Author: Jason Haberman

35 years old and starting over in April 06. Moving onwards and upwards. With the help of friends, family and a little creative writing.
Posted on

Touchdown Slam Dunk Slap Shot

Now this is my kind of week.

For those of you keeping score at home that is 5 straight days of live sporting events. You have read about my somewhat unhealthy compulsion to watch sports, but this week is like nirvana. Or perhaps, nerd-vana if you will. I will post my accounts/opinions of each event after, so watch this space.

Boise State vs. Fresno State

I always love when Fresno comes to town. For a few reasons. a.) It’s always a big game, ESPN almost always shows up to broadcast the game. Big game atmosphere is always fun. And b.) We always win. And usually win big. Nothing is more fun than a big game, except winning a big game in blowout fashion. Last night was no exception. (one of my all time favorite games was a Fresno game)

Even with Fresno mired with a 1-6 start, they still have a ton of talent. I wasn’t near as nervous for this game as I have been for say Hawaii or Oregon State. I’ve seen them play on ESPN a couple times this year, and they always seem to shoot themselves in the foot… and they did it again last night.

Boise State pretty much dominated the game, and won 45-21. The game wasn’t even that close. Fresno scored on a kickoff return for touchdown and interception return for touchdown. Take away those 2 plays, they had just over 200 yards in total offense and one TD. Domination baby.

Almost more impressive that the game on the blue was the fans in the stands. The sports marketing for Boise State had an ambitious plan for the ESPN television cameras. People sitting in even numbered sections were to wear blue, odd sections, orange. I didn’t think they could pull it off. Especially with the cold weather. If you tried it in September when people could wear t-shirts, then I could see it working, but when its 30 degrees out, not everyone has the proper colored cold weather gear.

How wrong I was. I stopped by the mall to get a new turtleneck before the game, and I saw many many people buying Bronco gear and they were all talking about which section they were in and getting the right color. I thought to myself, maybe it will be better than I think. I got to the stadium early, like I always do, and as people started filling in, I could distinctly tell what color each section was wearing. Hmmm… maybe we’ll pull this off. Once the stadium was full, the effect was amazing! I could not believe how well it worked, and it really looked cool. I just want to say well done to all the Bronco fans out there. This town has come a long ways in the past 5 or 6 years. I love to see the people with the painted faces, or wacky hats, or signs or whatever. The energy in that building is immense. Coach Pete has even said that it feels more like 70,000 than 30,000.

BSU v. Fresno BSU v. Fresno

All in all it was a very fun game, despite the frosty temperatures. A big thank you to whoever it was who developed those chemical hand warmers.

More later.

Posted on

October 30th!?

I’m watching NFL football last Sunday.  Still 2 days away from Halloween, mind you.  I’m only half paying attention when the commercial break happens.

A commercial from Garmin, a company that makes GPS navigational tools, came on.  Now this, as I said, was October 30th.  This was the first Christmas commercial of the year.  I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit.  Now, it would be one thing if it was just a Christmas visual… that is bad enough… but this freakin’ commercial took it to the next level.

THEY HAD CHRISTMAS MUSIC PLAYING

Not only that, but they did one of the most annoying things in modern advertising, they re-wrote the lyrics to a known song to sell their crap.  When you are watching football in October, before Halloween even happens, and you hear ‘Carol of the Bells’ with lyrics about navigation, it is very jarring.  I’m lucky I didn’t have anything handy to throw at the television, because I most certainly would have.  I just sat there dumbfounded.  And angry.

I can tell you this… from this point on, I FLAT OUT REFUSE TO PURCHASE ANYTHING FROM THIS COMPANY EVER.  Not that I was in the market for a GPS unit, but goddammit, if I ever am, you can bet I will NOT buy anything from them.  As a consumer, that is the only weapon I have.  And if you piss me off, you had better believe you will not get me back.

Garmin, I hope you burn in hell.  There, I said it.  And if any of you out there are fed up by companies doing the same thing, boycott their products.  It’s the only way they’ll learn.

Posted on

And the silken sad uncertain rustling…

Happy Halloween everybody!

I’ve spent the last little bit getting in the Halloween mood with the help of the Simpsons and YouTube. If you have a few minutes to kill, enjoy these halloween vignettes…

In honor of Halloween, I thought I would chronicle some past Halloweens and share them with you folks.

Costumes

I’ve always been a big fan of Halloween. This started very early, back when your costume was the store bought plastic smock and cheap mask. You remember those… the mask with the single rubber band holding it on your head while you proceed so sweat through your face? Lots of fun. I had those for three years that I remember. Casper the friendly ghost… C-3PO… and the Devil. I remember the devil mask scared the hell out of the dogs, so that was always fun.

Then, I graduated into the homemade variety. I hit all the usuals including dracula, the punk rocker, the hobo, etc. In fact, one Halloween, 4th grade I believe, I was sick, but there was no way I was going to miss school on the greatest day of the year. Dressed as dracula, I toughed it out. I was ok until the costume parade, where each class parades around through all the other classes to see the costumes. We were just coming out of the first grade class when the combination of the illness and the cheap ass plastic dracula fangs in my mouth caused me to… uh… hurl. I vividly remember the act, but don’t remember what happened next other than my running into the nearest bathroom. But, by god, I saw the costumes, got my costume seen and had the candy and fun involved with that day. That is all that mattered.

One year, I tried my most ambitious costume to date. The mummy. We had some old curtains in the garage that I could use to cut into strips. I spent hours cutting this stuff. Then, on Halloween, mom spent hours (bless her heart) with me wrapping and safety pinning all of these strips to my sweatsuit. I was pretty stoked as we headed out for the candy. Unfortunately, I was not aware that mummies probably stay wrapped so well because they are DEAD and don’t ever move. I didn’t get 4 houses in before I started unraveling. Much to my friends enjoyment, their favorite game that night became “step-on-the-dangling-strips”. It didn’t take long before I was pretty much a just kid in a grey sweatsuit with grey makeup around my eyes. I was frankly embarrassed to be trick-or-treating in such a pathetic costume that I had to tell people that I WAS a mummy, but it all fell off. Obviously, I was not embarrassed enough to stop getting candy, however.

Later in life, I had other costumes. Including a Jamaican (with a mop dyed black on my head), a soldier, a pig (pink bodysuit with baby bottle nipples sewn on the front). I also did the rental costumes including one of my all time favorites William Wallace from Braveheart. You know, the kilt, the wig, the sword. Good times. Also, read about my adventures as ‘windblown man’ here.

Most recently I’ve been a hockey player (complete with whole uniform), a convict (striped jumpsuit) and the most elaborate as the devil. That was wearing the tux, black shirt, red tie, then painting the face red and black and sticking horns on my head.

I will say, there is nothing worse than going all out on your costume, but not having an event worthy of such a costume. The ultimate “All dressed up with nowhere to go” sort of situation.

Trick or Treating

Obviously, one of my, and every kid’s, favorite parts of Halloween was always the trick-or-treating. I would look forward to that for weeks. The neighbor Scott Bell and I would plan our trick-or-treating route, riding around on our bikes, so long and hard, you would think we were invading Poland. We would plan it every year, but somehow it always remained the same route. Around the block, up the condos across the street, then into the further neighborhoods.

I remember one evening we were out so long that the streets were becoming empty. As we were working back down our street to our houses we thought it must have been like 11:00 or something. Nobody still out except us. I had resorted to carrying my bag in my arms since there was so much candy in it the handles had long since been ripped out. We always had those old school plastic trick or treat bags you used to get at the grocery store… square bags, usually with a haunted house scene on the front, with oval handles cut out of the top. (now you see the same type at trade shows for giveaways) I had so much candy in this bag it was overflowing. Yet, we were still trick-or-treating. I couldn’t even ring the doorbells since I’d lose my grip on the bag. It was so bad, that when the people would put their candy on top of the pile, 3 or 4 other pieces would slide off. I didn’t care! “Thank you!” I’d chime in merrily and be on my way to the next house. When we finally did get home, we were amazed that it was only like 9:15. We thought we were pushing midnight. One of the best nights of my life!

Another time, Kim you might remember this, we were trick-or-treating on the back side of our block. Just getting started when an elderly lady dropped what appeared to be a large saltine cracker (like the size of 8 regular crackers all attached to each other) in the bag. I’ve since learned that it might have been matzo. Either way, to this day I still don’t understand what she might have been thinking. Needless to say, that thing was pounded into crumbs in the bottom of the bag LONG before the night was over. Mom was very pleased when we got home and dumped out the bags on the carpet that evening.

In later elementary school, my friends and I perfected our technique to maximize our efficiency. See, we had a group of 7 or 8 people in our merry band. Each of us in a rubber mask of some sort. With all of you on the porch, it would obviously take time for the people to give out the candy to everyone. So, after the first people got theirs, they duck around the edge out of sight, take the mask off (or just pull it up on top of the head) and go back for a second hit. Then, the later kids swap their masks when the first kids were getting seconds, so on and so forth. Everyone has those times handing out candy when kids keep coming to the door in a stream, so no one was ever the wiser. We essentially hit every house twice, thus doubling our candy intake without doubling our walking! Pure genius!

Candy

The byproduct of a successful Halloween. It was almost as fun dumping out your booty for admiration afterwards as it was to procure it all in the first place. Every kid went about categorizing the candy… or maybe it was just me. The top dog candies… mini candy bars or anything with chocolate came first. The rule in our house was that mom and dad automatically got all of the mounds and almond joys. Worked for me because I didn’t particularly care for those anyway. Second were the step down candies, still good but not chocolate, your life savers, suckers, sweet tarts, pixie sticks, etc. Then, of course, you have the candy you don’t really love, but still eat it simply because it’s candy. Smarties, taffy, candy corn and all those other no-name cheap ass candy that you always got. Then, the final candy that was ALWAYS left in the bottom of the bag were those horrible, peanut butter taffy kisses in the orange or black wrappers. Those things are the WORST and were never eaten. Just terrible.

I was the kid who could ration the Halloween spoils and make it last for months. To my way of thinking, it is the one time of year when you get this whole bag of candy that you were in charge of. You got to decide when to eat it. No one else had control. Back then, you had to ask for everything you wanted. That was life. But Halloween candy was all yours. If you want a piece first thing in the morning? Go for it. Want a piece directly before dinner? You the man. No other time does a kid have that much control, and I loved it. I liked having that option available, and kept it going as long as possible. I could easily push Halloween candy through February. And I’m talking there would be mini snickers and milky way’s left in the bag then… it was such a prized commodity that it had to be hidden in the closet to avoid marauding sisters or fathers…

All in all, Halloween is one of the absolute apexes of the childhood year. October was always so much fun planning and preparing. For me, Halloween kicked off the best part of the year. Next came Thanksgiving (with the extended school break) as well as my birthday (PRESENTS!). From there leads to Christmas (Presents AND extended time off school!). In the two months from Halloween to Christmas, I received 90% of the loot I would get for the whole year! The rest of the year paled in comparison.

So, happy Halloween everybody. I’m on a high until January 2nd…

Posted on

Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes

If you’ve visited here before, you’ll notice a different look. I’ve grown quite weary of the old dreary blue look. I kind of equated that look to the general mood I had had when I started this damn thing. Kinda like Picasso’s blue period. Lord knows I’ve written enough bout that.

So, in effort to espouse a new attitude on this thing, I’ve lightened the feel. I’m still playing with it so it may look different often when you come to visit. Hopefully you won’t be confused. I like the layout as it is, so I won’t be making many, if any, changes to it. This is mainly a ‘look and feel’ overhaul.

By the way, the new header image is one of the photographs I took at Tamarack last weekend.

Let me know what you think!

Posted on

Help, I’ve been robbed!

Ok, now I’m not an idiot… at least I don’t think I am. However, I’m forced to face the fact that I am, indeed, not as smart as I thought I was.

Allow me to explain.

Most of you know that I’m lazy. I recognize and fully admit that I’m perhaps not as ‘go-getter’ as I should be. In keeping with this knowledge, I pay people to clean my apartment.

Lord knows, were it up to me, it would be done once a year. Now, I’m pretty good about staying on top of the clutter. The dirty clothes pile only grows so large before it is washed and put away. The dishwasher gets run with regularity. Etcetera. However, I do not own a vacuum (I used to own a vacuum, but I’ll let you use your imagination as to where that thing might have ended up…). I have no desire to dust anything. I especially don’t want to clean a toilet.

Basically, my theory boils down to this point. Why torture yourself doing the things you hate when you can afford to pay other people to do?

Thusly, I pay people to clean my apartment for me, and have for the past few months. Now, when I signed up, I knew it was a little steep in price. This is where my laziness has trumped my intelligence. My apartment is small. One bedroom, one bath. 550 square feet of tiny. I finally got around to hiring a cleaning company, and doing the whole ‘on site consultation’ and all that bullshit. (I conquered my laziness that day) I thought to myself, that I’ll pay once or twice to have them clean, then I’ll get someone else. Well, that once or twice turned into months.

They charge me $100 every visit to clean (every other week). Now, I know this is a lot of money, and it always made me sorta pissed to pay it. Unfortunately, not pissed enough to do anything about it. Again, the laziness bludgeoning my intelligence into submission. I rationalized it by telling myself that I’m paying for a good deep clean every other week. I imagined the two girls who sign the little ‘thank you’ card after every clean were there a couple hours really working hard. I’m always at work when the arrive, so I had no clue.

This morning, I didn’t feel very well, and had it not been for the cleaning ladies coming, I probably would have stayed home from work. But, since they were coming, I came to work and left a note for them to call me when they were finished, so if I still felt bad I could head back home.

I’m always at work before 9. What time they usually arrive, I have no idea. Today, I left for work at 8:50. Again, with my mental image of the washer-woman on the floor scrubbing securely in my head, I expect to hear from them say 11ish. What time do they call me saying they’re finished? 9:56 am! I’m paying over a hundred bucks an hour!?! For the love of god, how freakin stupid am I!?

Please, I’m begging you all for a couple things… First… leave me comments and remind me just how big of a schmuck I am. Seriously. Something has to shock me into action. Second, please oh please recommend someone to me who will clean my place for less than I could pay a lawyer to clean my apartment. Preferably someone who won’t rob me blind or something.

Third… Merry Maids is a racket. I think the government should use the RICO statutes to bring them down.

I think it is perfectly clear that I have more money than sense… and I don’t have that much money. Someone shoot me right now.

Posted on

Into the lion’s den, for reals this time

I survived.

For the second time this season, I was venturing into enemy territory. But unlike last time, this was much more interesting. Here is the play by play.

Jess and I got on the road 10:30 on Friday morning. Very uneventful drive. We stopped at Tamarack since neither of us had ever been there. It was very beautiful with the trees changing colors and all. Construction was in HIGH gear. You could not look in any direction and not see full on construction. It was amazing. Pretty much all of Valley County was under construction. I saw more dump trucks, semi loads of lumber, earth movers and the like everywhere. Somehow, we were always behind one of these rigs on the highway. Unbelievable.

Tamarack

We finally made our arrival in the particularly fragrant metropolis of Lewiston-Clarkston. We had to stay in Clarkston due to our late entry into the hotel room sweepstakes for the weekend. Not only were there 2000 bronco fans in the area, but Oregon was visiting Washington State and the thousands of fans the O brought. In our hotel, ye olde Motel 6 had a bunch of Ducks staying there. It actually worked out pretty well staying in Clarkston, other than the smell, that is. Room was far cheaper and the restaurants weren’t super crazy like they were in Moscow.

After check-in, we head on up to Moscow. Jess wanted to put her old campus on display, show me the greek houses, stroll the campus a bit, visit the bookstore. There were a lot of people buying up the merch in the bookstore. It really reminded me of the Blue and Orange store in the mall here on a gameday. Being surrounded by Vandals and their gear didn’t bother me except for one item. They are selling a t-shirt with a soft focus Tiger Beat style headshot of Coach Erickson. This thing is disturbing on many levels. It looks like they pulled this bad boy right out of the Scott Baio silk-screen collection circa 1982. I love Coach Pete as much as the next guy, but I have to think this sort of thing wouldn’t happen here. I can’t even rationally discus it, so I will just move on.

But, Jess was able to stock up to her heart’s delight and we left to go find dinner. We found a little italian joint that was a cross between Olive Garden and Macaroni Grill. Good food. We then headed back ‘home’ and relaxed as we had a big day coming up.

Saturday morning brought game day. We hit Albertsons for tailgating supplies and were on the road. We made it to the Kibbie Dome parking lot about 4 hours to game time. We decided to make a quick loop around the dome to absorb a little atmosphere. We got more than a few odd looks and questions about harmony due to the fact that I was in all orange, and she in her black and gold. And apart from the partially eaten sausage that was lobbed our way, no major incidents happened.

Tailgating

Tailgating was fun. There were a few other Broncos in our area of the parking lot, but we were vastly outnumbered. Jess had a number of friends stop by our spot for a few beers and whatnot, of course, all Vandals. There were the usual collections of anti-Boise State t-shirts (“Boise is not a state”… ho ho ho… hi-lairious. You think that one up all on your own?), not to mention the random “Who do we hate? Boise State!” chants from the large collection of students down the row from us. My comment was, “Personally, I hate Fresno State…”.

See, there is a secret to survival in a hostile environment like that. It is very simple. I like to call it the “Don’t be a Dick” principle. Basically, if you’re not a douche, you’ll probably be ok. I can discuss the game rationally. I know what Idaho has done this season and maintain a conversation about the game beyond, “nuh-uh… YOU suck!” I like to think that I left the various Idaho fans I had spoken to with a positive feeling on Bronco fans. A little self deprecation always helps.

So after a few hours of libations, and becoming properly lubricated, we head into the game. This was the first time I have ever been into the potato barn… er… Kibbie Dome. Jess, this may hurt to hear, but I gotta be truthful… It sucks. Horrible. First of all, indoor football is an abomination that needs to be stricken from the earth. That said, this place is gloomy as hell, especially when all the fans were in black. It was an absolutely glorious autumn day outside. (see the Wazzu v. Oregon game 7 miles away), but we were stuck in the dark, stuffy dome. A perfect waste. The only positive was that the 14,000 Idaho fans could really make some noise in that place. You get some good reverb in there. Of course, on the flip side, the 2,000 Boise State fans could really make some loud noises as well.

Temple of Gloom

The strangest thing happened at this game. I was at the game, but I would be hard pressed to describe what actually happened on the field. It is the weirdest sensation. I don’t know how it happened. My guess is that it had something to do with all of the following factors…

  • Fermented barley and hops intake. Yeah, we had more than a few leading up to game time, but nothing strange there. I’ve certainly done that before.
  • The horrific Kibbie Dome itself (see above)
  • Our seats, being general admission, were… shall we say… less than optimal. We were seated about 5 yards deep in the endzone, second row from the field. Now, you might think, “wow! That close to the field! Great!”, and were this any other sport, you might be correct. But in football it sucks. We were also basically sitting under the video replay board and couldn’t even see that very well. When the play was not within 30 yards of us, I couldn’t tell what was happening. A 6 yard gain looks exactly like a 4 yard loss at that angle. Ugh, sucked. I didn’t know who caught Zabransky’s 2nd touchdown pass until Sunday in the newspaper.
  • Game presentation deficiencies. There were no stats provided. No other scores of the day provided. Audio was terrible, and you couldn’t hear the PA announcer with any regularity.

Basically when I walked out of that game I knew a couple things. a.) Boise State won. b.) Final score of 42-26. c.) Zabransky didn’t play particularly well. and d.) I had a piece of pizza in the 2nd quarter. Thats it. That is all I knew. When we got back to the hotel room after dinner (Zany’s in Lewiston) I turned on ESPN College Gameday Final. They mentioned that Ian Johnson had 183 yards and 4 touchdowns. I was absolutely shocked. I had no idea. I was so totally confused. I was pretty sure I was at the game, but apparently not. Maybe I somehow ended up at the wrong game? Maybe I was caught in a space-time vortex through which reality was jumbled?

So, essentially, what I’m telling you is this… I was at the game, yes. I had a good time. What happened? I have no idea. I have the game recorded and will watch it to try to figure it out.

I do have to say this… We were driving most of the day sunday. Got home late afternoon. My plan was to have a little dinner and watch the Sunday night NFL game. Only, there WAS NO SUNDAY NIGHT NFL GAME. Goddamn World Series. Don’t they get it? No one cares about the World Series, except those in Detroit and St. Louis. Even the gimmicky ESPN college game totally sucked.

Anyway, eight straight. Boise State takes the overall lead back in the series (18-17-1). We are in the drivers seat for the 5th straight WAC championship. Fresno brings their 1-6 record to town next for a national TV tilt.

I still need to make plans for a trip to Reno…

Posted on

Boise State v. New Mexico State Thoughts

BoiseStateSo, here are my thoughts regarding the Boise State at New Mexico State game that was on ESPN HD last night.

First, I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I absolutely adore HD. As strange as it sounds, but when you see a picture like that, you really do feel like you are there. I always thought that was a total cliche, and I suppose it still is, but dammit, it’s true. It really is remarkable. I would love to have a 65″ HD plasma TV to see if that is even more immersive. Maybe someday…

Of course, there are downsides to HD. For some god awful reason, ESPN kept showing us sideline shots of NMSU’s head coach Hal Mumme. My first thought was, “Nick Nolte has a brother who is a D-1 coach?”. Then I noticed something else. For those of who who didn’t catch the game, this guy wears a towel around his neck. Like a big white ‘Addidas’ bath towel. Now, you might think this is just a little quirk like when Jerry Tarkanian would chew on a towel on the bench. Not exactly. See, coach Mumme spends the games BLOWING HIS NOSE INTO THIS TOWEL. And judging by the number of times that ESPN caught this on camera (at least a dozen times. Thank you Mr. Director), he must do it about 300 times a game. Hal… one word… Claritin… it’s not expensive. I swear to god, that towel must have weighed twice as much when the game was over simply in snot accumulation. Very disgusting. Even worse, is he would playfully swat players on the backside with it when they would come off the field. Gee, thanks coach… can I have a handshake instead?

I have issue with the fans as well. They have a team that is leading the nation in passing. High powered offense. They have a national TV network coming into your house to showcase your team, the only college game at the time in the whole nation. They have a top 20 conference rival coming to town. It was a beautiful night of 68 degrees at game time. How many people show up? 16,782. That is pathetic. If you can’t get people excited for that game and come to the stadium, you might as well pack it in. Give up. I have a hard time believing that there is ANYTHING happening in the sprawling metropolis of Las Cruces NM on a Sunday night more important than that game. I know this because Boise is twice the size and there is nothing going on here Sunday nights. Hell, even the competing NFL game was a dog (Oakland is PAH-THETIC). That place seats over 30,000 and you barely get it half full? Not to mention, that many many left at half time (at least that’s what it appeared on TV). NMSU, your sports marketing department either sucks, or the entire city of Las Cruces has in fact died and been replaced with undead zombie versions who don’t give a damn about football.

Finally, the game itself. Boise State won, which is obviously the goal. But when you stop playing for 2 quarters that’s not good. If it would have been against a different opponent, we could have lost by 20. First quarter, we were up 21-0. That was solid. Then we quit for a quarter and a half. C’mon boys… I know you were playing in a mausoleum in front of zombies, but you need to bring your own energy. I think when we got up big, we kinda relaxed and let them back in the game. Really, the two bad turnovers in that time really should have been 2 more touchdowns for us the way we were moving the ball. So, that could have been 35 to 0 and NMSU might have rolled over again.

But, it was a win. And a win is a win. And I will take a win be it by 1 point or 70 points. So long as I don’t have to touch Coach Mumme’s snot rag.

Posted on

Smoke detectors

Smoke DetectorEveryone has them. They are one of those things you don’t think about until you really need them. I have lived in many different places, every one of them had smoke detectors. Of course, I’ve never had a house burn down around me yet, thank God, so I’ve never actually used one.

Well, that is not entirely correct. I’ve had to interact with them multiple times. Which brings me to the reason for this post. Why in the hell is it that it is ALWAYS the middle of the friggin night that they start the slow beeping to tell you the battery is dying? WHY!? I have had this happen at least a half a dozen times, including 3:30am this very morning. It is that one-beep-a-minute deal that is just slow enough that you don’t awake fully and rocket out of bed, but just loud and annoying enough to keep you from actually sleeping. Usually, you spend a good hour or two in and out of sleep, not fully registering that something is going on, but knowing you’re not sleeping very well. Maybe that random beep is reflected in your dreams somehow very strangely.

Why does this NEVER happen say 5pm on a Tuesday, or noon on a Saturday… you know, when you could actually do something about it? Who built this hidden clock into the detector, and why did they think it would be funny? I would seriously like an answer to that.

The devious minds at ThinkGeek.com have a device for sale which is designed to replicate this nightmare for your fun and amusement.  Torture your co-workers with the Mind Molester.

Another question I have is why in my tiny ass, 550 sq.ft. apartment do I have two smoke detectors that are not 10 feet apart? You have all heard those things… they could wake the dead. I truly think that one could suffice the whole apartment… but what to do I know? I don’t have the lucrative government smoke detector racket in my pocket.

I have some thoughts on smoke detector design as well. Now, I’m no electrical engineer or anything, but here are my observations. Way back when, smoke detectors ran on battery power. Ok… makes sense. However, every place that I have lived in in the past 8-10 years has the detectors wired to the house current (as well as each other to sound all alarms when one goes off), yet these devices still have battery backup. Ok, I understand that… they will function even if the power is out. Great idea. Of course, in some houses I’ve seen, like my ex-laws house in New Meadows has a smoke detector near the ceiling… all well and good… but that ceiling is some 30 feet off the ground. How in blue blazes are you going to change that battery at 4 in the morning? Better them than me, thats for sure.

So here is my question. Electronic design has come a long ways. If your smoke detector is wired to current anyway, why couldn’t you simply build in a battery charger and a rechargeable battery? Wouldn’t that make sense? So, instead of replacing a regular old 9-volt every 6 months (like anyone really does that anyway… you’re all like me and wait till it start beeping at you at 2 in the morning), you could have a sturdy lithium-ion rechargeable in there that you might have to replace every 5 or 10 years. Sure, it would cost more, but when you’re building/remodeling, you’d never even notice. Besides, isn’t one less thing to worry about remembering to do worth a few extra bucks? You could make it a ‘smart’ charger that could test the current store on the battery and only charge when it gets low (which is probably every 6 months or so). The charger would bring the battery up to full charge and then shut off for the next 6, 8, 10 months. I fail to see the downside here.

Perhaps someone out there can explain to me why this hasn’t happened yet. Maybe there is some quirk of these devices I don’t know about. I fully admit, I’m no expert. I’m just a guy who got dragged out of bed this morning to rip one of these things off my ceiling just so I could attempt to go back to sleep. And frankly, I could happily live the rest of my life not having to do it again.

Posted on

Cupcakes?

Aparently, in the big cities, cupcake bakeries are all the rage. Being I live in Boise Idaho, I wouldn’t know such things if it weren’t for pop culture.

See Lazy Sunday. A Saturday Night Live video from a few months ago. I guess the Magnolia Bakery in the West Village in Manhattan mentioned in the video has some of the best cupcakes on the planet. “Two, no Six, no, twelve… Bakers Dozen! I told you I’m crazy for these cupcakes cousin!”

Well, it’s time to welcome Boise Idaho (ok, well, Eagle anyway) to the party. We are getting our very own specialty cupcake joint. Opening in a few weeks is Lilly Jane’s Cupcakes. At the corner of Eagle road and highway 44. (Google Maps is the best. True Dat. DOUBLE TRUE)

Do yourself a favor, do not look at the cupcakes they are going to have to offer. Just trust me here. All it is going to do is make you want one (or maybe a dozen) RIGHT NOW. And since they’re not open yet, that can be a serious problem. It is for me. I pray you don’t fall into the trap.

Watch this space for a full review once it opens. I will not, however, review the carrot cake cupcake since I hate that damn stuff. All others are fair game!

“What you wanna do J? Snack attack mutha f*$%@!“

Posted on

In the lion’s den

I’m finally getting around to it, but here is the recap of our adventure last week in Utah.

George and I made the call long ago that we were going to travel down to Salt Lake City for the Boise State vs. University of Utah football game. Perparations were made and tickets bought.

Utah is the easiset away game there is for us as far as travel goes. Just hop on the freeway and in a few hours you’re there. Specifically, 4.5 hours. Living in the west, we’re used to having NOTHING close. Those of you back east don’t realize the distances involved out here. There are no D1 schools closer than Utah and Utah State and they’re 5 hours away. My buddy John lives south of Atlanta, and has about a dozen HUGE schools within 5 hours drive.

So, the plan was to rent some sort of luxury car for a cushy drive down. Since its so close, we’re down and back all in one day, piece of cake.

We rented a Chrysler 300 for the trip. I have to say, I liked it. Then again, I drive a 11 year old car, so at this point, anything less than a couple years old is a serious upgrade. Amazing how far cars have come in that time.

George showed up at the door just after 5 am. We were on the road at 5:30. All things being equal, we might have gotten a little too early a start. But, we made terrific time. Took us right at 4 and a half hours to get down there. I thought we would see a whole caravan of Bronco fans heading down there, but I think we were actually leading that vanguard, so we didn’t see many. However, once we got to Salt Lake City, there was orange EVERYWHERE. Apparently, some 8,000 to 10,000 Boise State fans made the trip down. I believe it.

We found a parking place on campus before 11am, and had a couple hours to kill before game time. So, George had never been downtown (ye olde Temple Square) so we hopped the light rail and rode down there.

We immediately knew something was amis. As we approach the temple, we hear some sort of preaching being played over loud speakers. The whole place was literally crawling with hundreds of guys in shirts and ties and women in skirts. It was downright creepy. We decided to boogie after a short 4 minute visit. Overwhelming. The only saving grace was there was a guy in a kilt playing the bagpipes on the corner. It helped push back the incidious feeling.

George, being the history nerd that he is, said he felt like Saladin. I had to agree.

It got worse. We went into the nearby mall food court to get some food before the game. In said food court, were multiple big screen tv’s also showing some sort of preaching thing. We were well and truly bugged out. (Note, it wasn’t until later that we found out the LDS national conference was happening… at least that helps put everything into context).

Leaving the smiling horde behind us, we head to the game. For those of you who haven’t heard the result, Boise State went in there and took Utah out behind the woodshed for a 36-3 whipping. We were 5.5 point UNDERDOGS in this game. Utah scored the first 3 points of the game (well, after our first three points)… then never scored again. It was quite amusing. Our fans 8,000 fans were louder than their 37,000.

I have to say, when you go into someone else’s house and they’re booing their own team and leaving the game early, you know you’ve really humiliated them.

The downside was our seats in the stadium were in full sun for the whole game. I got absolutely torched. Somehow, I didn’t think about bringing sun screen. The lesson is, as always, I’m a moron.

We were back on the road home at 5pm. Again, I thought we would see a bunch of broncos on the road, but we didn’t. We must have been ahead of everyone. And, just like the trip down, we got home in exactly 4.5 hours.

It was a long day, but was sure worth it. It was ever so amusing to read the columnists from Salt Lake absolutely KILLING their team the next week. Hillarious. That loss of theirs was so bad, the headline of the Associate Press article of their win over TCU mentioned it:Utah shakes off Boise State blowout, steamrolls TCU