Steelers: My Obligatory Commentary on This Season

I'm not the kind of guy who puts a lot of stock in professional sports teams. Those who know me, recognize that I care little about sports on much of any level. I know people consumed by college sports. I am grateful that I matriculated from a small, private Midwest college with no national profile. I don't even need pretend I care about what its competitive teams are doing.

I am the same with professional sports. Although I get the poetry of baseball, it puts me to sleep. Basketball: I barely understand the difference between a lay up and a dunk. I never liked the sport growing up and certainly don't waste my time with it as an adult. I am amazed by what hockey players can do while balanced on a razor-thin steel blade, but I'm done when the first (of several) fights breaks out. If I want to watch fights, well, I'll watch real fights. All of the ice ballet in the world can't outweigh my loathing for the constant fighting and the NHL's apparent lack of interest in really correcting the issue.

Then there is the NFL. And, I suppose, CFL (Canadian Football League) for those who simply can't get enough of following competitive sports. I am, what I would call, a casual Steelers fan. That is, I follow the Steelers, but I don't lose sleep over missing one of their games. My (whatever day of the week they play) day doesn't revolve around making sure I'm in front of a TV at kickoff. If I get to see them play, fine; if not, I'll survive. I have become even more lackadaisical about following them since I moved to South Carolina. I left my Steelers-following friends with whom I watched most Steelers games behind in Florida. Football is more fun to watch with fellow travelers.

This is my 10^th football season in Greenville. For the first nine years, whoever at the local CBS affiliate made the decision about which games would air on Sunday afternoons, no longer seems to be calling the shots. I judge he/she was a Steelers fan. Probably no more than two Sunday afternoon games a season weren't offered locally. That same person either moved on or was struck down by a bus. So far this season, only two Sunday-afternoon Steelers games have been televised locally, and I was out of town for the first one.

I'm not a fan of sports bars, particularly on “game” days. If to see a Steelers game I have to go to a sports bar by myself, chances are pretty good that I'm going to miss it. I will watch other teams play if I'm somewhere and a game is on the TV. But, I really don't care about watching other teams play. On game day I root for two teams: The Steelers and whichever team is playing the Patriots. Otherwise, I have nada real interest.

I used to usually pepper my daily then weekly Clanging Bell posts with two or three Steelers blogs during the fall and winter. Mostly they consisted of rants about what I considered to be poor play, coaching and/or officiating. I've missed so many games this season that I just haven't had much fodder for a blog. My knee-jerk reaction to the sorry-ass Browns playing the Steelers to a tie in the season opener was to fire off a scathing blog, but there is simply too much talent among the Steelers roster for me to believe that game was anything but an anomaly. Of course, at the end of four games the Steelers had racked up only one win. I was tempted to blog that Tomlin was, perhaps, looking at overseeing his first losing season as Steelers head coach. I resisted that urge; although, I did say that privately to a couple of people.

Quality of play has relentlessly improved since that second loss. The Steelers offensive line is turning in brilliant work in both pass protection and opening holes for the season's biggest surprise, running back James Conner. Le'Veon who? Big Ben is still razor accurate (mostly) and he and Antonio Brown finally seem to be on the same page. It seems no one who plays a position qualifying them as a potential point maker doesn't have at least one TD under his belt. There is no shortage of heroes.

This is how Newton spent much of his evening.

After last Thursday's robust 52-21 blowout of the Carolina Panthers, I felt compelled to blog. It was an awesome performance marred only by a questionable TD call that wasn't overturned by a review. So, maybe it was actually a TD. Otherwise, the Steelers were firing on all cylinders. Panther quarterback Cam Newton never seemed more than a half-an-arm's length from being dragged down and was sacked five times. He was hurried multiple times and hit more often than not. On nearly every Panther offensive play there were at least two or three black jerseys running around the backfield.

When Big Ben left the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter, he had thrown more touchdown passes than incompletions! Even the Steelers kicker Chris Boswell, unreliable this season, was seven for seven point afters and nailed a 50-yard field goal.

After the game Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said something to the effect of “We're really not that good.” Soundly thrashing a 6-2 Panthers team maybe something the Steelers couldn't do on a weekly basis, but for sure, this is a significantly improved team than met the Browns in week one. And, the really good news for Steelers fans, the team just seems to be getting better and better.

Retirement Is for Quitters

I'm not the kind of guy who wishes he was playing golf or fishing rather than working. Yes, oh, to be well enough off financially to laze around and not worry about money. Sadly, a misspent youth, and quite frankly a misspent middle age, put the whole retirement thing permanently out of reach. Sure, I know that unless I'm lucky enough to be struck down in the street by a runaway sanitation truck, at some point I won't be physically able to sit upright at my keyboard and peck out revenue-producing prose. I get that. If I was a roofer, I'd already be done. But fortunately, I've made a living the past 30 years sitting on my ass. I can probably eek out another decade or so doing the same. Fingers crossed.

The real issue, however, is that I'm often busier than I wish to be. Don't get me wrong: I'm not busier inflating my cash flow – not by a long shot. I am always on the market for more paying work. I challenge you to show me a freelance writer who isn't. Nope. Most of my scheduling issues are of my own doing.

I currently have two video projects demanding a fair amount of time each week. My BEER2WHISKEY YouTube channel must be fed on a weekly basis. That entails a two-to-three-hour shoot and between four and six hours of editing, depending on the subject matter. I also have my somewhat neglected of late just3thingsvideo.com that doesn't usually involve any dedicated shooting time, but does eat up two or three hours editing time. Currently, most of my just3thingsvideo.com shooting is done on carmaker media events, which adds another schedule-eating component to my work week.

Carmakers have media coming-out events for all-new or totally redesigned vehicles. These are typically two-or-three-day affairs that are scattered all across the country. On average in any given month I attend three such events. I could turn down many of these invitations, freeing up nearly a week most months, but, hey, I enjoy them. Also, at least one or two of these trips each month are at the behest of my biggest client. They are big revenue makers for me.

In the midst of all of this work and work-related travel, I always have at least one home-improvement project underway. I am still struggling with my greatroom-ceiling project that began more than a year ago. All that remains is trimming it out, but that will be a huge undertaking.

Then, because I do need a little R&R on occasion, I have a number of annual trips baked into my scheduling pie. I make a trek to New Mexico to visit my sister and her extended family twice each year: summer and Christmas. Each trip is 7 to 10 days long. I get together with a group of my fraternity brothers every year, which is a four- to seven-day commitment. For the past four or five years I have also been spending between 10 and 14 days each summer in the Florida Keys. Although the Keys trip is up in the air for this year, I'll go if the opportunity arises.

Plus there are shorter long-weekend side trips to Louisville, Knoxville and a couple of other destinations to visit friends.

Then there is this damn blog. It is my Frankenstein monster. I began Clanging Bell eight or nine years ago when work was agonizingly slow. I started it primarily to give myself something to do, as well as keeping my writing skills at least somewhat sharp. Writing, as with any skill set, must be nurtured on a consistent basis to keep it honed. Now, if I take a couple of weeks off from blogging – often because I'm just plain tired of writing – I receive verbal and e-mail grumblings from people complaining about my lack of motivation and ambition.

To all of that add that I've been attempting – not succeeding mind you, but attempting – to recapture Saturdays as a MY DAY. A day to do whatever I damn well please without remorse or guilt. If I want to sit in my recliner all day and watch movies, by God, I'm going to sit in my recliner and watch movies. I don't have anyone nagging me about raking leaves or fixing that dripping faucet, and I don't even have a pet making demands on my time. It's just me and more often than not, I still can't pull it off. There is just too much to do.

That leaves Sunday afternoon as my last oasis of Uncle Russ time in an otherwise slammed week. Come hell or high water, by noon or so on the Sundays I'm in town, I'm on my designated stool, which they save for me, at the bar in Smoke on the Water in downtown Greenville sipping a brew. Ahhh....

So, it's probably some sort of unconscious self-preservation process fogging out any wishful thinking about a life of leisure. I find fishing utterly boring. And, golf! What a colossal waste of money and time just to work myself up into a ball of raging frustration. I'd much rather work; thank-you very much.

Click here to watch the latest BEER2WHISKEY segment on the Blue Stallion Brewing Co. in Lexington, Ky.

Let There Be Light: Life Is Full of Mysteries

I'm not the kind of guy who wants to live in the dark. Who does? So, when the electricity abruptly went out in about 30 percent of my house, including the great room and some of the kitchen, I felt as though I had taken a little journey in the Wayback machine.

A year ago, as part of my greatroom-ceiling project, I had disconnected the can lights in the greatroom, rewired those light boxes and threaded the wires through the new beadboard ceiling. That's the way things remained for more than 11 months as I procrastinated over painting the new wood ceiling. I never touched those wires again during that time. All of the outlets continued functioning as did everything else on the greatroom grid. I survived just fine without the overhead lights that I rarely used anyway.

Roughly three weeks ago, just after I finally broke down and painted the ceiling, I had my typical Saturday night at home. I don't often venture out on Saturday nights. I snatch a container of homemade red sauce (gravy to my Italian friends) from the freezer, whip up some spaghetti, watch a couple of Redbox rentals, drink a few glasses of wine and enjoy the solitude. Around 10:30, I shut everything down and went to bed. So far, so good.

Sunday morning I arose to discover the electricity out in the upstairs bath, most of the outlets in the greatroom and part of the kitchen. What the hell?

My house was built in the early 1950s. Much of the wiring dates back to that time. I'm sure there have been some half-assed DIY wiring since. I should know; I've done some of it. None of that, though, easily explained an entire circuit mysteriously going out over night. My breaker box is outside. Yep, another symptom of dating back to the 1950s. Unlocking the box, I checked all the breakers. None were flipped off. I found the breaker for the greatroom, flipping it off and on several times. Back in the house, still no juice.

I ran an extension cord to my coffee maker and one to the surge strip into which all my entertainment components are plugged. I also got on Amazon and ordered some under the cabinets lights, so I would have lights to make coffee in the mornings. None of these temporary fixes were ideal, but they sufficed as band aids to get me through until I had time to bring in an electrician.

Being a Sunday morning, I had beer to drink and my usual bar stool awaited me at Smoke on the Water. There was little I could do about the electric anyway. I did go online and check out how to replace a breaker. I hoped a bad breaker was the culprit. I spent about $2.50 on a new breaker, installed it and...nada.

I had to head out of town on Tuesday to the Miami Auto Show and a little pre-event down time with Florida friends. I didn't return until the following Monday. By then, I had reached out to my pal Natalie regarding the electric issue. She and her husband are constantly upgrading their home, plus have a business that is always in constant rehab. I was sure they have an electrician on speed dial.

Luckily, their electrician was already booked to do a project at their business on Friday. Natalie got him to stop by my house on the way. Two guys showed up late Friday morning. They crawled under the house and into the attic. After testing this and that, they determined that the house is wired in a series like Christmas tree lights and somewhere in that series a wire must have broken. The proposed fix? To run a new wire from the breaker box into one of the dead greatroom outlets, which they said, would restore the entire grid. Whatever it takes, I told them.

They left promising the owner would get back to me to schedule the work and with an estimate. Actually he got back to Natalie with the estimate and the promise he would contact me to schedule. The estimate: $500. Frankly, I expected it to be more. I wasn't keen on spending the dough, but it had to be done.

I was gone another full week to Austin for the Texas Truck Rodeo and my annual fraternity-brothers get together. The electricians were scheduled to knock out the project late in the afternoon on the Monday after I returned.

Sure enough, around 3:30, three of them came trooping in. I was in the process of installing the new overhead fixtures in the great room. I had two installed and was working on the third when they arrived. I was trying to get this project finished before they got the electricity in that room working again. I left them to it and climbed back up the ladder. Less than a minute later one of them walked up to the ladder, looked up and said, “As much as I'd like to take your $500, your electric is already working.”

WTF?

I shot down the ladder, walked into the kitchen and flipped on the overhead light that was among the things that hadn't been working. It came on! Trumpets sounded, birds began singing, angels began to laugh. The only explanation they could come up with is that somehow in installing the greatroom overheads, I had moved something enough to reconnect the series break. Granted, that seems the only likely explanation, but it doesn't really make sense. Those exposed wires for the overhead had gone unmolested for nearly a year when the electricity went off. I hadn't touched them. I had moved them a little while painting the ceiling, but the electric still functioned after the ceiling was painted.

It's a head scratcher.

They are coming back this-coming Monday to rework the ground for the entire system. I knew there was a problem with it. While they were there with nothing to do, I had them check out the ground. They told me what needed doing and that it would be $180 to complete that job.

Ah, the joys of owning an older house. 

The Whiskey Vault at Austin's Wizard Academy: Five Went In; No One Remembers How Many Came Out

I'm not the kind of guy who historically says, no. One of the most impactful things I ever read was an interview with Sir Richard Branson. When asked why at that stage in his life and with his amassed fortune he continued doing things that most of us would classify as crazy, he simply replied, “Because life is more interesting when you say, yes, than when you say, no.

Indeed. I took that to heart and my outlook changed forever.

So, when the group of my fraternity brothers who gather somewhere for a few days every year decided to make Austin this year's destination, I was an immediate “yes” vote. It was just a happy coincidence that the dates we chose months ago wound up following on the heels of the Texas Automotive Writers Association's (TAWA) annual Texas Truck Rodeo headquartered just outside of Austin. I belong to this group and participate in the rodeo that climaxes with picking the Truck of Texas.

Actually, I would have said, yes, without the influence of the Branson interview, but I like to impart a little positive life philosophy whenever I can.

Wow. The Whiskey Vault is like being in a candy store.

Jumping on board this Austin trip wasn't the real test of my always-say-yes mind set. Nope. The real test was saying, yes, to the trip to Austin's Whiskey Vault. I have to justify to myself a $25 expenditure on an afternoon matinee at the movies with popcorn. When pondering ponying up $150 for a 90-minute experience in the Whiskey Vault with its thousand whiskeys, I required some self convincing. Once committed, however, I was like a reformed smoker or a newly minted husband: My goal was to get as many others on board as possible. After a bit of button-holing, coaxing and coercion, a group of five (out of a possible nine) were paid up. We had a 2 p.m. time slot on Thursday reserved with trainer/taste leader/guide Andrew.

I arrived in Austin on a sunny, warm (85 degrees) Sunday. It was the driest, warmest day of this trip. By Monday morning the rain was falling in buckets and the temp had dropped to 40 degrees. What followed was a week of the most relentless rain I've ever experienced. Lake Travis is at a historic high level and flash-flood warnings were a daily occurrence. While still at the rodeo, our bus back to the hotel from dinner came upon a water event where two feet of water, according to the water-level indicator on the side of the road, blocked our path, requiring the bus to reverse back up a narrow two lane for about half a mile before being able to back into a driveway and turn around.

The subtitle to this Austin week would have to be Rain, Rain, and, for the Love of God, More Rain.

Our trainer Andrew leading us into Nirvana.

When Thursday finally arrived, we slogged our way to the Wizard Academy: home of the Whiskey Vault. Wizard Academy bills itself as a summer camp for adults. There are mini schools on all manner of topics to help people achieve their goals. One school features three- and four-day curriculums for getting credentialed as a whiskey sommelier. But there are lots of other courses available. Students stay on the property, which is amazing.

The guys with us who weren't participating in the tasting volunteered as our designated drivers. Following the directions on the GPS-based nav unit in the Nissan NV3500 12-passenger van Nissan provided for my Austin adventure, we headed out of Austin. Apparently I somehow overlooked the e-mail providing instruction for finding our destination. I had no clue that the Whiskey Vault was simply a very big closet crammed with booze in what is a multi-story tower housing the Wizard Academy. There were no “Whiskey Vault” signs. After wandering around for a bit, we came upon one of the academy's employees who escorted us to an outside waiting area near the vault. We were supposed to be at the academy welcome center somewhere else on the property.

Eventually our trainer Andrew found us. Leading us into the bowels of the tower, he began regaling us with stories about the the founder and the property. Yeah, swell, but where's the booze?

Walking up to a large bookcase in an alcove just off the main classroom, Andrew pulled out a book from the top shelf, triggering a switch allowing a section of the bookcase to open into a secret entrance to the Whiskey Vault. We had finally arrived.

This is the same small room where the Whiskey Vault YouTube show is shot. Having watched a few of these outrageously funny videos, I began misting up. I was home!

I had spoken to Andrew on the phone a couple of weeks earlier and knew we were in for a real experience, but had no idea just how much fun it would be. Andrew made it clear right from the get-go that there were few rules in the vault. Based on smaller pours, we could exceed the 8 tastes we each paid $150 for. A couple of the guys were more interested in Scotch (Yeah, I know. Philistines.) than Bourbon. Andrew bounced back and forth between the the groups egging us on with samples of another and then another rare spirit. Our 90 minutes drifted into 150 minutes.

What a rush! It may have been the best $150 I ever spent. Our event finished up with a detailed tour of the tower during which we continued sipping on the spirit of our choice.

I must admit, I can't find much else to recommend Austin. Our afternoon revolving around Congress and 6^th Street was an eye opener. San Francisco's homeless, panhandler issues are only marginally worse than Austin's. Austin's sidewalks have yet to be decorated with human poop, but that day is not far off. We couldn't take more than a dozen steps before being accosted by some homeless person looking for a handout or wanting to tell us a story as a preamble to asking for money. Every vacant-building doorway has a bum sleeping in it. Every underpass is a homeless camp.

Here's the thing: I will return to Austin. Carmakers love holding vehicle unveilings for the media in Austin. I will be back, but the only thing that will get me back to Austin on my own dime is another visit to the Whiskey Vault. Best time ever!

Here's the first of the BEER2WHISKEY Fiji Brothers Panel segments we shot in Austin. More to come.

A Milestone Unheralded

I'm not the kind of guy who likes to take credit for things I either didn't accomplish or that I didn't put forth much effort to accomplish. Cleaning a bathroom doesn't rank up there with curing cancer, right? Well, for me it sort of does. Cleaning a bathroom is nearly as far out of my reach as curing cancer is for a qualified researcher. But, in the grand scheme of things, they don't compare. When I finally break down and clean a bathroom, I don't post a photo on Instagram....despite being really pleased with myself.

So, I didn't expect a brass band to meet me at the gate area when I arrived in Atlanta from San Francisco on Friday. I wasn't looking for confetti, a thousand brightly colored balloons dropping from the ceiling or the launch of 100 doves. Nope, none of those things was expected.

Because I hadn't really done all that much other than make the effort to have the lion's share of my flights over the past 30 years booked on Delta, I don't count the miles I've racked up as an accomplishment. For the most part, it wasn't even my money buying the tickets. More often than not, even the effort to book Delta flights was well within the wheelhouse of slacker me. “Hey, you're invited on a trip, our travel agent will book you on your airline of choice.” “Delta,” I would reply. “Done!” they would confirm. Easy-peasy.

I knew I was close to rolling over 2 million miles with Delta and would achieve it this year. Delta, as I assume other lines do, keeps track of such things. I received a nice Tumi soft attache case when I crossed the 1 million mile mark. I didn't expect that; not even realizing I had reached that milestone until the gift arrived.

Reaching that first 1 million miles required about nine years. I was on the road with “Discover America” on the average of three trips per month and then sandwiched in some carmaker events, too. It was a wild ride. There are still a couple of Delta employees at Palm Beach International who remember me from those crazy days. We often speak as I pass through PBI on my Florida excursions. The second million miles, well, that required the balance of my 30 years flying Delta.

I didn't expect a lot of fanfare over turning 2 million miles. I'm sure it happens with some regularity. But, I must admit, I was surprised that either the captain, which happens sporadically, or one of the flight attendants, which is somewhat more common, didn't seek me out and thank me. They often take a few minutes, walk down the aisle, personally acknowledging million milers. I sat next to a Delta flier on a flight a few weeks ago who was about to cross the 5 million mark. A flight attendant thanked me for being a million miler, but handed him a personal thank-you note. He said he has received them before. I don't think a “Hi, Mr. Heaps thanks for being a loyal Delta customer to the tune of 2 million miles,” is much to ask.

Maybe my disappointment arises from the fact that to be on a Delta flight on this trip to put myself in a position to cross 2 million miles, I had to jump through some hoops. Nissan chose Santa Barbara as the host city to introduce the totally redesigned 2019 Altima to the media. Delta no longer supports Santa Barbara with flights. Unless someone is flying me first class, I don't cross time zones on any airline but Delta. If something goes sideways, it's tough enough to get things straightened out on Delta with which I have a 30-year relationship. On an airline on which I have no clout, I'm just another casual flier. Nope, I don't cross time zones on any carrier but Delta.

For Delta fliers, getting to Santa Barbara means either flying to LAX in Los Angeles and driving the 100 miles north to Santa Barbara, or flying into LAX or some other California airport on Delta then changing airlines to United for the final leg into Santa Barbara. I was on a Toyota event in Santa Barbara a year or so ago. Toyota provided the option of flying into LAX and then shuttling us to and from Santa Barbara. It's a two-hour shuttle ride each way, but that doesn't really add much extra time to the overall trip. Because Nissan didn't offer that option, Delta fliers were left with the changing-airlines option.

In Atlanta or most other airports this wouldn't be a big deal. You simply change terminals and you are good to go. Sadly, neither LAX, which I flew into, nor San Francisco, where I made the airline swap on the home-bound trip, have terminals fully connected to one another. Both require fliers to exit security and then reenter security to make the airline change. Although you can do that in San Francisco, remaining within the confines of the general airport, at LAX you must actually walk outside the airport, cross through two parking garages, reenter the airport and pass through security.

This isn't exactly slogging across Death Valley in a covered wagon, but it's a pain in the ass.

Normally I drag along video gear requiring me to travel with at least one bag too large to carry on the plane. Because United, with which we've already established I have no clout, made up two legs of this six-leg round trip, checking a bag would have cost a total of $50. My status with Delta is such that I can check three bags for free. I wasn't going to pony up 50 bucks to fly on damn United. Also because I have no clout on United, meaning I might wind up in the last boarding group, I had no confidence I could carry on a rollerboard and find overhead space to stow it. I chose instead to only carry what would fit in my backpack. Typically, I carry cameras and at least one laptop with me. Not so on this trip. I had a couple of changes of underwear and three clean shirts in my backpack. That was it.

Although I didn't expect a lot of pomp and circumstance surrounding my rolling over the 2 million-mile mark, at least having it acknowledged would have been a welcomed atta boy for the extra effort I put forth to make that milestone happen on this particular trip.

I readily admit, this tale belongs in a tome of first-world problems. But, hey, I had to blog about something, right?

The Guessing Game That Is Hurricane Forecasting

I'm not the kind of guy who looks a gift horse in the mouth. The fact that what we South Carolinians call the Upstate was spared most of havoc reeked by Florence isn't lost on me. Areas on and near the North Carolina coast were mercilessly pounded. I'm glad we avoided the worst of it. Actually, at 10 a.m. on Sunday, it appears we will only see a few inches of rain. It began falling early last evening and continues this morning, but it's nothing out of the ordinary in what has been a very wet summer here.

Having lived no more than 10 miles (sometimes less than 2 mi.) from the beach for most of my 25 years in South Florida, I've been through my fair share of hurricanes. When I moved to South Carolina, I chose a city about as far away from the coast as I could and still be in South Carolina. Greenville is closer to Knoxville, Tenn than it is Charleston. I've had my fill of boarding up, being without power for days, and driving around on streets covered in debris with no working traffic lights.

Although its done a fine job of getting back on its feet after last year's Irma, the Florida Keys was far from healed on my recent stay in July. Restaurants in which we ate a year ago, simply were gone this year. Entire marinas were washed away. They have been or are being rebuilt, but the evidence of Irma's power is still very apparent. Thank goodness, Islamorada's two craft breweries were spared! There is a God!

So, hurricanes do hit. And, when they do, the destruction can be devastating. Been there, done that.

But here's the ugly truth about hurricane forecasting, the people and the agencies spitting out their predictions of where these storms are going to make landfall and their intensity when they do, don't really know much of anything with any degree of certainty. Depending on the speed of the storm, they can only provide guesses as to where the storm will hit up until about 36 hours before it strikes the coast. The same goes for its severity. They just don't know.

At one point, the media was reporting that Florence would reach the Carolinas (They, of course, couldn't pinpoint if it would be South Carolina or North Carolina.) as a Cat 4 storm. Had that happened and it had been South Carolina, I'd probably be sitting in the dark, sweating and reading my Kindle right now. I was skeptical at the report. The storm was days away. While Cat 4s making landfall aren't exactly rare, they aren't common, either. Other than frightening the bejesus out of everyone, as well as helping the bottom line of some grocery stores by increasing the sales of bottled water and bread, these reports were worthless.

When Florence finally did creep on land, it did so as a Cat 1. That was bad enough for those most directly impacted, but nothing compared to a Cat 4. Anyone who has experienced both will agree, there's a big, big difference. As with Katrina a few years ago, most of Florence's destruction has been from flooding and surges.

At the beginning of every hurricane season some nincompoop gets air time and ink predicting the worst hurricane season in (fill in any amount of time). Yes, the year will come when some such prediction will prove true; in the meantime, though, it's just a lot of noise.

I'm glad the predictions of the severity of Florence at landfall proved wrong. It would have been a much bigger story of death and destruction.

Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt

The reason I was in Pittsburgh on my birthday: 2019 Kia Forte!

I'm not the kind of guy who expects much brouhaha on his birthday. Well, at least not any more. There was a time when my birthday was a two-week celebration marked by a party or two and several nights out for dinner with different friends. My 50^th was a surprise party at my favorite Delray Beach watering hole with roughly 80 of my friends and family, several of whom traveled in from out of town. My 60^th, celebrated in Greenville, included two parties, one a surprise with friends from out of town and one planned with local friends engineered to keep me local and available for my surprise party. A lot of planning and coordination went into those efforts. Now birthdays are just another day, but with a little cake and a card or two.

I don't think the issue is so much that after racking up decades of birth anniversaries they have become routine; I think it's that as I, and my friends, have become older, we have moved on from balls-to-the-wall celebrations and partying at the drop of a hat to more sedate expressions of marking special occasions. Parties within my circles have morphed into get-togethers. Yawn.

Deciding who is bringing the Rumple Minze and Cuervo has turned into discussions about cheese dip and veggie platters. I couldn't care less about what sort of finger food will be available and who is bringing it. I guarantee it won't be me. To begin with, I avoid eating standing up. Secondly, I don't give a rat's patootie about little wienies on toothpicks. It's a party! Where's the bar? Oh, that's right; it's a get-together. My bad. “Could you please pass the three-bean dip, Brother Smith, and by the way, how's that prostate?”

Another factor scrubbing away some of my enthusiasm for “get-togethers” is the absence of any thrill of the chase. I may be old, but I'm not dead. One function of parties was always the potential for meeting someone new or the opportunity to get close to someone you had seen around, but didn't really know. The whole heing-and-sheing thing always held great allure for me. Parties provided ideal settings for advancing carnal agendas. Get-togethers not so much. In fact, not at all. Opening lines have gone from, “Wow, you really know how to toss back a kamikaze. How about another,” to “Gee, Gladys, this is some good potato salad. What's your secret?”

Please, just shoot me.

A few of my team members attempting to high five. It's tough to do when one guy is 7-feet tall.

I wrote all of this as a preface to telling you that my 67^th birthday was toward the end of August. It was the third or fourth birthday in a row landing on an out-of-town carmaker event. This year I was in Pittsburgh with Kia taking a gander at its redesigned 2019 Forte. My birthday was on the main day of this event. Kia always makes a big splash the second night. On this trip it was a game-night theme based on Pittsburgh sports teams. Kia divided us into teams and we competed at a number of different stations. Once Kia compiled the scores, they announced the top-scoring team.

Uncle Russ getting all misty.

It was a raucous evening with lots to eat and an open bar. It was, dare I say it, a party.

After announcing the evening's winners, they announced it was my birthday. Out came the obligatory cake with candles for me to snuff out. They also presented me with a nice bottle of 10-year-old bourbon that one of the PR guys had made the rounds of Pittsburgh liquor stores to find. It was a thoughtful gesture in a partying atmosphere.

A little candle snuffing out.

This crowd wasn't partying for me. More than a few of them didn't have a clue who I was before my birthday was announced. But it was a party of sorts. And, I liked that. So, maybe I am still a guy who likes a bit of birthday brouhaha.

The road goes on forever and the party never ends.....

I'll be more of a get-together guy once I am no longer mobile and alcohol is forbidden from my diet. Until then, I'm stubbornly clinging to the institution of parties.

“Who wants a shot of caramel vodka?”