiting sites and stuff, and it got heated in a hurry. Since, frankly, I didn't understand most of what they were arguing about, I didn't want to take a side. But it got me thinking on a different tangent, about the importance of my site. I see people (like Annika) whose blogs get all kinds of random traffic, and for a while back when I started this thing up, I wanted mine to be like that. But, I've come to the realization that it's more fun to make an inside reference about midget ninjas and know that my loyal group of friends will know of what I speak. I don't have a lot of interesting political, sociological, or religious topics to air out. I just sat here for an hour and blabbered (clobbered?) on and on about [1] rain, [2] my party, and [3] Iron Chef USA (kick-ass!). And even if no one were to read it, I feel in some way like I've accomplished something. Because it's there. I have successfully placed what's in my head on the Internet. Interesting? Not really. Thought-provoking? Shit, no. But it's THERE.

And now, since my head is empty, I'm going to go fill it with Rice-A-Roni. Why? Because Rice-A-Roni is tasty.

It's all coming together now. I have everything except for the vegetables, and I'll take care of those tomorrow. So, understandably, I've been busy, hence the lack of blogging. If you're reading this and you still don't know about my dinner, read the below entry. Anyway, hopefully I'll see you all Saturday...

CLIFTON'S 2ND DINNER
Okay, so I'm lacking for a really cool name...

So I've been rumoring about the exact date of my next dinner. It is to be on Saturday, this coming Saturday the 19th, at 7:00 pm (-ish). Anyone's invited. Simply RSVP to me by email (tfg46@cox.net) and let me know if you're coming and how many friends you're planning to bring (if you have any), and I'll send you the Directions Email. All you need to supply is your own drinks. I'll only have tea, and maybe Diet Dew. Oh, and club soda. (Whomever brought a six-pack of club soda last time... uh, it's still here.)

THE MENU
An eclectic selection (an eclection?) of dishes from a wide-ranging variety of cuisines. * denotes a dish that was served at Dinner I.

TFG's Bread*
Clam Chowder
Fried Okra
Carne Asada w/ Danny's aunt's homemade tortillas
Baked Ziti* (2x batch)
Creole Shrimp/Sausage Linguini*
Orange Salad*

I thought about making some sort of nifty dessert, but I decided against it. I never make it to dessert whenever *I* eat out, so it's never been a strong point of mine. The orange salad will suffice as a dessert, and for Pete's sake, TRY IT THIS TIME! I'm not lying when I say you'l like it.

But, anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. After the dinner, well, the pool's not far away from my front door. Perhaps there'll be some swimming. Also, the GameCube will make its triumphant return to my apartment, along with my brother. And he's only gotten better at Smash. Maybe if anyone else has a Cube battle game he could be defeated at, they could bring it, because you're not going to be able to beat him at Smash. (Them's fightin' words!) And if we get tired of Cube, I'll probably have rented a movie to watch. Whatever the crowd wants to do.

So if your curiosity is piqued, email me (tfg46@cox.net) and let me know if you'll be there. Like I mentioned, if you're reading this, well, then you're invited. There'll be food a-plenty.

Garhhhh... Well, obviously I missed a couple of days. So much for back to everyday posting. (It's really Wednesday night right now... we've had this discussion before.) I'll probably rarely post on Mondays or Tuesdays, unless something really interesting happens at the kennel. Those are my two work-intensive days, where I need to get as much rest as possible when I'm home. Monday starts at 4:45 AM, until we get done around 10:30 AM. Then I have to be back at 3:15 PM, and I'm there and at the track until 11:30 PM. Tuesday starts at 5:45 AM, until 10:30 or so, then back at 4:00 PM until 11:30 again. Then Wednesday morning is 5:45 til 10:30, but I spend another hour to 1½ hours over at the office (aka my parents' house) doing paperwork on Wednesdays. But after that... I can breathe a big sigh of relief, because the hard part of the week is over. And besides, Wednesday night is karaoke night.

Karaoke is SUPPOSED to start at 9:00. We got there at 9:20, but the pool players hadn't left yet, and apparently they don't take kindly to singers. Well, that's cool... judging by the amount of empty bottles sitting around, it looks like they pay the bills pretty much, as our group rarely spends more than $10 TOTAL on sodas and whatnot.

One of the three pool tables was open, though, and we asked a gentleman standing near it if it was taken. He said no, the game everyone was concerned with was on the middle table. So we went ahead and got a game going while we waited for the place to clear out. An older guy sitting at the bar started giving Kristy pointers during our game, then offered to help me, too. I figured, well, what the heck... I don't know what I'm doing anyway. So we played out our game, and I beat her (for the first time, I might add).

There's a display case on the wall by the stick rack, and in it are six handmade cues. Their prices range from $250 to $600. Well, you know who makes them? The guy who was giving us tips. He had let Kristy use his cue. I didn't hear him, but when she asked how much it was worth, he told her, and her eyes widened in shock. She mentioned later that it was solid oak.

So, anyway, we've established the guy's pretty much a pro. Then, while Jenn and I are playing a couple of games later, he calls winner. Well, she ends up knocking in the 8-ball a few balls early, so I win. Great. I figure I'm roadkill.

After 15 minutes of some of the most stressful pool I've played in my life, though, we were down to just the 8-ball. I make no claims as to being good at this game, mind you; luck had a lot to do with it. I drained five straight at one point. Anyway, after I sunk the 2-ball, it was my shot on the 8, and I had a tricky lie to hit. I figured that with the position it was in, I had to make it or break it as I was going to leave a wide-open shot for him if I didn't make it somehow.

If there were a compass on the pool table, the 8-ball was sitting about 4 inches from the north edge of the table and 6 inches from the northeast hole. The cue ball was about 5 inches from the south edge of the table, sitting south of the 8-ball and about one ball's-width to the west. At the angle it was at, I thought I might have a shot at sideswiping the 8-ball into the northeast pocket, but the more I looked at it, the more it looked like I would probably knock it into the edge first. The cue ball was too far south of the 8 to get the right angle on it. So I decided to bank the cue ball off the north edge of the table and knock the 8-ball into the southeast pocket, the one I was standing over. I pointed at the pocket (as loud as the jukebox was blaring, it would have done no good to try and yell it out); the gentleman raised his eyebrows but nodded. I lined it up, figured "Here goes," and let it fly.

It was perfect. The cue ball ricocheted off the north edge and drilled the 8-ball dead center. It flew to the pocket and did that thing where it hits the hole, hops up in the air, and drops straight down. As I started to exhale, I saw the cue ball spinning wildly towards the west end of the table. It was heading... straight for the northwest pocket!

PLUNK!

"Sonofabitch!"

Well... oh well. I shook his hand. Them's the breaks. Karaoke fired up not long after, but the three of us were pretty worn out anyway; we'd originally planned to leave at 11:00. However, there was literally no one else besides the two DJ's singing, so I got five songs done in about 40 minutes and we lit a shuck at 11:20.

Sometime tomorrow, I'm going to spam everyone else's blogs with invitations to my dinner. I'll email anyone I can think of, too. It's going to be a "Borderless Cuisine" meal, inspired by Rokusaburo Michiba's approach to cooking on Iron Chef. All your favorites will return from last time, along with a few new ideas. Yes, okra -- oddly enough, my Tivo taped an episode of Sara's Secrets today where she was working with okra as a side dish, so now I have some insight on how to work with it. All I need now is a good recipe.

In the next few days, I'll tell you all about my Tivo, too. THIS THING IS FRICKIN' AWESOME. You know how they say "It'll change the way you watch TV... forever!™"? They're right.