Road Tips

The License Plates of New Mexico

As much as I travel by car, I see a lot of license plates from various states around the country.  On long trips around the Midwest to help break up the monotony, I used to play a game - License Plate Bingo - where I would check off all the states license plates I would see on the roadways, especially in the summertime.  I would occasionally see cars sporting plates from Alaska and Hawaii.  (A few years ago, there was a car with Hawaii plates in the Quad Cities for a couple three years.  Turned out it was a student at the Palmer School of Chiropractic who had his car shipped over to the mainland to use while he was in school.)  

But the ones that really stick out to me are the ones that I see from New Mexico - especially my all-time favorite plate that I'll talk about in a bit.  We saw 'em all during our trip to New Mexico earlier this year.  

A lot of states feature drab-colored or classic-style license plates.  The fonts and background colors of Indiana's current plates look so much like the Iowa plates that it's tough to tell the difference.  Some states have so much clutter on their plates that it's difficult to figure out what state they're from.  

Over the past few years the state of Iowa has suddenly figured out that people don't want silos and buildings on their plates and they have issued a "Blackout Plate" consisting of white letters and numbers on a black background.  It looks great on my car and on my wife's car - both are white - and it looks good on black or grey cars.  

The state of Iowa has 29 commemorative plates for various colleges and universities around the state.   A few years ago, a number of license plate "hackers" thought the Dordt University license plates looked pretty nice on black or white cars.  Dordt's uniform colors are predominantly black and white with gold trim and enterprising people would hide the "Dordt University" with a license plate frame and would put black tape over the "Defenders".  Hiding any lettering on a license plate is against the law in Iowa, but the state saw how popular the white on black plates were.  

In 2019, Iowa passed legislation creating the "Blackout Plate".  For a one-time $60 fee, people could get the black and white plates. The first week they were available to all 99 counties, they sold out.   In all, the state has issued nearly 490,000 "Blackout" license plates generating nearly $26 million in voluntary tax revenue for the state.  It appears that other states are starting to catch on to the idea.  Utah has now made a "Blackout" plate available and there is a wait of nearly 6 to 8 weeks to get the tags.  

And that's kind of interesting because Utah's regular issue license plates are one of the more colorful ones I've seen.  It features a picture of Delicate Arch from the Arches National Park on the background of the plate.   North Dakota's, South Dakota's and Nevada's license plates also feature colorful scenic backgrounds.  They definitely stand out color-wise even though it's difficult to make out what the pictures are when you're passing someone at 78 mph on the interstate.  

But the New Mexico plates have always stuck out - and it really doesn't have anything to do with background pictures or the fonts they use.  They're just, well, noticeable.  

Actually, New Mexico has three standard issue plates.  The two that are the most well-known are the red on yellow license plate, and the yellow on turquoise license plates.  Both feature the Zia sun symbol in the middle of the plates.  The Zia sun symbol represents the four main directions, the four seasons of the year, the four periods of each day (morning, noon, evening, and night), and the four seasons of life (childhood, youth, middle age, and old age). The center of the sun symbol stands for life itself.  New Mexico is also the only state that uses the "USA" as a tag after the state name to make sure that people don't mistake the plates for Mexican plates.  

The red on yellow plates were first introduced in 1958 and went through some variations over the years.  Since 1978, the red on yellow plates have been the primary license tags on vehicles in New Mexico.  

The yellow on turquoise plates were introduced in 2010 and were immediately named as the "Best New Plate" by the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association (yes, that is a real organization!).  It was the first time a New Mexico plate had been honored by the club which was founded in 1954.  

Because turquoise is the de facto "state color" of New Mexico, it was a no-brainer to issue plates in that color.  New Mexico's nickname "Land of Enchantment" is featured prominently on both license plates.

It turns out that New Mexico has a number of specialized plates.  New Mexico has SIXTY different plates to either choose from for people who are qualified to have them.  That has to be a nightmare for law enforcement.  But in a state where there are 2.1 million people living, I suppose there are enough different variations that allow that many different types of plates.  

The plate themes are very diverse - there are 10 license plates for 8 colleges and 2 junior colleges in the state.  There are specific license plates for residents of Santa Fe and Las Cruces.   The "Wildlife" plate features a roadrunner on it.  (We didn't see a roadrunner while we were there, much to my dismay.)  There are license plates that commemorate or honor Boy Scouts, bass fishing, Route 66, breast cancer awareness, pollinator protection, and retired fire fighters and state police.  (You can see all 60 vehicle and motorcycle plate styles for New Mexico by clicking here.)  

We saw a couple plates that I thought were somewhat interesting during our trip to New Mexico. There were plates that honored retired veterans from each of the branches of military service.  They also had disabled veteran plates as shown below left.  The veterans plates of gold on navy blue with an eagle on the side really stood out.  

Another plate that we saw from time to time was the Farm & Ranch Heritage tag that showed support for New Mexican farmers and ranchers.  What seemed to be most interesting in all of this - the vehicles that sported these plates were all high dollar SUV's or pick up trucks.  I especially got a kick out of seeing this one (above right) on a Mercedes GLA SUV.  

But the best license plate is also a standard issue plate that New Mexico first introduced in 2017.  This is my all-time favorite license plate - the "Chile Capital of the World" tag.  It features gold lettering on a black background with green and red chiles shown prominently on the side.  This was also awarded the "License Plate of the Year" the year it was issued by the ALPCA.  

I first saw this plate when my wife and I were in Colorado Springs in a hotel parking lot in August of 2018.  The plate just jumped out at me.  It immediately became my favorite license plate.  Each time I see one of the "chile" plates, I smile.  The color combinations of the red, green and gold just pop off the black background.  

I wanted to get a novelty "chile" plate while we were in New Mexico.  And while I don't like to go into the tourist trap places like they had in Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Taos, I did stop to take a quick look around in some of them to see if they had novelty "chile" plates.  All efforts turned up futile, which, quite actually, was fine with me.

However, my wife and I were driving the backroads between Santa Fe and Albuquerque and we stopped into a "trading post/museum" (more of a tourist trap) in the small town of Los Cerillos.  There they had a few antiques and they also had license plates.  They had a "chile" license plate for sale, but they wanted $12 bucks for it.  I thought about it for a moment, had it in my hands, and thought, "No, I'll find a novelty plate somewhere in Albuquerque."  

But my wife was adamant.  "If you want this plate, I'll buy it for you."  I hemmed and hawed for a moment before she finally picked up the plate and took it to the front counter and bought it for me.  

I usually don't buy much of anything as far as trinkets or collectables on vacation, but this car license may be the best thing that I brought home from a vacation.  And I have my wife to thank for that.  

I have it proudly displayed in my office.  And I get a bit of a smile each time I glance at it.  

In Case You've Been Wondering...

It's been awhile since last posted on Road Tips.  I've been a bit preoccupied with something big going on in my personal life.  My brother passed away last week and I'd been trying to spend as much time with him at the hospital as I could before he finally passed.  

My brother was 4 years older than me and I have to say that we weren't all that close growing up.  I suppose it had to do with the fact that I was the next one to come along after my brother had been doted on by my parents and my older sisters for nearly 4.5 years.  Plus we had to share a room together growing up.  Some nights (and days) were pure hell with an older brother resentful of having to share a room with someone as dopey and uncool as me.  

Always one to live on the edge, my brother had a lot of hard miles on him and lived live in the fast lane, figuratively and relatively speaking.  A lover of fast cars, he drag raced - both legally and illegally - in his teens and early 20's.  His penchant for speed was well-known amongst those living in the town where we grew up, especially the law enforcement community.  His lead-foot was still with him in his final months when we was able to drive a car.  

When the love of music became the bind that began to pull us together in my early teens, my brother turned me on to a number of artists and bands long before they became famous.  I first heard Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Robin Trower, ZZ Top and a number of other bands and artists who were just starting out which he played on the Panasonic stereo system we had in our bedroom.  I would have to say that my brother was one of my musical influences growing up.  

A work place accident about 22 years ago led to a high level of chronic pain which he endured the rest of his life.  But he had been in and out of the hospital over the years due to a car wreck he was in when he was 17.  His body was crooked in places it shouldn't have been and it was hurting in ways that I'm sure many of us could never fathom.  He got hooked on pain pills over the years, got cleaned up, got somewhat hooked again and was probably taking way too much pain medication up to the time that he was diagnosed with empyema - a medical term for the collection of infectious fluids in his lungs. 

He was in his local hospital for a couple reasons a couple weeks ago and woke up one morning short of breath and with low oxygen levels.  He was sent to a pulmonary care unit in Cedar Rapids and I saw him the day after he was admitted.  I was shocked as to how he looked.  (The above picture was taken just last month.  I was standing next to him, but we cropped me out as it was the last picture he had taken of him before he went into the hospital.)  

When we walked into his room, it looked like he was dead.  But my wife and I - with help from the hospital staff - were able to wake him up and talk with him.  Two days later, I saw him again and he looked better.  He was still a bit confused as to where he was (he was in the early stages of Alzheimers), but he was much better than he was when I saw him from before.

I saw him a couple more times including spending some time with him a week ago yesterday when we were watching TV in his room, laughing, joking and just being brothers again.  I told him that I'd see him the next day.  "Love ya, buddy," were the last words he spoke to me.  

The next day, I got to the hospital at 12:25 p.m.  My younger sister was already there, along with my brother's wife and her sister.  10 minutes after I got there, he was gone.  Just like that.  I was absolutely shocked at how he had deteriorated in less than 24 hours.  

Now, empyema was not on the scorecard for the reason family and friends thought how my brother would die.  For years, we figured it would be in a fiery car crash, or at the hands of a jealous husband, or from a drug deal gone bad, or a getting cut down in a hail of bullets by the police after he had barricaded himself in a public building.  You know, the normal ways to die these days.  But he found a couple women in his life over the years who kept him on a leash and probably helped keep him alive a lot longer than many of us thought he would make it.  

When we announced that my brother had passed, I remarked that while losing a parent is tough, losing a sibling may be harder.  Being the only brother that he had, I was the one who wrote his obituary and this pretty much encapsulates what my brother was all about:

"(My brother) was gregarious and outgoing, he was a raconteur with a penchant for telling colorful stories in which there may (or may not) have been some embellishments along the way.  He could be charming with people, he could infuriate his friends and family with his actions, he could be loving, compassionate and caring, and he could frustrate many with his choices in life.  But in the end, everyone would shrug their shoulders, throw up their hands, smile and say, “Well, that’s (my brother).”  

As I told his lifeless body in the hospital room before I left him one last time the day he passed, "See ya on the other side, man!"  

That is, I'm not certain he'll be where I'm going...  😆😆😆😆

How COVID Changed My Hotel Experience

I haven't bought a bar of soap in over 20 years.  

Yep, you read that right.  I haven't bought a single bar of soap from a grocery store, a pharmacy, a big-box retail store - anywhere - for over 20 years.

But it doesn't mean that I haven't used soap over that time.  

(I once traveled with a guy for about three or four days who didn't - or said he couldn't - use soap because it made his skin break out.  Nice enough guy and he was forthcoming with his dilemma before we traveled.  But by Friday, he was getting to smell a bit gamey.)  

The reason why I haven't bought any soap is that I have been taking soap from my hotel rooms when I travel.  I used to take the little shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotel rooms that I stayed in, but you can usually only get a couple of washes out of those before they're used up.  And they're kind of a pain to get the liquid or cream out of them.  

Now, there's a number of people who feel that stealing toiletries from a hotel is dishonest and deceitful.  Hey, they're there for you to use, so why not use them at home, too!  Stealing towels, or pillows, or light bulbs (I've heard of instances of that from hotel employees), now that's dishonest and crooked.  And on multi-night stays, the hotel housekeeping staff would drop off more shampoo and soap each day they cleaned my room for me to take home.  (I have a soap bar container that I take with me on the road using the bar soap I have until I need to get a new bar from a hotel.  The unused "new" soap bars are usually in small boxes that I recycle upon using the bar.)  

After about 12 years of traveling and spending an annual average of over 100 nights in hotel rooms, my wife was a little concerned about my "hoarding" of soap and shampoo.  She showed me a stash of toiletries that had accumulated in a downstairs bathroom closet - about 9 or 10 hotel laundry bags full of assorted soap bars, shampoo and conditioner bottles, and even some skin moisturizers that I grabbed on my way out the door of many hotel rooms.  It was basically a lifetime supply of soap and shampoo that I had in those bags.  

One year, the Mississippi River had flooded and had wreaked havoc on a number of people up and down the river.  The American Red Cross had reached out to people to ask to donate household items including soap, shampoo, cleaners, etc.  I took 9 sacks full of soap bars, as well as shampoo and conditioner bottles to the Red Cross pickup point.  When I opened the trunk, the guy in charge of the pickup sort of reared back when he saw all the sacks of toiletries.  "Whoa," he exclaimed.  "Looks like you've been saving up for a time like this!"  

I had gone through the bags pulling out my soap of choice - Neutrogena bars that the Hilton hotels provided.  I liked the brand because Neutrogena soap moisturizes the skin, lathers up easily, and has a somewhat neutral scent without any perfumes.  I kept a bag full of Neutrogena soap bars.  

As I traveled more, I continued to nab some of the Neutrogena soap bars, but started leaving the Neutrogena shampoos and conditioners.  The Neutrogena shampoo and conditioners - while very good - had fallen out of favor with me at home.  (My wife didn't use the Neutrogena products that I would bring home as she used her own select soap and shampoo.)  I had accumulated 3 or 4 more bags of soap and some assorted shampoo that I would grab from time to time. 

In 2019, my wife was concerned once again about the growing number of bags full of soap accumulating in our basement.  I had watched a news story on a local homeless shelter asking the public for help in acquiring soap and shampoo for some of their homeless residents.  I grabbed 3 more bags filled with soap and took them to the King's Harvest Ministries.  I still had a bag full of Neutrogena soap where the bars would last a good 3 or 4 showers before I'd have to get a new bar.  And I was still going to be able to get more during my upcoming travels.  

The something happened in March of 2020.  The world basically shut down due to the pandemic.  I didn't travel for months.  My stash of soap bars was slowly dwindling down getting to a point that I thought for a moment - just a moment - that I was going to have to go buy soap.  But as travel slowly opened up, there was a noticeable change in how hotels dealt with housekeeping and sanitation in their rooms.

Housekeeping was now optional on multi-day stays.  They became stingy with the soap and shampoo.  And there was suddenly a move to get away from bar soap and bottles of shampoo.  Hotels started to go to dispensers for soap, shampoo and conditioners.  And the quality of the products they had were pretty crappy.  

The Hilton corporation has also gotten away from Neutrogena as a supplier of their toiletries.  I had this stuff - Not Soap Radio (below left) - at a Tru by Hilton in Fort Wayne.  The Tru brand is supposed to cater to the younger set with a "hip" and affordable "vibe".  I thought I'd give the hotel a try on a recent trip to Fort Wayne.  I'll never stay at a Tru again.  It's not that it was because I was out of their target demographic.  It was a cheap hotel in many ways.  And I didn't like the product. 

Some of the Hilton properties - notably the Hampton Inn and Hilton Garden Inn brands - have gone to a new company - ZERO/o (Zero Percent).  It's made by Gilchrist & Soames, a London-based company that provides toiletries to upscale hotels around the world.  At Gilchrist & Soames, they subscribe to a company-wide philosophy of sustainability with making their products more environmentally favorable.

And that follows an edict that the Hilton corporation put forth in 2021.  By the year 2030, Hilton has vowed to not send used soap to land fills around the world.  So, really, I've been helping achieve that goal for 20 years!  But in doing so, there will be no more bars of soap available at Hilton properties in the coming years.  

Some Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton Inn properties still provide small 1 ounce bars of the ZERO/o soap for hand soap.  They actually work pretty well in the shower - they lather up much better than the body gel that is provided for shower use.  (And who doesn't like to work up a good lather?)  Plus they have a neutral scent that I favor.  

I detest the shower gel most hotels are going to in lieu of soap bars.  During the shower, you have to keep turning back to the dispenser to get more gel.  It takes me - on average - about 3 more minutes to shower when I use the gel.  And that's mainly because A) I have to keep getting more gel, and B) because it doesn't lather up as well.  It's a real pain.  

I know what I like and I like soap bars.  

But that is going to come to an end in the near future.  I will, at some point, have to buy bar soap for my home shower and for me to take on the road with me.  It won't be the end of the world, but I'm at the point in my life where I like what I like.  And I like bar soap and not shower gel when I travel.

On the Road Again!

"On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the road again"

Willie Nelson - "On the Road Again"  Released 1980.  

Or, probably more apt in my case, this opening line of Canned Heat's 1968 hit "On the Road Again":

"Well, I'm so tired of crying
But I'm out on the road again
I'm on the road again"

After months of uncertainty with some ups and downs, as well as some starts and stops, I've finally landed on my feet again and I am starting to travel once more.  It's been August since I haven't slept in my bed at home and it will be interesting to see how I handle sleeping in a hotel once again without my wife at my side.  

Since my last entry in Road Tips at the end of March last year a lot sort of happened.  The day that entry was published, I was certain that I was going to take a job with a local company doing an 8 to 5 job.  But I got a phone call from a friend who worked for a large consumer electronics loudspeaker company.  He was getting "kicked upstairs", so to speak, to become the company's Eastern Regional sales manager and he needed someone who knew his territory to take over his accounts.  Since his territory was basically the same footprint I had been traveling for nearly 20 years, it was a natural fit.  

After some starts and stops - mainly because this company was part of a larger corporation whose motto was "Hurry up and Wait" -  as well as some lengthy negotiations, I accepted the position in late May, almost two months after I was first contacted.  It was - by far - the longest time period from the initial contact to the final acceptance that I had ever been involved in.

In hindsight, I probably should have seen what was coming.  

My first trip for the new company was their annual national sales meeting - talk about going into the fire with both feet - that was held in Louisville.  Their dinner banquet was actually held at Churchill Downs, a place my wife and I had visited years ago when my sister and her husband were still living in the area.  Although we didn't get a chance to go through the museum, it was still sort of neat to have access to the suites that looked out over the track.

A thunderstorm had moved through the area as we were being bussed from our hotel downtown to the racetrack.  But the track is so carefully groomed and drains so well that there was absolutely no water standing anywhere after the heavy rain.  I've seen the track at Churchill Downs many times on television over the years that it was sort of surreal to see it devoid of people and horses.  

The company required me to have an "on-boarding" session in July at their headquarters in Indianapolis.  I went over there just after the 4th of July and after I went to Indy, I drove up to Chicago to call on accounts with my friend whose territory I took over, and who just happened to be my regional boss.  Things looked good for me and I was happy with where I was at.  

There was a subsequent trip to St. Louis, Springfield, MO, and Kansas City, as well as a return trip to Chicago, then up to Milwaukee.  By August, however, I started to sense some concern from the main corporate office.  First of all, they decreed that there would be no travel until further notice.  Weekly sales team meetings via Zoom took on a tone of pressure and desperation.  A number of independent reps were let go in early September and it appeared that they were going to put more work on the back of the factory reps like myself.  

A somewhat ominous letter was sent out to all employees by the Executive V.P. on a Friday in mid-September.  It was basically a "we've had to make some decisions and some cuts will continue to be made."  I called up my buddy and asked him what he knew about all this.  "Hell if I know," he said.  "I just saw this for the first time, too!"  

The following Wednesday, I was working in my office and my buddy called me up.  He said, "Hey, man, I have (so-and-so) from Human Resources on the other line."  

I knew exactly what was going on.  I was getting let go - last one hired/first one fired.  I said, "You have got to be SHITTING me!"  He wasn't.  And neither was the lady - the same one who helped me through the set-up process when I was hired less than 3 months prior.  It was almost surreal.  I was unceremoniously kicked to the curb by this multi-million dollar company.  

It turns out that I was part of the first group of 12 or 15 people who were cut by the company - some who had been with the company for over 15 years.  And it wasn't that I was underperforming - I wasn't.  In fact, my two whole months that I was with the company, I was 47% and 71% over budget (goal) - the only territory that was performing that well.   

I found out after the fact that the parent corporation of the company I was working for lost $14 million dollars in the 1st quarter of their fiscal 2023.  It didn't help that my company had sales that were $11 million below goal during that period.  While I was doing well, the rest of the company wasn't.  The "big box store" sales were especially hard hit when Walmart/Sam's Club and Costco cancelled monthly rolling orders due to overstock issues with Best Buy cutting back significantly on their orders in the summer.  

Then, to add insult to injury, I found out that since I had worked for the company for less than 90 days (84, to be exact) that I would not be eligible for severance pay or for any continuance of benefits.  Now, THAT was a real kick in the ass.  

For a couple weeks after, I can remember going out to our sun room, looking out the window into the yard and just laughing out loud at how surreal and strange this turn in life had taken.  But at no point was I worried about my next job.  I don't quite understand why that was, but I actually slept well during that period - much better than I did when my old company who I had been with for nearly 20 years cut me loose in 2021.  

Finally, I put a message on LinkedIn letting my business contacts know that I had been caught up in the wholesale lay-offs at my company.  Almost immediately, I had a number of people reach out to me.  I had a number of potential employers who said, "You got screwed on that deal."  And I also found out that not a lot of people in the industry cared either for the company I had briefly worked for or for the Executive V.P. who made the decision to let me go.  

(As an aside, neither did my friend.  He ended up leaving the company less than a month after he was forced to fire me over the phone.  He was pissed because after they made him fire me, they took away his regional manager position and put him back into the territory he had before.  He's a sharp guy and he didn't see a future with the company.  After he left, he called me up and said, "They may be calling you to see if you're interested in coming back."  By that time, I had something else on the hook - actually a couple things - and I would have loved to have laughed at them and say, "No f---ing way!"  But that phone call never came.  And I was fine with that.)

I had four or five things in the offing and a couple of them were really serious.  Then in early October I got an e-mail from the owner of a German electronics company my old company distributed products for.  He and I had always gotten along and he was reaching out with an offer to think about.  

My old company who I'd been with for nearly 20 years had gone through a change of ownership in 2019.  They jettisoned a number of companies that we distributed and kept a handful of others.  One of those they kept was this company who reached out to me.  They are very well known in the professional sound industry (recording and mastering studios, primarily) and are an up-and-coming in the home audio field with their amplifiers, preamplifiers, headphone amps, DAC's and phono stages.  

They felt they weren't getting the "love" from my old company and they wanted to go direct in North America.  They had a product manager, a logistics warehouse and account receivables in place for the North American  operation.  The only thing they were missing was a sales manager.  

Long story short, they asked me to run their North American operation in late October of last year.  We negotiated and came up with a number that was amenable to both sides.  I came on board in early November and we took over North American distribution on January 1, 2023.    

The start up of a new operation always has hiccups and glitches, but the guys over in Europe seem to think that it's pretty much gone as smooth as they expected.  I didn't know what to expect, I guess.  A lot of the work has been administrative - getting dealer information and applications, reaching out to dealers to establish new relationships, inventory control, taking orders, and looking for potential new dealers.  

Once I felt comfortable enough to leave the office for a couple three days, I made plans to go to Chicago to see accounts there.  That was a drive, but there's going to be a lot of airport time in the future as I'll be heading to places such as Montreal, Miami, Nashville, Detroit, New York City, Toronto, and Portland, OR as well as Southern California and New England.  Nashville could be a drive - I can stop in St. Louis and/or Indianapolis along the way.  But for the most part it's back to the skies.

I hope to be able to start to share some of my adventures, depending upon my time which seems to be at a premium as I try to take on a new job with responsibilities in two countries.  Be sure to follow my Twitter feed as I'll be sending along pictures and updates as time allows.  In the meantime, please enjoy this great looking pizza from my recent trip to Dino's Pizza, one of my favorite places for pizza in Chicago!

Unpacking the Suitcase One Last Time...

I always wondered when this day would come.  The day when I would not be packing up my suitcase to go back out on the road.  

If you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you've probably noticed a dearth of entries over the past few weeks.  That's because I lost my job in late September of last year.  

I had worked for my company for 19 years.  About 3 years ago, the man who hired me in 2002 retired and sold the company to a French investment firm who was the parent company of the two biggest audio companies I represented.  The first year was a rough one for many of my colleagues.  Well over half of the North American sales staff was gone within 9 months of the new ownership taking over.   Worried about my job that I really liked, I kept my head down and forged forward.  

By the start of 2020, I was the only one in the U.S. who the new ownership group hadn't replaced with an independent representative company.  Of course, COVID hit in March of 2020 and I didn't travel for months on end.  Then in the summer of 2020, the guy who had been hired to be the sales manager for North America - and a very nice guy who I got along with very well - was fired.  

I had been considered "management" up to that point, being part of Zoom meetings and helping with strategy and forecasting.  Suddenly, the French owners hired two guys who were basically put above me.  I found myself slowly sliding down the corporate totem pole.  I was suddenly not included in calls and memos from the new upper sales management team.  

By last summer, I saw the handwriting on the wall.  The new sales management team wanted to take away 3/4's of my territory.  I didn't like it, I expressed my heartfelt disappointment with it, but I went along with it.  

Finally, things came to a head in September of last year.  On September 30th, I was blindsided on a Zoom call that I was expecting to just be a routine end-of-month sales meeting.  Sitting in a hotel room in Omaha getting ready to go out and call on accounts that day, I was told in the video conference that my services would no longer be required.  I knew deep down inside that day was coming, but I sort of expected it toward the end of 2021 or in early 2022.  I just didn't expect it to be at the end of September of last year.  

And it wasn't that I wasn't doing my job or hitting my numbers, I was.  The hoops the new sales management team were making me jump through became more numerous and much smaller as last year went on.  And some of the smaller hoops had razor blades attached.  They were trying to force me out, but I wouldn't go.  They finally made the decision to bring their own guys in.  

It turns out that I'm pretty well-known in my industry and the phone calls and e-mails of support I received in the first two or three weeks after getting terminated were welcomed and heartfelt.  I heard from a number of people from audio companies who reached out to me not long after I became a free agent who basically said, "Hey, man!  We know you, you have a great reputation in the industry.  We'd hire you in a moment's notice if we had a position open.  Keep in touch!"  

But follow-ups with some of those companies yielded similar responses three or four months later.  It was pretty disheartening.  

A friend of mine called me a couple weeks after I had been let go to offer his best wishes and told me that he was down-sized from his dream job a number of years ago.  In the conversation he told me, "I'm sure you're getting a lot of phone calls from friends, dealers and colleagues.  But let me warn you.  The phone calls will stop, then you'll be wondering where your friends are."

That's exactly what happened. 

I did have a couple offers to work for some companies in the audio field, but they would have been "pioneering" jobs - i.e., a position where I would have had to work my ass off to market new or obscure products to a small (and shrinking) dealer base for high-end audio products.  I didn't want to do that.  

I had a chance to buy a firm that represented some pretty good audio companies from a friend of mine who was retiring.  However, after a couple three weeks of negotiations and conversations, I determined - and my friend agreed - that the companies he represented wouldn't necessarily follow me because I bought his company.  It was with a bit of anguish that I decided to not buy my friend's company. 

I had been talking with a company that represented both home audio and car audio/accessory products.  But the last thing I wanted to do is having to call on stores that sell anything to do with car audio or accessories.  I was almost relieved when they told me that they had gone in a different direction in terms of hiring someone else.  

And it's not that I didn't get a lot of other offers - I did.  But they weren't for jobs I felt comfortable doing.  

There were a handful of jobs that came up through the social recruiting sites such as Linkedin, Indeed, and Zip Recruiter.  I could have been an insurance salesman 8 times over by now.  But I don't want to sell insurance.  Financial planners have come calling trying to recruit me to work for them.  But I'm bad at taking care of my own money, let alone someone else's money.  

I had a couple very positive interviews with a local ad agency looking to hire someone to take the place of a retiring salesperson.  I was told that the money that I needed would be there based on the revenues the salesperson generated.  Then in what turned out to be the final interview, I found out that the key accounts the salesperson was in charge of had been divvied up among other salespeople in the agency.  The money I had been told would be there suddenly wasn't.  

I didn't take the job.  

By that time I really needed to find a job as my severance was up.  Having to start dipping into savings, I reached out to companies outside the audio industry.  I had some interviews here and there, but nothing concrete.  

There were a number of jobs that popped up on the various social employment sites that fit me to a tee.  They were all travel oriented, all sales and marketing jobs, and something that I would have excelled at.  (After all, I have spent nearly 20 years selling stuff that absolutely no one needs.  If I can sell products like that, I can sell anything.)  After applying and getting preliminary meetings, nothing happened. 

Same thing happened with some headhunters I had been in contact with.  I probably talked with five or six different headhunting companies.  Some were enthusiastic of my skill set, as well as my experience of working in business-to-business situations.  But after awhile, many of the headhunters completely ghosted me.  

And I suddenly figured out why.  They're all doing a deep background check and finding that I'm at an age where I should be thinking of retiring rather than trying to find a job.  

I have friends who are retired and seem to be enjoying life.  I'm not that kind of person.  I think it would drive me nuts to be retired.  The last six months have been tough enough hanging around the house and not getting in the car and going to call on accounts like I've been doing since 1993.  Traveling was in my bones, it was part of my life.  Even my wife - who has been with me since 1993 - has known me to do nothing but travel while we've been together.  I used to joke that if I was home for more than two weeks at a time that my wife would be wondering when I was going to be leaving again.  

I have to admit - I had a great job.  I got to travel and go and do and see.  I was able to go to Paris, London, New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles and Montreal.  Of course, my regular travels took me to the great cities of the Midwest - Chicago, St. Louis, the Twin Cities, and even Fargo!  (I loved Fargo!)  I ate in some great (and not-so-great) restaurants as well as some really unique places.  The perks of traveling sent my wife and me to Hawaii a couple times.  We loved our vacations to places such as Southern California, the Gulf Coast, out to Colorado (especially Steamboat Springs), and to the Southeastern seaboard thanks to airline and hotel points that I had accrued.  

But that's pretty much over now.  

I've come to the realization that I probably won't be able to find a job where I'll be able to travel.  While I do have something in the works, it won't involve travel.  

It will basically be an 8-to-5 job, 5 days a week, working in an office looking at a computer screen.  I haven't worked in an office setting outside my home since - well, forever.  I've had to recalibrate my brain over the past couple three weeks to say that it's OK to take this job even if it's not exactly what I want to do.  But the guy who is interested in hiring me is a good guy with a well-established business and I know I can help him out in the capacity that he's looking to fill.  And like anything in life, it will take some time to get used to.  

Even though I won't be adding much to Road Tips, I'm going to keep it going for the time being.  I've invested over 16 years of this where I can't just let it go away.  And I don't want to just write about the restaurants in the Quad Cities.  That sort of narrows my reader base.  But, if my wife and I take off on a weekend trip and find someplace that's interesting, I may make an entry. 

It's sort of funny - Road Tips was once recognized by a popular (at the time) on-line travel site for the popularity of this blog and was getting well over 100,000 hits on their site from readers all over the world.  I've also been threatened by people for giving bad reviews, I've been asked (and even pressured) by some restaurants to visit their establishments, I've been asked to allow people to do their own entries on the blog, and I've been approached by companies to put advertisements on my blog.  But I stayed true to myself and didn't want to monetize my hobby.  

While I'm going to miss writing about the places I've eaten at or have experienced in my travels, there's a couple things I'm not going to miss.  I'm not going to miss eating alone the vast majority of the time.  Dining as a single is awkward enough, especially when you want to try a nice restaurant.  And I'm not going to miss the loneliness of the hotel room - wherever that hotel room is.  (I have to tell you - spending a birthday alone in a hotel room is not fun.  And being sick on the road - also not fun.)  

I've had a great run and I have to thank those of you who have indulged my little hobby and encouraged me over the years.

My little hobby that took on a life of its own.  

As I told many of my accounts when I was let go that this doesn't mean good-bye, but I'll see you next time.  

And if someone out there is looking for a seasoned sales professional who is willing to travel, drop me a line. 

Until then, thanks for looking in to Road Tips!   

Road Tips 15 Year Anniversary

On October 28, 2005, I published my first Road Tips blog post on the now-defunct Town Pump in Clear Lake, IA.  It was a small, three paragraph entry long before I had a concrete idea or format that I wanted to go with in my blog.  In fact, I just re-read the entry and I'm pretty embarrassed.  It looked like it was written by a 9th grader who waited until the 11th hour to do a report.  (The only reason I think that is because I was once a 9th grader who waited until the 11th hour to write a LOT of reports.)   The first couple of years were really choppy and it was difficult to find my voice.  It took some time, but I eventually found my way to the scheme of things that eventually became the signature of Road Tips.  

Five years ago today, I wrote an entry on the 10 year anniversary of the blog.  It included the history of Road Tips, my inspirations, and other sorts of things that shaped the blog into what it was then. (Click here to read that post.)  Quite actually, the format hasn't changed much - if any - since that 10 year anniversary entry.  

As we all know, it's been a difficult year.  With travel all but shut down for me back in March, you've allowed me to go back into the archives and dust off some of the more memorable visits to restaurants and places I've been to over the years.  It's been sort of fun to read some of those entries and reminisce about some very remarkable and unforgettable places I've been to.  We took a couple of vacations this year and ate at some pretty good to very good places along the way, so you'll continue to read about those for the next few weeks.  Hopefully - and I'm being very hopeful here - I can get back out on the road in early 2021 when life, as we knew it before the COVID-19 pandemic, gets somewhat back to normal.  

As I've said numerous times over the years, many blogs don't last very long and that was even more telling to me when I recently went through my browser bookmarks on my computer of all the blogs that I followed for a number of years.  Many of them were food and restaurant blogs, much like Road Tips.  There were others that I had picked up along the way and read from time to time.  I had 81 blogs bookmarked and I started to go through to see which ones were active and pare down the ones that weren't.  It turned out that I trimmed 53 blogs out of my bookmarks.  Some were abandoned URL's, but many were just inactive with the last entries being anywhere from 3 to 6 years ago.  (I found one that I had bookmarked - actually, it was a friend of mine from Michigan - whose last entry was 11 years ago!)  

One thing that has happened recently in regard to Road Tips - I've run out of the allotted number of categories that I can use for the blog.  I tried to add a couple categories when we went to Northern Minnesota earlier this summer and Typepad won't allow me to add categories any longer.  Heck, I don't even know what the limit is or how many categories I even have.  I'm too lazy to count them or even find out.  I may have to consolidate some of the categories or take some of the ones where there's just one or two entries under a given category (or city) away.  

Yes, the pressure is on to maybe go back and edit out some of my previous entries.  And that may be hard as I have a bit over 2400 entries over the past 15 years.  That's a lot of writing about a lot of restaurants, travel, events, and observations.    

But today, I'm not going to go back into the history of the blog, nor am I going to wax nostalgic on the run Road Tips has had.  But 15 years is quite a long time in the blogosphere.  I've often said that this turned out to be a hobby that has taken on a life of its own.  Readership hits go up and down, but I'm happy that there are still people who continue to indulge me to write about my travel experiences.

I'm not certain there will be a 20th anniversary of Road Tips, times change and so do people and trends.  There's a lot of places to find reviews of restaurants and travel destinations on the Internet.  I'm just happy that I still have enough of an audience after all these years that keeps me going.

Once again, thanks for looking in!   

Derecho!

If 2020 hasn't given us enough problems with the worldwide pandemic, we've had a couple of weather issues this year that have completely knocked us for a loop.  In April, a hail storm damaged hundreds of houses in the Quad Cities - some are still getting new roofs, siding and gutters from that event.  But on Monday, something even more destructive that affected millions of people from Nebraska to Indiana occurred - a rare derecho storm that started early in the morning and pushed across the Midwest throughout the day.  The above picture is an hour-by-hour timeline of the storm as it made its way from eastern Nebraska into western Ohio.  (Photo courtesy National Weather Service)

As I said, back in April we had a hail storm that blew through on what had started out as a beautiful early Spring evening with a full moon rising out of the southeast sky.  This was after the first day we had hit 80° degrees (F) in 2020.  Storms had developed to the northwest of the Quad Cities and a series of severe thunderstorm warnings were issued.  With one storm that was approaching the area, the National Weather Service predicted that it would slide to the north and east of where we lived.  My wife and I sat out in front of our house watching the storm gain intensity.  The cloud-to-cloud lightning was intense and we continued to think that it was going to go past us.  Then we noticed that the lightning was directly above us and scattered large drops of rain began to hit the pavement.  We went inside, down to our family room and turned on a movie. 

As we were watching the movie, about 15 minutes in I thought I heard something like a set of keys or some rocks that had been accidentally left in a pocket of a pair of pants that were in the dryer.  The only problem was that our dryer wasn't on.  When I finally realized that it was probably hail, we ran upstairs and looked out our backdoor into our yard in time to see golf-ball sized hailstones pelting our house, my car, our trees, our deck, etc.  

We were lucky, however.  We had just had a new roof put on about a year and a half prior and it suffered minimal damage because we had A) paid through the nose for high-quality shingles; and B) used a high-quality roofing company to do the work.  The only damage were to some cap shingles and the gutters.  Compared to neighbors up and down our street and behind us who had massive roof and siding damage, we got off pretty easy.  

But, the weather in the spring was certainly fickle.  Four days after we had the hail storm, we had 3 inches of snow.  In mid-April.  And three days after that, we got 3 more inches of snow.  Granted, most of the snow was melted by noon those two days, but still... It's mid-April!  There's supposed to be daffodils, tulips, green grass, and trees starting to bud.  Combined with no baseball starting up due to all the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a bummer of an April.

May wasn't much better.  There was a stretch in mid-May - including our 25th wedding anniversary - where we didn't see the sun or temperatures higher than 57° (F) over a six day period.  I half-jokingly asked my friends on Facebook if a person could get Seasonal Affective Disorder in the spring.  (One of my friends who is a nurse replied with an emphatic "YES, YOU CAN!")

June came and the summer months have been very nice.  There's been no outdoor events this year thanks to the pandemic, so there's been a lot of hanging with the neighbors and sitting on our deck enjoying the weather.  We really haven't had any large weather to speak of other than a spell of hot and humid weather - which, to me, is wonderful.  

We had been hearing over the previous weekend about the chance of storms coming through on Monday afternoon.  By Monday morning, local television meteorologists were warning that storms would gain strength across the state of Iowa with a heightened risk of strong to severe storms occurring that afternoon.  

The first thing I heard of the impact of the storm was on Monday morning from a friend in Nebraska whose work van took a direct hit from a tree that fell into it.  He wasn't inside, thank god.  But it thoroughly ruined his Monday.

Then a couple hours later I started getting reports of the storm impacting parts of Des Moines and central Iowa.  Ames was hit pretty hard, but then reports of heavy damage in Marshalltown (where winds hit nearly 100 mph) and in Newton started to come in on social media.  The Cellar Peanut Pub in Newton (click here to see the Road Tips entry on the Cellar Peanut Pub) lost part of their wall and their roof in the storm.    (Photo above right courtesy Cellar Peanut Pub - Newton Facebook page.)

Suddenly, reports started coming in from Cedar Rapids where wind speeds of over 100 mph had wreaked havoc on the city.  Now, my father-in-law has a farmstead south and east of Cedar Rapids and I had called him earlier in the morning to wish him happy birthday - it was his 80th birthday.  He said that he and his lady friend were heading out from her house in North Liberty to the farm to do some work.  I told him that I had heard some storms were supposed to come in sometime in the afternoon.  He said that he had heard we may get some rain, but he didn't know about any storms.  

When my wife - who grew up in Cedar Rapids - found out that the city was getting pummeled, she called her father out at his farm.  She asked what he was doing and he said that they were about ready to go get into the car and get out of there.  "Where you going to go," she asked him.  

He thought about it for a moment and said, "Well, I really don't know.  Back to North Liberty, I guess."  

By the time he had gotten off the phone and almost opened the door to go outside, a massive gust of wind knocked one of his maple trees onto his car, making it inoperable.  It was an old Buick and I was talking to him about it the next day and he was more upset that he wasn't going to be able to get 300,000 miles on the car.  "It had a great engine," he said.  "I would have been able to get 300,000 on it easily.  Now they'll probably just total it."  My wife was thankful that she made the phone call because, as she pointed out, they probably would have been either inside the car or just outside the car when the tree hit it.  

Following the storm on National Weather Service radar, as well as on local television which had broken in with on-going weather bulletins, we figured the storm would hit the Quad Cities around 1:30 p.m.  That allowed me to go outside and bring in both our American and Hawaiian flags, our hanging baskets, secure larger pots up close to the house, take in our umbrella, and make sure our garden peppers and tomatoes were tied up.  

It came quick.  We were watching one of the local stations that had a downtown Davenport tower camera as the front line of wind gusts emanating from a line of very dark clouds lined up in west Davenport and started to blow dust across the site of the former Kraft Foods plant just west of downtown Davenport.  The dust cloud enveloped the north end of the Centennial Bridge connecting Davenport with Rock Island and soon inundated LeClaire Park.  It was less than two minutes later when the first gusts hit our house.  

We were experiencing a derecho - a rare meteorological event that features a line of fast moving severe storms that can go for hundreds of miles and stretch over 100 miles in length from top to bottom.  Wind speeds usually sustain around 40 to 50 mph with gusts approaching - and easily surpassing - hurricane strength at times.  The wind damage usually occurs in just one direction and is usually known as "straight-line winds".  A derecho (de-RAY-cho) can stay together for long periods of time (as shown in the time-line picture at the top of this post) and their strong winds can last for much longer periods than a normal severe thunderstorm.  We had a derecho in the Quad Cities about 14 or 15 years ago, but this one was much stronger and lasted much, much longer.  

For the next 45 minutes, I have to tell you - I have never been in a storm where the sustained winds were so high for so long.  Mixed in with the high sustained winds over that period of time that were well over 40 mph were 8 or 9 gusts that clocked as high as 89 mph at the Davenport airport.  I have to tell you - and I don't mind saying so - there were at least 3 times when I was scared, as in "Holy shit!" scared.  

We never did go down to our basement - probably a stupid thing.  But it also hearkens back to when I was a little kid and we would sometimes sit outside watching the approaching storm come with a wall of rain racing over the fields west of our house.  I can remember sitting on the roof on a handful of occasions watching storms come in when I was younger.  Of course, I also rode a bike while not wearing a helmet, drank directly out of the water hose, and never wore a seat belt - especially in the back of pick-up trucks.  Kids these days don't know how much fun there is in dangerous situations.  

The wind blew branches, leaves, garbage bins, roofing material and whatever else down the street and across yards from west to east.  Our power went out at 1:46 p.m. and we figured that it would be out for quite sometime.  I would go to the front door and open it up from time to time to look out.  Then a gust from hell would come through whipping the trees back and forth.  I would immediately shut the door and back away into the center of the house.  

We heard a huge "whomp!" not long into the initial throes of the storm.  A large limb from our neighbor's large maple tree fell on our power line.  The power line stayed intact, but the tension guide wire that supported the power wires from the transformer pole to our house had snapped.  Thankfully, the limb soon dropped to the ground and no other large limb hit the wire.  The maple tree in our neighbor's yard has been a point of concern for us for a number of years as it's A) over 60 years old, and B) hangs over a significant portion of our house and deck.  I have to say that if Monday's storm didn't bring it down, nothing ever will.  (Of course, watch it collapse or drop a huge limb on a sunny day with light winds.)  

(UPDATE - We had reported the broken tension wire to MidAmerican Energy after the storm, and the following Sunday evening a team of power contractors came by the house to fix the wire.  We were having problems in our house with lights flickering - getting more dim or getting very bright - especially when something like a hair dryer or the washing machine would kick on.  It turned out that the tension guide wire tore out the ground going into our house.  Once these guys - who were from Colorado and were helping out the local power company - got it fixed, it seemed to fix the dimming and surge problems.)

I've been in two tropical storms in my lifetime - once in Houston in 1985 and once in New Orleans in 1998.  The winds were nowhere as intense as the winds we experienced on Monday.  Many people in the Midwest who have gone through a hurricane said Monday's derecho equaled the experience they had previously.  The storm was also sort of weird.  Lots of wind, but not a lot of rain.  A lot of the rain was coming down horizontally and I'm guessing a lot of it didn't make it into our rain gauge.  Our gauge showed only .15 of an inch of rain, but the yard and soil in our garden seemed to show that there was more than that.  

And the temperature dropped significantly.  Just before the storm hit, our thermometer showed that it was 91° (F).  After the storm had gone through, the temperature stood at 63° (F).  That's a pretty strong cold front that came through.
About an hour after the storm passed, I was able to get outside as I felt the winds had died down enough for me to survey the damage.  Quite frankly, other than a few bigger limbs that were pretty easy to drag to the curb, we didn't have much other than a bunch of leaves and twigs in our yard.  It took my wife and I about 30 to 45 minutes of total clean up.  And what we didn't get picked up, I figured that I'd our vacuum/mow the lawn to pick up the rest of it.   I picked up tree branches with leaves from five different types of trees on our front yard - none of them from either our linden tree or the crab apple tree.  In fact, both the trees on our property came through with flying colors and little to no damage.  Our other neighbors around us seemed to be as lucky as we were.  We did have some trees down in the neighborhood including just down the block to the west of us.  We know a guy just down the street from us who had a tree snap off at ground level that landed on his front yard.  Except, it originally stood between the sidewalk and the street.  "Not my problem," he said with a shrug when we saw him later on.  "The city will take care of it."  Most of the yard debris around our immediate neighborhood consisted of leaves, small branches and some naked twigs.  

We can't say that for a handful of trees in our full neighborhood.  My wife and I ventured out - as authorities said not to do after the storm - to survey areas in the blocks surrounding our home.  Friends behind us lost some of their fencing.  The neighbors next door had their garage door pushed in by the wind and knocked off the track, but they were able to open it up manually.  A neighbor about a half block away had a smaller tree come down on his garage.  But the tree was in such bad shape that it literally exploded when it hit the roof and the damage to his house was minimal.  A neighbor to the north had a large tree come down on their above ground pool and part of their house.  We saw a lot of tree damage, but not a lot of damage to dwellings.  Of course, no one had power.

We figured that if we didn't open the doors on our two refrigerators, we could probably get by with not worrying about the food inside the fridge for about 18 hours and up to 48 hours with the freezer.  Ice was nowhere to be found - at least when we finally thought about it and the few grocery stores/convenience stores that were open had already been stripped bare by people who had similar ideas, but were much more quick at the switch.  I laid in bed that night in a house with no electricity - which meant no air-conditioning or even fans - worrying about the food.

The next morning, something woke me up around 6 a.m.  It was the hum of a small motor.  My wife had moved to our spare bedroom as she was having trouble sleeping and it woke her up, too.  I threw on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts and went to look out our front door.  Our next door neighbor had his industrial-sized generator - a 5000-watt loud-assed beauty that he started up moments before.  It was a beautiful morning and I went outside to take a look at the yard after we had cleaned it up the day before.  

I saw that he had two drop cords plugged into the generator - no doubt from their house refrigerator and their garage refrigerator.  They had a phone charger plugged into the third outlet and the fourth outlet was empty.  He also had a high-voltage input for air conditioners or ovens, but I doubt if he would use that as the weather had turned very nice with low humidity after the storm.

My neighbor came around the corner of his garage and he said, "Hey, if you have a drop cord that will reach, you can plug your refrigerator in your garage into the generator."  Well, he didn't have to offer twice.  I mean, we're talking about the infamous "beer fridge" that also is our main freezer.  I grabbed a 100-foot extension cord and ran it out from the garage to the generator.  He plugged it into the generator and I plugged in the power cord from the fridge into the extension cord.  The refrigerator jumped to life.  

My wife groggily came out into the kitchen when I got back into the house.  "How rude," she said half-jokingly about the sound of the generator next door.  

I said, "Well, that rude sound is saving our food and beer in the garage."  

She said, "Can he do the one in the house?"

I walked back outside and he came up to me and said, "Hey, when we're done charging our phones, I'll have another outlet open.  If you have another drop cord, we can hook up your house fridge."  I had to connect a 50 footer and a 25 footer together to make it work, but when he plugged it into the generator, our house fridge popped on effortlessly.  

With that worry out of the way for awhile, we started to reach out to family members.  The only problem was that cellular service was so sporadic - I understand that one-third of all cell towers across the state of Iowa were damaged in the storm - and calls and texts didn't make it to their intended targets.  I had sent a text to a couple three people at my work saying that we had no power, no internet, and "iffy" cellular coverage and that I would have no way to work at home that day.  My wife - who has been working from home since April - was pretty much in the same boat.  

It turned out that her uncle - her dad's brother - and her son were going to go out to her dad's farm and help cut up the tree that killed his car.  We started to get stuff together to head up there and we took off around 11 a.m.  About 30 miles outside of Davenport on our way to his farm, my wife got a text message from her son. "Ohp!  Change of plans," she said.  The text from her son said that they were pretty much done out at the farm and were heading into Cedar Rapids to help clear debris from her sister's yard.  "We're going to Cedar Rapids now," she said as more of a command than a statement.  

When we got near Cedar Rapids we began to see the scope of the damage.  Between the Cedar Rapids airport exit and the U.S. Highway 30 exit, we counted 7 semi's that were on their sides, blown over from the high winds the day before.  It was quite the sight.  

Getting into Cedar Rapids, we were astonished and horrified at the amount of tree damage suffered in the city.  Trees had been uprooted, large branches were laying on roadways, trunks of tree were twisted and shorn of bark, and power lines were hanging dangerously along sidewalks and low over roadways.  I had never seen so much damage to trees that didn't involve a tornado in my life.

My wife's sister lives just west of downtown Cedar Rapids and we turned down her street and were horrified at what we saw.  The amount of destruction was amazing.  It was certainly astonishing to see.  Wind gusts in the area around the city climbed to 112 mph - good enough for what would be classified as a Category 3 hurricane. 

My wife's dad was "supervising" his brother and Cindy's son as they used chain saws to cut up the larger tree that had fallen on my sister-in-law's yard.  It turned out I was a much needed extra hand to help move some of the larger chunks of wood to the side of the yard near the street.  My wife, my sister-in-law, and their cousin from the Twin Cities who came down from NE Iowa with my wife's uncle and aunt to help out all grabbed rakes to take care of the leaves and small branches in the yard.  

It was a beautiful day - much nicer than the day before at the same time of the storm was slamming into Cedar Rapids.  We actually made pretty short work of most of the debris in her yard - I think it took us a little less than two hours to get much of the debris close to the street.  My father-in-law was concerned that we were covering the sidewalk in some places and I had to assure him that the city of Cedar Rapids probably viewed this episode as a special situation and would probably waive any considerations of citing my sister-in-law for having debris on her sidewalk.  In fact, my wife pointed out other neighbors up and down the street that had debris on the sidewalks in front of their homes to my father-in-law.  "Don't worry, Dad," she assured him. "She's not going to get a ticket from the city on this one."   

Next to my sister-in-law's house was a large tree that had slammed into the garage in back.  If you click on the photo on the above right, you may be able to see a light grey vehicle that was parked in the garage.  It turned out that the former family had outgrown the house and moved to a larger property.  The father of the lady who lived there had his Chevrolet Traverse stored in there.  When the property was sold to a young lady, the man who stored the Traverse in the garage came up with a proposition to the new owner - allow me to continue to store my Traverse in the garage and I'll mow your lawn for you at no charge.  The new owner was like, "Well, duh!  Yeah!"  

After I was told that story by my sister-in-law, I said, "Well, how did that work out for him?!"  It was going to be interesting how they were going to get the tree off the garage and the Equinox extracted from the garage without it collapsing on top of the vehicle.  

(UPDATE - It turned out that more of the garage collapsed on the Traverse and it was declared as totaled by the insurance company.  The man told my sister-in-law that it only had 8000 miles on it.  Not only was his vehicle crushed, but the man was emotionally crushed that he lost his Traverse.)  

We took off to go back home a bit after 3 p.m. and the interstate out of Cedar Rapids was a rush-hour mess with cars and trucks only able to go about 20 mph out of town due to the number of overturned trucks still on the side of the road.  My wife suggested taking the airport exit and making our way east, then south to get to Interstate 80 near Iowa City.  Along the way, we were amazed by the number of cornfields where the corn stalks were just flattened.  It is estimated that 10 million acres of farmland was heavily damaged across the state and that corn yields this year will be half of what was expected.  

In fact, the damage to cornfields was so severe that you could see it from space.  The wispy white blotches you see from west central Iowa into the eastern part of the state are cornfields that were blown over during the derecho.  

We got back home around 5 p.m. and our power was still not on.  Behind our neighbor's house is the large transformer that serves a number of houses in the area.  A large branch had fallen from our neighbor's maple tree onto the main wire near the transformer during the storm and there had been repeated attempts to contact MidAmerican Energy to tell them about the branch.  Between four or five neighbors in the area, we hoped that at least one of us was able to circumnavigate the website on our phones that continued to have sporadic service as the toll free number to report outages was busy every time one of us would call.  I figured that as long as that branch was up there, we wouldn't have power.  

At the height of the outage, over 111,000 customers in the greater Quad Cities area were without power.  I was able to finally get through via phone on Tuesday night to MidAmerican and an automated message said that there were still over 25,000 outages on the Iowa side of the river including over 1500 in our immediate area. But it never did allow me to let them know that we had a limb on the main line behind our neighbor's house.  

To give you a perspective of what it looked like a night after the storm, the above photos are a before and after satellite view of central and eastern Iowa (the Quad Cities are just out of the frame on the right) showing the widespread power outages suffered across the state.  When the August 11 picture was taken, you can see that Cedar Rapids was nearly all dark.  And while Des Moines appeared to be well lit, they still had over 70,000 customers without power.  (Photo courtesy KCRG/NASA Worldview)  

The one saving grace through all of this - we had water.  And we have a gas water heater.  After working hard moving debris in Cedar Rapids earlier in the day, a long, hot shower felt damned good just before we went to bed.  Plus it helped keep us cool on another night of no air conditioning or even being able to use a fan to blow some air around.  

Later that evening, something woke me up.  Lights had come back on in our house!  The television in the bedroom was recycling through the DirecTV box startup menu.  I looked at the clock and it said 10:57.  I sort of tapped my wife on the leg and I said, "Power!"  She threw the covers over her head and didn't move a muscle.  That was her way of telling me, "You deal with it!"  

I got out of bed, threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and proceeded to try to get things back to normal.  That included turning off lights, resetting clocks, turning off the TV on our four-season porch, and - most importantly - plugging our refrigerators back into the wall.  Our neighbor had shut off the generator earlier in the evening because I'm sure the neighborhood wouldn't want to hear that thing going all night long.  I got the fridge in the kitchen plugged back in and went out to the garage and got that one plugged back in.  I gathered up our drop cords that were outside and took them into the garage.  

Then I went into the office to check my computer.  That's when I discovered the internet was working fine and dandy in conjunction with the power coming back on.  And I had a bunch of e-mails that I knew I would need to return first thing in the morning.  But the first thing I did was go to the MidAmerican Energy web site and report the branch on the power line.  I guess that having a large branch on the line like that doesn't matter.  

But the best thing is that I also had to shut all our open windows as the air-conditioner and ceiling fans were also working.  After being up for about 45 minutes trying to get everything back to normal in the house, I crawled back into bed listening to the hum of our HVAC unit outside our bedroom window.  My wife was more than happy that the AC was back on.  

As I finish this up entry on Thursday evening - three-plus days after the derecho hit - there are still over 25,000 houses and businesses across the Quad Cities that still do not have power.  In highly affected places like Des Moines, Newton, Marshalltown and Cedar Rapids, they may not have power until this weekend, at the earliest.  There are a number of rural customers who may not have power until early next week.  But we were certainly lucky.  We had helping neighbors with a generator, we had minimal damage to trees and personal property at our place, and we have power when many others do not.  

But the hell of it is - the large tree branch is still on the main power line behind our neighbor's house...

(UPDATE - A tree company working in conjunction with Mid-American Energy was able to get the branch down about five days after the storm hit.  Turned out that it didn't matter if a tree branch was on the line for power to continue on to houses in our neighborhood.)

(UPDATE 8-29-20) Since we had power less than two days after the storm hit and my sister-in-law in Cedar Rapids did not, we invited her to stay with us for a few days.  She also works from home and needs an internet connection - which wasn't going to happen until well after she got power back on.  Those few days have stretched into two weeks.  She got power back on in her house a little over a week ago, but there's still no internet connection from her cable company.  She said that she would hear from the cable company when they would be working in her neighborhood, but would not know for sure if her internet would be up and running until she went back to try it.  But it turns out that the extensive damage in Cedar Rapids could cause cable and internet access to be delayed a little longer than expected.  But we're fine with her here.  We now have three people working out of the house and no one seems to be getting in each other's way.

My sister-in-law went home to Cedar Rapids on Friday night to hang for a couple days and she told my wife on Saturday morning that she was depressed because it's been nearly 3 weeks since the storm and she still has piles upon piles of debris from the fallen trees in front of her house.)    

Goodbye to a Little Buddy

My wife and I don't have pets - especially a dog - for a myriad of reasons.  One of the biggest reasons is that with my travel and my wife's work schedule, we wouldn't be able to properly care for a dog.  We would also have to work around dealing with someone either looking after the dog or kenneling the dog if we were to take off for a short trip on the spur of the moment.  Plus, I grew up along a busy highway in Central Iowa and the agony and heartbreak of losing a dog that wandered onto the road only to get hit and killed was more than I could bear at times when I was younger.  I've always said that kids and dogs are great, as long as they belong to someone else.  Our next door neighbors had a dog who became my little buddy over the past few years.  This past week, they had to put him down.  This is the story of my buddy, Charles.  

Charlie was actually his given name, Chuck was his nickname, but I always called him Charles.  Charles was a Beagle/Bichon mix (that had to be interesting when his parents mated) and he had that beagle body with big paws and the husky bark, but his hair had that bichon quality to it.  He could get shaggy and once every three or four months our neighbors would have to take him to get groomed.  Somehow and somewhere along the way over the past few years, Charles and I became good friends.  He was a fascinating dog with his quirks, regimens and routines.  The neighbors saw the relationship that Charles and I had and it wasn't long before I was referred to as the "Dog Whisperer."  

Actually, there may be something to this "Dog Whisperer" thing with me.  A number of years ago a young couple had moved into the house on the other side of us and they had a Shih Tzu by the name of Ralphie.  Ralph and I seemed to hit it off the first day we met.  I don't know what it was, but Ralph would go nuts whenever he'd see me.  I didn't give him treats, but I would sort of get him on his back and scratch his chest and under his chin.  It was like he was saying, "Dude, keep that up and I'll just stay here as long as you like."  Ralphie would be out in their sunroom and see me out in our backyard and he'd whine and carry on until they had to let him out on his chain for me to come over and futz with him.  

One morning, I happened to be in our backyard and the neighbor's wife was getting ready to put Ralph out on his chain after they had woken up.  As she bent over to pick up the chain, Ralph saw me and proceeded to jump on her back and fly over the top of her and bounded out the door.  She was screaming thinking Ralphie was going to take off, but he made a beeline right over to me.  I picked him up, admonished him as I took him back to her, scratching under his chin as he melted in my arms.  

Sometimes, Ralphie would get away from the neighbors and just tear around the backyard in circles as they tried to corral him.  More than once I was asked to come over and get Ralph back to them.  I'd say something like, "Ralph, stay there."  And he'd lay down in the grass and allow me to pick him up to take back to the neighbors.  

The neighbors eventually moved away, they had a couple of kids and Ralphie sort of got aggressive toward their young son one day.  They decided that Ralph needed a new home.  They found an older lady who could take Ralph for them.  I didn't hear much about Ralphie after that and I'm guessing that he's probably not doing hot laps around a back yard any longer.  

We had another young couple that moved in after the first couple left and we became good friends with them.  However, they had two Chihuahuas.  Yippie, squirrelly, perpetually timid Chihauhuas.  I would playfully torture the male Chihuahua picking it up by its body harness to where the wife would scream at me.  I knew it didn't hurt the dog - it would have been the same thing as picking it up under its chest.  But it was sort of fun to make her go apeshit if she thought I was hurting her baby.  (And I wasn't.)  

That couple, too, moved away, had a couple kids and decided that they needed to get rid of the Chihuahuas as they were also getting aggressive toward their kids.  I really didn't care what happened to those dogs.  They were both sort of annoying.  

Other neighbors have had dogs that I had grown fond of.  There was a young couple who lived down the street from us who had a beautiful yellow Lab.  I started to get treats that I'd give to the dog when they would walk by on evenings.   

A lady who lives a couple three houses from us had a couple of small dogs that she'd walk with daily.  I'd give them treats, too, and they couldn't get past our house without stopping and literally rolling in our yard waiting for me to come out with a treat.  (Unfortunately, one of the dogs had to be put down about a month ago due to health complications.)  

But there have been a couple single ladies who lived in the neighborhood who have had dogs that I swear they used to make people feel sorry for them.  After our friends with the chihuahuas moved out, an older single lady moved in with a Shih Tzu.  I know there was more than a handful of times where I would get calls from her asking if I could help corral her dog.  This lady was annoying in her own way and I used to think the dog was trying to run away from her on purpose.  One time after chasing  and corralling her little Shih Tzu about a block and a half away from the house, as I was taking the dog back to the lady I consoled the dog.  "Yeah, I know why you're running away," I told the dog as I was scratching its neck.  "And I don't blame you.  But, you have to go back.  Sorry..."

Another lady down the street from us had a Boxer.  She, too - I swear - allowed the dog to get out of the house just to get attention from the neighbors.  She would plead with the neighbors to help her get her rambunctious dog.  After a couple times of her doing that, I wasn't going to fall for that ploy again.  I basically told her, "If you're going to keep letting the dog run like that and it gets hit by a car, I'm not going to feel sorry for you."  She and I are civil to one another, but far from being neighborly.  She still has the boxer.  And it doesn't run free like it did.  

Our neighbors with Charlie moved in about six years ago and they also had another dog, Leo.  Leo was a little mutt that was a true rescue dog.  Leo was blind and deaf, and the neighbor's daughter found him along a gravel road after someone had obviously let him out to die on his own.  My neighbors took Leo in and kept him for the final years of his life.  They probably let Leo hang on a little too long - they even admitted that to me later on.  And that's something that really bugs me about people who hang on too long to a dog when it's obvious that the dog needs to be put down because it's more humane to do that than to have it live another day because the person who owns the dog is selfish.

That happened with me years ago with the mother of an old girlfriend of mine.  My girlfriend's mother had a small Poodle that lived to be about 19 years old.  It was blind, deaf, feeble, had no teeth, but my girlfriend's mom refused to put the dog down.  It was excruciating to me to see that dog suffer like it did because the lady wouldn't allow it to die with dignity.   I don't know why she let that dog live that way and the dog finally died in its sleep.  Thank god...

That same girlfriend had a Poodle of her own, too, except she didn't frou-frou the dog's hair to make it look like a prissy little dog.  This dog also was blind, but he was in great shape.  That dog and I became really close.  He also was my little buddy.  I was amazed that even though he couldn't see (due to a genetic condition), he could get around quite easily.  He was fun to play with and to take in the car.  If I was seated watching television, he'd come up to me, jump up next to me, and then settle in for a nap while I watched TV.  I swear to god that the only reason that girlfriend and I stayed together as long as we did was because of the dog.  But the dog passed away when it was at the veterinarian's office as they were trying to treat it for heart congestion.  He was 14.  I was devastated when he died.  My girlfriend and I pretty much broke up for good after the dog died.  It turned out the only thing we had in common was our love for the dog.  

That's another reason why my wife and I don't have a dog.  After I told her that story years ago, she's worried that if we had a dog and it died, I would leave her.  

She's joking.  (I think.)  

Now, Charles was a unique dog.  I don't know if I've ever been around a dog who had as much personality as Charlie did.  My neighbor used to say, "If he had opposable thumbs, he'd be a person."  

Charles was about 10 years old when he first came into our lives.  He was the most mellow dog I think I've ever been around.  Other dogs would see Charles and would start to bark their heads off at him.  He'd just ignore them.  I mean, completely ignore them.  Some people who lived in the house behind our neighbors would have dogs.  Their dogs would get aggressive when Charlie would be across the chain link fence from them.  Charlie would just blow them off.  He wasn't fazed in the least by a barking dog who was showing aggression.  

Sometimes, he'd stop and exchange smells with the dog across the fence.  If Charles liked the dog, his tail would wag in a circular fashion.  If he didn't like the dog, he'd just go on his way.

After Leo was put down, we had gotten to the point with the neighbors that we trusted each other to keep house keys to check on things when either one of us were gone.  But they also saw the relationship I had with Charles and started to ask if I could let him out if they were gone at one of their daughter's basketball games.  If I was around, I had absolutely no problem doing that.  

One of the first times I went over to their house to let Charles out, I let him back in from doing his duty and he always had to get a treat.  I gave him his treat and told him that I'd see him later.  As I started to walk toward the door, he looked at me as if he was saying, "Hey!  Where you goin'?  Don't you want to stay and hang out?  Hey, we have beer over here!  Stay here and have a beer with me!  I'll even show you where the beer is!" 

Charles could do tricks - well, one trick.  Our neighbor's daughter was 10 when Charlie came into their lives - he was basically the first pet the family had.  She worked with him during his formative years to do this one trick - "Sit Pretty".  When I first started to bring treats over for Charles, the neighbors would say, "Tell him to sit pretty."  So, when I'd say, "Sit pretty, Charles,"  he would sit on his hauches and raise up with his front paws in the air.  But after awhile I could sense with Charlie that he thought it was pretty stupid and demeaning.  He'd look at me like he was saying, "Just give me the friggin' treat, asshole!"  

Our neighbors put up a nice wooden fence a year or so after they moved in to give Leo and Charles a place to walk around the yard without being on a chain.  Once the fence went up, Charles had a routine.  He'd immediately go over to the fence gate next to our driveway and hang out there for a moment to see if I was just over the fence so he could whimper for a treat.  If I wasn't there, then he'd take off on a walk around the perimeter of the yard, stopping to pee every once in a while, but continuing on sniffing anything and everything.  Sometimes, he'd diverge about 10 to 12 feet off his perimeter path and take a dump.  Then he'd go back to the perimeter and complete the lap around the yard.  He was certainly a creature of habit.  To me, it was very fascinating.

After awhile, the neighbors would feel comfortable enough to allow Charles to come over to our house.  I'd let him through the gate and walk with him to our back door.  I'd go in and get a treat for him, but he would be impatient and let me know that he was hungry with that deep, throaty bark of his.  After bringing the treat out for him, I'd put it on the concrete of our driveway and he'd chomp it down like he hadn't been fed in days.  I would always joke with the neighbors, "It's sort of sad that your dog has to come over to our house to get fed..."  

More often than not, Charles would finish his treat (usually an organic dog treat from Trader Joe's - he loved the chicken and peanut butter treats they had up until a couple years ago), then he'd take a walk in our yard.  He'd walk over to the fence on the other side of our yard and start his perimeter patrol there.  We have a peony bush near the fence row and he'd stop at the bush, sniff around it, then lift his leg to pee on it.  Then he'd continue on his patrol around the perimeter of our yard, going along the brick-walled berm that we had, then back up past our rose garden to our back door.  Then he'd instinctively go back over to the gate at the neighbors house and walk back into his backyard.  Once back over there, he'd sort of gallop back up to their deck like he was saying, "Me? I've been in the backyard all the time!  I wasn't over at the neighbors!"  

After awhile, Charles figured out that he didn't need to walk the perimeter of our yard.  Things must have been pretty secure in his mind.  He'd come over, demand his treat, eat it, then make a bee-line over to the peony bush, take a leak, then come right back past me standing by our back door watching all of this, back through the gate and up the walk to the neighbor's back deck.  My neighbor used to refer to our peony bush as Charles' "pee-on-me" bush.

If the neighbors had to go out of town for a day or two, they'd usually board Charlie or have their dog groomer come over to feed him and take him outside.  I said, "You guys don't have to do that.  If we're home, we can take care of him."  Well, let's rephrase that - I can take care of him.  That usually meant getting out of bed at 5:30, getting dressed, and heading over next door to wake him up - he loved sleep - and letting him out.  Then after he was let back in, he got his treat and I would go back home to go back to bed.  If I didn't like the dog as much as I did, I wouldn't have even considered doing that.  I didn't really do it for the neighbors as much as I did it for Charles.  

It was getting to the point where I would go over to let Charles out and he just linger at the gate, thinking that I was following him and we'd head over to our house for a treat.  After he sort of figured that I wasn't going to let him over to our yard, he'd start on his perimeter walk.  Sometimes it would be quick - especially if it were cold or rainy (he didn't like anything wet) - other times, he'd dawdle around the perimeter of the neighbor's yard for as much as 15 minutes.

Feeding Charlie was sometimes confounding.  His food bowl would be full of dry dog food, but he wouldn't eat if the neighbors weren't around.  He may go for a full day or longer without eating because he would sense no one was around and I'm sure it took him out of his comfort zone.  Finally, my wife and I got to thinking how we could get Charles to eat.  I noticed that he had no problem eating treats off the concrete of driveway or sidewalk.  I wondered if we could put some food down on the  linoleum floor in the neighbor's kitchen to see if he'd eat.  Well, it worked.  And worked famously.  I'd put dry dog food on the floor and he'd just lap it up.  I was sure to clean the floor after Charlie finished eating to hide any remnants of dog slobber.  The neighbors were none-the-wiser, but just happy that Charles was eating when they were gone.  We never told the neighbors how we were able to get Charlie to eat - until a few days after he was gone.  They laughed about it.    

I started to notice that Charles was losing his sight about 3 years ago.  He never ever barked at me - except when he wanted to come over to our house or if he wanted a treat.  But he was over in the opposite corner of the yard one morning and I appeared over the fence.  Charles turned and looked my way and then started to bark and then run toward me like he was fending off an intruder.  Now, he NEVER did ANYTHING like that.  I asked the neighbor a couple days later if Charlie was having trouble seeing.  I could tell that the question bothered my neighbor as he just sort of shook his head and hunched his shoulders like he didn't want to talk about it.  

More health problems started to arise for Charles - he had nearly all his teeth pulled except for three in the very back of his mouth.  The last 18 months of treats, I had to break them up for him in smaller pieces so he'd be able to chomp them up.  He began to lose his hearing and you literally had to shake him to wake him up to take him outside.  He was getting lethargic, not much pep in his step, wanting to do nothing but eat, sleep, poop and pee.  

Even though it was getting hard for Charles to see and hear, somehow he would know when I would come home.  He used to be able to hear when our garage door would open, or when I'd pull up in our driveway, but once his hearing started to go, I don't know how on earth he knew when I would come home.   I don't know if he felt the vibration from our garage door open up, or felt the vibration of me closing my car door, but he would always seem to know when I got home.  He'd get up and go to the back door where the neighbors would let him out and he'd immediately come over to the fence.  I was usually taking a couple three trips between the car and the house and I'd hear him whining for attention and treats over the fence.  "Charles," I'd yell out.  "You are such a pant load!"  That was my favorite phrase when it came to Charles.  

Over the past year, my wife and I were both coming to the reckoning that Charles wouldn't be with us much longer.  We had hoped that the neighbors would recognize it - thankfully, they did - and they wouldn't allow him to linger on and suffer.  But he was still in pretty remarkable shape for his age - he turned 16 at the end of last November.  But one weekend last fall, the neighbors had taken off for an overnight stay and asked me to go over and let Charles out.  I went over about noon one of those days and Charlie was lying on his side, he tongue hanging out of his mouth.  (His tongue would flop out of the side of his mouth after most of his teeth had to be pulled.)  I immediately thought the worst.  I had never seen him lay on his side like that, and with his tongue out it was the classic look of death.

I reached down to touch him and he didn't move.  I thought, "Oh shit!  Great!  The neighbors are gone and their dog died in my care."  

I leaned down to stroke his body and I petted him on his side and said, "Oh, Charles.  Jeez..."

And he snapped out of his deep sleep and jumped right up, tail wagging and he started to stretch. He was fine and dandy.  "Jesus Christ, Charles," I exclaimed.  "You just scared the living shit out of me!"    Oh man.  My heart was pounding for minutes after that happened.  I went back to our house and told my wife what had happened.  She thought it was pretty funny.  And, in hindsight, it was.  

Recently, however, Charles just sort of seemed out of sorts.  A couple Sundays ago, it was a nice day and the neighbors were out in front of their house working on stuff and they had Charles chained up with them.  My wife remarked to me, "Charlie didn't look good to me."  He still ate a treat that we gave him, but I had to concede that he didn't seem himself.  

The following evening, Charlie had a seizure around 9 p.m.  They ended taking him to the doggy emergency room and got him some pills to help alleviate the problem.  But they were up all night as Charles couldn't get comfortable after they got him home.  They - along with their daughter who came over to help - walked Charlie around the backyard most of the night.  

I was getting ready to go on the road that next morning and my neighbor called me up.  "Charlie had a bad night," he told me with a quiver in his voice.  "We're out in the backyard and I think you need to come over and say goodbye."  

I immediately called my wife at her work and said, "I think this is it with Charles.  They just asked me to come over to say goodbye."  

My neighbor and Charlie were in the back yard, Charlie was on a leash and my neighbor was leading him around.  Charles was having trouble walking and he was completely out of it, probably thanks to the drugs they gave him at the emergency room.  My neighbor was telling me about the bad night they had with Charlie and that they knew it wouldn't be long for him.  "We let Leo stay on a little too long," my neighbor said as I connected with Charlie one last time, petting him and scratching under his chin.  "We're not going to do that with Charlie." 

As tough as it was for me to see Charles that way, it had to be worse for my neighbors - and by ten-fold.  As I said, this was really their only pet.  Their daughter had gotten a rescue dog a couple years ago - a lab/greyhound mix - and their son and his fiancée had gotten a golden retriever three or four years ago.  I had tears in my eye as I gave my neighbor a hug and told him to hang in there.  But he knew I was having trouble too as I took one last look at Charles and walked back home.  "You hang in there, too," he said with a shaky voice.  Jeez, grown men getting blubbery over a dog...

I got a cryptic message from my neighbor the next day saying that Charlie was resting easy and not pacing any longer.  I texted him back saying, "Oh good.  I was wondering what was going on."  But then my wife and I figured out a couple days later that was my neighbor's way of saying, "We put Charlie down."  

It's only been about 10 days since he's been gone, but I still find myself looking over the fence thinking that Charles will be just over there staring blankly at the fence waiting for me to acknowledge him.  We met up with the neighbors last Sunday for a toast to the memory of Charlie.  We laughed about his idiosyncrasies, his mellow demeanor, how big of a mooch he was, and how he loved all of us unconditionally.  

My neighbor's wife said to me just last night, "You're going to have to put a bell or something outside to let us know when you get home.  Our alarm isn't around any longer."  

I don't know if the neighbors are going to get another dog.  Quite actually, I don't know if they want another dog because they certainly broke the mold with Charles.  I just don't think they could find a dog with the personality, characteristics and mannerisms that Charles had.  He was certainly one of a kind.        

Las Vegas - 2020

The company that I had worked with for over 17 years was purchased by a French capital investment group last year.  Through some uncertain times over the past few months, the dust has finally settled for me to realize that the new ownership group and their managers like me and the job that I continue to do for the company enough to keep me on.  I can't say that about some of my colleagues who either were given pink slips or moved on to new endeavors over the past year.  One thing that the French managers of the new ownership group like to do is have meetings in warm places.  We were in Phoenix for meetings last September and again in December.  And a couple weeks ago we had a series of trainings and meetings in Las Vegas.  

Now, I'm a veteran of going to Las Vegas - so much so that my feelings about the destination went from a euphoric high when I would visit there 25 to 30 years ago, to one that made me call the city the world's largest toilet in the last three or four years when I used to attend the Consumer Electronics Show held annually in early January.  I had not attended a CES since 2017 and that didn't bother me one bit.  Missing CES in 2018 was a little strange - especially when I would see coverage of the convention on The Today Show or CNN.  But the past two years have been absolutely blissful knowing that on or about January 3rd if I were still sentenced to go to CES I would have had to completely shut off the post-holiday warm and fuzzy feeling and get on a plane to head to Las Vegas to meet up with my colleagues for a nearly week-long stay, pressing the flesh of people with ebola-type bacteria that they drug from all corners of the earth, and wishing them a very insincere "Happy New Year."  I don't miss Las Vegas - or CES - in the least.  

But I was sort of interested in going out in early February since there was no show and we had been in a streak of non-sunny days at home.  Quite honestly, the weather in the Midwest wasn't as brutal this winter as it has been over the past couple of winters.  But not seeing the sun for a week at a time in late January into early February really grates on my mental standing.  

Flying to Las Vegas was non-eventful - not so on the way back home (I'll get into that later on) - and I got into McCarran International Airport around 2:30 on a beautifully sunny, but unseasonably cool day.  It was very windy and my Uber driver told me that while it was windy and cool this day, the day before was even MORE windy and cool.  I didn't bring a jacket - I just wore pullover sweaters or long-sleeve shirts on this visit - so it was a bit nippy at times when I had to venture out of the hotel.  

I stayed at one of my all-time favorite hotels in Las Vegas, the Mirage, where we were having our meetings/trainings.  Actually, I was supposed to stay at Bally's just down the street as our company evidently got a good deal there.  However, the night before I was to arrive, I got an e-mail from our marketing manager who said that two bedrooms off a suite they were going to use as a meeting room were open and he wanted to know if I wanted one of the rooms.  Sure!  It turned out that it was quite possibly the same room - or a similar room - that I stayed in at a couple of Consumer Electronics Shows in the past.  It was on the 25th floor and offered a great view of the Volcano (still a big hit with the tourists after all these years) and the Las Vegas strip.

But the hotel has become a bit dated from when it first opened toward the end of November in 1989.  The wonderful rainforest in the atrium is still there, but the fragrant tropical flowers were masked by the smell of 30 years of cigarette smoke from the nearby casino.  A number of my favorite restaurants in the hotel have closed or been re-purposed into other eateries.  And it wasn't cheap to drink in any of the bars in the casino, either.  A bottle of domestic beer cost $7.00 - plus tax - and a craft beer - such as the Firestone Walker 805 blonde ale - was $8 bucks.  Plus tax.  So much for the day of the $.99 cent Heineken.

Not being in Las Vegas for 3 years was a bit of a shock to the system.  I used to marvel over the changes from year to year when I would go to Vegas on an annual basis.  But the changes over 3 years left me a little lost.  Lots of things have changed, but in a lot of ways they've stayed the same.  New hotels have popped up, more attractions have opened, and a new state-of-the-art football stadium across I-15 from Mandalay Bay will house the newly relocated Las Vegas Raiders starting this fall.  

And coming in 2021 will be the culmination of two ambitious projects - the MSG Sphere, an advanced multi-media entertainment facility that will seat 18,000 people for concerts and will fully immerse patrons in sound and video for the performance; and Resorts World Las Vegas, a $4.5 billion (yes, billion with a "b") dollar project that will feature a 110,000 square foot casino, over 200,000 square feet of restaurants, 70,000 square feet of shopping, and a huge five-acre outdoor area that will feature 7 unique swimming pools including an 1800 square foot infinity pool.  The complex will also feature a 100,000 square foot LED display on the side of one of the towers on the hotel.

The Las Vegas "High Roller" observation wheel opened in early 2014, so I've seen this before.  However, I found a somewhat new pedestrian mall just off the strip between the LINQ hotel (the former Imperial Palace) and the Flamingo called The Promenade that took you right up to the base of the Ferris wheel.  The Promenade featured a number of shops, restaurants and bars.  It had zip lines above the walkway for people that ended at the observation wheel - the tallest of its kind in the world.  I was able to walk around one evening and see what was new in the immediate area.  I was alternately amazed, amused and disgusted with what I encountered in my walk that evening.   

We were going to have dinner one evening at a restaurant in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace, so I wandered over there early to walk through the shopping and restaurant complex.  It had changed dramatically, not only in terms of restaurants and shops from when I was last in there, but the lay-out had changed, as well.  I found myself getting kind of turned around in the place as I was walking through.  After getting through the Forum Shops, I wound up at the sports book at Caesar's watching some basketball and having $8 dollar 12 ounce glasses of craft beers.  Things had changed so much in the casino and sports book area that I didn't even recognize the place from when the last time I was in there.    

I guess that with the proliferation of gambling around the nation - and worldwide - Las Vegas needs to do things like remodel hotels and casinos, and build attractions such as the MSG Sphere and Resorts World to keep its place as the gambling capital of the world.  Restaurants are changing, more bars and entertainment complexes are coming in, casinos are expanding, and more hotels are being built.  I remember when the total of hotel rooms passed 100,000 about 25 years ago and thinking, "Do that many people really come to Las Vegas?"  Today, over 150,000 hotel rooms are available in the city and projections are for the total to go over 160,000 within 3 years.  While Vegas now has increased competition for domestic gamblers, it's still a huge draw for international travelers who like wager money.  

We had meetings up to 6 p.m. both days we were there, but we had a two-hour window for lunch both days.  When I was walking on the Promenade the first evening, I came across an In-N-Out Burger location along the walkway.  (see map)  I made a mental note to go back the next day for lunch.  The inside was packed as it was during the noon rush, so I sat out at a fountain area in front of the place in the sun on a cool day to enjoy my double-double.  I know some people don't like In-N-Out, but every time I'm near one, I have to get one of their burgers.  

I didn't want to linger in Las Vegas any longer than I had to, so I booked a 7:00 a.m. Pacific time flight out on a Friday morning that was scheduled - United Airlines-willing - to get me back to Moline just after 1 p.m. Central time.  My layover in Denver would be a manageable 65 minutes, and possibly longer if a good tailwind got us up to Denver more quickly.  I got out to the airport in plenty of time, had no problem getting checked in, bag checked and through security (thanks to TSA Pre√) and out to the gate.  In fact, from the time I was picked up by Uber at the hotel to the time I made it to the gate, it was just 32 minutes.  We boarded not long after I got there.  

However, in my row - well, it had to be a sight.  The United gods of seat selections had a wonderful sense of humor that day.  Now, I have lost significant weight over the past couple of years and have managed to keep it off.  (Well, I did gain about 10 pounds during the holiday season, but that will go off when the weather gets nicer.)   I sat in my window seat first, then this guy - he had to weigh 350 pounds if he was an ounce - had the middle seat next to me.  He was so big that he had his own seatbelt extender.  Then seated in the aisle seat was a guy who was 6'4" and had to also be well over 300 pounds, as well.  He, too, had his own seatbelt extender.  So, here I was - the smallest of three big guys, literally smashed up against the wall of my window seat.  It wasn't going to be a fun flight.  

As we were taxiing out to take off, the plane sort of veered off to the side of one of the runways to a large open space next to the taxi way.  The pilot did a little 180 degree turn, stopped the plane and turned off the engines.  I thought, "Uh oh, this isn't good..."  

The pilot then came over the intercom and said that due to snow in Denver, there was a ground stop due to poor visibility.  I just shook my head because I always seem to have the worst luck in situations where I think I have outsmarted the elements and airlines.  My personal preference is to never fly through Chicago in the winter time - just because if they have snow flurries, it causes delays.  Or - as in the case of flying through there to Phoenix last December - if a snowstorm is affecting the east coast, Chicago gets completely backed up.  And that's even with nice weather conditions in the city.  So, my rule of thumb is to fly through Denver where they built Denver International with the Colorado weather in mind and have the plans and apparatus to keep runways open when it snows.  

Well, then again...  I suppose if it's snowing heavily and it's blowing, it doesn't matter how many plows you have.  

So, every 30 minutes for the next hour-and-a-half the pilot came on the intercom and said that they were still in a ground stop in Denver.  Once, however, he said that they had lifted the ground stop, but then he came back on and said, "Aahhh, they just ordered another ground stop, folks..."

Now, remember, I'm scrunched against the wall by this huge man who was as big as a house.  And if I would have tried to get up to use the restroom, getting these two big-assed guys out of their seats would have been quite the chore - and quite the sight.  I sat there thinking that I was glad that I didn't stop for an espresso or drink a bunch of water before the flight.  I was that way for FOUR hours!  

Finally at 9 a.m. - two hours after we were supposed to leave Las Vegas and at the same time we were supposed to be landing in Denver - the engines started up again, we taxied to the runway and took off.  I knew that I probably missed my Moline flight at 11:00 a.m.  But then I thought, "Wait a minute.  If this flight is delayed coming in, maybe my Moline flight is delayed, too!"  

However, when we touched down in Denver at 11:45 a.m. Mountain time, I checked the United application on my phone.  Hoping that the flight was delayed, I immediately found out that - nope - it had taken off at 11:05 a.m., 40 minutes before.  However, the app gave me alternative flights.  There was a 5:30 p.m. flight to Chicago that got in around 8:55 p.m. Central time.  But the connecting flight to Moline, was just 35 minutes after we were to arrive.  I sort of winced at that and had a chance to talk with a United service agent.  She looked up my flights and said, "Oh, well, you're scheduled to get in at gate B-16 and the Moline flight is at B-20.  You won't have very far to go."  I knew that if I could make my flight, there was a better than even chance that my checked bag would not.  

Sitting around the Denver airport for 4+ hours isn't the most fun thing to do.  I had a 3.5 hour layover on the way out to Denver that gave me time to check e-mails and make phone calls.  And I tried to do that during this extended layover, as well.  I called my wife and told her not to expect me home until around 11 p.m. - if I make it home at all.  We were supposed to get together with friends that evening, but those plans went by the wayside.  

I get on the plane to take me to Chicago and, of course, I was stuck in the last row.  I had a window seat and the middle seat was vacant, so it wasn't as bad as my Las Vegas to Denver flight.  (Quite actually, I don't know if I've EVER had a flight that was like the one I had earlier in the day.)  

We backed away from the gate at 5:30 p.m., but it had continued to snow and it was getting colder after the sun went down.  The pilot came on and announced that we were going to need to get a quick spray of de-icer before we could take off.   That's happened to me before in Denver and it's usually about a 20 minute ordeal of waiting and then getting de-iced.  OK - I just lost 20 minutes putting me in jeopardy of missing my Moline flight.

However, the pilot came on the intercom and announced that they determined that we had more of an ice build-up than they originally thought.  So, we got a double-drenching of de-icer that took another 10 minutes longer.  I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I was going to miss my flight to Moline.  

As we took off and headed toward Chicago, I thought, "Well, it IS Chicago and they're notorious for having delays especially later in the day.  Maybe I'll make that Moline flight."  

When we landed in Chicago, it was 9:20 - just 10 minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave to the Quad Cities.  But it didn't matter.  I checked the United app and found that we were now coming into gate C-9 - not B-16 as I was originally told - and the Moline flight was still going out of B-20.  If you're familiar with O'Hare, the C concourse is out further away from the main terminal.  You have to go down an escalator and through a 750 foot - or the length of two-and-a-half football fields - underground walkway to escalators to take you up to the B concourse.  And that's not counting the space between the gates and the escalator.  So, yeah - it's a hike.  And it was quite obvious that I wasn't going to make my flight.  

On the United app, I had been directed to choose a flight the next day.  I already had it in my mind that I could just walk to the Hilton-Chicago O'Hare and get a room there if I missed my flight to Moline.  I had checked in Denver to see if they had rooms available for that evening and they did - and they were pretty reasonable, coming in under the limit that our new owners have set for hotel rooms in our travel expense guidelines.  I went back to the Hilton Honors mobile application on my phone to book a room while I was still on the plane.  It turned out that I got an even cheaper rate that evening than what I found when I was in Denver.  

They had a 9:00 a.m. flight to Moline the next morning and the weather appeared that it would be good enough that we might not have any delays, so I chose that flight on the app.  However, I wondered where my bag was and whether or not I'd be able to retrieve it for the evening.  (In my years of travel, I've learned to always pack an extra shirt, underwear and socks - even when I'm driving.)  

By the time we taxied to the gate and started to disembark, it was 9:35.  By the time I was able to get off the plane - I was the second-to-last person off, of course - it was 9:55.  Inside the terminal, I went to the agent at the gate to inquire about the whereabouts of my bag.  I showed her the sticker with the tracking number of my bag that I always put on the back of my passport when I check bags.  (A shout-out to my former colleague Ian who taught me to do that.)  She said, "Well, do you have the United application on your phone?"  I told her that I did.  She said, "You can look it up there."  

Now, by this time, I was tired, irritable, and not in the mood to play hide and seek with my bag through an app on my phone.  I just said, "I'm sorry, but I've been up since 4:30 this morning and I've missed my connecting flight to Moline.  I'm not in the frame of mind to be looking this up on my phone."  Actually, I could have been a little more terse than that.  And I probably was.  

She took a look at my tracking number, typed in the number into her computer and she hesitated for a moment.  "Uh, your bag is in Moline."  

I'm like, "WHAT?!!"

"Hmmm....", she said as she typed in a couple of other things.  "Yeah, it looks like your bag was re-routed on the 1:30 flight out of Denver and arrived here around 4:45.  Then it was put on the 7:30 flight to Moline.  It will be there when you arrive."  

I said, "Well, that's not going to do me a lot of good tonight.  I'm stranded here until tomorrow morning."

"Oh gosh," she said in a somewhat faked - but somewhat sincere - reply.  "Well, you'll have it waiting for you when you get there tomorrow."  

I just stood there and laughed for a moment.  I said, "OK, well, thanks."  And I walked away to go to the Hilton-O'Hare.  

It's a walk through another underground walkway past the main terminal at O'Hare to the Hilton.  Now, I have never stayed at this hotel in all my years of travel.  I usually stay at the Hilton Garden Inn-O'Hare as it's centrally located for me to see accounts in the Chicago area.  But I didn't feel like waiting for their shuttle bus or taking an Uber over there and having to do the same to get back to the airport first thing in the morning.  By the time I made it to the front desk of the Hilton it was about 10:25 at night.  I stood in a line that was five people deep for a moment before I realized that there was a Hilton Honors line with no one in it.  Since I'm a Lifetime Hilton Diamond member, I should be in THAT line!  I just shook my head and walked back out of the line I was in and over to the Hilton Honors desk.  

Since I didn't have a bag meant I didn't have any toiletries.  Or a change of clothes.  I figured that I could get by the next morning with just brushing my teeth before I got back home to do a full cleansing and change of clothes.  I asked the young lady at the front desk if I could get a toothbrush and some toothpaste.  The toothbrush was as close to a throwaway utensil that I have ever seen.  It was so crappy that bristles from the brush were coming off while I brushed my teeth the next morning.  And the toothpaste was in something similar to a ketchup pack you get at a fast food restaurant.  I was glad that I only had to rough it for one night.  

As I was getting settled in my hotel room - which, I thought was sort of tired for a high-end hotel like the Hilton-O'Hare - a  friend of mine had texted me saying that he was stuck in Los Angeles trying to get back to St. Louis, but the snow that was in Denver earlier in the day was now affecting air traffic into Lambert International.  I texted him back and let him know of my ordeal.  He texted back asking me if I was going to rent a car back to Moline.  I told him, no, I would have probably gotten home at 1 a.m. and no one would have been at the Moline airport for me to retrieve my bag.  So, I was just going to stay in Chicago that night.  I felt bad for him.  He didn't get out of Los Angeles until 8:30 Pacific time and he wasn't scheduled to get into St. Louis until close to 2 a.m.  But, at least, I told him that he was going to be able to sleep in his own bed that night.  Not me.  

Spending a Friday night with no change of clothes wasn't my ideal scenario, but I was able to get up on Saturday and get ready with minimal sleep.  For some reason, I'm always apprehensive about flying early in the morning.  I get uptight worrying if I'll miss my alarm, which means I'll miss my flight, which means I'll have another hassle of re-scheduling or re-routing.  I think I had 3 hours of sleep the previous night in Las Vegas and I had - maybe - 4 hours of sleep on Friday night in Chicago.  I was in a veritable haze as I walked back over to the terminal to go through security again and head to the gate.  From the time I left my hotel room to the time I got to my gate, it took me 25 minutes.  I like that when there are no hassles to get through security and to the gate.

The flight to Moline was on time and I got in to the Quad City International Airport around 9:45 a.m.  I went to the baggage claim area and I found my bag behind the locked glass doors of the baggage holding area.  Only there was no one there to open the doors.  The sign on the wall next to the holding area said that I had to go see the agent at the ticket counter.  Well, shit.  

The Quad City airport in Moline is not that large.  I like the fact that I can drive from my home, check in and drop off my checked bag, go through security and be at my gate in less than 45 minutes.  And I still get funky before I have to fly worrying that something will go wrong from my Point A home or hotel departure to my Point B gate.  But, still, the hassle of having to walk all the way down to the United counter to have someone come back and retrieve my bag for me after all I've been through for the previous 24 hours was not what I wanted at the end of my adventure.  

I walked up to the United counter.  There was no one in line to check in and three ticket agents - two ladies and a man - were hanging out and talking.  I immediately went up to the counter and they turned their attention to me.  "I need to pick up my bag in holding," I said.   

One of the ladies said, "Uh, we don't have keys to get in there."  

The other lady said, "Wasn't anyone there?"

I said, "No.  The sign next to the holding area said I had to go to my airline's ticket desk."

The second lady said, "Well, someone should have been there."

At this point, I was about ready to lose my shit.  "You've got to be SHITTING me," I exclaimed.  

The second lady said, "Let me go check.  She should have been there."  And she walked into a back area behind the counter. 

The first lady said, "There should have been somebody there."

I said, "Well, there wasn't."

Then the man said, "If we don't have the key, sir, we can't open the door."

"I realize that," I said in a firm and somewhat angry tone.  "But the sign said to come down here."

"Yes," the man said again in a somewhat snarky tone.  "But we don't have the key."

"Yes, once again," I said as I turned to walk back to the baggage holding area.  "The sign said to come here!"

Now, it was just a two minute walk back to the baggage holding area.  But, to me, it felt like it was an hour walk back.  When I turned the corner, there was a young lady standing at the desk.  I went up to her and she must have gotten a radio call from the United desk wondering where she was and giving her a head's up because there was an asshole coming back to get his bag.  

"Are you the one who needs a bag," she asked as I walked up to the counter with a purposeful look on my face.  I confirmed that, yes, I was the one.  "Which one is yours," she asked.  Well, there were only two in there and I said it was the burgundy bag.  She opened up the glass doors and pulled my bag out of the holding area.  She never asked to see an ID or a tracking number - nothing.  But, I got my bag and I started out to my car.  I was home 20 minutes later and in the shower five minutes after that.  

So, that was my recent trip to Las Vegas and my subsequent adventure getting back home.  It wasn't quite like "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", but it was an aggravating sequence of weather related events that got me home about 21 hours later than I had planned on being home.  Still, it was somewhat nice to get back out to Las Vegas, even though we were stuck in meetings and nighttime events for most of the time we were there.  It's still a fascinating place and a destination that I think every person should experience for a minimum of three days at least once in their life.    

Minnesota Vacationland - 2019

Earlier this summer, my wife and I spent a few days in the Glacial Lakes region in Kandiyohi County in west central Minnesota, about 100 miles west of the Twin Cities.  We had been wanting to go to Minnesota and hang around a lake for sometime, but just never found the opportunity to do so.  But it was on a trip to St. Cloud earlier this year that I discovered that there was a Hampton Inn in Spicer, MN, right on Green Lake, a 5400 acre body of water.  Being the cheap guy that I can be at times, we decided to use some of the points I get from being a Lifetime Hilton Diamond member and spend a few days there.   

After spending our first night in Rochester, MN, we took off on a cross country trip across Southern into West Central Minnesota.  It turned out that with flooding earlier this year, a number of roads along the Minnesota River near and west of Mankato had been closed due to damage.  We ended up having to take a detour in New Ulm, MN that took us into the city.

It was rather fortuitous for us in that we would have never discovered the August Schell Brewery nestled in a small park in New Ulm not far from the banks of the Cottonwood River. (see map)  I've been somewhat familiar with Schell's American Lager for a number of years, but over the past few years they've branched out with a number of different styles of their craft beer.  And Schell's also owns and brews Grain Belt Beer, an Upper Midwest institution.  

We walked around the grounds that featured the original Schell house that cozily sits amongst tall trees and lush terraced gardens.  We found the gift shop and looked around at what they had in there, but we didn't take a tour of the brewery.  We did end up, however, in Schell's beer garden enjoying a couple of their India Pale Ales before we made it back on the road.

The detours probably added 45 to 50 minutes of regular travel time between Mankato and where we ended up in Spicer.  Spicer is located on the western edge of Green Lake.  It's a small town with three or four restaurants, a grocery store, at least three boat dealers, and a large general store - Mel's Sport Shop - that sold everything from clothing to beer to fishing tackle to snacks to guns to gifts to gas.  Mel's had you covered if you needed anything while you were in Spicer.

As I said, we spent our nights at the Hampton Inn in Spicer (see map).  They billed themselves as a resort, but it was really just a newer Hampton Inn, finished in mid-2017.  And it wasn't even on the lakefront.  There were houses and trees in between the hotel and the lake.  From our tiny hotel room (one of the smallest - if not THE smallest - King-bed rooms I've ever been in), we could see slivers of the lake in the far away distance.  

When we checked in, we found ourselves talking to the manager of the property who did a bang-up job of selling us on Spicer and the nearby town of New London.  She talked about all the activities that we could do (they had a couple pontoon boats that we could rent for $250 for 8 hours plus added fees), the shopping in New London, the wonderful restaurants in the area, the great hot breakfast provided free at the hotel, and the peaceful, laid-back atmosphere that brings people to Green Lake.  We found out in a couple days that she really oversold some of the activities and the charm of Spicer and New London.  And the free hot breakfast was nothing more than a standard Hampton Inn breakfast of scrambled eggs, cheese omelets and turkey sausage.  But one thing she didn't oversell was the laid back nature of the Green Lake area.  

Green Lake is a large, island-less lake that had crystal clear water and little shoreline vegetation.  Because Spicer didn't have many - if any - tourist-type places that catered to little kids, there was a distinct lack of screaming little turds around the streets, parks and beaches along the lake.  It could have been that we were there during the week, also after a large Fourth of July celebration the city of Spicer puts on annually.  But it was peaceful, restful and laid-back.  

We spent much of our time on a deck at a city park in Spicer looking out over the lake.  It was a couple blocks from our hotel and it was just fabulous sitting there with a book or an iPad catching up on our reading.  Or just sitting there looking out onto the lake hearing the geese honk or the loons cry in the distance.  Since our room was so small, we couldn't wait to get out of there each morning.  We walked along Lake Ave. up to Skyline Dr. nearly every morning (we woke up to rain one morning) and stopped at the deck at the park to enjoy the light morning breeze and the warm summer sun.  Other than a day or so of rain, the weather was picture perfect with highs in the low 80's with low humidities.  

This was the view from the deck at Pirotta Park in Spicer as we sat in one of their wonderful swinging rocker chairs.  Many times we were the only people on the deck.  It was our own little slice of heaven.

We took a drive around Green Lake our first night there and we couldn't believe the number of homes for sale along the lake.  We were talking with a couple who we met at a brewpub in New London one evening - they recognized us from the previous evening as we were sitting outside a beachfront restaurant in Spicer enjoying mai tais while staring out at the lake - and they had a vacation house on the lake.  We asked them about the number of houses for sale around the lake - it was my wife's estimation that nearly a 1/3 of the homes around the lake's 12 mile plus loop were for sale.  I thought it was, maybe, 1 out of every four houses.  But we did see a number of homes in a row that were for sale at different places around the lake.  

The guy told us that many of the houses are owned by both people from the Twin Cities and by farmers in the area.  With the uncertainty of farm markets going on with trade wars with China, he explained to us that many of the houses were owned by farmers who couldn't afford to keep the lake homes.  "But you're right," he said to me.  "There's a lot of houses for sale."

He also mentioned that a number of other homes owned by people from the Twin Cities go up for sale annually.  "It's a 100 miles from the center of the Twin Cities out here," he was saying as we talked at the brewpub.  "And it's not an easy 100 mile drive from the cities.  People get a house out here, find out that they only use it two or three times a year, then realize that it's stupid to have a lake home so far from the city.  Then they end up selling it, usually to someone else from the Twin Cities who then realizes after three years that he doesn't use it enough."

The one other thing that I didn't see around Green Lake were resorts.  In fact, there was only one or two places that billed themselves as resorts, but they were nothing more than glorified campgrounds for people who wanted to put camper trailers on the grounds for the summer months.  I was told that over 30 years ago there were over 20 resorts on the lake.  The last one closed last year - Spicer Castle, a 15 room, 1 cabin bed-and-breakfast that was built in 1895 by Spicer's founder, John Spicer.  There were no supper clubs in the area, no large campgrounds, no real attractions.  If you were looking for a place to veg out and do nothing, Spicer was the place.  

The one day it rained, we decided to head up to New London and check out the place.  The lady at the hotel made it sound like New London was a destination that rivaled the likes of Galena, IL with its charming shops, restaurants and brewpub.  It was far from that.  After driving down the main street of the small town (about the size of Spicer), my wife and I sort of looked at one another and thought, "This is it? This is all there is to New London?"  We didn't get out of the car that day, but we did go back another day when it was nicer and walked the three or four blocks that make up the downtown retail area.  Most of the shops were geared toward seasonal tourists - tourists with a lot of money.  My wife wound up shaking her head in dismay and disbelief after leaving the last shop we were in that morning.  

What New London did have - in addition to a great brewpub with an attached farm-to-fork restaurant that I'll be writing about at a later date - was a number of lakes chained together by the middle fork of the Crow River.  One afternoon, we found a park with a long curving lake by it and we watched an instructor for a local ski club pull some young skiers - we surmised that they were not even teenagers yet - up and down the lake with a ski boat.  They were actually quite entertaining to watch.  There was a grandstand on the shore near us and a ski jump ramp in the lake and it was my guess that the ski club put on shows there.  (The kids didn't use the ski jump ramp.)  I think we sat there for over an hour, not only watching them but enjoying the cool shade along the lake.  

Outside of New London was Sibley State Park, a 2900 acre park that featured nature trails, camping, an interpretive center, and a handful of small lakes including a beach at the largest, Lake Andrew.  The centerpiece of Sibley State Park was a viewing tower on the top of Mount Tom.  We drove up through a tree-shrouded lane to a parking lot near the viewing tower.  It was a short hike up a trail, then a few steps up the tower gave us a 360 degree view of a 50 mile radius around the park.   My wife, who is very skittish with towers, was able to get up the sturdy steps and take a look at the surrounding area with me.  

We had passed a winery on our way between Spicer and New London a few times on our back-and-forth's between the two towns.  We decided to stop in one afternoon and check the place out - Glacial Ridge Winery.  Owner Ron Wothe was in the tasting room and we sat down to give some of his wines a taste.  He explained to us that he has many of his grapes shipped in from Northern California and he makes the wine there.  

He had two whites and five reds to sample that day.  Two of the wines - a wonderful white American Vermintino by the name of Bacio, and a velvety lightly oaked cabernet by the name of Green Lake Girl - were definitely head and shoulders above the others.  We liked the Bacio wine so much that we bought a couple bottles to take home for our next door neighbor lady who was doing her best not to let our plants and flowers die while we were away.  

Glacial Ridge also hosts a summer concert series and they were setting up for that evening's show while we were there.  Ron Wothe told us that they had been rained out of the previously scheduled events.  "It's been a bad spring and early summer up here," he said as he watched some of the band members set up on the small stage in the orchard across the parking lot from the winery.  "We could have 300 people out here later tonight," he said before inviting us to come back.  We did drive by going up for a beer at the New London brewpub and a large number of cars were parked along the line going to the winery and far down the road that gets you to the entrance of the lane.  I'm guessing he had a good night that evening.   

On the rainy day, we did drive down to Willmar - 10 miles from Spicer - to check out the largest town in the area.  Here's a road tip - there's NOTHING in Willmar.  I mean, nothing.  We did find a pretty good restaurant on a picturesque golf course that I'll let you know about at a later date, but that was about it.  The couple we met at the brewpub in New London that week were from Willmar and even THEY said there was nothing in Willmar.  

And one day, we decided to make the 50 minute trip up to St. Cloud to have lunch and look around.  After lunch at the White Horse Restaurant in downtown St. Cloud (click here to see the original Road Tips entry on the White Horse), we ventured over toward the campus of St. Cloud State University and went over the Mississippi River to find a wonderful botanical garden - the Munsinger Gardens part of the Munsinger/Clemons Botanical Society based in St. Cloud.   

The garden was one of the best ones we've found in our travels - and that even includes going to botanical gardens in Hawaii.  It featured bricked walkways that went through all different types of flower and plants - both annuals and perennials.  The botanical garden had a number of fountains that were centerpieces of different sections of the property.  Down the hill from the botanical garden was a tree-laden park that went along the Mississippi River.  We dodged off-and-on rain drops as we walked through both the garden and park that day.

My wife and I were especially interested in the rose garden they had at the Munsinger Gardens.  However, a tough winter and cold spring took its toll on many of the rose bushes and they were in the midst of replanting many of the roses when we were there.  One of the many workers at the garden told us that the combination of heavy snow cover, then a cold snap in early May damaged many of the rose bushes.  We were sort of disappointed because this was a large rose garden and we wanted to get a peek at some roses we may want to put in our garden at home.  But only a handful were blooming.  

So, that's a quick synopsis of our laid-back, veg-out, do nothing vacation.  Well, we actually did some things, but for the most part we hung out when we could.  We spent about an hour of our last morning in Spicer sitting on the deck at Pirotta Park looking out at the peaceful water on Green Lake.  It was really tough to leave Spicer and it was almost a culture shock when we stayed in downtown Minneapolis that evening with all the hustle and bustle compared to calm and quiet of Spicer.  We would have no problem heading back to chill at Spicer and to hang out in the great little brewpub in New London that I'll write about sometime very soon.  

How to Lose Over 50 Pounds as a Food Blogger

No, this isn't what I really look like these days.  But if the title of this blog post didn't get your attention, I thought the picture might.  (Photo courtesy The World's Greatest Physiques)

One of the battles most food and restaurant bloggers must endure is the inevitable weight gain - especially if you lead a sedentary lifestyle like I've had for so many years.  Being on the road and trying out new places to eat - and subsequently blog about - has been a fun little hobby of mine for the past 13+ years.  But as time went on and my age started to advance, my body doesn't process food like it did 30 years ago.  The next thing you know, you're standing on a scale and saying, "Holy shit!"  And it's not an unexpectedly pleasantly surprised "Holy shit!" like when you find $50 bucks in a coat pocket.

However, over the past six months I've taken it upon myself to somewhat change my lifestyle without sacrificing certain things that I really like.  And earlier this month, I hit a milestone of losing 50 pounds since July 1.  I still had another 25 pounds to go to achieve my goal of losing 75 pounds - and I'm on my way as I've passed 50 pounds and counting.  

Now, I'm not looking for congratulations or well-wishing sentiments, I just wanted to let you know that it can be done.  If you want to learn more about how I did it, read on.  If not, well, have a Happy New Year.  

OK, so what did you do?

It all started last June when I went in to get a check-up with my new doctor.  My previous doctor had retired almost two years ago, but I would see him out and around from time to time at the grocery store or at live music events.  I always liked him - after most of my check-ups he would say, "For the shape you're in, you're in great shape!"

Running into him earlier this year and having a quick chat about my health, he encouraged me to reach out to his replacement - a female doctor - to have her do a check-up on me.  I was a little apprehensive about seeing a lady doctor, but he spoke glowingly of her abilities as he personally hand-picked her to take over his part of the practice.

When I inquired with the doctor's office about getting in to see her, I was informed that she may - or may not - agree to take me on as a patient.  I had known the receptionist at the practice for a number of years and I asked just what did that mean.  She basically said, "She had her own patients at her old office and many of them followed her over here.  She took on some of your former doctor's patients, but not all."  Then she told me that I had to come in, fill out a form and a questionnaire before the new doctor would even consider taking me on as a patient.  

Filling out the form and the questionnaire brought me back to my days of searching for jobs just out of college.  I forgot how much of a pain in the ass it really was to try and be sincere and forthcoming for what turned out to be essay question-style answers for my prior health history.  However, it must have worked as I got a phone call from the office later in the day saying the doctor would agree to take me on as a patient.

After jumping through that hoop, I finally got in to see the doctor in early June of this year.  She was a very nice lady, outgoing and full of energy with a quick laugh and an easy-going demeanor.  I immediately liked her. She ordered tests for me - blood tests and a visit to the heart center for a stress test.  Oh boy...

I went and had blood drawn and the results came back a week later.  I was told that I needed to come into the office to discuss the findings.  I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and hyperglycemia.  My A1C was at 6.3 - the cut off for Type 2 diabetes is 6.1, so it wasn't that bad, but it was still bad.  And my blood sugar levels were at 141 - they say you're hyperglycemic at 130.  The nurse who was going over the results with me said that I had to start taking medication for the diabetes - Metformin.   I asked the nurse, "Well, how long will I have to take the diabetes medicine."  

She looked at me with a frank stare on her face and said, "Well, the rest of your life."  

Wait a minute...

I've read stories where people have basically dieted and exercised their way out of Type 2 diabetes.  Maybe I could do that!  But with my lifestyle, I knew some changes would have to occur.  

Now, for years, my wife has been praying for the moment would come when I would get "the wake-up call".  My idea of what she thought "the wake-up call" would be me on a gurney in an ambulance after a heart attack or stroke.  Actually, I don't think she thought of anything that extreme.  Well, then again...

She thought I would have "the wake-up call" 10 years ago when they did an angiogram on me to see if I had any blockage in my arteries after the results of a stress test (done before I had my hips replaced) showed that there may be something in there.  However, I came out of that with flying colors - so much so that it sort of pissed off my wife because I know she wanted to say to the doctor, "I've seen what this guy eats!"  She thought the angiogram would find a double cheeseburger in one artery, a chili dog in another, a stick of butter in another artery, so on and so on.  But the doctor said that there was minimal plaque build-up in my arteries - especially for my age - and I went out to celebrate the next day by having a cheeseburger.  

While I didn't quite take the diagnosis of having Type 2 diabetes as my personal wake-up call, I did have to think about what I needed to do to change my diet.  We looked at a number of different types of diets and the foods you could have and the foods you couldn't.  Bread was a no-no - that would be a killer for me.  Even more so, milk was out of the picture - an even bigger killer for me as I drank a LOT of milk.  (If I were home for three or four days, I could easily drink a gallon of milk.)  Oh, yeah, and those delicious Hy-Vee chocolate chip cookies and the cream-filled maple long johns from Kwik St★r had to go off my rotation.  There were other foods that were deemed bad, but with all the diets we looked at - about five or six total - there were some that contradicted the others as to what was good for you and what was bad for you.  

But there was one "good" food that was consistent on each and every one of the diets that we saw...

Kale.

Now, my wife is big on kale and she makes kale smoothies, kale burgers, kale chips, kale cookies, kale-fried steaks, kale pesto, kale stir fry, scrambled kale, kale sticks with a side of kale tartar.  OK, it's not like that, but she's been extolling the virtue of kale for a number of years.  

I've tried kale.  I don't like kale.  I like cheeseburgers.  

Actually, before I get into the diet, let's talk about the stress test.  

When I had my previous stress test before I had my hips replaced nearly a decade ago, they pumped me up with adrenaline to be able to achieve the target heart rate.  That was because they were worried that my hips were so bad that I wouldn't be able to walk on a treadmill.  This time - with good hips - they wanted me to walk on a treadmill.  

I don't walk much - at least I didn't up to that point.  The most walking I did around home was mowing the lawn, or walking out to the garage to pull a cold one out of the beer fridge.  Actually, that's probably the most walking I get when I'm at home is going to the garage and back - a distance of 20 feet one way.  So, I got to thinking - I didn't want to keel over on the treadmill when I'm doing the stress test.  I told my wife about a three days before the stress test that I needed to go find a hill to go up to make sure that I wouldn't do a face plant during my test.  

We have a hill not far from our house that is long with a gradual incline.  We took off on a beautiful summer morning starting the walk by going down a long sloping grade near our house, walking around the neighborhood on a flat plain, then starting up the long hill that had a pretty good gradient on the climb.  As I'm huffing and puffing, sucking in air and wheezing, my wife is walking along like she's out for a neighborly stroll.  "Oh, look at how they have the flowers up by their house," she said pointing to a house along the route.  Or, it was, "Oh, what a great idea for putting hosta plants around that tree!"  Finally, I had to tell her that I was out for a walk and not sight-seeing around the neighborhood.  We can drive around and do that.  

Well, I made it - both days that we walked that hill.  I was confident that I wouldn't die on the treadmill.  I went in for the test at the heart center, my targeted heart rate was 134 beats a minute.  I got up to 136 beats a minute before they said I could stop.  My cool down period went great.  The two people who administered the test were very complimentary of the preliminary results and said that by their determination I passed with flying colors.

However, I got a call from doctor's office - from the same nurse who told me that I would be Type 2 diabetic for the rest of my life - and she told me that I had been diagnosed with having peripheral arterial disease.  Well, what's that?  It's a narrowing of the arteries, especially in the legs, probably from not enough exercise.  And because of that, I had to go see a cardiologist.  

I didn't have a regular cardiologist, so they made an appointment for me with one.  He was a young guy of Eastern Indian descent, a very nice and personable guy who, I deemed, knew his stuff.  He was looking over the chart on his computer and he said, "I see that you cut off your stress test after 4 minutes and 57 seconds.  Couldn't you go any longer?"  I told him, no, that I had achieved - and actually passed - my target heart rate.  He said in a somewhat surprised manner, "Oh! OK..."   And went back to looking at the chart.  He said my blood pressure was high, but other than that, he really didn't see why I was in there.  I told him, "Well, I was told that I have peripheral arterial disease."  

He said, "Everyone over the age of 50 has some sort of peripheral artery disease."  He just sort of brushed off my doctor's findings from the stress test.  He prescribed some blood pressure medication and that was pretty much about that.  

Finding the right diet proved to be somewhat tricky.

The diet aspect of things was one of those where there is no right answer with all the diets available.  I started out trying the Keto diet - an account of mine had lost over 75 pounds on the Keto diet.  But our neighbor lady - who is big into supplements - was horrified to learn that I was on that diet.  "Oh, that's horrible for your body," she exclaimed as were chatting over the fence in early July.  I had already lost about 10 pounds on that.  

But I was feeling rather funky on the Keto diet.  It was burning up the fat and carbs, but my body was feeling strange.  After seeing a segment on diets on The Today Show not long after that, I adopted a modified Keto diet that allowed me to add small amounts of carbs to the diet.  I felt much better after doing that.  But the key was maintaining a much lower consumption of food.  Watching the food intake made a huge difference.  

I read about another diet this past summer that had been adopted by a number of professional athletes - the OMAD diet.  OMAD stands for One Meal a Day and it basically says that if you eat all and anything you want once a day, it will help you lose weight.  This extreme fasting has its proponents and detractors, but I started to do it for a couple three weeks.  And it worked for me.  But getting to the point where having the one meal a day was sort of tricky.  

Prior to going on the OMAD diet, I felt I needed to have three square meals a day on the road - especially if my company was going to pay for it.  Now, my wife is also a subscriber of three squares a day and is also big on a variety offering of meats and vegetables or starches for evening meals.  Once I started in on the diet, however, I found that I could easily cut one meal out of the mix during the day.  I had to convince my wife that if I wasn't hungry, don't force me to eat.  "I don't care if you're not hungry," she would say, channeling her grandmother.  "You still need to eat something."  Well, no, not really.  Once she realized that I couldn't be badgered into eating if I wasn't hungry, she pretty much left me alone on that point.  And it wasn't long before I was down to having one large meal a day.  And I was losing weight.  

But exercise was also a big part of the puzzle.  

We have a number of great places to walk along the Mississippi River in the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois.  My wife and I started to walk three or four times a week, up to two miles at a time.  I would take breaks during the course of the day in the office and go out for long, circuitous walks around our neighborhood.  I felt stronger in the legs and the shortness in breath that I experienced early on in the process was slowly going away.  

By the end of August, I was down 30 pounds.  When I went back in for a 3 month blood test and subsequent follow-up with my doctor, my A1C had dropped to 5.7 - still not where she wanted me to be as it was just outside of the 4.5 to 5.6 A1C levels for Type 2 diabetes.  But my blood sugar was also down - 108.  She wanted me to be down between 70 and 90 for blood sugar levels.   (Spoiler alert - I got there.)  And I had dropped 35 pounds since my visit in June.  She said, "Whatever you're doing, keep it up!"  

Now, let me tell you another story that is sort of a ridiculous sideline to what I was going through with being diagnosed as being a Type 2 diabetic...

Federal guidelines for minimum healthy blood pressure readings, blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels, even obesity charts have dropped over the past couple three years.   Even if I were to lose 75 pounds, at my height and subsequent weight I would still be considered as obese by the Federal Government.  My friend, a pharmacist, told me that they recently dropped what are deemed the minimum levels of healthy blood sugar in your system from something like 120 to 90.  When I was told that I had Type 2 diabetes, I was told that I had to go into diabetic protocols that included having to go to a diabetic health coach, then have a separate meeting with a nutritionist.  

When a lady with the diabetes clinic that is connected with my doctor's practice called to set up appointments for me in June, I was told that because of the sudden number of people diagnosed as being Type 2 diabetic had swelled recently.  And it had something to do with the new government guidelines.  The lady told me that it would be late August before I would be able to see the health coach - over two months away!  And it would be sometime in mid-September before I could get in and see a nutritionist!  

As I lost weight in July and August, by the time I had to go in and see the health coach, I was down 30 pounds.  And I knew what was going to happen - I was going to get yelled at that I was a no-good so-and-so for letting my health deteriorate over the years and that I was going straight to hell for being a Type 2 diabetic.  Well, maybe not like that, but I could see - and feel - that I was on my way to righting the ship, health-wise.  

The day to go see the diabetes health coach came up and I reluctantly went over to the office after waffling back and forth about even going in the first place.  I still wasn't certain I was even going in when I pulled into the parking lot.  Sucking it up and heading in, I followed a somewhat attractive 30-something lady into the office thinking that she was probably a drug rep or something like that.  Nope, she was there to see the health coach, as well.  I guess that diabetes affects the in-shape as well as the out-of-shape.  

I had to give my drivers license and my insurance card to the receptionist who, in turn, gave me a three page questionnaire that I needed to fill out before I saw the health coach.  It was filled with questions like, "Who makes the menu decisions at your home?"  Or, "Who does the grocery shopping in your family?"  I could easily see where this was going after about 8 or 9 questions - and that didn't even encompass all the questions on the first page!  I got to the second page, read a couple more questions and those two little words popped up in my head - F*** it.  I thought to my myself, "There is NO f-ing WAY that I am going to go through with this."  I went back up to the receptionist desk, placed the clipboard with the questionnaire on the counter and said, "Nope, I'm not gonna do this.  I'll take my license and insurance card, please."  

She sort of feebly said, "Ooooh-kay, then" and handed me my cards.  I left, completely fuming over the whole ordeal.  

Later in the day, a friend of mine - who had dieted HIMSELF out of Type 2 diabetes three or four years ago - came over to the house and I told him of what I had been through.  He was standing there with a big grin on his face as I was recounting the story of blowing off the diabetes health coach earlier in the day and how I was definitely not going to see the nutritionist in a couple weeks.  

He said, "Man, I hear you.  You made the right call."  He said that the diabetes health coach basically lectured him about critical lifestyle changes making him feel like he had been called to the principal's office.  And he said that he and his wife had both gone to the nutritionist and he said that wasn't quite the waste of time seeing the diabetic health coach was, but it was information that he and his wife knew about the type of diet he needed to be on to help with his diabetes.  I viewed this little part of the whole story as nothing but an insurance money grab by a cadre of health professionals and was completely unnecessary.  At least, for me.  Others, it may have been very helpful.  But I knew I was on the right track by doing what I was doing. 

I suddenly realized that my body was getting smaller and I was slimming out of most of my clothes.  

At my weight before I started on the diet, dropping 35 pounds was not as noticeable because I was so big to begin with.  I made a point not to discuss how much weight I had lost in passing conversation with people other than family and close friends as I wanted to see if some people noticed.  Some people did - especially European colleagues who saw me at a trade show in San Diego in early September.  But many people did not.  However, once I got toward the 50 pounds down milestone, a lot more people began to notice.

With the weight loss brings a whole new set of problems - suddenly I have a closet full of clothes that are too big on me.  My old jeans looked like clown pants because I had basically dropped 3 sizes.  After wearing some way-too-big black jeans at the trade show in September, I had to go out and buy new casual dress pants at Duluth Trading so I'd have some something to wear for semi-dress up functions.  I kept taking a couple of my belts to the shoe repair shop so he could put more holes in them as I kept losing inches around my waist.  After getting down to the 9th notch with the end of the belts flopping about as they were clearly too long for me, I decided to go out and get new belts.  My wife talked me into getting one size of belt - I thought I needed a smaller size.  I'm now down to the last notch on those belts I bought two months ago.  

Not only have I dropped a significant amount of size around my waist, I've also found that my fingers have gotten more skinny.  So much so that I can't wear my wedding band any longer.  Well, I can, but it keeps falling off.  After it slipped off in a restaurant in late November - and I had to climb under a table to retrieve it - my wife told me to take it off and keep it off until I hit my target weight and then we'll have it re-sized.  It's currently sitting in her jewelry box patiently waiting to be worn again at some point.  

Shirts that I had grown out of years ago or were bought for me that were too small suddenly fit.  And even some of those are now too big on me.  My wife bought me a couple of UNTUCKit dress shirts for Christmas last year.  They were little too tight on me, but still wearable.  Now, they're really too big on me.  And that's a shame because I love the shirts.  (As an aside - she got me four more UNTUCKit shirts for Christmas this year in a smaller size.  Once again, they're a little tight on me, but they're a good incentive for me to continue to lose more weight.)  

I had bought a number of polo shirts and some pullover V-neck sweaters earlier this year that were on sale at JC Penney.  They were all a little tight - especially around the middle.  The sweaters fit almost perfectly today and I'm worried that come Spring the polo shirts will be hanging on me.  

I finally had to go and buy a couple pair of jeans earlier this month.  I'm not kidding you - one pair is already too big on me.  The other pair - made out of a different type of denim material - fit a little snug, but are still wearable.  The great thing about all this - I'm no longer buying from the Big & Tall section at Penney's.  Off the rack is so much easier to find stuff to wear.  And my long range goal in life is to never have to walk into a DXL ever again.

A dealer of mine gave me one of his company polo shirts to wear about 8 years ago.  I was really never able to wear it.  That is, until I tried it on this past August.  Good friends of ours got me a great Hawaiian shirt about 6 years ago.  It's always been way too small.  Today, I can button all the buttons, but it's still a little tight around the waist.  Once I can fully fit in that shirt, I'll be more than happy.

I have a dealer in Springfield, MO who dropped over 100 pounds about 10 years ago.  He noticed that I had lost weight when I saw him in October - I was down about 40 pounds at that point - and he asked what my goal was.  I told him that I wanted to get to 75 down and possibly see if I can drop even more from there.  His advice to me was, "Once you hit your target weight, wait six months before you go out and replenish your wardrobe."  He said that too many people hit their target weight and then gain much of it back.  

But I think I can maintain the weight I will ultimately lose.  I've been at the same weight - plus or minus five pounds - for about the previous six years before I started to lose all this weight.  

I continue to go in the right direction.

I just went in for a three month blood test a couple weeks ago and got the results from my doctor.  I have basically dieted and exercised myself out of being a Type 2 diabetic.  My A1C was at 5.4 - within the range of what they want to see (readings of 4.5 to 5.6).  My blood sugar - that day, for whatever reason - was at 98, but I tested myself before I went in and I was at 79.  I've been consistently under 90 for the past few weeks with occasional spikes just over 100, but those don't last.  My doctor took me off Metformin, but I'm continuing on the blood pressure medication as that's still a little high.  She said that from the time I first came in last June to earlier this month, her scale had me down 56 pounds.  I'll take that.  

When I recounted to my doctor that her nurse told me that I would have to be on Metformin for the rest of my life, she said, "That's because 99% of the people who come in here and get diagnosed with diabetes will just go home and not do anything about it.  We're kind of programmed to tell the vast majority of our patients that they'll need medication for life.   You are a one-percenter, and a one-percenter in a good way!"  

People ask me, "Do you feel better?"  Well, I feel different.  I feel better about myself.  I'm not so hesitant on having my picture taken and I will look at myself in the mirror more than I did.  I notice that I can get out of chairs more easily.  I can actually bend over and tie my shoes or pick up a good luck heads-up penny from the ground.  My joints - especially my knees - don't hurt as much.  And when I stand on the scale these days, I find myself exclaiming, "Holy shit!" in a pleasantly surprised kind of way as I've not seen numbers that low on there in a number of years.  

But one thing I've really noticed - I get cold much more easily.  I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the thermostat over the past few weeks and wondered if my wife had turned down the temperature.  Nope - it's sitting at 70 degrees, just like always.  I'm usually warm when I sleep - I like my bedroom cool at night - but I've been putting an extra blanket over me.  My wife says it's because I don't have as much insulation as I did.  She's probably right.   

A couple weeks ago, I had to replenish the salt in our water softener.  I picked up four-50 pound bags from Costco and as I was lugging one of the bags down the stairs to our basement, I thought out loud, "Wow!  This is about how much weight I've dropped!"  It was certainly an eye-opening realization for me.  

The weight is coming off slower as the colder weather has come on and I haven't been out walking as much as I had earlier in the year.  But we've dusted off the elliptical machine and I've started to use that on a limited basis trying to get up to speed again.  I have no doubt that I'll lose the 75 pounds I want to lose and I'll re-evaluate if I'd like to lose more once I get there.  

Oh!  The one sacrifice that I didn't make in my diet?  

Beer.  The hell of all this is - had I quit drinking beer, I'd probably be damn close to 75 pounds down by now.  I mean, I still have an occasional cheeseburger or share a small pizza with my wife every once in a while, but beer has remained a constant in my life over the past six months.  

But, I figure the way I'm going, 75 pounds down can wait a little while longer.  

Colorado - 2018

My wife and I took a recent trip to Colorado for vacation.  We had discussed a number of things including a baseball trip to watch Major League Baseball games in St. Louis, Atlanta and Cincinnati; a trip to Louisiana; or going back out to Colorado for a few days.  In the end, the Colorado won out for a various number of reasons.  

After a trip across Iowa and Nebraska, we stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming to check out a brewpub there that was in the old Cheyenne Depot.  The depot also housed a museum that depicted the ties between Cheyenne's growth and the railroad that brought people to the west.  The Union Pacific still has a large working yard next door to the old depot.  

After having a couple beers and a bite at the Accomplice Beer Company (you'll read about A.B.C. in a future Road Tips post), we drove down the street to see the Wyoming State Capitol Building in Cheyenne.  When I was five years old, I could tell you the capital city of every state in the union.  My parents would parade me out in front of their friends when they would host people at our house and tell them to ask me what the capital of Vermont was, or the capital of Montana.  (Montpelier and Helena, respectively.)  So, I've been a bit of a geek for state capitals and their capitol buildings for years.  Wyoming's state capitol was the 20th state capitol building I've seen.  Unfortunately, the state capitol building in Cheyenne was undergoing an extensive external renovation and was shrouded in tarps.  Streets around the capitol building were also shut down due to construction.  

From Cheyenne, we made the short (45 minutes) drive down to Fort Collins, CO.  We had friends who talked highly of Fort Collins, especially the number of brew pubs they had in the area.  We got into town right at the tail end of the annual Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest, a three-day music festival across downtown Fort Collins that features a number of Colorado-based musicians and bands.  (Although Blondie headlined the festival on Saturday night and I said to my wife that I didn't know Deborah Harry had moved to Colorado.)   We walked up to the main stage just in time to hear the Sunday headliner The Decemberists, an indie-rock band from Portland, OR, finish up their show.  

We spent time in some of Fort Collins' very good brewpubs and taprooms, but we were not as enamored with Fort Collins as we thought we would be.  The breweries are all spread out in Fort Collins and not within walking distance like we found during our visit to Asheville, NC.  Many of them were very good, but having to get in a car and navigate around the city to the next one was not what we expected to do.  We did spend some time in the Colorado State Trial Flower Gardens (pictured above right) looking over various annual flowers and plants that the botanical department at Colorado State University plants each year to test different varieties of annual plants.

After spending a couple three days in Fort Collins, we were sort of wondering where to go next.  We were talking with a young woman who waited on us at one of the brewpubs and she suggested that we head up to Steamboat Springs, approximately a two-and-a-half hour drive from Fort Collins.  We really wished we had spent a longer time in Steamboat Springs as it was the type of place that we both really liked - laid back, off-the-beaten path, friendly people, good restaurants, great brewpubs and just a wonderful peaceful vibe to the area.  We stayed at a hotel near the banks of the Yampa River and we spent our mornings walking the beautiful trail along the river.  Steamboat Springs immediately became our most favorite place in Colorado.  

One of the things that my wife was hell-bent on doing during our trip to Colorado was to spend times in a natural hot springs bath.  There were two in the Steamboat Springs area - the Old Town Hot Springs, a sort of combo hot springs/health club/athletic center in downtown Steamboat Springs; and the Strawberry Park Hot Springs located about six miles outside of Steamboat Springs.  The guy at the front desk at our hotel was very cautionary to us - "The road out there turns into a mountain dirt road with some ruts and such.  But if you go slow, you can make it.  Oh!  And it's clothing optional after sunset."  We weren't planning on being out there after sunset, so that was no problem.  My wife was sold on going out to Strawberry Park for her natural hot springs session.  

Nestled at 7500 feet above sea level in the mountains north of Steamboat Springs (see map), Strawberry Park has been there for a number of years.  It consisted of a couple of main pools where the water temperature was at 101°(F), and a smaller pool where the temperature was at a balmy 106°(F).  The steamy babbling brook coming out of the mountain went into a cooling area and then sent into the pools.  (There was a third pool up toward where the hot springs came out of the mountain, but it appeared that it was closed off possibly because it was too hot.)  

It cost $15 a person to use the pools - and even though I was just going to hang by the pool and read while my wife used the pools, I still had to pay $15 bucks.  But it was worth it.  It was - by far - the most relaxing aspect of our vacation.  Water trickled from pool to pool and continued on to a new pool that was being constructed on the north end of the property.  I could have stayed there all day (no food or drinks are allowed by the pools), but my wife decided that she had enough after being in and out of the pools numerous times over a two-and-a-half hour period.  (Here's a tip from my wife if you go - wear an old bathing suit.  The sulphur in the water and the algae from the rocks in the pool stain your clothing.)  

Also north of Steamboat Springs were two state parks that were about a 45 minute drive from the city - Pearl Lake State Park and Steamboat Lake State Park.  Pearl Lake State Park was the more primitive of the two state parks with a couple of small, non-electric campgrounds that overlooked the lake.  (The photo at the top of this blog post is Pearl Lake.)  Pearl Lake had a handful of kayakers and paddle-boarders on the lake and it was also a wonderfully laid back place.  Steamboat Lake was much more modern with a welcome station and larger campgrounds that featured electrical and non-electrical hook-ups.  Steamboat Lake was literally in the shadow of Hahn's Peak, one of the taller mountains on the northern end of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.  

      After an all-too-short stay in Steamboat Springs, we headed down to Breckenridge.  We took the backroads down through the Colorado River valley to Interstate 70 and up to Breckenridge.  The drive on State Highway 131 through the high plains and valleys of western Colorado featured a number of magnificent vistas.  We were anywhere from 5000 to 8000 feet above sea level along the route and we went through a number of small towns before hooking up with Interstate 70 near the town of Eagle, CO.  By the time we had gotten to Interstate 70, the weather had gotten cloudy and cool.

We pulled into Breckenridge around 2 p.m., and as we drove down the main drag of the small ski town it reminded us of Gatlinburg, TN - only wearing a fur coat and a leather cowboy hat.  There were a number of shops and small restaurants that catered to tourists.  Breckenridge had much more of a commercial feel to it than Steamboat Springs.  Brewpubs were also scarce - we did go to the original Breckenridge Brewery (there will be a future post on that, as well), but walking the main street of Breckenridge showed us nothing more than boutique clothing shops, toy stores, and ski shops.  One pass up and down the street left us pretty numb.  

Above is our "alpine" view from our hotel balcony of the mountains to the east of Breckenridge.  It was a very nice town, but even with it not being ski season the place was swarmed with a lot of people.  We were very happy to leave Breckenridge the next day.  

But one of the main reasons we wanted to go to Breckenridge was to drive from there down to Colorado Springs.  One of my accounts told me before we left to go to Colorado that the drive from Breckenridge to Colorado Springs across the Continental Divide, down through the high plains of South Park, and across the Wilkerson Pass down to Colorado Springs was one of the most breathtaking drives he'd ever been on.  "It's probably a two-and-a-half hour drive, normally," he told me.  "But by the time you stop every 10 minutes or so to see something along the way, it could end up being close to 4 hours."  I think I had to talk my wife into this route considering that she really wanted to go back to Colorado Springs on our trip.  

We took Colorado State Highway 9 south out of Breckenridge around 8:30 in the morning and headed down the road.  We started out at 9600 feet above sea level when we were in Breckenridge and the altitude indicator on my GPS immediately began to go up.  In fact, there was a time where it seemed like we were actually going down on a grade, but the altimeter on my GPS was going up!  It wasn't long before we passed 10,560 feet - exactly two miles above sea level.  There were a number of switchbacks with turnouts that allowed us to stop to let traffic pass and to get some pretty nice shots along the way.  

We crossed the Continental Divide at Hoosier Pass at an altitude of just over 11,500 feet.  Hoosier Pass is named for  the nearby gulch where men from Indiana were living in a placer camp panning for gold in the late 1850's and early 1860's.  And like a handful turn-out areas in the mountains, Hoosier Pass was the trailhead for a couple three hiking paths that went up further into the mountains.  

Leaving there, we wound down the mountain toward Alma, dubbed as the highest incorporated city in the nation.  At 10,335 feet above sea level, Alma is at the start of South Park, the high plains region of southern Park County consisting of flat lands between mountains with peaks of up to 14,000 feet.  (South Park, Colorado bears little resemblance to the television show South Park, although Alma did have a wooden cutout of the characters from the TV show where people could place their faces in the holes for pictures.)  

My wife was completely enamored with the nearly tree-less, flat terrain along both Colorado State Highway 9 and then after we turned on to U.S. Highway 24 at Hartsel, CO.  She was even more enamored with the dozens of camper trailers that just seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere on both sides of Highway 24 as we worked our way up to the Wilkerson Pass.  My wife wondered aloud many times as we drove southeast on the highway how people could live out there like that.  When we stopped at the visitor center at Wilkerson Pass, she had to ask the lady working the desk what all the campers were all about sitting out in the middle of nowhere with no trees around.  

Turns out they aren't squatters - the first thing she assured my wife - but merely people who have acquired 10 to 40 acres of land at a pretty cheap price.  She told us that they'll put campers on the property and they'll come out and stay over the weekend or for vacations.  The people supposedly have two years before they have to do something with the land - like build a house on it - or they have to sell it or they lose it.  She also told us a couple of other things about Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak that we found out later on weren't true, or her facts were twisted, so we don't know if we know the real story about the campers on the land.

After a stop at Lake George to go to a gem and rock show that my wife wanted to go to after we drove by, we wound our way down the mountains and around Pikes Peak to Manitou Springs where we got off U.S. Highway 24 to go to the Garden of the Gods.  We had been there before five years ago and my wife liked it so much that she really wanted to go back.  However, the place was packed with people of all ages and many nationalities.  We had hoped to have a leisurely walk around the towering jagged sandstone formations that rose over 300 feet above the base.  But with a ton of little kids - many of whom were probably wondering why the hell why their parents drug them there in the first place - and a boatload of inconsiderate people who would hop over the fence and climb a smaller rock formation for a picture (even with signs telling them to not do that), it wasn't as peaceful and laid-back as our first visit years ago.  

We decided to get out of there and check out Colorado Springs again.  It wasn't quite the city that we remembered it being was when we first came out five years before.  There seemed to be a healthy number of vagrants in the city, something that we really didn't see that much of (or didn't notice) on our first visit.  They were near freeway exits, hanging around downtown and other areas of the city, and it seemed like there were a lot of them.  We talked to a guy later that evening and my wife - who always has to ask questions - asked him about the number of homeless people in the city.  "When they legalized pot in Colorado, it brought an influx of all different types of people," the young guy told us.  "Some came out to work in the cannabis industry, either growing it or working in dispensaries.  But many came out thinking that maybe they could bum pot off people instead of money.  They thought jobs would be easy, but it's a highly competitive work force out here."  He said the homeless population in the area is higher now than when it was during the recession of 8 to 10 years ago.  "Yeah, the optics of the transient population out here isn't good for the locals," he said to us.

But it was other aspects of Colorado Springs that sort of left us limp.  We spent some time in downtown Colorado Springs which we felt was sort of dull.  We went over to Manitou Springs which was all torn up with road construction.  We had already done all of the tourist things before - Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods, Broadmoor.  We'd sort of fantasized about possibly retiring in Colorado Springs.  But this visit may have changed our minds on that.  

So, that was pretty much our trip out to Colorado.  We fell in love with Steamboat Springs, we were underwhelmed by Fort Collins, we thought Breckenridge was too touristy, and we were disappointed in our second visit to Colorado Springs.  Thanks to forest fires in the northwest United States and up into Canada, most of the days were hazy cutting down on some spectacular views.  But, still, it's tough to say anything bad about the mountains, lakes and streams that make Colorado, well, Colorado.  I'll be telling you more in the coming weeks about some of the restaurants and brewpubs that we went to during our trip.  

The Great Quad City Organic Market Battle

The big news around the Quad Cities the past couple three weeks has been the addition of two new markets that cater more toward those who seek better choices for more healthy and fresh foods.  Natural Grocers based out of Colorado opened on April 19 in Davenport and a week later Fresh Thyme Farmers Market based out of suburban Chicago also opened in Davenport.   Both places were predictably packed with shoppers in their first few days of business, but on a Sunday morning we got up and went first to Fresh Thyme and then over to Natural Grocers.  

It drives my wife absolutely crazy that I'll go to the store nearly every day I'm home to pick up something for dinner that evening rather than planning days in advance what we're going to have and having the food on hand.  I grew up in the country and we went to the grocery store maybe once a week - sometimes twice.  But I can't tell you how many times that I wanted something simple like milk and we'd be out of it.  Now, THAT would drive me crazy!  We live almost equidistant between a Hy-Vee and a Schnucks, so if we're out of anything, or I want to cook something fresh that evening, it's a two minute drive to either one of those stores.  To me, it's heaven.  To my wife, it's maddening.  Now with Fresh Thyme in the mix - also a two minute drive from our house - it gives me a third option in our immediate area.  

The Davenport Fresh Thyme location is in the newly renovated (well, and it's still being renovated) Kimberly Crossing shopping plaza on E. Kimberly Road.  (see map)  It's housed in the space that was formerly an Eagle Country Market grocery store (before Eagle declared bankruptcy in 2000 and went out of business a couple of years later), then the space was an Incredible Pizza franchise for a couple years before going out of business in 2012.  A couple years ago, a Florida investment group bought the shopping plaza - formerly called the Spring Village Shopping Center - and began an extensive renovation that included demolition of out-buildings and a complete overhaul of the strip center's facade.  The Davenport location of Fresh Thyme is the 60th store in 10 states, and the second in the state of Iowa.  

The first Fresh Thyme opened in suburban Chicago in 2014, but the management group that heads the fast growing grocery chain actually has deep roots in organic markets.  CEO Chris Sherrill worked for Colorado-based Wild Oats Marketplace for nearly ten years before becoming the head of Arizona-based Sunflower Farmers Market in 2003.  After Sunflower merged with Sprouts Farmers Market in 2012, Sherrill looked at the untapped Midwest marketplace for the next round of organic-based markets.  

With the financial backing of the Meijer grocery store chain based in Grand Rapids, MI, Sherrill opened the first Fresh Thyme Farmers Market in Mount Prospect, IL.  Originally based in Phoenix, Sherrill eventually moved the corporate offices for Fresh Thyme to Downers Grove, IL with the plan of opening 50 stores in five years.  However, they had 16 stores by the end of 2014, 28 by the end of 2015 and 48 by the end of 2016.  With the success of the Fresh Thyme concept - which many people consider a melding of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods - their amended goal is to have 70 stores open by the end of this year.     

It was around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when we walked into Fresh Thyme.  The layout is similar to other Fresh Thyme's I've been in before with the deli that will make pizzas and fresh sandwiches along with the salad bar off to the right side corner of store.  Part of the deli is an artisan bread bakery where breads are baked fresh daily.  The deli primarily features Boar's Head meats in their cases.  

Fresh Thyme has a wide variety of "quick-pick" items that allows customers to get food on the go for a quick meal.  They also had a pretty impressive cheese island that featured a number of Boar's Head cheese items. I picked up a wedge of Pecorino Romano cheese for a future batch of fettuccine alfredo at home.  

The produce section was also impressive with a number of organically grown vegetables and fruits.  Since it was also their grand opening, they had a number of specially priced items in the produce aisles.  But even at the regular prices, we felt the produce they had to offer were on par with every day produce prices we see at Schnuck's and Hy-Vee.  The Fresh Thyme crew was busy restocking the produce section when we were there, so it was a little tricky navigating around the carts and boxes in the aisles.  

Fresh Thyme also puts an emphasis on bulk items in the store with bins and bins of natural and organic grains, nuts and spices.  They also had an area with an assortment of small batch coffee bean available in bulk.  And they had bulk candy such as gummy bears, and different types of trail mix to choose from.   

The meat counter wasn't very big, but it featured a number of selections of hormone-free, naturally raised beef, pork and chicken.  There was a good variety of sausage and brats that are made in house daily.  They had a small seafood section and the salmon they had didn't look bad, but it was still early in the morning and they were replenishing much of the items in the case.  

I wandered down toward the dairy section of the store and found what was their juice station.  While they don't offer individual juices by the glass, they have a number of fresh juices that they bottle in pint, quart and half-gallon bottles.  The young lady who was bringing out bottles of fresh juice told us that they make it up in 8 quart batches and the juices have a short shelf life of only three or four days because there are no additives or sugars included.  (They do make fresh lemonade with sugar added.)   

We started down the aisles to see what they had to offer.  While you'll find many organic brands, Fresh Thyme also features a number of nationally-known labels on their shelves.  Surprisingly to me, I found that they carried HP Sauce in their condiment section.  I usually have to get HP Sauce at World Market stores in larger midwestern markets, but I was happy to find that Fresh Thyme carried it.  HP Sauce goes great with barbecued or roasted pork.  

The supplement and vitamin aisle was of high interest to my wife.  There were literally thousands of bottles and containers of all different types of vitamins, supplements and health aids in this aisle.  I'm not big into vitamins or supplements, but my wife is and she spent a long amount of time seeing what they had to offer.

The natural body care section was a little different from ones I've encountered in Chicago and the Twin Cities.  In those stores, the body care section is in an aisle, while the one in Davenport has its own corner of the store.  I noticed that natural body care products were also expensive.

The two wine aisles at Fresh Thyme featured a somewhat impressive selection.  The only problem was that the prices were high - even with the grand opening specials they were running.  The refrigerated beer case had some craft beers available, but the selection wasn't all that great.  I did find a bottle of Malbec wine from Argentina that I've had in the past and I grabbed that.  They I remembered that it was Sunday and I looked at the time.  In Iowa, you can't buy liquor, beer or wine before 8 a.m.  But it was 7:55 a.m. and we wouldn't be checking out until after 8.  

When we got up to the checkout counter, the young lady checking us out stopped with the wine bottle was scanned.  She said, "I'm sorry. We can't sell this. It's too early."  

I was incredulous as I looked at the clock on my phone.  "It's after 8," I said.

"We can't sell it until after 10," she explained.  "It's flagged on our register as not being able to sell until 10 a.m."  

I was mildly irritated and I said, "Look, I can go over to Hy Vee right across the street and buy liquor right now."  

An older lady who was sacking our groceries said, "Well, in Indiana, you can't buy wine or beer on Sunday."  

I said, "Well, this isn't Indiana.  In Iowa, you can buy wine and liquor starting at 8 a.m."  

Another Fresh Thyme employee was standing there and she said, "In Omaha, you can't buy until noon." 

"Once again," I said in a somewhat testy manner.  "This isn't Omaha."  

I asked if this was a store policy for Fresh Thyme.  No one could give me an answer.  And no one offered to get a manager for a clarification.  I just sort of waved off the bottle of wine and we paid for the groceries that we got.  

My wife chastised me in the parking lot for my surly behavior toward the Fresh Thyme staff, but then she said, "But I'm very surprised that they wanted to argue with you and not have a manager involved."  The more she got to thinking about it, the more incensed she got about the situation.  (We'd just had a couple of service issues over the past couple of nights with a couple of restaurants that we like to visit and those experiences were still sticking in her craw.)   

She even went as far as calling the Fresh Thyme store and asked to speak to the store manager a couple three hours later.  Once she did talk to the manager and told him of the situation, he told her that he'd heard about our ordeal after a man had tried to buy a bottle of champagne to go with the freshly squeezed orange juice he'd picked up for mimosas.  Evidently, the guy who was denied the sale of the champagne was a little more vociferous in his protests than I was.  It turns out that since Fresh Thyme is an Illinois-based company, their internal computer system for the Davenport store was set up for Illinois laws.  And you can't buy liquor in Illinois until 10 a.m. on Sunday.  He assured my wife that getting the glitch in the system to allow for liquor sales at 8 a.m. on Sunday's would be fixed first thing Monday morning.  

After taking our groceries home and getting an espresso at one of our local coffee bars, we decided to head over to Natural Grocers to check that place out.  Now, my wife had been to Natural Grocers for a brief visit about a week before, but didn't really look around that much because the place was very busy.  We walked in just as they opened at 9 a.m.

Philip and Margaret Isely settled in the Denver area in the early 50's and started to raise a family.  After the birth of their second child, Margaret became chronically ill and nothing seemed to be help her shake her malady.  She turned to two pioneers of natural and nutritional healing - Adelle Davis and Roger Williams - to help nutrionally guide her back to health.  After a miraculous recovery, Philip and Margaret were more than convinced that natural foods were a key to better health.  

In 1955 after borrowing $200 from Margaret Isely's mother, the couple began to bake whole wheat breads and went around to homes in Golden, CO door-to-door selling the bread and offering pamphlets of nutritional and natural recipes for healthy eating.  Of course, most people thought they were crazy given that white bread was a staple in nearly every American house.  But the Isely's persevered and they opened Vitamin Cottage in 1958, a small shop that sold vitamins and supplements.

To say that they Isely's were ahead of their time is an understatement.  They were activist hippies long before anyone knew what a hippie really was.  They were pacifists - Philip served time in prison during World War II for being a "conscientious objector" - and they formed an independent political party called the "Conservation of Life" party.  Philip ran unsuccessfully as a U.S. Senator candidate in 1958 while Margaret also unsuccessfully ran for a state representative office in Colorado the same year.  

The Isely's were also involved in a concept called the World Parliament that was a worldwide non-military government based on peace initiatives and solving environmental problems.  Philip Isely was the lead author on the organization's constitution - The Earth Constitution - that outlined the ideals of a worldwide government.  After a local newspaper branded the couple as communists, their neighbors picketed their house.  The FBI eventually investigated the couple but found that they were merely pacifists working for a better planet.  

The Isely's eventually had seven children - all with unique names such as Zephyr, LaRock, and Lark -  and all of whom were raised on natural foods free of sugar and unhealthy by-products.  The kids all helped out at the Vitamin Cottage while they were growing up, and as more and more people became health conscious the little business began to grow.  By the mid-70's, the Vitamin Cottage had become profitable and more stores opened around the Denver area.

With Philip Isely focused on the World Parliament movement, Margaret was working on growing the Vitamin Cottage business.  The two eventually divorced and remarried to other spouses.  Margaret passed away in 1998 at the age of 75 while Philip Isely died in his sleep in 2012 at the age of 96.  In each Natural Grocers store is a picture of Margaret Isely hanging prominently on the wall.  And in another touch, each Natural Grocers stores close at 9:06 p.m. (7:04 p.m. on Sundays) because Margaret Isely didn't think it was kind to stop people from shopping right at closing.  

When Margaret Isely passed away, her children took over the day-to-day operation of the business.  This is when they decided to be bold and expand their business to other states.  By 2005, the family had changed the name of the stores to Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage in the Denver area, and each new store was branded as a Natural Grocers in other markets.  In 2012, the family took to company public, but they still hold nearly 60% of the stock in Natural Grocers.  

Each Isely child involved in the business brought a special talent to the table.  Brothers Kemper and Zephyr are co-presidents of the company with Kemper overseeing business development and site acquisitions, and Zephyr running the company's point-of-sale, ordering, and Internet Technology divisions.  Their sister Heather is the product manager overseeing the majority of produce, health and food items that the stores sell.  And very interestingly, their brother LaRock's ex-wife Liz Isely is in charge of the company wide store facilities.      

The Natural Grocers location in Davenport is along the busy 53rd Ave. corridor and sits on a spot where a Ruby Tuesday restaurant once stood. (see map)  Ruby Tuesday closed down a number of locations in the Midwest in 2012 and the building sat empty for four years before Natural Grocers came in and bought the building and surrounding property in 2016.  After demolishing the restaurant, work began on the property in the fall of last year.  Initial reports were that Natural Grocers were looking to be open by the summer of this year, so it was a surprise when we heard that it would be open by the end of April.  As I said, they opened on April 19.  The Davenport location is the 142nd Natural Grocers in the company - the fifth one in Iowa - and the furthest east of any of the Natural Grocers locations spread across 19 states.  

The floor plan of the Natural Grocers store is much smaller than Fresh Thyme.  And all products sold in the store are 100% organic.  There is no bakery, no butcher counter, and no national brands sold at Natural Grocers.  And a wide array of gluten-free products are found in their stores.  

The produce section was prominently featured as you walk into the store and it was surprisingly small.  But it had a wide array of fresh organic fruits and vegetables.  Natural Grocers only offers produce that adheres to standards of organic growing by the United States Department of Agriculture.  

The vitamin and supplement aisle rivals and probably surpasses the one at Fresh Thyme.  My wife spent a good amount of time perusing what they had to offer as she's big on supplements.

I wandered ahead of her as I don't do vitamins or supplements and I found a little cubby hole toward the back corner that was an area that had a number of books on nutrition, organic cookbooks, and general health.  This was Natural Grocers Nutritional Library.  When I pointed this out to my wife, she immediately stopped what she was doing and began to look through the books.  They had a chair next to the shelves of books and I remarked that this was like a mini Barnes and Noble for the health conscious crowd.  I went off to wander around the rest of the store and ten minutes later my wife was still looking through the books they had.   

The dairy section offered milk, cream, butter, cheese, yogurt, and a number of other products that are certified as coming from non-confined cattle.  Cattle who produce dairy products for Natural Grocers come from organic certified farms, are grass-fed, and are free from GMO grains and forages.  Dairy products from grass-fed cattle usually have more of the good fatty acids like Omega-3 and CLA (conjugated linoleic acids), and more vitamins than confined dairy cattle.  

They didn't have a bulk bin area at Natural Grocers like they do at Fresh Thyme, and most of the items are housed in a refrigerated case.  Natural Grocers feels that their customers shouldn't have to measure out the bulk seeds, oats, nuts or flour, so they do it for them at a production facility and deliver the bagged items to the stores.  Gluten-free products are also found in this section of the store.  

Of course, Natural Grocers has a wide array of health and body care products.  My wife is into essential oils and they stock a vast assortment of oils at the store.  Cosmetics, skin care, oral hygiene, bath and body products, and even gluten-free body care products can be found at Natural Grocers.  

Even though they don't have a meat counter at Natural Grocers, that doesn't mean that they don't stock different types of beef, pork and poultry at the store.  Natural Grocers has strict guidelines on how the livestock they eventually have for their meat department is raised - no confinements, grass-fed, organic vegetable and non-GMO forage diets, and the animals are hormone and anti-biotic free.   

The prices reflected the care and attention that goes into raising the livestock and poultry for Natural Grocers.   Ground bison was somewhat reasonable compared to other places around the Quad Cities that sell bison meat.  They were selling it for $10.79 a pound, but we've gotten it from a bison farm at the Freight House Farmer's Market for $8.99 a pound.   

The pork prices were - in my estimation - sky high.  A 1-1/3 pound pork loin was $15.71.  I saw an 8 ounce package of chicken tenders for $6.69.  And THAT was a sale price!  I'm sorry.  I'll continue to take my chances with industrially-raised meats and poultry.   

The juice aisle featured a number of fruit and vegetable juices, as well as a number of detoxification juices.  Many of the juices were gluten and sugar-free and there was a large number to choose from.  

Probably what amazed me the most at Natural Grocers was the large number and different varieties of whey protein they had to offer.  I don't understand the benefits of whey protein, per se.  But my wife does.  Natural Grocers employ nutritional health coaches in their stores to help customers with coming up with the right balance of healthy foods to eat.  

There is no deli at Natural Grocers, but they do have a "grab and go" case that features salads, burritos, sandwiches, wraps and other quick and healthy meals for lunch or dinner.  They also have a wide selection of ethnic foods at the store including basic items to make Mexican, Asian or Indian foods.  My wife and I are fans of Indian food and we looked at some of the items that they had to make the base sauces and spices for Indian dishes.  I'm still not convinced I can make Indian food at home as good as we get it at one of the area Indian restaurants we like in the Quad Cities.  

 
After checking out - we had about five or six items and Natural Grocers is a "no bag" establishment (we bought a reusable Natural Grocers bag for 99 cents) - I wandered into a room just by the check-out counter.  Each Natural Grocers has a demonstration room where they hold free seminars on healthy cooking, wellness guidance, and nutritional information.  Each seminar lasts anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes and features either in-store consultants or outside representatives giving demonstrations and/or talks on a healthier lifestyle.  My wife picked up a sheet listing the upcoming seminars and actually went to one a couple nights later.

The biggest impact of both Fresh Thyme and Natural Grocers coming to town will probably be felt most at Davenport's longtime organic health food market Greatest Grains.  While the presentations at Fresh Thyme and Natural Grocers are modern and slick, Greatest Grains has the look and feel of an old time market that is stuck in the 70's.  I'm sure that they'll maintain a segment of their loyal clientele, but one can't help but think that Greatest Grains' overall business could suffer with these two organic market chains coming to town.  

For years, people around the Quad Cities have been clamoring for a Trader Joe's to come to the area.  Trader Joe's has a minimum threshold of diverse economic and populace criteria they use to determine whether they'll put a store in a given area.  They're currently building a Trader Joe's in Coralville, right next to Iowa City, so at least they're getting closer to the Quad's.  With the announcement that Costco has a strong interest in coming to Davenport,  it appears that we may be getting closer to the day when we have all the trendy places to shop for groceries.  But with the opening of both Fresh Thyme Farmers Market and Natural Grocers, the Quad Cities area has taken a big step forward in the number of choices we now have for quality food grocers.    

Another Good-bye to an Old Friend

If you'll please indulge me for the next few minutes, I'd like to say a few words about a good friend who recently passed away unexpectedly, Dave Arnold.

I've been in the consumer electronics field since the early 80's and one of my oldest friends in the industry was Dave, a man who was a few years older than me, but we shared a common bond with many things in life.  I first met Dave when we both worked for a specialty audio store in Iowa City when I was going to college at the University of Iowa.  From the beginning, Dave and I found that we had a number of things in common - the love of music, we both had wicked senses of humor, we loved baseball, and we were looking for a better beer to drink than just Budweiser.

Dave was a very smart guy who was as liberal in his politics as the day is long.  He was an interesting guy to talk to.  His knowledge of musical groups and artists was mind-blowing to me.  He loved to laugh - his quick laughter at jokes or absurd observations would make his body quake.  His deadpan looks after I would make a smart-ass comment around him quickly turned into a smirk with a silent laugh, his body shaking slightly.  

I was honored to be asked to stand up with Dave when he and his wife Sue were married on a cold winter solstice in 1989.  I told him that I hadn't had much luck with being the best man in marriages that lasted up to that point.  But he saw his soulmate in Susie and my curse of being the best man in marriages that busted up never came to be with this one.  

In addition to Dave being one of the kindest and most accommodating people I ever worked with on a retail floor, he had impeccable penmanship.  I had never seen such handwriting skills from a man - ever.  It was like he wrote the cursive for text books that were used in schools in the 50's and 60's.  I know women who have much worse handwriting skills than Dave had.  I told him one time that he could have made a fortune hand-addressing envelopes for invitations or thank you notes.     

I started on the road as an audio sales representative in the mid-80's.  I told Dave of the fun that I was having while on the road and he was bound and determined to get out of the retail environment and get his own job as a rep.  He finally succeeded and his territory mirrored mine.  In essence, we were competitors, but it turned out that we helped each other succeed by sharing information and steering one another to dealers that one of us would know, but the other did not.  Dave was easily identifiable to dealers by his trademark fedora-style hat that he wore.  

It would get to a point that we would plan our trips around each other's schedule.  I lived outside of Des Moines in the late 80's and whenever Dave would plan a trip to the Des Moines area, I would make sure that I would be home.  When I would be in Eastern Iowa, Dave made it a point to be at his home in Iowa City.  Then we'd both plan trips to Omaha at the same time, stay at the same hotel, eat at the same restaurants, see the same dealers (although not at the same time), and hang out at sports bars or at the old Rosenblatt Stadium watching the old Omaha Royals (now the Omaha Storm Chasers) play baseball.  One time, we watched baseball three straight nights in seats directly behind home plate.  I think we paid $5 bucks each for the tickets each of the three nights with a wonderful fireworks display on the third night.  We were in our own little heaven.  

We'd do baseball trips to see major league games - we spent weekends in Milwaukee and in St. Louis.  One time we stayed with my older cousin in Milwaukee who - it turned out - had met Dave one night a number of years before when their respective girlfriends had gotten together in Iowa City.  My cousin perfectly described Dave's apartment in the 70's as they slowly figured out that they had met once before.  Small world, huh?

Our love for baseball was so much that Dave proposed a 9-day/10-game tour of the Midwest to see major league baseball games.  He worked out the schedule and I can still remember the itinerary - start off in Kansas City on a Friday night seeing the Royals play; drive to Minneapolis to catch the Twins the next night; an overnight trip to Milwaukee to catch the Brewers on Sunday afternoon; drive down to Chicago to see a day-night doubleheader - the Cubs in the afternoon and the White Sox at night; then head over to Cleveland, up to Detroit, a trip over to Pittsburgh, then over to Cincinnati, and then a final Saturday game in St. Louis with a leisurely drive home on Sunday.  We never did it for whatever reason at the time, but it was something that we still talked about for a number of years.

Some of our conversations about baseball centered upon his complete dislike for the designated hitter in the American League.  I sort of liked the DH, but he referred to it as a "commie plot" designed to undermine America's pastime.  I asked if it was the same commie plot that was supposed to be the undoing of American society when rock and roll became big in the 50's and he would say, "No!  The Republicans came up with that story to try and scare people.  The DH is truly a communist plot!"  

I used to get on him for being a "fair-weather" fan when it came to baseball teams.  My team of choice during the 80's and 90's were the (then) California Angels.  Dave's allegiances would skip around.  He would meticulously read up on spring training news and then before the season began he would pick a team that he would follow for that particular year.  He usually picked teams that were pretty good and sometimes they won the World Series.  I stayed with one team while Dave had a number of teams he would follow - not all at the same time, but one per season.  

Here's one story that stands out in my mind that involves Dave - We were at a Summer Consumer Electronics Show in the late 80's.  That's when the summer show was held in Chicago in early June.  And that also means that it's baseball season and it turned out that the White Sox were hosting the Twins one particular evening at the old Comiskey Park.  Dave and I set up a baseball "trip" that included a couple three dealers who were at the show and who were also into baseball.  We got seats down the left field line and Dave was wearing his signature hat at the game.  Before the game started, one of the beer vendors working our area looked up, saw Dave and said, "Holy shit!  It's the judge!"  

Night Court was a popular show on television at that time and actor Harry Anderson starred as Judge Harry Stone in the comedy.  At first glance, Dave looked exactly like the judge in Night Court when he was wearing his hat.  He got it all the time.  After the first beer guy thought it was the actor Harry Anderson, others showed up to look at Dave.  We had fun with the beer guys over that and by the end of the first inning we were on a first name basis with them.  They took good care of us that night.  

Will the real Dave Arnold please stand up?  This is the actor Harry Anderson, but with a hat on and looking at this picture a couple of times, it is truly a dead ringer for Dave in the 80's.

Another passion Dave had - which was completely curious to me given that Dave never appeared to be much of a football fan for the first few years I got to know him - was to follow his beloved Green Bay Packers.  He dove full-in with his love for Packers, joining up with a group of people each game at a local sports bar in Iowa City for a number of years.  We watched two Super Bowls with Dave and his new friends at a sports bar in Coralville, IA - one a winning night for Dave and the other a gut-wrenching loss for him.  Dave continued to follow the Packers with a passion that, well, confounded me given his apathy toward football at any level when I first got to know him in the early 80's.  

When we'd go to Wisconsin for baseball games, we would invariably stop at liquor stores along the way to do a little "beer hunting".  Dave had an affection for craft beer, long before the craft beer movement took hold.  We tried a number of different beers from small breweries around Wisconsin, found a number that we liked and a few that we didn't.  The fun of finding something new that brought enjoyment to both of our lives was a common bond that we shared for years.  

Dave's first job as a sales rep ended badly for him when his employer canned him so he could bring in an inexperienced friend who was in need of a job.  Dave tried working for a couple of other rep companies, but it wasn't the same for him.  I ended up getting off the road for a couple of years, and Dave sort of puttered around getting jobs in whatever sales field he could get into - trying to hire me for a company that he was working for at one time, but then realized after the fact that the company wasn't a good fit for him, or for me - before he landed a gig selling Maui Jim sunglasses in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota.

He loved working for the Maui Jim company, and his clients - which were mainly optometrists around the Midwestern states he covered - loved Dave.  He continued to wear his signature fedora hat to call on his customers while he worked for the company.  He worked for Maui Jim for a number of years and loved his job.

When my wife and I were in Hawaii some years ago, I sought out the Maui Jim building in Lahaina on Maui.  I took a picture of the front of the building and sent it to Dave on my phone.  I expected to get a reply of "Wow! You're in front of our corporate offices!"  But I heard nothing back.  A couple weeks after we had returned from Hawaii, I called Dave and said, "Did you get my picture?"  

He said he had and then said, "Actually, the Maui Jim headquarters are now in Peoria, IL (who knew?), and I no longer work for Maui Jim."  I was shocked to hear that he had been let go a couple months prior to that - he never mentioned a word about it to me until that moment.  His territory was given to two young guys to split up who worked for less money combined than what the company was paying Dave.  He called it a "forced retirement" and even though he never really went into depth in conversations about it, I could tell Dave was bitter about the job loss.  In my estimation, he never really recovered from the blow he took when he was "retired" from Maui Jim.  

Other interests filled Dave's life in the meantime.  He got involved with forums on the Internet and made friends around the nation and overseas.  He raised guinea pigs - not all that surprising given Dave's quirkiness.  He found happiness in his own way, all the while wishing he was able to do something else.  

Dave had some health problems over the past few years - he was diagnosed with hypertension a number of years ago and he underwent open heart surgery four or five years ago.  He wasn't quite the same after the surgery.  He became sullen and almost introverted, not returning phone calls I would place.  When we did get together, he spoke in a measured tone, his easy laugh from years before gone, and he acted like he wanted to be somewhere else.  Our mutual good friend Al took Dave to a minor league baseball game in Cedar Rapids a couple years ago and afterward Al called me to tell me that Dave spoke - maybe - 20 words the whole day.  Dave could speak 20 words in 15 seconds, and do so very eloquently.  It was sad to see him get to this point in life. 

The last time I talked with Dave was a few weeks ago.  He had left a cryptic message on Facebook that he had fallen, hurt his knee and he needed someone to come and drive him from his home in West Branch, IA to the hospital in Iowa City.  When I finally did get hold of him, I chastised him for not calling either myself (who lived 40 minutes away, but I'd still have gone to get him), or our friend Al (who lived just 20 minutes away).  He thanked me for the offer and for my concern and then excused himself and said goodbye.  It was not the same Dave that I had known for over 30 years.  

The last meaningful time I spent with Dave was about two and a half years ago when I stopped by and had a copy of Brian Wilson - Live at the Roxy, a disc that I let Dave have because he was so much of a Brian Wilson fan.  We listened to a number of songs on the disc that evening and I could see that sparkle from the old Dave that I knew so long ago.  

We'd made plans to get together in Iowa City for a burger, but our recent schedules never meshed.  Or - I should say - my schedule never meshed.  Dave was free most days.  I was doing a lot of traveling.  I think deep inside that Dave sort of resented the fact that he wasn't traveling any longer. He was pulled off the road against his will - a job he loved taken away.  And he wasn't ready to let go.  

On Tuesday, he posted a picture on Facebook of three comic geniuses - Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke - all making silly faces.  I took that as the perfect analogy for Dave - growing old, but never taking things too seriously.  A day later, he's gone.  Too many times I've let friends who have been a big influence in my life grow apart from me.  That's exactly what happened with Dave and I.   But my memories of Dave - the fun times and camaraderie that we had over the years - will always be there.  I just wish I would have had a chance to let him know how much he meant to me in my life.  But I never did - and I will never have that chance.  And for that I'm truly saddened.  Saddened more from the fact that I never made the effort to let him know that he meant a lot to me, even though we were not as close as we once were. 

France 2016 (or Planes, Trains and Automobiles)

I was recently back in France for a few days visiting one of the factories that we work with in Saint Etienne.  It had been awhile since I had last been to the factory, so when the trip was proposed in late December of last year I was sort of looking forward to going again. 

Then trepidation set in...

I've been to France five times in my life.  Of those five times, I've gotten ill from a stomach thing on four of those trips, including my last trip to Paris nearly a year and a half ago when I lost nearly 14 pounds from a stomach thing that knocked me on my ass for nearly a day and a half.  I don't know if it's the rich food or if I pick up a virus or what.  But I was bound and determined to not get sick on this particular trip.

My boss and one of my colleagues are seasoned travelers, going to exotic places on Earth that I wouldn't even begin to think I would go to.  When we were in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, they were telling me about a drug they take before they go on long trips - Dukoral.  It's an oral vaccine where you take one dose about a month before you go, then take another dose a week before you leave.  "You can pretty much eat or drink anything," my colleague Ian told me.  "It makes your stomach iron-clad." 

I had to go to my doctor for a physical after I got back from Las Vegas and I asked him about Dukoral.  "Dukoral," he asked me back quizzically.  "I don't think I've ever heard of that." 

He looked it up in his computer and he found it.  "Nope, never heard of this before," he told me.  "But this is something Passport Health could probably get for you." 

Now, I'd never heard of Passport Health.  It turns out that it's the largest privately owned provider of travel medicines and vaccines in the U.S.  There are over 250 Passport Health clinics in the country - and there is one that, unbeknownst to me until then, is a three minute drive from my home.

My doctor referred me to Passport Health and I called them up for a consultation.  On the phone with the health professional at Passport Health I was informed that Dukoral was only available in Canada.  That made sense - my boss and my colleague are both Canadian citizens.  She told me that they could prescribe another drug that would offset any stomach problems that may arise on my trip to France.  But I had to go in for a consultation. 

The consultation lasted all of - maybe - 15 minutes.  Most of the consultations she did centered upon health problems that a traveler could encounter on their trip.  But she figured out when we talked earlier via phone and in the office that I was overly familiar with France and any health pitfalls that I may encounter.  $60 bucks later for the consultation fee, she called in a prescription to my pharmacist.

I don't think I had been home from the consultation any more than three minutes when the phone rang.  It was my pharmacist who asked me where I was going.  When I told him France, he laughed and said, "Man, the stuff they prescribed for you is for like going to the French Congo!"  He told me that he didn't have the stuff in stock, but it would take him a couple days to get it in.  I told him that was fine, I wasn't going for a couple three weeks anyhow.

Then he dropped the bomb on me.  "The other reason I wanted to call was to let you know that this drug has sort of a high co-pay," he said sort of matter-of-fact.  How much, I asked.  "$193 bucks," he replied.  I sort of gulped, then remembered laying on the floor of the small bathroom in Paris a couple summers ago with my body discharging disgusting fluids.  Suddenly, $193 bucks sounded like a bargain. 

The drug they prescribed for me was Rifaximin - or better known as its brand name of Xifaxan (zy-FAX-an).  Now, if you watched any amount of television in the U.S. over the past few months, you've no doubt seen the commercial featuring a cute little animated character made out of human intestines (wait a minute, on second thought maybe it's not that cute) that is holding its butt as it tries to find a public bathroom where the lines aren't at least 50 people deep.  (The Xifaxan commercial caused a minor eruption on Twitter after it was shown during the 3rd Quarter of the Super Bowl held last month.  Given the cost of a 30 second ad for the Super Bowl, it was no wonder that I had to cough up a $193 co-pay for the drug.)

The bottom line - so to speak - I didn't get sick on this trip. 

The automobile part of this trip consisted of a drive into Chicago to fly out of O'Hare to Paris.  If you remember this particular post from last year, this is where I vowed to never fly United Airlines out of the Quad City International Airport to connect to overseas flights ever again.  That post caught the eye of a United marketing person who tried to mollify my feelings toward the airline and caused United to follow the Road Tips Twitter feed.  It turns out that it's much easier to drive in rather than have long layovers to and from overseas destinations at O'Hare.  And for what I spend on gas and parking charges, it's cheaper, too. 

I was at O'Hare two hours before my flight.  I don't know why they tell you to be at the airport two hours before an international flight because I was literally at my gate 15 minutes after I checked in - thanks to TSA Pre-Check that I've had since last summer.  I had an hour to kill before they even began to call for boarding. 

After an uneventful flight to Paris, getting in around 9:40 a.m. Paris time (2:40 a.m. body time), getting through French customs in record time (less than 10 minutes), and grabbing my bag, I met up with my colleagues who made the trip to France at the coffee bar at the Sheraton Hotel in Terminal 2 at Charles De Gaulle Airport outside of Paris. 

We had a noon departure from the train station at CDG aboard the TGV - the high-speed train that took us down to Lyon.  A little more than two hours after we left the outskirts of Paris we pulled into Gare de Lyon Part Dieu, the main train station in France's second largest city in terms of metro population.  It was a cool, misty day when we left Paris - it was a brilliant, sun-shiny day in Lyon with temperatures in the low 60's when we arrived. 

I took a cab with a couple colleagues to the Hotel Carlton Lyon, a place I've stayed at before on a previous trip to France.  (Click here to see that entry.)  The hotel had been slightly updated - the quaint elevator was a little more automatic this time compared to some of the manual functions that you had to perform to get it to work, and the bathrooms - which had no shower curtains on my previous visit - now had half glass walls alongside the tub to keep water from splashing all over the place.  It still didn't keep all the water from splashing on the floor, but it was an improvement over what it was. 

Since the weather was so nice, we did a walkabout in Lyon going across the Saône River into Vieux Lyon, the old part of Lyon.  We had a couple of new guys in the group on their first trip to Lyon and we talked momentarily about walking up the hill to the Cathédral Saint-Jean Baptiste. But we quickly nixed that when someone suggested going to get a beer instead. 

It was a beautiful evening in Lyon with a nearly full moon rising above the French provincial-style buildings along the Saône.  We had a nice meal that evening - the first of many great meals during this trip, along with possibly the worst meal I've ever had in all of my travels to France. 

We spent a lot of time at two of the factories we visited, walked around the center of Lyon a couple nights, and had some good meetings before heading back to Paris on the TGV, but not before realizing that I left a nice linen sport coat in my hotel room closet at the Hotel Carlton-Lyon.  I called the hotel - yes, they had it.  They would send it back to me if I paid for shipping.  I gave them payment information, but they never sent it.  Although I really liked that sport jacket, it was probably for the best they didn't send it back.  I think I paid $125 for the coat plus another $30 to a seamstress when I accidentally ripped the lining after pulling it off a metal chair in a restaurant.  It probably would have cost me a "dumbshit tax" of at least $100 bucks to have it shipped from France to the U.S.  That's a nice down-payment on a new one. 

The trip home via United was uneventful.  The plane from CDG to O'Hare was - maybe - 1/3 full.  I had a lot of room to spread out during the eight-and-a-half-hour flight.  I was joking with one of the flight attendants that he had an easy job this particular day.  He looked around the cabin and said, "Yeah, we're not making any money on this flight.  But I'll remember this day when the flights to and from Paris in June are full."  Breezing through customs - the quickest ever for a flight back from Europe - grabbing my bag and taking the tram back to Terminal One at O'Hare to grab my car took all of 45 minutes.  I was pretty burnt out from jet lag for the next couple of days, but I managed.   Other than losing my favorite sport coat, it was a good trip all the way around.  

At least I didn't get sick...

(Update - March 17:  I had sent an e-mail to the Hotel Carlton on the 5th of March because I had not heard one way or the other if they had sent my sport coat via French post to the U.S.  And I did not get a reply, so I figured, "All right, well, so much for ever seeing that coat again." 

Last night, I got home from a trip and on my desk in my office was a notification from the United States Postal Service that they had tried to deliver a box to me, but no one was available to sign for the package.  I went to the main post office in Davenport this morning and, sure enough, there was a box from France.  It was my sport coat, a little wrinkled and dusty, but it wasn't anything the dry cleaners could spiff up.  I checked my credit card statement on-line after I got home and I saw that the Hotel Carlton did charge me a little over $41 to send it back.  I was all set to go out and buy another one, so $41 bucks is a little better than having to fork over at least $150 for a new linen sport coat.  Plus, I was fully expecting to pay at least $100 for getting the coat back, so I guess a "dumbshit tax" of $41 and change isn't that bad.)

Road Tips' 10th Anniversary - The Story of Road Tips

10 years ago today I published my first blog entry on Road Tips.  Most blogs don't last 10 months and here we are today, celebrating a decade of what started out as a hobby but has turned into a life of its own.  I've had some people ask me in the past how I got started doing this, and if you'll indulge me for the next few minutes I'll tell you the story of Road Tips.

I've always liked to write.  I was inspired by Jim Bouton's great book Ball Four to write my day-by-day experiences of being a sophomore in high school.  That turned into a diary of my experiences of my junior year of high school, followed by a journal of my experiences as a senior in high school.  I took writing classes at the University of Iowa and gained some practical experience - including the highs and lows of critiques.  After college, I entered the business world and used my limited writing skills primarily for memos and training documents.  

I've been on the road for nearly 30 years and have eaten at a lot of places along the way.  I joined a list serve that talked about Iowa Hawkeyes sports where I became friends with many who had similar interests as me.  Invariably, the talk would turn to food and where the best burger was, or who made the best pizza, or who could recommend a nice restaurant in, say, Minneapolis.  It seemed that I contributed more to those discussions due to my travels over the years.

In 2002, I started to work for my present company - the best job I've ever had - and my travel became even more extensive.  Covering 11 states with trips to various parts of the U.S., Canada and Europe broadened my culinary and cultural experiences.  It was in 2005 when one of my list serve friends, Tom Kirkendall, suggested I write a blog of my travel experiences.  My first reaction was, "What's a blog?"  It turned out that Tom was already writing a successful blog of his own - Houston's Clear Thinkers.  He pointed me in the right direction by suggesting that I go with Typepad as my blog engine, given that I didn't know what the hell URL's and HTML was all about.  I signed up for a free trial in October of 2005 and officially joined Typepad a month later.  

I'd thought about doing something that would help the traveling community in the Midwest, providing information about hotels that are good to stay at, where you can get a good late night dinner in a specific town, even have information as to the nicer public restrooms in a given area.  So, I sort of had a game plan but the initial execution was much to be desired.  

Coming up with a name was nothing like an epiphany or a bolt of lightning out of the blue - I was going to be on the road and I was going to give tips.  Road Tips.  Simple, easy to remember.  Certainly nothing that stands out or is intriguing.  Still, to this day, I get called "Road Trips" by some other bloggers who link my blog on their sites - which, in hindsight, is probably a better name than Road Tips.  But I started with Road Tips and I'm sticking with it.    

My first official entry on Road Tips was on one of my all-time favorite burger joints - the since-closed Dad's Town Pump in Clear Lake, IA.  It was a three paragraph post, no pictures and no basic facts about the place.  You can click here to see that particular post.  As you can see if you care to read it, it was simple and not very well written.  

Initially, I tried to have entries every day - I was told that frequency got you more readers.  But then I found that it was nearly impossible to do.  I backed it down to three times a week, then down to two times a week.  Once I got on a regular traveling schedule and figuring that I was visiting a number of new restaurants each week - and given the time I actually took to sit down and write the entry - I was back up to three times a week.  It's still about three entries a week, but my goal is to go back to two entries a week.  Frankly, I'm getting tired of finding new places and I really miss going back to some of the ones that I've found - primarily because I feel like I have to find new places to eat each week I'm on the road.  

And that's the one thing - good and bad - about continuing the blog for this long is that it pretty much forces me to seek out new and interesting places to try when I'm on the road.  On the other hand, if I've found a place that is really good and I want to go back, I have to think twice to see if there's somewhere that I've pinned as a place that I would like to try.  Right now on Google Maps I have dozens of restaurants pinned in the 11 states I cover in the Midwest that I would like to try. But as much as I worry about it, I don't think I'll be running out of subject material anytime soon.  

Not being too confident in my writing, I initially told only a handful of people about Road Tips and after a year I had a small gathering of friends and family who would look in from time to time.  I was getting something like 50 to 65 hits a day on the blog site, sometimes it would surge to over 100 hits if someone linked a blog entry to an e-mail.  And my focus wasn't quite in place yet.  I would post recipes, talk about condiments that I particularly liked, and added reviews of DVD concerts and music that caught my fancy.  

It went on that way for about four years - every once in awhile there'd be a major spike when someone would link a blog entry on a list serve or another blog site.  But for the most part I continued to get about 50 to 65 hits a day.  That is, until Google came calling.

I received an e-mail from a young lady at Google who had come across Road Tips and wanted to know if I would be interested in working with them on a beta test for a new search engine feature they were working on.  It had something to do with keywords and other stuff that I didn't fully understand.  I said, "Sure, why not?"

On May 31 of 2009, I think I had something like 52 hits that particular day.  On June 1st, my hits went up to about 175.  The next day, it was well over 200 hits.  Later in the week I was suddenly getting about 400 hits a day for my little hobby blog.  I was like, "Uh oh.  There's people out there who are actually READING my drivel!"  I decided that I needed to step up my game with better writing, more in-depth info on the history behind the places I was writing about, and adding more pictures to the entries to try to captivate the reader through the end of the piece.

All that summer I was getting nearly 375 to 500 hits a day and on Sept. 1 the beta test went away.  Suddenly, I was back down to 55 to 70 hits a day.  It stayed that way for awhile until someone from Google asked me if my hits went down significantly.  Well, yeah!  They certainly did!  And I can't tell you exactly when their new keyword program went into effect, but my daily hits went back up to the levels I saw earlier in the summer.  And they've stayed there ever since.  

Because of the sudden uptick in page clicks for my blog, my wife and others began to suggest that I have advertisements on my page.  My wife had this vision of going to Hawaii every year based upon the advertising revenue that could be generated from my blog.  But I had to let her down gently when I discovered that the advertising revenue earned from my site would - possibly - pay for the annual subscription I have to give Typepad for administration fees.  It's not quite enough for an annual Hawaiian vacation, that's for sure.

Still, I hemmed and hawed about it for awhile, even checking with some other bloggers who have ads on their sites.  I decided that I wanted to keep Road Tips as it is - no endorsements and no advertisements.

Along that same vein, I've had a number of requests from restaurants - mainly through marketing people who work for the restaurants - to come do a review on their place.  Some have even sent along vouchers and on-line gift cards for me to use.  I've even gotten gift cards sent to me after a particularly glowing review of a given restaurant.  I never have - and never will - accept any form of gratuity for my efforts in what is essentially a hobby for me.   I usually just toss the gift cards or delete them when I receive them via e-mail.  I very rarely identify myself as a blogger to a restaurant where I'm eating, mainly so I can make sure that I get the same experience as a person walking in off the street.

To help facilitate the upward swing in viewership, I started to develop a Road Tips social media presence with both Facebook and Twitter.  I've got over 350 followers on Facebook along with over 450 "likes", and probably 150 followers (give or take) on Twitter.  Not quite a huge following either way, but big enough that there's an audience out there who seems to enjoy receiving updates on blog posts.

About 4 years ago, I got an e-mail from a local Quad Cities restaurateur who liked a review that I gave him.  He said that he was getting trashed by some people on Urbanspoon - possibly a former employee or a competitor since most of the bad reviews were one-offs - and wanted to know if I could link my review of his place to his Urbanspoon page.  I really didn't know what to do, but I looked into it and found that it was relatively easy to post a link to a blog entry on Urbanspoon.

I began to do it for most of the restaurants that I had visited up to that point and suddenly I had over 100 reviews on Urbanspoon in the course of about three days.  I was soon contacted by a guy from Urbanspoon who said that I was pretty prolific as a reviewer and they couldn't keep up with posting the entries on their end as fast as I was putting them up.  He basically gave me editor status on Urbanspoon to allow me to post my reviews on their site as soon as I put them up.  

At one point in time, Urbanspoon even recognized Road Tips as their "most traveled" blogger - I had reviewed restaurants in something like 70 areas up to that point.  I found that my blog was also one of the more popular on Urbanspoon jumping all the way to No.1 in the world on the site before settling comfortably into the Top Ten of popular blogs world-wide.  (I still didn't quite understand the way Urbanspoon's point system worked, but it was still nice to have the recognition.)

Earlier this year, Urbanspoon was bought by Zomato (pronounced zo-MAH-to) and my reviews migrated over there.  I had a conversation with a Zomato representative out of Chicago a couple months ago and I now have the coveted "blue star" designation from the site that shows that I have been verified as a true blog site and am not some troll that will write bad reviews on restaurants I used to work at.  I now have over 1000 reviews on Zomato - I'm not the most prolific reviewer on that site, but I'm one of a very few number who have over 1000 reviews.  

Yelp is another restaurant site that I visit from time to time to check out reviews on places I'd like to try.  Yelp isn't friendly to bloggers - they don't seem to embrace the blogging community the way Urbanspoon did or Zomato now does.  While I'm not too whippy on the content style on Zomato, it still does a good job of getting my blog out in front of more eyes.  (Interestingly, I have something like 75 people on a growing list of followers on Zomato.  I would say that 80 percent of them are women.  Yes, I have Road Tips groupies!)  

I've looked into contributing to Yelp and Trip Advisor, but they're definitely not blog friendly.  I have two colleagues who are heavy contributors to Yelp and their posts are interesting, but not as in-depth as I can go on Road Tips.  I've been asked to contribute to Trip Advisor by some people, but I'll stick with Zomato for the time being.  

And because of social media, I've made Internet friends with other like-minded food and travel bloggers whose sites I admire and read on a regular basis -

- Slakingfool is a former newspaper employee who doesn't drive, but still gets around the Des Moines area (and other parts of Iowa and the Midwest) to do his reviews.  He likes beer and good ol' dive bars with good food - just like me.  

- I started to follow the Jeni Eats blog site when she was living in Fargo with her husband who works for Pepsi, and continued to follow her as they moved to Mason City, IA and most recently to St. Louis for his job.  She's got a pretty keen eye for interesting foods, restaurants and places, and her blog is always entertaining.  And it's well laid out, too.  Her blog looks like a professional site while mine looks like a fifth grader's project.  

- And I've been following the Chicago BBQ King's Smoking', Chokin' and Chowing with the King blog site for a number of years.  I've gotten some great ideas from him for out of the way places to try in the Chicago area (and elsewhere around the Midwest) over the past few years.  When he followed me on Twitter, I was like, "Wow!  This guy follows ME on Twitter!"  

With the 10 year history of a hobby gone viral, it's interesting to look back and see some of the neat or weird things that have happened.  I used to be worried that no one would comment on my posts.  I didn't know if I was provocative enough or if I had given out enough information.  However, when I got more readers, I got more comments. 

Some of the comments that I've received over the years have been downright strange. I've gotten comments from people looking for family members of theirs, comments from people who want to get a job application for a restaurant I reviewed, and comments from people who are looking for recipes.  The most commented-on blog posts on Road Tips have to do with a visit I wrote about to the now closed Rosalie's in Marblehead, MA, and the on-going debate regarding Maid-Rite's in the state of Iowa - and what's better, Taylor's Maid-Rite in Marshalltown, the Newton Maid-Rite or the Canteen in Ottumwa.  (Man, I really struck a nerve with people from Ottumwa when I first wrote about the Canteen.)

Critical comments are part of the territory.  I think my first criticism of a post I wrote had to do with the poor service at an Indian restaurant in the Twin Cities.  The commenter called me a "tool".  I thought, "That's great!  I finally made it as a blogger.  I'm getting called names!"  Some critical comments have been dismissive of my food acumen and my reviews as a whole.  I've also been threatened, like the time that I wrote a somewhat lukewarm review on a place and a commenter threatened to find me and put an end to my blog.  I would have been more worried had he not posted the comments anonymously, like most - if not all - of the most critical comment have been over the years.   

One criticism basically made me realize that I needed to unpublish a blog post on a former Iowa high school girls basketball player who had a peculiar - and somewhat funny name - when she was growing up.  It was probably the most read blog post I've had - and still may be, even though I took it down about two years ago.  It was an in-depth story on the strange named girl told to me by a person who knew her and her family growing up.  To me - and a vast majority of others - we couldn't fathom a girl going through life with a name like that and wondered what her parents were thinking.  Well, it turns out that she's a great gal from a salt of the earth family who has feelings.  I thought it would be best to just sort of put that entry to bed.  

I've come close a couple times to having a shadow blog site - Burger Lust - named after one of my all-time favorite burger joints in Omaha that would focus only on burgers that I've run across.  But I have a hard enough time just keeping up with this particular blog and I do hear from time to time that I probably eat too many cheeseburgers, so I thought maybe that would be a little too much.  

But, then again, what would you rather read about and see pictures of - 

     This?

                                                                                                                                    Or this?

Uh huh.  I rest my case...

I thank the people who have followed the blog for all these years.  You know who you are.  I keep doing it for you.  

Finally, I have to thank my biggest fan - my wife.  At least I think she's my biggest fan.  She's put up with this nonsense for 10 years and she's been part of many of the entries on Road Tips.  She was sort of appalled - initially - that I included her in some of the blog entries.  But she's just sort of accepted it as part of our lives now.  She even gives me tips on places to try from time to time, as well.  

So, in a nutshell, that's it - now that's all you know about Road Tips, the 10 year journey and how it's grown into this own little, well, something.  I can't quite put a finger on what it is - it's own little world?  It's own little life?  I don't know.  All I know is that it's been fun, it's made me broaden my culinary horizons and seek out the unique and unusual places in addition to finding the places where the locals eat when I'm on the road.  Even though I continue to have a bit of wanderlust in me, traveling is a minor pain in the ass.  Finding the neat experiences and good restaurants - and sharing them with you - is what helps keep me going.

Thanks again for looking in! 

Homemade Gumbo on a Snowy Day

We just had the sixth heaviest snowfall on record in the Quad Cities this past weekend.  The Davenport Municipal Airport - where the National Weather Service has their local office - recorded 13.3 inches of snow.  However, at the Quad City International Airport in Moline - the official weather reporting station for the Quad Cities - they had 14.4 inches of snow.  The first 8 inches (or so) of snow was a heavy, dense wet snow that coated trees and power lines across the region causing downed limbs and power outages, clogging snowblowers and making the initial clean-up a pain in the ass.  The remaining 5 to 6 inches was a light fluffy snow that was easy to move.  It just didn't want to seem to quit.

We knew that we were in store for a pretty big storm so I decided a couple three days in advance to make a big pot of homemade gumbo for both the snow storm and for the Super Bowl.   It's been quite a while since I've shared a recipe on Road Tips and I thought I'd do that today.

(For this pot of gumbo, I used both a 12 ounce package of andouille sausage links and a 12 ounce package of Linguiça sausage link - a Portuguese sausage that I got from Usinger's in Milwaukee that is smoky in flavor with a hint of garlic and paprika.  Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between the Linguiça and the andouille.)

Prep time for the gumbo is about an hour, cooking time is about four hours.  But it's relatively easy to make.  

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour (1/2 cup for dredging chicken; 1/2 cup for adding to vegetables)

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 lb. chicken breast tenders cut into 1/2" squares

3 teaspoons sea salt

2 tblsp. ground black pepper

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 medium red bell pepper, chopped

1 medium green bell pepper, chopped 

6 to 8 ribs of celery, chopped

6 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

2 - 4 bay leaves

16 oz. fresh or frozen okra (if frozen, thaw beforehand)

1 - 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes mashed with their juice

10 to 12 cups (80 to 96 ounces) of Swanson low-salt chicken broth (or Watkins chicken soup base mix) 

24 ounces (1 1/2 lbs.) andouille sausage links, cut into 1/4" to 1/2" pieces.  (As I said, I also used Linguiça sausage in this batch.  Don't use ground andouille sausage.)

4 tblsp - gumbo file powder

1/4 cup cider vinegar

5 or 6 green onions (white and green parts), chopped

1 tsp. cayenne pepper powder (optional)

1 cup slow cooking rice 

Cooking procedures

Cook the andoullie (and/or Linguiça) sausage until brown in skillet.  Drain drippings from sausage and place drained sausage in a bowl.

Pour 1/2 cup of flour, along with 2 tblsp of ground black pepper, 1 tsp of sea salt and 1 tsp cayenne pepper powder (optional) into a 1 gallon zip lock baggie.  Cut chicken strips into 1" X 1" pieces.   Put chicken cuts into the baggie with flour mixture and shake up coating each piece with the flour mixture.  Set baggie with chicken aside.

Heat a large (6 quart) pot over medium high heat and add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.  When oil is warm cook the chicken in the pot until brown on both sides, stirring occasionally for about 6 to 8 minutes. Reserve the chicken in a bowl on the side.

Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to the same pot and heat to medium.   Add onions, bell peppers, celery, garlic and red pepper flakes.  Cook on medium heat until all vegetables are soft and aromatic - about 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Sprinkle the vegetables with 1/2 cup of flour, mix and continue to cook for a couple minutes, stirring occasionally.  

Add the mashed whole peeled tomatoes (and their juice), the chicken broth and the okra.  Add the bay leaves.  Bring this to a boil, and then add the reserved chicken and sausage, adding any drippings from the sausage pan.  Add gumbo file powder and 2 tsp of sea salt.

Bring gumbo back to a full boil, stirring occasionally until it reaches the boiling point again.  Reduce the heat to low and let simmer with the lid on the pot for 3 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally.  

30 minutes before serving, add the rice and cider vinegar stirring every five minutes until the rice is fully cooked.  The gumbo is pretty much ready to go.

Add Shrimp, if you like -

We like shrimp in our gumbo, too.  But since there's always so much gumbo left over I usually put some in the freezer for eating at a later date.  I never cook shrimp with the gumbo as I don't want to re-freeze the shrimp.  

We stopped into Schnucks in Bettendorf on Saturday afternoon and they had a seafood display right as you walked in the door.  They had two pound bags of frozen Argentinian shrimp - good sized ones, at that, on sale for $13.98.  Even if we weren't going to have shrimp anytime soon, we couldn't pass that up.  

While the gumbo was cooking, I grabbed about 8 shrimp out of the freezer and put them in a bowl to thaw for an hour or so.  They were so big that I didn't think that I would have to use any more than that.  

While the gumbo is finishing, boil the shrimp being careful not to overcook the shrimp.  Drain, peel and de-vein (if needed) the shrimp.  

Place the gumbo in a bowl, place shrimp on top and sprinkle chopped green onions over the gumbo and shrimp.  (I forgot to put the chopped onions on the gumbo until after this picture was taken.  And I guess I could have used more shrimp.  I mean, who can say "no" to more shrimp?)  I like to zip my gumbo up with copious amounts of Tabasco sauce.  We had some garlic bread with the meal along with some beer and it was a great meal for a snowy Super Bowl evening.  

We had a lot of gumbo left over - the amount we made will get us about 8 healthy servings above and beyond what we had that evening.  It keeps in the refrigerator for about a week, but will freeze (once again, without the shrimp) for up to three months.   And it doesn't matter if it's a snowy night or a warm spring afternoon - to me, gumbo is good any time. 

Ross' Restaurant Gets a New Home

There was big news on the restaurant scene here in the Quad Cities over the past 48 hours.  Due to a new bridge that will take Interstate 74 across the Mississippi River, the owners of the venerable Ross' Restaurant in downtown Bettendorf have known for quite sometime that they were going to have to evacuate their building that has stood there for nearly 50 years and move to a new location.  A couple days ago, the Freidhof family - the owners of Ross' - announced that they would be moving to the old Frank's Pizza location near the corner of 18th St. and 53rd Ave. in Bettendorf.  (see map)

For the past couple of years, speculation ran rampant as to where Ross' would relocate.  Cynthia Freidhof, the daughter of Harold and June Ross (the original owners of Ross'), her husband Ron, and their daughter Melissa Freidhof-Rodgers (pictured at right - courtesy QC Times/Bettendorf News) looked at a number of options in the Quad Cities including a move across the river to Rock Island or Moline, taking a look at existing buildings in Davenport, or building a new location in Bettendorf.  When Frank's Pizza closed in early January, that building suddenly became available.  A little over three weeks later, the Freidhof's made their announcement this past Thursday afternoon that they would be moving into the old Frank's Pizza.  

Work on the span of the new I-74 bridge across the Mississippi isn't expected to begin until 2017, but the Iowa Department of Transportation has been buying up land parcels and businesses to make way for a new interchange on the Iowa side of the river.  Many of the businesses - about 40 in total - that had accepted buy-outs by the Iowa D.O.T. to make way for the new bridge have closed and many buildings have been torn down.  But Ross' Restaurant - with their iconic sign next to Interstate 74 as you drive into Iowa - stood as the final hold-out hoping to get the most money for their property and for relocation expenses.

My wife and I were in Ross' last summer and we happened to talk to Melissa Freidhof-Rodgers about their plans.   Melissa told us that they had been looking at a property just up the road near the Kimberly Road exit off of Interstate 74, but that deal had fallen through.  She wouldn't say where it was, but we speculated it was the old Bob Evans building as that restaurant had been closed for a couple three years.  Then we heard that they were possibly looking at the old Chef's Hat restaurant in Bettendorf on Lincoln Ave., but that evidently went nowhere.  It only made sense that they would take over the old Frank's Pizza building, which isn't that old of a building.  

The interesting aspect is that the Freidhof's will apply for a liquor license and offer a full bar at the new Ross'.  That's right - along with the famous Magic Mountain's that they serve at Ross', you can get a drink or a beer to go along with it.  Thanks to a bigger kitchen area they'll also feature healthier choices (they've been going that way with their menu at the original Ross') including gluten-free, vegan and Paleo diet selections.  Ross' will also continue to support local farmers with more farm-to-fork menu items.  

The other interesting thing is that the Freidhof family is planning on continuing their tradition of 24 hour dining at the new Ross'.  This will be somewhat fascinating to see how this works out.  The property that Ross' new building is on abuts up to some high dollar houses on Bettendorf's north end.   There could be some residents of that neighborhood who could voice their displeasure with Ross' moving in next door, especially with their reputation for catering to the after-hour bar crowds - which can be somewhat rowdy.  

Other traditions at Ross' - their core menu, the horseshoe shaped counter, the wait staff ladies who have been there for years, even the big sign - will make the trek to the north side of Bettendorf.  Melissa Freidhof-Rodgers believes they will have to shut down for about a week later this summer to make the move to the new building.  But they hope to be in the new place and up and running by mid-July.   She also notes that they are looking at the future possibility of having "Ross' Express" locations around the Quad Cities on both sides of the river.  

Until then, it will be business as usual at Ross' current location in Bettendorf.  I'm sure they'll see an uptick in business over the next few months as people go get a Rossburger, a cup of their good chili, or a Ross' "Favorite" breakfast one last time at the only location for Ross' they've ever known.  I'm sure I'll be there more than one time between now and July.  

(To read Road Tips entry on Ross', click here.)

I Should Be in Paris Right Now, But I'm Not.

Yes, I should be in Paris right now at a training and meeting session for one of the factories we import and distribute in North America.  But, I'm not.  

And why am I not in Paris right now?  I'm glad you asked because I am going to vent at United Airlines.

I went to the Quad City Airport in Moline on Sunday to catch a connecting flight to Chicago O'Hare so I could get on an overnight flight to Paris Charles De Gaulle.  On the way out to the airport, I got a text from United telling me that due to a late arriving plane, my flight to Chicago would be delayed by 50 minutes.  Now, I only had a 70 minute layover in Chicago to begin with.  I knew I was in trouble even before I checked in for my flight at Moline.

When I went to the United counter, I asked the service agent if I was going to have any trouble in Chicago.  He looked at my boarding passes and said, "Oh, yeah.  You're going to have BIG trouble in Chicago."  

I knew there was an American Airlines flight that was supposed to take off about the same time to Chicago and I asked if I could get on that flight.  "Unfortunately, that flight, too, is delayed.  Mechanical issues," he said as he was typing into his computer.  Then he said, "And, unfortunately, there is only one flight a day to Paris from Chicago on United."  

He explained that he could get me in to Paris on Tuesday.  By then, I started to do the calculations in my head.  I was going for three days of trainings and meetings starting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.  I was meeting a colleague who was flying in from Montreal for the meetings and Monday was going to be spent getting acclimated to the seven hour time difference.  The flight would have landed in Paris at 9:25 a.m. and that's 1:25 a.m. body time.  The rule of thumb is to try to stay up as long as you can on long flights east so your body will get more quickly acclimated to the time change.  I'm always a zombie on the first day I'm in Europe and my body still feels it on the second day.  

I figured that I could probably make the flight on Monday night - driving into Chicago and not having to worry if United would delay me again getting out of Moline.  But then I remembered - I was going to fly back from Paris to St. Louis to meet up with friends for baseball games this coming weekend.  I couldn't drive into Chicago on Monday.    

I asked my wife to come into the the airport when I got there because I didn't know if I would be flying out or going back home.  It was 3:15 in the afternoon and I thought about just having her drive me to O'Hare.  It's about a two and a half hour drive to O'Hare from the Quad Cities.  The agent at the counter said, "That's fine, but the only problem is that you'll have to be checked in one hour before your flight."  Another quick mental calculation and I determined that wasn't going to be enough time.  

I asked about Delta flights and he said, "Well, I can get you to Atlanta or Detroit, but you'd be stuck there for the night.  And they wouldn't be able to get you out any sooner than tomorrow night."  

Cursing United Airlines under my breath, but loud enough for a 60-ish lady standing near me to give me the evil eye, I told the agent to cancel my ticket.  With a quick keystroke, he said, "Done!  Sorry for your inconvenience, sir."  He did give me an 800 number that I had to call to get the full refund on my ticket with instructions that it was a delay that caused the overall cancellation.  (Fortunately, getting the full refund went off without a hitch.)

Now, I'm an anxious air traveler.  Oh, I like to fly and I know that air travel is one of the safest ways to get around.  My anxiety stems from not having full control of the situation, mainly getting through airports and getting on the plane and having it leave - on time.  Delayed flights are my biggest fear, missing my flight altogether is right up there, as well.  I'm a mental wreck for days before I'm supposed to be flying somewhere.  I've been that way for years and it's never gotten any better.  You'd think that I'd be used to it - especially flying United almost exclusively over the past few years.  

United has been the worst - for me - in terms of delayed or canceled flights.  I looked it up and found that seven of the last night flights I'd had with United had either been delayed or canceled.  I have been delayed or canceled twice out of Montreal due to mechanical issues.  I was cancelled out of Moline going to Denver last September because the door wouldn't properly shut on the plane.  My flight from Moline to Las Vegas connecting through Denver last January was delayed three hours because they couldn't start the plane.  I got lucky - if you call it that - because the flight between Denver and Las Vegas was also delayed so I was able to make that flight, but I was two hours late getting into Vegas.  Inbound delays for planes have delayed me out of Moline and Chicago.  

Yesterday, my friend Tom Kirkendall - who runs the wonderful blog site Houston's Clear Thinkers (and one of the people I leaned on for advice for starting Road Tips nearly 10 years ago) - sent me this article from the Wall Street Journal outlining problems United has experience since absorbing Continental Airlines nearly 4 years ago.  While United has been floundering, Delta has gotten past its speed bumps after absorbing Northwest and passenger complaints have gone down considerably.  The article pretty much summed up my growing frustration with United.  

Right now, I'm almost indentured to United - I have nearly 50,000 miles racked up going toward a free trip to Hawaii for my wife and I sometime next year.  The trip to France and subsequent planned business trips would have helped get closer to my goal of 80,000 miles that I'll need to have for both of us to go, but won't have to buy any miles out of pocket.  But at this point, I'm so down on United that I don't even want to take the free miles they've given me over the past four or five years.

I had been an American Airlines traveler for a number of years.  I first became a frequent flyer on TWA, but when they were swallowed up by American a few years ago I had all my miles switched to that airline.  Once again, I felt indentured to American because I was racking up points.  But delays and the fact that American no longer flew from Moline to St. Louis was the biggest reason why I quit using them once we went to Hawaii four years ago.  I went to United exclusively and even though I don't fly as much as my colleagues do, I still managed to get a lot of miles pretty quickly.  

It looks like I'm going to start flying Delta.  Their flights go to Minneapolis, Detroit or Atlanta before going on to wherever I need to get to.  It's not as convenient as flying through O'Hare or Denver, but the hassle factor seems to be a little lower in terms of delays and cancellations.  But just like any airline, Delta also has its detractors.  I guess I'm just gonna have to find out for myself.

I'll reschedule my Paris trip to sometime later in the summer.  And that sucks.  I was worn down with anxiety running up to the flight that was canceled on Sunday.  The thing I'm most pissed off about right now is the fact that I wanted to get this trip over and done with.  I'll have to go through the whole emotional and mental cycle again later on this summer.

My unused boarding pass from O'Hare to Paris.

Thanks again, United.

More on the Winter of 2014

As I write this early morning, it's a -20F (-29C) at the Davenport Municipal Airport and -18F (-28C) at the Quad City International Airport over in Moline, a new record low temperature for this date.  While it's not quite as cold here in Davenport as it was yesterday - the temperature at the National Weather Service office at the Davenport airport got down to -22F (-30C).  As I've said before, if it's -2F or -20F, it's just cold.  

This is the 26th day this winter season that we've had temperatures under 0F (-18C).  On over a dozen of those days, the temperature has reached below -10F (-23C).  Considering we normally have just 10 days where the thermometer dips below the 0F mark on average during winter, this has truly been an extraordinary winter around here.  

And it's been a long winter - we had our first snow on October 22 of last year.  Average temperatures have been well under normal for the last four months.  And we're inches away from hitting our all-time snowfall during a winter season.  While we haven't had many large snowfalls this season - most have been in the 2 to 4 inch range (5 to 10cm) - we've had a lot of those little clipper systems that keep piling up snow depths that I haven't seen in years.  And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we haven't been above freezing for over two weeks.  

The good thing is that we're not seeing high winds with these low temperatures, so we're not getting the brutally cold wind chills that we were getting back in early January.  Still, authorities are cautioning people to bundle up to guard against frost bite.  

With all this snow, the moisture content isn't high.  Usually, most snows have a 10 to 1 ratio (10 inches of snow equal 1 inch of rain).  But because of the cold temperatures and low moisture content, the snow moisture ratio is around 17 to 1.  That's going to help when it begins to melt.

And it looks like it will begin to melt starting this week.  We could see high temperatures on Thursday above freezing for the first time since late January.  And long-term forecasts show that after another small dip in temps at the start of the coming weekend, we could see temperatures moderating into the 40's (F) (5 to 7C) next week.  And I'm ready for it.  As are millions of others around the Midwest.

Oh, and since I started writing this entry, the temperature at the Quad City airport in Moline has dipped to -21F (-29C).  Brrrr.... indeed.

Karma Can Be a Bitch

Today's story is a lesson for the 20-something's out there who have to learn that taking credit where credit isn't due can come back and bite you in the butt.  

I was at the local Schnuck's supermarket this week, there to pick up some Icelandic cod filets for dinner for that evening.  Now, when I go to grocery stores like Schnuck's or Hy-Vee, I'm usually there to pick up a few things.  I'm not one who goes in with a food agenda for the week, picking up all types of food to eventually throw out when we decide we'd rather have something else or go out to eat and the food expires in the fridge.   Going to the store every day or every two days still maddens my wife, but I don't mind heading in five or six times a week.  Especially since we live an equadistant three minutes from both Schnuck's and Hy-Vee.  

And because I'm there to only pick up a few things, I like to use the little carts with the two baskets above one another.  I call them the "sports car" carts because they're easy to spin around the aisles than the big "barge" carts that are a pain to maneuver, especially in a crowded store.  The only problem is that many people have the same idea I have and the small carts are usually taken.  If I were in grocery store management, I'd have a 2 to 1 ratio of small carts versus the larger carts instead of the inverse 3 to 1 ratio they seem to have now.  But that's just me. 

On this trip to Schnuck's, as I entered the vestibule area I noticed there was only one small cart with the large carts.  The only problem was that it was holding a ladies-style purse.  I sort of stood there for a moment, looking around the area to see if there was a lady.  There was nobody.  I looked around outside to see if anyone was near the store front.  No one.  Hmmm...  All right.  Now what?

I decided to push the cart inside with the purse still in it.  As I got inside the door, I saw a Schnuck's worker - a young 20-something guy who I've noticed in there before, primarily on the early morning shift.  I told him, "Hey, I think some lady left her purse in this cart.  I didn't see anyone around it."  

"Oh, my gosh," he exclaimed.  "I'll take it to customer service."  Which was a five foot walk from where I was standing.  

I went about getting my small list of groceries and as I was going over toward the self-check out area, an older lady came in and I heard her ask someone at customer service if they had her purse.  When the lady behind the counter produced it for her, she said, "Oh, my goodness!  You don't know what I went through just now!"

When the older lady asked who found the purse, the lady behind the customer service counter pointed toward the young man who was now manning the self-check out command center.  By this time, I was starting to scan the items in my cart and the older lady came over to the young man and offered him a reward for finding her purse.  I sort of stopped and looked at the kid.  She was offering him money - I don't know if it was a 10 or a 20 dollar bill - and to his credit, he kept saying that, no, he couldn't accept her money.  

But the older lady wouldn't take "no" for an answer.  She forced the bill into the guy's hand, thanking him again for finding her purse, and turned and walked out of the store.  The kid didn't even offer up a, "Hey, THIS was the guy who actually found your purse and he turned it into me."  

I stood there for a moment, laughed out loud and said to the kid, "Hey, man!  You're welcome!"  

He didn't acknowledge me and I was standing three feet from him.  I just turned around and continued with my self-check out.  

Now, I'm sure that I would have turned down money from an old lady who wanted to reward me for finding her purse. (Well... That is, unless she opened up her purse to show me she had $50,000 in it.)  I used to get upset with an elderly lady who lived next door to us who would buy me gift certificates to local restaurants for blowing snow off her sidewalk in front of her house.  I gave a couple gift certificates away to my wife's son and her father, and I'm looking at two more sitting on my desk.  

A manager came over to the kid as I was finishing my purchase at the self-check out and started to berate him for taking money from the old lady.  "Never, EVER, take money from a customer, no matter what you did to deserve it," the manager sternly said to the young man.  Even after the young guy explained she wouldn't take no for an answer, the manager said, "That doesn't matter.  You NEVER take money from a customer!"  

As I was walking past the kid who was getting dressed down by the manager for "his" good deed, I just had to chuckle.  The kid took responsibility for finding the purse instead of saying, "Well, actually, a customer turned it into me, and I put it in customer service."  It wouldn't have mattered to me if I was standing there and he still wouldn't have acknowledged me as being the one who found the purse - as long as he didn't take full credit for finding the purse like he did.

The lady gave him money and he got in trouble for it.  I learned a lot of lessons in my 20's (and I'm still learning lessons today) and I'm hoping the kid will think twice in the future when he tries to take full responsibility for something he really didn't do.        

The Winter of 2014

The front page of yesterday's Quad City Times says it all - we're hunkering down in the Quad Cities.  This winter has just been brutal.  Our average mean temperature has been over 10 degrees cooler since December 1.  We've been hit with not one, but two polar vortex outbreaks.  The second one in less than a month began on Sunday night.

Right now as I write, it's -12 F (-26 C) in the Quad Cities.  It's isn't quite as cold as some were forecasting for overnight (-17 F), but the saving grace is that there is no wind this morning.  No wind - no wind chill.  They aren't as lucky up toward Dubuque this morning with wind chill temperatures hovering around -40 F (which, coincidentally is also -40 C).

The last prolonged outbreak of cold weather that I can remember was 18 years ago when I believe the temperature didn't climb above 0 F (-18 C) for about five days.  During that streak of cold temperatures, the Quad Cities realized their lowest all-time temperature of -29 F (-34 C).  That was - by far - the coldest air I've ever lived through.  But as I've always said, - 29 F or - 9 F, it's still damn cold.  

We've had a lot of snow this winter and with temperatures consistently under freezing (and it appears to be that way for the next 10 days) it doesn't look like we'll be getting rid of it anytime soon.  We keep getting these "Alberta Clipper" systems coming out of west central Canada that lay down 1 to 3 inches (2.5 cm to 8 cm) of snow.  It snowed on Friday night, it snowed again on Saturday night and then the frigid front came through on Sunday evening with even more snow and gusts of wind up to 59 mph (95 kph) causing blizzard conditions.  We're not getting a lot of snow with each system, but an inch or two here and there with sub-freezing temperatures makes it pile up quickly.  We're expecting another clipper system to move through on Thursday dropping another 1 to 3 inches on the area with a more significant snowstorm on the horizon early next week.

The one saving grace with all the snow is that it's helping insulate our rose bushes and other annual plants against the biting cold.  I didn't mulch the rose bushes before winter this year - we already had a good layer of mulch on the rose beds before the winter outbreak and most of the rose bushes are mature enough to be able to handle most winters.  But this one has been especially brutal and I'm a little worried we may lose some plants and rose bushes.  

I was lucky with the first Arctic outbreak in early January - I was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show.  It was well below 0 F for about three nights in a row.  When I got home on January 11, I brought warm weather with me from the west.  It was the first above freezing temperatures the Quad Cities had seen in over a week.  

With about seven more weeks of winter on the calendar, I'm ready for days like this - warm days, blue skies, green vegetation, rose buds.  Two years ago, the winter was so mild we were experiencing 60 degree temps (15 C) at this same time.  We even had buds on our rose bushes coming out in March.  We were worried that we'd get a hard freeze and ruin some of the roses before they bloomed, but it never came.  We had roses in mid-April, a full six weeks before they normally come in late May.  I remember thinking at the time, "Boy, if this would be as bad as it would get around here, this would be perfect!"

Unfortunately, this winter has literally slapped us back to reality.  

Urbanspoon Recognizes Road Tips As Most Traveled Blog

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from someone who said, "Hey, did you see you had a mention on Urbanspoon's blog last month?"  Actually, I didn't know Urbanspoon HAD a blog!  I followed the link and it was an entry from Ken Goldstein, one of the administrators of the Urbanspoon web site, on the occasion of the 10,000th blogger to join Urbanspoon.  I scrolled down through the entry and saw the familiar Road Tips heading with this beside it -

Urbanspoon's Most Traveled Blogger

The hometown of Road Tips is listed as Davenport, Iowa. But how meaningful is a hometown for the blog of a traveling sales guy who has managed to post reviews in 65 different metro areas from Seattle to Savannah (including our only post to date in Minot, North Dakota)? We'll also give a nod to Suits in Strange Places, a group blog which has posted reviews in 69 different metro areas, but falls a bit short of the lone-wolf achievement of Road Tips.  

(Click here to see the whole blog entry.)

That was a nice thing for the people at Urbanspoon to do for Road Tips.  This blog joined Urbanspoon in February of last year after getting a request from a restaurant to link a review that we did on the place directly to Urbanspoon.  I began to link other blog reviews to other restaurants and after awhile I got a communication from Ken at Urbanspoon who wrote, "You know, you're becoming one of the more prolific bloggers on our site.  Instead of us adding the information, here's how you can publish your own entries on Urbanspoon."  So, now I'm my own editor on Urbanspoon.

In just a little less than 15 months on Urbanspoon, Road Tips has had over 100,000 hits from Urbanspoon users and is hovering around the Top 100 of worldwide Urbanspoon blogs in terms of total hits.   It's a rather confusing situation - Road Tips has been as high as 69th worldwide, and just last week we were in the upper 80's.  For some reason I'm sitting at 110th on the Urbanspoon list of blog hits as of right now.  I don't understand how I can go from 115,000 total hits down to 110,000 hits.  I just let Urbanspoon worry about that.  But, hey!  110th out of 10,000 blogs still isn't too shabby!

Road Tips has also gotten recognition from Urbanspoon for being a popular blog with people looking for places to eat in the metro and statewide areas that the web site serves.  Right now, Road Tips is a Top Ten blog destination for Urbanspoon in Minneapolis, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Omaha, and we're hovering just outside the Top Ten for Chicago.  And as of today, Road Tips is the most popular Urbanspoon blog in the Quad Cties, Cedar Rapids/Iowa City, the state of Illinois and the state of Minnesota, and lately we've been trading the top spot in the state of Iowa on Urbanspoon with the fun Des Loines blog that searches out the best pork tenderloin sandwiches across the state.  I'm just thrilled that someone takes the time to click on the links to Road Tips.     

There are a number of travel and restaurant sites out there - most notably Yelp and Trip Advisor.  I have colleagues that contribute to Yelp, but it's not a "blog friendly" web site.  And that's OK with me.  For a blog that has taken on a life of its own over the past few years, I have limited hours during the week to devote to working on Road Tips. 

Right now, I've attached 679 blog entries to restaurants listed on Urbanspoon.  While it may seem that I'm one of the most prolific bloggers they have, I'm not even in the top 10.  There are some bloggers who have done well over twice the amount of blog entries I've contributed to the site.  I don't know how long Road Tips can last, but it will end when I cannot keep up with my work - which helps contribute to entries on the blog - and balancing home life.  Until then, I'll keep adding more unique and interesting places to eat that I've come across in my travels.  

Thanks for looking in!     

This is Spring?

Today marks the first day of Spring in the Midwest.  Well, the calendar certainly says that, but taking a look outside shows its still winter.  It's a balmy 18 degrees in Davenport this morning. Temperatures today on the first day of Spring are not going to make it out of the mid 20's in the area.  This is all happening a full year after we had a consecutive run of late Winter days with record high temperatures across Eastern Iowa and Northern Illinois. (Cartoon courtesy Dave Granlund)

I said to my wife a couple three weeks ago, "I'm ready for warm weather."  I'm still waiting.  I did feel a 72 degree day in Kansas City when I was there last week, but two days later it was 39 for those people who have suffered through a couple monster winter storms this season.  

Talking with dealers of mine in Fargo and Minneapolis, they, too, are ready for Spring.  But long term forecasts show no sign of immediate warming in the upper Midwest.  Seasonal Affective Disorders are holding on a little longer this year for many Midwesterners.

A year ago, we had shoots on our rose bushes, daffodils and tulips were popping out early, the grass was green and I think I had already mowed once before the first day of Spring.  We had roses a full six weeks before normal last year, and even with a frost in early May, we still had one of the most beautiful Spring-times that I can remember.  

But Spring is still far away and local Quad City meteorologist Terry Swails from WQAD-TV is telling us that GFS models are showing a significant snowfall for Iowa and Illinois starting Sunday and continuing into Monday - a snowfall that could drop 8 to 14 inches of heavy, wet snow with some areas getting locally heavier amounts.  Unfortunately, it looks like the heart of the storm is going right through the Quad Cities.  My grandma always said, "There's always one last big snow before Spring comes."  I was hoping the one we had a couple weeks ago would be the last big one of Winter.  Now I'm really hoping we don't see any April snowstorms.  Stay tuned...     

 

Cancer Takes Another Friend

This one is going to be tough...

First of all, cancer sucks.  Over the last year, cancer has taken friends, relatives and people I do business with.  Some of them didn't get the chance to live a full life.  And with others, cancer snuffed out the last bit of a long and accomplished life.  This week, I was shocked to hear that a good friend, Craig Evert, had cancer and passed away on Tuesday.  Today is his funeral.

I'd known Craig for nearly 15 years. I first met him when his wife, Kathy, worked for Davenport One (now the Quad Cities Chamber) as the Vice-President for economic development.  My first recollection of Craig occurred when we were working the annual Davenport Street Fest - I was running the band stage and he was helping out running refreshments to the beer tents.  The guy was a hard worker.  In fact, he worked so hard one year that he got heat exhaustion.  I remember that we sat him down in a tent, put ice on his neck, and eventually sent him home.  He didn't want to let everyone down, but we insisted that he go home and rest.

Craig and I soon found out that we had a few things in common - beer, primarily.  Craig loved eclectic beers and would run over to John's Grocery in Iowa City to buy pony kegs of beer for consumption at home.  He also grew up in Nebraska and was a big Nebraska football fan.  I told him that I used to go to a number of games when my cousin went to school in Lincoln years ago.  Then when I showed him a bunch of the programs that I'd kept over the years from those games, he was amazed that someone in Eastern Iowa had a tie to his beloved Cornhuskers.  Sometime later when I found out that he went to college at Kearney State (now the University of Nebraska - Kearney), I related stories of many nights I spent in bars in Kearney years ago when I used to call on a dealer out there.  We immediately bonded.   

(Pictured right - Craig on his 47th birthday toward the end of December.  He looked pretty good in this picture.  Absolutely no inkling of any illness, if you ask me.  And no indication that he would pass away six weeks later.) 

Craig was an electrician by trade and when we moved into our house over 10 years ago, he came over and rewired all the outlets as none of them were grounded.  He hung a ceiling fan in the spare bedroom for us, and he switched out a couple wall switches in our kitchen that controlled a light above the sink and our garbage disposal.  But one thing he couldn't figure out was the wiring for a wall switch on our hallway.  It was set up so that the switch at the end of the hall near our kitchen had to be on for the switch at the other end of the hall near the bedrooms would be able to control the lights in the hall.  He was completely perplexed by it, working on it for hours and finally giving up.  We lived with it that way for about 4 years before our neighbor, who is also an electrician - and who also happens to be gay - came over and rewired the switches so that they'd both control the lights. Our neighbor was used to working with wiring in older homes and knew exactly what the problem was.  I gave Craig a hard time for a long time after that.  "It took a gay electrician to figure out our wiring," I'd tease him.  

"Yeah, I guess I gotta go gay if I wanna be a good electrician," he'd laugh.

As I said, Craig was a hard worker.  We built a berm along the back fence on our property and I had five tons of dirt delivered and dumped on our driveway.  I asked four friends - Craig was one - to help wheel the dirt to the back berm, dump it and spread it out.  We started at 9:00 a.m. and we were over halfway down by about 10:30.  I suggested we stop and take a beer break, but Craig said, "Naw, let's keep going.  We'll have more time to drink later."  And it was a good thing - almost as soon as the last wheelbarrow load was dumped on the berm and smoothed out by one of the guys, it started to rain.  As we all stood in the garage watching it rain and enjoying the first of multiple beers that late morning, Craig said, "Now aren't you glad that we didn't take a break earlier?"  

Craig had a quick and infectious smile. That great smile seemed to be perpetually turned on. He was always so fun to be around.  Craig also had a great attitude.  Even when things were shitty he'd still joke about the situation and laugh through it.    I never saw him angry, and if he did bitch about something he'd be laughing as he recounted some story of something that had gone to hell on him.  Never taking himself too seriously, Craig was a master of self-deprecating humor.  It was very endearing to those of us who knew him.    

We used to have "play days", many of them involved our friend Randy Adams (who lost his wife to cancer about nine months ago).  Sometimes we'd go over to Craig's and hang out in his backyard, or we'd pick him up and go to the bar.  But many times he'd just come over to our house and hang out on the deck.  We'd drink beer, cook steaks on the grill, sit on the deck and laugh.  I think Kathy was happy to have him out of the house and out playing with his friends giving her a little "me time".    

Craig decided that he was going to build a garage in his backyard.  He recruited a number of friends to come over to help him.  I'm not too handy with a hammer and being on the road quite a bit, I wasn't able to help much through the week.  But one weekend, Craig needed "all hands on deck" to help raise trusses to support the roof.  I went over and helped lift the trusses up to the guys on either side of garage who would secure them in place.  When we had about three trusses left to put up, we discovered that we were short by one.  We went back and tried to figure out if we'd measured wrong and didn't space them out far enough.  Nope, that wasn't the case.  He was just one truss short.  He sat there and began to laugh.  "Well, that sucks," he said laughingly.  "I must have miscounted."  We decided that if he ever opened a construction company, it would have to be called "One Truss Short."  

Years later, we got an e-mail from Craig and it had an attached picture of a single truss sitting on a junk pile behind a building site.  He said in the e-mail, "Doesn't it just piss you off when you have one too many trusses?"  I could hear the laughter in his words.  

Craig had an innate sense of humor that allowed him to see funny things in all different types of situations. At right is a picture of Craig and family members that he sent to me a few years ago.  If I remember right, this is his cousin, his mom and his dad.  He set the camera up for a timed-shutter photo and ran back to stand with the group.  He told me, "I ran back and we took the picture.  When I got home and downloaded the pictures onto the computer, I had dog porn!"  They were concentrating on smiling for the camera and not on the two dogs frolicking in front of them.      

One evening about 8 years ago, Cindy and I were driving along Locust Street in Davenport and looked down Arlington toward Craig and Kathy's house.  We noticed they had a "For Sale" sign in the front yard.  I immediately called Kathy and said, "Hey, is your house really for sale?"  

She said, "Yeah, we're thinking about getting out of the neighborhood."  And understandably so - some of their neighbors were a little sketchy.   But it turned out that Kathy had taken a job as President of the Iowa Lakes Corridor Development Corporation - the regional economic agency for four counties in Northwest Iowa.  We were very sad when they moved, but they wanted to get closer to their families out in Nebraska.  I remember asking Craig what he was going to do and he said with a laugh, "Hell, I don't know.  I'll just have to live off K.J., I guess!"  

It turned out that Craig used his electricians background to become an associate professor of wind turbine energy at Iowa Lakes Community College.  He got a kick out of me calling him "Professor Evert" when we'd talk on the phone.  Craig told me last summer that he absolutely loved working at the community college.  

We stayed in contact via e-mail and phone - primarily during Nebraska football games, and especially when they were getting smoked.  In the Big Ten Championship game last December, Nebraska was getting blown out by Wisconsin in a game in which the Cornhuskers were heavily favored.  I called him up in the third quarter and asked, "What the hell is going on with these guys?"

He laughed that laugh of his and he simply said, "They suck..."   

We spent part of our vacation last summer up in Lake Okoboji (click here to see our entries on restaurants around the Lake Okoboji region) and one of the big reasons was to go up and see Craig and Kathy.  They'd been up in Spirit Lake for nearly 7 years and were entrenched in the community.  I'd been there to see them on trips through the area on a couple occasions, but Cindy hadn't seen Kathy since they moved.  We spent a night with them at their house having a great dinner, some fine wine, and Craig and I shared some great Scotch.  It was like we had just seen each other the week before and picked up the conversation.  Craig said toward the end of the evening, "Man, you told me that you could live anywhere.  Why don't you move up here?  K.J. could help Cindy get a job somewhere."  The only problem is that Lake Okoboji isn't too centrally located in my 11-state territory as the Quad Cities are.  

A couple nights later, we went out with them for an enjoyable and memorable evening around the Lake Okoboji area.  They took us to a biker bar in the small town of Superior, then to a lakeside bar for drinks before ending up for a great pizza and great burgers at The Ritz (click here to see the entry on The Ritz).  It was really tough to say good-bye to Craig and Kathy when they dropped us off at our little resort later that evening and we immediately made plans to come back up the next summer.  

Last Monday, I got an e-mail from Kathy that she sent out to seven people telling us that Craig had been hospitalized a couple days prior and that doctors suspected his body was ravaged by cancer.  It was a shock to Cindy and me.  Kathy said in her e-mail that Craig didn't want anyone to know that he was ill, that he didn't want anyone to make a fuss over him.  That was typical of Craig, of course.

I sent Kathy an e-mail on Tuesday to see if I could give Craig a call to hopefully brighten his spirits.  She e-mailed me back later in the evening and said, "Sorry, but he is probably not going to make it through the night."  Well, that completely floored me.  Sure enough, the little bastard died on us about an hour and a half later.  

We haven't talked to Kathy directly to see what transpired through all of this.  We certainly didn't see any signs of any ailments in Craig when we were up there in late August of last year.  He was talking about how he was digging riding his bike on the bike trails surrounding the lakes region.  He looked like he was in good shape and was in his always great spirits.  I talked to him in early December and there wasn't any inkling of any problems then, either.  As soon as the dust settles for Kathy, we'll give her a call and find out the back story.  Cindy already wants to go up to Lake Okoboji and spend a couple three days with Kathy when the weather turns nice in the spring.  

I'm seriously conflicted and very guilty today as Craig's "celebration of life" service is at 3 p.m. today.  But I got home from the road late last night.  It's a six hour drive one-way to Spirit Lake and I have to leave again on Monday.  I get so burned out from driving that it's nice not getting in a car for a couple days.  I e-mailed Kathy and told her that we would love to come back up when the weather was nice to spend some time with her.  She wrote back and said, "Yes, I would really like that."  

So, at 3 p.m. this afternoon, I'm getting together with my buddy, Randy, and we're going to hoist a couple beers in Craig's memory.  As I was driving home yesterday and seeing the dozens of large wind turbines that dot the Midwestern countryside, I thought of Craig.  From here on, each time I see a large wind turbine I'll always think of Craig and probably laugh.  I missed him when he moved and I'm gonna miss him more now that he's gone.  

Election Day - 2012

It is Election Day across America and it couldn't have come quickly enough for me.  I had the same giddiness about Election Day this year that I had as a kid at Christmas time.  It's not because I was looking forward to executing my civic duty.  I was looking forward to the end of the incessant political ads and phone calls to our house.  Living in Iowa, we've been inundated with political pressure ads since last year because of our state's "First in America" status with the Iowa Caucus.  And because Iowa is a "swing state", we've had more than our share of ads and appearances by the candidates.  And because where I live is a "swing community" in a "swing state", the political process has been exacerbated fivefold.

I've laughed at some of the television ads that have been completely wrong on both sides of the ball for both state, congressional and national candidates.  And even after the ads have been proven to be wrong, the political groups (not the candidates) that funded the ads CONTINUE to run the SAME ONES!  I'd just sit there and laugh at the ads and I'm still chuckling about some of them as I write.  

Look, I'm a pretty apolitical person.  I've lived long enough to know that change will never come, no matter how much a candidate says it will.  There's a number of things that have to happen to make change happen and the first thing is to get the block-headed dolts on the extreme right and the sanctimonious self-professed intellectuals on the extreme left to soften up and take the blinders off.  I see good and bad on both sides of the issues.  But I also know that my perfect world will never happen with today's divisive political scene.  

The other thing that has gotten me sort of confused this year is the concept of voting early.  For a guy like me who travels, voting early is a convenience.  But this year, I blocked out Election Day on my travel schedule to be able to have the chance to go with my wife to vote tonight after work.  I read a report this past week that with the 32 states and the District of Columbia that allow for early (not absentee) voting, more than a third of people in those states have taken advantage of voting before November 6.  I don't anticipate a long line of people when I vote tonight around 6:30 p.m., not like those people who stood in line for a couple hours waiting for the polls to open in Iowa at 7 a.m.  I sort of dig voting on Election Day.  I mean, if you vote early and it turns out the guy you voted for had been outed as a serial child molester a couple days before the election, wouldn't that make you feel a little foolish?

The Slakingfool retweeted a link to a post by Jane Burns, a Wisconsin woman who writes the irreverent "Sneezing Through the Roundabouts" blog.  It sort of hit home with me in a couple of ways as she talked about waiting to vote on Election Day and about the diminishing numbers of "church ladies" who run the poll places.  Losing my brother-in-law recently, the husband of my niece remarked that getting food from people brought out to my sister's house was all good and well, but what we really needed was some "church lady food" - that comforting, "stick-to-your-ribs" homemade food that church ladies back at his home in Western Iowa had made up in pans and brought to grieving families after the loss of a loved one.  

This picture at the end of her blog post said it all.  The caption is "You know all these Church Ladies had some awesome potato salad recipes."  If you're over the age of 40, you remember these church ladies.  Unfortunately, we don't see these matronly old bags all that much any more.  Life does change, but it's still the status quo at statehouses across America and at the Capitol in Washington.  What a strange dichotomy that is.  

Do yourself a favor - first of all, don't forget to vote today; and secondly, click here to read Jane Burns blog entry on the winning combination of church ladies and poll workers.  

Another Good Bye - To the Bravest Person I Ever Knew

This one is gonna be tough...

We lost my brother-in-law, Terry Rose, earlier this week. (Read his obituary here.)  Terry had been having health problems and was due for a kidney transplant just after Thanksgiving.  He was in the hospital with a couple of health issues that were being addressed and was scheduled to be going back home last Wednesday.  Instead, he suffered a fatal heart attack and passed away.  His heart doctor was on the scene when he had his heart attack and there wasn't anything they could do to save him.   

Terry is one of the very few people in my life who I can say I have never heard anyone say a bad thing about.  He was a caring person with a big heart who would do anything for anyone.  The outpouring of grief and condolences from a legion of friends and acquaintances over the past few days has been staggering.

Rosie, as he was affectionately known, was married to my younger sister, Julie.  But even before he married my sister, he was a large part of our extended family.  He was best friends with my older brother in high school and I often joked that I wondered what was in the back of his mind when he was 18 and my 11-year-old sister was running the house around being a nuisance.  I'll admit, it was a bit of a shock to the system when they got together when my sister turned 21 and Terry was 28.  But I had to realize she wasn't the little girl she once was.  (As an aside, there's a 7 year difference in age between me and my wife, as well.  I joke that when I was graduating from high school, my wife was just finishing 5th grade.  Yes, kind of creepy if you really think about it.  But I didn't know her until she was 19 and we married years after that.)

I think it really rankled my brother for years that Rosie married our younger sister.  And Terry knew exactly how to push my brother's button.  We'd be sitting having a beer at a bar somewhere and Terry would turn to me and say, "Hey, watch this."  Then he'd turn to my brother and say, "Hey, Pat!  I'm gonna go home and nail your sister!"  Only he didn't use the word "nail".  

Oh, my brother would get hot!  "You son of a bitch," my brother would yell at Terry.  "You keep your hands off my baby sister!"  Terry would just laugh and laugh about that.   

Quite simply, Terry was my brother before he was my brother-in-law.  He helped with our annual pasture party in the 70's and was so much of an integral part of it that I doubt we would have been able to pull it off without his help before and during the party.  He took care of all the electrical needs for the party and was the defacto stage manager during the event.  Terry was the foundation of the party, the voice of reason and assurance during chaos.      

Rosie began to have heart problems in his late 30's and ultimately underwent a heart transplant in March of 1994 at the famed Cleveland Clinic.  My dad, brother, and a good friend, Gary Yoder, all drove out to see Terry a week after he underwent the transplant.  My dad, who probably thought of Terry as more of a son than he did his own two sons, had tears of joy when he saw Terry laying in that bed, the old familiar "shit-eating grin" on his face, knowing that he had a new lease on life.  The next morning, my brother, Gary and I hijacked Terry and took him to a restaurant near the hospital and he ordered - and ate - a big plate of very greasy onion rings.  He was like a little kid at Christmas time. 

Just to show you what kind of a guy Terry was - just four months before his heart transplant, he ventured out to the Emerson Hough Chapter of the Izaak Walton League in Newton on a Sunday morning where he found a lady lying face down in the pond.  Without regard to his own medical condition or the chilly water temperatures, Terry jumped into the pond, pulled the woman out and began to administer CPR.  She eventually lived and the next summer at the Iowa State Fair he was awarded the Governors Lifesaving Award. That selfless act on his part personified what Terry was all about. 

Over the years, Terry had his ups and downs, healthwise.  He developed kidney problems, most likely from all the anti-rejection drugs he had to take, and was on dialysis off and on for about four or five years.  As many problems that he faced, not once did he ever complain about how much pain he was in.  When I would see him and ask how he was doing - fully knowing that he wasn't feeling well - his standard answer would be, "Oh, I'm doin' all right, I guess.  I don't know."    

Terry was an electrician by trade, but fancied himself as more of a somewhat gourmet cook.  He watched the Food Network religiously and was admired among his circle of family and friends for his barbecued ribs.  Quite actually, I never cared for his barbecue sauce which was more of a runny tomato/vinegar sauce.  But he was the guy who taught me how to inject the sauce into the ribs before cooking them.   

Over the past few days, I've heard from many people who were touched by Terry's life.  One friend told me that he never saw Terry argue with anyone. "If two guys were arguing, Terry would act more like a peacemaker or an impartial judge," my friend told me earlier this week.  "He saw both sides of the argument."   

His familiar, "Hey Baby!", greeting that Rosie had gone silent over the past couple of years.  Due to declining health and fatigue, Terry just wasn't his old self over the past few years.  But he kept chugging along.  As the funeral director told me last Thursday morning, Terry had been swimming upstream against the current for years.  It was truly remarkable the fortitude he showed and gratitude for life that he had.

Being that he was an organ recipient, Terry donated his eyes and his skin and we had his body cremated.  We're having a memorial service at the Izaak Walton League in Newton today, a place where Terry loved to be and served as president for a number of years.  Because he was so loved and well thought of in the community, I've already told my sister that we may run out of room for those looking to come out to pay their respects.  And that's only fitting for a guy who was simply the bravest person I've ever known. 

You were a good man, Terry Rose.       

Lake Okoboji

We just got back from a very relaxing vacation with the bulk of it spent up in the Lake Okoboji area in Northwest Iowa.  Cindy had mentioned that she wanted to go up to Okoboji to get together with old friends of our - Craig and Kathy Evert - who moved from Davenport to the Iowa Great Lakes region in 2005.  Craig is an assistant professor of wind energy turbine and technology at Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville and Kathy is the President and C.E.O. for the Iowa Lakes Corridor Development Corporation which helps spur economic growth in four counties in the immediate area.  We had dinner with Craig and Kathy at their house one night and she was telling us how she was with the Governor of Iowa earlier in the day as he toured the Polaris ATV/snowmobile and Victory motorcycle plant in Spirit Lake.  We went out for dinner with Craig and Kathy one night, as well.  It was great to spend some time with them.

I had never vacationed at Okoboji, but Cindy had a number of years ago.  But she couldn't remember a lot about that vacation, so it was a relatively new experience for both of us over the days we spent in Okoboji.  And we went at the best time to be in the area - just after school goes back into session for both public schools and colleges around the area.  (Schools seem to be starting earlier and earlier each year.)  We had no problem getting into restaurants or bars in the Lake Okoboji area.  Most of the people that were there were primarily locals with a smattering of late summer vacationers like ourselves.  (Picture courtesy Iowa Rivals.com)

We stayed at a place called Pioneer Beach Resort which consisted of 9 cabins located on the shores of East Lake Okoboji (see map).  Although the place was quaint and rustic, it's a stretch to call the place a resort.  But the couple who ran the place, Rick and Lisa VanderWoude, were very nice people and they gave us a deal on Cabin 4 - the only one with a small deck that looked out over the lake.  We were the only people in the place for a couple three days before more people came to rent other cabins later in the week. It was actually very relaxing at Pioneer Beach. 

Cindy had hoped to do some kayaking, but the wind was gusty throughout our visit making it nearly impossible to send her out on the lake.  We did a lot of exploring of the area around the lakes, did a lot of reading and had a good time just taking it easy.  We turned on the television in the cabin once - just to see if it actually worked - and it was on for less than 10 seconds.  

One of the things we did was take in the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at historic Arnolds Park - I'll write about that experience at some point.  We also had to take in the somewhat infamous Barefoot Bar on East Okoboji.  I have to say they had the best mai tai's we've tasted since our trip to Hawaii two and a half years ago.  And even though we had cooking capabilities at our cabin - including our own Weber grill (each cabin had their own Weber grill) - we ate out for all our meals taking in a lot of what the area had to offer.  Hey, we were on vacation and I didn't feel like cooking.  There will be an extensive report of many of the places we ate at in the coming weeks.  Unfortunately many of the restaurants in the area are seasonal and close in the winter months.  But we hope that you'll be able to use our recommendations if you make it to the Okoboji region next summer.

We were in Okoboji for a few days and then ended up driving up to Minneapolis for a couple three days to finish out our vacation.  After spending time in the very rustic Cabin 4 at Pioneer Beach, I figured Cindy needed a little pampering.  I booked a room at the Marquette, an upscale hotel in the heart of downtown Minneapolis.  I got a great deal for being a Hilton Diamond Honors member which included an upgraded room to the executive floor of the hotel.  It was tough to go back home last Sunday.     

So, look for a number of entries from both the Lake Okoboji region and a couple three places that Cindy and I tried in the Twin Cities during our vacation in the coming weeks.  We're already planning on going back to Okoboji again next summer.    

 

The 60th Anniversary of the Weber Grill

This is the 60th year that people worldwide have been using a Weber Grill to cook meats, vegetables, fish and anything else that can be cooked.  We're a Weber Grill family with two 22" grills and a Weber smoker on our back deck landing.  I never really knew the full story behind the Weber grill or the man who designed, developed and sold the first grill 60 years ago this summer.  Over the past few days, I've been doing some digging on the Internet and found some interesting facts about the man who invented the Weber Grill - George A. Stephen - and how the product and the company came to be.  

It was the summer of 1951 and George Stephen was using a little brazier grill to cook steaks and burgers outside because he didn't like the huge brick barbecue in his backyard that was so popular with many suburbanites after World War II.  Stephen quickly became annoyed with having steaks get overcooked because he couldn't control the heat on his little outdoor grill.  Plus, with windy conditions and sudden rainstorms, the brazier didn't have a lid to keep the ashes from swirling about and the elements out.  He knew he needed a contraption that had a lid and a large grilling surface so he could cook more than two steaks and/or four burgers at the same time for his growing family.  (George and his wife, Margaret, eventually ended up with six boys and six daughters.)  

Stephen worked as the sales manager for the Weber Brothers Metal Works, a company his father owned for a number of years located on West Madison in Chicago, IL.  One of their primary metal fabrications was to make buoys for area rivers and lakes.  George Stephen took a look at the construction of a buoy - the top, then the middle barrel, then the bottom - and figured that if he took the middle out of the buoy, he could fashion a barbecue cooker out of the materials. He did just that, putting the bottom of the buoy on a three-legged stand and putting a handle on the lid.   

Stephen took the new grill to the backyard of his Mount Prospect, IL home and started up the charcoal for steaks.  When he put the lid on the top to regulate the heat, the fire suffocated.  A neighbor peered over the fence at George's contraption and wondered what it was.  George told him it was a barbecue kettle design he was working on and began talking to his neighbor about the dilemma he was having regarding the fire going out.  The neighbor casually said, "Why don't you poke some holes in it to allow the air flow through it."  

Taking the unit back to the shop, Stephen found that poking holes in the kettle did allow for the fire to get air, but there was no way to control the amount of air flow in the kettle to maintain an even heat.  That's when he came up with  the idea of the little discs that turned to open or close the air holes.  

George's Bar-B-Que Kettle was born and his backyard suddenly became the most popular place in the neighborhood that summer of 1951.  The steaks and burgers that he cooked on his kettle were the best that many of his neighbors had ever had.  He decided to make some more of the kettles during the winter of 1951/52 and see if anyone else would want to buy any.  It was a huge gamble.  Construction costs of the kettle made it expensive - the retail price of the kettle was around $50 bucks, which would be about $450 in today's cash value.  Most of the small brazier models people were using cost around $7 bucks.  

Undeterred, Stephen packed one of his barbecue kettles in his station wagon that next Spring of 1952 and took off around the Midwest showing it to hardware stores.  He had some early success with selling his grill, so much so that in 1955 his father allowed the younger Stephen to establish the barbecue division of the company with a fabrication plant located in suburban Wood Dale.  That was the beginning of the Weber-Stephen Company.  (It officially became Weber-Stephen Products in 1960 when George Stephen bought out his father).  Knowing that the Weber name had a bigger cache than either his George's Bar-B-Que Kettle or the Stephen family name, George Stephen called his first production grills "Weber Grills".  The rest is history.  

The design of Weber Grills over the years hasn't changed too much from the original BK-710 model made back in the 50's.  The same porcelain layer over the forged sheet metal gives the Weber Grills a measure of longevity.  Wheels were placed on the two back legs for mobility and an ash tray located below the kettle helps keep glowing embers from burning decks and lawns.  It's unique design gave the Weber Grill a nickname at the start of the Space Race in 1957 - "Sputnik" - named after the Russian satellite that was the first to go into orbit around the Earth.  

The Weber-Stephen company grew over the years and in 1966 they moved to a larger facility in northwest suburban Arlington Heights.  In 1980, the company moved to their present location in Palatine in the Sellstrom Industrial Park (see map).  Over 500 people work at Weber-Stephen making nearly 50 different models of charcoal and gas grills.  

The success of the Weber Grill has stoked the public's interest in outdoor cooking.  Nearly 90 million households across the United States have some sort of outdoor grilling apparatus.  Weber continues to hold the top market share of many of the grills used across the country and in dozens of countries around the world.  But that's not to say that all of their designs were winners.

In the 70's when rich pastel colors become the norm with patio and poolside furniture, Weber-Stephen came out with a God-awful looking line of lime green and bright yellow grills to follow the trend.   In 1965, the company came out with "The Ranger", a grill that looked similar to a wheelbarrow with a single wheel on the front and handles on the rear.  I can imagine that those were dumped more than once with steaks sizzling over a roaring fire.  "The Wishing Well" had a wooden barrel shaped outer shell with a crank under a little roof to raise and lower the top of the kettle.  The "Barrel" had a semi-circular shaped wooden table for dining around a Weber grill that was in a barrel with a door to clean out the ashes.  They even had an electric Weber grill in the 70's.  Plus, there were peripheral items such as the Weber electric fire blower that was designed to help stoke the charcoal (but many of them burnt up), a nautical grill that was fixed on a pivoting gimball support that was designed to make sure the grill was level even on sloped-keel sailboats, a Weber electric insect killer, exhaust hoods for those who wanted to grill inside (they couldn't see any health hazards with that, I'm sure), and even Weber bird feeders.  Now, I'd LOVE to have a Weber bird feeder.  But not if it's $40 or more.  

One of the biggest failures was the kettle-shaped gas grill that Weber first introduced in 1971.  The general public never caught on to the shape of the Weber gas grill.  In the mid-80's, the company chucked the design and came out with the Genesis series of gas grills - ones that looked more like the conventional gas grills on the market.  That was when Weber became a player in the gas barbecue grill business.   

Weber has had major success with their accessories including cooking utensils, aprons and mitts, chimney starters, books with grilling tips and recipes, and a number of little add-on applications such as grill lights (for those of us who cook in the dark), wireless digital thermometers (when they work, that is), and cookware that will allow you to cook anything from ribs to Chinese food to pizza.  

In the late 70's, Weber-Stephen got into the catering business with their "Weber on Wheels" trailer that featured 6 of their large Ranch kettles each of which featured over 1100 square inches of cooking surface.  Things went so well with their catering that they decided to open their first restaurant on Northwest Highway near their factory in Palatine.  People would order food at the counter and then the entrees were brought to the table on trays.  All the food was cooked on specially made 42" Weber Grills. Not quite haute cuisine, but the concept was suddenly in play.   In December of 1988, the first full service Weber Grill restaurant opened along "restaurant row" in Wheeling, IL   There are now four Weber Grill restaurants with three in the greater Chicagoland area and one in Indianapolis. (Click here to see my entry on the Lombard Weber Grill restaurant and here to see the Indianapolis Weber Grill entry.)

Through all of this, the man who started a revolution as to how Americans entertain kept a pretty low profile as the head of the company up until his untimely death in 1993. George Stephen never had a huge ego as he shied away from interviews with national news organizations, magazines and newspapers.  Stephen despised being the "face" of Weber Grills and took his picture out of catalog and print ads in the 70's. He preferred his kettles to be the focus on his business.  When Stephen passed away from cancer, obituaries that I found on line from the Chicago Tribune, New York Times and Los Angeles Times were brief without much of a story about Stephen other than the story of how he forged an industry out of a buoy.  

After Stephen's death, the family continued to run the business with son Jim Stephen as the CEO.  But in 2010, the Stephen family sold a 51% stake in the company to BDT Capital Partners, a Chicago-based equity firm that caters toward family-run businesses.  The Stephen family continues to have sole control of the four Weber Grill restaurants.  

George Stephen single-handedly created a business where he not only sold millions of barbecue grills worldwide, but it opened up a whole new industry that allowed dozens of companies and brand names like Minden, Napoleon, Char-Broil, Big Green Egg, Beefeater, and Naked Whiz to come into existence with a plethora of charcoal and gas grill products.  Fully functioning outdoor kitchens have become the norm with upscale houses in suburban areas across America.  With many of those homes, the focal point of backyard landscaping is centered around the outdoor kitchen area.  Gas grills now make up the majority of outdoor barbecue grills on the market - about 41% - but charcoal grills have been making a small comeback capturing about 2.1 percent of the market over the past three years to inch them to less than 3 percentage points to gas grill sales.  Smokers account for about 5 percent of all outdoor grills.      

As stated earlier, we are a three Weber grill family.  We had an 18" grill up until a couple years ago when I finally had to throw it out because it was over 15 years old and it had begun to rust out.  While we use the 22" with the table deck most of the time, for larger meals we'll use the other 22" for cooking vegetables, burgers or brats, or any overflow from the other grill.  We cook out year round, including in the snow from time to time.  Although friends have tried to get me to either go to gas (for quickness and convenience), or to look at getting a Big Green Egg (ceramic cookers seem to be the rage these days), I'm used to my Weber grills.  I know how to cook on them and cook on them correctly.  I just don't see me changing at any point.  And I have George Stephen to thank for that. 

(By the way - to the somewhat condescending guy who calls himself "Husker Red" on the Weber Kettle Club forum site, the reason I had to throw out the 18" Weber grill was because the holes where the legs go in became rusted and began to crack making the grill unstable.  My current grills are 9 and 14 years old and my smoker is about six years old, so I don't quite have a need for the "latest and greatest".  Finally, no, I didn't know those old "God awful" pastel grills were big to collectors.  Actually, I didn't know there was such a thing as Weber collectors.  Some people accuse me of being a Weber collector, but I use mine rather than just look at them.  But thanks for looking in!)    

Another Good Bye to an Old Friend...

I've had two very good and old friends pass away over the past week.  Today, I take a step away from our regular programming to salute a great guy - Rob Vonk.  Rob and I had known each other since our mid-teens.  We hung together quite a bit throughout high school, and after he went off to college we'd hang together in the summertime when he came home.  And when I finally went to college in Iowa City at the age of 24, Rob was in the College of Nursing at the University of Iowa on his way to becoming an anesthesiologist.  Together, we had many great nights out over those next four years, much to the consternation of his wife.

Robbie's family lived in large house on First Avenue in Newton, IA - the main drag through town.  His house was the defacto "ground zero" for kids to congregate and hang out.  (Kenny Brown's house, about two blocks away, was the other place to go if no one was at Vonk's, which was rare.)  Rob, along with his older brother, Rick, his younger brother, Rodger, and his sister, Rayleen, all had friends who would come over to the house and hang out in their pretty cool basement.  I have to think that their parents, Dick and Lorraine, actually did like the kids coming over.  They were great to sit down and talk with - even when none of the kids were around.  

Once Rob went off to college at Iowa State, we'd still stay in touch - either with me going up and hanging with him and other friends from Newton, or when he came back in the summertime.  Some of the best times happened when we would go down to the Des Moines River below the Red Rock dam and caught white bass as fast as we could get the hooks in the water.   They were so small and so many that we got to a point that we would just chuck 'em up over our shoulder back onto the bank to let the raccoons eat the fish.  

When I moved to Iowa City, Rob had been married for a couple years and we'd go out for beers with many of his nursing student friends.  We had a couple of years of great times - as I said, much to the consternation of his wife, Deb.  I know she didn't care much for me coming around and being a bad influence on Robbie.  But it was sure a large time.  

After Rob did his internship at the University of Iowa Hospitals, he went off to become an anesthesiologist taking courses at St. Mary's University in Minneapolis.  Now, I knew Rob was a smart guy - surprisingly smart considering that we used to call him "Erratic Rob" when we were growing up - but when he first told me that he wanted to become an anesthesiologist, I was taken aback.  But he became one and was a good one, becoming the Director of Anesthesiology at the Washington County Hospital in Washington, IA and had a house in Muscatine and a lake home on Lake Ponderosa.  Robbie did very well for himself.  I was certainly proud of his accomplishments.  

He also worked a lot - tremendous hours at times.  He actually lived in the Washington hospital at times because he was on call a lot.  It also took a toll on his marriage.  Deb and Rob had been separated for 17 years, but never divorced.

Rob and I would run into one another at class reunions and on occasions when I was in Iowa City.  We'd always try to make time to get together, but it was difficult to do so.  It was when I found out he was ill that we finally did make the time to get together for a few beers.

I had heard about 2 1/2 weeks ago that Rob was possibly ill.  I contacted our good friend, Wes Ver Woert, who contacted our friend Kim Yeutsy, who dated Rob back in high school, trying to find out if anyone had heard anything.  When it got back that no one knew, I just decided to call Rob.

He answered the phone, "Well, hello there!"

I said, "Are you all right?"

He sort of chuckled his little Rob chuckle and said, "No, not really."  

Robbie began to tell me that he had prostate cancer that had gone too far before it was caught.  It metastasized to his brain and he said, "I've been on some pretty aggressive chemotherapy and it's not working.  It's only a matter of time."  

We made plans to get together later in the week.  I had to go to Iowa City for business and I met Rob over at his wife's house.  She had taken him in when she found out that he had cancer.  And in typical Rob fashion, he never let anyone know that he had cancer.  He'd known for about six months before his hair started falling out.  That's when his wife, and his children - daughter Davis, 20, and son, Darien, 18 - knew something was up.  Rob told our friend Kim, "I didn't want people to treat me any differently, so that's why I didn't tell anyone that I had cancer."  

Before we went out for a beer, I reconnected with Deb and met his two kids for the first time.  Rob and I ended up going out for a few beers and caught up.  He was especially proud of his smart and beautiful children.  Davis was studying to be a neuropsychologist and Darien was getting ready to enter Iowa to study biology with an eye toward medical school.  Rob said, "Dari got a 35 (out of 36) on his ACT's.  And he was cocky about it!  He said, 'I know what I missed.  I could probably take it again and ace it.' "  

Rob was in the process of making plans to travel with his kids to go look for white-faced monkeys in the jungles of Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.  He had just gotten back from Jamaica - his 20th visit over the years - and was looking forward to going back again later in the fall.  He was fully expecting to make those trips.

We spent a couple hours together and I lamented that we had been so close growing up and that we lived so relatively close that it was a shame that we didn't get together more often.  Rob said, "Aw, I learned long ago that people have their lives and it's tough to fit everyone in."  It was such a great afternoon that we decided to meet up with some other people at his lake home the following weekend, which would have been last Saturday.   If I'd known our time together was going to be our last, I would have stayed longer.  But he was getting tired and needed to rest.  We hugged one last time and promised each other that we'd catch up the next weekend. 

A week ago, I began to call Robbie to see if we were still on for getting together at the lake.  A number of our friends - thanks to my big mouth - now knew that Rob had cancer and a few of them wanted to come to see Rob at the lake if we made it over.  But I got Rob's voice mail and left him a message to see if he was still up for getting together.  I didn't get a return phone call.

I called again on Thursday, same thing.  Friday, the same.  I remembered that Rob told me that after the aggressive chemo sessions that he was usually physically zapped for a couple weeks afterward.  I figured that was the case this time as I was getting no answer or reply.  I wasn't going to press the issue and told my friends the same thing.  Imagine my shock when I received a phone call from a friend on Monday morning who told me Robbie had passed away on Sunday night.  

Rob was always so close to the chest when it came to anything that involved him.  He never wanted to be a burden on anyone and just wanted to live his life as normal as he could in his final days.  As Kim and I were talking on Monday, she said, "Rob was so much like that when we were together years ago.  It wasn't like he was keeping secrets, he just didn't talk much about himself.  He probably knew that it was a lot further along than he was letting on, but I guess we'll never know."  The way he was making plans with trips and getting together with friends, I knew he was optimistic of his chances.  Sadly, it turned out that he really was on borrowed time.   

About 40 years ago, Rob's great aunt, Alice Vonk, won a contest through the Burpee seed company for coming up with the first white marigold flowers.  And his mom, Lorraine, loved Mandevilla vine flowers.  Rob, I hope you're lying in a bed of white marigolds with pink and red Mandevillas climbing around you.  I'm glad we got to spend a little time together toward the end.  

A Goodbye to a Great Friend...

If you'll please indulge me this morning, I'd like to say goodbye to an old friend and colleague Jim Mitchell who passed away in his sleep earlier this week. 

I've been in the audio business since 1980 and I have made a lot of friends in the industry.  A lot of good friends.  But I will say that Jim was one of my best friends.  

Jim was an interesting dude.  After high school, he hitch-hiked across Europe, living in Amsterdam for awhile before going down into Morocco and Egypt.  He wandered around Mexico, just trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life.  He ended up getting a degree in broadcasting from U. Missouri/Kansas City, but just like most of us who studied broadcasting in college, he didn't go down that path.  Instead, he followed the call of the audio industry and he worked for some stores and representative firms around the Kansas City area since the 70's.  

I first met "Jimi" at a Consumer Electronics Show back in 1994 when he was working for a manufacturers representative company called Audio Etc.   When I met Jim for the first time, he was cordial with a quick smile, had some good quips, and was immediately likable.  

When I began to work with Audio Etc. in 1995, I joined Jim and our colleague, Randy, in Los Angeles for some manufacturer training sessions as my first duties for the company.  Then we took a day to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping along the way at Hearst Castle, Nepenthe in Big Sur, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park with its stunning views and large Redwood trees, and had dinner in Monterrey on Cannery Row before going on to San Francisco for the night.  That was a killer trip - not only for the things we did and saw, but for how it completely burnt us out from the drive.

Jim and I experienced a lot together in the next few years we worked together.  He had an affinity for sushi long before I did.  And even after I began to eat sushi, he would go to the extreme by ordering eel, octopus, smelt roe, squid - the more disgusting it looked, the more he loved it.  I swear to God, he ate that stuff just to see if he could get his eating partners to gag on their tuna rolls or smoked salmon sushi.  

We had great times on the road together, primarily at trade shows and for manufacturer meetings.  We took a driving tour of Stanford University when we were in Palo Alto for a meeting one time, ending up the evening eating at a great sushi place called Fuki Sushi in Palo Alto.  We purposely mispronounced the name which was actually "Fookie" for a number of years when we'd reminisce about the place.  

Jimi and I had a free day in San Francisco one time.  After watching the parade of beauties trying out for San Francisco 49er cheerleaders in a ballroom at the hotel at which we were staying, we ended up driving up to the Napa Valley and experienced a few wineries.  We ended up heading to a small town near Healdsburg called Jimtown, just because it was his name.  There we found the Jimtown Store which has turned into a gourmet destination for food enthusiasts.  We were there long before it became as famous as it is today.  

I turned Jimi onto hurricanes in New Orleans one year.  As in hurricanes, the drink.   Hurricanes are primarily a rum and fruit drink that are sweet and go down pretty quickly.  The next thing you know, you have a couple three of them and you're on your ass.  We had a day to kill in New Orleans before a trade show about 12 years ago and I took Jimi to Pat O'Brien's for a hurricane.  We had one and then another.  We found out that we could trade the tall glasses for a plastic glass and take the hurricanes with us as we walked along the streets of the French Quarter.  We went bar hopping, but not before I had to pull Jim by the back of his belt when he began to wander into a leather gay bar.  He later ended up going back to the hotel, sitting in the bathtub and passing out.  The next morning, he exclaimed at breakfast, "What in the hell is in those hurricanes?  Heroin?"  

During our time in New Orleans, the remnants of a real hurricane - as in the storm - hit New Orleans and dumped nearly 15 inches of rain in a 24 hour period.  Streets were flooded.  Electricity was off in part of the French Quarter.  We were driving between meetings at hotels in downtown New Orleans trying to circumnavigate the flooded areas when we were stopped at a stoplight.  There was a man who was walking across the street just getting pummeled by the wind, turning his umbrella inside out.  Jimi said, "That poor sap..."  Then he started to chuckle.  His chuckle turned into a hearty laugh.  The hearty laugh turned into a gut cluching convulsion.  He had tears coming out of his eyes.  "Poor f***ing guy," Jimi finally said.  For some reason, he got a major kick out of this guy's misfortune.  

Oh, there were other great times together - the time we were rooming together in Miami and we got drunk and forgot our room number.  Picture two middle-aged guys drunk on their ass trying to convince the front desk agent at a nice hotel that they couldn't remember their room number at 11:30 at night.  The credit card-style keys didn't have the room numbers on them.  We were used to staying in hotels like Super 8's and Comfort Inn's that had actual keys with the room numbers on them.  

We had a great weekend in Baltimore one time biding our time before a manufacturers training session, going to a great sushi place, taking in the Inner Harbor and then a Baltimore Orioles game at Camden Yards.  It was a great trip until Jimi accidentally backed into the back of a car with a rented SUV at the hotel.  Only he didn't know he hit it until one of our other guys, Shannon, told him at the airport when we dropped the SUV off that he really crunched the crap out of the back of the parked car.  We had a couple mars on the bumper of the SUV that we easily removed by wiping with our hands.  So, yeah, I'm busting Jimi on this deal, but after 14 years, I doubt they'll come looking for him.

Jimi is survived by his wife, Deb, who is a character in her own right; and by his son, Eddie, who was the light of Jimi's life.  Jimi was overly proud of Eddie, about how grounded he was in life, how he'd gotten a degree in accounting at Kansas University, how he'd gotten a killer place to live in the Power and Light District in downtown Kansas City.  Jimi always talked about Eddie and his accomplishments, but not in a way that was boring or overbearing.  He was more amazed about what Eddie was doing or was accomplishing.  "Man," he told me one time, "he certainly has it more together than I did at his age.  And he may have it more together than I do today!"  I don't know many guys where their sons are their best friends, but Jimi and Eddie were truly best friends.  

Jim left our company in 2000 for another manufacturers representative firm, but we still stayed in touch.  When I got my present job ten years ago, if our schedules worked out we'd try to get together on my trips to Kansas City.  We would always seek each other out at trade shows, taking at least 15 minutes out of our busy schedules to just stand and talk about whatever.  The business had gotten harder for Jimi over the past few years.  Commissions were getting cut by manufacturers, expenses were sky-rocketing.  Over a couple margaritas and some Mexican food in Kansas City earlier this year, he told me that he was thinking that may have to do something else.  "I'm barely breaking even now," he confided in me.  "I'm not going to start losing money in a job that I really like to do."

Jimi was one of the hardest working reps in the business.  Over the years I knew him, he had a never ending series of Ford vans that, seemingly, always had over 200,000 miles on them.  He'd pack the back with samples and literature, and when he'd stop at a dealer's location, he was always talking about the main lines he sold them along with the little stuff he had in his bag of tricks.   He was a night owl, and he was famous among dealers in his territory for sending out faxes, then later on, e-mails on product information at 12:30 in the morning.  He endured long and lonely trips to outposts in Nebraska and Kansas for years, loving the life he was leading on the road.  I admired his work ethic with a streak of jealousy mixed in.  

Jim and I had a lot in common - music, audio, food, drinking, NTN Buzztime trivia when we were in bars that had the NTN trivia.  We had the same sense of humor, looking at things a little differently and always finding the fun in bad situations.  We commiserated about the audio business and how it has changed and not for the better over the past few years.  And we helped each other out with leads or information when we could.  

So long, Jimi.  You're gonna be missed, my friend.  Keep on truckin', buddy...

An Inside Look at This Year's Indianapolis 500

Road Tips has a friend in Indianapolis, Steve Somermeyer, who has worked the Indianapolis 500 in some capacity for nearly 40 years - in fact, I believe this could be Steve's 40th anniversary this year.  He started out working in the pits - unheard of for a rookie worker (most people who work the Indy 500 for the first few years start out directing traffic or parking cars), but Steve knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone who got him in the pits for his first race. Over the years, Steve worked his way up to be the head of safety for pits and garage area.  This year, they kicked him upstairs, so to speak, to become the Coordinator for the Pagoda Command Center.  

A few years ago, I was out in Indianapolis and Steve took me on a behind the scenes tour of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Click here to see that post.  Each year, he always sends out a pre-race memo that takes an in-depth look at the upcoming race. It's always informative for those who are into the Indy 500.  I thought I'd share it again this year. 

By the way - this could be the hottest Indianapolis 500 on record this year.  The warmest temperature for the race before this was 92 degrees in 1937.  It's hit 90 degrees on race day five times in the history of the race.  Temperatures today are forecast to hit the mid-90's, coming close to the all-time record high temperature in May for Indianapolis of 96 degrees.  Although it would be fun to be there again this year, I think being able to watch it in air conditioning will be fine with me. 

    With a new chassis named after last year's winner, the late Dan Weldon, and three different engine suppliers, this year's race should be exciting and unpredictable. However, many of the usual suspects are the favorites to win the 500 mile race.

     Dallara DW12: The first new chassis in years means that all of the learning's/data from previous years is of little value. This chassis was designed to accommodate different engines and aero kits (front and rear wings, sidepod fairings, etc.) and to be much safer. The drivers sit higher off the ground to allow some padding to minimize the back injuries that have happened in the past. The rear wheel is shielded from most wheel-to-wheel contact by the new body particularly in the rear. Ironically Dan Weldon was the original test driver for this new design and it very well could have prevented the airborne Las Vegas crashes, one of which claimed his life.

     With a lot of caution exercised by the drivers, there were only five wall-bangers during practice and qualifying with no serious injuries to any of the drivers. All of the drivers got out of their wrecked cars and were immediately cleared to return to driving. A couple of the cars' rear ends became slightly airborne after bouncing off the wall at an angle. Dalara determined that the lower rear wing support was too rigid so they're making modifications to all of them and they'll be ready to use during Carb Day practice. That's fast response to a issue. These cars to seem to be safer than the previous model - We'll know a lot more once this race is completed.

    Firestone tires: Obviously with a new car, there are new demands on the tire supplier, Firestone. It seems that while the tires seem durable, the 'grip' seems to change quickly. During qualifying runs, the speed declined with each lap. This is something to pay attention to during the race. The cars with the newer tires (more recent pit stops) will be much quicker through the turns. In the same vein, teams will change tires at every opportunity (until they run short of sets of tires).

    Honda versus Chevrolet versus Lotus: So far Chevy has won every pole and race so far this season and 9 of the top ten qualifiers for this 500 including the first 2 rows. Despite some controversy, Honda did get approval to get a redesigned turbocharger cover which was expected to improve it's performance although it wasn't evident during qualifying. The Honda teams seem to be able to turning laps equivalent to the Chevy powered teams in race trim so the race could be very competitive.    

    We'll get some indication during the 1 hour practice tomorrow on Carb Day but teams are really dialing in their cars with very little data since this is only the 5th race of the year and the first oval. Testing and practice laps have been very limited due to mileage limits on the engines and a limited amount of spare parts for the new chassis and engines.

    Lotus seems to be hopelessly behind the other two engine builders. They committed to the program several months later than Chevy and Honda and it seems that their resources are more limited than the others in that the numbers of engines available have been very small. Several teams have broken their contracts with Lotus when Honda and Chevy reluctantly agreed to supply several more engines to additional teams. Lotus is left with only 2 drivers - Simona De Silverstro and Jean Alesi - and they are starting next-to-last and last in the field. They'll probably need a year to become competitive (they hope).

    Pole by 9 inches: Penske's Ryan Briscoe won Penske Racing's record 17th 500 Pole by a very narrow margin over the new Go Daddy driver, James Hinchcliffe. The margin for the 4 lap - 10 mile qualification run was 0.0023 seconds or equivalent to 9.113 inches after 10 miles. As Briscoe quipped in the press conference "James should have ducked his head while going down the straightaways." btw, Winning the pole was worth $100,000.

    Drafting: The new car's aerodynamics create a much more significant draft or as the drivers call it - a tow. It starts to affect the trailing car much further away than the previous chassis - perhaps as much as several hundred yards. As the car behind pulls within 20-25 yards it is rapidly sucked up to within a couple of yards. Drivers have to be prepared for this surge or they risk running into the leading car. This strong drafting effect should lead to lots to passes throughout the field.

    Hot Weather: With perhaps record high temperatures (94 or so) expected Sunday, it won't only stress the fans - stay hydrated! - but also the drivers, their teams, and the relatively unproven engines. The sun will also heat the track surface making it slicker as the day wears on.

    Rookies: There is an above average number of rookies in the field this year with 8 drivers making their first 500 start. Two are veteran F1 winners - Jean Alesi and Rubens Barrichello - will make their first oval starts in IndyCar here - and one gal - Katherine Legge - who had a number of starts in the CART series. In addition to these rookies, 4 drivers are starting that didn't start in last year's race. So over a 1/3 of the field weren't in the race last year. There is some concern about how these drivers will handle the pressure of the start and can they maintain their concentration throughout the entire race? Quite a few of the late-race incidents usually include rookies because they aren't used to maintaining their concentration for that long a period of time.

    Single file restarts: In a change from previous years, restarts after a yellow flag will be in single file as opposed to the 2-wide restarts in the past. Drivers can attempt to pass another car as soon as the green light goes on. This should also facilitate more passing, certainly safer, on the restarts.

    Lotus and the Black Flag: IndyCar has a competition rule that says that cars must turn lap times within 105% of the leading pace. If the leaders are turning laps in the 218-220 mph range, it means that the slowest cars should be running in the 208-210 mph to comply with the rule. That's probably right at the top end of the speeds that the 2 Lotus cars are capable of racing at. Also the leaders will probably start lapping the end-makers in about 12-15 laps at which time Race Control will be observing how the speed differential is handled. Safety is the top concern but also one wants to give the teams a chance to show off their sponsors.

    Who's going to win: When assessing the favored drivers, one has to start with Roger Penske's team of Helio Castroneves, Will Power and Pole-sitter Ryan Briscoe. They've won every pole and every race so far this year with Will Power winning the 3 races prior to May and all three are starting in the first 2 rows. To say that they're on a roll is an understatement so why should they stop winning now? If Helio wins he would become the 4th 4-time winner joining A.J., Al Unser, and Rick Mears in that exclusive club. A Penske win would extend the team's record total of 15 to 15 500 victories. Team Penske is the benchmark for quick, efficient pit stops and his team also wins the Carb Day pit stop contest almost every year.

    The next most impressive team here in Indianapolis this May has been Andretti Motorsports with the almost pole winner James Hinchcliffe leading the charge. Teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay will start on the outside of the first row with Marco Andretti next on the inside of row 2. So Andretti also has 3 cars in the first 2 rows. Hinchcliffe has been impressive in almost every practice session as has Marco. Hinchcliffe replaced Danica Patrick in the Go Daddy car so he's filling big media shoes - so far folks have been impressed with both his driving prowess and humor outside the car. Marco is a very fast racer but to date has tended to take some reckless chances - he's certainly a fast enough driver to win but does he have enough patience to win over 500 mile? The other Andretti driver - Ana Beatriz - doesn't seem to be in the same class as these three.

    KV Racing leads with Tony Kanaan who has finished second 3 times here at Indy and has led the race in 7 of his 10 starts. Starting in the middle of row 3, popular Tony may be the best driver among the current active ones to have not won here yet. Starting next to Tony is E. J. Viso with new teammate F1's Rubens Barrichello qualifying next on the inside of the 4th row. Rubens won a F1 race here at Indy on the road course along with 3 seconds but this will be his first oval race ever so it would be a real surprise if he even contends. A side note: he easily has the most Twitter followers among the drivers with over 1.6 million.

    A feel-good story is rookie Josef Newgarden driving for Sarah Fisher Racing. He had several daily fast times during practice this May and qualified on the inside of row 3 just inside of Tony Kanaan. This is the only Honda powered car in the top ten qualifiers. Sarah was one of the most popular drivers, has started her own team, and is building a new headquarters building on the Main Street of Speedway.    

    Who haven't I mentioned?? Target Chip Ganassi Racing is usually mentioned in the same breath as Penske.

    Last year's winner and season champion Dario Franchitti and former winner and teammate Scott Dixon. They qualified a disappointing 15th for Scott and 16th for Dario. Even their 'second' team of Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball qualified faster than they did in spots 12 and 14 respectively. The whole Target Chip Ganassi Racing team has struggled getting their drivers comfortable with the new car and Honda engines. If they solve the cars' balance by race day, they'll be challenging for the lead. If not, they'll try to compete through different pit and fuel strategies. They certainly have the resources to run up front so it's a bit of a surprise that they haven't been more successful to date.

    OK, my pick is Penske's Will Power - he's really on a roll and has arguably been the quickest driver over the last couple of years. Accidents and some bad luck has prevented him from winning a season championship. My next picks would be Andretti's James Hinchcliffe, KV's Tony Kanaan, and Will's teammate, Helio Castroneves.

    Racing luck always seems to play a pivotal role in the winning drive so the winner's circle could see any of the drivers that I mentioned above. It really should be an exciting and unpredictable race with questions about the durability of the engines and the small database/experience with the new chassis.

    

Let's go Racing!!

Steve

 

Goodbye to a Friend

It's been a pretty tough week for us as Lorrie Adams, the wife of my good friend Randy Adams - the owner of the Creekside Bar and Grill here in Davenport - passed away on Monday evening due to what was diagnosed as Angiosarcoma, a not so common form of cancer. Lorrie had been in declining health over the past few months suffering a minor stroke about five months ago and being in and out of the hospital as they tried their best to find out what exactly was wrong with her. After an M.R.I. and then a subsequent upper G.I. showed a growth on her heart, a specialist from Loyola Medical Center in Chicago was brought in to Trinity Health Center's Rock Island campus to work on Lorrie on Monday. No one expected anything less than another miracle of modern medicine, but it turned out that the growth on her heart was a golf ball sized cancerous tumor. After the doctor cut that off her heart, he began to look in her lungs as she had been having trouble breathing as of late and it appeared that a blood clot had developed. When the doctor opened her lungs, he found they were ravaged with cancerous tumors. There wasn't much he could do other than try to make her comfortable for the final hours of her life. She passed away on Monday evening. She was 42. (Click here to read her obituary in the Quad City Times.)

This has been especially tough on Randy, as well as Lorrie's father, Randy Brekke, who does the ribs at Creekside Bar and Grill. And it's been tough on me, as well. Seeing my friends grieve the way they have this week has been very hard. No one was expecting this, although Lorrie had been battling health problems for years.

She was a Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma survivor about 8 years ago. She moved back to Iowa about five years ago and picked up a romance with Randy that began over 15 years ago. When they decided to get married, Lorrie asked me if I'd become an ordained minister through the Universal Life Church. I'm far from being a religious or spiritual person, but I thought enough of Lorrie and Randy to get my credentials and to perform the ceremony in the rose garden of Vandeveer Park in Davenport on September 18, 2010.

The Brekke/Adams link has been in place since Randy Adams and Randy Brekke met during an apprentice program at the Rock Island Arsenal 20 years ago. Many of those people in that class all became good and close friends, and even though I wasn't in the class, I became good friends with many of them, as well. When Lorrie came back to Iowa for a visit in the early 90's, Randy had just gone through a divorce and they sort of got together. Actually, their first date was a Billy Joel concert - they went to it with Cindy and I. I don't remember too much about the concert other than we all got drunker than hell on Leinenkugel Red that evening.

Lorrie eventually went back to California, Randy found a lady in Davenport and got married, then divorced about five years ago. When Lorrie decided to come back to Iowa to live, she found out that Randy was getting a divorce and they immediately hooked up for good. As Randy Brekke told me earlier this week, "They were just meant to be with one another."

After Randy got Creekside Bar and Grill back from his ex-wife, Lorrie immediately put her mark on the place. She changed the menu, changed the food purveyors, changed a lot of the staff and really whipped the place into shape. Her two sons, Stephen and Ryan, stepped in to work the grill and they came up with some interesting new menu items. Lorrie could be a little bull-headed and abrasive to some, but she was also a smart and determined person who knew what she wanted. Randy proudly called her a co-owner of the place, even after she went back to working as a unit secretary full-time at Trinity's Bettendorf location as the bar was beginning to burn her out.

Lorrie's memorial service is later today and it promises to be one filled with tears and laughter. Actually, Lorrie would be the kind of person who would be upset if people were crying over her demise. She had an infectious laugh and I'm going to miss that. In fact, I told both Randy's earlier this week that I really wished I would have had a recording of Lorrie's fast-paced cackling laugh. It immediately brought a smile to my face when I would hear it.

Randy and Lorrie were able to get away a few weeks ago to head down to Memphis and Tunica, MS for a few days. Randy said, "I'm glad we were able to do that. She'd wanted to do that for a long time. But I certainly didn't expect that to be our last trip together."

No one did. That's the precious thing about life. Lorrie will be missed by friends and family, but none more than Randy. And that's the toughest part for me seeing an old friend grieve the way he has. Time will eventually heal the hurt, but with Randy's love for Lorrie, it will take a long time.

The First Day of Spring

March is rolling in like a sleepy lion this morning on the first day of the spring.  Well, it's the first day of the Meteorological spring (March 1 - May 31) and even though we're still 20 days away from the vernal equinox I still refer to this day as the first day of spring.  If it's good enough for meteorologists, it's good enough for me.  

While yesterday saw blizzards up in Minnesota and devastating killer tornadoes in Southwest Missouri and Southern Illinois, here in Eastern Iowa the weather couldn't make up its mind as to what it wanted to do.  We had a high yesterday of 53 degrees - and that was around 5:30 in the morning.  But the wind picked up and we had gusts approaching 50 miles an hour at times throughout the day.  Coupled with falling temperatures and a precipitation remnant of the back side of the store that affected the Midwest yesterday, at 5:30 p.m. we had a temperature of 33 degrees with heavy wet snow.  Thankfully, it was a fast moving front and most of the wet snow melted by 7 p.m.

This morning is starting out cool and cloudy, but the winds that howled throughout the area yesterday have subsided and we're supposed to have partly cloudy skies later on with light westerly winds and a high in the upper 40's.  So if we didn't have the Leap Day yesterday, then March would have come in like an extremely pissed off lion.  

But I can't really complain - we've had a great winter around here.  That is, if you're like me who hates snow and cold.  Compared to the last couple of winters, it has been very pleasant around here for the past three months.  We've had moderate temperatures with little snow fall since December 1.  What snow we did get, it was usually gone within a week thanks to a consistent jet stream that brought in warm Pacific air from the west coast.  Oh, we did have some cold days, but they certainly didn't last.

Up north, they didn't have the large snowfalls that contribute to spring flooding on the Mississippi River.  Last year, we had about three weeks of flooding thanks to record amounts of snow in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  It could have been worse as cold temperatures in late March slowed the melting process and the record floods they were predicting only became a nuisance for the flood warrior veterans in the Quad Cities.  (To see my entry and pictures of the Flood of 2011, click here.)  This spring, the National Weather Service is forecasting a below normal chance of flooding along the Upper Mississippi (above St. Louis).  But in the past we've also seen sustained spring rains raise the river level quite quickly, so we always have to keep a leery eye on the Mississippi.   

With the lack of snow, we were worried how it would affect our plants and rose bushes that we have in our yard.  We did put mulch around the base of our 27 rose bushes, as well as some of the new bushes and a tree that we planted over the past year.  We hoped that the snow would help insulate the roots against any extreme cold, but we haven't had the snow - nor have we had any really cold sustained temperatures.  In fact, we've got a couple rose bushes on the east side of our house where we're already beginning to see chutes of growth coming out of them.  Many of our rose bushes didn't lose the green on their base stalks during the winter.  We always worry when April comes around hoping that the roses survived the winter.  This year, I don't we have to worry about that.

That is, unless something catastrophic comes about over the next 45 days. Catastrophic, as in sustained freezing temperatures that could damage buds and chutes on the rose bushes like it did about four years ago after temperatures reached the 80's in March, but went sub-freezing for three straight days in early April.  We lost about 8 rose bushes after that little stretch of abnormally cold weather that year.  But, there wasn't much we could do.  Mother Nature was throwing curve balls all over the place that particular spring.  

This year, we're hoping that we don't have that problem.  After a little weather system comes back through the Midwest this weekend, promising to dump more snow over Western and Northern Iowa and points north and east, we're supposed to be back in the upper 40's by Monday and into the low 60's on Tuesday.  But, just like any spring we've had in the past, the warm weather won't stick around.  It's only supposed to be 52 on Wednesday.

However, we know we've dodged some major bullets this winter.  As my grandma always said, "There's always one last big one (as in snow storm) out there before spring really comes."  And living in Iowa I know that adage is more right than wrong the majority of the time.  We could easily see a big snow storm come our way, even with the grass becoming green and trees beginning to bud.  But hopefully sooner than later we'll be able to see our rose bushes look this way once again.

The Flood of 2011

Over this past weekend, the Mississippi River topped out at 20.7 feet in the Quad Cities - 5.7 feet above flood stage.  Although it never got to the projected 21.2 feet, it was still the sixth highest flood in history.  The above picture is a panoramic view of the Mississippi on the left, Le Claire Park along the riverfront (and sometimes in the river) straight ahead, and River Drive along the south side of downtown Davenport to the right.  Last Saturday was the nicest day we've had around here for quite sometime, so I decided to take the camera out and get some pictures of the flood.

The pictures I took were in the morning on Saturday and right at about the time the river crested.  Below to the left is a picture of River Drive right next to the Village of East Davenport.  This is just down the hill from our house and provided a good starting point for a tour of the flood area around the Quad Cities.   River Drive is one of the main thoroughfares in Davenport and it has been shut down now for about two weeks.  As the water continues to drop, they hope to have parts of it open by this weekend. 

Above right is a picture of the corner of Mound and River Drive in Davenport.  This is the main entrance to the Village of East Davenport shopping and entertainment area, so having the intersection effectively closed put a damper on business for a number of merchants.  Notice the Davenport police car sitting as a lookout for anyone who dared to go around the "road closed" signs and into the water on River Drive.  The water depth is deceiving on some of these roads. 

The Iowa American Water plant just south and west of the Village of East Davenport was fully prepared to keep the river out.  Initial projections of the flood had the river topping 25 feet in the Quad Cities thanks to an abundance of snow up in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  However, cold temperatures up north slowed the melting process and the river didn't come up as high as earlier expected.  Even with more snow and some rain up north, when the river did flood they knew it would be high, but not as high as earlier expected. 

Not wanting to go through what Des Moines went through in 1993 when they lost their clean water for nearly 2 weeks, Iowa American Water built a flood barrier that would keep the river out up to 25 feet.  In the past, flood protection consisted primarily of just sandbags.  This flood, the City of Davenport bought hundreds of Hesco Bastion barriers to keep the water out.  The barriers - used primarily for military purposes, civil construction and security - are also great for keeping flood waters out of areas.  The bastions are 4' X 4' X 4' and can be erected, put in place and filled with sand in about a third of the time - and at a much lower cost - than traditional sandbagging efforts.  Iowa American had a 200 yard barrier in front of the water plant along the levee just up the river from downtown Davenport.  Although the water didn't make it over the levee, they were certainly ready for it to happen.

Heading down along River Drive toward the downtown (it was open westbound only at Mound Street), I went along until I hit the eastern end of the detour that took people around the flood waters in downtown Davenport.  Below left is the corner of Federal and River Drive.  Hesco barriers are holding back about three feet of flood water over River Drive.  Once again, this was at the height of the flood. 

Davenport is the largest city along the upper Mississippi River that does not have a permanent flood levee.  It's a point of consternation with some taxpayers and with the federal government who is tired of funding clean up efforts in Davenport after major floods.  However, if you walk along the Davenport riverfront on a warm summer evening, you'll quickly figure out that having a flood barrier would ruin the view and the ambiance of the river would be significantly altered.  Thanks to three of the biggest floods to hit the area over the past 18 years, the City of Davenport really has their act together.  They began to mobilize flood efforts back in March when it appeared that this would be a big one.  When projections were down-sized, the city workers did a remarkable job of getting the barriers up and protecting businesses in the Davenport area.  Still, some businesses along River Drive and in the East Village suffered, but at least they weren't completely closed up and facing a long clean up after the flood.

The above picture is of Lock and Dam 15 along the Mississippi.  Between the fencing on the left and the grass on the right is River Drive.  This picture was taken from the north entrance to the Government Bridge that takes people over to the Rock Island Arsenal.  River Drive dips below the bridge and right under me the water was about 10 to 12 feet deep.

Above left is a stairwell that goes from 2nd St. down to River Drive.  The water was up to the second step above the landing and there's another 15 steps or so down to River Drive.   Above right, here's a picture of River Drive looking up river from the Government Bridge.  The sign, itself, is about 11 feet high to the top, and it's sitting on an upslope that brings River Drive up from under the Government Bridge.  This part of River Drive is usually the first place to flood and the last place to get rid of water when it floods on the Iowa side of the river.

I went across the Government Bridge and ended up in downtown Rock Island.  They have a permanent flood barrier as well as temporary flood walls that they put in place when the river comes up.  I climbed up on the permanent flood wall and took this panoramic picture of the Davenport riverfront.  Yeah, it's sort of difficult to see unless you zoom your browser up to about 400%, but the picture stretches from the Centennial Bridge on the left, Modern Woodmen Park just to the right of the bridge, then Le Claire Park, the Figge Art Museum, Rhythm City Casino and on up river to Lock and Dam 15.  I've got this panorama program that can stitch some pictures together and it does a pretty good job from time to time.  It's just that when you take more than three or four pictures and try to stitch them together that the finish product comes out pretty small.

Speaking of Modern Woodmen Park, this is the first year that Quad City River Bandits games didn't have to be cancelled or rescheduled for later dates due to a flood.  The City of Davenport initially built a flood berm along the outfield area when they did an overall renovation to the stadium about four years ago.  This effectively helped keep water from engulfing the field from the east and south sides of the stadium.  (Photo at right courtesy of Quad City Images.)

This year, the city erected a portable flood wall that cut out the need to sandbag around the west and north sides of the stadium.  The flood wall is easily recognizable in the picture above.  They placed a series of posts about 10 feet apart around the outside concourse of the stadium, then dropped in six foot high flood gates to keep the water out.  The stadium literally became an island surrounded by flood waters, but the games still went on as scheduled. 

Unfortunately, the parking lots around Modern Woodmen Park were unusable, as were the sidewalks that took you to the stadium.  For this problem, the City of Davenport erected a walkway made from scaffold frames and plywood.  People could park in the streets north of River Drive, then get on the walkway at corner of River Drive and Western Ave. to make it to the stadium.  It was sort of shaky and wobbly in some parts of the walkway, but it did its purpose.  It cost the City of Davenport something like $44,000 to erect the walkway.  But if the River Bandits had to cancel games because people couldn't walk through the flood waters to get to the stadium, the city would have to pay them something like $6600 a game.  With the River Bandits home during a good part of the flood, the city ended up saving money in the long run. 

I ventured over to the Freight House and went up on the second floor outdoor patio of what used to be Nan's Piano Bar.  The picture above left is looking east past Union Station and along River Drive in front of the Figge Art Museum.  The Davenport sky bridge is in the background and you can see dozens of people who came out to take pictures or gawk at the flood.  Sort of like what I was doing that day.

Above right and to the immediate left is a view of Le Claire Park and the ornate band shell that is completely surrounded by water.  This is where a number of festivals take place including the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest and River Roots Live.  However, if the water doesn't recede quickly, it could damage the grass and the park could become off-limits for a couple months as the city tries to re-seed or re-sod the damaged turf areas.  They're supposed to be doing some renovations to the backstage area of the band shell at some point - I had hoped it would be before the River Roots Live event in August.  But that may be put on hold for the time being.  I'm guessing the park will be ready for River Roots Live, but the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest in early July may be touch and go.   

A lot of people joke that the sky bridge - also derisively called "the bridge to nowhere" - is worth the price it cost to build during the floods.  Originally touted as a bridge to connect a downtown parking garage with the Rhythm City Casino, it sort of just stopped just short of the casino's entrance.  The City of Davenport said that patrons of the casino could use the sky bridge to get over flood waters.  But during the double crest flood of 2008 (see my entries on that flood here and here) city officials deemed that the casino had to be shut down as there would be no way for emergency vehicles to make it through the flood waters up and down River Drive if a medical situation occurred on the boat.  So the sky bridge is basically just a long lookout tower that gives great views of floods.  Well, and it is a great place to view the Davenport riverfront during normal times, too.  

But the sky bridge and the adjacent top of the parking garage are both good places to get some pictures of the flooding.  The top picture at the beginning of this entry is taken from the sky bridge and stitched together with my panorama program.  Above left is the woebegone and long-closed Levee Inn - sort of an iconic structure when it comes to historic floods in Davenport.   The Flood of 1993 saw river waters come up to just under the red-outlined awning around the building.  They have marks on the side of the building that denote the height of certain floods.

Above right is Lock and Dam 15 with the equally woebegone and long-closed Dock Restaurant in the foreground.  Too many floods have made the building unusable.  And that's too bad.  As the building is right up next to the river, it was a pretty neat place to take people from out of town for a good meal and a drink while you watched the river roll by.  And they used to have some of the best clam chowder that I've ever had.  

Before I left the downtown area, I had to stop by the Front Street Brewery to see the efforts the City of Davenport employed to keep that restaurant open during the flood.  The city erected a number of Hesco barriers along River Drive and encased them in plastic with sand bags on top and along the base of the barrier.   There was some seepage from the base of the barriers, but the city had crews on site 24 hours a day to man pumps and to look for any breaches in the portable dam.  The water was still about a foot below the top of the barrier at its crest on Saturday about 11:30 a.m. - about the time this picture was taken. 

I took these three pictures from up close along the barrier until I was told by a city worker that I couldn't be anywhere near the area.  I was actually out in the street up next to the Hesco barrier and he said that I wasn't supposed to venture off the sidewalk.  The city didn't want anyone walking in the flood waters as the water had been tested and found to have low levels of fecal matter.  I told the guy, "Even when it's not flooding there's low levels of fecal matter in the river.  It's the world's largest toilet!"

He sort of laughed when I said that...

After the river crested on Saturday, it started a slow descent that saw the river levels go down about a foot by Monday night and it should be down below 19 feet later today.  Projections are that the river will continue to slowly recede and be close to 17 feet by next Monday.  That is if we don't see any more heavy rains in the region before then.  This has been a soggy April with more than half the calendar days seeing measurable precipitation here in the Quad Cities so far. 

While the flood is a big event and it does cause some hardships for people who live and work along the river, I have to say that I was overly impressed with the planning and efforts that local municipalities and private companies put forth in combating the flood waters.  I've lived here for nearly 20 years and they just seem to get better and better with each flood that occurs.

The Blizzard of 2011

Yes, we survived the blizzard of 2011.  I've got to tell you - this was one of the more impressive storms I've ever seen.  Over the past 24 hours, not only did we get 16.7 inches of snow in Moline (the official reporting station in the Quad Cities), but the wind associated with this storm was simply unbelievable.  I've never encountered a storm where the wind blew so hard for so long.  Sustained winds from yesterday afternoon into late last night averaged between 25 to 30 miles per hour with gusts topping the 50 mph mark on a couple of occasions.  The snow coming down was hard enough, but the blowing made it seem even worse than it was.  There were times when I could hardly make out our neighbor's house across the street. 

Depending upon who you talk to, this snowfall - coupled with the nearly 2 inches we got on Monday - tied for the most snow during one snow event in the history of weather keeping in the Quad Cities.   18.4 inches had fallen from Monday before noon to 6 a.m. this morning at the Quad City International Airport in Moline tying the record set in 1979.  The Davenport Municipal Airport got about 13.4 inches of snow on Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning.  We're just about right smack in between the two airports, so I'm making an educated guess that we had 15.05 inches of snow from this one last night.  And with the inch and a half on of snow we got on Monday, 16.5 inches of snow is a pretty impressive total. 

However, it's not as bad as the situation in Chicago.  Officially at O'Hare International, they had received a tad over 20 inches of snow as of this morning with just under 20 inches at Midway.  My sister-in-law, Becky, lives in Winchester, IL, about 40 miles from Springfield - and they got 18 inches.  Of course, it's still not as bad as places like Kansas City, St. Louis or Indianapolis where ice was the big problem.  I'd rather get 15 inches of snow than a half inch of ice.  Only those places got ice measured in the inches, not fractions.  And K.C. and St. Louis got snow on top of the ice. 

Everything was shut down today throughout the region.  I made it into work only because I office at home and it doesn't take much work to walk across the hallway from the bedroom to get into the office.  But a quick call to dozens of dealers across Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Indiana found that many of them were closed today. 

Now that the snow has stopped, its supposed to turn brutally cold in the region with low temperatures tonight to bottom out around -10 (F).  But a mild warm up is supposed to take place later this weekend.  But with it comes another chance for snow.

I got up this morning and went out to blow some snow around the neighborhood.  The snow was more than two feet deep in places.  I went down to a neighbor lady's house to help her with her sidewalk and a drift on her corner lot was about three foot deep.  It was all I could do to get the snow blower through that. 

 
Here's a panormic picture of the view from the front of our house.  If you click on the picture you can see where I plowed out the snow on the sidewalk and driveway and how deep the snow is.

 
And here's a look at our backyard.  There are some pretty deep drifts out here.  Click on the picture and check out the drifts in our neighbor's backyard on the far right of the picture. 

 
This is what our back berm looks like during better times.  This was taken last May when everything was just starting to get growing for the season. 

Below left is my Weber smoker.  It may be a little while before we use it.  There's about two feet of snow around it. 

 
Above right, here's the snow on our roof just above our deck.  It's also about 2 feet deep in some places.    

Now we're just sort of waiting on the streets to be cleared.  I understand the main thoroughfares around town are plowed and pretty easy to navigate, but the side roads are all choked off from the deep snow drifts that the snow plows have piled up.   I don't anticipate that we'll be plowed out until sometime later tonight or even tomorrow morning.  But I'm guessing that most of us should be able to be back to normal lives - or as close to normal - as we can be by Friday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update - The National Weather Service officially combined the snow total from Jan 31 with the snow total from Feb. 1/2 to tie the Blizzard of 2011 with the storm of 1979 as the greatest snow event in the history of the Quad Cities.  For some reason, they didn't know if they were going to put the Monday and the Tuesday/Wednesday events together, but they determined that the same low pressure system was responsible for both snows.  The low pressure tracked just a tad north of where they originally thought it would go and it hit the Quad Cities dead on.

The 16.7 inches of snow at the Quad City International Airport was the highest 24 hour total in the history of weather keeping in the area.  Here's a map of the total amount of snowfall across the Eastern Iowa/Northern Illinois region. 

I've had some longtime Davenport residents tell me that the one in 1979 was worse.  What they don't remember is that there was well over a foot of snow on the ground from a tremendous storm that had come through just days before the big one.  Sure, there was a lot of drifting, but the 18.4 inches in 1979 fell on an already deep snow cover.  We had - maybe - five or six inches of snow on the ground at the start of this particular event on Monday.  We've got a lot more than than right now.

Oh, and the City of Davenport finally did get around to plowing out our street on Thursday around 2 p.m.  Life is slowly getting back to normal.

Getting Ready for the Blizzard of 2011

 
From the above graphics from WQAD and the National Weather Service, it appears that we're going to get a major shot of snow in the Quad City area starting this afternoon into this evening.  And depending upon which graphic you believe, we're slated to end up with 10 to 15 inches of snow in the area.  On top of all that, winds will pick up and the temperatures will drop significantly ushering in blizzard conditions in the area. 

We already received just under two inches of snow that started yesterday afternoon and was on and off through the evening.  That was just the appetizer for what's coming later today.

Although we're in line to get over a foot of snow, parts of Central Illinois on up to the Chicago area could receive up to two feet of snow.  Peoria is right in the path of the heavy snow and as shown on today's front page of the Peoria Journal Star, the area is expecting at least 18 inches. 

 

 

The storm has a chance to become the largest snow total to hit the Quad Cities - ever.  The most snow in a snow event for this area happened back in 1979.  18.4 inches of snow officially fell on the Quad Cities over January 12-14, 1979.  Some locals will tell you they easily had close to two feet of snow fall on their yards. 

 

I've lived here for nearly 20 years and two of the largest snow falls on record have happened while I've been here.  The first one was on January 19, 1995 where we got just over 15 inches of snow.  I remember that one well - I was supposed to go to L.A. for a meeting and got delayed two days.  I eventually went - I probably shouldn't have as I missed about 2/3rds of the meeting - but it meant more for me to get the hell out of here for a couple three days and get away from the snow.

 

Over January 1st thru the 3rd in 1999, we received 14.3 inches, most of it coming on the night of January 1.  That's back when I still had my Chevy Lumina Eurosport, the best car to get through snow that I've ever had in my life.  One of my neighbors at the old house we lived at on the west side of Davenport brought home an end loader to clean up the alley and in front of the neighbor's houses.  When I went to move my car that was parked on the street in front of our house, he said, "There's no way you'll get through this."  I popped the car in drive and plowed right down the street.  I came back around the block and he had the place where I parked all cleaned out.  He said, "Wow!  I would have never bet you would have been able to get out of that parking spot, let along get around the block!"  

 

This is the first big storm we've had at the house we've lived at now for the past eight and a half years.  We've got a snow blower and it will get a workout doing our long driveway, our walks and quite probably our neighbor's walks and driveways.   We're well stocked and sort of looking forward to hunkering down.  But, quite honestly, it's days like these where I do a lot of day dreaming about Hawaii.

 

    

 

Road Tips is Now on Facebook

I've decided to open a Facebook account for "Road Tips".  If you are a member of Facebook and would like updates when new entries are added, click on the "like" button in the upper left hand corner of this page.

I'll be linking new entries on "Road Tips" so you can get alerts through Facebook when they come up.  I'll also link up some of the "Best of Road Tips" entries along with some category entries from time to time. 

If you like the blog, send the suggestion along to your friends!  I'd certainly appreciate it! 

Click here for the Facebook link.

 

Springtime Garden Report

This is usually for my sisters who want to see how our early season gardening has been going.  So, if this doesn't interest you all that much, you have my permission to pass on today's entry in Road Tips. 

We've had a pretty good spring around the Quad Cities.  It started out warm and dry, then it went to wet and cool.  Finally about two weeks ago we went from temperatures and rainy conditions found on average in early April to hot and dry weather like you'd find in late July.  We had a high of 95 degrees here in the Quad's about two weeks ago and it hit 91 on our thermometer over the Memorial Day weekend.  Other than a heavy downpour that brought us about two inches of rain on May 25, the weather the past couple of weeks has been amazingly great. 

Our plants are rocking this year.  All two dozen of our rose bushes made it through the winter - the first time in memory that happened.  I tried something different last fall - I raked up the leaves from the yard and put them over the base of the rose bushes.  Then I put hardwood mulch over the leaves and watered the living crap out of them before the first hard freeze.  It helped that we had a lot of snow this past winter to help insulate the rose bushes.  Not long after we got back from Hawaii in early March, the weather was getting warm enough to promote some growth on the roses.  Initially, we were worried about a couple bushes in the rose garden next to the garage wouldn't come back, but they began to show life in April with the warm weather and we breathed a sigh of relief that we wouldn't have to buy any new rose bushes this year.

  

Actually, our first rose bush to open up was around May 8 - a full three weeks earlier than what is usually normal for our rose bushes to bloom.  Cindy took a class in nature photography about a month ago and the instructor told her that everything was about three weeks early this year in this region.  We'd heard that the annual Tulip Time festival in Pella was nearly void of tulips because the tulips bloomed early and had lost their petals long before the mid-May celebration.  The same thing happened to our tulips that Cindy had planted last fall - by mid-May, all the petals were gone.  But, by Memorial Day last weekend, the majority of our rose bushes had bloomed out and there were a stunning amount of roses on some of the bushes.   

We're also more cognizant of the feeding and care of the roses this year.  We've already given them a monthly liquid fertilizer/disease control solution and have sprayed them for bugs (beetles and aphids) about three or four times now.  I have to say this is most healthy our rose bushes have ever looked.

One other interesting aspect about an early spring - it was also one of the earliest times in memory of the return of the wrens.  We had wrens by the first week of April - nearly a full month before we normally see them.  I kept hearing what sounded like a wren off in the distance, but dismissed it as some other migratory bird.  But in talking to the guy who sells us our bird feed, he told me that the wrens did, indeed, come back early.  He did say, however, that the goldfinch population was very low due to a winter kill of many of those colorful birds in the area.  We then noticed that our thistle feeders weren't going down all that much.  But over the past 10 days, we've suddenly noticed an uptick in the number of goldfinches at the feeder.  A few evenings ago we counted five bright male goldfinches on the feeder in back. 

Our vegetables and herbs are also doing very well so far.  With the exception of a late season frost the second week of May - and having to replant our basil (Sweet, Genovese and Lemon) due to too much rain earlier in May - everything has been going according to plan.  We planted three tomato bushes in the garden this year - a Better Boy, a Roma and a Grape/Cherry.   We planted a red bell pepper plant in a large pot behind the garage and Cindy planted an ornamental pepper out in the berm.  We learned that if you pick the first pepper off the plant when it's almost full grown, it fools the pepper plant into thinking that it has to grow more to make up for the loss of the first pepper.  We did that last year and we've never had so many sweet red bell peppers as we did.  We still have some cut up in the freezer.   

Our berm out back continues to be an on-going project.   Cindy wanted me to mulch the berm this spring because the weeds were so bad that she couldn't keep up.  It's been a double-edged sword for us as the mulch is helping keep the moisture in the ground, but we've had so much rain in April and into May that it's not getting a chance to dry out.  The water table is so high around here that our sump pump is running nearly non-stop creating a nice little swampy marsh in the front yard where the water comes out.  

Speaking of the front yard, the wild rose bushes have come back tremendously in front of the house.  We planted impatiens in the window boxes as Cindy decided that a potpourri of flowers just didn't work out that well.  And the perennials around our maple tree in the yard have turned into a mini-jungle.  The irises and columbines were huge this year.  The ground cover is thick and heavy and it's finally looking the way I envisioned it to be when Cindy started to plant perennials rather than annuals under the tree. 

Another surprising area for us this year is our hosta beds along the west side of the house.  This side doesn't get a lot of sun due to a large maple tree that is in our neighbor's yard, but the plants have just been going nuts this spring.  It's been a perfect combination of moisture and temperature to enhance the growth of these plants. 

About the biggest problem we've had this spring is the amount of maple seed "helicopters" that came down from the maple tree up front and the large maple tree next doors.  Unfortunately, when they all decided to drop, we were in the midst of a three-day stretch where we were getting a stiff wind out of the west.  The vast majority of the ones from our neighbor's tree landed in our yard, in our gutters, in our flower beds - all over the place.  And there were millions of 'em.  We're now having to get down and pull them out by hand and it's a major hassle.

But that's about all the problems we've had so far.  Even the peony bush that we've threatened to dig up because it's getting old and hadn't had a lot of blooms over the past couple years is flourishing this spring.  We've lived here about eight years now and it's taken a lot of time - and money - to get our yard the way it is right now and I'm happy with it.  We just planted a couple of dahlias and this weekend we're going to plant an orange azalea bush up in front.  Walking around the yard surveying the plants and flowers in the early morning sunshine is a great start to my day.

 

 

One Year Anniversary of My Hip Replacements

Today marks the one year anniversary of the second of my two hip replacements I received.  Had I not looked on the calendar and figured it out a week ago, I probably wouldn't have noticed.  The anniversary of having my left hip replaced in early March went by without so much of a fanfare, probably because we were in Hawaii at that point and we didn't even know what time it was much of our visit, let alone the date.  But life is about as back to normal as it can be for me one year after my second surgery. 

Back to normal is a relative term because I don't know what normal really was with all the pain I was having before my hip replacements.  I do notice that I have increased mobility and flexibility in the legs and hips compared to the months before the hip surgery.  But I've also had to learn that I can't move certain ways in fear that the hip socket will pop out.  And when I go through security at an airport, it's always an extra 10 to 15 minutes as TSA personnel have to give me a thorough once over with a hand held metal detector and pat me down.  I've just learned to live with that when I travel by air. 

A friend of mine told me that it would be almost a full year before I'd feel "normal" and could get around with no pain.  She was just about right with that.  I'm still having some problems time to time with my right upper quad and groin muscles.  Those were the ones that were giving me fits of pain off and on since the surgery a year ago.  Every once in a while I'll tweak the groin muscle but stubbing my toe or getting my foot caught while I'm trying to walk and it will literally immobilize me for about 3 minutes.  But the pain subsides and I can go back to what I'm doing.  But the muscle is still somewhat weak and I have trouble lifting my leg to get in a car, to put my pants on, etc. 

I also get a somewhat sharp pain in my left hip from time to time.  I don't know if it's weather related or what the deal is.  My sister told me that after her hip replacement she would get some tinge of pain from time to time if the weather changed.  Cindy has been on me to go back to see the doctor to get it looked at, but I just haven't made the time. 

Interestingly, the left hip continues to make sort of "ratchet" sound when I walk up and down steps.  When it's quiet and I walk up and down our basement steps, I can clearly hear what sounds like a little ratchet wrench working in my left hip.  It used to freak Cindy out at first, but now it's just a normal - and accepted - sound coming from my body.  I had asked the doctor's assistant about it during some follow-up exams last spring, but he said, "Aw, it's just normal."  Funny that my right hip isn't making the same sound. 

Today also marks the one year anniversary of the last taste of soda pop.  I completely cut out pop as part of my diet last year and, quite honestly, I haven't missed it in the least.  That's probably been the biggest change in my life style and Cindy noticed it, as well.  She doesn't drink pop all that much any longer, either.  In fact, I'm not certain we have any pop around the house at this point. 

I ended up losing about 45 pounds last year and I was doing well to keep it off - then Christmas came.  Between the cookies and other goodies that abound that time of year, I ended gaining about 10 pounds back.  I've fluctuated losing five pounds, then gaining five pounds back since then.  I'm not happy that the pants that I bought last year after my weight loss are getting tight again, but I know that I can lose the weight if I really try.   Now that I know how to lose 40 pounds, I know I can do it again.  And keeping it off wasn't all that hard.  Sugar is what really kills me on my weight. 

My knees are the ones that are beginning to talk to me now.  I've noticed recently that I'm getting some stiffness and pain in the knees.  I've been taking chondroitin and glucosamine off and on when the pain flairs up and that seems to help.  My biggest worry is that eventually I'll have to get my knees replaced.  And from what I've heard and what I saw during my rehab last year, I don't want to do that.  It's ten times worse than a hip replacement.  But I'm not getting any younger and they're really perfecting these procedures these days.  Who knows?  If I have to get knee replacements in ten years, maybe the recovery time will be reduced like it has been for hips.  But I'm not looking forward to it. 

Oh, and yes, that's an x-ray of my new hips at the start of this post...

This is Spring?

Spring arrives in Iowa today at 12:32 p.m., signaling the end of one of the longest and more brutal winters we've had in the Midwest.  But as we got up this morning, you couldn't tell that today was the first day of Spring.  We were greeted with over two inches of heavy wet snow that had fallen overnight. 

This was on the heels of 60 degree days the past week.  In fact, it was just above 60 here in the Quad Cities yesterday.  I had the windows open and a nice breeze coming in.  I even cooked out on the grill last night.  We'd been joking with people all week long that we brought the spring-like temperatures back from Hawaii with us.  But it began to get colder in the early evening last night and you could see a big bank of dark clouds off to the west just before sunset.  Yes, winter was trying to hang on.

We knew it was coming - they'd been predicting a chance of snow all week long.   When it was 57 and sunny here yesterday about 5 p.m., it was 31 in Des Moines and 33 up in Waterloo with both places reporting snow flurries.  It was sort of misting when I went to bed last night and we both slept in this morning.  When I got up, I looked out the bedroom blinds to see if it had snowed like they predicted.  Cindy sleepily asked, "Did it snow?"

I said, "Oh, boy, did it snow!" 

The good thing about it is that there's a lot of moisture content in the snow so it will probably melt when the temperatures rise above freezing this afternoon.  And the pavement temps are above freezing so there's little shoveling or travel problems to be had.  But in the meantime, it's actually pretty outside this morning with the wet snow plastering the branches of trees that are just beginning to bud out. 

My grandmother used to say that we always get one last "big one" before Spring really takes over.  I don't know if this qualifies as a big snow, but I'm hoping that this is the last we see of winter for the 2009-2010 season.  The grass is already turning green, the bulbs that Cindy planted last fall are beginning to bust through the soil, our rose bushes are green and showing life at the base of their stems.  I've even had to turn the air-conditioner on in the car because it got so warm as I was driving back from Chicago this week.  After our trip to Hawaii I'm ready for warm weather.  We don't need any more cold weather and snow. 

(Update - Our winter weather lasted all of one day.  By Sunday, the skies cleared and it warmed up to 50 degrees. Most of the snow that fell on Saturday was gone by Sunday afternoon.  Monday, the skies will continue to be clear and temps should make it into the mid-to-upper 50's; and by Tuesday it will be in the low 60's.  Spring is here.)

The Tsunami of 2010

Since we've been back from Hawaii for a week or so, most people haven't really asked about how our trip was as much as they've asked about our experience of dealing with the tsunami warning due to the devastating 8.8 earthquake in Chile during our first weekend on the Big Island.  I was reluctant about writing about it as even though it was sort of exciting at the time, the outcome turned out to be very anti-climactic.  I really didn't know how I could make it interesting because there was all this tension and excitement, but it fizzled like a dry fart at the end.  My sister said, "Oh, I'm sure you'll be able to make it interesting enough.  I want to hear all the details. Not many people have gone through a tsunami warning."

Hawaii has been hit by some devastating tsunami's over the years.  One of the most famous happened 50 years ago when a tsunami that was generated by an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands hit Hilo.  There was adequate warning about the initial wave and most people were able to get to higher ground when it hit.  However, when the wave receded, a number of townspeople gathered along the shore and in the downtown area to view the damage.  A secondary swell came ashore and swept 61 people to their death.  There's a memorial museum in Hilo - the Pacific Tsunami Museum - that commemorates that tsunami and others that have hit the Hawaiian Islands. 

On April 1, 1946, another tsunami was generated by an earthquake in the same Aleutian Island area that spawned the Hilo tsunami 14 years later.  Unfortunately, because of the day - April Fools Day - a number of people who heard the warnings of a tsunami thought it was a prank so they didn't heed the warnings.  Unfortunately, a number of children at a school/day care center north of Hilo were swept away by the tsunami.  Cindy and I just happened to visit this place on a day trip to Hilo.  They have a memorial on the former site of the school that commemorates those children and teachers who lost their lives that day.  One family lost five children.

So they take their tsunami's rather seriously in Hawaii.  And this one was no exception.

I first heard about the earthquake in Chile when I turned on the TV when we got back to our hotel room at the Hilton Waikoloa Village after dinner on Friday evening.   There was some mention of a possible tsunami and that was something they were going to monitor overnight.  What was sort of ironic is that during our first trips around the Big Island, we would see the signs like what are at the top of this post.  We sort of chuckled because of the somewhat comical nature of the signs.  But we just never - ever - figured that we'd have to worry about a tsunami while we were in Hawaii. 

The next morning, Cindy got up before sunrise to take our camera out to Buddha Point - a slab of land that stuck out into the ocean on our hotel resort's property.  You could very easily see humpback whales surfacing and frolicking just off the coast.  Cindy thought that was so cool and she wanted to get some pictures.  

While she was out doing that, I woke up and turned on the TV just after 7 a.m.  Each of the local stations on the television were having non-stop tsunami coverage.  Now, we were on the Big Island of Hawaii and there are really no local television stations on the island.  The local television stations for the whole state of Hawaii are based in Honolulu on Oahu.  And to make matters even more confusing, three of the six local television stations - KGMB-TV, KHNL-TV and KFVE-TV - share local newscasts.  So I could turn to any one of three stations and get the exact same information. 

I could tell right away that my plans for the day would be altered by Mother Nature.  My plans consisted of going up to a small village up the coast to have breakfast at a place that was recommended to us, then coming back to the hotel, grabbing a lounge chair by the ocean and reading one of the books I brought with me on vacation.  They even had wait staff service who would bring you drinks or beers.  I already had it planned out - a mai tai right off the bat, then a series of Kona Big Wave Golden Ales.  I was on vacation and ready to "veg" out for the day. 

The first reports coming in said that, overnight, buoys out in the Pacific between Chile and the Hawaiian Islands were reporting some massive swells.  Some were reported as high as 9 meters (just under 30 feet).  That's a big swell in any stretch of the imagination.  Initially, they had the state of Hawaii under a tsunami watch, meaning that there could be a chance of some massive waves hitting the islands.  

As tsunami waves fan out, they can level out and that's what forecasters at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center outside of Honolulu were predicting would happen.  Forecasts of waves as high as 9 to 12 feet were to hit the Hilo area on the east side of the Big Island around 11 a.m. on Saturday morning.  Suddenly, the tsunami watch became a tsunami warning.

About the time the local stations were beginning to announce a tsunami warning, Cindy came walking back into the room.  I said, "Listen, I don't want to alarm you, but I guess there's a tsunami warning for the islands." 

Well, I shouldn't have said anything because she immediately began to panic.  "What's going on?  When did this happen?  What are we going to do?  Do we have to get out of here?  What do we pack?"

I explained to her that not only were we on the far side of the island,  we were on the sixth floor of the hotel and that the hotel was built up on the lava rock base by about 15 feet above the ocean.  But they kept talking on the local channels that all low lying areas around the Hawaiian Islands would have to be evacuated.   I was sort of perplexed with all that as we were on the west side of the island and the waves were coming from the south and east.  An expert on one of the local channels then spelled it out for me.

The Hawaiian Islands are all volcanic based land forms.  When a tsunami hits one side of the island, the ensuing swells wrap around the islands because of the conical shape of the volcanoes whose base is well under the ocean.  The expert said that the devastating waves can hit the east and south side of the islands, but the swells will envelope the rest of the shorelines around the islands due to the lack of a continental shelf on or near the islands.  Hmm... OK.  Well, it's gonna affect us, then. 

By this time, the alarm system for the hotel is going off and the "message" light on our phone lights up.  I call up the voice mailbox and the hotel has a recorded announcement alerting their guests that a tsunami warning has been issued and that everyone should evacuate the property.  Well, I still didn't see any sense of urgency, considering we still had over 3 hours before the first wave hit Hilo.  Besides, I was thinking it would be kind of cool to watch it come in from our balcony. 

Cindy was still somewhat frantic, but I assured her that we'd have time to take showers, get dressed, grab what we needed for the day and go if we wanted.  They were saying on TV that a large tsunami could have wicked swells for up to 10 hours after the first wave hits.  That said, I was thinking that if the tsunami was even going to be 9 to 12 feet, it could be well after 8 p.m. before everything would settle down. 

In the meantime, reports out of Hilo and Honolulu said that gas stations had begun to run out of gas, grocery stores were running out of food, and roads were clogged with evacuees.  Cindy had settled down quite a bit and was even wondering if we could still get some breakfast at the hotel.  I called to the breakfast restaurant at the hotel and the lady who answered the phone said it was closed.  She said, "Everything in the hotel is now closed for the tsunami."  

Well, I was thinking there was an outside chance we'd be able to stay.  But with everything at the hotel closed, I thought I'd better ask if this was a mandatory evacuation.  She said, "Oh, yes, sir.  Everyone must evacuate the property."  

I turned to Cindy and I said, "Well, now they're saying it's a mandatory evacuation.  I guess we have to leave for sure, now."   

Not long after that, the hotel's alarm goes off again.  This time the message on the voice mail said that everyone MUST evacuate the property.  In fact, as we left around 9:30, security details were going room to room making sure everyone was out, then programming the electronic locks on the doors so that people (or enterprising thieves) couldn't gain access to the rooms. 

Before we left, I was getting e-mails and text messages from people who knew we are out in Hawaii wanting to know if we're safe.  I decided to sit down and send out an e-mail to friends and family letting them know of the situation before we left.   

The tram that went between our building and the main lobby was waiting for us as we got down to the ground floor.  A hotel employee was telling people that they were going to evacuate people to an off-site area that would be safe in the event of a tsunami.  Cindy said, "Do we have to do that?"

I said, "I'm not gonna be stuck in someplace with a bunch of strangers.  No, we can drive up to Waimea."

Waimea is a quaint little ranching town of about 7,000 people in the "hills" region of northern Hawaii island (see map).  Actually, it sort of reminded me of some of the small towns we encountered years ago when we traveled Northern California's wine region.  It is also known as Kameula (the Hawaiian name for "Samuel", named after the father of John Parker, the first rancher in the area) and it's shown as that on some maps.  However, the maps I bought out in Hawaii showed it as Waimea and all the towns signet and the locals called it Waimea.  The town is about a 15 mile drive from our hotel and it sits just over 2500 feet in elevation.  I figured that we'd have no problem up there.

As we left the hotel, I was sort of surprised by the lack of traffic.  I guessed that we were probably part of the last stragglers getting away from the low-lying areas.  We drove up to Waimea with no problem.  However, when we got to town, it turned out that we weren't the only people who thought getting away to Waimea was a good idea.  Turned out we were going to be surrounded by a lot of strangers where ever we went that day.

The main roads through town were packed.  People were parking where they could and local officials opened up the school's soccer field for overflow parking.  We were able to park along the main road into Waimea near where we wanted to eat breakfast.  The place - Hawaiian Style Cafe - we had breakfast at three days prior on our way to Hilo.  It's a great little place and the food was excellent.  Be sure to look for my entry on the place in coming days.

It was a 45 minute wait - minimum - before we could get in.  We decided to put our name in, then go across the street to a number of little shops that were teeming with evacuees.  Cindy looked around at some of the shops while I returned e-mails, text messages and took phone calls from people back on the mainland wanting to know what was going on.  There was wireless internet available in the shopping area and number of people were on line with their laptops keeping up with information. 

Before we left for Hawaii, Cindy chastised me for wanting to take my notebook computer with us.  "You're just gonna sit on-line the whole time we're there," she said.  I promised her I wouldn't.  (And I didn't - other than trying to find places to eat or go see.)  However, when we were in Waimea and seeing all the people with their laptops getting information on the tsunami, her tone was completely different.

"Why didn't you bring your lap top with us," she asked. 

I said, "Geez, Cindy!  You didn't want me to bring the thing with us to Hawaii.  Now you're wondering why I didn't bring it with us to Waimea!"  I couldn't win...

After about a half-hour, I went back across the street and checked on our status.  It would be about 10 minutes before we could get in, so I went back and told Cindy we needed to go back to the restaurant.  If we weren't there when our names got called, we'd lose our place in line.  And the line was still growing by 10:30. 

In the meantime, forecasters at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center on Oahu had pushed back the time the first wave was to hit the island to about 11:30.  A buoy about 100 miles south and east of Hilo reported another large swell of 9 meters just before 11 a.m.  Oh, man.  This was gonna be a big one, we thought. 

We finally got into Hawaiian Style Cafe around 10:45 a.m.  We sat at the counter and ordered up our food.  Seated next to us was a couple from the north suburbs of Chicago.  They, too, had to get out of their hotel which happened to be the Marriott hotel next to our hotel in the Waikoloa Village resort area.  Cindy asked them what procedures that hotel went through and the guy said, "They came around to each of the rooms and told people that they needed to leave the property.  They said they had an area where people could go to if they didn't have transportation out of the facility.  I asked, 'Can we leave if we have a car?'  They said, 'Sure!'  In fact, I think that's what they were hoping that most of the people would do." 

But before they left, they were asked to fill up their tub with water.  "They told us that if the water system went out, that would be the only fresh water we'd have."

I said, "Well, they certainly didn't tell us to do that at our hotel!" 

After we finished breakfast, it was getting close to the time the first wave was supposed to hit Hilo.  I got back into the car and turned on the Hilo radio station I was listening to on our way up to Waimea.  It was off the air.  I thought, "Uh oh. That's not good." 

Information around Waimea was sporadic as to what was happening.  I ended up calling my friend, Scott Schroeder, back in the Quad Cities to find out if he knew of anything.  (How strange is that?  I had to call back 4000 miles to find out what it was going on in Hawaii.)  Scott said that he was watching a stream of KITV out of Honolulu and he said, "Well, I don't think anything has happened.  The time frame for the first waves to hit the island has passed, and they're not getting any reports of any big waves." 

Cindy and I ended up going to a farmer's market in Waimea to pass the time.  As we were looking at the different booths, reports started coming in that the tidal wave was not much of a big deal.  It was close to 12:30 p.m. when we started to hear the same thing from different people.  Hilo was still there, no big waves have hit the island and it appeared the tsunami threat had passed. 

We drove around Waimea for a bit listening to a couple people talk about the situation on a Hawaiian public radio station - mainly because we couldn't get any information from any other station.  They were all playing music like it was a normal day in paradise.  The two people on the station were sort of confused by what was going on.  They were getting reports that the largest wave to hit Hilo was about 2.8 feet - considerably less than the 9 to 12 foot waves predicted by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.  They said that there was no information from Hawaii Civil Defense or from any of the law agencies regarding whether or not the danger had passed.  The tsunami warning, as far as they knew, was still in effect. 

I said to Cindy, "This is ridiculous.  Nothing's happened.  Let's go back down to the hotel to see if we can get back in."

As we drove down out of the hills, we came to the intersection that would take us back down to our hotel.  Police had the road to the little village we were going to go to earlier in the day still closed off.  But the main highway south toward our hotel was open.  

When we got to the entrance of the hotel, police still had the entrance blocked off.  Dozens of cars were lined up along both sides of the road waiting to get back in.  We decided to drive down the road about six miles to a scenic overlook to wait out the time.

The parking lot of the scenic overlook was full of cars and we were able to squeeze into a spot.  We got out and sat on a stone wall that overlooked the black lava fields and out into the Pacific Ocean.  A local family had a boom box playing music.  It was sort of a party atmosphere in the parking lot.   

Suddenly at 1:45, people began to pack up their things, got in their cars or trucks and drove off.  I said, "Hmm... Maybe those people know something that we don't know..."  Cindy suggested we get back into the car and drive back to the hotel.  Sure enough, when we got to the entrance by the highway, the barricades were down and the cops were gone.  We drove onto the property and went to the hotel. 

As we were driving near the hotel, the guy on the public radio station came on and said the tsunami warning was rescinded at 1:38 p.m.  Everything was slowly getting back to normal. 

By the time we got to the hotel, valet parking was a madhouse.  All these people were coming back and they had a skeleton crew of people working at the hotel.  They just told us to leave our car and they'd deal with it later.

The tram wasn't working, so we walked back to our room - about a 10 minute walk from the lobby.  When we got up to our floor, the hotel's security staff was going around and reprogramming the doors to allow people to get back into their rooms.  We tried our door and got right in.   I went out on the balcony, checked to see what was going on out near the ocean and Cindy said, "Well, I'm gonna change into my bathing suit and head outside." 

I sent a quick e-mail out to friends and family letting them know that we were safely back at the hotel and the tsunami warning was canceled.  We went out and found a double lounge chair.  I got comfy and began to read my book.  The only problem is that the bar was closed - the hotel sent a lot of people home thinking this was going to be a massive tidal wave and getting them to come back proved to be quite a chore.  

And that was it.  I told you it was pretty anti-climactic.  Here's a picture of the cover of the West Hawaii Today newspaper on Sunday morning that talked about the tsunami that wasn't, with an accompanying article talking about how they evacuated 1500 people from our hotel.  I didn't think they had even half that amount of people on the property, to tell you the truth.  All in all, I think they overly erred on the side of caution in regard to this tsunami.  But as I said earlier, Hawaiians remember some big ones in the past and they count themselves as lucky this time.

Goodbye to an Old Friend

If you'll indulge me for a moment, I'd like to talk today about an old friend, Kenny Brown, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack over the weekend.  Kenny was one of those guys who touched many people's lives in both positive and negative ways.  You either loved or hated Kenny Brown, but I will tell you that the vast majority loved the guy.

Kenny was one of those lovable rogues who had a line of bullshit a mile long.  Quite honestly, you really didn't know if the stories he was telling were true, an embellishment of the truth, or outright bullshit.  But he was such a likable kind of guy that it never really mattered in the long run. 

Kenny was a master in a big room with a lot of people.  He held the center of attention as well as anyone I've ever been around.  And he made everyone feel just as important as he was and everyone was his friend. 

Everyone who was touched by "KB" has their favorite stories about him and I have many great and crazy memories of Kenny and me being together.  Unfortunately, we grew apart over the past few years as he began to settle down with his life after he and his partner, Sue, gave birth to a daughter, Kendall.  Kendall was born prematurely and has had a series of health problems in her short life.  But Kenny loved that little girl with all his heart. 

I would stay in touch with Kenny from time to time, just to catch up with him and share a laugh.  The last time I saw him was a couple months ago when I stopped into see him at his job selling furniture in Newton, IA.  He was a little sheepish that he was all dressed up and selling furniture after a series of jobs at Maytag, Newton High School and with Hanson Directory.  After giving him some good natured ribbing about the job, I told him that in this day and age ANYBODY who had a job had a leg up in society.  He said he was traveling too much with his job at Hanson Directory and he wanted to get back home and be with his little girl.  "I needed to get back here, so I took this job to keep me around," he said. 

Kenny brought up the time that we met just off of Interstate 35 near Ames and talked for nearly two hours.  I was traveling back from Minneapolis on a Friday and decided to take the long way home to the Quad Cities, down I-35 to Des Moines, stopping off in Newton to see my sister, then heading home on I-80.  I had just passed a car and pulled in front of it.  Suddenly, this car came up quickly behind me, flashing its headlights.  I thought, "Oh, crap.  I just passed an unmarked car."  As I pulled over, I looked in the rear view mirror and there was this big, Kenny Brown shit-eating grin staring back at me.  We pulled off at the next exit, stood outside in the warm spring sunshine and talked about everything and anything for about two hours.  We probably hadn't seen each other in a year or so, but it was like we had never left off from the last conversation. 

I first met Kenny when I was 14 and he was 13 when we were playing Babe Ruth League baseball.  He was on the Braves and I was on the Cards.  We got to know each other pretty well after that and it turned out that he knew a lot of other friends that I knew.  In fact, he was responsible for my nickname that close friends and some family still call me, "Will Bear".  We were playing a game against each other one summer - I was pitching and Kenny was at bat.  Some guy in the crowd yells, "Hit the ball, Kenny Bear!"  I sort of looked in at him and said, "Kenny Bear?" 

He smiled and said, "Just throw the ball, Will Bear."  I like to tell people I struck him out, but he remembers getting a two-run double off of me.  After that, our nicknames just stuck.  He later became "KB" to his friends, but I kept the "Will Bear" moniker. 

As we grew up, we had a lot of great and wild times together.  The Brown family became like a second family to me and their home was my "in town" home as I grew up in the country.  I try to stay in touch with the Brown family, but I don't as much as I should.

As I was flying back from the Consumer Electronics Show on Sunday morning, I had turned off my Blackberry for the flight between Denver and Moline.  When I landed about an hour and 45 minutes later, I turned on my phone and it began to light up like it hit the jackpot.  I must have had nearly two dozen e-mails, texts and phone messages from friends who told me that Kenny had died the night before.  As I got off the plane my phone rang and it was another friend telling me that Kenny had died.  As I walked to the baggage claim, I received two more text messages from friends.  I got another phone call from a friend as I was leaving the airport.  At home, I got another four phone calls, along with a handful of text and e-mail messages.

As I was telling our friend Tom Norris yesterday, "You know, Tommy, that shows how Kenny affected the lives of many people.  For me to get that many messages and texts during the flight from Denver to Moline showed that he touched the lives of a lot of people.  People who knew Kenny and I were good friends." 

Tom said, "Yeah, Will Bear, whether it was positive or negative, he certainly did touch the lives of a lot of people." 

Another friend, Mike Durbala, once told me, "Kenny is so full of bullshit, but you just can't help but like the guy." 

Life will be a little less fun without Kenny Bear.

We Missed the "Storm of the Decade"

For the past few days, forecasters have been touting an upcoming winter storm that was supposed to hit the Quad Cities this week as the "most intense storm we've seen in 20 to 30 years".  It hit us on late Tuesday afternoon and lasted well through the whole day on Wednesday.  We did get about 8 to 12 inches of snow with blizzard conditions hitting our area by mid-morning on Wednesday.  While that sounds pretty bad, it wasn't as bad around here as they initially said it would be.

(As always, you can click on the pictures to get a larger image.)

It was a heavy, wet snow that fell.  Temperatures weren't too bad - hovering around the freezing mark all day on Tuesday and well into Tuesday evening.  But the intense low pressure system that was responsible for the storm went a little further north on its track, dumping heavy amounts of snow West, Northwest and Northeast of the Quad Cities.   To illustrate how powerful the storm was, the National Weather Service in Chicago recorded the lowest barometric pressure reading in 20 years as the low passed over the city yesterday morning.

Cindy was sent home from work early on Tuesday and was told that she may not have to work on Wednesday.  The heavy wet flakes that started out suddenly turned to a sleet and freezing rain mixture late in the afternoon.  That continued for a good portion of the evening as temperatures stayed close to the freezing mark through the night. 

One highlight of the storm, the trees in the neighborhood had a beautiful snow-coating on them yesterday morning.  The light mist, fog and light snow mixture gave everything a wonderful winter look.  I sort of like the first snow when everything is so white and pristine.  But it gets sort of old after, oh, about an hour. 

Because it didn't snow that much overnight, Cindy was able to get to work - even though it did take her about 20 minutes longer than usual.  The main roads in town were plowed, yet slushy.  It was a slow commute for everyone this morning.

But that's not the story out west toward Des Moines.  Upward of 12 to 15 inches blanketed the central counties of Iowa, shutting down the Interstate highways, downing power lines and wreaking havoc upon thousands who tried to get around in the deep snow and high winds.  Drifts of 5 to 8 feet shut down rural roads.  The cold air hit Des Moines around 1 a.m.  They had their daytime high at midnight on Wednesday morning and the temps had hit the single digits by daybreak. 

Being that we're about 150 miles east of Des Moines, the cold air didn't start hitting the Quad Cities until mid-morning.   I was able to get out and begin shoveling around six a.m.  At that time, the temperature wasn't too bad.  There was a brisk breeze, but it wasn't any too cold.  However, the snow was unusually heavy and wet, much more so than I've seen it in quite sometime.  I could only move a couple shovel loads of snow before I decided it was time for the snowblower. 

As I did our driveway and walks, as well as the public walks for our neighbors up and down our side of the street, it began to snow heavily once again.  Big, ol' thick, wet flakes.  It was coming down like miniature snowballs.  Once I got the walks done, it had snowed about a half-inch on the freshly blown driveway. 

I had to go out about 3 p.m. to run an errand and the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees and the winds out of West were whipping with gusts over 40 mph.  I looked out at the driveway and saw that a one foot deep drift had developed across the pavement.  I had to get the snowblower back out and hit it again.  I'm sure I'll have to get the snowblower out once again this morning before Cindy leaves for work thanks to the 20 mile-an-hour + sustained winds we had last night.  Since temperatures dropped to below zero overnight, snowblowing is not going to be as nice as it was yesterday morning.  That is, if you can call anytime that you have to snowblow as "nice". 

According to this map from Iowa State University,  places south and west of Des Moines bore the brunt of the snowfall with totals of 15 to 16 inches common in a band from just east of Omaha to just south of Des Moines.  Areas north and west of Dubuque got up to 14 inches of snow.  At the Quad City Airport in Moline about six miles due south of us, they received about 8 3/4 inches.  But the National Weather Service office at the Davenport Municipal Airport - about five miles to our north and west -  received a smidge under 12 inches.  So, I'm guessing we got about 10.5 inches of snow at our house.  Just like the past four years, winter came in with a bang. 

The Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area got nailed, as well.   Upwards of a foot of snow fell throughout the I-380 corridor.  Even though the roads were not officially closed, travel was not recommended on many roads north and west of Iowa City during the day.    

One area where there was problems all day long was a 20 mile stretch of Interstate 80 from Grinnell to Newton - right near where I grew up outside of Kellogg, IA.  Our house was a mile and a half north of the Interstate.  The Iowa Highway Patrol had closed down the Interstate between the two exits for a good portion of the day due to poor visibility, numerous wrecks and ice-packed roadways. 

As the weather deteriorated throughout the day in Eastern Iowa, the slushy roads began to turn to ice and travel began to be even more treacherous.  I was supposed to drive into Chicago yesterday, but there was no way I was going to chance it.  Authorities in both Iowa and Illinois had instituted a "towing ban" for cars who had gone off into ditches along the Interstates.  I wasn't going to try my luck.

The sun is supposed to return today, but the cold Canadian air that was ushered in after the low pressure system took off to the northeast will only allow temperatures to climb up to the low to mid-teens here in the Quad's.  Long range forecasts don't look much better in regard to the temps.  It doesn't appear we'll see temperatures above freezing for at least another week. 

So much for hoping December would be as mild as November...  

A Mild Start to Winter

Today is the day I call the first day of Winter.  But compared to the last two December 1st's, today the meteorological winter starts off like a lamb.  Today, we're expecting sunny skies, breezy conditions and a high in the mid-50's.   It will be a stark contrast to the 1st of December in 2007 and 2008 when we had snow storms come through the area.   But this is Iowa and we won't have to wait long for cold weather to come about.  Temps will immediately dip tomorrow and in 48 hours we're not expecting the daytime high to make it out of freezing.

We've had kind of a backwards fall around here.  We had cold temperatures and snow in October.  November was damp, yet warm.  We had a lot of rain in October and it carried over into November with almost half the days getting some form of precipitation.  Because of that, our roses were still blooming right up to and past Thanksgiving.  Expecting an early winter, I went ahead and put down a base of mulched up leaves and grass, then covered that with hardwood mulch.  If you remember last year, Cindy made me use a combination of dirt and straw around the rose bushes.  But the clean up in the Springtime was horrendous.  This year, I wanted to do it my way with the mulched leaves and hardwood mulch.  It's kept the plants warmer, it's kept the roots moist and we're continuing to get budding on the plants.  That won't last for long, however.

Even our window boxes continued to thrive throughout the fall.  The begonias and other greenery that we had in the boxes just kept growing and going - even after a number of frosts that we had during the fall - much to the amazement of friends and neighbors.  The begonias finally got nailed just after Thanksgiving and I just pulled them out this past weekend.  But the other plants are hearty enough and they seem to keep going.  But, like I say, it won't be long before continuous freezing temperatures nail them, as well. 

We're going to see high temperatures through the weekend in the low-to-mid 30's.  But long-term forecasts for December show that it could be a somewhat mild month.  I'm never ready for winter and as long as it doesn't snow until later in the month or into early January, I'll be able to tolerate the season a little easier. 

 

A Travel Lesson Learned

I put on a dealer up in Dickinson, ND over three years ago, Blue Hawk Audio Video.  The owner, Mike Wilkinson, told me that if I came up to see him once a year, he'd buy product from me.  I agreed to do that and while he's not a huge dealer, they do enough business to warrant an annual trip up to see the store.  Plus the fact that Mike and his guys are great people.  Being that Dickinson is an 11 hour trip - one-way - from Davenport, and they're 60 miles from the Montana border, if they didn't do the business and weren't such great guys, I would have shit-canned them a long time ago. 

With that said, I agreed to do a product training on Focal loudspeakers for them on my next visit, along with taking the crew out to dinner afterward.  Given that Dickinson doesn't have any "high-end" restaurants, it was going to likely be sandwiches, appetizers and beer.  I knew that it would be a late night and I made reservations at the Holiday Inn Express in Dickinson. 

Now, I usually go for Hilton properties (Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, etc.) first as I have well over 600,000 Hilton Honors points and am a Hilton Diamond V.I.P. member (the top tier of Hilton frequent traveler membership).  If a Hilton property is not available in the area, I'll then opt for a Marriott property (Courtyard, Spring Hill Suites, etc.).  If neither a Hilton or Marriott property is available, the third choice are Holiday Inns.  Dickinson does not have a Hilton or Marriott property, so I went with the Holiday Inn Express. 

After a very quick trip across the state from Fargo, I pulled into Dickinson at 6:15 Mountain Daylight Time.  (My territory is so huge, I have dealers in three different time zones.)  I drove into the parking lot at the Holiday Inn Express to get my room.  I went to the front desk and I gave the desk clerk my name.  He fumbled around for a bit, then went to his computer.  He said, "Ah, yes.  Here you are.   We have you coming in tomorrow night and, unfortunately, we are sold out for tonight.  And, also unfortunately, many of the other hotels in the area are also sold out." 

He offered to call a couple of hotels that he had not heard from that evening to see if they had any rooms.  He called two and both were sold out.  He said, "I don't quite understand what the deal is.  It's a Wednesday night and this is Dickinson.  There must be something going on in the area." 

He finally called a place that was across the interstate from the Holiday Inn - a hotel that I'm not even going to name because it will be disparaged at later points in this post.  He said, "They have rooms over there.  Do you want me to transfer your reservation over there?"

I told him I'd just go over and get the room on my own.  Instead, I took my bags back out to my car and drove over to Blue Hawk Audio.  As I pulled out of the Holiday Inn parking lot, I noticed a sign in front of an empty lot across the street from the hotel.  It said, "Coming soon - Hampton Inn".  A lot of good it was going to do me then. 

I went over to Blue Hawk and told Mike that I screwed up on the date of the reservation and that I was having trouble finding a room.   I told him, "I guess I can get a room at the (hotel name deleted).  Is that a nice place?"

One of Mike's guys, Jens, immediately piped up, "The Crack House Hotel?  No, man.  You don't wanna stay out there." 

Mike called a couple of the other - and nicer - hotels explaining to them that he had a good friend who needed a room for the evening.  Neither of them could help us out.  The closest hotel is 100 miles away in Bismarck.  I was going to go to Bismarck the next day to visit one of my dealers there.  I just decided to head back there that night after dinner.  It would be a late arrival, but at least I'd have a hotel room.  

I made reservations on my computer for the Hampton Inn in Bismarck, a nice hotel that I've stayed at before.  I got a confirmation number and that was that.  I did the training, we went out for a casual dinner and a few beers at an Applebee's (which, according to the guys at Blue Hawk Audio, is the best place to eat in town), then I drove to Bismarck.  I left a little after 11 p.m. Dickinson time.  About 30 miles to the east of Dickinson, you go back into the Central Time Zone.  Suddenly, it went from 11:20 p.m. to 12:20 a.m.  

I rolled into the Hampton Inn in Bismarck around 1:40 in the morning.  It had been a long day that started at 9 a.m. in St. Cloud, MN, gone on to Fargo, then out to Dickinson and back to Bismarck - a total of 575 miles driven.  I gathered my bags out of the trunk and walked into the lobby.  A young guy was sitting on one of the sofas in the lobby and he popped up and greeted me.  I said, "I have a reservation."  

He got behind the desk and said, "Well, I'm sorry to tell you that when your reservation came in, we had neglected to tell the Hilton reservations desk that we had actually oversold for the evening."

I was like, "What?"

He said, "Yes, I'm sorry.  But we had overbooked our hotel for the evening and we forgot to contact the Hilton reservation desk to tell them.  They still thought we had rooms.  We tried to contact you, but we couldn't get hold of you."

I said, "Wait a minute.  I had a reservation confirmation!"

He said, "Yes, sir.  I know that, but it was definitely our fault in not contacting Hilton and letting them know we were sold out for the evening."  

He explained to me that I had a room at a Country Inns and Suites, just around the corner.  He apologized to me and I trudged out the door to deposit my bags back into the trunk, get in the car and drive a half mile to the other hotel.  It was about 1:50 in the morning by the time I got there.  The lady behind the desk said, "You're my last one.  Can I put you down for a wake up call?"

Nope, I'm sleeping in.  

When I got up the next morning, I checked my voice messages back in my office.  Sure enough, there was a message from a lady from the Bismarck Hampton Inn.  She explained the same thing that the night desk clerk told me just hours before when I went to check in.  She told me that they did have a room for me at the Country Inns and Suites and to just go over there.  Well, while I check my office voice mail a minimum of three times a day while I'm on the road, I never check it after 6 p.m., but will check it first thing in the morning.  Yes, she made an attempt to contact me.  But I then figured out that I needed to have my cell phone listed in my Hilton profile - not my office phone. 

Although the Country Inns and Suites wasn't all that bad, I had just missed out on garnering more Hilton Honors points that are eventually going toward a vacation that Cindy and I are going to take next year to Hawaii.  I have enough points for us to stay nearly two weeks for free in Hilton properties in Hawaii.  And I have enough American Airlines points for us to fly round-trip for free, as well.   

I got on the Hilton Honors site and went to their customer service page.  I wrote a short letter via e-mail to them explaining that I had a reservation confirmation, but was told that the hotel was overbooked on my arrival.  I thought under the circumstances that I should still get the points for the stay.  I thought it was a reasonable request and didn't think more of it. 

A week went by and I finally got a reply from Hilton.  They said they were looking into the matter and that they would be in touch shortly. 

It wasn't any more than a couple hours later and I got this e-mail from the General Manager of the Bismarck Hampton Inn:

My name is Cheryl Dressler and I am the General Manager of the Hampton Inn in Bismarck, ND.  Your experience at the Hampton Inn of Bismarck is not ordinary and certainly not acceptable by my standards.  The Front Desk agent that handled this has been reprimanded and one more occurrence and she will not be employed her (sp) any longer.

I am awarding you more points than you would have received should you have stayed with us.  Again, please accept my apologies and we hope this never happens again.

Regards,

Cheryl Dressler, GM

Bismarck Hampton Inn

I immediately thought, "Wow!  That's nice."  Then I re-read the letter.  I thought, "Wow, that's kind of harsh for that girl who called me on my office line."  Really, it was sort of my fault, as well.  I should have had my cell phone be my primary telephone contact with Hilton.  (It is now, along with Marriott and Holiday Inn.) 

I felt compelled to write back to the Bismarck G.M:

Hello, Cheryl!

 

First of all, I'm not looking to get anyone fired over this.  I have my office number listed as my "go-to" number in my profile and it's probably just as much my fault as anything that she contacted my office number to explain the situation.  As I said in the communication to Hilton Honors, I usually don't check my office phone voice mail after 6 p.m. when I'm on the road.  I'll be changing my contact number to my cell phone on my profile.

 

With that said, all I was asking was an opportunity to get my points for a stay that I thought I was going to have at your hotel.  I thought it was a fair and reasonable request given that I did have a confirmation number and up until the time that I went to check in, I thought I had a room there.  I've stayed at your hotel in the past and there's a good chance I'll stay there again during my annual trip to North Dakota. 

 

I appreciate your kind gesture and thank you for your consideration. 

 

My best regards,

 

It came to pass a few days later that I happened to look up my points on Hilton Honors and I saw that I did, indeed, get my points from the Bismarck Hampton Inn.  However, I didn't get anything extra as she promised.  I do get my base points, then as a Hilton Diamond member I receive a 50% bonus on the points (1.5 points).  And for some reason, I also receive ANOTHER 50% in Hilton points (I haven't quite been able to figure that out, but I'm not complaining).  So for each stay at a Hilton property I receive, basically, double points.  That's exactly what I received for NOT staying at the Hampton Inn, even though she said she was going to add more. 

 

That's OK, though.  All of this wouldn't have started without me screwing up in the first place and making the reservation for the wrong day in Dickinson.  While I wasn't looking for any heads to roll in this matter, I was thoroughly happy with the way Hilton resolved the foul-up in Bismarck.  This is just another reason why I like to stay in Hilton properties first and foremost.  And once I use up our points next year for our trip to Hawaii, I'll probably continue to stay in Hilton properties as I travel.

Winter Comes Early

We had the second earliest snowfall on record here in the Quad Cities on Saturday.  Although it was just a trace of snow, it still qualified as snowfall.  It began around 11 a.m. and quit about two hours later.  The picture at the left was taken about five minutes after the heaviest snow was falling - big, thick flakes coming down made for a rather neat contrast versus the green grass and leaves on the trees.

We had our first hard freeze on Friday night/Saturday morning when temperature got down to 27 (-2 C) here in Davenport.  Average first date of freezing temps around there is October 15, so that's not all that bad.  But the average first snow in the area is usually in late November or early December.  The little bit we had yesterday was a wake up call that winter is really just around the corner.  

I suppose we can thankful that we weren't 300 miles to the west.  Omaha got 3 to 5 inches of snow yesterday, and further west, North Platte had over a foot!  I was talking to a good friend of mine from Omaha, Denny Duncan, on Saturday morning.  He said, "Yes, I'm calling from the winter wonderland known as Omaha this morning."  I was completely incredulous that they had all that snow.  And while I was talking to him on the phone, I looked out to see the first snowflakes falling.  

The last two years, almost automatically, we had our first snow on or around December 1.  With temperatures that are 10 to 15 degrees cooler than normal forecast for the coming week, its going to feel more like late November than mid-October.  Some people love snow - I hate it.  I just hate everything about winter.  But I love living in Iowa.  I tell people, "9 months out of the year, this is a great place to live.  It's that stretch from December 1 to February 28 that you have to get through each year."

Now it looks like that stretch from October 10 to February 28 is what we'll have to endure this year. 

The Sun Sets on Another Summer

If you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you'll know that I get very melancholy when Sept. 1 rolls around.  Although summer isn't officially over until Sept. 22 this year, I like to follow the meteorological calendar that states summer is over on Aug. 31 and autumn begins today. 

It's been a while since the sun's rays have appeared in our north windows.  We've had our annual August cool down with Canadian high pressure systems sitting over Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois.  The low temps were in the lower 40's the past couple of nights.  While some people think of fall as their most favorite time of the year, I look forward to fall as just another step toward winter. 

This summer went exceptionally fast this year.  After we got back from our trip to Savannah, I was released to travel for work by my doctor (although I'd already made an overnight trip to Madison before).  Since then, it's been non-stop.  I was on the road every week with the exception of last week.  Hotel rooms began to close in on me.  I was dreading getting in the car for another four hour trip to somewhere.  I had seen a number of dealers, but I still haven't been able to make it up to Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Northern Iowa.  I was damn busy.  And the time just flew.  It can't be that it's now over three months since we were in Savannah.  Seems like we were there just last month.

This year, summer didn't really feel like summer at times.  We hardly ran our air-conditioner in June and into July.  We had a few warm and steamy days in mid-August, but we really haven't had to turn on the AC for the last few days.  We set records in both July and August for days with the coolest high temperatures - about five or six days broke records for the lowest maximum temperatures this summer.  

And the rain - wow!  For some reason, we've got dumped on at our house this summer.  We've had rains of over 3 inches a couple times - including just last week - and up to about 2.5 inches on two or three other occasions.  Then we've had the spotty rains that add another half-inch to the saturated ground.  While we haven't had the flooding that inundated parts of Iowa last summer, we've had a lot of rain add up.  Our sump pump has been going non-stop since March.  Where the water empties out into our yard, I have a perpetual swamp.

Offiicially, this was the 8th wettest month of August on record in the Quad Cities.  The National Weather Service recorded just over 8 inches of rain for the month.  In our rain gauge, however, we had nearly a foot of rain for the month.   Like I say, it poured on us a lot this last month.  Total rainfall - June, July and August - was officially right at 21 inches in the Quad Cities.  I know we got much more than that in our rain gauge the last three months. 

Coupled with the cool temperatures and the wet conditions, our rose garden didn't flourish as well as expected this year.  We'd gotten a leaf blight that caused some of the bushes to lose the majority of their leaves.  We found this was a direct result of too much water.  This is the first year we've never had to water any of our rose bushes or any of our annual plants that are planted in the ground.  We've given our vegetable garden, potted plants and window boxes a splash of water when it was needed, but that's it.  We just got our water bill last week and it was down exactly 1/3 from the same time period in 2008.  And that's good because we just had a pretty substantial rate hike go into effect in early August.

Cindy and I just went into Chicago for a long weekend as our "last hurrah" for summer.  We've always said that we wanted to go into Chicago and hang out downtown in the summer, as we've done it many times in the winter.  It was fun and relaxing, even though the temps were cool throughout the weekend.  Chicago is such a great city.

The only saving grace about fall starting up is that college football begins this week.  While I'm a big college football fan, I also dread the first game of the season.  It means cold temperatures are not that far away.

A Cool, Wet Summer

It's been a cool and wet summer in many parts of the Upper Midwest and Northern States this year, as evidenced by this gentleman taking place in a nude bicycle rally in Seattle recently.  Here in the Quad Cities we've suffered through two days in a row where the temperature didn't get out of the 60's.  High temperatures for both Friday and Saturday were the lowest high temperatures recorded for those dates.  We also had record low temperatures for both Saturday morning and again this morning. 

The 4th of July was rainy and cool, severely impacting the final day crowd at the annual Blues Festival down at Le Claire Park in Davenport.  The John Deere Classic was held last weekend and we had torrential rains on Wednesday (2 inches of rain) that canceled the Pro-Am event, and again on Friday (2.3 inches of rain) that postponed the second round.  It's been a cool, wet summer so far.  And I'm all about having a good hot summer.

With all that said, the wet weather has allowed some of our plants and flowers to thrive this year.  I went out early yesterday morning to take some pictures of our yard before the clouds moved back in to make it another dreary weekend day.  Our back berm is nearly overgrown again with wildflowers.  Since we had a very wet spring, it was the end of June before the berm dried out.  But since we've had all the rain last week and cool temps the past few days, it's pretty wet again.   Cindy got some lilies from one of the neighbors to plant in the berm, but she doesn't know when it's going to be dry enough to dig back there.

Our tomato and pepper plants are doing well again this year, despite the lack of hot weather they seem to love.   I expanded the garden this year behind the garage and doubled it in size.  We could only plant either peppers or tomatoes in the garden - one or the other - because it was only 6' X 8'.  Now it's 12' X 8' and we were able to get both red peppers and tomatoes (Better Boys and Cherry) in the garden this year.  And for good measure, Cindy planted Brussel Sprouts.  They're literally taking over the pepper plants.  Our herbs in the pots behind the garage are also doing rather well.  I've got three different types of basil growing, as well as oregano and lime balm (for fun, primarily).  My parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme garden growing in the old wash tub by the deck is also going nuts this year. 

Because of the wet conditions, we haven't had to water too much this summer.  But the lack of heat has also hurt the growth of our rose bushes in the garden beside the garage.  We lost two of our rose bushes over the winter - not bad considering the amount of rose bushes we lost a couple years ago after a very warm March allowed the roses to prematurely bud, then a killing freeze for three days in a row in early April killed them off.  Actually, one of the bushes was eaten by a rabbit - which has been dispatched for his transgressions.  And it was a Mr. Lincoln rose bush that grew these big beautiful red roses.  I promised Cindy that we'd get another one, along with the Belami rose bush that we lost due to the cold weather.

Our flowers and rose bushes on the east side of the house are doing well, however.   We're sort of in between budding on the bulk of the rose bushes right now, but the bright yellow Sunsprite roses are really flourishing.  The east side of the house gets a lot of morning sun and it dries out the window box pretty quickly.  About the only thing we've had to water on a regular basis this summer are the potted plants, hanging baskets and window boxes.  With a recently proposed 25% boost in our water rates looming on the horizon, we're digging the rain we've had this year.

One of the great things about the wet weather has been how well the grass has been looking all summer long.  But it also means that I have to mow about once every three to five days.  We hire our neighbor, Steve, to come over and do the trim work on the driveway and sidewalks a couple times a year.  He did it this last week and I mowed Friday evening.  One of the things I wanted when I became a home owner was a nice yard.  It's looking pretty damn good this year. 

Oh, there are some parts of the yard that aren't too pretty - we've got an ongoing battle with growing grass on the west side of the house.   And because it's been so wet, the sump pump has been running constantly since March.  We've developed a swamp from the mouth of the drain pipe to the sidewalk, and then again in the parking area between the sidewalk and the street where the water will settle.  It's sort of embarrassing to see these tall blades of grass sticking up, but I can't get a mower in there while the yard is so wet or it would tear it up worse than what it is.  In order to cut the grass in that area, I have to get a weed whacker and skim it across the top of the ground, hoping that I don't make pock marks on the ground from getting the weed whacker too low. 

One benefit from the wet weather has been the growth of the wild flowers that Cindy has planted the past couple three years underneath our Maple tree in front of the house.   We've tried all different types of annuals under the tree, but found that we were just pissing money away.  Cindy decided to start planting perennial wild flowers, irises, Columbines and ground cover under the tree.  In fact, the ground cover was growing SO well that she had to go in and pull a bunch of it out about a week ago.  It filled up one of those 30 gallon yard waste bags that we have to use to recycle yard waste here in Davenport.

Here's a close-up shot of the back berm, once again.  With the new blooming crab apple tree that we planted last year, along with the lilac bush and a wegela bush, our ornaments are starting to get lost in the jungle.  It's tough to see the Mama Moose and her baby, and we've come to the determination that we'll probably have to move the windmill.  Cindy has already told me to get rid of the Mama Bear and her three cub cut-outs that we have along the back fence.  You can only see them in the winter time, now.  Our new neighbors who moved into the house behind us, Jesse and Amy, love to look over the fence from their pool at our backyard.  Amy is especially fond of the Mama and Baby Moose.  Except she said the other day, "I can't see them any more.  It's too overgrown!"

While it's been a cool, wet summer so far, I suppose I really can't complain.  We've only had to run the air conditioning about seven days in June and probably three days so far in July.  While it's somewhat hampering the growth of not only our plants and flowers, it's hampering the growth of corn and soybeans for the farmers.  At the local farmer's market yesterday, we saw the lady who we like to buy sweet corn from.  While other vendors had some sweet corn already, we like her "peaches and cream" variety the best.  She said, "It hasn't been warm enough for the corn to fully come to maturity.  I won't sell my corn until it's fully matured to the top." 

It's supposed to be sunny and in the mid 70's today here in the Quad Cities, with temperatures rebounding into the 80's the rest of the week.  I'm just hoping for great weather this coming weekend for the Davenport One Street Festival, of which I'll be working for the 12th year in a row.  And I'm hoping we see some dry, 80 degree days for a long period of time.  I love summer, but I don't like it when it's only in the 60's for highs.

Why Do These Things Always Happen to Me?

Here's a weird little story for you today.  It involves my 2008 Impala that I've had for right at a year. 

When I bought the car last July, I was told by the dealership, Bruce Foote Chevrolet in Monmouth, IL, that the wheels on the car were actually wheels from an Impala LTZ, the Impala with the sport suspension, and a step up from the LT model that I have.  It turns out an elderly guy bought an Impala LTZ, but liked the wheels on the LT better.  He asked if he could swap out the LTZ wheels for the LT ones.  The dealership said, "Sure, no problem." 

They explained to me the LTZ wheels are about a $1000 upgrade to my car, but they weren't going to charge me for it.  Fair enough, and I got some nice looking wheels on the car.

Everything was going along fine until recently when I took my car in to get the tires rotated and balanced.  I began to notice after a couple weeks that I was having a noticeable shimmy in the rear end at higher speeds.  I took it back to the tire place - Duck Creek Tire in Bettendorf - and told them about the shimmy.  They are good guys and they said it was probably a tire that had lost a balance weight.  They said they'd look at the car right away.

I sat and waited for a while before one of the guys came out and said, "Well, we've got some bad news.  You need a whole new set of tires."

Well, I was incredulous.  I had just over 28,000 miles on a set of high quality Goodyear tires that came on the car.  The guy at Duck Creek Tire told me that it could be that the car was severely out of alignment and that would have caused the inside of the tires to have extreme wear.  Extreme wear to the point of the belts beginning to show through the rubber.

I reluctantly agreed to get a new set of tires, but the same Goodyear's that were on the car weren't cheap - $1400 bucks!  Ouch!  He had a couple of other price alternatives including a set of Continental tires that would run about $875 before taxes and other fees.  I opted for the cheaper Continental's.  All the time, I was just completely amazed that I only got 28,000 plus miles out of a set of very good tires.

The guys at Duck Creek Tire had me come back in the next day to put on the tires.  The service manager, Matt, told me they'd do an alignment on the car to see if there was a problem with that.  He said, "If it isn't out of alignment, then you may have some bigger issues with the car.  Issues that the dealer may have to take care of." 

Well, they put the tires on and aligned it.  The rear was out of alignment, not significantly, but enough to warrant a complete re-alignment.  After a couple three hours, they were done and I drove back home. 

That evening, Cindy and I were on our way to a deck party at the house of a co-worker of hers.  We had the radio low and we were talking.  As I took a right turn to go to the house, I heard some rubbing coming from the left rear tire.  I said, "That's odd.  It shouldn't be rubbing."  I immediately wondered if they put the right tires on the car.  

When I took a look at the rear tires when we stopped at the party, I noticed right away that one of the strut coils was sitting directly on top of the tire.  On both sides.  Suddenly, it all became clear.  While the tires were probably the right ones, I had the wrong wheels on the car.

The Impala LTZ wheels are 18" wheels, the LT wheels are 17" in diameter.  I wondered if the LTZ suspension was significantly different from the LT suspension.  A trip back to Duck Creek Tire the next morning confirmed my suspicion.  

I told Matt the story of how they had swapped the LTZ wheels for the LT wheels.  Then I showed him the coil resting firmly upon the top of the rear tires.  He said, "Yep, the suspension on the LTZ is significantly different from the LT."

I said, "Can I put the LTZ struts on the LT?"

He said, "Nope, the suspension on this car wouldn't allow for it.  You need to get new wheels."  

Well, I also wanted to get reimbursed for four new tires that I suddenly didn't need on these wheels.  I asked Matt if he had my tires still around.  He thought for a second and said, "Yeah, we do."  I asked if I could have one to take down to the dealership to show the wear and tear.

He went in the back and about three minutes later he was rolling out one of the old tires.  It was one that had been on the left rear for about 25,000 miles and the belts were showing through.  I said, "This one is perfect."

I got in the car and drove directly down to Bruce Foote Chevrolet.  I like dealing with small town car dealerships, even though it appeared that Brad Deery Motors in Maquoketa didn't want to sell me a car.  (That's an incredible story that I should have told you about before - they literally didn't want to wait on me when I went in to buy a car.)  But the guys at Bruce Foote were great to work with and overly accommodating to me when I got the new and improved ROKNROL Impala.  

I walked into the dealership and immediately saw the sales manager.  I couldn't remember his name and I said, "You're the sales manager, right?"

He said, "Yes, I'm Mike.  And I remember you and the car but I'm sorry that I can't remember your name."  I told him and he said, "Oh, yes.  Of course.  How can I help you?"

I said, "Come take a walk with me."

He remembered that they had swapped the LTZ wheels for the LT wheels on this car.  I was telling him the story of having a shimmy, getting the car in to have the tires looked at and the surprise of them telling me that I had to get new tires, to the tune of over $900 bucks when it was all said and done. 

I opened the trunk and showed him the wear on the inside tread of the tire.  He said, "Whoa!  That is strange!"

I said, "This is why..."

We went around to the rear tire wheel well and I showed him the strut resting on top of the tire.  Again, he said, "Whoa!  Wow, that's not good!" 

Mike went and got his service manager who came out and looked at the one on the right side.  The service manager asked, "How long have you had this car?"

I said, "About a year.  Put over 28,000 miles on it."

Mike said, "Well, I'm certainly going to have to do my homework on this one..."

The service manager immediately spoke up.  "There's no homework to do on this one," he bellowed.  "This guy is not driving this car off this lot.  That's all there is to it.  It's a wonder he hasn't had a catastrophic blowout before this!" 

I said, "Well, I guess I'm going to need new wheels with new tires.  And I'd like to be fully reimbursed for the tires I just paid for yesterday."

Mike turned to me and said, "Well, those are all very valid requests.  But first, we're going to get you a loaner car."

I said, "How long will it be before I get this car back?"

He said, "I don't know.  A couple days, maybe."

I said, "Look, I've got to drive to St. Louis, then up to Des Moines, then up to Milwaukee."

He said, "Well, I can't give you a new car, but we'll give you something that will get you around."

He told me to gather up all the stuff in my car and he'd arrange for a loaner.  He came out after about five minutes and said, "OK, we're gonna put you in a car with a warranty on it.  Unfortunately, it's a Ford."

It turned out to be a 2009 Ford Fusion.  It had about 12,000 miles on it and I'm guessing it was a rental car.  It's an OK car, not as roomy as the Impala and only a 4 cylinder model.  But it had a sun-roof and a kick-ass stereo system.  In fact, there were some amenities in the Ford Fusion that I immediately liked that my Impala lacked. 

(As an aside - We had rented a Mercury Grand Marquis when we were on vacation in Savannah, and that car was very nice, as well.  We had asked for an Impala with the Hertz NeverLost system, but they didn't have one.  They only had the Grand Marquis.  It was roomy - much more roomy than my Impala - had some nifty creature comforts and was an impressive car.  I've been a GM man for well over 20 years after having a couple Thunderbirds in the 70's that didn't work out very well.  After driving the Montego and the Fusion, I'm starting to think that Ford definitely has their shit together in regard to their cars.)

As I was putting stuff from the Impala into the Fusion and I said, "Look, I'm going to be putting a lot of miles on this car over the next few days.  Maybe 1500 miles total.  Are you sure you want me to have this car?"

Mike said, "I don't have a choice, do I?"

No, he certainly did not.  I offered to bring the car back on Monday on my way to St. Louis and he said, "I don't think I can rectify the problem that quickly."  But he said he'd give me a call on Monday and let me know what was going on. 

As I got into the car, I noticed that it had Sirius Radio.  I asked, "Anyway you can activate the Sirius Radio for this thing?"

He laughed and said, "No, I don't think I can." 

I said, "Wow, I have to listen to regular FM.  I don't know if I can bring myself to that."  (I am literally hooked on listening to Little Steven's Underground Garage channel on Sirius XM.)

Before I left, he gave me a voucher for a free tank of gas for the Fusion.  That was nice of him.  I mean, I think he was embarrassed and realized that his service manager was probably right - they had dodged a huge bullet in that I didn't have a major incident with the tires before this.  He really was bending over backwards to take care of me.   

When I was driving back home, I was playing with the stereo system.  I hit the "Media" button on the steering wheel and it went from FM to Satellite radio.  It turned out the Sirius radio WAS activated!  Well, all right!  Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

While the Fusion isn't as roomy, it's still comfortable enough.  I passed a couple cars along the way home on a two-lane road and it was really poochy when I'd floor it.   After driving it home, I thought it would work, but I'd really rather have my Impala. 

Then I thought, "Wait a minute.  Why should I put miles on MY car when they're giving this one to me to drive for the week.  I'll just put the miles on THIS car!" 

A couple days later, the service manager from Bruce Foote called me up and asked if the tires on the car were brand new.  I said, "Brand spanking new, to the tune of $920 bucks." 

He then asked if the car had been aligned.  I said it had.  He said, "Well, we've seen on these Impalas that the back end can get out of alignment and that kind of tire wear can be possible on as little as 30,000 miles."

I said, "Look, let's cut out the bullshit.  You saw the strut laying on top of the tire when I brought it in.  I have one of the tires in the trunk that clearly shows the only wear on the tire is where the strut was rubbing.  Yes, it was out of alignment in the rear end, but it wasn't bad enough to cause the tire to have that type of wear where the belts are beginning to show through."

It went downhill from there.  He came back and said, "Listen, I don't appreciate you insinuating that I'm giving you some B.S. here."

I said, "I understand what you're trying to do.  To minimize the cost of what has to come out of your pocket.  I need new wheels, I need new tires and I would like to get reimbursed for the out of pocket expense on these tires that I just bought." 

He then said, "Do you think the tire place would be interested in trading these tires for new ones?  I mean, they only have Davenport to Monmouth mileage on them."

I replied, "That's going to have to be a conversation you're going to have to have with Duck Creek Tire.  All I know is that I just paid for new tires about a year before I had to." 

He said he was going to call up to talk to Matt at Duck Creek Tire and he'd get back to me. 

Well, he never did. 

24 hours came and went and I began to get sort of worried.  Cindy said, "Will, I think they're trying to give you the run-around on this deal."

I said, "Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing."

I placed a call to Mike, the sales manager at Bruce Foote Chevrolet and I said, "Hey, Mike!  I just have this sneaking suspicion that you guys are giving me the run around on this deal."

He said in a surprising tone, "How so?"

I told him of the conversation I'd had with his service manager and how he was trying to tell me that there were previous problems on Impalas with the rear end going out of alignment causing extraordinary wear on tires.  I said, "Mike, it's quite obvious that the cause of this was due to the larger wheels and the tires rubbing on the strut."  I told him that Robert was supposed to call me back on the progress of the situation, but never did. 

Mike said, "Well, here's what I know.  The new wheels are coming in today.  We're going to take the car back up to Duck Creek Tire to get the new tires put on, balanced and checked.  Then we'll bring it back down to Monmouth and wait for you." 

I said, "Oh!  Well, no one certainly told me that."  I then proposed that he just leave it at Duck Creek Tire and he makes arrangements to come up and get the loaner car.  He said, "Well, that would be two trips to Bettendorf.  I mean, if we have to come up and get the car and do it that way, I will.  But I think I'd rather have your car here so we can finalize the swap here at the dealership."

I thought it was sort of weird, but I agreed to do that.  Then I got to thinking - he wants to negotiate on the new set of tires that I had to pay for that I can't use. 

I got back from my trip that encompassed over 1300 miles in 4 days, cleaned out the loaner car and Cindy and I drove down to Monmouth to change cars.  The Impala was sitting in front of the dealership and Mike met me at the door.  It turned out that Robert, the service manager, needed my remote lock and start key fob to reset the tire pressure indicator for the car.  Don't know exactly why they needed to do that, but I handed him the key fob and off he went.  

Mike came back and I said, "OK, so what's the story."

He said, "Well, new wheels.  New tires.  The guys at Duck Creek Tires took back the ones you just put on.  You're right, they were good guys to work with."

I then said, "OK, so, what are we going to do about the new tires that I just paid over $900 bucks for." 

He said, "Well, we have new Continentals on your car.  The same kind of tire like you just bought.  This is what I'm going to propose.  You had, what?  20,000 miles on those tires?"

I hesitated for a second, fully knowing that I had 28,500+ on the tires.  I said, "Uh, yeah!  Yeah, 20,000 miles."   I'm such a shit, sometimes.

He said, "Why don't we say we give you $400 bucks for the tires."

I said, "Wait a minute.  Those were 70,000 mile tires on that car.  I wouldn't have needed new tires for another year or so.  If I'd gotten the same tires that were on the car, we'd be talking over $1500 bucks for the set, mounted and rollin' down the road!"

Mike looked at me with funny smirk on his face and he said, "Those weren't 70,000 mile tires on that car.  GM would never put those good of tires on a new car."

I said, "They sure did."

He said, "I can't believe it.  GM NEVER puts good tires on new cars." 

I said, "Well, they were on this one.  I've got the tire in my trunk, remember?"

We walked out to the car in a light rain and I opened the trunk and showed him the old tire.  I said, "See?  Goodyear RS-A.  They wanted something like $1440 for a set of fours."

He looked at me rather incredulously.  He exclaimed, "$1440 dollars for new tires?  Look, I don't want to tell you who to do your business with, but that seems exceptionally high." 

I said, "You're telling me.  I think $920 bucks is exceptionally high for Continentals!  But what was I supposed to do?  Tell 'em to put the tires back on and I'm going to go look around for a deal?"

He sort of chuckled and said, "Well, no, probably not." 

We went back inside and I made this proposal.  I said, "Let's take the mileage on the old tires and figure the percentage of mileage driven versus 70,000 miles.  Then we'll take that percentage and deduct that from $920 bucks and that's what you owe me."

Mike said, "That's fair enough.  Fax me the bill and we'll figure it out."

We shook hands and Cindy and I got into the car and drove off.  The first thing I noticed is that the mileage hadn't changed from the time I brought it in to the time I picked it up.  I said to Cindy, "Jeez, they put this thing on a trailer and took it up to Bettendorf for the new tires."

Cindy said, "Well, you said the service manager didn't want anyone to drive the car with the struts sitting on the tire!"

I said, "Yeah, that's true.  But they could have easily driven it up there and driven it back without trailering it."  I was sort of impressed they would do that. 

We stopped at a place to eat in Monmouth and I got to looking at the car.  I noticed that they had detailed the inside of the car.  I also noticed they had detailed the outside of the car, including getting all the tar off the sides and filling in the rock chips that were noticeable on the front hood.  I was just incredulous.  I told Cindy, "Jesus!  They even fixed the 'Service Engine Soon' light problem that I was having!"  (It had to do with a valve leak in some emissions control section.)  Suddenly, I felt like a complete heel for dicking around and not being truthful with Mike at the dealership.

That night, I went home and figured out that 28,500 is 40 percent of 70,000.  So, I figured that 60% of $920 is $553.  I faxed Mike a note with my figures along with the copy of the bill so he'd have it first thing in the morning. 

I waited and waited for Mike to call me the next day.  I never heard anything from him, so I gave him a call a little after 5 p.m.  I said, "Hey, Mike!  Did you get that fax I sent down?"

He said, "No, I sure didn't."

I told him I'd fax it again.  I did.  He called me back about five minutes later and said that it didn't go through.  "I got part of one page and then it was blank the rest of the way."  He asked me to try it again.  I did.

He called me back about 5 minutes after that and he said, "I don't think our fax machine likes your fax machine.  Just tell me what you came up with."

I explained to him the figures I came up with and he said, "Look, I'm just gonna take care of this right now.  We'll send you out a check next Monday for $553 dollars." 

I said, "Mike, this is why I like dealing with small town car dealers."

He said, "Well, when you're ready to trade, please come back to see me."

I told him, "Mike, I drive my cars into the ground.  However, my wife has her eye on a new Malibu. But I don't think we can afford one right now."

He laughed and said, "Don't be so sure.  There's some great deals on them right now." 

The all happened within the last 10 days.  All's well that ends well...