The Paparrazi Ruined My Rented RV!

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana in a traffic tunnel in Paris.

I remember very clearly where I was and how I found about what was to become a shock to the world at large.

I was on my way to Burning Man with my good friend, Matt Workman. I was about to experience a very personal telling of the Robin Williams masterpiece "R.V." -- except without all the sight gags, laughs and general entertainment value. (ha!)

It was an unusual trip to say the very least, right from the start. I had rented a very large vacation home on wheels. I had no idea how large until, after only driving it for four minutes, I managed to thwap a pole in the parking lot of the Burbank McDonalds with the very long ass-end of the vehicle.

From just outside the vehicle, off the distance, I heard a smart ass remark from a bystander. No doubt Matt remembers the exact wording, but it was something like "Way to go dorkstick".

This only caused very minimal damage to the vehicle so I didn't worry about it too much.

This large vacation home on wheels (VHoW) got about 8 miles to the gallon and only went about 56 miles per hour, top speed. Much above that and you felt unsafe; the kind of unsafe you might feel, say, if you were driving your 2 bedroom bungalow down a highway, blindfolded, while steering with a wheel of jello.

We stopped at what was, to that point in my life, the largest K-Mart I had ever had the pleasure of entering, just somewhere near Reno. We picked up a number of supplies we figured we'd need at Burning Man and made our way to the cash.

The cashier was the one who informed us of the death of Princess Diana. Quite honestly, while I respectfully expressed shock and dismay in her presence, I just didn't believe her. I figured she had somehow got it wrong. Perhaps the blaze of the "Blue Light Specials" had confused her. It was probably the death of Prince of Minneapolis and his friend Dianne (which would have made much more sense to me at the time).

My unwillingness to accept the news really comes down to this : I tend not to accept my news verbally from those who have fewer teeth than they do fingers. I'm crazy like that.

[Keep that in mind Matt, and keep brushing those pearly whites so you can make it to network.]

When we got back in the VHoW, I turned on the radio to a talk/news station and it was all over the dial. Everyone was talking about it. We drove on to Burning Man listening only to the endless news-cycle talking about her death.

The coverage was morbid, sad and I dare say so non-stop as to be mind-numbing.

I just couldn't believe it. I had actually met Princess Diana and Prince Charles in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick when I was 14 years old. I was a member of the Saint John Ambulance organization of which Charles was a figurehead leader.

As they exited the famous hotel/resort where they had some luncheon with local big-wigs, Charles came right over to us and Diana followed shortly after. They both spoke to me directly and briefly and a girl standing next to me gave Diana flowers which she accepted with delight and grace.

I remember it so clearly. She was wearing the most gorgeous off-white, sort of ivory colored formal sun-dress with a matching designer hat that just looked stunning on her.

Wow, THAT was like the gayest thing I've said all year.

Anyway, I have a vague recollection of perhaps sharing that story with Matt as we drove on through the Nevada darkness towards the festival in the desert.

Upon arrival at Burning Man, while parking the VHoW in complete darkness, I managed to back it into a very large and pointedly-sharp piece of rebar, or maybe it was two pieces of rebar. Either way, this punctured the fibreglass exterior of the vehicle in a most disruptive and expensive looking way.

It was at that point I realized my thousand dollar security deposit would henceforth be of the non-refundable variety.

The whole days events between the McDonalds-light-pole/Dork-Stick incident, the death of a princess, and now the rebar(s) through the exterior of the VHoW ... really put me in quite a mood.

Matt went for a walk shortly after arrival, but I think he left the encampment not so much out of a sense of exploration or adventure, but just to get away from me and my 'mood' for a while till I calmed down.

All the events of that afternoon/evening are now intertwined, jumbled and mixed up in my old-age-confused-head.

So much so that, now, when I think of the $1800 I paid to repair the VHoW when we returned to Burbank, I *personally* blame the paparrazzi.

French Photographic Bastards.
---
Knox

Matt Demands an Update

Well Matt has demanded an update on the situation with the rear-ending of the VW Jetta.

I took the car in for the requisite repairs and was promptly given a rental.

Turns out upon pickup of the freshly repaired car, that the brake light switch noted in the recall was not at fault after all. Apparently the jolt of having been rear-ended, caused all the brake lights except for the center mounted one, to fail.

The brake switch was the subject of a recall but mine had not yet failed.

Also - the man in question who had hit had NOT had a stroke, but rather a bad reaction to his medication. The police have recommended his license be 'reviewed'. This means he probably won't be able to drive any longer for medical reasons.

I still see his coke-out-crack-whore-daughter around town a lot.

Oh my eyes.

"And not in the fun-happy way"

I ask you to bear with me. This story is going to take some setup.. but I promise you, the payoff is at least funny in a sad and amusing kind of way.

On April 5th, I am on my way to work. It's snowing a bit. That's not unusual in this part of the world at that time of year. I drive my 2002 VW Jetta with appropriate caution.

I come to a stop where I would turn to my workplace. I have my blinker on, my foot is on the brake. Suddenly, *WHAM* and that terrible sound of another car hitting mine. At first I wonder "What the heck" and then realize, oh yes, I've been rear-ended.

And not in the fun-happy way.

The woman gets out of her and while she admits fault instantly, she isn't very apologetic. She speedily says something like "I don't have time for this. Here, I'll write down my info, you can call my husband. He'll take care of this."

She gets in her car to write down her info and I follow her back to make sure that she's not driving away. As I look into the passenger compartment of her car, there's a cell phone, a note pad with all kinds of stuff scribbled on it and the contents of a purse mostly scattered on the passenger seat. A cup of coffee appears to have spilled all over the place.

Distracted driver? Yes. Probably.

I carry on and call her husband. I get an estimate from a local repair shop. I wait five weeks for the car to get scheduled in. It's in.. three days later it's fixed and I picked it up last Friday.

Fantastic.

Skip two days to yesterday, Sunday, May 6th. My friend Greg calls me about 2pm. Let's go get a Dairy Queen blizzard he says. They now offer them in KIT KAT flavor. Fine I say. My roomate hears of this place so now he and his girlfriend are coming too. Ok fine.

I pick them all up. Greg admires the fine bodywork done on my rear bumper. You can barely tell he says. And true enough, other than an odd fitting seam on the passenger side, 'tis a pretty good job indeed.

We have our ice cream and on our way to drop Greg home, we stop at a local outdoor pool/bar/patio to show it to my roomates' girlfriend. We usually hang there during the summer. While leaving this location, I feel the push/nudge/crunch that was so familiar on April 5th.

No.. I say. Not possible I think.

I stop the car and get out to look. Yes it is possible.

"Oh no ***king way. No g***mned f****ng way," I say.

Yes. It is true. Exactly 32 days after being rear-ended before, I have now been rear-ended again; once again, not in the fun-happy way.

The driver of the other vehicle appears to be about 65 or so, very unkempt and has an odd look on his face. He is repositioning his car to drive away. I knock hard on his window and he rolls it down. The first thing I notice is the smell. I can't place it but I presume it's liquor because he is making NO sense when I talk to him.

In the passenger seat, a woman who declares herself to be his daughter is screaming, literally screaming through tears, that he is having a stroke and I quote here, "He ain't right I tell you, he just ain't right.. he's having a stroke.. he's my dad, he's all I got in the world.."

She too has either spilled her coffee all over the dash, or has thrown up all over the dash. I can't quite figure it out.

I am stunned by the scene in front of me. I inform the driver he has just hit me and I am calling the police he would be wise to stop moving his vehicle lest he be charged with leaving the scene of an accident. He ignores this advice.

Meanwhile the daughter continues to scream, "He's having a stroke, we're going to the hospital."

I firmly imply that him driving himself to the hospital while having a stroke is about the baddest idea I have ever heard, while waiting for the 911 people to pick up. I suggest we call the police and an ambulance and let THEM take him to the hospital. He drives off.

Yes. That's right. The "stroke victim" drives off.

I run around to get in my car, just as the manager of the establishment we are leaving gives me his license plate and informs us he has hit at least one other car in the lot before leaving, besides me.

Fantastic.

I follow the drunk/stroke victim. His driving is beyond erratic. He tries to stop for a red-light but manages to merely slow down for it and coasts thru stopping on the far side.

The 911 operator has answered and I indicate that I'm following a man who hit my car and I suspect he is drunk but I give his side of the story for good measure.

I catch up to him at a traffic light and while stopped, the driver of the vehicle behind me runs up to my car and says "I just wanted to let you know that you have no rear brake lights what so ever. " I'm torn between talking to him and the 911 operator. I say, "Yes, I'm aware" -- figuring that the recent accident knocked them out of service.

I stay on with the operator while this car drives to the local mall.

There is no hospital beside the Walmart here in case you're wondering. Altho I'm sure the Walton family is looking into that idea.

Once at the mall, we witness him impact a BMW 328i quite firmly. And then he backs up to park his car and also uses a Chevy pickup as a 'stopper' for his parking.

I am stunned by the scene in front of me. I'm still on with the 911 operator who assures me the cops are nearby. I hear the sirens.

The daughter jumps out of the car and once again, while crying non-stop, proclaims him to be having a stroke.

Whatever. The cops come.. the ambulance comes.

The police tell the daugher if she can't restrain herself and stay out of the way, they will restrain her forcibly. She decides now is a good time to LEAVE and get in a cab to ".. go get her mom."

WHAT????

Whatever. I don't care. I just want this nightmare over.

Finally he man is off to the hospital. The officer comes to us and takes our information and promises to be in touch with the information of the driver of the green Honda Civic. Great.

Fantastic.

I'm out to get lunch today, Monday, and I see a green Honda Civic drive around a corner near me. "No way".

Yes. Way. It's him. That's right. The "stroke victim" in the same car, with the same license plate and the same crazy daugher in the passenger seat. Driving around town.

I knew those clot busting drugs were good, but I didn't think they were THAT good.

I think I have now been ****ed in the not-fun-happy way yet again.

I get the accident report later this afternoon from the police. I call my insurance company. I file my claim. I make arrangements for a rental car and to take my car into the shop.

So I drive my rental Ford Fusion home and pick the mail up from the mailbox.

One envelope catches my eye. It is from Volkswagen of Canada. It says, "IMPORTANT SAFETY RECALL INFORMATION INSIDE."

I open it up.

"Dear customer : Bla bla blah.. inform you of an important safety defect that has been identified in your vehicle. The brake light switch may become inoperable, causing your brake lights to not operate, which may lead to a crash."

Gee.. D'YA THINK? REALLY? HOW ABOUT TWO?????!!

What are we up to? I'm losing count.. I think it's the 4th time in 33 days that I've been f**ked. And not in the fun-happy way yet again.

A Volkswagen Safety Claims Representative is supposed to call me tomorrow. Probably to say, "Gee I hope you're ok."

That will be time # 5. I hope I get 'lube' this time at least.

The Price of Gas in Edison, NJ

I recently returned from a 10 day road trip to Orlando, Florida. Yes, I went to DisneyWorld. Anyone who knows me at all, knows that I have the most sickening fascination with theme parks, Disney parks in particular. I am filled with useless trivia about their construction, what used to be here or there and more details about the facilities and 'how its done' than most would ever care to know.

I think this comes about as a result of the fact that I never attended a Disney theme park till I was 25 years old. My father thought that Florida was a giant tourist trap. And Disney was a giant trap with a mouse built-in.

So the first time I went to Disney, my eyes were wide with the awe of a 6 year old. But my adult brain couldn't get past the 'how'd they do that'. The internet seemed to provide all the answers.

Before this trip, I went on the internet to investigate the cost of gasoline along route I-95 from Houlton, Maine to Orlando, Florida. I needed to budget out the fuel costs since we would be driving down and back. According to various websites, the price of fuel along our route would vary from a high of about $3.29 in Edison, NJ to a low of about $2.47 somewhere in the Carolinas.

For those ill-equipped at math, that's an 82 c difference. Almost a buck. Is it cheaper to get gas to somewhere in god-forsaken Carolinas than to Edison, NJ? Surely that can't be the case, because we took a different route on the way back, and not 94 miles from Edison, the price of gas was a mere $2.65.

If only Thomas Edison were alive and working in his lab in Edison, NJ. Perhaps he could invent some way of distributing fuel and equally distributing the costs of distribution so that the only difference between fuel costs in various states would be the geographic taxation involved.

Oh nevermind, surely the math would be impossible. Sides, President Bush's staff would probably squelch his ideas anyway.

One interesting thing on the TV news while we were in Florida, was the preparation for the impedending hurricane season. The sheer number of clips from last year showing people before a pile of rubble and broken lumber that used to be their home.. saying things like "We's gonna rebuild. God wants us to.." frightens me.

And as a postscript.. apparently you can trust a mormon if you embarrass the crap out of him on the internet, he'll send you the promised video tape. The only catch is, he'll torture you about updating your blog endlessly. It's a fair trade off I guess.

Can you really trust a Mormon?

Las Vegas was pretty much founded in 1844 by John C. Fremont, when he led an overland expedition west and camped at Las Vegas Springs

Mormon settlers from Salt Lake City traveled to Las Vegas to protect the Los Angeles-Salt Lake City mail route and in 1855 began building a 150-square-foot fort of sun-dried bricks made of clay soil and grass, a substance known as adobe. Eventually this fort would become the Flamingo Hotel and Resort. Unfortunately, this would not happen until a photographic wallpaper with a fake Vegas skyline could be printed.

The Mormons planted fruit trees, cultivated vegetables and mined lead for bullets at Potosi Mountain. Mormon pioneers abandoned the settlement in 1858, partly because of Indian raids. But they didn't go far. In fact, the Mormon's returned when the settlement of Las Vegas springs became more formal with the Nevada gold rush.

From those early beginnings and throughout the history of Las Vegas, who has been in charge of counting and accounting for the cash flowing through those one armed bandits, table games and endless restaurant keno runs? The gangsters? The guy running the casino? Robert DeNiro?

Close.

Actually it was usually a Mormon. Early gaming facility owners realized that in most cases, you couldn't corrupt a Mormon. Oh sure, there was the instance of David Smith, a Mormon accountant who was fired after over 32$ was discovered missing from Sam Binion's Horseshoe in 1947, but generally speaking, Mormons were as honest as the day is long, to borrow a phrase from Casablanca.

In fact, Mormons ended up working at banks throughout the southwest for similar reasons. Mormon bankers actually fronted cash to early casino operations for building, expansion and no doubt various other activities that were not exactly spelled out on the loan application.

Nowadays, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) currently make up about 12 percent of the Southern Nevada population and in December 1989 dedicated a Mormon Temple in Las Vegas. The temple spires are visible in the foothills of Sunrise Mountain to the east of the city.

The point of this story? Las Vegas trusts Mormons, with tons of unmarked, unaccounted for cash. That's not to be dismissed.

I would like to trust a Mormon. But, I was promised a videotape from a Mormon television reporter in August of 2004. I'm still waiting for the videotape. Now, in the Mormon's defense, he's been reporting in the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast for weeks on end, probably without ANY Yoohoo to speak of...

But my confidence in the 'trusted Mormon' has been shaken. I'm not sure if the faith can be restored.

I'll pray on it.

It's a comin'

I've been watching the news all morning this morning. As a Canadian who very rarely experiences hurricanes, tornados.. or really extreme weather of any kind - other than snow - I can only come to one conclusion.

God Hates America. Or more specifically, Americans. Either that or this is the ending that is so well documented in Revelations and now is the time to repent.

I actually prefer the latter theory. Katrina was nasty.. but this Rita thing.. she's going to be downright mean and contankerous (is that a word? and if so .. is it spelled right?)

And these storms aren't satisfied to chew up a few trailer parks in Arkanasas or Alabama. These storms are angry and aiming at cities. Big cities with large populations... large populations of Americans...

Why would God hate America? Well if I were God, I'd be pissed about you Americans trampling on my trademarks. "In God We Trust", "God Bless America" etc. Did you pay for the right to use his/her name thusly? I suspect not. And I might add you're using it in a way that suggests you guys are right about everything and he/she supports everything you do.

If God were Donald Trump (there's a scary thought) , then your founding fathers would have been in court way back in 1776!

Now, I might be trampled on for saying such things just hours ahead of a storm that is guaranteed to have a death-toll associated with it.

I'm sorry, I can't be bothered with such worries. I have "REPENT NOW" signs to finish before sundown.

"Oh Ophelia.. You're Breaking My Heart.." - What Too Soon?

Perhaps it is too soon after Katrina to make jokes about another storm with a name. I'm not worried, I've never been one to follow social norms anyway.

All that said, it has been raining all-together too much here in Canada the past few days, and reknowned forecasters the likes of Dallas Storm, Dallas Reigns and Cecilia Chu are all informing us that Ophelia is to blame.

When I lived in Southern California, I eventually got used to the non-stop rain in February and March. At first I was like "Whhaaa? Albert Hammond LIED to me.. " I finally realized that song lyrics are not a verbal contract. Learned that lesson the hard way. Regardless, two months of rain for 10 months of nearly perfect sunshine and the chance of running into Pauly Shore at the AM/PM. This was a fair deal in my book.

While nobody has ever written a song about it not raining in Canada, it's kind of a given. We are supposed to get a 'normal' amount of rain. Seattle gets the amount of rain that makes grunge rockers take enormous amounts of drugs or their own lives.

We are supposed get a day or two here and there. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it has now been raining for exactly Jesus-Kabillion days, give or take.

I'll write again after I finish the ark.