The BorD files, episode 9:

Now with more vi editing and string substitution.

I am sure you are all just dying to hear how IBM paid for my spring break. You see, Intel and IBM both interviewed me during March 2000. Intel is in town, but IBM let me know that they had an invitational event happening in Boulder, Colorado. If I wanted to go, they would fly me to Boulder, put me up in the Regal Harvest House Hotel, and do their best to recruit me.

This of course was going to put pressure on me, (gee, the pressure. Do I talk to people at IBM about a job? The things that I consider to be pressure. sheesh.) I was already planning to go to Southern California for Spring Break. I asked the recruiter if IBM would be willing to pay for gas if I drove to Colorado. Of course they would. Go check out how much a plane ticket costs from Phoenix to Denver. Then add up gas costs for 2000 miles at 30 mpg. (even at $2 a gallon). I saved them a ton of money by doing this.

After working out the details, we decided that this would be the best way to go. We would skip California, and head East, through New Mexico and Colorado. We would see parts of the country that we had not seen before. This would be springtime. It wouldn't be very cold. I asked the recruiter, she told me that IBM could not guarantee the weather, (IBM has a great sense of humor) but it had been a very mild winter, nothing to worry about. I had a friend that had just returned from Boulder, he reported dry roads, nothing to worry about. Here is a hint. I would not be writing this up if there were nothing to worry about.

So what did I end up worrying about? Snow. A great deal of snow. Now many people say, so what? My answer is that I live in the desert. I deal with small amounts of rain. The occassional monsoon summer rainstorm. I do NOT deal with snow. Here I was, getting ready to drive into the only snowstorm that the Denver area got all winter. I take that back. They got more snow when it was time for me to leave.

I guess I should be happy that I was in a front wheel drive minivan. The thing had plenty of weight, and plenty of traction. The van was originally from Canada, so I guess it was used to rolling around in snow. I need to back up. We had a nice, uneventful trip from Phoenix to Albuquerque via Holbrook. (You can save quite a few miles and quite a few hours by skipping Flagstaff. My tip to you, my faithful readers.) We enjoyed a trip up the world's longest tram, wandered around old town, had a nice touristy time.

The next day, after the Weather Channel scared me with their talk of clouds and possibilities for snow, we got rolling. The sky was clear, not a sign of a storm. However, there is a saying in Colorado. If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute. I waited a minute, and the next thing I knew, it was snowing. I had a light jacket with me. Thank goodness the heater worked. We filled up the tank, and kept on going. The ice storm turned to light snow. We kept on going. The light snow turned into heavy snow. We kept on going. It took us hours and hours to get to Boulder. It took about an hour to cover the same ground on the return trip.

I am the first to admit, snow can be pretty. What ISN'T pretty is when the windshield wipers start to ice up. They would stop clearing the windshield, and I would have to get out and scrape them. Using what? You would never believe it. My son enjoys playing with kitchen utensils, you know the kind. He likes large wooden spoons, ice cream scoopers, stuff like that. We brought some along on the road trip in his box of toys to keep him amused during the long and boring ride that a small child must endure in a car seat.

I hope you can picture this in your minds eye. A goofy desert rat (me!) in a light jacket, no hat, no gloves, with a wooden spoon outside of his minivan scraping ice and snow off of his car. As Mr T used to say, I pity the fool.

So, this is how we proceed through the snow. We finally arrive. Tired, cold, and hungry. Let us now add insult to injury. My reservations with the IBM hotel weren't until the next night. We were on our own to find accomodations. Every room in that town was either spoken for, had no crib for the baby, or was outrageously priced. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that, I can see I should have just taken the first room and said to heck with it.

Eventually we found a relatively inexpensive place with a crib. We settled in, drove in the snow to find food, and drove back to the room. It was cozy enough, and was actually quite beautiful when it was quiet. With the snow coming down, it was some kind of winter wonderland.

The really amazing part? The next day all that snow melted, the plows did their jobs, and the roads were clear. The sky was blue, and the town was quite beautiful. Walkways, paths, parks, people out riding bicycles, rollerblading, having a great time. The city is right by the University, a wonderful place to raise a family. Except for one thing. The cost of living is outrageous. If you're bored, go to yahoo and check out the city comparisons between Phoenix and Boulder. Your jaw will hit the floor, just like mine did.

The day was jam packed with interviews. Initially, I had 3 scheduled. What they did not tell you was that the more schmoozing you did, the more interviews they scheduled you for. I have experience with IBM AS/400 and RS/6000 computers, I have been using IBM hardware for ten years. I knew some of the questions to ask, and was hooked up with managers from those divisions. My initial 3 interviews ballooned into 7. I think I did well with them all. IBM was impressed, they offered me a job, but sadly, it could not compete with the offer Intel made. I told them no thank you, the day ended, and all of the candidates were shuttled back to the hotel.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my wife and child had spent the day in and around the hotel. It was time for their reward, a nice meal out, maybe see some more of the town. I showered, changed, we were out the door and into the parking lot. Can you guess what happened? No charge in the battery. No lights in the passenger compartment, no clock blinking happily away, nothing. It is Friday night. We are leaving the state in a few short hours. There will be no garage open at this time of day, and I don't know what the odds will be on a Saturday. I pop the hood, do the patented 'I will stare at this engine and it will work' routine, and beg a stranger for a jump start.

It always makes me feel like white trash to have the hood of my dirty (we had been driving in snow, mud, ice, and the salt that the trucks lay on the road for the past few days) mini van open in the parking lot of a semi ritzy hotel. The mercedes slid over and gave me a jump start (NOW I know why I packed that tool box, jumper cables included). The engine turned over, no problem. So did the rear window wiper. You know that stupid rear window wiper that you never use in the desert? I used it a few times while driving through the snow. Don't ask me how or why, but the stupid thing had a short in it, and was going back and forth. My hunch and my hope was that somehow this short had drained the battery. I opened the fuse box, found the offending fuse, pulled it, and the wiper stopped wiping. We mustered courage and drove into the night, hoping that the car would start after we ate.

The meal was fine. The night went well. The car continued to start. We parked for the night, hoping that all would be well in the morning. Our luck continued to hold. The car started just fine, and has continued to do so. Hopefully there will not be a need for a rear window wiper in this car's future, as that is currently not working.

We started for home. The sky stayed clear until we hit Pike's Peak. Then it blasted more snow at us. So, once again, desert rat is scraping snow off of his windshield every few miles. I will guess they must make some kind of de-icer that you can add to your cleaning fluid. At least they must make some kind of tool you can use that is better than a wooden kitchen spoon when you need to clean the ice from your wipers.

I thought I had it bad. I was soon proven wrong. While I was doing the ice scraping dance, a lady drove up behind me. The ice had built up on her wipers so badly that the driver's side wiper had snapped off. She had no idea what to do. She asked me to help. Again, picture no boots no hat no gloves freezing cold light jacket boy (me) helping this lady take her remaining wiper from the passenger side and putting it onto the drivers side. I wish I had a picture that I could link to. I am not even sure if I can describe this correctly. When you take off a wiper, it is a two second job. Unsnap the old one, snap in the new one. It is REALLY simple. However, she had a brand new Ford Explorer. For some weird reason, we could NOT get this stupid blade to slide into the driver's side. We figured this new fancy truck must have a weird way of getting a new wiper on the arm. After many minutes fiddling around with it, I made the discovery. When the old one snapped off, it left a piece behind, which was blocking our attempt at replacement. Once this simple discovery was made, she was on her way, and I was on my way. Freezing cold, but on my way.

So we get out of Colorado. Out of the mountains. Out of the snow. Out of the cold. Everything is great. Until the motor starts to make a knocking sound. I once had an old Buick station wagon that made the exact same noises right before it threw a rod. This sound coming from the front of our van did NOT inspire any happiness or confidence in me. I don't know how often you get into this part of the USA, but it is very lightly inhabited up that way. There were no service stations until we hit Santa Fe, New Mexico. The problem? I had neglected to check the oil that morning, and it was a few quarts low. Oops. Once that was taken care of, it was no longer snowing, it was warm, and the engine was no longer knocking. Should I get gas now? No. I could make it clear to the other side of Albuquerque before I needed gas. Why bother filling up? Besides, the prices were higher in Santa Fe than they were further on. (Remember, this was the return trip, I knew all about the gas prices I would be seeing further on.)

We rolled on. Uneventful. Baby wasn't happy about being in the car seat for such a long time, so we stopped every now and again to stretch his legs. We finally decided it was time to stop for gas. Guess what. The gas station had no power. Did you know that gas stations do not work without power? I guess Y2K could have been a pretty big problem after all.

This was just my luck. Pile back into the car, head for the next town. No power in the next town. Keep on going. Watch the gas guage. Start to get a little worried. Start to drive on fumes. Finally! In the distance, you can see the giant LED lights flashing at a truck stop! We are saved! They have power! We pull into the pump. Nothing. No power. Go inside. Talk to the attendant. They have backup generators that will light up a huge sign, but they do not have backup generators that will run the computers or pump the gas. Poor planning?

The ENTIRE STATE OF NEW MEXICO lost power on March 18, 2000. There are no backup power sources. There are no manual methods to pump gas. When the power goes out, the minimum wage earning attendants all go, duh, I don't know what to do.

Ok. It is dusk. We have been driving now for quite a few hours. We are lucky to have made it this far. We can't go back. We can't go forward. We are now officially stuck. We start talking to other travellers. They have been coming from both East and West, and there is no power in either direction. The Sheriff has no idea how long it might be before power is restored. We are stranded. Luckily we have food, we have a cooler full of stuff to drink, we have diapers and formula, we won't starve. However, it is starting to get quite chilly out there. We head inside the building. It is a huge truck stop, with a food court, restrooms (you don't need power to flush the toilets), and warmth. The minimum wage clerks get scared, and shut down the building. I guess they thought we might start looting. Looking back now, I guess I should have. This was no way to treat these cold hungry travellers.

There is no greater feeling than being out of gas, with a tired little family, with no place to go. The best way to compound that feeling is to know that if you would have filled up in Santa Fe when you had the chance, you would have easily had the gas to make it into Arizona which hasn't been affected by the power outage at all.

So what do you do? You sit in your car, and you wait. You wait for 'the man' to come by and tell you that it is a hazard to be parked next to the gas pump. After all, the power might come back on and cause an explosion. I cannot begin to argue with this mighty logic. If all it takes is turning the power back on to blow up a gas station, then terrorists really don't have to work very hard to take out whole city blocks! Fight the power! I am planning on flipping the power on and off at the gas station! No one can stop me!

Luckily, I was able to park in front of the store. Why I am allowed to park mere feet away from the pumps instead of right in front of them is beyond me. I would think that an explosion is going to take me out either way. ANYWAY, here we are, with no idea how long we will be stuck here. Should we be getting ready for a long winter's nap? I won't keep you in suspense. The power came back on about 2 hours after our nightmare began. I don't know how you like to travel, but I like to cover miles and keep going. Sitting in the parking lot of a truckstop isn't usually on the agenda. I guess it beats being stuck on the side of the road somewhere.

When the lights came back on, I slammed the van into reverse, and looked like Mario Andretti as I raced the other 150+ cars that were waiting for gas. I had moved from right in front of the store, to the gas pump that was directly behind me. I was first in line to pump gas! The crowd let out a mighty roar!

I whip out my credit card, only to be confronted with the sign on the pump that says, sorry, the computer is down, please see the attendant. See the attendant do what? See the attendant go, duh, I do not understand what the machine is telling me. The power went down hard. The computer needs to figure out where it was when it died. I am willing to bet that a few lucky souls got free gas when the systems crashed. So, the system comes back up, in a goofed up state, trying to sort itself out, while clerks keep swiping cards and pounding on terminals. Here is a thought. Let it do its thing for a while. It will sort itself out. In the meantime, all the impatient folks out there have taken the nozzles out of the pump. This confuses the machine more. It cannot talk to the pump unless the nozzle is hung up. Don't ask me, I did not design the system. I just watched in awe as the chaos unfolded.

FINALLY. The system is reset. Ready to go. I swipe my card, pump my gas, and race out of the lot. I head to Arizona, freedom, and wipe the memory of this snow filled power outage day from my weary mind. Now the decision looms large. It has been 12+ hours. Do you stop for the night and admit defeat? Or do you carry on with a mighty battle cry, for home is only 4-5 hours away?

If you are a smart man, you leave that decision to your wife, and you do what she says. She ordered us onward, so after dining on the delicious taste of Denny's, we raced toward Phoenix, our final destination.

Weary, yet undefeated, we turn into our driveway a mere 17 hours after setting out. Had there been no snow, and no power outage, we could have done it in 11 or 12. Had I played the lottery, I could have won. There can be no excuses. We looked inconvenience and a little bit of snow in the face, stared it down, and beat it. Sounds pretty pathetic really. It isn't like we walked across the plains. We didn't go hungry. We didn't bury friends or neighbors. Actually, it was a pretty fun day, and made for a trip that we will probably remember for a long time. What am I complaining about?