As I sit here on the eve of America's Great Race, the Daytona 500, two things come to mind. First, and foremost, I'm not in Florida selling funnel cakes. Instead, I struggled through the ESPN Bracket Buster Game at Liberty today with a total sales of $272. While that covered my expenses, (I paid Laura and Tank and used some supplies) it left me very little to go out tomorrow and buy a Big Mac and a Shovel.

 I'd rather be sitting on the beach in front of the Treasure Island Inn in Daytona Beach sipping Mai Tai's or some other tropical flavored drink and getting ready for selling about a million and a half funnel cakes tomorrow.

The other thing that comes to mind is the controversy over the new surface on the Daytona Speedway. If you've watched any of the coverage from there this past couple of weeks, you know there is a new track surface that may change the restrictor plate races forever. Instead of 15 or 20 cars bunched together, they seem to pair up in twos and go much faster. So, when the Big One happens, it won't be a bunch of cars getting trashed because they are in two-by-twos all over the track.

I decided to research this phenomenon and consulted with the FBI, the CIA, the AFof LCIO and the tribal council meeting in the parking lot in front of Becky McCray's liquor store in Alva, OK. The result was that NASCAR mixed asphalt with the dung of a Japanese Yak and repaved the track. Whoever came up with that formula needs to consult with Dr. Phil for the next three weeks.

The track has more grip allowing the cars to go over 200MPH. And it only takes one partner to push you to the lead rather than ten like in the past. The only problem is that when the temperature hits 95 in the shade, what will Daytona smell like.

DISCLAIMER: If you believe anything read on these pages, you need an encounter with the south end of the Japanese Yak.

 

The past week has been one of the crazier in the history of Big Red. And, quite frankly, has left me a bit goofy. Not that I wasn't goofy to start, but. . . . 

It all started last Monday when my buddy Todd from Richmond Raceway called and said he needed me in the Old Dominiond Building for the Richmond RV and Camper Show. Since I've lost several shows at Richmond due to economic downsizing or the show moved to the new state fairgrounds, I certainly didn't want to turn it down.

The first problem to overcome was my Liberty basketball schedule. A mens game was slated on Thursday night when I normally set up a weekend show, and a double header on Saturday.

Tank and Laura weren't available on Thursday, so I had Chuck and Ryan drive down from Harrisonburg. Earlier in the day, I set up my tent set up for Saturday, and did all my shopping for the RV Show.

The three of us worked the game Thursday night, which was one of our better efforts at LU for the season, then packed up Big Red and drove to Richmond. I dropped off the trailer well after midnight then arrived early on Friday to set up our booth inside and get Big Red ready for customers starting at noon.

Friday and Sunday, our sales were very comparable to last years show, but Saturday, my sales were off about 25%, so the show was down for the year. The most interesting thing to come out of the weekend was that our chicken sandwich was dubbed the Best Chicken Sandwich in Richmond. That has opened some opportunities later in the year where we'll be featuring the chicken. Still, a decent show plus the McGeorge's folks sponsored entertainment in the Old Dominion Building so things were kept lively.

Meanwhile, back in Lynchburg, Tank had to work his regular job and didn't get off until after halftime of the second game. That forced Laura outside cooking from the tent, a friend of hers, Nikki, helped and Sister Jean and Gene manned the inside. And it was our biggest game of the year. Very nice job by all.

I dorve Big Red back on Sunday night, cleaned her and moved her back to Liberty for a Women's game on Monday night. And tore down the tent set up and equipment from Saturday.

Glad that week is over.

Many of you that follow me on Twitter or Facebook know that I had all sorts of problems with Foursquare over the weekend posting me in a bunch of ridiculous places. My original plan was to blister them today on these pages. But, I changed my mind on that. First, one of the Foursquare employees reached out and has taken a look at all of my posts and the resulting response with the errors. He has forwarded it on to their tech folks and they are working on it. So, I'm happy to stand pat for awhile.

Actually, the past couple of days, I began posting my locations again and they have been correct.

I do know that most people have a Foursquare Ap on their phones and it avoids the trouble I had. AT&T, nor my Samsung Flight phone, have that Ap available. So I am posting via text messages and apparently the computers at times have trouble reading those texts. The end result was it had me in Blacksburg, Roanoke, New York and stuck in traffic when I was really at various places in the Richmond area.

I give Foursquare a big SWEET for reaching out, explaining the situation and working on it. Hopefully, a full solution will present itself shortly.

Sister Jean, and her daughter Amanda (@zooleft) had a great trip to Rincon, Puerto Rico. I still think I should find a shack on the beach, sell a cup or two of lemonade and maybe make a funnel cake when the mood strikes. Sounds like a plan for next winter and Rincon would be a nice place to do it.

This week, we only have one more basketball game, but it should be a good one. Liberty is playing Iona on Saturday afternoon in an ESPNU Bracket Buster game. I'm expecting the Vines Center to be close to a sell out for that one. Liberty has also wrapped up at least one home tournament game when the Big South Tournament starts in a couple of weeks. That also should be a good game.

Please stay tuned to these pages, expecially around the first of the month. A major announcement will be forthcoming that I unfortunately can not talk about yet. But, it will be a doozie.

 

Over the past couple of months, when I've had a lot more time on my hands than I'd prefer, I've taken on such giants as Dell and Verizon, and have even taken a shot or two at the FBI, CIA and other government agencies that use acronyms to hide their activities. Today, my tirade is at Adobe.

An Adobe Reader is one of those things in a computer than technically challenged folks, like me, take for granted. It reads PDF files, whatever that means. In my case, I've been trying to download floor plans from a couple of upcoming shows, so for my purposes, PDF means Pretty Damned-Important Files.

My new computer either did not have Adobe Reader on it, or out of stupidity, I got rid of it without knowing it. If I remember correctly, all of my previous computers came equipped with that particular software.

Anyway, to read those Pretty Damned Important files, I had to download Adobe Reader. That in itself, a simple enough task for a dummy. Click on a button that says Download.

However, after the couple of minutes it takes, the Adobe Reader corrupted my whole system changing all of my icons to the Adobe Reader Icon, and stopped me from navigating to any place in my computer saying something about creating file associations in default settings and other things that leave my in a state of confusion.

My only solution was to uninstall the reader and everything went back to normal only I still had not read my Pretty Damned Important Files.

Over the course of two weeks, I repeated the above 6 or seven times, all with the same results.

Yesterday, I went to the Adobe.com website to seek help. There is no Help email link, only phone numbers with a $39 charge. I even tried sending an email to help@adobe.com and suppport@adobe.com  thinking surely one would go through. Both came back as Undeliverable. I give Adobe a very poor rating in customer care.

Finally, I posted my problems on one of Adobe's on line forums. An hour or so later, a very nice lady (Lynn Hudak) posted a reply stating she was having the same problems and that I was not alone.

A couple hours later, a gentleman posted a link to an Adobe site which addressed the problem specifically only it was written in computereze with things like "modifying registries" and "rebuilding Iconcaches" and such that just scared the bejesus out of me.

Finally, Lynn came back, said she had failed at the suggestions, and consulted with her son, apparently a geek like mine (@jasonfalls) and he directed her to Foxitsoftware.com. I did the same, downloaded Foxit and in less than a minute, was printing off my Pretty Damned Important Files.

So, Adobe is gone. Foxit is in. Thanks, Lynn and your son.

Over the course of my 61+ years of living, I've been faced with numerous challenges. Many of them would stop most mortal men, like having an Achilles tendon removed and being told you probably will never walk again, or fighting a gambling addiction that resulted in illegal activities I still can't talk about. None have even come close to giving a three year old a haircut.

As you can tell from the attached picture, I was in dire need of a haircut, a job Peggy has done for the past 11 years. (That is why I keep her around. Saves on barber costs.) Kagen, her grandson, also needed one since his locks hadn't been clipped since Daniel, her eldest son scalped him back in May. Kill two birds with one stone?

Kagen doesn't like haircuts.

Being the highly intelligent person that I am, I decided on the intellectual approach.

"Kagen, you need a haircut," I stated on Sunday night.

"No," he answered.

A few minutes later, "Kagen, if Oompa (that's me) gets a haircut, will you let grandma cut yours?" I asked.

"No," he stated emphatically.

On Monday morning, I said hopefuly, "Kagen, let's get grandma to cut Oompa's hair, and then trim yours just a little."

"Nope," he replied.

I sat down to get my haircut. "Kagen, do you want to help grandma?"

He grabbed the clippers, climbed up on a chair and started in.

Hmmmm. I thought.

"Since you are giving Oompa a haircut, will you let me give you one?"

"No," he said as half my neck was cut away.

As Peggy was trying to straighten up his handiwork, Kagen got his bulldozer and began cleaning up hair from the floor.

 

After Peggy finished her job on me, "Kagen, it is your turn," I said without much hope.

"No."

Obviously, the intellectual approach isn't working.

Knowing how much kids hate showers and baths, "Kagen, if you get a haircut, I'll let you take a shower."

He ran for the chair, climbed up and said, "Grandma, where's the towel for my neck?"

"Grrrrrrrrr," I replied.

 

He actually sat still, but only for one half of a haircut.

I decided a new tact was required.

I grabbed him bodily, carried him screaming and kicking back to the chair, and sat on him. Only, I'm so big, Peggy couldn't find his head to finish the clipping.

She sat on him and I went looking for some rope.

I tied him to the chair, binding his feet and hands, and wrapped the rope around him and the back of the chair three times. Peggy clipped one strand of hair, and Kagen had the rope untied, unwrapped, and was back in the living room watching TV before I could blink.

With that, we quit. Trust me. If you have a three year old, take him to a barber and pay the $10.