Another Encounter with the Friendly TSA: You've Got to Be Kidding

I'm not the kind of guy who responds well to someone who thinks everyone (which includes you and me) they encounter is a moron. I give you the TSA.

I do more than my fair share of traveling. You're welcome. But, I don't travel nearly as much as some of my A-list comrades, who basically live in planes and airports. Most of the carmaker-media events I attend are one or two night affairs. Unfortunately, the one-night events are becoming ever more common. When these take place on the west coast, I often spend more time in airports and on planes than I do at the actual event. I try to avoid these “one nighters” when I can. Put a couple of them back to back in the same week and a weekend doesn't provide enough time to completely recover.

I probably had between 60 and 70 encounters with TSA in 2019. I am pretty well versed in dealing with this agency. Ten-or-so years ago, I ponied up $100 for Global Entry, which includes TSA PreCheck. This streamlines my entry back into the United States after traveling outside its borders. (Something I rarely do anymore.) It also includes expedited PreCheck screening for all domestic flights.

To qualify for Global Entry, I not only had to stroke out a $100 check, I had to fill out an application, be cleared through a background check and spend a day driving to Atlanta where I had a one-on-one interview with a TSA interrogator, was finger printed, and photographed. PreCheck alone costs $85, but I believe involves all the same upfront security screening as Global Entry.

One problem with the PreCheck is, the airlines are allowed to randomly bestow PreCheck on passengers who haven't been through all of the advanced screening. Consequently, everyone in the PreCheck line is still treated with a certain amount of heightened suspicion by TSA personnel. All my efforts and money spent (I have had to renew my Global Entry once since having it for an additional $100.) really only guarantee that I will have PreCheck on every trip. It doesn't mean I'm considered less of a threat. The TSA personnel manning (womening, iting?) the screening lines at the airport have no way to identify people who have been through the Global Entry/PreCheck prescreening process from the airline-awarded random PreCheck passenger. There is absolutely no effort on TSA's part to identify those of us who are registered PreCheck with heightened clearance from those who aren't.

In fact, I'm not even guaranteed PreCheck because TSA will sporadically withhold it. I won't go into that here, but having paid for and survived the prescreening doesn't mean I will get PreCheck 100 percent of the time -- just most of the time.

There are a few major advantages to PreCheck: shorter lines, keeping on your shoes and belt, leaving everything in your carry-on and pretty much keeping everything in your pockets. Right on the TSA website home page it states, “With a 5 year, $85 membership, you can speed through security and don't need to remove your: (sic) shoes, laptops, liquids, belts and light jackets.”

On trips of more than one night, I check a bag. Because I shoot video on most carmaker trips, I have a tripod and some other gear that I pack in a rollerboard with my clothing. That gets checked. I carry on my backpack. Typically it contains a laptop, a kindle, a video camera, a still camera, my cell phone, a gallon plastic bag with batteries and chargers, and other assorted odds and ends. About half the time, a second laptop will be in there, as well. The only item in that backpack that I routinely remove and send through the x-ray separately is the bag of batteries. If left in the backpack, it will get the backpack pulled for a hand search everytime.

My annual Christmas celebration every year includes a journey to my sister's in New Mexico. I drive from Greenville, SC to Atlanta, drop my carmaker test car off at the valet in Park N Fly Plus, shuttle to the airport and pass through security. This year I traveled on the Sunday before Christmas. To minimize the number of miles the ticket cost, I booked a flight that left Atlanta at 2:15 p.m. My average drive time to Atlanta airport is two-and-a-half hours. I left my house at 9:30 for a leisurely drive to Atlanta. I didn't realize it was raining until I loaded my bags into my car. I would have left another 30 minutes earlier had I known. As it was, the drive required nearly three hours that day thanks to a wreck on I-85 about 60 miles outside of Atlanta.

When I entered the security line, I had an hour and forty-five minutes before my flight was scheduled to depart. Plenty of time, right? I have PreCheck. I had removed and left at home several of my usual backpack items for this “pleasure” trip because I didn't need them. I left behind the cameras and bag of batteries. I did have two laptops (I had some work to do.) and my Kindle.

Atlanta has adopted this ludicrous bin system at the security x-ray machine. There are a half dozen stations where passengers must take a bin for every different item they are sending through the x-ray. Once you've taken your place at one of these stations, you grab a bin from down below, place it in the staging area, put you bag or whatever in it and then wait for an opportunity to push it on to the conveyor belt. Once that bin is on is way along the belt, if you have another item, you repeat the process. If you are at one of the stations downstream you might stand and wait five minutes before the stream of bins provides an opening to shove your bin into. Somewhere, someone probably earned a promotion and a bonus for thinking up this better mousetrap; except, it is less efficient and more time consuming than the line moving up one person at a time, filling a bin(s) and putting it on the end of the conveyor. Even though it is clear this system is less efficient than the traditional way practiced at most airports, Atlanta has invested so much money into the new system, we'll be stuck with it for years.

From the time I stepped up to a station at the conveyor on that Sunday, it required almost 35 minutes for me to clear security. Some of that time was eaten up by the wait at my station to insert my bin on to the conveyor. Some of that time was also spent because this was apparently TSA training day. The person operating the x-ray was obviously training. He paused at every bag, staring at the x-ray screen as though he were participating in a “Where's Waldo” tournament. The line was barely moving. Finally my bag moved into the x-ray machine and I cleared the passenger x-ray. I stood on the other end for at least five minutes before my bag exited the x-ray machine and another five minutes before it moved far enough down the conveyor that anyone could get to it. When it got there, it was pulled off the conveyor for hand screening.

As frustrating as it is, bags being pulled for no real reason does happen. The problem here was, the genius watching the x-ray monitor was having one out of every three bags pulled. The bags selected for hand searching were stacked up like cord wood. When a TSA person finally got to my bag, he pulled out one of the laptops, scolding me that according to regulations, if you have two laptops, one of them must be removed.

“Since when?” I asked. Thinking perhaps this was a new regulation and looking for some clarification.

“It's always been that way,” was the response.

“I beg to differ,” I said. “This is far from the first time I've traveled with two laptops and it's never been an issue.”

“That's the way it's always been,” he persisted as he rifled through the rest of my bag with a Delta 2 Million Miles tag waving in his face. This obviously wasn't my first rodeo.

He took my bag and the now-removed laptop back to the x-ray for a second run through. Five minutes later both items exited the x-ray. At which time, my bag was pulled for a hand search again. WTF? I about popped my cork.

I attempted to get the attention of one of TSA bag searchers to get my bag, which had already been hand searched, into the front of the line. No luck. I stood helplessly as four or five bags were searched ahead of mine. When my bag reached the front of the line, the same TSA clown got it again. “I'm not getting this,” I said, “this bag has been searched. You searched it.”

“Well, it's going to get searched again,” he responded.

“I have a flight to catch.”

“So does everyone else here,” Captain Obvious replied.

“Yeah, but their bags haven't been through the x-ray twice and searched once,” I said as calmly as I could at this point.

With that, he pulled out my Kindle. “Only one electronic item can go through the x-ray,” he chided

“You guys are now considering a Kindle the same as a laptop?” I asked, reacting to what was also a new development.

“We always have.” was the only response I received as he handed me the laptop that had gone through by itself the last time. He carried my bag with the remaining laptop, as well as my separated Kindle back to the x-ray and ran them through again. This time everything came out unmolested. Tick-tock. Thirty-five minutes. Wow, this PreCheck thing is quite the deal.

How many of you reading this have been in a PreCheck line and heard a TSA wonk yell, “Everything stays in your bag.” I've probably heard it nearly every time I've flown since PreCheck began. What in the world changed since the last time I flew two weeks earlier? I wondered.

Fast forward to my flight back to Atlanta on December 27. In the PreCheck line in Albuquerque. I get to the conveyor, grab three bins and commence removing the Kindle and one of the laptops from my backpack. “Leave everything in your bag,” the TSA drone instructed.

“Yeah, but I have two laptops and a Kindle in here,” I said.

“Doesn't matter,” he replied. “This is PreCheck and everything stays in your bag.”

“You should tell TSA in Atlanta that,” I answered.

“Everything stays in the bag for PreCheck,” he reiterated, as though I hadn't said anything.

“You should tell TSA in Atlanta that,” I repeated. “They said only one electronic item could remain in the bag. I had to send a laptop and the Kindle through separately.”

“Every airport has its own rules,” he said as I turned and walked through the metal detector.

Every airport has its own rules? What? How does that work? Anyone who travels with any frequency understands the TSA is more about show than substance. I get that, but every airport has its own rules? Why have TSA at all. Why not just have every airport hire a bunch of mall cops? Why even put on a show of having any sort of national standards?

The culprit causing half of the stress involved in flying today is the TSA. The Disney World-like lines, the constant shouting of instructions, the bag hand searches, pat downs and so on. At least they could make some effort at consistency. There is no reason in the world the security procedures in Atlanta shouldn't be exactly the same as in Salt Lake City, San Francisco or Greenville/Spartanburg.

And, of course, making any protest beyond a mild question or two will result in being ushered off into room somewhere, cooling your heels as your flight departs. Is this a great country or what.

Saving Big Bucks: I Did a Little Cord Cutting

I'm not the kind of guy who loves change. In fact, I hate it. And, it's not because I'm old; although, I suspect my embrace of change has weakened in my declining years. I can't tell because I never liked it. I'm a creature of habit. I drink at the same places when in Greenville. I try to park in the same row in the same lot whenever I fly out of the local airport. Saturday nights at home mean Italian food and rented movies. I like to stick to a routine. Does that make me boring? I don't know, but I do know I'm not bored.

During the past 30 days I initiated two big changes in my connectivity. So far, so good.

I have contemplated “cutting the cord,” abandoning my cable TV completely for more than a year. Until the first of this month, the main source of my TV programming was AT&T's Uverse. Available sources for my programming consist of Uverse and Comcast. Because of a copse of tall pine trees on the adjoining lot on my property's southern border, satellite TV has never been an option. I also pay for Netflix and get programming through Amazon Prime.

When I first moved to Greenville, Comcast was my only option. Boasting the worst DVR in the industry, Comcast was a compromise I simply couldn't live with long term. As soon as Uverse became available in my area eight or nine years ago, I dumped Comcast and picked up Uverse. Eventually AT&T provided my cell phone service, my broadband and my TV.

A few months ago I dropped its broadband for Spectrum, thus saving $20 a month and improving my speed by a thousand percent. With AT&T, uploading a 30-minute video to YouTube required seven or eight hours. I can upload the same video through Spectrum in about 45 minutes.

Beginning November 1, I dropped Uverse. The monthly cost without any movie channels was around $120 a month. That works out to $1,440 a year. Hey, I work for a living. Forking out nearly $1,500 a year for TV that I'm only home to watch about 250 days a year simply doesn't work for me anymore. After looking at streaming alternatives, I settled on YouTube TV. My monthly bill with fees is less than $55 a month or less than $660 per year. That's an annual savings of $780 over Uverse.

I am satisfied with the switch to streaming so far. Two downsides are first, I no longer have a guide for upcoming programming. That is not a big deal, I rarely watch TV in real time. The programs I record are on a weekly schedule. The second shortcoming is I can no longer fast forward through the commercials. Because the programs I record are set up to stream, the commercials are limited, but I'd still prefer to fast forward through them. I'm getting used to this change. (Update: YouTube TV recently enhanced its recording capability that allows fast forwarding through commercials on recorded programs. Yea!)

To recap, in switching my broadband and TV services from AT&T to other sources, I'm saving more than $1,000 a year. That's a lot of bourbon.

AT&T is forcing me to haul my DVR, modem, remote and assorted wires to UPS to ship them back. All of this stuff is over eight years old. I suspect they will open the box and then chuck the whole mess into the trash. This is more to punish me for leaving them than it is to somehow refurbish all that junk for someone else's use.

I have to make a trip to UPS anyway. When you reach a certain age, rather than a colonoscopy, the health of your colon can be evaluated by shipping your poop off somewhere to be analyzed. I call it, “poop in a box.” The company sends a box in which you poop. You then take said box to UPS and some poor counter person sends it on its way. In the case of my Uverse junk, UPS boxes it up, labels the box and sends it off free of charge. I will accomplish both these tasks on the same visit. I hope the UPS clerk doesn't make a mistake and switch them. Someone at Uverse will be in for a big surprise.But it would accurately reflect my feelings about them gouging me all these years.

My second big step in the past 30 days was to replace my P.O.S. Samsung Galaxy S7 with a Google Pixel 3A smartphone. I only had my S7 for seven months when I dumped it. I must confess, I made the change for reasons other than not liking the S7. I would have held on to it for at least 12 months. I hate spending hundreds of dollars on something as stupid as a phone. As it is, I never buy a phone new. I buy phones that are at least a generation old and save roughly half on them. But, in the case of the 3A, it was still about $350.

One of my main gripes with the S7 was that almost every day, I would have to access it by typing in my password rather than using my thumb print. I know. Not exactly the last chopper out of Saigon, but annoying nonetheless. Doing a little research, I found this is a common issue with the S7. There is a very involved possible fix, but I never could muster the energy to follow the numerous steps. I don't get it. The damn phone updates itself once or twice a month with things that have no bearing on my usage nor service. Why not do an update and fix a real problem? Nope. At least once a day I'd have to type in my password.

The real reason I switched phones is I wanted a phone better suited to live broadcasting to Facebook and YouTube. My team (Yes, I have a BEER2WHISKEY team.) will be live broadcasting from Barley's Biggest Little Beer Fest in January. After talking to people who do a lot of live broadcasts and researching gear, I decided the simplest path would be to use a smartphone. Always one to take the easiest road, I began looking for a smartphone capable of broadcasting in HD (S7 isn't) that also has a 3.5 jack to plug in an exterior microphone. Of course, it had to have a great camera, as well. The 3A filled the bill.

Thus far I am pleased with the 3A. I have yet to find anything to hate. That's a major thing in itself. If we are Facebook friends, you will probably see more live broadcasts from me between now and the January beer fest as I attempt to get comfortable with the process. I did some live broadcasting from the Whiskey Vault and the Texas Truck Rodeo a couple of weeks ago. Seemed to be fine.

Stay tuned. More to come.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Managing My Expectations

I'm not the kind of guy who always sees a glass as half full. In fact, you wouldn't need look too far among those who know me well to find someone who would laugh out loud at the idea I'm a half-full guy at all. Some of that reaction is based on the character I play. Yes, I do some play acting, even among my friends. Inner Russ, the one people don't see much of, usually hopes for the best, but mentally prepares for the worst. Part of that preparation often surfaces as negative statements. Does that make me fun to be around? Probably not. This is particularly true when the Pittsburgh Steelers are involved.

I have friends who won't watch a Steelers game with me. I can't blame them.

Truth be told, I have calmed down a lot where the Steelers are concerned. Life is too short, especially from where I'm sitting, to get all wound up about something that has absolutely no impact on my world. I still wear my black-and-gold colors on most game days and watch the games when I can. My Sunday watering hole doesn't have Direct TV's Sunday Ticket. I'm not willing to forsake my normal Sunday routine to go sit in a crowded, noisy sports bar to see the game. So, unless the game is carried by my local CBS affiliate, which is indeed rare, I miss at least the first half of most of the Sunday early games.I might wander into a sports bar for the second half.

If they have the second Sunday game, as they do against the 49ers today, I'll miss the game entirely if it's not shown locally. I often only watch the first half of night games because, win or lose, I'm too amped up after a game to sleep. It takes me a couple of hours to wind down enough to fall asleep. If I began that process at 11:00, I don't fall asleep until 1:00 or so. I wake up at the same time no matter what, which means I get four or five hours of sleep, tops. That doesn't work for me.

Much of my growing indifference to the Steelers fate results from their colossal under performance the past three years. If a team doesn't have the personnel or the coaching talent to get it to the Super Bowl, well, as a fan, I can understand that. But a team populated with the veteran talent the Steelers have had in recent seasons to sputter and stall enough to either not make the playoffs or lose in the first round of playoffs, is disheartening. It's also inexcusable.

So, now we find ourselves in the 2019 season. Bell is gone. Brown is gone. Ben is out for the season. Does any of that matter? They were inconsistent as hell with those three guys playing. The Steelers couldn't get to the championship game with those three guys there and healthy. What now that we're in uncharted waters?

The good news for me as a Steelers fan is, I have no expectations. If the Steelers manage a .500 season, I will be surprised. Any win they get will be a gift. Christmas come early. I know very little about Mason Rudolph, Big Ben's backup. I was traveling last Sunday and missed the entire game. He may be the second coming of Big Ben. I don't know. Can Pittsburgh somehow get its running game together? I don't know. Can the defense find a path to holding the opposing offense to fewer points than the Steelers offense puts up? I don't know. But, I'm not counting on any of those things.

I have no expectations. Based on the first two games and the loss of Big Ben, I have envisioned a season where every game will be an up-hill slog. We can't even count on beating the Browns this season.

In other words, I am confident I won't be disappointed this season. Hope for the best and mentally prepare for the worst. Oh, I'm prepared.

Make Your Plans and Listen to God Laugh: A Lost Week

Say, hello, to my little friend.....

I'm not the kind of guy who often shares his ailments and infirmities with others. I'm 68; I have my share, believe me. Outside of my surgeon, six people were aware of it before I went into throat surgery that put me into intensive care for two nights: my friend who has my power of attorney and her husband, the friend who I asked to drive me to the surgery and his wife, and my craft-beer partner Big Jon and our Sunday bartender. The only reason Big Jon and our bartender were aware is because the surgery was scheduled the day after the 2018 Super Bowl. I had to fess up as to why I was sipping water rather than guzzling beer during the game.

I didn't tell anyone else because, well, why would I? Those who did know were under strict orders not to visit me at the hospital. I didn't want anyone taking time out of their day to show up at my bedside with a Mylar balloon, making small talk. Screw that. If this involved a six-week stay to recover, then maybe a visit from someone would be a welcome change of pace. But, I knew this would be a short recovery. Just go about your business and we'll have a drink when I am sprung.

I didn't even tell my New Mexico-based family. It would have made a wreck out of my sister. The entire family would have been crazed for the three-day information blackout extending from the surgery until my release. I didn't want the pressure of trying to keep them or anyone else updated. Get in, get out and that's that. I did finally let the cat out of the bag a couple of days after returning home.

I have all the aches and pains someone my age endures, but I don't talk about it. Who cares? I'm old, right? It happens.

Now that I'm on the other side of it, however, I will share that I was as sick this past week as I have been in years, if not decades. It reared its ugly head late Monday (Labor Day) and persisted throughout the week. Apparently a stomach bug of some sort, it reeked havoc with my digestive tract. It was relentless and fierce.

I won't go into the details beyond saying, my water bill will be significantly higher this month and Charmin dispatched an extra tractor-trailer truck of Ultra Strong to the Greenville region.

Twice during the week I flirted with heading to Urgent Care. I'd never dealt with anything quite like this before and the idea that his might be the symptom of something more sinister nagged at me in a whisper for four days.

I didn't sleep for two of those nights, didn't eat anything beyond a couple of nibbles from a protein bar for three days and didn't have the energy to shower. I had no appetite. A couple of bouts with light headedness inspired me to begin chugging copious amounts of water to battle dehydration. On Wednesday afternoon, I dragged myself to my car, headed to CVS and purchased some Imodium. 

At the checkout the clerk cheerfully asked how my day was going. I pushed the box toward him and said, "You be the judge."

Seven of those tablets over the next 24 hours capped the flow. Friday was the day that had me really considering Urgent Care. The worst was past, but I still felt off. I was still listless and weak. I still had no appetite. Was this symptomatic of something bigger, I asked myself for the 20th time. Again, I chose to skip Urgent Care. Most of the day on Saturday was more of the same, but toward the late afternoon I heard a welcome sound and felt a longed-for rumble: My stomach was growling.

Mac & Cheese sounded good and sufficiently innocuous. I thought I might have a box squirreled away somewhere. Nope. No such luck. I opted instead to heat up some Prego and boil some pasta. I wolfed down half a plate. I spent the rest of the evening watching movies and waiting for dinner to cause a sprint to the bathroom. But, no.

I went to bed hoping for my first good-night's sleep in nearly a week. I awoke this morning with my eyelids crusted shut. I pried them open and glanced at the clock. Trumpets sounded, a flock of doves took flight, bells tolled in celebration and a choir of angels sang, “Halleluliah.” It was 7:30. I had managed to clock nine hours of nearly uninterrupted sleep. Oh happy day!

In the negative column: This was to be a week of work for me. I basically produced no revenue in August. This was my week to get back to work. Nope. All I managed to do was edit this week's and next week's episodes of BEER2WHISKEY. I did this week's segment on Wednesday. It was a segment that should have required about three hours to edit. It required around five hours. I'd edit for 15 or 20 minutes and then lie down for 15 minutes. I also managed to sit upright at my laptop for about three hours on Thursday submitting four or five already-written assignments to a client.

It was also to be six straight days in the gym. Nope. I've been twice since arriving home on Aug 30.

So, that's my story. I feel recovered – just in time for beer-drinking day at Smoke, as well as some football – and back on top of my game. Ain't life grand!

It's Just Bourbon: A New Chapter in the BEER2WHISKEY Saga

I'm not the kind of guy who expects different results from doing the same thing. I may be crazy, but I'm not insane. At least that's what I tell the voices in my head. What I do know for sure is that there are only so many hours in a day. As I mature (translation: grow old), I highly treasure my available productive hours. I treasure all my time, really; but productive hours are those in which I have the energy and motivation to accomplish one task or another.

Historically I've been a slacker at heart. Neutral, and not overdrive, my natural gear. I have always been a procrastinator rather than a doer. My over-worn response to my mother when she would remind me of some basic chore, like taking out the garbage, was, “It's at the top of my list.” It was a list that rarely saw anything checked off. Alfred E. Neuman was my role model.

My attitude has somewhat evolved during the last decade. Maybe that's a result of a ride around the block on the reality bus, bringing me face to face with my mortality; but I find myself less and less inclined to waste time. In fact, I abhor it.

I confess that most days when I'm in residence at my Greenville home I am in my recliner in front of the TV by 4:30 or 5. I watch a fair amount of TV when I am in town – none of it educational in any way, shape or form. Nope. I'm one of those escapism-TV types. I enjoy brainless TV. But, the only way I can plop down in front of the TV at the end of the day is if I have actually accomplished something earlier. I have to have done something to earn some money, put in a few hours working on the house or furthering one of my video projects.

My Saturdays have suffered most from this new-found work ethic. I always loved Saturdays because it is the one day of the week when I had nothing to do and all day to do it. I didn't even need to fret about going to work the next day because it was Sunday. Now I find I can't just sit on my rump watching movies all day. Things left undone don't call to me, they scream to me. Ugh, I hate being responsible. Now, even on Saturdays, I must accomplish something.

When you freelance doing anything from home, you either adopt a degree of self starting or you starve. Think of it as a daily gym workout. The toughest thing about going to the gym is, well, going to the gym. Donning your gym attire, pushing yourself out the door and making the trip to the gym is the toughest part of the exercise. Beginning some project, any project, demands some amount of self motivation. I have somehow developed that.

Making yourself productive when you don't punch a clock or have someone prodding you on is a challenge. Inertia is my natural state. Setting myself in motion requires some serious inner dialogue. Prioritizing tasks is another learned skill that remains a struggle for me. That list of things to do is always in my head taunting me with the tasks remaining undone. A decade ago I could tune them out. Today: not so much.

The above is a preface to sharing with you that I have made a slight change of direction in my BEER2WHISKEY YouTube channel. Over the past couple of years I invested a ton of money in to this project. Acquiring all the necessary gear, including editing software, and traveling around the country shooting videos all cost money. I decided that this year, I'd scale back on the B2W trips. I did take a road trip to Ohio in May to shoot some brewery videos; but because I drove and stayed with a fraternity brother in Dayton, the cost was minimal.

I am always pondering other things I might introduce into the B2W format that will 1) gain some audience traction, and 2) be cheap to produce. I decided to try something new and created the “It's Just Bourbon” playlist. The plan is to shoot videos in my home with me (and perhaps sporadically me plus one) talking about bourbon. Some videos will be recommending specific bourbons and some will be tasting them. The first of these went live last Thursday; I've embedded it at the end of this post.

“It's Just Bourbon” checks a few boxes for me. It certainly fulfills the “cheap” requirement. It also allows me to shoot multiple segments at a single sitting as does the “Big Jon in 5” playlist. Plus, it also contributes to the whiskey content, which has been somewhat lacking to date.

So, addressing the “not doing the same things and expecting a different result” statement at the top of this post, we'll see how well this new playlist works. Early returns are in and I'm optimistic. We'll see.

A note to my TAWA friends: I am putting together a small group to visit Austin's Whiskey Vault on the Sunday afternoon we arrive for the Truck Rodeo. I booked a 1:30 p.m. reservation for October 27^th. I directly reached out to a few members who I know would have an interest, but the reservation is for up to 12. Three of us have already registered. Anyone attending the Rodeo, including non-media types, with some interest, reach out to me and I'll provide more details. Cheers!

Red Box Failure Turns into Old-Movie Gold

"Wow" From "The Great Escape."

I'm not the kind of guy who can't appreciate old movies. No, I'm not a huge fan of Casablanca, but I own DVDs of several John Wayne films and watch them from time to time. And, of course, there are classics such as “The Godfather,” “The Great Escape,” “The Magnificent Seven” and “Hard Bodies.”

I am waxing on about old movies because I watched one last night. First a bit of background. On Saturdays that I'm in residence at Casa Heaps, I usually rent a couple of Red Box movies. Sometimes they are movies I know about and have an interest in watching, and sometimes they are movies I'm not familiar with.

Yesterday I rented two movies I knew nothing about. One was “London Fields.” It's one of those movies defying description. “Mulholland Drive” meets “Pulp Fiction” is about as close as I can come. Never have I watched a movie so centered around sex in which there was no skin. That, at least, would have been a redeeming quality. At no time before, during or after watching it did I have a clue what it was about. I could have dozed off three minutes into it and awoken in time for the end credits and had the same tenuous grasp of the plot that I have now. I rented it because it stars Amber Heard and Billy Bob Thornton. How bad could it be? I reasoned. Bad enough.

Not since Cheech and Chong has anyone made a career out of burning one.

The other DVD I rented was a comedy? Apparently so. I had never heard of it. Called “Long Shot,” it features Charlize Theron, whom I like a lot, and Seth Rogen, whom I don't. Obviously I rented it based on Theron. I can't tell you what this movie is about either because I ejected the DVD about 20 minutes into it. Rogen has had a very successful 20-year career essentially playing the role of the “stoned dude” in countless movies and TV shows. It's as though he is on the top of Central Casting's list for burned-out doper. “Hey, the script calls for someone who can pull off a couple of marijuana gags; send for Rogen.” Rogen's character's name in this turkey is Fred Flarsky. If that made you chuckle, it would have been the only such reaction you would have watching this thing. I guess the writers went with Fred Flarsky because Paul Blart had already been used.

This brings us to the old movie I wound up watching to fill in for “Long Shot.” I probably haven't watched it in five years, but last evening, as I scanned the 200 DVDs in my cabinet, my gaze came to rest on “Proof of Life.”

I didn't realize until I researched it this morning that this movie was released in 2000. I think 19 years qualifies it as old. I was sort of surprised it was that long ago. It still holds up reasonably well. It's notable on several levels; none having to do with the story or its execution – both of which are solid.

No, what I find noteworthy about this film that failed so spectacularly at the U.S. box office despite being good is, it was the movie that brought Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe together. Their fling began just as her marriage to Dennis Quaid was ending. In one fell swoop, Ryan fell from grace as America's darling. Her career never really rebounded from that six-month tryst. She finally drove a stake through the heart of her reputation with her role in "In the Cut" that released in 2003.

"Bad news, David, looks like your movie career is about over."

"Proof of Life" is also notable as providing our last glimpse of David Caruso on the big screen. If you recall, he left the wildly popular cop series NYPD Blue in 1994, after just one year, to pursue a career in the movies. It never really happened. A supporting role in “Proof of Life” was probably his biggest movie, and it was about his last.

As it turned out, I was sort of glad I had invested two bucks so poorly in renting “Long Shot.” It provided the motivation to revisit an old favorite. Maybe I have finally learned my lesson for taking a flyer on movies I've never heard of. Then again, probably not.

Internet Shopping Misadventures: $20 Underwear

I'm not the kind of guy who typically blabs about what lies between his person and his Wrangler jeans. Not because it isn't polite conversation, but because, well, who really cares? However, I am breaking with tradition in this Clanging Bell post to talk about a recent experiment with some high-end briefs. Yes, when it comes to underwear, I became a card-carrying, brief-wearing member of the one percent.

Here's the thing, up until a year or so ago, I believed I was already a one percenter in the men's-briefs department. I've been wearing Tommy Hilfiger briefs for years. Currently at Amazon, you can have a four pack delivered (in two days for free as a Prime member) for $22.99. To prevent your head exploding from doing a little long division without a calculator, I've done the math. That works out to about $5.75 per brief. I think that's plenty to pay to keep Big Rusty and the boys from getting caught in my zipper.

Several months ago I was rescued from my fog of briefs ignorance when a buddy began regaling me with stories about the $25 per-pair Tommy John underwear he had begun wearing. He waxed on about the comfort, easy access and overall superiority of his briefs to any that had preceded his new top-dollar underwear. “It's like wearing nothing,” he insisted. "He really likes them," his wife chimed in. My curiosity was piqued. I like the idea of wearing nothing. I do it at home all the time. It used to scare the bejezzus out of the cat, but, hey, my house, my rules.

Despite wanting to share in his experience, I simply couldn't bring myself to pony up 25 bucks for one pair of underwear. Who does that? Sure, I want my junk to have a safe, cozy home, but I seemed to be adequately providing that with sub-six-dollar briefs. Plus, I didn't want something called Tommy John's that close to my business.

Here's a bit of advice, if you find yourself shopping on the Internet with a beer, a glass of wine or a pour of bourbon in one hand as you search with the other, stop, log off and walk away. Nothing good can come of it. Two or three days later you will find a salad spinner, a case of Rice A Roni or a couple of pair of $20 briefs on your doorstep. I've seen it happen.

As I was messing around on the Internet one day, a pop-up ad for Mack Weldon magically appeared. I had never heard of Mack Weldon, but there was a photo of some cut dude wearing a pair of Mack Weldon briefs. Wow, they looked good on him, I considered. I clicked on the ad, which landed me on its site, opening the door to $20 briefs.

I took the plunge and put two pair in my cart. As a new customer, I qualified for free shipping, if I spent at least $50; so, I bought a pair of $14 socks, too. I like socks, as my credit line with Bombas will attest. I can always use another pair of overpriced socks, I figured. A few days later my Mack Weldon package arrived.

I opened the package, admired my purchases and tossed the two pairs of briefs into my suitcase. I had a trip to Asheville the following day for a Hyundai event. I decided to use that stage as the maiden cruise for my high-end undies.

I slipped a pair on the first day and tried to calculate how they might be superior to my regular briefs. I came up with nothing. The briefs I chose are what the manufacturer calls 18-Hour Jersey Briefs. Maybe I should have sprung for the $24 AIRKNITx Briefs. Well, perhaps you need to pull on some pants to gain the full effect? I did. Nada. Then I decided that maybe I needed to give them the full 18 hours to be able to appreciate their superiority. At the end of the day, I remained unconvinced the $14 more I paid over my Hilfiger's was well spent.

And the kicker is, none of my buddies realized I was wearing $20 underwear. I spent the day with a bunch of these guys and the price of my underwear never came up in the conversation. Once, after the drinks began flowing, I almost blurted out, “I'm wearing $20 underwear! How much did yours cost?” But the urge quickly passed.

As for them feeling like you're wearing nothing at all, nah. The only way to feel like you are wearing nothing at all is to wear nothing at all. My days of going commando ended for good after my first screening of “There's Something About Mary.” The phrase “frank and beans” still gives me nightmares.

So, the great $20-Brief Experiment of 2019 was a bust. Maybe the socks will impress me.

One Way to Spend Indepence Day

Just another Sunday afternoon in South Florida.

I'm not the kind of guy who really does much in the way of celebrating the summer holidays. I don't have a circle of friends in Greenville who regularly get together for cookouts and other activities most associated with Memorial Day, Labor Day and Independence Day. (Yes, I used the politically incorrect term “Independence Day.” Many of those born after 1990, are scratching their heads and thinking, what the hell is Independence Day?) I'm usually left to my own devices for the summer holidays.

Hey, we never really needed a reason to head to someone's house and toss back a couple by the pool.

When I lived in Florida, any day the average person was free from work was cause to gather, tip a few beers, cook burgers and lounge around a friend's pool. This held true whether it was a state-mandated holiday or a weekend. I'm sure everyone wasn't as fortunate as I to have have a platoon of friends with a similar mindset to mine. Not everyone in South Florida was at the beach, on a boat or cavorting in a friend's pool, but an awful lot of folks were. It's probably the only thing I really miss about no longer living in Florida: Having an infinite supply of good friends with whom to goof off.

Consequently my Independence Day this year looked like any other day for me. I arose at my usual time, which is between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. I was at my PC 20 minutes later responding to e-mails and hitting my favorite news sites. I then polished up a story for a client that I had written the day before. By 9:00, I was finishing up installing the new ceiling fan on the front porch. Thirty minutes later I was out mowing the dirt. I have about three-quarters of an acre to mow. Roughly 20 percent of that is flat. The rest is hill. Compounding the task are the swales for water runoff, running along two sides of my lawn. Mowing always requires about 90 minutes of work and at least that much time recovering afterwards. I skip the gym on mowing days; after all, how much cardio does a guy need? Even a fat, old guy?

After cooling down and eating a quick lunch, I had a decision to make: Shower, dress and head downtown for a few hours of bar hopping, or stay home and paint? I chose the latter. I had declared this the season to paint the outside trim of my house. Areas that suffer the brunt of weather, like step railings, get painted every two or three years, but this was to be an all-inclusive trim painting. For the first time in the 11 years owning this house, I was going to paint the front-porch and carport ceilings.

The front porch turned out rather well, I think.

Actually, I had already painted both those ceilings by that time. Last weekend, I pressure washed both the front porch and carport in preparation for painting. When I hit the painted areas in the carport, I stripped off a lot of the paint. My goal was to complete the carport painting before the next big rain.

I went ahead and painted the front-porch ceiling that day, while I had all the stuff off the porch and in the front yard. I didn't want to have to move all the furniture and the rug more than once. Both ceilings are bead board, which entails cutting in the grooves between each plank with a brush, then rolling the flats. I cut in and rolled the front-porch ceiling the same day as I pressure washed everything. I then moved all the porch furnishings back before night fall.

Another masterpiece in home renovation: the carport-painting project 2019.

The following day, I cut in all the grooves on the carport ceiling and then rolled it on Wednesday. This brought me to Independence Day. After lunch, I used painter's tape along the borders of the ceiling and then painted all the white trim. By 4:00, I had cleaned up the mess, showered and was cranked back in my recliner with a pour of Wathens bourbon and a little TV.

I grilled a steak and fried up some hash browns for dinner. I was in bed by 10:30. Another Independence Day for the record books. I was sufficiently bushed that my collapse into a sound sleep wasn't disturbed by all the fireworks exploding in the neighborhood.

Would I rather have been hanging out, drinking, laughing and eating too much potato salad? Yes, I would have. But, I managed to accomplish a lot. I can settle for that.

A Kitchen Remodel May Happen Yet!

My Greenville homestead.

I'm not the kind of guy to rush into things, this despite the fact I chose my last two houses on the first day of those house hunts. Although it took a bit longer to submit a contract for the Boynton Beach house I purchased in 2001, I saw my Greenville house on day one of my search and submitted an offer three days later. The three-day cooling-down period for the Greenville house was only because I found it on a Greenville trip on Friday, and had to wait until I was back in Florida on Monday morning to get things rolling.

Should I have taken a little more time in finding a house in Greenville? Yes, indeed. But, my Boynton house doubled in value in three years. It caused me to think I was an expert when I pulled the trigger on the Greenville home. Yeah, right.

Any way, I don't typically rush into things, particularly when it involves big sums of money. I've been shopping for a car for 28 years, for example.

Other than some smaller, niggling maintenance jobs around the house, the next big project will be remodeling the kitchen. A task requiring ripping out and replacing all the bottom cabinets, relocating the sink, fridge and dishwasher, putting down a new floor in the kitchen and dining area, replacing the counter top, and replacing all the appliances. There is a bit of related work, as well, like cutting away some of the upper cabinet where the refrigerator will eventually reside. Even doing the work myself, I'm figuring a number somewhere between $10,000 and $12,000. Ouch.

My intention was to embark on this journey last fall, but my paying work began evaporating in September and dried up to an agonizing trickle by the end of November. Like the grasshopper, I hadn't prepared for such a winter downturn. When my work had been flowing, I was putting money into video gear and trips to shoot segments for BEER2WHISKEY. Rolling into January 1 of this year, I didn't have one penny more in savings than I had on that date a year earlier. In fact, my savings was down about 15 percent. The kitchen project was on hold.

The first quarter this year wasn't any better. I wasn't even thinking about the kitchen remodel. Heck, I was contemplating selling the house. Like someone flipping a switch, work began again in earnest in April and continues.

Having shoveled some money into my savings, I am now pondering the kitchen remodel again. One stumbling block had always been, how much to do? At some point, I will sell this house. Even though I own it free and clear, it's never really free or clear. There are taxes, insurance and, maintenance costs. A couple unavoidable maintenance costs, such as a new roof, sewer line, air handler and so forth, all come due eventually. I don't want to deal with any of them. The stay-or-sell question's answer has always been, sell; but when? If I'm going to sell soon, I will do less in the kitchen. I won't relocate things, for one. It won't mean a whole lot in the cost, but will take much less time.

Recently, one of the cracker-box houses across the side street from me (I live on a corner lot.), was purchased by an investment company that has poured tens of thousands into it. That project is wrapping up. This past week, a dumpster appeared in the driveway of the vacant house next to it. Oh, be still my heart. I've been waiting 11 years for someone to begin pouring some bucks into my neighborhood, which once was the married-officers quarters for Donaldson Air Force Base. I live off of one of Greenville's major drags: Augusta Street (or Road, depending where on it you are). Less than a mile up Augusta are $300,000 plus homes. I've been waiting all these years for that to spread south. Looks like it may now be doing just that.

So, now I am thinking that I will stay another couple of years, at least, and let my house follow the neighborhood up in value.

In my spare time the past few days, I've been online looking at kitchen cabinets and dreaming. I'm still not quite ready to make a move, but I'm getting closer.

Buying a Mattress on the Internet: Not Always Smooth Sailing

My God, it's magnificent. I've always wanted a Flying Wallendas Bed, and here it is!

I'm not the kind of guy who over indulges himself, unless you count $100 bottles of bourbon, $500 cowboy boots and $12 per-pair casual socks (love those Bombas). Okay, so maybe I indulge myself a little. But, the newest piece of furniture in my house is a $450 expandable dining table and four wooden folding chairs to match. I bought it six or seven years ago. It has been used exactly once. Virtually every other stick of furniture in my house is at least 20 years old.

Yep, it's 2014, and the solitary time this expandable dining table has been used.

I have purchased one suit in 20 years – a black one I bought on sale online at Joseph A Bank a year or so ago. I bought it to wear on the very rare occasions that my funeral-home-owning friends need an extra old man to stand around solemnly and nod at mourners. It was a business expense, really. I only need work another 35 hours at the funeral home to pay for it, the white shirts, conservative ties and black London Fog raincoat that comprises the total ensembles. My friends, of course, could just dress me in it when I die. In any event, it is pretty much reserved for funeral-home use.

So, recently pulling the trigger on a $700 mattress was a big deal. My old mattress was at least 25 years old. The girl I was dating at the time and I went on a mattress-buying outing one Saturday. We decided we would each buy the same mattress/box-spring set for our apartments. That way, it didn't matter whose bed we wound up in, it would be familiar. Ah, to be young and silly again. I'm sure she's been through at least two or three mattresses since our pact, but, being a guy, I had the same mattress through six residences, a half-dozen relationships and a quarter of a century. Time to buy a mattress.

In fact, I pulled the mattress-buying trigger twice. The first time was the Thursday or Friday of Memorial Day weekend. As every red-blooded American should, I marked Memorial Day by buying a mattress because I couldn't wait until the President's Day sales next year. I found a 14-inch Novaform mattress at Costco regularly priced at $899; I bought it for $699. The shipping was free with a promise of 5 to 10 days delivery. The date of purchase was either May 23^rd or May 24^th. I wasn't leaving home again on a trip until June 7^th. That was at least 13 days from purchase. Plenty of time for a parcel promised in 5 to 10 days to arrive. The odds were with me that it would actually be less than 10 days, I reasoned.

My strategy seemed to be validated with a Costco e-mail the following Wednesday (5/29) that my mattress had shipped and delivery was scheduled for Friday (5/31) before 7:30 p.m. Well, 7:30 p.m. Friday came and went. No mattress. I logged onto Costco's Website to check its tracking update for my mattress only to discover that it shipped from Tupelo, Mississippi on Wednesday, making landfall 185 miles southwest in Jackson, Miss around midnight. And, it was still sitting there.

I thought, okay, I'll probably see it the following Monday (6/3). Nope. I rechecked the tracker: still in Jackson. I live chatted UPS to ask why the hell my mattress was still in Jackson. “We don't work on the weekends,” I was told. Well, we all know that's not true. UPS trucks are zipping around all the time. But, maybe the warehouse crews don't work weekends. The next day (Tuesday 6/4), or day 11 of this fiasco, my mattress is still sitting in, wait for it.....Jackson. I could have loaded the damn thing in a wheelbarrow and pushed it from Tupelo to Jackson in 11 days. Point of fact, I wouldn't have pushed it to Jackson because it's the wrong direction. It's southwest for crying out loud. I would have pushed it north east 185 miles, give or take, to Birmingham, Alabama.

On Tuesday morning, I live chatted customer service at Costco. I was told that if I factored in Memorial day and weekends, that my mattress wasn't really due at my house before Friday (6/7). I'm like, “Okay, can you tell me exactly what date to expect it?”

“No, we can't guarantee delivery dates.”

“Well,” I responded, “Costco had no problem promising delivery when it shipped.”

“That's why we don't guarantee delivery dates.”

“So, what you're telling me is, if it's not here by Friday evening, I should get back in touch, right? That's your answer?”

“Yes,” she replied.

I explained why that wasn't going to work. I was leaving town on Friday morning and that mattress wouldn't last in my carport over the weekend. The only things I can put in my carport overnight with any reasonable expectation they will still be there the next morning are a car and an anvil. I can't take a chance on it arriving while I was gone, I told her. Then she said the magic words: “Do you want to cancel?” Why, yes, I do.

That conversation took place the morning of June 4^th. Today is June 16^th and I'm still waiting for my $700 refund to appear in my bank account. Let's see, carry the one...that's 12 days. I checked the tracker on Wednesday (6/5) and it informed me the order was cancelled and the mattress was on its never-ending journey back to Tupelo.

The moral of the story is, I'll never again buy anything from Costco that I can't load in a cart and push out the door of a Costco store. It's easy to be spoiled by Amazon Prime, but I think even the U.S. Post Office can move a package farther than 200 miles in 11 days. Oh, and so can some other Internet retailers.

Well, I got it this far. (Notice the unexpanded version of my dinning table to the left.).

Right after I ordered the mattress from Costco, I went to the Website of Wholesale Beddings and ordered sheets. They were having a sale, too. I screwed up and ordered a set of regular fitted sheets and hit Purchase. Once I had done that, I couldn't find a way to cancel that order. I went ahead and ordered a set of special fitted sheets to accommodate a 14-inch mattress. They arrived at my door four days later. Of course, now I didn't have a mattress to put them on. Well, the regular set I could have kept and used on my bed, but I didn't need them.

Now, I had two sets of sheets to return. That seemed like a lot of extra effort, which is verboten in the slacker code. I got back online searching for foam-mattress deals. I found a 14-inch Simmons Beauty Rest foam mattress at Overstock.com. Supposedly it was a $2,000 mattress on sale for $700. I seriously doubt it's regularly priced at two grand, but I'm sure it was a deal nonetheless. 

Oh, crap. How do I get this 98-lb thing up the stairs?

I pulled the trigger again. This time I was able to pay through PayPal. What do you know, it showed up at my house three days later. Three days, Costco!

Rolled up in a box, the parcel tipped the scale at 98 pounds, according to the UPS label. It was up to me to somehow wrestle this nearly 100-pound load into the house, up the stairs and onto my box springs, which I decided to keep when I hauled the old mattress to the dump.

Opening the back door, I laid the box down with the top against the top step going into the house, lifted up the back end and shoved. I set it back on its end in the dining area. Handles were cut into two sides of the box, I grabbed one and dragged the box to the steps going to the third level. Now what?

It's all down hill from here.

Laying the box down against the second step I flipped it end over end up the stairs until it rested on hallway floor. Then it was just a matter of dragging it into the master bedroom.

I cut open the top end of the box, revealing the plastic-wrapped mattress. Flipping the box one last time, I shook out the rolled-up mattress, which I then leaned on the bed rail and pushed up onto the box springs. I had to cut away the plastic wrapping.

Springing open, the mattress itself was still encased in a plastic wrapper, but it flattened out.

Sizing it up, I convinced myself that it was the wrong mattress. It sure didn't look to be 14 inches high. I grabbed a tape measure, calculating it was a mere 7-inches high. I could hear it taking in air, but had serious doubts it would suck in enough air to bring its height to 14 inches. 

It continued to grow. Within 10 minutes, it was indeed 14 inches high. I cut away the plastic casing, and behold, the Bed Magnifico! I was able to stretch the old mattress pad over it. After washing the new sheets, I made up the bed. My God, it's magnificent!

I've always wanted a Flying Wallendas bed. You know, one you need to take a running leap and spring up into. Or, find an assistant to bend down, make a cradle with their hands and alley-oop you up into the bed. Now, I finally have one. This time of year I typically sleep in the guest room on the lowest level of the house. It's cooler. I'd need to turn the air conditioner down another 5 to 8 degrees to get the temp cool enough on the third level to sleep. But, the night temps this week were mild enough that the air conditioner wasn't going to kick in. I opened the windows in the master bedroom and put in my fourth night on the new mattress last night.

At this stage of my life, I don't sleep all that well and need all the help I can get. I couldn't be happier with this mattress. I dread heading back down to the guest room as the night temps get back up to where they are historically this time of year.

But, now, I have another reason, besides football, to look forward to fall.

You Can't Go Home Again: Our Fiji House Is History

Some nameless group of undergrads taking a shot in front of our Sig Fiji House.

I'm not the kind of guy who dwells on the past. For one thing, at my age I find myself with more history than I have time to contemplate. For another, there's not much that can be done about it. I must admit, it's also a bit painful thinking about the steady diet of fun I had for decades, as compared with my rather sedate life style today. One word pretty well sums up my life today by its standards three decades ago: BORING! Yawn.

I was forced to mull over a chunk of my past a couple of weeks ago while visiting a fraternity brother who resides near Dayton, Ohio. Of course, whenever any of us get together, conversation always lands decades in the past, reliving antics revolving around our membership in the Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) fraternity at Wittenberg University. Ours is Sigma Chapter, identifying it as the 18^th chapter formed of a fraternity dating back to 1848. Today there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 undergraduate chapters and colonies. Not bad in an era of a dying Greek system.

To say that Sigma Chapter had a rocky year in 2019, would be an understatement of Biblical proportions. A major fundraising effort to rebuild the fraternity house, which apparently was no longer habitable, came up short. There wasn't the money to demolish it and then rebuild it. The fallback plan was to demolish the old chapter house, relocating the chapter to the former Chi-O house next door. Sitting next to one another, both houses were former mansions on a hill overlooking downtown Springfield. Not much of a view, I'll grant you; but certainly a prime location, removed a few blocks from campus, for a fraternity house.

Yep, this is the fallback. The former Chi-O house.

Today, the Chi-O house is no prize either. It's in need of a lot of work, but evidently not in as bad as shape as the old Fiji house. Decorum prevents me from going into a lot of detail about our relationship with the Chi-Os when I lived in the Fiji house in the early 1970s, but I did chuckle at the prospect of that house being converted into the new Fiji house. I will say, though, that one of my fondest memories involving a Chi-O sister was standing on the porch roof (Sunova Beach, we called it.) of the Fiji house and dumping a full beer on the head of a Chi-O standing on the front porch steps 10 feet below as she was delivering a load of crap to one of my brothers. She had screwed him over in some way that now escapes me. But, being me, I determined that having wronged a brother, she deserved a Schlitz shower. Ah, the good old days.....

Otherwise, we would always scoop up a couple of the Chi-Os who were studying late when we would make a midnight run to the donut shop in Yellow Springs. It opened at midnight with fresh donuts rolling right out of the oven. And, yes, it is that Yellow Spings: home of Antioch College. We would pile six or eight of us, and a couple of assorted Chi-Os. into a car and drive the 20 minutes to Yellow Springs.

Bluto: "Christ, seven years of college down the drain."

Back to the story. So, after sorting out the bulk of the house renovation issues with scores of graduate brothers kicking in all sorts of cash to the project (Disclaimer: I wasn't one of them.), the current undergraduate members managed to get the fraternity booted off of campus. Yep, officially, there's no Fiji chapter at Wittenberg until the last undergraduate member graduates in 2022 or whenever. If there's a Bluto among them, it could be even longer. 2025?

Now you have the pertinent background.

This is the driveway into the back parking lot blocked by flotsam from the now torn-down house. That's The Shanty in the background.

So, my fraternity brother Ports and I decide we would take a stroll (or in this case drive) down memory lane and visit the Wittenberg campus. Springfield is a 30-minute drive from his home. Our first stop was at the Fiji house. This being late May, the school year was already over and most of the students gone. Driving up what used to be the house driveway we found an empty lot where the house once stood and our path blocked by a pile of discarded furniture and mattresses in the driveway. We had kidded earlier that we should find an old sofa to take with us, dump it on the driveway and set it on fire. We did that very thing with one of our sofas at the end of our senior year. We dragged it out a third-floor window, tossed it off the roof onto the drive way and set it aflame. Good times, right?

I can't tell you the sense of loss we both felt as we stood on the driveway looking at a blank space where the house once stood. The finality of it was almost too much to ponder. All that remains of the original structures is a small three-person residence building called The Shanty at the rear of the property.

We were both spring pledges our freshman year. The next three years were three of the best years of my life. I'd go back and do it all over again in a heartbeat. Seeing the house gone, cut a chunk out of me.

We wandered around the empty lot and then around the old Chi-O house in a fog. It was utterly disturbing. I hadn't been back to Wittenberg for any of the annual Fiji events aimed at graduate members in well over 15 years. At this point, I doubt I ever will again. For ever and ever, Amen.

My Semi-Annual Bourbon Excursion to Louisville

The Graceland of bourbon distilleries.

I'm not the kind of guy who doesn't take advantage of any opportunity to sip some good bourbon. In fact, I deem it more of a calling than an opportunity. At least that's what I'm telling myself as I sit in the afterglow of a day flitting from bourbon bar to bourbon bar in Louisville. It's a good thing I no longer live in the Derby City. Drunk and broke is no way to live out my remaining years. No, I just swoop in every six months or so, visit friends and put a dent in the local bourbon supply.

Let me set your mind to rest, we do have a designated driver for these little bourbon-infused excursions. Also, most Louisville joints seriously pouring bourbon are attuned to the needs of folks who just want to sample this or that. Many have price lists including half-ounce pours. So, we aren't tossing back bourbons two ounces at a time. 

No serious bourbon drinker can live life without at least one visit to Louisville's Whiskey Row.

Earlier this year, I made a half-hearted attempt to put together a group of friends to spend a weekend in Louisville on a bourbon-tasting adventure. Because I just came off one of the worst earning quarters in the past several years, the Great Louisville Bourbon Gathering of 2019 was postponed – perhaps until 2020. When I visit Louisville on my own, I stay with friends and my only costs are an occasional meal out and the cost of whatever bourbon I consume. The GLBG would have entailed renting a house, securing transportation, meals and on and on and on. I simply couldn't justify it with the uncertainty of revenue-producing work this year.

I firmly believe that to be a member of the pseudo religion of bourbon, requires at least one pilgrimage to Louisville. It is, in fact, where bourbon was elevated from glorified moonshine to the wonderful elixir we know today. To turn distilling bourbon into a money-making enterprise required a broader audience. This audience was accessed by shipping bourbon south down the Ohio River to ports in New Orleans. Louisville became the obvious jumping off point for a bourbon's journey to world fame. (During your trip to Louisville, be sure to invest an hour in the tour of the Evan Williams facility on Mains Street. You will leave there with a rich education in Louisville's contribution to launching bourbon.)

Although my first attempt at organizing a GLBG failed miserably, I have not given it up. I want my fellow bourbon travelers to experience Louisville's bourbon scene as I have. I want them to belly up to the tasting bar at Liquor Barn, gaze, open mouthed, at the scores of bourbons and ryes lining the shelves spread across the wall behind the bar. I want them to be able to thumb through the 40-page booklet of available brands to sample. And, this would be just one stop on the agenda.

No, I haven't given up on the GLBG.

On these forays into bourbon country, I usually have a wish list of difficult-to-find brands to purchase. Elmer T Lee always tops this list that also includes Wild Turkey's Forgiven, Col. E H Taylor Small Batch, Weller 12-Year Old and others. One can dream, right?

Driving up to Louisville from Greenville, SC, I had mapped out a number of liquor stores in the Frankfort area to visit as I made my way to Buffalo Trace. A fraternity brother of mine in Ohio had texted me the week before to report that a buddy of his had visited Buffalo Trace that day and was bringing him bottles of Blanton's, Eagle Rare and (wait for it) Col. EH Taylor. I was stoked. Visions of hard-to-get bourbons danced in my head. I was convinced that all I needed to do was get myself to Buffalo Trace and bottles of Eagle Rare and EH Taylor would be mine.

Tell God your plans and watch him laugh, right? Just outside of Frankfort proper, Buffalo Trace is easy to find and to get to. It's not officially on the Bourbon Trail, but is surrounded by distilleries that are. You must look for it separately. Anyone investing the time and effort to follow the Bourbon Trail is missing out if he/she doesn't add Buffalo Trace to the itinerary. It is, after all, the Graceland of distilleries. It's a tourist trap of the first order. I have no clue how much revenue it generates annually, but I've never been there when it wasn't packed with tourists eager to plunk down hard-earned dinero for a tour, tee-shirt, set of coasters or some other trinket emblazoned with the Buffalo Trace logo. The only thing missing is a photographer set up in front of the huge bison sculpture, snapping photos of mugging tourists with the iconic sculpture and selling them for $20 a pop.

On the plus side, Buffalo Trace offers one of the better distillery tours I've ever experienced. And, if you are lucky, you can buy one or two of its hard-to-find labels right out of the gift shop. I was not so lucky. After parking in the sprawling parking lot and hiking to the gift shop, I found shelves lined with a Bailey's-like beverage. “Hey, where's the EH Taylor? Where's the Eagle Rare?” “Not here,” the ghost of the Great Buffalo taunted me. Nuts!

Yes!

Foiled in my plan to buy at least some of what I was searching for at Buffalo Trace, I fell back on my liquor-store list. I visited three Frankfort liquor stores before getting on I-64 to continue to Louisville. I did manage to find a single bottle of Eagle Rare at my last Frankfort liquor-store stop. Twenty-or-so miles west of Frankfort is Shelbyville. I like Shelbyville with its historic downtown. I had some time to burn and decided to take its exit and search a liquor store or two in the area. As soon as I exited, there was a liquor store. I wandered in with low expectations, but, what do you know, I found another bottle of Eagle Rare. 

I was on a roll.

I found my way to State Route 60 running parallel to I-64 and headed west. The friends I stay with in the Louisville area live off of Rt 60 roughly 15 miles west of Shelbyville. I Googled liquor stores near me and found two on Rt 60. In the first one, I found a bottle of Col. EH Taylor for $49. Trumpets sounded, a flock of white doves ascended and angels wept. Once again I was little Rusty falling to my knees in awe of the mountain of gaily wrapped presents under the Christmas tree. Wiping the tears away, I climbed back into the Kicks Nissan provided me for this extended trip and moved on to the next liquor store on my list.

I walked in the store and found a second bottle of EH Taylor. Here it was priced at $65. Having just bought a bottle for $49, and thinking if two stores each had a bottle, others must, as well. I passed on the $65 price tag. That may have been a dumb thing to do, but I couldn't justify spending $15 more.

This a liquor-store tasting area done Louisville style.

That was Friday. Saturday was our day to wallow in the bourbon experience. We visited a couple of big liquor stores where we sampled a few bourbons and I found a couple of new bourbons to add to my stash at home. Then we hit downtown Louisville's Whiskey Row. This is an 8-to-10-block stretch of Louisville's Main Street that is almost entirely devoted to all things bourbon. There are bourbon distilleries, bourbon bars and bourbon restaurants operating in what used to be a warehouse district just a couple of blocks from the river. Although two or three bourbon joints we visited had Elmer T Lee on their bourbon list, they didn't actually have it to pour. Elmer T Lee is an elusive label distilled at, you guessed it, Buffalo Trace. I have unsuccessfully hunted it for the past two or three years. 

Two birds, one stone: This is a stout-barrel-finished bourbon aged and bottled by Goodwood craft brewery.

We hit a couple of joints, had a sip of bourbon in each and then headed for home to rest up for dinner and then post-dinner bourbon sipping. Dinner was at Eddie Merlot's, a steak house in downtown Louisville. There I found another bourbon I had never heard of called Wathen's. It will be on my list to buy on my next Louisville junket. After dinner we stopped at Checks BBQ and Blues for a nightcap. Running my finger up and down the columns of bourbons in its whiskey list, I discovered Elmer T Lee. With absolutely no expectation of them having it, I asked the server for a pour, neat, of course.

Imagine my surprise when she returned with it. Not only did they have it, the bartender told me he had three more bottles in the back room. What? I know where my first stop will be on my next Louisville visit.

Finally, a pour of the highly prized Elmer T Lee! I can now die happy.

 Cheers!