Another adventure

Last year at this time Mike and I went to Argentina and Chile for the Dakar. I kept a journal/blog but never posted it. I’ll post a chapter every couple days.

Here goes the story of two guys sleeping in the back of a pickup truck in a far off land for two weeks.

01-01-09


And so another adventure begins. I’ll go back and put a little prequel together later, but I want to get down what has happened thus far before I forget. Were on day 2 and things (as usual) have not gone according to plan. Mike and I had a plane that flew out of San Fran at 7:30 am the 1st. Yes, we made plane reservations for 7:30 am New Year’s Day. In hind sight, probably not the best move. When we had originally made the plans we were both going to meet in Santa Cruz, party for New Year and go on from there. As it got closer to New Year’s I made plans to be in the city. On the 31st I called mike to confirm everything and he said to me “Bro, this we’ll be great. We’ll party New Years, crash at Jeff’s house ‘til noon and then have your parents give us a ride to the airport at like 6pm.”.

Two things made me ponder at this statement; one being my immediate problem, which was I had told Mike I would take care of the ride to the airport. The second being that somehow Mike had it in his head that the plane left at 7:30 pm not am. I quickly checked the ticket and said “Dude, we leave at 7:30 am.” A brief silence from the other end of the phone… followed by “Bro, I gotta go, I’m still in Reno…”

On to problem #2, I had to get Mike a ride or cancel my plans and go to Santa Cruz. I called Teeto and laid out the scenario. He said he would be happy to help. Now, I felt a little better and called Mike. I let him know he had a ride and that Teeto would be calling him to dove tail plans. Several minutes later I got a text from mike saying, “no problem, Teeto's picking me up at 4am and taking me to San Fran”

I did have a few concerns. Teeto is one of my best friends, but he is also the guy who has come over to my house and literally fallen asleep in his car parked in front of my place with the engine running. It’s not uncommon for me to be talking to him and have him nod off when I’m in mid sentence, and I knew he had a crazy night planned as well. He had to spin at the club, load up, drive to SC, pick up Mike, and run off to the airport. As long as he didn’t nod off between packing and getting to SC, I was fine.

At 3:30 am I started calling Teeto. 4 calls, no answer. I was starting to freak out a bit when I got a call from him at 4. “Boss, relax, relax. I’m on my way; I got pulled over for a sobriety check. When I get to Santa Cruz I call Mike and he meets me at the SC diner and we're out.” I was feeling relieved. 4:30, a call from Teeto “Boss, Mike’s not answering his phone. What do I do?” Hang tight buddy, I’ll give him a call.

Over the next hour Teeto and I called Mike many times. I ended up calling information and getting Jeff’s home number. I called that, no answer. I called my parents and asked if they had Jeff’s cell number (lost it on a recent cell replacement) no luck. I called Jeff’s parents, no answer, followed by a return call a few minutes later from Margie. “Here's the number.”… Before calling Jeff's phone I tried Mike’s cell one more time. I received a groggy “hmm, dude, it’s cool, Teeto’s going to call me at 4 and then I’m meeting him and were off to the airport.”

“Mike, its 5:30”

“…”

“Get up; Teeto’s been waiting for an hour.”

“It’s 5:30?”

“It’s 5:30.”

“Oh shit, I gotta go!”

“Yes, call Teeto.”

I’m now at the San Francisco airport trying to figure out if I skip my flight or take the flight and try and hook up with him in L.A. (S.F. to L.A. to Atlanta to Argentina). “Final boarding flight (whatever number it was).”

I get a call from Teeto, “Boss, he’s here. He looks like The Lich King Jr., but I got him here.”

Here comes Mike, looking a little tired. “Mike! You made it!”

“I have my passport, some emergency cash, and an emergency credit card. I forgot my wallet, credit cards, money clip and car keys…”

“You have your passport?”

“Yeah.”

“Let's go.”

The flight to L.A. was uneventful. Easy lay over and then it was off to Atlanta. It was one of those flights. One row behind me and 3 seats to my left were 2 young children. They wailed the whole way. I thought just by sheer physics they would have had to take a break at some point. I was wrong. Ok, put in the headphones and lay back. “AAAhhhggh!” What the hell was that? The guy behind me was at least 6’ 8” and was using a cane. If I tried to put my seat back he howled in pain. He apologized profusely but let me know that I couldn’t put me seat back. This was a losing battle, it was the cane, I couldn’t beat the cane. No cane, no problem, I paid the same for my seat as you, deal with it. With the cane, I was just the dick messing with the cripple. Sigh, looks like I’m sitting upright. Upright with screaming kids. It was a long flight with no sleep. I was starting to feel a little punchy. I had now been up for about 32 hours, I did manage to squeeze in an hour of sleep after New Years but pretty much 32 hours straight.

We met Shay on the plane. I was in the aisle, Mike in the middle, and Shay on the window. I’d guess she was a few years younger than us but not much. She was an Aussie and a fellow adventurer. She worked on a ship that did tours of Antarctica. She was well traveled and well, frankly had that accent that I like so much. Mike was chatting her up and things were going well. We landed in Atlanta and had a layover. “Shay, you want to join us for dinner?” Mike asked. “Sure.” Was the reply. We hopped off the plane and decided to make sure we were still departing the same gate. WE ALL LOOKED AT THE DEPARTURE SCREEN, yep same gate.

Off for food. TGI Fridays. We ordered and it took a long time. Longer then I would have guessed for airport food. Hmm, when do we leave? I glanced at my ticket. The plane DEPARTS at 6:40, its 6:33. “Hey” I said, “Our plane leaves at 6:40…” “That would be unfortunate” Mike replied. “I’ll go check” I said and left them to continue their banter. I walked around the corner to the counter and said “When’s the plane board?”

“We’ve already retracted the ramp.”

“….”

“Seriously, you can't get on that plane.”

“You're not going to let me on that plane?”

“No”

“What if I said you’re my best friend??”

“I’d say thanks, but you're not getting on that plane.”

I walked back to the table where we were eating dinner. “Guys, I’m not joking, were not getting on that plane.” Mike: “were not getting on?” Me: “Nope” at which point, Mike and I calmly grabbed our silverware and started eating again. Shay took a second to digest this information and then looked at us both like we were crazy. “You’re kidding right?” she squeaked. Mike looked at her and said “He’s not kidding.”

She snapped. Mike and her were sitting on the same side of the booth. Mike on the aisle, her on the wall. She was under the table in a flash and there was a thunderous slam, all the plates jumped as she hit her head on the table and she clambered out the door. I yelled after her “I'll get the check!” and she was gone. Mike and I glanced at each other and started to laugh. We continued eating, as we finished the meal I mentioned to Mike that I thought his chances with Shay had probably dropped pretty dramatically…

We made our way over to the ticket counter. It was a bit of a wait to get the itinerary squared away, but the long and the short was, we weren’t leaving ‘til the next day, same flight. Any chance we can get our bags? No. Looks like I’m wearing the same clothes for a 3rd day… “Bro, my emergency credit card is in my bag…” We grabbed a cheap hotel and crashed almost instantly. Not much to be said about the hotel, Mike grabbed a picture of me in the pool, which should say it all.



Breakfast at the waffle house and now were parked in the Atlanta airport.

Fail city council meeting.

As you know, a few years ago I got on a health kick. I was waking early, going to the gym five days a week, riding my bike 20 to 50 miles three days a week, eating very healthy having cut out all sugar, high protein, low fat ect. Im sure it was a reaction to the things going on in my life at that time. I had just sold the club and had just separated from my girlfriend. I was making changes. Consequently in the year after that I was in great shape, the best I'd been in for years.

Over the course of the last year I've gone back to work after taking a year off. As dad gets closer and closer to retirement I've stepped into the family business of property management. It's been nice to get back to work and I've always enjoyed real estate so its a good match.

Unfortunately, one of the casualty's of work has been my strict work out regiment. I'm by no means out of shape, I just cant dedicate the time I did last year to being in the gym. I still have my hopes though. I'm doing all the mental tricks. posting stickers around so when I see them I tell myself to go for a bike ride or make room for time in the gym. I have a few pictures around of when I was in my best shape to remind me that I need to stick to that strict diet. It's hard with work, but I'm trying.

As for work, it's great. We still have the properties in Santa Cruz and Carmel and of course the stuff in Los Banos where my parents are from. In recent weeks I've been spending more time in the valley, reestablishing our connections to Los Banos. Meeting with the chamber and going to city council meetings. It's a great little farm town that still has a sense of community.

Last Wednesday was the city council meeting and so off to Los Banos I went. This would be the second I attended the first being a few months earlier. So as of yet I wasn't a familiar face. Nothing to exciting on the agenda and I quietly took a seat and started listening to the proceedings.

Now, I know a lot of communities do this, televise the city council meetings, but something that I thought was a little different about Los Banos's is the fact that rather then having the cameras at the back of the room filming the city council members, they have the cameras at the front of the room shooting over councilmans heads. Effectively this puts everyone in the room on TV. I learned this after the last meeting when I went to breakfast the following morning and the waitress said "Hey! I saw you on the TV last night!"

Anyway, I took my seat and folded my hands and started listening to the proceedings. A trophy for the Los Banos football team for the outstanding performance over the last season. A proclamation for a 17 year old girl who has been named the fastest draw with a six shooter in California.

Then the meeting was opened up for public comments. To the podium in his cowboy hat and boots strolled a local to address the council. He was in charge of the city's local graffiti task force. Hey! I thought, I know this guy! We had spoken on the phone a few months back. I had some graffiti on one of my buildings and was pointed to him as a possible source for help. Sure enough, after some brief calls, he and his crew of volunteer kids painted over the graffiti.

At the time I had promised him a donation for supplies but in the hustle and bustle had completely forgotten about it. Great, here's my chance to get his info and send him a check. He continued to voice his concerns for the next few minutes, politely wrapped up and turned to leave.

As he started to walk away from the podium I gave him the pez and waved. I pointed to the back of the room and got out of my seat. I brushed past people and made my way to the rear of the room. He looked at me rather quizzically at which point I held up a finger and dug in my pocket for my iphone. I didn't want to speak, I didn't want to interrupt the speaker. I did whisper "I want to get your address." As I finished the phrase I got my iphone out and held it up for for both of us so I could enter his address and number. he moved in so he could see the little screen. I hit the button.

OK, remember I said 'd been leaving myself little reminders about staying in shape? Yeah, I figured, since I take my iphone with me every where that I should put a picture on it so I could take a look at it and remind me to stick to the diet. So, my iphone wall paper is a picture of me in great shape (for me anyway), shirt off, sweating like crazy, with a chainsaw in my hands. I had been hard at work at my house after the storms last year. Here, ill post the picture.














I hit the button. OK, as a rush of horror washes over me as I do a mental brief recap. I'm standing in a room that's being televised where being quiet is a necessity. I've just flagged down a good old boy who has never met me and asked him to come to the back of the room. When we get to the back of the room I whisper to him "I want your address..." Whip out my iphone and produce a picture of my half naked sweaty body for this guy to look at... Not exactly the impression I was planning on making. Now I'm pretty much frozen. This guy tilts his head and looks at me as if to say "What the fuck?" I half expected to hear "You're not from around here are ya boy."

Quickly I try and regain my composure "I wanted to talk to you about the kids" I stammered... Not a good start. That's it. I'm not coming back from this one. I dropped my head and silently shook it from side to side as I gently pushed him to the side and walked out the door.

I'll let you know how the next meeting goes.