Labor Day Ride - the Finale

View of the main drag in Eureka Springs, AR

Its like a little Swiss village in the Ozarks

There are plenty of little pubs to eat & drink in

The Basin Spring Park is a popular hang out for musicians, artists & hippies


The street is lined with little shops.
There are usually lots of bikes in town

We found a little shopping bizarre

Embarrassingly enough, I took no pictures this trip in Eureka Springs & neither did anyone else. These are from our last trip to ES, the Labor Day ride in 2005. Nothing changes much in the town. It looks almost the exact same as it did when I first started going there regularly in 1988. Shops go in & out; restaurants & pubs changes names; the rest stays the same.

We got to Eureka Springs on Sunday in the middle of the afternoon. We parked & walked the main part of town for a while. I had been looking for a winter's hat all trip long. Almost bought one at Turner's Bend, but couldn't figure out how to get it back without mashing it. I didn't really find one in ES either.

A couple of funny things happened right off the bat. We ran into my sister's friend Liz & her family. We chatted for a while & then started discussing places to eat. The last couple of times my sister had come over on Sunday, Bubba's, our favorite BBQ joint, had been closed. Liz suggested a place called The Rowdy Beaver. Clearly a double entendre - Beaver Lake is nearby. We thought that was funny & decided we might eat there.

We stopped for fuel & I bought a 6-pack. My parents were shocked - blue laws in Arkansas forbid the sale of alcohol on Sunday, except in restaurants & private clubs. The guy at the counter didn't even look twice at me. I argued that obviously the legislature has made an exception for tourist areas, like Eureka Springs. Either that or the town or Madison County has passed counter legislation okaying its sale on Sundays.

As we neared Bubba's, it appeared to be open. We couldn't find good parking for the four bikes, so we had to move on. As the photos indicate, we are in the mountains & parking is a premium. We moved on & ate at The Rowdy Beaver. Food was good, beer was cold, service was poor. 2 out of 3 ain't bad I guess.

We finally got settled into our rooms around 9:00 PM. I beat my sister at Rummy & we went to bed.

We arose early & Dad & I found the continental breakfast in the lobby. It was pretty weak, so I had a banana & coffee. My mom is not a morning person, so we were a little slow getting it all together. Plus, she travels heavy & has a lot of gear to get together in the morning. My sister, brother-in-law & I were hanging out by the bikes chatting with a Harley rider & his wife when we heard a loud crashing noise. I looked over & saw a VW bug hurtled down the hillside & hitting a tree at the bottom. We all ran over through the underbrush to see if the driver was okay. The car was empty, thank God.

It was nice little Baja model - high fenders, mud tires, no lid on the engine compartment, steel roll cage to protect the engine, bright yellow. We looked up the ridge & saw a man about 60 looking visibly shaken & a couple of other people trying to help. Soon a police officer showed up & we went on our business of getting our gear ready. We speculated what had happened. He could have had to stop short to prevent a rear-ender, had the brakes look & bail out before it rolled down the hill. That wasn't likely because it looked like he came perpendicular to traffic & down the hill. The most likely scenario had some combination of being in a parking lot across the street & somehow the car got away from the driver & he bailed out before riding down the hill.

As we checked out of the hotel, the lady at the desk said the driver had been in a parking lot across the street & was trying to roll start the bug. For those that don't know, VW's of the 1960's & 1970's vintage had notoriously poor electrical systems with a generator, not an alternator like cars have now. The battery went dead frequently. You then had to roll start - put the car in neutral (they are all manual transmissions), push it to get it moving, hop in & close the door, put the clutch in, shift into 2nd gear, drop the clutch & engine compression will cause the motor to start. The generator will then recharge the battery. Having driven a 1966 & 1967 bug in addition to my sister's 1971 Super Beetle, I've done this a few times myself.

Clearly, the car got away from the driver, he bailed out & it crashed down the hill. We suspected that he could have driven it out of the under brush; VW's are tough & damn near impossible to destruct. But, a tow truck arrived & the car was pulled out of the brush & back up the hill.

The ride back to Fayetteville was nice, but short. If you hoof it, you can make Fayetteville in 45 minutes. My friends in high school & I have done it. We took about 2 hours & a less direct route. I then went to the used book store for a while, lunched at my favorite spot Tim's Pizza on the square & we headed to Dallas.

Dad & I rode historic Highway 71 through the mountains. After spending the weekend in Newton & Madison Counties, it seemed tame. Plus, the last 40 miles is across Interstate 40 to Salisaw, OK where we meet my mom in the truck. As we trailered the bikes, I decided next year we should take a western route through OK that will drop us in Salisaw & avoid the boring & occassionally dicey interstate riding.

Joe Torre

I live in Baltimore & I am a baseball fan. But, after 10 straight losing seasons, I cannot say that I am an Orioles fan. However, I hate the New York Yankees. More correctly, I hate their fans. Jeter, A-Rod, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera & the rest - I like the players. I have attended several games at Oriole Park at Camden Yards when the Yankees are in town. I find their fans to be the most vile, contemptable, rude, and inconsiderate fans in the world. I could be wrong having no experience with English Premier League Football, but its a close second. I refuse free tickets to games if the Yankees are in town. The last time I attended a Yankees game, a fan had on a black t-shirt with orange letters that said "Baltimore Blows." It took until the 5th inning, but the jerk finally did enough else to get removed from the park by security. There's no place in our National Pastime for that sort of action. Their fans' acts are weak. I wish they could just leave their money at the county line & go back to New York.

What happened today to Joe Torre is a travesty. How can arguably the most widely known and supported professional sports organization in the world insult the manager who led them to 12 straight post-season appearances & 4 world titles with an offer in excess of $2.5M lower than he made this year? A one year deal ladened with incentives? What the hell does 12 years & 4 world titles earn you? In my mind, it earns you the gig for as long as you want it. In the case of Torre, a man of impeccable character & unapproachable skill as a manager, it earns you the back door. A man of Torre's integrity & character would know when it is his fault they didn't win & step down. Instead, he knows, like the rest of us, that his lack of winning it all is due to the front office, not his skill as a manager.

I say Torre was shown the back door because Steinbrenner clearly does not have the guts to fire the man. He chose to make such a low ball offer that Torre could not accept it. Steinbrenner can then go to the fan base & look like a hero & try to make Torre look like the one who didn't want to be in New York. Its disgraceful & insulting to anyone with integrity.

Torre clearly wanted to be in New York. His press conference showed that pain & the anguish of leaving a team that he loves. Steinbrenner is a pig & should be spurned, spit on & insulted by every person who calls himself a Yankees fan. Any self-respecting New Yorker should see that Steinbrenner stands for all that is wrong with the city & America in general. He stands for greed, ignorance, blaming the other person instead of yourself, failing to work as hard as you can to win.

Torre stands for honesty, integrity, hardwork, self-sacrifice & not placing the blame at other's feet. I hope Torre manages again & I hope its in the American League East where he can beat whoever is tapped to replace him. I hope its with the Orioles. Oh, wait, no I don't. He won't get the support from their front office either. I also hope that when Cooperstown calls, he does not enter that shrine in a Yankees uniform.

Cell Phone do's & don'ts

The proliferation of cell phones has caused an interesting conundrum to many of us. I'll cite some examples. For the most part, I'll leave the whole driving & talking thing alone.

How rude is it to be in line at a store or restaurant with an employee taking your order, your money, etc. & you are talking on the cell phone? I mean, hang up the freaking phone & deal with the person who are trying to get some food from rather than continuing to yap to someone in some part of the city, state, country, world.

I was in Starbucks one morning this week & the lady in front of me was completely ignoring not only the cashier & barista but also her young son, probably 4 years old, while she yapped incessantly on her cell phone. The child was thoroughly bored, but behaving himself while the cashier repeatedly had to get the woman's attention, using both verbal & physical gestures, to give her the change, her muffin & finally the coffee. The boy got nothing.

Oh & then there are the elderly people who have a cell phone because their kids gave it to them. They have no idea how to use it, so it sits in their pocket or purse waiting to ring loudly. This usually happens in church. A couple of months ago, right at the beginning of mass, a lady's phone rang & she either couldn't hear it because she's deaf or she chose to ignore it. It rang the usual 5 to 6 times & then went silent. Following the responsorial psalm, it started up again & again, she did nothing. Finally, during the homily, she didn't attempt to silence it, but got up & left mass to take the freaking call. I guess whoever was on the other end is more important than God.

The use of cell phones in the restroom is very disturbing, but I'm not sure I want to get into that here.

With the advent & wide-spread use of blackberry's & other smartphones, a whole new set of challenges, etiquettes & faux pas have emerged. I am relatively new to this technology. I traded in my clam-shell-type phone for a Motorola Q smartphone in August 2007. I love the phone, but I find myself incessantly checking my e-mail on it. I have 3 accounts linked to it - my business account, my personal account & the web master account for my CSI chapter. My wife & I also text each other a few times a week. A friend of mine several weeks ago threatened to take my phone away just to see what would happen. It was at that point that I realized I was addicted to checking my e-mail on it.

Believe me, I don't get a lot of e-mail traffic. During football season, my fantasy leagues give me 1 or 2 updates a day on the personal account. CBS Sportsline is "enough said" for anyone who uses them for their fantasy leagues. The web master account gets next to no traffic. I usually have 1 or 2 e-mails each morning when I wake up on my business account. I occassionally get a couple across the evening as well. I use it for more than just business. All told, on an average day, my business account gets maybe 30 hits & that's mostly during business hours. I guess I'm still enamored with the connectivity of it, so I keep checking it.

I've noticed in public & at seminars & in meetings, a lot of people will ignore whatever is happening, whatever conversation they are in & bust out the blackberry to check e-mail. The more I watch this, the ruder it seems to me & the more disturbing it has become. I have made a conscious effort to not do this, to stay connected verbally & physically to the outside world.

I do have one men's room story - the other day the gentlemen in the stall next to me was punching away on this blackberry with such speed that it was almost the 40-50 words a minute I can type with 10 fingers, not just 2 thumbs. There were no pauses - the keys were clicking for close to 5 minutes straight, so he wasn't just checking mail & responding with 3-5 word answers. He was clearly penning (or thumbing) a novel over there.

Anyway, if you read this, please think about what you do, when, where & how with your cell phone or blackberry. Take a week & look around at how other's use their devices & the rudeness that can come from breaking simple common courtesies.

Providence always trumps Rudeness

Note from Author: as the first line states, this post was written as a Word Document 13 days ago. Before I got a chance to post it, I had laptop death. Its just recently been recovered & I have a chance to post it now. I did some minor editing to remove any beer-fogged confusion.

Its 7:00 PM EDT on 4 October 2007 & I’m high over the Earth somewhere between Atlanta and Baltimore returning from a conference in Charleston. I’ll have to post this to the blog later. I flew to Charleston on Monday & thought I had the rudest person next to me on that flight that I had experienced in a long time. Not since my 11 year old daughter was 18 months, have I experiences this type of rudeness. I try to select aisle seats on planes because I like to stretch my legs out in the aisle & they are easier to get in and out of with less disruption to other passengers. As I was late checking in, I had to take a window seat. I was in my window seat before her arrived for her middle seat, so I had a front view as she took extra time to hurtle her carry-on beside my seat & force her other carry-on into the overhead, all the while other passengers stood & patiently waited because she was taking up at least three rows while doing this. She sat, I had on headphones listening to the complimentary XM satellite radio & we ignored each other. It should be pointed out that I always ignore others on a plane because I’m not interested in idle chatter. Call me rude if you will, but I’m frankly not interested in what others have to say, which is a topic that comes up later.

When we finally landed in Charleston, the person in the aisle stood & bum-rushed forward to get the hell off the plane. A row or two opened ahead of this, so the woman in the middle seat stood & moved over to the aisle seat. After a time, I stood & was probably a little over zealous in removing my briefcase from under the seat in front of me. It brushed her arm, ever so slightly. I apologized & she said nothing. As she moved forward to get her case from overhead she offered to let me go first as I “was a little too hyper.” This was a true "what the fuck moment." I said or did nothing to her the whole flight, when we land I accidentally brush her once & now I’m being hyper. I buy cheap airline tickets. My office buys cheaper tickets. I was on row 29 of a 31 row plane – I was going NO WHERE & neither was she. I wrote this off as advanced rudeness.

I am now on row 31 of a 31 row plane, on the aisle. When I reached for my laptop, I found a purse belonging to the sleeping woman next to me on my side of the space beneath the seats in front of us. Those of you who have travelled will understand that there is a metal bar barrier that separates one seat front from the other. This woman has used up hers & is not just encroaching but usurping mine. Unbelievable. Granted, I don't travel that much; I fly maybe twice a year. Those who are reading this who may fly more regularly, may experience these things all the time. I find them part of the systemic rudeness that has gripped our society.

Fortunately, this last episode was preceded by one in Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport that might be a first for me. In a rare fit of luck, I did not have to change terminals in Atlanta. I can’t remember the last time this happened. When you fly discount airlines in the middle Atlantic & southeastern U.S., you have to connect through Atlanta. On Monday, for instance, I flew into terminal D & out of terminal C. This sounds innocuous, but in less than 1 hour, it’s a little hairy. Today, I flew into gate C8 &, no shit, I flew out of gate C6, which happened to be right next to a bar. I checked the big board at gate C6 to make sure my flight was on time & decided to have a beer.

This is when serendipity takes over. As I stepped up to the ropes that separate the alcohol from the rest of the terminal, an older lady, probably approaching 60, stepped up behind me. The waitress fairly demonstratively asked me if there were 2 of us. I said there is now. Deborah & I were placed at a table with Phyllis, whom had been there a while, drinking martinis. She was quite intoxicated, but for 15 to 20 minutes, the discussion flowed. We all learned each others names, where we live & where we were headed. Phyllis was probably 70, so Deborah & I humored here. Fortunately, she had to leave & Deborah & I resumed sober talk.

Deborah had missed her connecting flight due to miscommunication & a need to visit the lady’s room. She was flying from Orlando to Akron to visit her daughter & grandchildren. When she got off the plane in Atlanta, she needed the facilities & mistakenly overheard that the plane to Akron boarded just over there at the next gate. She went to the restroom & upon returning to the gate, learned that she had to change terminals. She missed her flight by less than 10 minutes. Her genuine tears earned her a free ticket on the airline & an Atlanta t-shirt, plus a three hour stay in the terminal. That would put her in Akron at close to midnight. I saw my mother in her eyes when she said this cost her four hours with her grandchildren. This is Thursday evening & she was flying back to Florida Sunday morning.

She asked what I do for a living & upon hearing I am an architect, her expression glowed. Her 13-year old grandson has expressed interest in architecture & neither she nor her daughter knows where to guide him. I spent the next 20 minutes advising Deborah on what to suggest that her grandson take in the next 4 years of high school to prepare him for college. I told her I was about 13 when I realized that I wanted to be an architect. She said he’s good at math; I was good at math. What I missed out on in high school was art; basic freehand drawing from nature. She was surprised to hear this. I suggested that he take as much art as he can. I told her my great-uncle who is an architect suggested the same for me. I didn’t like the art teacher at my high school, so I didn’t take the classes.

Deborah asked about computers; don’t most architects draw using computers. I told her yes, but an important skill is to be able to look at something in nature & draw it from hand. That lends itself to the idea of being able to design from your own mind. She asked about books. I said any history of architecture, any freehand drawing book, but not mechanical drawing; drawing from nature is best. I also mentioned my silent mentor, Sambo Mockbee & his Rural Studio at Auburn University. I explained what Sambo was trying to do & his unfortunate passing. I also pointed out that these books were expensive - $75 or more.

I felt happy to help a young person enter our profession. At 13, history tells us the chances of him making it to be a registered architect are slim. I was about 11 when I decided I wanted to be an architect. I entered architecture school at age 18. I graduated from architecture school when I was 23. I was 31 when I made it. Why can’t this young man make it? There is no reason & who am I to not help. At the conference I just attended, we were told that our purpose on Earth is to leave it better than we left it. It was a sustainable design conference, so that was a typical sentiment, but its right. I felt it my duty to the profession that I love to help others enter it as prepared as possible. Twice Deborah said to me that I was the reason she missed her flight. That thought resonates with me; especially as a Catholic who believes in a calling, in vocation & in providence.