Glenpyramid Glen Vitamin

On our last night in Las Vegas, I sat at the bar getting in one last session of video poker. A young gentleman in his twenties with a beard and half black hair and half blue hair sat down at the end of the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender set down the beer, and they started chatting like they knew each other.

Blue: Just got back from dinner on top of the Stratosphere.

Bartender: Yeah? How was it?

Blue: Alright. I didn't know fancy dinners took so long. We were there 4 and a half hours! I wasn't paying so I figured I'd stay til the end.

Bartender: Took my girlfriend there once. Was good but probably not worth the price.

Blue: Yeah, I had the sirloin. Better than Golden Corral but you know, a sirloin is a sirloin. You can get them anywhere. Anyway, I'm expecting some friends, can I start a tab?

(A few minutes later, a guy in his mid fifties showed up and sat next to Blue.)

Blue: English Dan! How the hell are you? (They shake hands) How was your flight?

Dan: A flight's a flight.

Blue: Tell me about it. I'm wiped. Just got back from dinner on top of Stratosphere. Didn't want to go but Dad woke me from my nap and insisted.

(Me thinking: He's there with his dad. Interesting.)

Dan: Stratosphere? What you doing up there?

Blue: Oh man, I'm sorry. Geno called this afternoon. Said he wanted to meet the whole team but his only free night this week was tonight. So he took us up there. Man, I told him you couldn't make it but he said that's his only night and he'd make it up to you.

Dan: Yeah? How so?

Blue: He'll probably buy you lunch or a drink sometime.

Dan: Yeah? On top of the f*%$ing Stratosphere?

Blue: Geno's good for it. I saw the bill. Over two grand. And Geno's a good tipper.

(Me thinking: Okay, so these guys work for Geno in some capacity along with Blue's dad. And I can tell by looking at English Dan, he's been around the block a few times. He's not bought into this company and wonders if he's going to get paid while Blue is the young idealist thinking he's going to score big.)

Blue: The food wasn't very good anyway. You didn't miss anything.

Dan: Where's everyone else?

Blue: I think they're still at the Stratosphere. Geno took everyone up top to ride the rides. He paid for everything. (pause) Don't worry, Geno's gonna make it up to you.

Dan: How? Take me on a f*&%ing rollercoaster ride?

(another guy, Ray, in his twenties with short brown hair sat down with them)

Ray: English Dan! Good to see you!

Dan: Yeah, you go to the Strat too?

Ray: Just got off the rollercoaster. Geno woofed his dinner on it! Chunks of tenderloin flying out his mouth at 75 miles per hour and falling 150 stories!

Blue: Yeah, they still there?

Ray: The man can't be stopped. Went to the bar, had a shot, then did the sky jump. Unbelievable. Man, this is a long walk from the Stratosphere. How'd we end up staying here? (Main Street Station)

Blue: Because last year we were at California Club. Dad got drunk and trashed the room. We got banned for life so Mom booked us here.

(Me thinking: Getting weirder. He's here with mom and dad and apparently they like to party pretty hard.)

Dan: So how was your dinner Ray? Blue said not so hot.

Ray: Fantastic! Best salad I ever had. Dressing was amazing like a cool ranch blue cheese thing. And it just got better after that.

Dan: F*&% you.

Blue: Come on Ray. Wasn't English Dan's fault he missed the dinner. I was just telling him Geno promised to make it up to him.

Ray: He's right English Dan. I sat next to Geno and Geno said, "who's not here?" And I said English Dan. And he's asking me how he can make it up to you. And I said it's gotta be something good like a big ol Po'boy or something.

Dan: F*&% you.

Ray: Aw, English Dan, I'm just bustin' your balls. Geno's good for it. I don't know what he's gonna do but he's gonna make it up to you.

(Me thinking: Why do they keep calling him English Dan? Can't he just go by Dan? And why don't I have a tape recorder. From now on, I need to bring a tape recorder to Vegas.)

Ray: So where's mom and dad?

Blue: Mom's in bed already. Tired after all the traveling. Last I saw Dad was at Stratosphere. He got pretty lit up then walked down the stairs from the top of the Stratosphere. Can you believe it? What's that, like 300 stories? Anyway, hostess sees him come out of the stairwell, and he's drenched in sweat. She's like, "what happened to you?" And he says, "I was looking for the restroom." She points across the lobby and he says, "Oh don't worry, I found one on the 50th floor."

Ray: Oh man, I love Dad.

(Me thinking: Okay, so mom and dad must not really be their parents because they're definitely not brothers. Some sort of code name.)

Blue: Anyway, we meet Mom and Dad at 9:00 for breakfast. Then we set up shop at 2:00. Geno's gonna be in and around. He's got meetings all week.

(Me thinking: I started to get the picture. Geno is the head of a pyramid scheme. Mom and Dad are the local bosses of the team while Blue, Ray and English Dan are at the bottom of the pyramid. Blue and Ray are the suckers while English Dan knows it's going nowhere. I just can't figure out what they're selling. But the whole conversation reminded me of the film "Glengarry Glen Ross" except without the suits and without the real estate and less profanity. My best guess was that they're selling vitamin supplements. But I also realized I had now spent an extra $20 on the video poker that I wasn't planning on spending just to keep listening to them. But it was worth it.)

Ray: What do you say we hit that Fremont Street experience. Supposed to be pretty cool.

Dan: I'm going to bed.

Blue: Lighten up English Dan. I told you Geno's gonna make it up to you. Hey Ray, did I tell you I saw the check at the Stratosphere? Over 3 grand!

Ray: Yeah and I bet Geno left a big tip too. English Dan, when Geno buys you a beer, hold out for something better than a Miller Lite. Like a Guinness or Stella Artois or something.

Dan: (flips off Ray)

Ray: (to bartender) Hey, can I get a cup of coffee?

Me: (I hit the cash out button on the machine and stand up.) Coffee? Coffee is for closers!

More Notes From Las Vegas

We recently returned from Las Vegas (again). Here's a few notable stories:

For some reason, I had a difficult time adjusting to the time difference on this trip. This led me to going downstairs to get coffee every morning at 7:00 a.m. One morning, I rode the elevator down to the lobby; as the door opened, a man and his wife came barging in, pushing me to the back of the elevator.

"Oh sorry," I didn't think anyone else would be up this early," he said.

I managed to circle my way around them and stumbled off the elevator without saying what I really wanted to say, "No, jerkwad, civilized people wait for the doors to fully open, verify no one is in the elevator or let them get out before entering the elevator themselves. Or in a moment of forgetfulness, when they bump into someone getting off the elevator, they apologize then get out of the way rather than barreling ahead pushing the person back onto the elevator."

I don't know, maybe they just thought I was joyriding the elevator.

One morning I happened to walk past a slot machine tournament. I stopped for a minute to take in the action. If you haven't seen one, well, it's exactly what you'd expect. Thirty or forty mostly older people sitting at slot machines constantly slamming their hands on the "max credits" button. And on top of that, no one seemed to be having fun. It seemed to be the equivalent of working in some foreign sweatshop factory stamping U.S. corporate logos on some cheap product. Except at the end, a winner would be declared.

Anyway, I don't understand why they just don't put bricks on the "max credits" button and people can bet on which machine will reign supreme. Seems it would be easier and more fun.

One early evening, I found an empty seat at the bar and started playing some video poker while minding my own business. The gentleman next to me started sighing loudly and mumbling, "wow, just wow."

I refused to take the bait but then he finally turned to me and said, "Did you hear the news about Robin Williams?"

"Yes," I said without looking up. "That's awful."

Then he shoved his cell phone showing an article reporting the death into my face. I wasn't sure what to do, did he not hear me the first time or was he trying to demonstrate that you can look at newspapers on cell phones?

"Yeah, that's terrible," I said and went back to playing my game.

He continued to sigh and played with his phone. Then he heard a group of people at the end of the bar talking about Robin Williams. He ran to the end of the bar and showed them the article on his phone. Meanwhile, I scanned the bar for another empty stool but no luck.

He came back and sat down next to me. "It's amazing, I was just watching some of his videos on youtube just last night," he said.

"Then it must be your fault," I wanted to say but did not.

After a few minutes of silence, he tried a new tactic. "Hey, did you hear about that baseball player that swung the bat and it broke in half and he didn't even hit the ball?"

"Must have been a powerful swing," I said without looking up.

I thought he had finally taken the hint as he went back to playing with his phone. But then he started playing some sort of loud concert video footage on his phone and put the phone on a little stand on the bar so I guess everyone could enjoy whatever it was along with him.

I finally took the hint and cashed out. As I got up, I said, "Dude you really need to find a friend."

One Step From Immortal Glory

As I get older, I am constantly amazed at the ancient personal memories that get stuck in my head:

In the summer of my sixth year on earth, my t-ball team, the crickets, met the birds in the t-ball championship. In case you are not familiar, t-ball was the baseball starter league for 5 and 6 year-olds where players hit the ball from a stationary tee. Everyone got to play with about twelve kids in the outfield at a time. You might think this would be unfair and lead to low scoring games except for the fact that when the ball came to most of the kids in the outfield, they just threw their gloves in the air and started running. Sometime they even ran toward the ball.

We were probably the third or fourth best team in the league while the birds were the equivalent of the New York Yankees. They were undefeated and won their games by an average score of 33 - 5. Despite the odds against us, we played well and kept the game close. Early in the game, the ball came to me in shallow left field. As a runner ran toward third base, I picked up the ball ready to throw him out. Unfortunately, our third baseman who I shall call Brooks, stood with his back to me, and staring at I don't know what. He certainly wasn't staring at girls unless he was trying to figure out which ones had cooties.

"Brooks," I yelled as I wound up ready to throw. "Brooks! Over here! Come on!"

Maybe because of the loud screaming parents, he didn't hear me. The runner neared third base so I finally just threw the ball at Brooks hoping he would turn around. The ball bounced off the back of his head. I had to run and pick up the ball while the runner scored. Luckily, Brooks shook it off, and if we were lucky, the ball knocked some sense into him.

We finally took the lead but the birds got to bat last. We just needed three outs for immortal t-ball glory. The birds scored a few runs to pull within one, but there were two outs with runners on first and second. With a force out at any base, things looked good. The next batter hit the ball on the ground right to me. I scooped it up knowing we just needed the force out at third. I pulled my arm back ready to throw. Brooks stood on third base waiting to catch it.

I hesitated remembering what happened last time. But Brooks stood on the bag with his glove open ready for the throw. I quickly decided to do the sure thing; I took off running figuring I could beat the baserunner to third base. Brooks yelled at me to throw it, but even a ten meter throw from a 6 year old is no sure thing. I focused on the runner; I had a step on him. But he had an extra gear and managed to get in front of me.

He made it the base first while I came in hoping I could tag him if he stepped off the base. Instead, I tripped over the base and fell into foul territory. Luckily I held onto the ball. The umpire helped me up and I noticed the birds cap on his head. Even if I had tackled the baserunner and tagged him out fifty times, he probably still would have been called safe.

Our coaches told us to cheer up and focus. After all, we still only needed one more out with the bases loaded. But the next batter hit the ball over everyone's head as our outfielders threw their gloves in the air and ran away from the ball.

The birds won. I learned two valuable lessons that day:
1. If you want to make sure something gets done, do it yourself.
2. If you do something yourself and do not achieve the desired results, expect persons in authority (and teammates) to get mad at you.

I've been wondering why I keep thinking about that game lately. At first I thought I remembered that I had beaten the runner, and the umpire had made a bad call. All these years later, I felt the deep wound of injustice. But I guess that was selective memory trying to rewrite my history. Upon further review, I still remembered what really happened. So even after forty years, I still can't outrun my mistakes, much less the kid running to third base.

The Sauce Must Have Been Good

I recently read an online discussion about restaurant dining on a newspaper website. One person wrote about a time he left a 1% tip: drinks didn't arrive until after the entrees, one entrée came out 30 minutes before the other one, the second order was completely wrong although the server insisted other wise and they had to wait an hour for their check. Sure that may justify no tip, but what amazed me, was how long people will actually put up with poor experiences before being pushed hard enough to fight back. If I have to wait more than five minutes to order a drink after I'm seated, I start muttering, "who do I have to kill to get a drink in this place?"
 

That story reminded me of an incident that happend in our restaurant:

It took a good year and a half before I finally decided that our restaurant was going to make it. I would go home after a successful day then come in the next day wondering if any customers would show up. During this time, as guests were leaving, they frequently asked if I was the owner. I would begrudgingly answer affirmatively while bracing myself for a slap in the face, a kick to the groin, or a challenge to a duel, or at least a firm tongue lashing. But probably 95% of the time, they had really nice things to say about the restaurant. 4% of the time, they might have valuable constructive criticism while the other 1% challenged me to duels. I had gotten used to feeling the love.

One Saturday night, I came in about 5:00. Only one table was occupied by a family of four in the corner. I didn't pay much attention as I went about my business getting ready for the dinner rush. As they got up to leave, I happened to be standing near the door. The father of the family asked if I was the owner. I smiled brightly and almost held out my hand ready to be kissed.

"This restaurant is a disgrace," he started. "I've never had a worse meal in my life. The food was cold and way too expensive. My wife's chicken was raw!"

Like a punching bag hanging from the ceiling I kept swinging back for more. Finally, I managed to jump in and tried to solve the problem. "I'm very sorry to hear that. Did you talk to the server and have the chicken replaced?"

"No, we didn't."

"Well let me get you something else. I would hate for you to leave hungry."

"I wouldn't touch your food if you gave me a million dollars."

(I guessed he wouldn't be enthused about a complimentary gift certificate.)

"We don't want anything," he continued. "We just wanna get out of here so we can go tell our friends about it."

"Yeah," the wife finally chimed in. "And we're gonna put it all over facebook so our friends can tell their friends. No one's gonna come here again."

They stormed out the door as I struggled to find anything to say. I ran back to the kitchen and found the server who was one of our best.
 

"What happened? Did they say anything to you?" I asked.

"No, everything was fine. They never complained. They weren't talkative, but I had no idea there was a problem."

We went back to the table and inspected the plates. They were empty, no sign of any leftover half-eaten, much less raw chicken. I walked back to the office and sat down trying to comprehend what had happened. The best I could figure was that they were hoping to get salmonella poisoning for a lawsuit payday or just to prove some sort of point.

That day I realized that complainers are nothing to worry about or fear; their problems are usually easily fixed. It's the people that have a bad experience and walk out without saying a word that are the ones to worry about.

Luckily, their Facebook campaign (if they indeed waged one) didn't hurt our business. But at the time I thought, "Yes, please tell your friends that you were served raw chicken. And that you just went ahead and ate it anyways."

How Not to Die from Sitting

I recently read this article about how sitting all day is really bad for you. It listed the usual reasons like standing burns more calories, muscle metabolism changes, and you are at increased risk for various cancers. To top it all off, each hour of sitting results in a loss of 21.8 minutes from your life expectancy. Seeing as how I've been sitting most of my life, I probably have minutes to live.

After crunching some numbers, it's fair to assume that I've lost over four years of my life expectancy. I knew I had to put a stop to it. Not only that, I had to figure out how to get those four years back before it was too late. So I decided to alter my habits and keep a diary to hold myself accountable:

Friday July 11

4:00 p.m. Let's get started!

4:01 p.m. Since I've already been sitting here for the last six hours, we'll just wait and start the diary tomorrow.

Saturday July 12

11:00 a.m. Stood in my office thinking about my next blog post.

11:20 a.m. Sat down to write blog post then realized since it takes about an hour to write one, I'm sacrificing 22 minutes of my life for my dear readers. I hope you appreciate it, all five of you.

11:25 a.m. Decide to take a walk to offset my sitting problem. Walk to refrigerator and pour myself a glass of wine. Maybe alcohol isn't the best choice for my new lifestyle, but I believe it greatly improves my mental outlook so that offsets any bad effects from sitting.

11:26 a.m. Try to stand and type my blog. I do not have a standing desk. Ouch, there goes my back. I take a sip of wine.

11:30 a.m. A brilliant idea! Some exercise should get me some time back on the lifetime clock. I get on a stationary bike and start pedaling. But now there's a new problem: although I am exercising, I'm still sitting down, so the two acts just cancel each other out. I've got it! I take my laptop and get back on bike. Although I'm not gaining any time, I'm not wasting 22 minutes of life writing this blog. 

11:32 a.m. Sweat starts dripping onto my laptop. I'm now worried about getting eletrocuted. I put laptop back on my desk and get back on bike.

11:34 a.m. This is boring. I get my glass of wine and sip wine while riding stationary bike.

11:45 a.m. Lunch time! Prepare a big healthy salad of spinach and spring mix. Pour half a bottle of bleu cheese dressing on it.

11:57 a.m. Maybe that salad wasn't so big as I'm still hungry. I fix a large plate of bacon (it's okay, I'm on a low carb diet and can eat all the bacon I want). 

12:15 p.m. I happen to glance in the pantry to see a bag of Fritos. I grab a handful, but I eat them while standing. Unfortunately, you can't have just a handful of Fritos. I take the entire bag out. But I walk around the block while eating the bag. I'm starting to get the hang of this.

12:45 p.m. Feeling a little sleepy. Decide to take a nap. That article said nothing bad about laying down or sleeping.

2:30 p.m. St. Pauli Girl hands me a grocery list. The store is too far away to walk to but I really hate the thought of sitting while driving to the store. While driving, I open the window and poke my head outside the window. I believe that trying to keep my head still against the speed of the car offsets the sitting in the seat. I stop at a traffic light with my head still outside the window. A dog in the car next to me pokes his head out and barks at me. I bark back.

2:55 p.m. A genius move! I have the checkout kid bag my groceries in plastic so I can strap them all onto my arms. I load up all twelve bags on my arm and with my free hand pick up the 12 pack of pop. The cashier asks if I'm sure I don't need a carryout. "No," I grimace. I get to the car and realize I have to drop all of the bags to the ground to get the keys out of my pocket. I don't care; this exercise has probably added a solid 90 seconds to my life expectancy.

3:30 p.m. Decide to watch some golf on tv but while standing of course. To make it more interesting, I imitate all of the players' swings as they happen. I've never played so well in my life.

5:35 p.m. Happy hour! St. Pauli Girl and I sit on the patio and discuss the day's events over a glass of wine. I want to stand but my heels are actually killing me. I come up with an idea:

"Let's arm wrestle!" I challenge her.

"What?"

"Yeah, we're killing ourselves by sitting here. So let's get some exercise. I'll even go left handed!"

"You're stupid."

"You'd be stupid not to play! I'm going left-handed plus I'm pretty sore from golfing."

"Why don't you be useful, and cook dinner," she finally said.

6:15 p.m. That was a great idea; I can easily man the grill while standing. We have three grills, so I choose the manly Weber charcoal grill. I light the fire and stand next to the grill as it burns down.

6:45 p.m. I throw some hamburgers on the hot grill. I lean down and inhale deeply that wonderful charcoal hamburger cooking aroma. Then I slap myself on the head. I sit down next to St. Pauli Girl.

"I don't know. I just can't win," I say.

"What's the matter?"

"Charcoal has carcinogens. That breath probably cost me four seconds of life expectancy."

We sit quietly for a minute before St. Pauli Girl refills our wine glasses. She holds her glass out to me, "Here's to life."

"Every single day of it," I reply with a smile. Clink.

Bearly Escaped

Alert readers will remember my previous reminiscence on bears. This past weekend we returned to the remote New Mexico cabin of St. Pauli Girl's brother and sister-in-law who I affectionately nicknamed Mr. and Mrs. Grizzly because they built the cabin themselves on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

This cabin is in an area populated by people who do not wish to be found (all six of them). It is so remote that mobsters will tell you that you only need to go about a quarter ways up the road if you want to bury a body. It is so remote that even UFOs are afraid to go there (and we all know how much UFOs love New Mexico). But more importantly, this is a place where you learn what "night" really means. If you haven't been in the dark hundreds of miles from the nearest city light, you don't know about night.

During the weekend, St. Pauli Girl kept making fun of me for being afraid of bears while I maintained that I had a healthy respect for bears. She apparently thought that if a bear appeared, you packed it up a nice picnic basket and sent it on its way. We spent the day hiking up the mountain while practicing our bear scare tactics like stepping on broken branches, banging on rocks and calling out to the bears so as not to surprise them. Meanwhile, I imitated the sound of a .50 caliber machine gun and World War II howitzers thinking that would best scare bears. After barely making it back to the cabin before a thunderstorm, we spent the remainder of the day and night in the cabin.

Main Cabin

The cabin had only one bedroom and a loft which is where we slept last year. However, this year, Mr. and Mrs. Grizzly had set up an old small camper behind the cabin as a little guest cottage. We said goodnight and headed to the tiny camper.

Guest Cottage

After we went to bed, I looked out the window and noted, "It's much brighter tonight than last night."

There was a half-moon and some cloud cover which provided a surprising amount of light. About forty minutes later, as I was drifting into unconsciousness, I suddenly opened my eyes. I didn't hear anything so I must have sensed the dark now coming through the window. I saw a silhouette of an animal's head and two large paws in the window. A bear!

My bear survival instinct immediately kicked in, and I screamed. As St. Pauli Girl sat up, the shadow disappeared. We looked at each other and realized I had had a bad dream. But then the shadow popped back up in the window. So apparently, dreams can't come true, but nightmares can. I leaned forward and closed the window while we both yelled and screamed at the bear to go away because bears are supposedly frightened of humans making noise. The bear disappeared again, and we thought we were safe.

Then it appeared in the back window. I struggled to find the handle to close that window. We kept yelling and pounding on the side of the wall. I got the window closed then tried to close the curtains thinking that would save us. Then I thought that's stupid, I can't see what's happening. I pulled the curtains open and saw that was one ugly, mean looking bear. So I closed them again right as he slammed a paw against the window.

Meanwhile, St. Pauli Girl put a pillow up against the window. I sat back and tried to think of something to scare the bear.

"Oooga-Booga-Boo!" I shouted.

"Wait," St. Pauli Girl said. "Did you just go Oooga-Booga...?"

"Well you're the one trying to start a pillow fight with him!"

I then resorted to pirate talk, "Arggggghhhhh!" I shouted. I noticed the cabin lights had come on. "That's good, I guess Mr. and Mrs. Grizzly heard us. They'll save us. They must have a machine gun or a bazooka to deal with this thing."

A minute later, we heard Mrs. Grizzly on the deck banging on pots and pans. At last, this disrupted the bear because he was torn between engaging in a pillow fight and getting called to dinner.

Mr. Grizzly came out onto the deck and sized up the situation. He looked at the bear then at the twisted, dented skillet in Mrs. Grizzly's hands. "You're gonna need a bigger pot."

He grabbed a shovel and waved it over his head, cautiously approaching the bear which lumbered away. He grabbed a small flashlight and set off after the bear. And by small flashlight, I mean it would have been good for a dentist looking for cavities but not so much looking for a 300 pound black bear in the dark night.

We finally felt safe enough to step out of the camper. Figuring our noise and the shovel had scared the bear away, we began to calm down and relax. Mr. Grizzly called out from the darkness that he couldn't see the bear anywhere.

"I think he went under the camper," St. Pauli Girl said.

I jumped back about five feet. "Then why are we standing right next to it?"

Mr. Grizzly shined the light under the camper, but the bear was nowhere to be found. We all stood next to the deck and breathed a sigh of relief. After a few minutes, Mrs. Grizzly shined her flashlight just beyond the camper and onto the bear's head. He had been sitting there less than ten meters from us the whole time. Now if Yogi was smarter than the average bear, this bear was valedictorian with scholarship offers from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and naturally, the University of Maine.

We shouted and yelled and banged on the pans again. He slowly got up and began to saunter away like he had been caught with a fake ID at a bar. As he moved up the trail, he looked back over his shoulder at us. I couldn't decide if he was thinking, "You guys are no fun" or "yeah, I'll be back."

We weren't taking any chances. We moved our belongings into the cabin and the spent the rest of the night in the loft.

Outhouse in the distance. That's a really long walk after dark.

The next morning we conducted a postmortem over coffee. We decided had we simply closed the windows and kept quiet, the curious bear would have eventually left of his own volition. We also learned that bears can be vewy, vewy, quiet, fearless and leave no footprints despite the rain of the previous day. In short, bears probably prowl the area more than anyone realized. But then the discussion degenerated into puns like "we bearly escaped" and "it gives you paws for thought."

But if you're keeping score at home: Bears: 1, Pots and Pans: 0 (with one skillet on the disabled list).

Freedom's Just Another Word for...

Several years ago, my brother told me about a colleague that he golfed with. One day after the colleague relieved himself in the woods, he came out and told my brother, "You know, if I couldn't piss in the woods, I'd give up golf completely."

Sure, when nature literally calls and you're in the middle of nowhere, you do what you have to do. But personally I'm more worried about my reaction if a rattlesnake or copperhead slithers up while I'm doing my business rather than embracing the act as some sort of freedom loving, rapturous experience. As time has gone on, I am apparently in the minority.

Back when we lived almost in the country, yet still in a housing development of which we were the last house bordering a somewhat less prosperous development, I walked out to the backyard one day to mow the lawn. I looked up across the chain link fence and saw our neighbor relieving himself in his backyard. Stunned, I didn't know what to do so I just waved. He waved back, sort of. In his defense, he may have not had indoor plumbing, but I doubt it.

A few years later, I was at a friend's house where a big group of mostly guys gathered to brew beer. Homebrewing is one of those hobbies that's best enjoyed while drinking beer. And since it takes about five hours, nature will undoubtedly call. Luckily this house had indoor plumbing; I would know because I used it. But then I noticed the other guys had some sort of aversion to walking twenty feet to the house and the bathroom, because they would just stand by the side of the garage and let it rip.

I tried to figure out why they couldn't take the extra two minutes to walk to the house. What would they miss? Heck, they could even take their beer with them into the bathroom if they wanted. I finally decided that it was some sort of bonding experience. By the garage, they were close enough that you could cheer or shout encouragement if you wanted. Or maybe they were acting like a pack of dogs where once one dog marked his spot, all the rest had to do the same on the same spot. I never did bond with them.

A couple of months ago, St. Pauli Girl and I sat on the front porch late at night in the dark watching some seldom seen rain actually fall in our neighborhood. After awhile, our next door neighbor pulled up in his pickup truck. He has an interesting relationship with the old widow across the street in that he mows her lawn, stores his motorcycle in her garage and often parks his truck in her driveway.

He threw his truck in reverse and carefully backed into her driveway. We gasped as the truck headed diagonally across the driveway and toward a tree. He stopped just in time, straightened it out and successfully parked. He stayed in the truck for a few minutes with the lights still on. Then he got out in the rain, went to the side of the garage and proceeded to relieve himself in her front yard. He then climbed back in the truck, turned off the lights, and we never saw him come back out. We assumed he slept in the truck.

"We really need to move out of this neighborhood," we both said in unison.

I wondered if my brother still played golf with that colleague. I kind of doubt it after so many years and moves. But if my brother ever sees him again, I hope he tells the colleague that he's a prophet. At least in my book.