Katrina and the Waves

Its been almost a year since I posted a blog about a hurricane coming this way. Last time it was the Russian Ivan, this time it’s the lead singer of the 80s band that brought us the hit, “Walking on Sunshine”. Ironic that she sang about sunshine, when her storm namesake will bring us quite the opposite.

I’m scheduled to fly out Monday from BR to Sacramento, but that appears unlikely given the current timeline of this thing arriving here. This might sound foolish, but my greatest fear in a hurricane isn’t the winds, or the flooding, or even the potential property damage. My fear is the loss of power for days, maybe even longer. No lights, no AIR CONDITIONING, and no computer. Not good. The last time we had a serious storm, (Andrew 1992) we were without power for a solid week. Break out the lamps and board games!

One of my major complaints about this area really comes into focus in a time like this. The shit highway system that we have here. The state has already implemented the ‘contraflow’ plan, since it appeared that the storm is coming here. What this is simply is the interstate highways are all made to be outbound out of New Orleans. So, you can’t get into New Orleans. All lanes of traffic are outbound. The problem with this is that the main interstate leaving the city (I-10) is contraflowed only about 25 miles. Once you get to Laplace, its back to just a two lane highway out of town. One point four million people trying to all go down a 2 lane highway simultaneously doesn’t sound to me like something that will work very well.

Last time we had a storm threaten the area, it took some people over 12 hours to go the 60 miles from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Many people just camped out on the side of the road, and waited the storm out there.

I just got back from a trip to our new Wal-Mart buying hurricane supplies. The store opened brand new on Wednesday, and they were already completely out of lots of things this morning. Aisles that normally hold things like soups, deli meats and bottled water were bare. They had stacked up cases of water in the middle of one of the aisles, and people were cleaning that out rapidly. I bought two of the last four bags of charcoal in the store. Batteries of the C and D variety were completely GONE. Flashlights were gone, I did find a box with 3 portable lanterns in it, and bought one of the last three.

The checkout lines were all full and backed up at least 5 or 6 shoppers deep. The parking lot was a zoo, no parking spots, and traffic out on the main road was packed solid in the direction coming from New Orleans. New Orleans issued its first even manditory evacuation order. I don’t know how bad this thing will be, but I have a really, really bad feeling about it.

The Big D

The Big D

Haven’t written anything on my travels in awhile, mainly due to the fact that nothing very interesting has been transpiring. My latest trip though has been a bit more eventful.

I’m here in Dallas, Texas. I think Dallas is the biggest city there is. I know that doesn’t really make sense, since it doesn’t have the largest population, and isn’t the biggest geographically, but something about it just makes it damn huge. Its sprawling, and even though it goes on forever, most of it seems to be fairly crowded.

Just the airport is enough to convince me of the size of this place. Dallas-Fort Worth International airport covers more area than the island of Manhattan. It has 6 McDonalds in it. And its constantly expanding. The grand design for it is a plan to have thirteen terminals in all, along a nine mile path. Imagine having an hour to transfer from Terminal A to Terminal M to catch your connecting flight.

Anyway, back to the city itself. The hotel that I’m staying at is 3 tenths of a mile from the customer site (as the crow flies). That’s only about 1500 feet away. However, due to the sprawling, mazelike nest of freeways, intersections, overpasses and service roads, I had to drive over 3 miles to get from one place to the other. Check out the photographic representation shown below. The 1 is where the hotel is located, and the 2 is where the customer site is. The crudely drawn red line illustrates the pathway from one to the other.

Oh Crap!

Since my friend Bennet didn’t want to post his story on his own blog, I felt like I should put it on mine. I think its funny, and I have nothing else to blog about right now.

Several years ago Bennet worked as a janitor at a department store in the Cortana Mall Louisiana here in Baton Rouge. The day he quit was the day that he was informed that someone had taken a crap on the floor of a stall in the woman’s fitting room and that he was the lucky person designated to clean it. I was pretty surprised to hear that someone would do that, but then again, they got crazy people everywhere.

Anyway, I’m up here in Memphis on business, and was driving up to the customer’s location listening to Howard Stern on the radio. Howard has this guy named Reggie on the phone telling him about his fetish. Apparently Reggie gets off on defecating in public places. As you might expect from a show like Stern’s, he asks Reggie all about this, in great detail. In the course of the conversation, Robin, one of Howard’s co-hosts, asks Reggie where he lives. He won’t say exactly where, but does say that he is in Louisiana.

Then, later on in the conversation, Howard asks Reggie what is the best place that he has ever done this. Reggie says it was in a department store dressing room, cause it was nice, and comfortable, and had some nice music playing.

According to Bennet, not only would this person (assumably Reggie) take a dump in the dressing room, but he would then clean his ass with one of the nice expensive dresses off the rack. Bennet also said that one day a woman who worked in the store approached the store manager and asked him, “Is it true that there was somebody who took a dump in the women’s dressing room?” “Of course,” the manager replied, “That happens all the time here, they always got shit on the floor of the dressing room.”

Is that crazy or what? Its like they say, it’s a small world. A small, sick, and twisted world sometimes.

Dealing with the man

As you may recall from my last post, I was in the process of buying a new car to replace the appropriate titled dung beetle explained previously.

The car dealership that we decided to visit here in Baton Rouge is called Price LeBlanc. It is named for the man who started the dealership. I assume that his real name is not Price, but he adopted it at some point in an effort to sell more cars. He used to be famous for his tv commercials, where he would make strange hand gestures, mumble about sausage, and end with his spirited catchphrase, “Dahlin”. Today, Mr. Price is quite an old man who sadly has been reduced to a wheelchair. His sons run the show today, doing quite the same type of commercials, pimping the same sausage, and yes, still spitting out that “Dahlin” at the end.

The salesperson we dealt with was a nice guy, but then again, he’s not the person you have to worry about. He showed us several used cars, but after taking a look at our sloppy credit report, and realizing the ‘value’ of the dung beetle he changed gears.

I had warned him from the start that my credit report looks like a dyslexic sixth grader’s term paper on nuclear energy, filled with inexplicable entries, mistakes, problems, and screw ups. Somehow, somewhere, a chain smoking psychotic accountant/number cruncher with a pocket calculator and a sadist mindset takes in all that information and spews out a number. My number seems to change every other day, fluctating between slow credit and shit credit. Further complicating it, is the fact that I joined one of those credit counseling things online, which some people say, shows up on my credit report as a bankruptcy. I don’t know, its all alien to me.

The salesperson informs us that we will have to switch to a new car. Since the new car has a rebate, and can be financed for a longer term at a better rate, it is the way to go. So, we go take a look at the new car, and say okay, so that process can now begin. We wait for what seems like a thousand years, while the salesperson tells us that the finance manager is “Just wrapping up the details.” For those who don’t know, this is bullshit. What they are doing here is allowing you to invest more and more of your time into this possible purchase. This will serve to make you less willing to back out of the deal once the finance person tells you how much you will be paying.

So, we finally are summoned into the fiery pit of demon spawned hell known as the finance manager’s office. You can typically spot these people from a distance either by sheer mass, or amount of jewelry, or both. However, we were thrown for a loop by this guy. A young, Iranian guy, who spoke quickly and seemed to be tailor made for this kind of work.

At this point, I should probably give you my opinion of these people in general. There are various forms of microscopic organisms that live in both human and animal waste. I’m sure that these organisms feed on something even smaller that exist below them on the food chain. I have a hundred billion times more respect for said creatures than finance people at a car dealership. I hope that explains things.

The Iranian has a nice opening speil, and makes a point to spend quite some time going on about how good this new car is, and about how good it is that we are deciding now to replace the Beetle. The longer he takes to get to the numbers, the more I dread what is to come. I suspect he felt that given the fact that he was so far away from where I said I wanted the note to be, that he needed to lay down a thick pad of bullshit to cushion the impact.

He explains that we are upside down on the Beetle. No shit. There’s a revelation. Just how upside down was a bit shocking to me, but given the fact that the A/C was blowing lukewarm air, the radio was missing half its face, and the miracle that it even started up for them to test drive it, I was happy to get anything at all. He also explains the need for GAP insurance and extended warranty. I didn’t need convincing on these things, its just the cost that I was concerned about.

For those of you who may not be familiar with GAP, its insurance that covers the difference between what you owe on a vehicle and what that vehicle is worth, if you total it out. So, when you have 99K miles on your car, and still owe 10K dollars, and you wrap it around a tree, the GAP would cover the 9500 dollars that you would still owe.

Its my opinion that these finance guys make their real money on the extended warranties. Its really easy for them to casually tack on an extra $1000 or more to your total price without affecting the monthly note much. The profit margin on such warranties is probably 100% or more. I attempted to weasel the note down, but this guy would not budge. I realized that he was in the dominant position, given the fact that he knew what a piece of crap the Beetle was, and the fact that we had already spent 4 hours waiting to get this deal done. I waited him out, and tried to get him to come down on a few things, but didn’t get much accomplished. I was able to get a little leeway on the maintenance plan, and three packs of sausage, so I was happy thinking that I had gotten away with at least a little something.

What really makes me sick about these guys are the standard phrases that you can expect all of them to use….”We are LOSING money on this car……..You won’t get a deal like this if you don’t do this now…….This is the best deal you will ever find on a car like this..” Etc, etc…

So, we left with a 2005 Toyota Camry. A very nice, very safe car. I feel better knowing that wife and baby will be in a reliable safe vehicle in the midst of all the lunatics out there on the road.

The Dung Beetle

Since my wife Ginger’s blog is linked from my blog, the two or three people who actually read this may been also been reading her latest posts, and already be familiar with the saga of the dung beetle. For those who aren’t, I will briefly fill you in.

The dung beetle of which I am referring is a 1999 VW New Beetle which we purchased about two years ago. At the time of purchase, my wife was driving a 1993 Toyota Camry with over 160K miles on it. It was not having any real problems, and had been a good car, but I felt that we should trade it in on something newer before any serious problems arose. So, we went to a used car place and she saw the Beetle. Its cuteness and unexpected roominess immediately possessed our minds, and before logic could intervene, we were driving it home.

I was under the misconception that VW being a German auto manufacturer meant that we were getting a solid, reliable vehicle which would last us for many years. This would prove to be an incredibly foolish and ignorant thought.

The car suffered a number of problems, from burned out headlights, and brakelights, to the car not getting out of park, the lock assembly in the door being removable, and the air conditioning failing. These are just a few of the issues we encountered in the short span of two years. Many of the problems were actually fixed twice, including a factory recalled issue. Repairs were not just frequent, they were quite costly. The dealership in Baton Rouge seemed to be especially keen to this, and completely unforgiving.

“What’s that sir, you need a brake light bulb for a 99 New Beetle?? That will be $117.75., and yes, we do have it in stock.” And don’t try asking anyone at the dealership how to replace it. “We can’t give out that information sir. We cannot be liable for customers doing repairs on their own.” Christ, I’m not asking how to rebuild the fucking transmission, its just a light bulb.

I could go on and on about the problems with the car, but I will just skip to the latest. A couple of weeks ago Ginger told me that the air wasn’t blowing cold anymore. In an effort to save money I decided that I could recharge it myself, and bought a can of refrigerant from Autozone and did that. It worked fine for about a week, then she told me that again, it was not functioning. So, reluctantly we brought it over to a local repair shop, where as expected, we were presented a repair estimate for a new compressor, amounting to over $1000.

So, because of this and the previously talked about issues, in addition to the fact that the car is too small for transporting a baby with all of its various accessories, I decided that it was time to look for a replacement. We decided to set out this past weekend on a mission to find another car.

Saturday morning we got up and got ready for the dreaded process of car shopping. I went out to move the Beetle into the driveway and leave, and as I should have expected, it would not start. It made whining noises as if to mock me, then refused to start and was reduced to a clicking sound. I tried several times to no avail. Then I just sat in the car expressionless, pondering the thought of why I am subjected to such crap in my life. After a few moments of this, I was resigned to just accept the fact that it would have to be jump started if we ever wanted to get this day started.

So, I got Ginger to sit in the car and put it in neutral, and I pushed it back out of the carport into the open driveway. Now I had to back up my car, and turn it completely around so that it was facing the Beetle. As I was backing it under the carport, completely filled with utter disgust, I backed up too far, and took out the column in the middle of the backside of the carport. I heard the car hit something loudly, then heard the wooden column loudly bang into the cement.

I actually didn’t really care. I was already angry and annoyed, so it didn’t really affect me that much. I went ahead and jumped off the Beetle and we set out to the car dealership. When we arrived I greeted the salesperson by handing him the keys to the Beetle and telling him that under no circumstances were we leaving in that car. I didn’t care if I had to walk home, I refused to drive that car ever again.

This has dragged on long enough, so I will save the experience of the new car purchase for my next entry……..

Some Guys Have All the Luck

Since I can’t seem to currently find anything on topic about South Louisiana to bitch about, I decided to post a blog about a story that I think is pretty interesting. It’s a story about how sometimes luck can fall on anybody, even the grossly unworthy.

This story is about a guy I know. I don’t know him that well, but nonetheless for his sake, I will just refer to him as M. First, here’s a little social description of M. He’s about 45 or so, single, lives at home with his parents in a small suburb of Baton Rouge. He doesn’t (and I don’t think ever really has) work. The only thing that I know of that he does that even vaguely resembles a job is to do repair work on electronics for people. Things like hook up car stereos, repair radios and VCRs and so forth. He does this from a small shed attached to the carport of his parent’s house.

A physical description of M is far more unpleasant. He’s fairly tall, thin, and has absolutely no sense of modern fashion. Every day he wears the same outfit, regardless of weather conditions. You can find him wearing grey athletic shorts, which do not fit properly, one of those awful paper-thin button down plaid shirts, and sandals. His hair looks as though it has not been touched since sometime in the late 1970s. He is quite a sight to see. Amplifying his look is his unmistakable stutter, which efficiently (and luckily) serves to distract you from his appearance.

Now that you have a mental image of the man, let’s get to a little background. In the late 80s he enterprisingly ventured into the music business. On a monthly basis, he would compile the latest R&B; soul, rap, and dance songs onto a cassette, mass copy it, and sell it to teenagers in his area. This compilation lasted until about volume 25 or so, at which time the local authorities expressed their lack of appreciation for copyright violations and confiscated all of his equipment. He had to pay a substantial fine, but ultimately did not serve any hard time.

Then, in the mid nineties, he decided to revisit his idea, but this time it was in the video realm. He had acquired a large satellite dish, and was a subscriber to the world of adult hardcore porn channels transmitted through the airwaves. He had an array of VCR’s connected to his satellite system to record various movies. He would then sell these porno compilations for a small fee. Once the word of this got out, he had quite the flow of clientele constantly visiting his parent’s garage for their ‘fix’.

Finally we get to the story here. It seems that in the act of constantly watching and recording these movies, he had acquired quite a bit of knowledge in the realm of adult video. One particular night, he was up late, anxiously awaiting an upcoming movie, which featured his favorite ‘actress’. He had his dozen or so VCR’s synchronized to record the show for future distribution to his customers.

So, finally the time comes and the movie starts, only there is a problem. It seems that for some unknown reason the satellite signal is very poor. The picture is horrible, and keeps fluctuating. Needless to say, M is livid. He has waited for weeks to catch this feature, and now it’s ruined. He immediately goes to his satellite guide to research information about this channel in order to contact them and voice his complaints.

The next day he makes the call and gets some sort of first level phone operator who he begins to stutteringly complain to. Apparently at some point, the operator realizes that this is beyond his capacity to handle, so he transfers him up to someone in management.

M didn’t give me the specifics of his conversation, but his angry ramblings included a lot of comparative information about this problematic channel and the other various adult satellite channels. He apparently detailed what was bad about this company’s programming and what was good about all the others quite effectively. Finally, after several minutes of this, the guy on the other end of the call said, “You really keep up with this stuff a lot, don’t you??”

After several more minutes of spitting out ‘porno’ info, the guy says to him, “You really do know your stuff, would you like to work for us?” The man then explains his offer. He will pay for M’s subscriptions to all the various channels, and pay M a small monthly fee for sending him reports on what the competition is doing. M then asks how he should send him these reports and the guy says, “Do you have a computer? You could just email them to me.” “No,” M replies. “Okay,” says the guy, “we’ll send you a laptop, and get you setup with some internet access so that you can send me your reports.

Thinking back to when M first told me this story, I remember I had to stop at this point and say, “Let me get this straight…..you are going to get paid to watch porn all day?” “AND, you are getting a brand new laptop computer with free internet access????” My only reaction was to slowly shake my head in disbelief. What the hell?