Car Conversation

Overheard during a weekend trip to IN this weekend:

Driver: That guy is going too slow! [Flips on turn signal and moves to the left lane.]

Shotgun rider: Are you gonna race that cop to get around him?

Driver: Is that a cop?!

Shotgun rider: That car up there with all the antennae on its trunk? With the blue and red lights in the back window?! I'm not sure.

Driver: [Moves back into the middle lane.] Shit! I'll stay away from him.  I got pulled over last week.

Shotgun rider: I can't see how.

No Tire Trash

As I alluded to briefly not long ago, the Girl and I recently traveled to Mexico for a wedding. I know you're wondering where we went and thinking about places like Cancun, Cabo, or ... other places in Mexico that are kind of tropical and/or resort-y. However, we went to San Pancho. Never heard of it? I hadn't either. Upon hearing that we were going there, a friend pointed out to me that San Francisco, Mexico is quite the up-and-comer as far as Mexican destinations go. I had no idea why she was telling me that when we were going to San Pancho, but I didn't correct her, since none of it particularly mattered to me. I have since learned that it's the same place. Apparently, Pancho is a nickname for Francisco, I assume in much the same way that Peggy is a nickname for Margaret, by which I mean "in a stupid way." Apparently, that is just one of many things that I didn't understand about names and words down there. That said, we had quite the good time, the wedding went off without real issues (even though it was really a poser wedding, as the couple had already been married by a JOP in the states a week or so prior), and none of the scorpions or lizards in our villa attacked us.

It was quite the whirlwind tour, though. We left our home at butt-early on a Thursday, making use of three flights and four airports (cursing the chaos and uncertainty in the Mexico City airport along the way) to get to Puerto Vallarta. Those of you who are very observant will have noted by now that Puerto Vallarta was not our final destination. From there, after just barely surviving the onslaught of questions from people about whether we needed a taxi or had some sort of voucher, we took an hour-long cab ride to San Pancho (confusingly -- at the time --following the signs to San Francisco to get there) and exhaustedly trekked down the mountain from our villa to a cocktail party. [Aside: if you can glean from the website for the villa that we rented that it's on the side of a mountain, please explain how. Otherwise, my tip is that you specifically ask that question of the rental agent, lest you be doomed to walking down and, much, much worse, up the side of a mountain to get from and to your temporary domicile. Looking at it again makes me think one should be very wary of the word "hillside," which I didn't see until just now.] Sleeping quickly if not thoroughly, I got up at 5:45 the next morning to take the trip back to Puerto Vallarta for a golf outing. On the way, I noticed a road sign through my morning brain fog that told people not to throw tires out. And then the morning brain was off, lumbering along on that train of thought. Is that how they do it in Mexico? Do they just chuck old tires out on the side of the road? And is the problem so rampant that they have to post signs up along the highway saying "no tire trash?" Or is it just that somehow some damned kids made it into a tradition to throw tires out in that particular place? (Having not been on any other roads, I couldn't really know whether this particular sign was on any others.) Either way, it's definitely not a very eco-friendly practice, and it seems like a very odd sign to have on the side of the highway.

A couple of days later, I saw the same sign while in a cab on the way to the airport to head home. And I couldn't help but marvel at it again. But my morning brain wasn't in full effect at the time, and I had no choice to laugh at my idiocy. See, for some reason I know that the Spanish word for trash is basura. And I know that the Spanish word for no is no. So what I read on that sign through my groggy and confused view of the world was "NO TIRE BASURA," which obviously translated into "NO TIRE TRASH." However, the second time around, I realized that road signs in Mexico are probably written entirely in Spanish, rather than in Spanglish, and certainly not in Spanglish wherein the Spanish part is limited to the 4 Spanish words I know. So what the sign actually said was "NO TIRE BASURA." A little Googling leads me to believe that tire is a form of the verb tirar, which, in the context of basura, means "to throw away." So the sign wasn't telling people "no tire trash;" it was telling people "no littering." Remember that next time you're in Mexico and exceedingly tired while traveling on the highway. It will save you a lot of unnecessary thinking.

Hasta Pasta.

Good, Bad, and Ugly

This weekend, the Girl and I jetted off to Indiana. Sure, some people like to get away to someplace warm during a February cold snap, but we went someplace even colder. And I know that some people like to go someplace that might be considered hip, where things are happening. However, we had a very specific goal on this trip: to watch our beloved Hoosiers play in person in the Assembly Hall in Bloomington, IN. And watch we did.

We flew into Indy on Friday (going direct and being sure to avoid Atlanta), and managed to borrow a vehicle from my folks that had neither a flat tire nor a cracked windshield, and we headed down to B-town. We saw some friends, had some meals, went to some bars, and watched the Hoosiers eke out a closer-than-we-hoped-but-very-exciting-all-the-same victory against the Illini. Good times. There was snow, I ate a breaded pork tenderloin, and we tooled around in a pickup truck. It was a very Hoosier weekend as far as I was concerned. It was, without question, Good.

While driving back and forth, we used the AbsPod (which is my shiny, relatively new, black 80GB iPod with video) and an iTrip to listen to the tunes we liked on the truck's radio. On the way back to Indy, the battery in the AbsPod just gave out, which was a bummer, since we had a plane trip coming up, and I might need to use it to watch or listen to something to entertain myself while the Girl slept (she typically falls asleep on planes well before take off). Luckily, we had some time to visit with my folks in Indy before heading to the airport, and I took advantage of that time to give the AbsPod a bit of a charge, asking everyone around to help me remember it before I left. They all obliged, and I remembered the AbsPod when we went off to the airport.

At the airport, I got to experience a couple of the ways in which the TSA hates me. There was only a short line at security, but it seemed to be growing rapidly. While we were waiting, one woman just offered a bit of an "excuse me" and ignored everyone's complaints as she weaved through all the would-be travelers in line and eased through the machines. As we were discussing how rude that was, another woman began lifting the barricade ropes and escorting a man to the front of the line. Noticing annoyed looks, she said, "We have a Clear passenger." You could hear the capital letter. "Oh, well, in that case, of course. Go right ahead." I was irked. On her way back, she stopped to tell me that I should pick up their brocure. Rather than punch her in the kneecap for trying to sell me something while being condescending at the same time, I asked if it cost money and sent her on her way when she said it was about $100/year. Now, I know about this program where people pay to have background checks and do biometric identification to get through security faster, but I think has to be a better way to handle it than making everyone who's already in line move out of the way for the royalty to get through. I almost went all Monty Python and hollered, "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!"

But I'm sure I wasn't being fair to these people skipping past all of us waiting our turn in line. I was already predisposed to annoyance because I could see that this security line was making everyone go through a Puffer. For those of you who haven't experienced one, the Puffer is the most irritating fake security measure the TSA has come up with yet. I can't get into a rant about that right here, because neither you nor I have the time, but suffice it to say that these devices make me think that a little monkeying with things would be a good idea. It also makes me think that the TSA is trying to make the airways safe by annoying travelers enough so that they will just not fly anywhere. Planes without passengers are inherently safe from terrorists. Even more irritating is that the Puffer, in conjunction with people constantly cutting through the line, had backed things up so much that they opened a second, non-puffer security line just as I got to the front of the more irritating one. However, since my blood pressure is rising just thinking about all of this, let's move on.

Our plane was a regional jet, and we took off only a few minutes late after the ground crew added some ballast to the cargo hold to help balance the plane. I'm all for the plane being balanced, so that slight delay didn't bother me even a little bit. We also landed on time, but we had to sit on the tarmac for 30 minutes because there was another plane in our gate. Pretty much everyone on the plane thought it was ridiculously annoying, but there was nothing we could do about it. I kept myself entertained by alternately reading and laughing at the flight attndant, who repeatedly marched up and down the aisle insisting that anyone who had unbuckled his seat belt put it back on. I'm not making this up. She was very concerned about those seat belts staying on and told several people that they "needed" to put their belts back on. Every time she heard the click of a seat belt, she raised her head and marched down the aisle to find the offender. By the time we got to a gate, I was pretty irritated, and I grabbed my bag, coat, and book and deplaned as quickly as I could, which wasn't very quickly given that the Girl and I were seated in the very last row. Security irritation and sitting on the tarmac for a half hour: Bad.

Still, we'd had a good trip and a good weekend, and our bags came out of the baggage return very quickly. After a short cab ride, I was back at home sort of unpacking. It was at that point that i realized that the AbsPod was nowhere to be found. In my annoyance, I had departed the plane without retrieving my iPod from the seat back pouch I had put it in when I first sat down. I did some googling to figure out what to do, and it wasn't very clear. So I called Northwest reservations who told me he wasn't sure, but he thought I would have to call the ticket counter at the aiport. Unfortunately, they don't have a number one can call (what?!), so I would just have to go there the next day (they were naturally closed at 9 PM on a Sunday). Instead, I drove to the airport. I figured maybe the plane was still there, maybe I could get someone to get it for me, assuming the cleaning crew hadn't found and kept it. After asking around about what to do, I went to Northwest's baggage services office and explained my plight. The very nice and efficient woman there told me that the plane had already left for Grand Rapids. As I filled out a form, she called the Grand Rapids airport and asked someone there to check my seat back pouch -- the plane had just landed here -- for the AbsPod and to send it back to DCA if they found it. She gave me a number to call this afternoon and no predictions on whether I would get the device back. So I trudged back to my car contemplating the Ugly thought that I might have to replace the AbsPod and that I have once again proven that I am, without question, an idiot.