1 More Reason to Dig Tahoe

So last weekend was the first heat wave of the year, and I'm such a temperature wuss that the mere thought of a 95°F average weekend was enough to convince me to head for cooler locales. So while most of the Bay Area headed off toward Santa Cruz to enjoy beach weather, Lucie and I headed inland.

No, no -- I'm not really an idiot, honest; I do understand that if you head inland away from the ocean breeze it does get hotter... but if you head inland further still, you end up near Tahoe. And there ain't NOTHING as cool as Tahoe.

Except maybe hitting a casino, so we did that first. After work on Friday, Lucie and I headed up to Folsom where she'd found a really great price on a hotel room (which coincidentally happened to be literally right across the street from the outlet mall.) We check in, check out our hotel room, I crank up the AC, and we immediately head toward the new Red Hawk casino not half an hour away, where we figure we can find comfortable temperature-controlled (albeit smoke-filled) goodness.

We've been to a lot of Indian casinos (because we hate money and want to get rid of it as fast as possible), but I totally appreciate not only the insanely easy driving directions but also the valet parking they offer here. Most casinos, you have to drive miles and miles of curvy and poorly-maintained mountain roads just to get to a place where you have to park and walk uphill (no, NOT both ways) for another half mile just to enter the aging casino building. Not with Red Hawk... they're located right off the freeway, so literally less than a minute after leaving Highway 50 you pull up to a shaded entryway where they take your keys, give you a bar code ticket, and you can walk the 25 feet into the building. I swear, it's like they WANT you to go there or something. And they only opened like earlier this year, so the place still has that new casino smell (which of course still smells very much like cigarette smoke.)

Anyway, we lose a chunk of cash (take THAT, checking account!) and have a really tasty meal (seriously the tastiest chicken fried steak I've ever had -- a little overdone, but the breading and the gravy were top notch) before heading back to the Folsom hotel room we've turned into our evil lair for the night (actually, two nights -- we check and there's a cancellation, so we opt to keep our room another night, and they even let us keep the discounted online rate.)

The next morning, we decide to head on over to Tahoe for the day... from Folsom, it's only another couple of hours of driving, and my trusty iPhone says it's in the mid-70s there, so there ain't NOTHING that can stop us. We take a quaint little back road to a mile or so up the freeway to avoid a severe backup (some truck driver got tired so he decided to lay his truck full of pesticides down on its side to sleep, which caused a fire, damaged the roadway, and blocked all lanes of the freeway for about 10 hours), and find almost zero traffic all the way to South Shore. Not that I'd suggest this as a normal way of doing things, but if you can block all lanes of a freeway and then get around said blockage, traffic REALLY lightens up from then on. Just saying.

So, yeah. Tahoe.

There's still snow on the mountains -- heck, there's still snow alongside the road in some places -- and it's a nice cool 70 degrees when we arrive. We say hi and wave to the lake, and immediately get away from nature and into our comfort zone, the casino. We enjoy a good meal (it's no chicken fried steak, but the pastrami sandwich on a pretzel bun with sweet potato fries is still quite tasty), do our part to help the poor casino owners in this time of economic hardship, and start to head back to Folsom.

And then, it appears. A sweet, sweet respite from the health food loving, granola sucking, tree hugging ecological freak quickie wedding chapel snowboarding second home in the mountains sameness into which Tahoe is turning... The Energy Drink Outlet. My new caffeinated Mecca. My Stimulant Stop. My Jolt Joint. My Buzz Buddy. My Xanthine Alkaloidal Lair.

Our remaining money doesn't stand a chance. Ignoring the terrified screams from my kidneys, I pull over, run inside as giddy as the day I got my iPhone, most likely humiliate myself bouncing through the store ("got it, got it, had it but didn't like it, ooh! haven't had THAT yet, want it, got it but want another...") and walk away with a box full of C8H10N4O2 goodness. Incredibly sweet Bawls, with 50% extra caffeine added. Caffeinated Snickers bars. Three different kinds of non-carbonated caffeinated fruit juice blends so I can survive morning meetings at work. A couple of bad choices that I later find out taste like the crotch of a warthog (which happens; energy drinks are not normally known for their outstanding flavor.) A couple different flavors of my high school standby, Jolt Cola.

I grab a business card so I can visit the web site, I have Lucie take a picture for posterity (third attempt; the first couple of pictures I came out blurry for some reason), and we head back to Folsom for something or other. Apple Hill, Jelly Belly factory, Red Hawk again, blah blah made it home okay and all that, but come on...

CAFFEINE.

Yeah.

.

365 Days Ago Today...

...We were in Hawaii, and I was almost killed by a falling coconut.

I miss that.

*sigh*

.

90 Minutes of Discomfort for 6 Shades Whiter

So for Christmas last year, Lucie and I decided to splurge and buy Zoom!® tooth whitening for each other. We've tried a few times to make an appointment, but things have come up, and we hadn't been able to use our gift certificates until today.

I've got the day off, so I have my appointment in the morning. I drive Lucie in to work, and head off to our dentist for my session. I am greeted by our friendly and perky dental assistant, whom I shall call Torquemada (or, as I can easily imagine her saying, "call me Torkie!") who has me lie on the dental chair while she busies herself setting up the soundproof walls. The dental chair feels eerily like a rack as I lie down, and Torkie adjusts it so I'm lying flat on my back and helpless.

She puts a goofy-looking pair of yellow glasses on my face that are almost certainly only there to make me look and feel foolish, brings out a mouthpiece that forces my lips back and shows so much of my teeth I start to feel like the Joker, and brings out her tools. First, Torkie takes several swatches of cotton and shoves them into my mouth to help isolate the teeth. Next, she takes out her hot glue gun and glues everything together ("to make sure the cotton sticks together," she says, though I have long since stopped believing a word she says.) I start to feel more like a craft project than a dental patient, and I imagine her whipping out a Bedazzler to give my teeth the bling they so desperately need.

Thankfully, no Bedazzler appears; it looks like we're finally about to start. Once my teeth are bared, my mouth is clamped open, and the cotton has turned my mouth into Death Valley with an epiglottis, Torkie slaps on the bleach and brings over the REAL torture device, the Zoom!® Whitening Lamp. A cross between one of the scutters from Red Dwarf and a tentacle straight off Doctor Octopus' torso, I can see the thing leering at me with an evil sneer, eagerly anticipating its next victim. Torkie grants its wish, jamming its UV spewing end into my mouth and setting the timer for 15 minutes before walking away and leaving the two of us alone. The heat makes my teeth sting slightly, and it gets a little warm, but I toughen it up and manage to make it through my session... or so I think.

After fifteen minutes, Torkie bounces back into the torture chamber and moves the lamp away. Maybe it's only my imagination, but I swear I can see it pacing behind her as she cleans the whitening agent from my teeth. It's tasted me, and it wants another shot to take me out. Unknowing and unaware of the evil robomauling to come, Torkie dumps another load of bleach into my mouth and lets the lamp have its way with me once again. This time, the heat becomes harder to bear, my tongue starts to scramble around my mouth trying to find some shade like it's a vampire getting a tan, and the lamp is jammed so far into my mouth that... well, let's just say that if you've ever been French-kissed by a Decepticon, you know exactly how I feel. It gets decidedly uncomfortable, but finally Torkie comes back in and separates the two of us.

Unfortunately, she only keeps us apart long enough to replace the whitening agent from my teeth before it begins all over again. I don't know if I'm going to make it through this time or not -- my nerve endings are complaining nonstop, I'm bent so far back on my chair that I can feel one of my vertebrae threatening to come out my nostril, I'm pretty sure I can smell my moustache hairs starting to smolder from the heat, Barry Manilow is playing on the sound system, and the light is so bright that I feel the need to clench my butt lest some light leak out of the bottom of my shorts.

An eternity later, Torkie comes back into the room and thankfully, blessedly, moves the Zoom!® Assault Lamp 2000 into its corner where it rests, laughing at my pain and no doubt blogging somewhere about its latest orofacial conquest. The mouthpiece, cotton, glue, and several dozen nerve endings are pulled from my mouth; Torkie gives me a forgiveness package of whitening toothpaste and sensitivity gel; and in my weakened state I allow myself to be scheduled for a follow-up appointment next week where I will be instructed to repeat the bleaching process at home. As I walk out of the dentist's office with my teeth so sensitive that I seriously think about walking backward to reduce the amount of wind hitting my mouth, and with the pain and humiliation of the last hour and a half tempered by the fact that my teeth are now much whiter than they were when I woke up this morning, I find myself thinking two things...

First, maybe I shouldn't mention all of this when I pick up Lucie for her whitening treatment, and

Second, maybe I should brush my damn teeth more often.

.

105 Days Recapped in a Few Short Comments

Oh yeah; I *do* have a blog, don't I? Probably should, like, update it every once in a while...

.

Rather than come up with a totally fake reason as to why I haven't added a post here on over three months, I'll just pass on the COMPLETELY HONEST AND REAL excuse that magic Internet elves stole our broadband bandwidth, and that I had actually planned on updating my blog a full 20 -- no, let's say 25 times, but wasn't able to.

So to rectify that TOTALLY TRUE AND NOT FABRICATED issue, I'll just re-post every single one of the 25 -- actually, let's make that 30 -- posts that I just so happened to have saved on my hard drive. Lucky, that. And not at all contrived.

So give me a minute to peruse the Google news archives,,, er, look through my blog entry folder, and let's get started...

.

12/3/2007: "1 Mummysaurus Rex announced in North Dakota."
67-million year old dino mummy found in North Dakota. Brendan Fraser holds immediate news conference and suggests that researchers DO NOT open any jars or unlock any ancient books that may be found nearby.

12/6/2007: "3rd Boutique for SfJ."
My company holds a craft boutique; I faithfully lug 80 pounds of equipment to work and set up shop for a day. In the 4 hours I'm sitting behind the table selling my wares, I actually make less money than I would have if I'd been on the clock. This is why Silverfist Jewelry is a HOBBY, and why I WORK for a living.

12/20/2007: "95 Years on Earth, Forever in our Memories."
R.I.P, Grandma (-in-law).

12/22/2007: "2nd Classic Christmas Special for 2007."
I download A Very Supernatural Christmas from iTunes, and pronounce it Awesome. This, along with Shrek the Halls, make 2007 the best year for Christmas TV specials since Rankin/Bass started it all back in 1964.

12/25/2007: "20 Foot High Wall... NOT."
Three allegedly drunk and allegedly instigating teenagers are attacked by a tiger when it escapes its confines in the San Francisco zoo. One of the teenagers is killed by the tiger, Tatiana, who is later shot and killed by police who arrive on scene. In an amazing display of callous judgment, I choose to root for the tiger, much like with the Montecore/Horn bout of 2003.

12/27/2007: "29th Birthday for Older Sister."
In an amazing event, my older sister celebrates her 29th birthday... at least, that's how old I will claim she is. I'm 36. She's my older sister, and she turns 29. Don't think about it, Sagan.

12/31/2007: "'...5, 4, 3, 2, 1' in New York City."
Damn, that new ball that drops in Times Square looks awesome. What are those; LEDs?

1/2/2008: "1st Car Accident of 2008."
Let's hope that's "Only Car Accident in 2008." Some lady decided she doesn't want to be in the left turn lane, and bumps into the back of Meg as we drive to work. Lucie almost gets 5 minutes for roughing. Luckily, no major damage is visible, but we memorize her face in case we see her crossing the street in front of us at some point in the future.

1/3/2008: "1st Presidential Caucus, in Iowa."
McCain finishes 4th behind Huckabee, Romney, and Fred Thompson. Poor dude doesn't stand a chance.

1/7/2008: "3 Irritating Rodents in San Jose."
I don't remember how -- my mind manages to block all memories of what I can only assume is a demeaning and humiliating test of wills -- but Lucie talks me into going to see The Chipmunks at the Century Theaters across the street from us. The fact that I didn't vomit on the unkempt head of the moppet sitting in front of us signifies that it's not quite as bad as I thought it would be. The fact that the only reason I don't gouge my eyes out with my nachos is because the chips are too soggy with melted cheese signifies that it's also not as good as I would like it to be.

1/15/2008: "0.76 Inches Thick of Pure Cool in Cupertino."
Steve Jobs introduces the MacBook Air at the MacWorld Expo (which technically is in San Francisco, but I live closer to Cupertino, and that's where the Apple headquarters are.) The ridiculous thinness is beyond incredible, but the lack of multiple USB ports or a CDR/DVD drive, and its painfully high price, keep me away. For now. However, once I get Wi-Fi hooked up in our apartment, all bets are off...

1/15/2008: "6'6" of Attitude, Back on the Air."
While it's not as groovy as his short-lived FreeFM radio show, Penn Jillette triumphantly makes his return to social commentary with his video blog at Crackle.com (though I opt for the podcast feed through iTunes.) If you enjoy listening to the no-holds-barred ramblings of a self-professed nut atheist Libertarian juggler comedian magician actor, this vlog is for you. You also might want to widen that niche a little.

1/16/2008: "9 Minutes of Wackiness Online."
Tom Cruise's latest science fiction horror movie premieres -- based on a story by L. Ron Hubbard, it's a dark and twisted look at the world as seen through the eyes of a deluded psychopath. The movie is seen by several million people within days of the premiere, but for some reason doesn't earn anything at the box office. Weird. Also, creepy.

1/25/2008: "365 Days Ago Today in San Jose..."
...we'd made the hotel reservations for our trip to Hawaii.

I miss Hawaii.

1/28/2008: "8th State of the Union Address from D.C."
Oddly enough, Dubya seems to just phone this one in.

1/31/2008: "4th Season of Lost on ABC."
Finally. Good thing there's not a writers' strike going on or anything, because this way all episodes of this season will be shows on consecutive weeks, just like they said.
Arrgh.

2/1/2008: "$44.6 Billion from Redmond, WA."
Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for a big chunk of money.
Yahoo says "no thanks."
Microsoft makes a threatening gesture, and says "no, seriously, take the money."
Yahoo says "yeah? Make us."
Microsoft shrugs and says "'kay."
More news to follow.

2/6/2008: "32BG of Touch in Cupertino."
Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!
My 16GB iPod Touch is still too recent a purchase to abandon, so I look on with envy as Apple doubles the storage capacity of the iPod Touch and iPhone. I also get a chuckle as thousands of outraged Apple fanatics take to the streets and riot, claiming that Apple has NO RIGHT to upgrade its product line when new technology becomes available.

2/9/2008: "1GB of Tax Return Forms at Office Max."
I go out and buy tax return software, since I don't trust myself to do it correctly by myself, but we didn't do anything abnormal enough to warrant a trip to H&R Block. Being the technogeek I am, I opt to spring for $5 extra to buy my tax return software on a 1GB reusable USB flash drive. CDs be damned, I'm all about my flash drive collection!

2/10/2008: "4 Paintings in Zurich."
Unknown bandits break into the Zurich Museum and steal 4 paintings. Gone are works by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh, and Monet. Man, those art collectors are hardcore.

2/12/2008: "100 Days of Striking Ends in Hollywood."
The Writers Guild of America votes to end its strike after 100 days. Faithful TV viewers across America breathe a sign of relief, and then go back to watching Survivor: Wherever the Hell They Are This Time Around.

2/14/2008: "1 More Awful Sequel in Theaters."
Yet another urban dance movie, which for some unfathomable reason managed to actually turn a profit in theaters in its first incarnation, comes out with a sequel in hopes of making another quick buck on a cheesy trend. And as terrible as that is, Step Up 2: Electric Boogaloo actually comes in as the #1 movie in its opening weekend, which can only be a bad sign.

2/17/2008: "6'6" of Attitude... Waltzing?"
Penn Jillette is announced as one of the contestants on the upcoming 6th season of Dancing with the Stars. His comment, "When you look like Sasquatch, it's more comfortable watching the show", is bested only by fellow contestant Cristian de la Fuente's "I guess they needed one Latino per show."

2/18/2008: "2 Paintings in Zurich."
Of the 4 paintings stolen from the Zurich Museum on 2/10/2008, 2 are found unharmed in the back seat of an unlocked car (also in Zurich.) So... the Monet and van Gogh are returned, but the Degas and Cezanne are still missing; nothing against Degas and Cezanne, but apparently the hardcore art collector-thieves are also crappy art critics.

2/19/2008: "30 years of Sharper Image Gone."
Trendy electronics gizmo store The Sharper Image declares bankruptcy. I bought my first Swiss Army knife there. We also bought a barbecue fork with LED lights there for a Christmas present in 2006, but returned it because the LEDs weren't LUXEON® brand.

2/24/2008: "3rd Party Starts Campaigning."
Ralph Nader decides he doesn't get enough hate mail from Democrats, and joins in the fray.

2/26/2008: "#51 in San Jose."
Doug Wilson trades underperforming Steve Bernier to Buffalo for points-earning defenseman Brian Campbell. Sharks go on a 7-game winning streak... or they might, I mean, since I'm writing this on Feb. 26 and NOT in the beginning of March just pretending this is all archived on my hard drive...
*cough*

2/29/2008: "29 Days in February?! AAAHHHH!"
What next, Daylight Savings time starting in March instead of the first Sunday in April?!

3/2/2008: "3x5 Geek Humor on Blogspot."
After many months of having completely forgotten about it, I rediscover the wonderful geeky math humor and social commentary of Jessica Hagy. I immediately spend the rest of the evening perusing the archived entries, saving the jpegs in a folder to toss on my iPod. Damn, I'm a geek.

3/4/2008: "+2 Moment of Silence in WI."
After nearly suffering a heart attack from incorrect medication for strokes suffered in 2001 and 2004, Gary Gygax dies in his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. While many a newspaper article tries to be clever by suggesting he "failed his final saving throw" or calling his death his "final quest", I decide to give him the moment of silence he deserves. I can remember many a night spent having fun with friends and family playing Dungeons & Dragons, and although I've since moved on I do have many a fond memory thanks to of the father of modern role playing games.

3/6/2008: "30 Bogus Entries on Blogspot."
Err, ignore that last one.

.

12:00 AM in Gilroy

I consider myself a fairly normal and sane person. Sure, I'm a glutton and I have a decidedly warped sense of humor; but beyond that, I'm a relatively well-adjusted adult male with a sense of self respect and a grudging willingness to coexist with other people under most circumstances.

Which brings me to my next question: how the HELL do I find myself driving down to the Gilroy Premium Outlets late on Thanksgiving night, for the Midnight Madness Day After Thanksgiving Sale?!

According to the San Jose Mercury News, approximately 10,000 cars had traveled to the Gilroy outlets by 3AM on Friday, and 20,000 cars by the time the main sale ended at 6AM. Normally, if I read something like that I'd just say "huh," and promptly ignore that number... but when you're knee-deep in a miasma of vehicular exhaust and processed garlic (one of which I dig by itself, and it ain't exhaust), and trying to navigate a parking lot while dodging both jaywalkers with their heads buried in outlet guides and idling cars double-parked in an aisle wide enough for exactly 2.5 cars, the reality of 10,000 cars really hits you hard.

This is not joyful shopping, with people singing Christmas carols as they shop side by side in a wonderful joining of America's crass consumerism. This is horrible and vengeful shopping, where the strong shoppers use the blood of the vanquished to help slide their overladen shopping bags to the backs of their SUVs before going back for more carnage. This is capitalism combined with ultimate fighting combined with attitudes and actions that would make Machiavelli hunt for his security blanket. This is 75% Stephen King, 45% Clive Barker, 60% H.P. Lovecraft, and 20% Charles Dickens (which is still mathematically valid, as everything's half off.) This is a group of rabid consumers whose infectious insanity could cause Ghandi and the Dalai Lama to get into a no-holds-barred slapfight over the last Summer Sausage at Swiss Colony (at least they couldn't resort to hair pulling.)

This kind of shopping is, God help me... kind of fun.

Anyway, we head to Gilroy (about 30 minutes away) at about 10:40PM, in the hopes that we might get there before the major rush. This is proof that we've never done this type of thing before; the people who've done this before got to Gilroy at around 2PM and had their Thanksgiving turkeys delivered to them in line. And because we've never done this before and decide to go on an impulse, we of course get stuck in traffic on the freeway about a mile before the exit, since the poor traffic light at the end of the offramp is woefully unprepared for Black Friday mania and is only letting six or seven cars through at a time. We finally manage to get to the outlets themselves at 11:45, and drive around the parking lot looking for a vacant spot. Some stores are already letting people shop, and we do see people getting into their cars and leaving, but there's a queue of 5 cars at the front of each aisle, just sitting and waiting for the first sign of reverse lights. After about half an hour, I convince Lucie to start shopping, and I'll find a spot and let her know where I park Meg. I let her off in front of Lane Bryant, and continue my quest for a parking space.

An hour later, she calls me and says she's done shopping.

I'm still circling, looking for a parking spot. I can no longer hear my iPod's Christmas music playing over my mad gibbering and insane cackling, and I've burned about a quarter tank of gas and opened a hole in the ozone layer that can never be repaired, but oddly enough I'm still feeling like shopping myself, so we trade places and Lucie circles the parking lot while I head off to Harry & David for snacks for my people at work (which we have dubbed "Nerd Chow.")

Four minutes later, I call her and tell her I'm done shopping.

Hey -- I'm a dude, and I don't have to try on truffles to know they fit just fine.

We head on back home, and notice that the line to get off the freeway is even longer at 1:30 in the morning than it was at 11:00 at night. Our senses overwhelmed, our gas tank empty, our fists bruised and bloodied, and our wallets sore, we get back to San Jose both victorious and sleepy. We fall asleep knowing that we have participated in one of the most ridiculously capitalist and commercial events of the year, Black Friday; and that we will never, ever, EVER do this sort of thing again.

Unless they have a really awesome sale or something.

.

16GB from Apple.

Hi. My name is Raymond, and I’m a technogeek. I’m such a geek, I’m thinking about building a robot that would push up my glasses for me; it could clip to a pocket protector and use solar power. And LEDs – it’d have to have LEDs.

Okay, so maybe I’m not quite that bad, but I’m a technogeek nonetheless. Hey, I work in the tech industry; it helps keep me interested in what I do, and it helps earn us money so we can pay the bills. On the other hand, sometimes it COSTS us money… and for that, I blame Apple.

See, the only reason I haven’t gotten an iPhone yet is that we just re-upped for a two-year stint on T-Mobile earlier this year, and of course the iPhone is AT&T specific (until someone comes up with a way to unlock it easily, at any rate,) so I can’t in good conscience justify paying tons of money to break our T-Mobile contract, and I don’t want to enter into a second two-year contract with a second mobile provider just so I could have an iPhone while Lucie uses the T-Mobile service. Technogeekism does have its limits.

And Steve Jobs knows this, and I’m fairly sure he’s overheard me talking about it in our car (since I’m also fairly certain Jobs has every single vehicle in the greater Bay Area bugged so he can listen to our conversations, as part of his insidious plans for world domination.) So he comes out with the iPod Touch, combining all the awesome cool factor of the touch screen, the amazing quality video playback, the sleek and purty and oh so shiny polished metal and black glass design, and the incredibly user-friendly menu interaction of the iPhone, and without the required 24-month shackles to AT&T. Sure, it doesn’t have the digital camera or the EDGE online capabilities that the iPhone has, but to make up for that the iPod Touch does have Wi-Fi capability, so whenever you go to a Wi-Fi enabled location (Starbuck’s, hotels; even a few McDonald’s restaurants I’ve seen) you can use the integrated Safari browser and go surfing to your geeky little heart’s content.

Don’t want to carry around printouts or struggle with road maps? Get the map you want online, save it as a JPEG, and toss it on your iPod. You can access the map image, zoom in by double-tapping the screen, and scroll around the image by simply dragging your finger to move the map. Maybe not as cutting edge as having GPS-based navigation system, but as long as you can read street signs you can get from point A to point B using technology that causes envy among your friends.

Missed that episode of Psych yesterday? Download it to your Touch, and spend your lunch break at work snorting chicken noodle soup out of your nose at the wacky hijinks those boys get into on that wide screen goodness. Assuming you’re eating chicken noodle soup, at any rate. If you’re eating meatloaf and you snort chicken noodle soup out of your nose, call the doctor. And Ripley’s.

The iPod Touch advertisements online say they they’ll ship by the 28th, but a few websites say that the iPods are available in stores as of late last week. So Friday evening, we go to the Apple Store at Valley Fair Mall and I poke my head in. Sorry, I'm told; they’re sold out already (less than 48 hours after being set on the shelves!) Luckily, we’re headed to Oakridge Mall after that anyway, so I go to the Apple store in Oakridge… and they’re sold out there as well.

Argh!

I get the numbers of the Apple stores in Palo Alto (Stanford Shopping Center), Walnut Creek, Pleasanton, and Los Gatos, and two stores in San Francisco. Sold out, sold out, sold out, sold out, and sold out at both.

Argh!

So let’s try NON-Apple stores. I get the numbers for Best Buy at Santana Row, Almaden, Mountain View, Cupertino, and Gilroy. Sold out, sold out, sold out, sold out… and we have A COUPLE LEFT AT THE BEST BUY IN GILROY OHMIGODOHMIGOD IT’S LIKE MEETING BRUCE CAMPBELL IN PERSON weneedtogotoGilroyNOWNOWNOWNOWNOW.

I convince Lucie that we need to go to Gilroy (though, seeing as how the outlet stores are there, it wasn’t that difficult to do), and I do my best Dale Earnhardt Jr. impression on my way down there.
We get there, get out of Meg, and I practically fly into the store, running like a diuretic Dachshund, knocking down old women in walkers and pushing children in wheelchairs out of my way in my mad dash to the iPod area… and they have One. 16GB. iPod. Touch. Left. I do my best not to squeal like a Canadian schoolgirl meeting Mike Ricci, and calmly say, “I’ll take it.”
I’m pretty sure Lucie bought some stuff at some other store, and I think I went some place else and did something too, but in all honesty I’m too busy petting my new technology and making happy cooing noises to pay any attention. I just hope I didn’t do anything embarrassing that was caught on video.

Although… if I did, do me a favor and put it on YouTube; I’ll check it out on my iPod Touch.

.

















The world's most frightening IKEA spokesman, on that nifty widescreen.

.

Six Years of Wedded Bliss.

So, in just a couple of days Lucie and I will have been married six years.

There have been quite a few ups, quite a few downs, and a couple of massive plummets, but I wouldn't have traded this particular roller coaster ride for anything else out there.

My wonderful wife kept us afloat financially while I was unemployed for over two years straight. She also kept me going emotionally during that time -- and let me tell you, that was rough. I did what I could to help keep her going during some family tragedies that shouldn't happen to anybody, much less in such rapid succession.

And yet...

We managed to pay off Leasa, back when I was still unemployed, no less. Last year we went to Vegas, and this year we went to Hawaii for the first (but certainly not the last) time. And we just bought a car less than two months ago.

And don't get me started on the dinner at Alexander's.

With all of the ups and all of the downs, she's with me and I'm with her, as we were meant to be. We share in the joys and pain of life, and support each other though thick and thin. Somehow, "codependent" doesn't seem like a strong enough word.

She's the person in whom I can confide, in whose arms I feel secure, and without whom I cannot ever imagine living.

And I count myself lucky each and every day to have her as my wife.

I love you, Lucie.

Happy anniversary.

.

Sixteen Hours in Tahoe

So we plan to leave work early on Friday, as a way of celebrating Lucie’s birthday. We’d talked about what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go, but hadn’t made any actual plans. On the way in to work, however, we hear Kevin Nealon’s commercial about Lake Tahoe’s recovery from the Angora Hills fire, and about how even though the fire devastated over 3,000 acres of land and over 200 homes, the tourism industry is still chugging along just fine.

From what I’ve read, tourism fell by about 30% as a result of the fire, which isn’t too terribly surprising, so the tourism board had long-time resident Kevin Nealon do his radio spot as a way of drumming up the visitors… and you know what? It worked on us, at least. We might be able to enjoy smaller crowds because of the drop in tourism, and we’d be able to support the community’s recovery by spending some money while we’re there. Win-win.

Of course, by “spending some money” I mean at the casinos, so technically to be supporting Tahoe we’d have to lose the money gambling, so it’d be win-lose-win, and if we did it in Vegas it could be win-lose-win-Wynn, and if Lou’s Donuts was still around and we brought some to Vegas and gambled… but I digress.

At any rate, we hear the commercial on the way in to work, and we decide that if it’s good enough for Kevin Nealon, the best out of the poor replacements for Dennis Miller, it’s good enough for us. Semi-spontaneous road trip, here we come!

We leave work around 12:30, get home around 1, get a little delayed while packing, and hit the road around 2:30 or so. A bit later than we wanted to leave – we end up running to heavy traffic leaving the Bay Area and heading inland – but we’ve got a comfy car, we’ve got iTunes playing… and we’ve got a bunch of Krispy Kreme donuts.

See, Krispy Kreme, as part of their company anniversary, is offering anybody with a July 13th birthday a free dozen donuts on that day. Lucie’s birthday just so happens to be on July 13th, and there’s a Krispy Kreme right off Hwy 680 along the way to Tahoe. So already, we figure we’re in the black.

We hit more traffic crossing the Benicia Bridge, and again in Fairfield (home of the Budweiser brewery as well as the Jelly Belly factory), and some more traffic in Sacramento… by my reckoning, we may be spending more time parked on the freeways than actually driving on them, but we finally make it to South Lake Tahoe around 9:00 or so.

We see what lodging is available, filter out what’s too crowded (sure doesn’t look like tourism is down, judging by the hordes of loud drunk folks at the casinos!) or too expensive (when the “vacancy” sign means that you do have one room available, but it’s a junior suite that’s more than twice the price of the other rooms, just turn the “vacancy” sign off, dude!) or too far away (the rates might be good, but I’m hearing the married siblings in the room next door playing “dueling banjos” so we’re leaving), and end up at a slightly run-down but affordable joint located about half a mile from Stateline. Sure the place might be lacking an A/C unit and actually still uses real door keys instead of magnetic strip cards, but it’s also a mere $80 for the night, and that leaves us more money for gamb—err, supporting Tahoe. And we’re okay with that; considering we’re splurging just on coming up here, no need to go wacky crazy with the spending on everything.

Speaking of non sequiturs, When the heck did Caesar’s Lake Tahoe turn into Montbleu?! Smokin’ Aces -- which was filmed there -- wasn’t that bad, was it? (Actually, we watched it recently – yeah, it was that bad. I’d have changed my name if I were associated with it. Ben Affleck may have been the bomb in Phantoms, but he bombed in this junker along with everyone else.)

Anyway, we drop off our luggage and the remaining Krispy Kremes in the hotel room and hit the casinos. We park Meg at the Montbleu and start there, then move on to Bill’s. Montbleu likes me a little more than it does Lucie, but Bill apparently misses both of us, and we do okay there. We don’t make a profit or anything, but at least our money lasts longer.

We hit the all-night restaurant at the Montbleu on the way out for a late-night meal (the coconut shrimp appetizers are yummy, and while my mushroom burger isn’t worth the price they’re charging [think “five dollar milkshake’] it is mighty tasty), and then we head back to the hotel for some sleep.

In the morning, we hit the casinos on the other side of the street (well, okay; just the Horizon, since neither of us are doing well enough to warrant continuing on to Harrah’s and Harvey’s), and have a late breakfast before leaving town around 1PM.

I always enjoy the drive back from South Lake Tahoe along Hwy 50 more than coming in. Maybe it’s the lack of urgency and desperation in the drivers around me, maybe it’s the fact that we’re on the mountain side of the road instead of the butt-puckering side right next to the edge of the cliff, maybe it’s because we usually end up arriving at night but leaving during the day… who can say? At any rate, we enjoy a nice leisurely drive from Tahoe to Placerville where we make our usual stop at Apple Hill’s Boa Vista orchards and stock up on fresh apple cider and other fruity products.

From there, we mosey through Sacramento before making another stop in Fairfield’s Jelly Belly factory, where we stock up on our friend the simple carbohydrate, in various flavors and forms. Jelly Belly’s “Belly Flops” candies may be freakish and sometimes a little ugly, but they’re just as tasty as their QC-accepted cousins and they’re a lot cheaper, and I’m not sure my coworkers even notice what they look like before they descend upon them like locusts with PhDs.

We end up back in San Jose around 7:30, with a lighter bank account but a heavier car, thanks to the goodies we bought; happy, sated, and proud that we were able to help assist with the recovery of one of the world’s most beautiful places… although in a rather self-serving way.

.

7-Eleven in Mountain View

So it’s late evening on July 2th, and Lucie’s online while I’m playing Diablo 2 on the laptop. She comes across a news blurb that says as a promotion for the upcoming Simpsons movie, eleven different 7-Eleven stores across the US (plus one in Canada) are converting to Kwik-E-Marts, complete with store façade, in-store decorations, and uniforms for the employees…. And that the nearest one to us just happens to be in Mountain View.

Awesome.

The stores were converted early on the 2th, and the 7-Eleven website doesn’t have the converted store locations listed yet. I get a little assistance from my friend Google, and find a message board where someone in Mountain View who has been to the store gives out the location… it’s right off 101 at Shoreline Blvd., about a 15-20 minute drive from our apartment.

Awesomer.

So we head on out, groove our way on up Hwy 85 to 101,and before we know it we’re in Springfield… or at least as close to Springfield as we can get without being animated. There’s a small crowd of kids outside – the store is across the street from a movie megaplex, so there’s a bunch of wander-in traffic – but the store itself is fairly calm. We pick up some Buzz Cola and a box of Krusty-O’s; I grab a copy of the comic book Radioactive Man (“special origin issue!”); and we hit the Squishee machine for our frozen sugary beverage fix. Waving goodbye to the life-size image of Jasper in the freezer case, we walk out with our purchases and head on back home.

In a fit of fanboy mania, I open the original packaging on my Radioactive Man #1 and read it, thinking after the fact that I probably shouldn’t have opened it… or at the very least, I should have bought two copies.

D’ohh.

You can buy Buzz Cola, Krusty-O’s, Squishees, Apu bobble head figurines, and other Simpsons-related items at most regular 7-Elevens (though it’s pretty darn hard to find anything other than the Squishee in stock as of this writing), but in this dude’s humble opinion, if you’re gonna spend some bucks on Buzz Cola, it really ought to be at a real live Kwik-E-Mart.

.

Six Cylinders in Fresno

So the last several times Lucie and I have gone down to Fresno we’ve had to rent a vehicle, since our beloved Leasa is getting on years and distance (over ten years and 136K miles) and just isn’t up for a long road trip. The last time we tried, we had to turn back before we were halfway there because smoke started pouring out from under the hood, which as it turns out is not as good for the engine as I hoped it was. Note to self: ribs are better when smoked; turkey is better when smoked; vehicles not so much.

At any rate, we’d been thinking about getting a second vehicle for when one of us has to work late and has some advance notice. Being a one-vehicle couple does have its benefits, but its drawbacks as well. For the money saved on fuel and insurance, there’s the necessary disruption to both schedules when only one need be skewed.

Long story slightly less long, while we’re in Fresno we decide to go looking at vehicles. One benefit of having driven lots and lots of rental vehicles is that we tried to rent as wide a variety as possible to see how we lived driving the different styles. One of the vehicles we liked most was the Hyundai Sonata, so we stop by the Hyundai dealership to poke around.

We get into a couple of different models in addition to the Sonata, and during the drive around the lot we see a couple of used (excuse me, “Certified Pre-Owned”) Sonatas on sale. We stop and take a look, and find a teal 2006 6-cylinder Sonata that really stands out to us. It’s got a sun roof, which Lucie loves; it’s a rental return that only has 11,000 miles, which I love; and it’s one of two used cars on sale for $15,900, which both of us like a whole lot. It’s still more than we want to spend, but that’s what the bargaining part is for.

We take it out for a test drive, I end up driving further than any of us really wanted (stupid confusing freeway exits that dump you right back onto the freeway going the same direction – and Lucie says San Jose is bad), and we decide to have a sit down and see what we can work out.

Now, Hyundai and Kia are slightly different than most other auto makers in that their initial prices are lower than their competitors’ – the South Korean auto makers (sister companies since Hyundai bought out Kia a few years back) lose a little bit of the overhead in order to offer a more attractive face price to their customers. According to a few people with whom we spoke, this means that there simply isn’t much haggle space when you buy one of these cars – what you see is pretty much what you should expect to pay. We decide to test this theory, and hard.

Privately, Lucie says she doesn’t want to spend more than $14,500 on a car. We opt to start at $14,000 even just to see how they react, and work from there. Now, I’ll admit I don’t know all that much about poker faces, but when the salesman chokes on his own tongue while laughing like a braying donkey at our offer, that says something. I may not know exactly what it says, but it says something.

He counters with $15,500, saying what is mentioned above, that they don’t have all that much haggling room on that car, especially since it’s already on a pretty good sale (one of only two cars, remember – most other similar ones were around $18,000.) We go up to our desired $14,500, and settle in for what looks to be a long bargaining session. We go back and forth for what seems like two hours but is actually only about 120 minutes, haggling over the financing (our credit isn’t exactly outstanding, but it’s not as bad as I’d thought either; we’ve mostly recovered from my 25-month unemployment financial devastation) as well as the initial cost.

They bring up the fact that the sale price for the vehicle is in and of itself lower than the Kelley Blue Book price, and that we’re getting it for almost a thousand bucks less than that. We bring up the fact that they’re fairly desperate to make a sale, since it’s end of month as well as end of quarter for them, and they’ve already mentioned that they have a quota they need to hit. They bring up the fact that as a Certified Pre-Owned car, it’s still got 50,000 miles or 6 years left on the original warranty. We bring up the fact that since we’re buying in Fresno but live in San Jose, odds are pretty damn high that their dealership won’t have to incur any of the potential repair costs if we should need any work done while it’s under said warranty.

The finance guy comes in several times, backing up the salesman’s comments and begrudgingly lowering the cost down to $15,300, then down to $15,200, then back up to $15,300 (which he swears is a typo, honest), until we finally work out a deal for $15,000 at just a hair under 7% financing. He gives us the CarFax printout when Lucie asks for it, showing it’s a rental return with no accidents or issues.

Now, this is a good deal. We like it. But Lucie thinks we might be able to do better. We’re also just a little afraid to commit to a new long-term debt, since we’ve just about paid off Hawaii and have no major debts otherwise. So, we ask if they can hold that price for us for a while, we’ll go back home and talk about it, and let them know about our decision in a few days, and if we decide to buy we’ll be back down next weekend.

Finally, the finance guys comes in and slaps down a new piece of paper, saying that he’s sick of this back and forth, and he just wants to get this over with. He’s red in the face, and actually does sound pretty grumpy; he’s certainly not as friendly and nice as he was when he came in the first time. The new piece of paper says $14,500, at the agreed-upon financing rate. Kelley Blue Book listing for this vehicle: $18,500. Score!

We sign the papers, and during the finalization process we agree to an upgraded warranty plan (which we were going to get anyway) which brings us full and complete coverage for 100,000 miles from current status (i.e., good for ten years or until 111,090 miles) and we end up with an even lower finance rate, coming in at a mere tad over 6%.

Since she’s nice and big and fast and powerful, and teal in color (like the Sharks!), Lucie names our new vehicle Meg.

Welcome to the family, Meg.

.