Holding off on the A/C

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I like to fully enjoy the change in seasons--inside as well as out. So come summer time, I hold off on the air conditioner as long as possible. I usually don't turn it on until the paint on the wall starts to drip or my wife threatens to check into a hotel.

Same goes with the heater, in the winter. I'm not wanting to crank it on until we start waking up to frost on our pillowcases

It seems that in a woman's perfect world, we should all be like chicken eggs; incubated at a steady temperature.

But relying on conditioned air is a sign of weakness, in my view, because humans can adjust to whatever environment surrounds them. Our body temperature is fixed at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit--whether the A/C is on or not. At least that's one ball of logic I throw my wife's way.

So rather than try to change the inside temperature of our house, I prefer to take time to adapt.

Sure, dealing with a hot house takes some acclimatization. Clothes and blankets turn superfluous, while popsicles and ice cream become worth their weight in gold.

And dealing with a cold house has its struggles.

When watching a movie, you can't leave any appendages outside of the cuddling blanket without suffering minor frost bite. And when you exit the shower, you've got to shake off like a cat out of water before early stages of hypothermia set in.

A cold house has it's benefits, though. When it's really cold in the house, my wife has an unusual urge to be around the stove. Food naturally results from that, time to time.

I take pride in our low utility bills, too. I'm pretty sure that in February the gas bill for our little condo was less than the gas company's cost in metering, paper handling, and postage. There's nothing like stickin' it to the utility company.

If anything, having a house with an uncomfortable inside temperature makes going to places with a comfortable inside temperature--like church and work--more enjoyable.

My car spent a night in the slammer

If 7-Eleven didn't sale Slurpees, I'd be wishing Chapter 11 bankruptcy on them. They're just too dang uptight about parking.

The other day I met my boss at a nearby convenience store. We were car pooling, and my car was left behind in the parking lot. Little did I know, 7-Eleven has a deal with the devil on parking; the devil in this case being Discount Towing.

Here's how it works: Discount Towing drives around arbitrarily, keeping tabs on how long cars are parked in the various locations they oversee. When a car has been vacated longer than it should take for someone to go inside for a Coke and a churro, they make their move.

Hence, when I came back to 7-Eleven to get my car two hours later, it was gone. I found Discount Towing's phone number on the side of the building, then called and asked the weasel that answered where my car was.

Here's the gist of what I found out: my car was in an impound yard 13 miles away; I could get my car out that night, but I needed to bring $271, cash.

"So... why exactly are you called Discount Towing?" I asked, before ending the phone conversation. The crook didn't appreciate my sarcasm and hung up. Too bad he hadn't a clue who he was dealing with, i.e., one of the cheapest persons on earth.

My boss drove me to the impound yard, where I planned on negotiating the rate down (on the way there I called some other towing companies to see what they charged, and found I was getting raked over the coals).

Discount Towing was located in the shady part of town, not far from smoke shops, gentleman's clubs, and a KFC restaurant.

If you've never been to an impound yard, know that "prison yard" and "impound yard" have a lot more in common than just "yard." This dump had it all: rottweilers, barbed wire, mean guys that looked like they ate babies. What the attendants lacked in teeth they made up for in tattoos.

Negotiations with the crook didn't go well. In fact, I ticked Mr. Discount Towing right off. The thing that's tough about wheelin'-and-dealin' with a guy that has your car locked up is, well, he has your car. I eventually offered $190, but he wouldn't bend.

He was stuck at $271, cash, and I had no leverage. In one last attempt I asked if he wanted to arm wrestle for the car, and again, my sarcasm wasn't appreciated. Not even a little. I told him I'd be back in the morning for round two. I had to--I didn't have $271 on me.

I went home that night, without my car, and studied the state towing codes up and down. I found out what they could charge and what they couldn't. I was ready for round two.

I couldn't help but worry about my car, though. As mad as I made the crook, I figured he was out vandalizing my car that evening--rolling it over and slashing the tires. What worried me most was that I didn't lock my car when I left 7-Eleven (the door locks don't really work).

I started thinking of all the valuables I had in my car, but after listing them off in my mind (a pack of David sunflower seeds, a book on tape from the library, Altoids, a Sacajawea dollar) I returned to worrying about the slashed tires, rather than burglary.

I was back at the impound yard before noon the next day. After looking through the fencing and spotting my car, still in one piece, I marched confidently towards the crook's office. I had spent the morning talking to the folks at the DMV and the state tax commission, and I had a case.

With Eye of the Tiger playing in my head, I confronted the crook with everything I had. I even got him on the phone with a lady from the state. After all was said and done we settled at $163. Not a knockout, but still a win.

As I followed him to my car we passed a smashed circuit board (one of the many pieces of garbage scattered around the place) laying on the ground. I turned and joked "hey, that's my car stereo!" Again the crook was in no mood for small talk, especially since he could've had $190 the night before.

Analog TV, digital TV, there's nothing on either way

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I bet TV watching in the United States hit a record low yesterday, because 2.8 million homes woke up to blank screens. The national switch to all-digital broadcasting kicked in Friday at midnight.

Their TVs didn't have to go blank, though. For the past year or so the FCC has been telling folks that if they're picking up television over the airways, they'll need a converter box--at least if they want to keep watching This Old House beyond June 12.

But to most the people who are currently without any TV reception, a converter box holds the same meaning as a flux capacitor; they don't know where to get one and they wouldn't know how to work it if they did: www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-md.dtv.

In 4th grade, my elementary school promoted a No TV Week. Dworshak Elementary was always pushing crap like that on us (e.g., Red Ribbon Week, Jump Rope for Health Week, Give the Cafeteria Food a Try Week).

If only the school had the ability to switch our TV feed from analog to digital. Such a switch would have cut me and my family off from television.

I grew up on rabbit ears (I'm talking about a TV anteanna, not my daily fare--people in Idaho know the ears are one part of a rabbit that's not good eatin'). We only had five channels to surf: 14 - PBS, 21-Spanish TV, 59 - NBC, 61 - ABC, and 63 - too fuzzy to tell.

Honestly, those 2 million folks without TV right now aren't missing much. My wife and I found ourselves up late last night, bored but not tired enough to go to bed. We turned on the telly and settled in on the couch.

We spent some time on Travel Channel's Ghost Busters, where this guy went into Jack the Ripper's old prison cell to conjure up ghosts. He sat in the dark for some five or six hours until he heard a radiator clink:

"Oh my gosh, did you hear that?! I've been sitting here for hours, asking the departed soul to speak to me, and then I heard this spooky noise. (The radiator clink is then played over and over.) I think he's upset!"

Then we made our way over to Discovery Channel's Cocaine Nation, where we learned about the one commodity that's keeping the nation's GDP from going completely into the gutter.

Soon bed started to sound a lot better than whatever was on.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd be fine joining those folks without a converter box. Another No TV Week might be kind of nice... as long as it's not during football season.

Evolution lapses on camping trips, Part 2

The first few miles were all smiles. We were tromping along a dirt path that I could have hiked in my sleep. After a while, we entered Orderville Canyon.

Orderville is a slot canyon, which according to Wikipedia, "is a narrow canyon, formed by the wear of water rushing through rock."

The first part of the canyon floor was all mud because a flash flood had torn through the night before. Despite collecting several inches of mud on the bottom of our feet, we were all still in high spirits.

Here's where I want to get back to the stupidity thing I addressed in Part 1. It's not that we weren't prepared--we certainly had everything we needed for the hike, we just didn't bother to bring what we had.

The first thing I'd like to address is our rations. While some had plenty to eat and drink in their packs, others had very little. Actually, Neanderthal #5 didn't even bring a pack. He carried a re-filled Gatorade bottle in his hand and a PBJ his back pocket. Neanderthal #10 went with two cans of Mountain Dew and a small bottle of water.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, we decided to leave the wetsuits behind. Well, about the time we got to the water section of the hike, where we had to start wading and swimming, a cold front came in.

The wind picked up and rain clouds covered the sun. Nonetheless, our jovial nature managed to carry us through the first few swims. But after an hour or so of plowing through 55-degree water in the bottom of a chilly canyon, it got really old really fast.

With everyone being hungry, dehydrated, and soaked in freezing water, it was every man for himself. If anger is a symptom of hypothermia, we all had it.

Funny movie quotes and jokes were replaced with death threats and grumblings. If someone biffed it in the water, their call for everyone to hold up was ignored. I'm pretty sure I remember someone asking for a handgun.

I remember thinking that if I fell in the water one more time it would definitely be my last fall. I was ready to give myself up as a sacrifice to Orderville.

Just as we were all reaching our limits, we came to the end of the hike. Orderville Canyon terminates at a visitor's point of Zion National Park. Thus, families with little kids and Chinese tourist watched ten men, on the brink of death, climb out of the river one by one.

It didn't help that many of us had our shirts off (some hiker we passed earlier on suggested we'd be warmer without them). Like zombies, we each stumbled onto the riverbed and fell down shivering.

Some of us looked dead and some looked incoherent. Some of us looked like we still had some evolution to go through.