Another Adventure,

We decided, my wife and I, to take a little trip, blow off a little steam, let our hair down, indulge in a little spring break leisure. Maybe we are just preparing for our impending retirement. Anyway, we looked around and Louisville is always fun. There are things to do, stuff to see. Plus, Louisville is only about three hours from Columbus, a real benefit. But, we have been to Louisville several times, and we are on a mission to try new things. So, we went looking. About 12 miles from Louisville is the Horseshoe Inn and Casino. Where, in the words of The Grateful Dead (from Ramble On Rose) we will “be sitting plush with a royal flush, aces back to back.”

We have started a list of places we are going to visit. Stops on the Life Explained World Tour. It is a list of destinations, goals to be achieved before we die. We may have to live forever. Or stay off the internet. Las Vegas is one of them. Maybe this is training. We are not gamblers. We won twelve dollars on a slot machine in South Dakota and four dollars from a slot machine in Michigan, and we were rolling in the dough. But, the room at the Horseshoe was cheap, and we got a fifty dollar food credit. And the food looks amazing. The way I see it we already won. Vegas here we come.

Plus, I have a new fascination with making videos. A fascination, but not much talent. If you hate my writing wait until you see my videos. One inescapable truth; it takes a lot of time to make a video. So, the first thing I did this morning, after emailing the owner of the company asking her for the days off,¹ was start making the introduction. It turned out pretty well. Unfortunately, it is not this video.

Which is just something I cobbled together last night. Sort of an adhoc preview of the real video. So enjoy this and know it only gets better. Maybe.

Plus, there will be a scintillating account of our trip.  Including obsessive description of our stops at Drake’s and The Party Barn in Louisville. You don’t want to miss that. It will be here, or on my new WordPress site (or both).With the shuttering of Google + I began to worry about Blogger so I branched out. Though, I’m not sure it is much ado about nothing, but if you know me, you know I like finding problems that don’t really exist. It makes it easier to ignore real problems. 

Anyway, we may win enough to retire in style. Or we may just have a great time. Either way we are winners. Winning isn’t hard, if you know how to keep score. See you soon, we may stop in a city by you.  Let me know where that is, we are always looking for an excuse to get away.

¹ She said it was ok.

Louisville, Last Weekend. It was great.

In the end, when all of the cards have been played and the "old man with the telescope cuts the final strand" last Friday is going to be counted among my best.   Traveling is not something I relish, but a three and a half hour drive is not really traveling, more of a commute., even I can handle commuting.

There is something special about taking a quick trip, a miniature vacation, a short jaunt, that doesn't require all of the preparations.  Packing is minimal, preparations are simple, just throw a couple of bags in the car, a case of bottled water, some Diet Coke (my wife has a Dr. Jekyll \ Mr. Wife thing that happens when she doesn't get her Diet Coke) and maybe a couple of beers for the motel.  Snacks, drinks, and personal hygiene items, and you are on the road.  No fuss, no bother, and no drama.  Louisville here we come.

Our drive was uneventful, and even had some magical moments.  There is a deep, wide valley that runs east and west just north of Cincinnati, I am not sure what river carved this beautiful feature, but the view is genuinely striking.  On Friday, rain storms had filled the valley with a dense, smoky fog that added a surreal, almost supernatural appearance. It was fun to imagine what monsters lay hidden, but you don't want to go to far down that path.

Three and a half hours later we are in the KFC Yum Center. It was a fantastic place to to build an arena, a stroke of convenience genius, access made in action.  It is adjacent to to three freeways, in and out quickly.  We drove straight down Interstate 71 took the exit, 10 minutes later we were parked, and walking to the game.  

Whoever designed the Yum Center deserves some sort of award.  It was built around basketball.  True, it is a multi-purpose facility, but, it is a basketball shrine.  Walking the halls of this wonderful building you can sense the pride, feel the history, and steep in the glory of Cardinal basketball.  In Kentucky basketball is King.  

We have been to quite a few sporting events. hockey games, men's and women's basketball, and the atmosphere at a Louisville basketball game is different.  It is more like a really big party, with people you don't really know, but who are happy to be there.  Cardinal fandom seems to be a brotherhood, or sisterhood, and everybody is enjoying the atmosphere.  Even the vendors are fans, and "Go Cards" rings constantly.

Our tickets this year were phenomenal. three rows up, (my wife still amazes me sometimes, these were the best seats I have ever had at a sporting event) right across the entrance from the band, so close you could see how tall the basketball players really are.  From that close the game takes on a new significance, you can see just how physical college basketball really is, how much they fight, and struggle for position.  You can hear the rim rattle on dunks.

Louisville is a fun team to watch play.  They are relentless, and keep pressuring, and trapping and harassing, and pressing, it is a 40 minute defensive fight, and that is how I think basketball should be played.  It is a game of movement, and motion, and sweat.

It was a great trip, capped by a big win, and followed by a great, free breakfast, I love the Embassy Suites, and their cooked to order omelettes.  It will be hard to match last weekend.  

A brief update, for what it's worth.

We are at T-minus four.  T being our Trip this coming Friday to Louisville to watch the Cardinals play, (L1C4), and four is the number of times we have to haul ourselves out of bed at the screaming, incessant urging of the alarm clock, and drag ourselves to work.  You know, I really like my job, and actually enjoy going to work, but damn, I hate the alarm clock.  I can't be the only one who detests the intrusive, blaring, jarring assault of the alarm clock.  Science should really look into this, it might be a national problem.  But, we are here to talk about happier things, like loading into the car driving three hours, or so, down Interstate 71 and watching Louisville win a basketball game.

It is going to be kind of a quick trip, down on Friday, back on Saturday, my oldest son has to work on Saturday evening, and he is very responsible, it must come from his Mother, but there will still be time for a side trip to Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati, and I have decided to look for a "I'd rather be drinking Bourbon" coffee mug,  So, if you know where I can find one on Friday evening leave a comment and let me know.

I am thinking of emailing coach Rick Pitino to let him know I will be at the game this Friday.  He was happy to hear that we were going to the game last year, he even emailed me, from his iPhone.  Of course, I emailed him first, but I think he was happy to hear from me.  I am a blogger, after all, you know.  And I have tens of followers, and that carries some weight.

In a bit of a news flash, Nebraska won against Florida State in basketball, in Tallahassee.  It may not be all that impressive, but it makes me happy.  I might have to email Coach Miles my congratulations, he will be so happy.  He emailed me last year, in case I didn't mention that.

Anyway, it is late, I am tired, and starting to ramble, more than normal.  Go Cards, Go Big Red, and enjoy the week, it is the last one for a while.

Vacation, oh sweet, lovely vacation.

One day, and then vacation, those sweet days off where you get paid for not going to work.  It is a really good system, and I am not sure who thought it up, but they deserve a couple of extra votes.  I will donate mine.

This year is going to be fun, we are going to Louisville, KY, and Gatlinburg, TN and living the high life, and eating too much, probably, and not drinking quite enough, as we are now old, and tired, and will probably be pretty full.  But, my barber, the inestimable, undeniably intelligent, and very nice Ted told me about this place in Gatlinburg where you can sample several different flavors of moonshine.  

Honestly, I had never thought too much about the flavors of moonshine, thinking it was all just clear, really strong, burn the hair out of your nostrils strong, but depending on what they use for the sugar it can be quite different, according to Ted, whose opinion I hold in very high regard.  So, there is one fun activity.

Then, there is the donut place, the "Donut Friar" in Gatlinburg, it is a place where they take sheets of some sort of dough, spread it thin, using a rolling pin made from magic wood harvested in the Great Tasty Forest of Heaven, and produce what Dante would gladly call the "circles of Heaven."  When I was younger, and kind of dumb, no let's face it, really dumb, I would have driven down there, eight hours just for a mixed dozen, and that would have been pretty smart.

Of course, we are bringing our friend, my oldest and best friend, who is now completely blind, so I should offer my apologies to Kentucky and Tennessee, he is very able, and very careful, but he still runs into a lot of things, so we are sorry.

In retrospect, we wouldn't really need to take him all the way to Tennessee, we could just go to Yellow Springs (I've heard that is one cool place) and tell him we were in Gatlinburg, he wouldn't know.  But, I have started a facebook page for him, (if anyone is interested in keeping track let me know and I will add the link) so someone might notice and rat me out, and then there would be some explaining to do.  Probably not a good idea, after all.

For all of those who are interested I will turn this into a travel blog for a week or so, detailing the best things to do in the places I am at the moment.  For those of you who aren't interested, you probably quit reading a long time ago, maybe two years or so, and have continued to not read, so I won't worry too much about it.

Remember, in the words of the great Bob Dylan;

"Everybody get ready, lift up their glasses and sing
Everybody get ready to lift up their glasses and sing,
I'm standing on the table proposing a toast to the king"

No, it probably doesn't fit too well with this post, but man I can groove to that song, that whole album rocks.

The Trials of Friendship

Five days from today we will be having breakfast here.  Not just any breakfast, either, free, made to order breakfast.  Omelettes so tasty and delicious they are worth the price of the motel, and  they are free.  Normally I have the jalapeno, sausage (sometimes bacon, sometimes both), cheddar, and spinach, (spinach is so healthy).   They are all good though, and I will document my choices and share theme with you, you can hardly wait I am sure.

Five days from right now minus fourteen hours we will be having drinks right here.  Not just any drinks either, free drinks, Kentucky bourbon on the rocks is my choice, "if it isn't from Kentucky it's just whiskey."  Sometimes I will have a beer, frosty cold, refreshing and delightful.  Don't worry, I will photograph my choices and share them with you, I hope the anticipation does not kill you.

Free breakfast and free bourbon in Louisville, the Asgard of college basketball.  I need to apologize to Tim Miles, Tony Bennett and +christy barongan here, all of whom have a different opinion regarding the college basketball heavens.  And, I respect that. 

After our little pilgrimage to the Yum Center, where the Louisville Cardinals play their home games, we are off to the mountains of Tennessee, specifically Gatlinburg.  We have rented a cabin outside of town, and are planning a relaxing, fun filled trip.

What makes this trip so unique is the inclusion of our blind friend, who is right now being picked up in a small town in Nebraska by my sister (who is now my favorite sister, thank you, Candy) and whisked to Eppley Airfield in Omaha, to hop on a plane, and fly to Saint Louis, where he will hop off of that plane, set around in the airport until he can hop on another plane and fly here.  I have never flown often, and hate to fly so I avoid it like a spider covered canoe, (I hate being on boats, and spiders too) but, it seems unless you are going to Las Vegas you can never fly anywhere without flying somewhere else, first.  It is a nice way to see the inside of airports, and buy an expensive beer and sandwich though.

We are hoping Southwest Airlines takes good care of him, but, don't worry I will let you know tomorrow if he makes it unscathed.  You might want to do a little good luck dance, and throw some salt over your shoulder, and wish upon a star, and touch the horseshoe over the door, and whatever good luck ritual you can muster.

Life Explained Explains Time

Time is the most perplexing thing.  Allegedly, it is a constant, never changing, marching forward, seconds passing in a monotonous parade of consistency.  Disputing this is difficult, because the devices made to measure time deal in absolutes, precise machines designed to record one unit giving way to the next.  While in reality there are many variables involved in the passage of time.

A dentist office slows time to a crawl.  Forty five minutes in a dentists chair lasts almost a life time, in fact a root canal procedure takes almost as much time as it took to build the pyramids.  Dentists should use a calendar to time procedures.  

A day at work, even if you love your job, is a lengthy proposition, dragging on, passing minutes hammering away at your will to live.  But, a weekend is over almost before it begins.  As soon as the final bell tolls on Friday sending you home, whistling all the way, you have to hit the snooze button.

But, it does not end there.  Assuming, for example your work day is divided between tasks, some of which are more enjoyable, some less, and most work days are cut along these lines, then part of your day will go painfully, slowly ants marching inexorably back to the nest, other parts will drag almost to a stop, tar covered turtles carrying bricks up the side of a mountain.

The same is true of the weekend.  For example, tonight Louisville plays Kentucky in the Round of Sixteen (the Sweet Sixteen) in the NCAA basketball tournament, one of the biggest sports rivalries in existence extending into the post season.  This is a huge game, and the winner will move to the next round (the Elite Eight), and they will get there by defeating their hated in state rival, and the loser will go home, to stew in inconsolable misery, and doubt themselves, and everything they have ever believed (sorry about your luck, Kentucky).  This is the biggest, most venomous rivalry since the Aliens and the Predators squared off in Alaska, thanks to those pesky kids...  (oops sorry about the sports rant, and the Scooby Doo reference).

Anyway, that game will be so intense and enjoyable it will be over before you can finish your bowl of chips, but installing that new heating element in the oven will take about 15 minutes that will last about two and a half hours. 

All we are asking is equity.  Unpleasantness is part of life, but it should be compensated for, if you have to carry out difficult work that seems to last all day you should be allowed to leave when it is finished.  If part of your weekend is so pleasant, and entertaining that it shrinks hours into minutes, you should get a little extra weekend, right off the top, on Monday morning, preferably.  

When man first devised the method to track time, things were brutish, life was short and times were difficult.  Keeping track of how long it took was just a way to avoid thinking about how awful things were.  Now we are more sophisticated, we have taken so many steps to improve life.  It is time to "improve life."

With that in mind we are starting the "Life Explained Equitable Passage of Time" movement.  Please sign below to help us push this through.  We suggest you not use your real name, in case the time police decides to squash our puny little revolution, they are everywhere, you know?  In fact, you might want to use an important, intelligent sounding name, we suggest Einstein, or Aristotle, something people will notice.  "Well, if da Vinci thinks it is a good idea, so do I."

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A Cautionary Tale

This weekend we stayed at the Embassy Suites, in Lousiville.  We were going to the season opener for the defending champions; The Louisville Cardinals (Go Cards!).  The football team from Morehouse Univeristy was also staying in the hotel.

It was kind of cool, some of the players came down to the lounge and hung out while we were having a drink and many of them were having breakfast at the same time as we did.  They were all very polite, and well mannered.  It was like one big happy family, us and the Morehouse football team.

I even looked them up on the Internet (you have to love technology) and would say "Go Tigers" as they got off the elevator.  They seemed to enjoy having a new fan, and always said thank you, and and smiled graciously.

Morehouse is a University in Atlanta, Georgia, they were playing Kentucky State in Frankfort.  These  are not big football schools, so the score was not reported on Sports Center Saturday, or anywhere that I could find.   

But, since we had been friends for a while, sharing the hardships of the road, and enduring one of the slowest elevators ever made, I had a stake in the outcome, and genuinely wanted them to win.  They moved on after the game and did not "return to the nest."

Sunday morning, I went down to get a cup of coffee, we were staying on the sixth floor, and with the "speed" of these lifts, it could take some time to get down there.  So, I decided to look up the score of  Morehouse's and my game.  I would have plenty of time.  

On the fifth floor the elevator stopped and two women stepped in, we resumed the long, slow descent.  I went back to reading the account of the game, my friends, the Tigers of Morehouse got beat, and I was a little disappointed.

The elevator stopped, and I got off, just as some cranky people were getting on.  Since my powers of observation are so keenly refined, as soon as I rounded the corner I noticed that it was not the first floor, the land of coffee, and juice, at all.  It was the second floor, the home of cranky people and elevator stoppers.  

I had to think fast!  The elevators had glass walls in the back, so if I got back on everybody in the breakfast area, would know I made a mistake, and since the breakfast area was in a courtyard in the middle of the motel, and every room in the place had facing windows it was possible that everybody in the motel would see my mistake.  And I would be the joke du jour, "Hey, how was the second floor, dummy!?"  That didn't sound fun.

I devised a perfect plan.  I would take the stairs down to the first floor, and no one need know of my little tactical error.

Every great plan has a few flaws, this plan had one. The stairs only had one door on the first floor, and it went outside. and I was dressed in gym shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops, and it was November, in Kentucky.

I had to think Fast!

Here I am, outside.

Evaluate the situation, devise contingency plan, done in nano seconds.  Time for a quick disguise, and my alter ego, a traveling tourist photographer.  "Tim, you amaze me at times!"   I walked around the building snapping photos, and taking little notes.  Nobody the wiser, I went back inside, took a few photos, and moved ahead, another day saved by lightning like thinking and flexible reasoning.

Walking in, almost home
and dry

I got my coffee and headed back toward the elevator, feeling content, and successful.  Just to finish the act strong, you have to sell these things, you know, and since I was waiting for the elevator anyway, I took a last couple of pictures of the lobby.

The elevator showed up, and a woman got off, kind of angry looking and in a hurry, maybe from the second floor, and went barreling around the corner almost running into into an older gentleman who was not really paying attention, and somehow overlooked the intense, fast moving, purposeful woman, wheeled suitcase in tow.  He almost spilled his full cup of scalding hot coffee on her, which would have made her even angrier, and perhaps have blown my op.

Just one last shot to sell the cover ID

He got on the elevator with me, and said, "that was pretty close.  I should have been watching where I was going, but I was wondering that you were taking pictures of."

I said "the lobby."  And he seemed content with that.

There is a lesson here, don't text and drive, and don't surf the Internet and ride the elevator.

Ode to Spring.

Spring is coming, pollen, allergens, hay fever, runny noses, watery itchy eyes, lawn treatments, yard work, mowers, edgers, trimmers, rakes, shovels, sweat, back breaking labor, torrential rain storms, flooding, and tornadoes.  But, that really isn't the bad part, the bad part is entering into what many experts call the "televised sports desert."

Soon the Stupendous Bowl will be over. Of course, we can not forget about the NFL draft, this year there is a rumor that some team is going to pick some guy who played football in college and pay him enough money to end the federal deficit. Hoping, against all odds, that he will not get hurt when some huge guy runs into him as fast and as hard as he can, or not be able to play at the level expected and turn into a huge waste of corporate cash.

Watching the NFL draft is similar to watch a city council meeting, without the excitement.  There is some pleasure, though, watching grown men, standing around at work, macho, manly and filled with testosterone, sounding like teenage girls, "I hope my team drafts that running back from Northern Arkansas, he is so dreamy.  Wouldn't that be a huge slice of wonderful!"

Oh, and the NBA playoffs, they start soon, or started recently, or have been going on for the last several years.  Recently, the NBA decided that people enjoyed playoff series more than regular season games, in an effort to squeeze every dime possible from their fans, they expanded the playoffs, (soon they are going to replace the regular season with a and use a reality televison style panel of judges to determine playoff seedings) now the post season lasts longer than Prohibition, and makes less sense.

There is another "sport," it is called hockey.  While most Americans have trouble enjoying hockey, a foreign sport with vaguely European origins, there is a rabid, vocal, group of hardcore, dedicated fans.  But, science is working feverishly on a cure.  When given the opportunity, please donate freely to this worthy cause.  We are all in this together.

What about baseball?  People have long said baseball is a thinking man's game.  That is probably true, baseball players certainly have plenty of time to think, standing out there, waiting for something, anything to happen.  Maybe they are thinking what an average little league player thinks while standing, way out there in the vast, indifferent, alien landscape of the outfield.  "Please, God, don't let them hit it to me!  Anywhere but here."  Remember the old saying, "there are no atheists in the outfield."  True, so true.

So, what is the point of all this, we have sadly run out of time today.  Please tune in next week when we discuss the similarities between Coach Rick Pitino and your dependable, steady, resolute blogger, and why he should provide free tickets to a couple of Louisville Cardinal basketball games next season.