What a flight!

Said I’d get back with you all the next day. Well it’s been busy and while I love you all very much, I was enjoying myself here and well to be honest I didn’t want to bother anyone to set up the network passwords onto my laptop nor did I want to take any time away from family to come down here and post a blog. Until now when things are quieting down, people are heading to bed, and the internet was up and free to use. I just hope no one here will be upset that I’m taking the opportunity without asking.

OK so the flight.
We left the apartment at 11:15 and headed to the Target in Poway. The parking lot was an absolute mess and completely full, so I held back on that and we headed to Chula Vista hoping the Target would be a bit better there. Well we at least found a spot but by the time we got the cards that we needed to buy and Veronica Mars that I bought for Victoria for Christmas, it was 12:30 and I was WAY late meeting Butch.
So I dropped Victoria off at home and headed to the Rosser Residence and picked him up and we headed out to get lunch. Carl’s Jr. We head home and eat, share a bit of chit chat before I give him my Christmas present: My sister Stephanie’s pool stick. He was touched and tried to hand it back but I wasn’t having any of it. This guy has been a close friend since we were both in elementary school even if there was a long absence between us hanging out. It was my way of conveying my feelings for him without saying anything. No matter what our own family histories and no matter the difference in the pigment of our skins, this man is my brother and in my heart he’s a member of my family and so he gets a piece of her and therefore a piece of me.
Anyways…the flight.
So the plane was supposed to leave at 5pm so we called a cab at 1:30. By 2:00 it hadn’t showed so I called another company. At 2:30 they came to pick us up and we headed out. $35.00+tip later, we were at Terminal 1 and about 2 hours early for our flight.
We checked in our bag and headed to the security line which was a lot shorter than I expected. It looked long at first but it moves pretty fast. Take off the shoes, the belt, remove the computer laptop from it’s case and take off all the jewelry, coins, etc and put them in the shoulder bag. Remove jackets and hats and watches and everything and put them all in totes.
We got through that, put everything back on and sat and waitied.
5pm, 5:15, 5:35, 5:45 and still no word. The board kept changing times and saying our flight would be delayed. Finally at about 6:05pm we boarded the plane. At this point getting to Las Vegas to catch our 7:10 flight to Salt Lake City was out of the question. So then the airport tower decided to hold us on the runway for another 45 minutes. Finally at almost 7pm we took off. JUST as we landed in Las Vegas we got word that a flight headed towards Salt Lake City was boarding. We landed and taxied into C23. The next flight was boarding in gate C5. So we ran all the way across the terminal and JUST made it. We took off and got into Salt Lake City at 11:30. That would be 2 hours later than we were supposed to be there.
When we got there we learned that in our mad rush to get on that connecting flight, they hadn’t been able to unload our baggage fast enough and so we had to wait for the NEXT flight coming in from Las Vegas which landed around 11:45. We got our baggage at 12:10 and headed towards the rental car counters because a family emergency kept my dad from picking us up and we had turned down an uncle’s offer to pick us up.
Well all the rental companies there had was SUV’s for about $150 a day. We couldn’t afford that so we called dad one more time and asked if there was still someone who could come get us. Luckily he had just gotten home and would be able to pick us up if we could wait an hour. Well that was better than walking the 50+ miles to Springville. So we waited, bought a couple sodas and just chatted for awhile. He came at 1:30 just as he’d said and we headed towards a place to eat.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that while we got peanuts on that first flight, we didn’t eat them and on the second flight a person onboard had nut-death allergy so they didn’t serve us anything but pretzels (which had been manufactured in a factory that also made nuts). We broke open one bag so we basically were just as dumb as the flight attendants. Anyways the point is that we hadn’t had anything but that to eat in over 12 hours.
So we headed to an IHOP and had something to eat before heading home. We got to sleep around 4am.

WHAT A TRIP.
Let’s hope the trip home is better.

Until then have a very Merry Christmas and I’ll be back when I can.

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SLC Trip Day 1

I got up this morning around 9:15am. Victoria must have been up earlier. Last night she had a headache so I let her go through her tunes and set up her iPod for the trip while I did laundry, cleaned the living room, dining room, got together the trash, packed the clothes and found a little time for a couple games of FIFA 2005 and dinner. OK so it was a few Fritos and a glass of milk.

Meanwhile she sat at her chair working the iTunes, watching Project Runway and some other weird show before getting her clothes laid on the bed for me to pack. This poor girl has had a headache for about a week and she’s been either sick, dizzy, or headachy for about the last 3 weeks. This paranoid side of me is making me a little freaked out. I want to take her to the hospital. I’m worried that she could be dying of something. She refuses to take any medicine saying it’s not going to work anyways so why try. I try practically begging, but no go. Frankly, I just don’t know what to do.

Woke up this morning and took a shower. Victoria has been sorting out her bag on the bed while she’s watching Regis. I’ve gotten dressed and now it’s 10am. We need to get 40 out for the taxi, go to Target or Best Buy and try to get “Veronica Mars” on DVD, and then meet Butch at his place at noon where we’ll likely go to get lunch, hang at the Bartlett pad and then I’ll give him his gift and we’ll say Merry Christmas, safe trip, sayonara and all that before calling the cab around 1:30 to head to the airport.

SW 1844 SD to LV, SW 1113 LV to SLC
Watch us fly

Talk with you all tomorrow!

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Why’s everybody dying all of a sudden?

John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry on “The West Wing” and the one character outside of Charlie (played by poker shark Dule Hill) passed away today. He’d suffered health problems the last few years and currently he was the Vice Presidential candidate after being Chief of Staff for President Jebediah Bartlet (Martin Sheen). Oh heck, all that’s in the article.

Frankly after my sister, Richard Pryor, John Spencer, and Pat Morita I’m wondering who’s next? Someone in Metallica? Perhaps Patrick Bauchau? Anthony Head? Edward Herrmann?

Anyways…it’s just too many people in one 60 day period. Just stinks is all. West Wing stunk the last couple seasons without Aaron Sorkin. As far as I’m concerned, it’s dead now without John Spencer. So I guess that’s what’s next.

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R.I.P. Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor II

Yes, I know I’m late with this.

Among the first comedians I ever watched were: Gene Wilder, Bill Cosby, Robin Williams, and Richard Pryor. To this day I still laugh hysterically whenever I see any stand up comedy or TV Shows or movies with these guys. As a kid it was the Muppet Movie, Superman III, Willy Wonka, Mork & Mindy, and the Cosby Show. Later it was Stir Crazy, Good Morning Vietnam and the Birdcage, Cosby, and Blazing Saddles (yeah I didn’t see that one until I was a grown boy).

Richard could definitely be crass and I was shielded from a lot of that as a kid but I still remember seeing him in See No Evil, Hear No Evil and also in Brewster’s Millions. Watching him and Gene Wilder together was just magic on screen. I didn’t see any of Mr. Pryor’s stand-up work until I was an adult (and for good reason maybe) but I saw plenty of him growing up and I can’t count how many times that man made me crack up.

I forgive whatever he did to hurt himself in his life. He paid the price for those mistakes and I don’t really understand it sometimes when someone dies and all we can do is sit and discuss is all the things they did wrong. He’ll get his time now to work out his own salvation based on his own spiritual place at the time of his passing. I remember him for what he did on stage and on screen only. I think that’s true for most of us. I’ve missed hearing his humor since he got sick and I’ll miss it most now knowing it’s gone…at least here on this earth.

So to Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III I say, thanks so much for the laughs and the tears. You had a place in my life and it was a good place. May God have mercy on your soul and I hope one day to hear your humor in a new light and in a greater venue.

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Kickin’ it lazy boy style

The weekend: OK so this weekend has been pretty much a waste of time. Other than some FIFA 2005 time with my buddy Scott and a little shopping at the North County Fair, I have just sat here on this chair listening to the Dawn & Drew Show and doing “dork stuff” involving FIFA and Excel. Basically, I’m going through every team in the game and pulling the uniform numbers, names, position, value and Age of every single player and putting them into Excel spreadsheets. 26 leagues, 447 teams total with about 10,500 players. I’m ALMOST half way done.

Candy, Candles, and Ass: So we’re walking around North County Fair. Heading from JC Penny’s towards Torrid where Victoria had to return a sweater. Some smart person decided to locate the Sweet Factory, a candle store and some body scent stores all near each other. So at first I smell some candles and that’s cool. Then it gets stronger and I feel a little tug of nausea. Then the candy mixes in and it’s just way too sweet a smell. Finally the other smells mix in and it literally smelled like candy, candles and that special pungent odor you leave on the chair when you’ve been sitting there too long.
The smell was so strong it darn near knocked me over the railing and down to the 1st floor. I actually doubled over a little and then quickly recovered so I didn’t cause a scene. Just walked quickly and kept going until the stench dissipated. Victoria says “Candy, Candles, and Ass” is the name of her next album. So everyone keep a watch for that in your local independent music store.

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Argh! We won!

If you’re confused by the title, don’t be. Norwich City beat Crewe 2-1 and it seems the board will now believe we’ve turned the corner, thus allowing the Donut to finish the season as boss. I couldn’t be more disappointed. Now surely, if we go and win out, then I’m not complaining but at the moment I’m convinced we won’t ever win promotion again with him at the helm.

Speaking of which…I finally registered for classes at Palomar College. Starting off with College Algebra and Web Site Development using HTML. Two basically easy courses. I’m excited though. It’ll be the first time I’ll be in a classroom since high school. Yeah you read that right. 1996 baby. Hoping to get an AA degree and go to BYU majoring in Computer Science. Perhaps I’ll minor in History if I can keep up with my classes. Perhaps with our career situations I might have to take that AA Degree and just go out and take certification courses and give up my dream for getting that BA or BS degree. Well, I have a BS degree…ha ha ha. Sorry that was lame.

Spent a lot of time the last few days doing dorkish crap in FIFA 2005.

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Week in Review

First…someone’s got to explain the Loretta for Mirabelli trade. Padres fans can talk for ages on all the greatness that is Mark Loretta. Red Sox fans I’ve talked to talk about D-Mir as if he should have started over Varitek. Big power, lots of strikeouts, great defense, gritty and doesn’t wimp out if a collision’s coming on a throw to the plate. That’s more than we could say for Ramon Hernandez, but this trade makes absolutely no sense. Everything I think of doesn’t hold up.

OK Norwich goes out to Alexandra Stadium to face Crewe Alexandra. This is Dean Ashton’s old club (yeah like you all know who Dean Ashton is). Frankly Dean was one of the best strikers among the lower divisions in England until he came to Norwich City and was slowly ruined by Nigel Worthington’s inability to get or keep a midfielder that could give him any through balls to work with.

World Cup group draw was today. Watched it online live. USA, Italy, Ghana and Czech Republic are all in the same group. Top 2 advance to Stage two which is the first round of actual Bracket-type play. Czechs are ranked #2 in the world, Italy lost the 1994 World Cup final on penalty kicks and while they’re not as good as they were then, they’re actually favored by a lot of “experts”. Ghana has gotten itself a pair of really talented Midfielders and of course USA has it’s strongest side in a long time. OF course there’s Brazil, Germany, England, France and Argentina in here as well.

In related news, apparently Hamburg defender Alexander Laas was hit with a drumstick during a match with FC Cologne a few weeks ago. A player for Hamburg had scored and as they celebrated, some Cologne fans threw various objects, one of which struck Laas and cut him on the forehead sending blood gushing into his eye. Apparently he shook his head and let’s just say TV cameras didn’t turn away fast enough and it was pretty gross. Still now the World Cup is worried about hooliganism and whether their security will be ready in time. More news for people who don’t like the sport to point to, trying to convince their soccer-fan friends to drop the sport we love so much. Yeah as if baseball (White Sox fans in particular) have been any more innocent lately with guys being attacked on the field, objects thrown at players on a daily basis and even about 3-4 years ago a Giants fan being shot at a Dodger game.

In personal news we have our gifts pretty much all purchased. Just a couple people we still need to buy for. Cards haven’t gone out yet so if you haven’t gotten yours, there’s a reason. We either haven’t sent them (we haven’t sent ANY) or we don’t have your mailing address. I was gonna make an ID theft joke but I think that would garner some unwarrented attention. This blog is boring enough. No need to start putting FBI agents to sleep.

Anyways if anyone reads this and thinks it’s lacking in something, let me know. I’ve sorta hit a wall and I’m not sure exactly what I should be doing to make this better.

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Customer Service…whole new era

I saw this last month on digg.com

http://thomashawk.com/2005/11/priceritephoto-abusive-bait-and-switch.html

This was a horror story about a guy’s experience with an online camera retailer that was supposedly highly recommended by Yahoo. After this was placed on digg.com it was dugg over 7,000 times. 700-1000 will easily get you on the top 10 for any week so that gives you an idea.
Within 20 minutes the digg community had posted other alias that this retailer used along with all their phone numbers which they quickly crank called, put on automatic re-dial, skyped, ran DOS attacks on their sites, and jammed their fax numbers. AND that’s just what we know about.

Here’s the apology letter by the company:

http://thomashawk.com/2005/12/apology-letter-from-ed-lopez-owner-of.html

How much do you believe this after what they did to this guy?

Just proves we’re in a new era for customer service. Vigilante justice shouldn’t be tolerated but neither should customer service like this which the government completely ignores or at the very least puts up 10,000 obstacle course of red tape you have to go through just to get ANY action started against people like this. Personally I’d go through the red tape and do it the right way but all the while I’d be thinking: If only I had Digg Army…all it would take is one submission to digg…but I’ll do this right…but I really wanna…

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Oh no!

Derby 2, Norwich City 0

If not for a matched loss by Ipswich and everyone below us, we’d be fighting relegation pretty hard right now. 16th place after winning this league 2 years ago and earning promotion the the premiership. SO Sad. So little heart shown on all ends. OK Davenport and Doherty weren’t bad, but the rest…it’s just depressing. PLUS Arsenal lost 2-0 to Bolton and so I’m really in a bad spot today.

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Sports for the Week

Derby County vs. Norwich City

This Saturday at Pride Park at 7:00am PDT
Thanks to Mikhail at colours-of-football.com for the kit images. Donations to the site are always welcome as added traffic to his site has made it no longer cost effective for him to keep the site up.

Among other sports news, apparently Brian Giles re-signed with the Padres. 3 years at $30 million. Apparently rumor has it he got a 5 year, $55 million offer from the Blue Jays and turned it down to stay in San Diego. The Jays’ GM denies the claim but c’mon…like GMs are every honest this time of year.

The Clippers are leading the Pacific Division and the Lakers are in the cellar. What in God’s good grace is happening there? The division is in exactly the opposite order in which it’s been seen the last few years. Now I’m not much of a basketball fan, but one can’t help but notice something like that. Well that and Toronto being 1-15 as of this post. WOW.

Now onto the NFL. Chargers and Buccaneers are 7-4 and I think headed in opposite directions. My prediction though is that both teams will win this week with the Chargers beating the Raiders at home and the Bucs over the Saints. Will the Colts go 16-0? How about, I don’t care. They still need to win in the playoffs or that 16-0 means nothing. What’s more important? Who will Houston draft? With such a need at O-Line for them will they trade away the pick? Shocks of the year for me? Cincy is 8-3 and Seattle is 9-2. Both will likely see playoff action and I still think both could lose in the 1st round unless one of them gets a bye.

As for the NCAA, talks I hear are the usual: who will win the Heisman and who’s better…#1 or #2 and should #3-5 be considered? So it’s Young, Bush or Leinart…USC vs. Texas and if one of them lose, should LSU, Penn State or V-Tech be considered? Personally I want to see a Trojans v. Longhorns match up for the championship. As for the Holiday Bowl, I would love to see something like a UCLA or Oregon take on Texas Tech or Oklahoma. UCLA vs. Texas Tech would be best right now I think.

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