Scattered, Covered, Smothered, Chunked, Capped, Peppered, Topped, Old, and Alone

The best part of any trip to Kansas City!

  I took my first day off since starting my 6-month contract in Urbandale last Friday to go with Kathy to Kansas City for my niece Lauren’s wedding. I am not eager to take many long trips and am not much of a wedding person either but I was happy to make an exception for my niece since she is OK in my book, I get along with her parents quite well, and besides Kathy promised we could eat at one of the many area Waffle Houses while we were in Kansas City.

  I spend the week leading up to Friday distracted by the prospects of my first Waffle House meal since last September when we went to Gaffney, South Carolina to attend my father-in-law’s retirement dinner. There are no Waffle Houses in Iowa or my native New Jersey. I had to wait until I was 26 and living in Florida to fall in love with Waffle House staples like T-Bone and eggs and hash browns scattered (on the grill), smothered (in onions) and covered (in cheese). Since then the Waffle House has expanded their menu, now offering hash browns chunked (with ham), capped (with mushrooms), diced (with tomatoes), peppered (with jalapeno peppers), topped (with chili) and country (covered in country gravy) in addition to scattered, smothered, and covered.

After dropping off Ringo the mourning dove to his rescue center, we stopped for gas at the Cameron, Missouri Valero - home of $2.59 gas and 99 cent 16 oz. Cokes. With gas in Iowa at $2.89 and 16 oz. Coke cans $1.19 I wonder why Missouri is so cheap?

  Finally, Friday morning came. Kathy and I walked Daisy and Baxter on a mile and half round trip walk to the Casey’s for me to get a coffee and give the beagles a beef stick treat. When we got home we hung out until 9am and took another walk with the beagles before taking them and our suitcases to the car for a ride. Daisy and Baxter were thrilled to be in the car until we stopped at the Happy Tails doggie day care where they were to be boarded until Sunday afternoon. After a little coaxing the beagles made their way into the back of the kennel and we were on our way to Kansas City.

  There was a side trip to Des Moines with our temporary guest Ringo the mourning dove. Kathy found Ringo unable to fly a week before and put him in an old birdcage in the garage. The Saturday before we let Ringo loose and he flew away but a few hours later we found him in the driveway with a cut on his head like he flew into a window. Kathy put him in the garage again and found a bird rescue person in Des Moines to take Ringo in. After the side trip we were on our way to Kansas City.

  The original plan was to have Sunday breakfast at the Waffle House on our way back home but we were making such good time we didn’t stop for lunch. There was no argument from me when Kathy say a Waffle House sign in Liberty and suggested we stop there to eat. In 2015 I also ate at the Waffle House in Liberty but after looking at the Waffle House store locator there doesn’t seem to be a Liberty, Missouri location so I must have been in a different town altogether. I didn’t recognize this Waffle House as being the same one as last time which was a welcome surprise because it was way cleaner. The grill, pans, and waffle irons were sparkling and there was no food covered tables like my last visit.

  We sat at the counter and our server came over to greet us and ask us what we wanted to drink. I asked for a coffee and Kathy a glass of water. Kathy then ordered scrambled eggs with toast while I had hash browns ‘all the way’ except for peppers and country gravy. The server gave our order to the cook who proceeded to expertly place the hash browns and all the toppings on the grill while frying Kathy’s eggs and laying down the toast. The server then started talking to the cook about how he was mad at his mother for disrespecting his friends when they came to his house to play video games in the basement. Then the server told the cook that he told his mother that he was going to move out now that he had this job at the Waffle House and that she was going to die “old and alone and feeding cats”. The cook had that look of someone who had heard this story once or twice and went to the back room, returning a few seconds later with four cases of eggs (15 dozen eggs in a case) which he proceeded to place in metal racks while keeping an eye on our food.

  The server apparently wanted the cook’s undivided attention and wasn’t getting it so he went to a booth on the other side of the Waffle House (there was only two other diners in the restaurant) and got on his phone where he told the person on the other end of the conversation that his f@#$% mother had disrespected his friends and that he was f#$%^ sick of her disrespecting his friends and now that he had this F%^&( job at the Waffle house he was going to move out and his mother was going to f^&*)* die old and alone and feeding cats. He then went into the restaurant’s back room where I could see him waving his arms like a bird while he was yelling behind the thankfully soundproof door.

The cook put 720 eggs in baskets for the next day's breakfast while creating my hash brown masterpiece!

  While we were waiting for our food I struck a conversation with the cook. Since he was putting his four cases of eggs into baskets I asked him how many eggs this Waffle House sold on a Saturday morning. He pointed to the four cases and told me that in a typical Saturday morning from 6 to 8 he would use four cases of 15 dozen eggs which works out to 720 eggs in a couple of hours! At that point the cook excused himself and got the server from the back room to give us our food. You would never guess that the server had spent the last ten or so minutes cursing at his mother by how pleasantly he served our food. He was so busy with his personal matter he had forgotten to get my coffee and Kathy’s water so I asked him how my wife’s water was coming along. I thought he was going to curse at me but he said he was sorry, got us our drinks, and disappeared in the back room to resume his phone conversation.

  The scattered, covered, smothered, topped, chunked, diced, and capped has browns were awesome and well worth the trip. Kathy liked her eggs and toast as well but not as much as I enjoyed my hash browns which is my personal highlight of 2018. The other two diners were ready to leave but the server was still in the back room so the hard-working cook took over the register. The other diners used a credit card and the server had the pen so the cook had to get the server out of the back room again. The server came out and helped the two diners and gave me our check while he was at it. We were about done so I waited for the serve to start for the back room before I got up to pay. I told the cook I thought his hash browns were awesome and didn’t give the server any tip at all but I did ask him for a paper receipt after he gave me my change and closed the cash drawer in a futile attempt to get him to curse at me. I suppose I’m not the motherly type.

  The next day and a half was full of food in addition to my niece’s wedding. There was barbecued brisket, ribs, beef, sausage, and chicken at the rehearsal dinner. After that we ate ice cream at the fantastic Betty Rae’s Ice Cream where I had a plum chocolate chip parfait with berries. The next morning at the wedding brunch I had a hot ham and cheese sandwich. After the wedding there was another dinner with salmon, pasta, and tacos. All this food and ice cream was great but paled in comparison to the hash browns I had on Friday afternoon at the Waffle House.

Great ice cream and great weddings are incredible but ultimately everything pales next to an incredible plate of Waffle House food!

  The wedding was super and I enjoyed hanging out with my in-laws but by Sunday morning I was ready to get back to the Waffle House for a farewell to Kansas City breakfast. The problem was that torrential rains in the Kansas City area and the tendency of the area to have flooding made us decided to skip the Waffle House and get away from the storm as soon as possible. It was a good plan that seemed like a great plan when we drove through two flooded sections of road but was undone when we were one of at least four cars to have a flat tire in a two mile stretch after the second flooded section. We changed the tire in the downpour and made our way out of Missouri and into Iowa where the skies cleared to reveal a sunny day after all. We were home by 2pm and picked up a very happy pair of beagles from the Happy Tails kennel a couple of hours later.

  It was an eventful trip to say the least with the best event being the awesome hash browns at the Waffle House in Kansas City. I was a little upset when I realized I didn’t get a picture of our Waffle House server at first but soon came to the conclusion that he needs his job more than I needed to print his picture and if the server lost his job the biggest victim would be his mother (who probably can’t wait to die old and alone and feeding cats).

The Five People I Don't Want to Meet in Heaven - Part 3

  Sadly for me I’ve again run into the type of characters that compel me to add a new chapter to my series on the five people I don’t want to meet in heaven should we both end up there. Part one was about the dumpster diver that called me heartless when I didn’t let him get close enough to me and my howling beagles to ask for a handout. Part two detailed my dealings with the representative of a government entity a program of mine interfaces with telling me errors and delays on their end was ‘their lead developers highest priority’ to quiet me down for two weeks and then telling me that the problem wouldn’t be fixed for months because their staff was ‘a quarter of the size it was a year before’. My most recent run in was with master of the ‘bait and switch’ who may or may not end up in heaven that I don’t want to meet there or anywhere else for that matter.

  Not much has changed on the work front since I last wrote about it. I am still a self-employed contractor hiring myself out as a programmer to a company in Ames and still working part time troubleshooting the program I wrote for my previous employer that they couldn’t keep running after eliminating my entire department earlier this year. The program is used by two different companies that are both having it rewritten by other companies meaning not the company that laid off everyone who could maintain the program. I am slowly turning over the day to day duties to the ‘user’ companies but since the program is quite complex the turning over and the rewrites are taking longer than expected and five months after assuming the second job I am putting in as many hours as ever on my two jobs.

Bait and Switch Artists

  One of the two companies that use the program I maintain owns the software and arranged to sell the other company the source code as of April 2014 (Don’t ask me why). The issue is that the buying company had also paid for specific enhancements to the program after this seemingly arbitrary April 2014 date. I was asked by my former employer if I could merge the purchased code with the specific enhancements.

  It seemed like a simple enough task. I had done several of the specific enhancements and all the code revisions were on a repository that I am very familiar with so I agreed. I asked for access to the code and was told ‘I would get the access I need’ from the executive I made the agreement with. The next day I got an email from someone I never met before who I shall call SDM for ‘Software Development Manager’. SDM said that the easiest solution on his end would be for me to get the source code versions in a format called GIT and that I should download the GIT software from the internet and put it on my machine. I wrote back to SDM saying I didn’t know GIT and that the easiest thing for me would be to have access to the code repository I was used to working with. I left out the part about how I am generally less than impressed with people when the first thing out of their mouths is what is easier for them.

  SDM wrote back saying that getting me access to the repository “did not fit the timeline” and “you can reach out in this thread if you have questions." and also that I would have to learn GIT at some point. I didn’t mention that I have survived 57 + years on the planet without learning GIT but mention that the learning curve would delay the project but I would give it a go. After all, SDM said there was a timeline and if I needed help all I had to do was ask in the email thread.

  That was on a Tuesday. I was supposed to receive this GIT version of the code and start working (there was a timeline after all). I didn’t get the files on Wednesday or Thursday but on late Thursday afternoon I got an email from the ultimate recipient of the merged code telling me they were told I was working on it and asking when I would be done. I didn’t tell the customer I hadn’t started because I didn’t have the code but I did write to SDM mentioning I hadn’t received anything but an email from the customer asking when I was going to be done. SDM said the PG (programming guy) that was supposed to send me the files was out sick and I would get the files on Friday.

  I didn’t get the files Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. So much for the ‘timeline’. I suppose I could have written again. I didn’t because I saw no reason why there would have been a different result than the last time I asked. I wasn’t SDM or PG’s mother and if I was they probably would never see a desert again. I was also wondering if I would ever get the file but on Monday I got an email from SDM asking me if I had everything I needed and if I had any questions about GIT, PG could provide “brief assistance”.

  Part of me wanted to drop this project like a hot potato. A larger, much larger part of me wanted to mention that if I wanted to work with clowns I would have run away and joined the circus when I was a child. But being the responsible adult and someone who had made a commitment I wrote back saying not only did I NOT have everything I needed I actually had NOTHING I needed. I also expressed my concern that the offer of reaching out in an email thread if I had questions had changed in the space of five days to the nebulous offer of ‘brief assistance’.

  I got an email from PG within the hour telling me that he had sent me an email containing the code but his email client ‘appears to be blocking the sending of the code’ and sent me a link to the 73 megabyte file. I know 73 megabytes is not as much as it used to be but it is still way too much for most email servers to send and receive. I was finally able to download the source code. Then SDM wrote to say they could indeed help with GIT and they were outsourcing the project because “our resources are tight”. He closed the email by saying "Have you reviewed the online resources on GIT? If you have questions after that, feel free to ask questions."

  Now for those who haven’t dealt with this type of technical support the translation of this ‘offer’ is known as ‘RTFM’ as in READ THE F******* MANUAL assuming any question I had was going to be so basic that I could just look it up online and asking for help was tantamount to admitting my laziness. As Johnny Cash said in his classic song ‘A Boy Named Sue’ –"What could I do?" Once I had agreed to the project I was getting pushed around like a piece of trash by SDM and possibly PG (who may genuinely not know about sending 73 megabyte emails) with their minds focused on what is easiest for them, blather about timelines, and then not being able to do what they say they are going to do, and fake offers of assistance. It was a classic bait and switch - once I agreed to use the GIT source code repository nothing else that was said by SDM and PG mattered because they were give the minimum of help and do as little as possible which almost didn't even include sending me the source code required to even start the project!

  I wrote back saying that "I will be sure to review the online resources on GIT before feeling free to ask questions." and I haven’t asked any questions because I am sure that I wouldn’t get any kind of an answer. I’ll get the project done but it will take a lot longer and while that’s not OK with me I will make a decent buck from the project and once complete I will run away having anything to do with this company.

  I don’t hate much but I despise dealing with incompetent people that can’t deliver on what they say they are going to do. The only person I’m more upset with that SDM and PG is me because I agreed to this project without nailing down all the details and didn’t demand to use the source code repository I was familiar with. There’s two reasons I don’t want to run into these characters in heaven – first because I don’t like them and more importantly if I ran into them I’d probably do something to get myself kicked out!

The Five People I Don't Want to Meet in Heaven - Part 2

  In continuing my series on the five people I don’t want to meet in heaven I want to stress that I don’t think any of the people I’m going to profile don’t deserve to be in heaven or won’t be in heaven – I just don’t want to meet them if we both happen to end up in heaven. My last profile was about the dumpster diver that called me heartless when I didn’t even let him ask me for a handout. Here is a sample of another group of people I meet enough to know I don’t want them to meet them in heaven either.

  I’m five months into my new occupation as a self-employed contractor hiring myself out as a programmer. At present I’m working at a company in Ames and am supposed to be there to the end of the year. I say ‘supposed to’ because all it takes for any job to disappear is one person with the authority to draw a line through your name. Then you aren’t there anymore. In the last ten years I’ve had the company I worked for sold and my job change from writing software to documenting the software I wrote so the new programmers in Indianapolis could rewrite it, played Survivor with the company I was working for laying people off and cutting the pay of those not being laid off, and had my company eliminate my entire department this year. I’ve come to realize that there is no such thing as job security – only the illusion of job security. I wish I could tell my younger self to never take less money for job security because you are only paying for the illusion of job security. The idea of job security is something I believed that isn’t true and like most things you believe that aren’t true this disbelief comes with a heavy price tag.

To Tell The Truth (NOT)

  I am enjoying my time at the company in Ames. I am treated like a valued member of the team, I get along with everyone, and most importantly my invoices get processed right away which to me is a sign of competence and respect which I value very highly. Since I was working at this same company through my old job the only thing that changed in my work situation was that I didn’t have to be the backup for the program I had worked on from 2010 to 2015 that interfaces with a government entity. That lasted until April when the government entity’s program had a series of major malfunctions which brought the interface program to a halt. The person in charge of the program couldn’t get it working and I was offered a part-time contracting assignment to get it running again.

  I got the program running and within a few days the government entity had solved their meltdown. The person in charge of the program was still having problems getting it to run smoothly. Two weeks later I was asked if I would be available in the early mornings to monitoring the program in order to head off any small problems before they became big problems. At the ripe old age of 56 I’m a little old for having two jobs but I agreed because my current assignment is only ‘guaranteed’ (don’t forget what I said about the illusion of security) until the end of the year and the extra money would come in handy when my current assignment ends. Also this particular piece of software is something I put a lot of time and effort into and it won a prestigious software award a few years back. Not only do have a sentimental attachment it makes me feel good to know a program I spent so much time on is still running like a top which it does until the government agency it interfaces to has one of its all too frequent problems. When a problem arises I adjust what I can on my end and let the agency and my clients know what went wrong and what needs to be done on the government side.

  Monitoring the software was easy enough until the beginning of June when the government agency started having problems with their nightly data refresh that makes the available information that is needed to balance accounts and make data available for the program's end users. The refresh finished by 4:30 am for years most of the time but now was finig=hing between 5:30 am and 7:00 am every morning. This was causing delays in my program getting the government data to the end users. I wrote to the government’s support email every day the data was late but got no results except to thank me for my patience until June 28th when I received an email saying that “We have escalated the issue and it has become our lead developer's highest priority.”

  That sounded good to me but after two more weeks of no results and late data I wrote to the government support email and mentioned that this situation had now been going on for 41 days. I received an email from the author of the June 28th email which said “Because of limited resources, it is unlikely that this issue will be addressed prior to a potential fall release.”

  So much for having the issue escalated and becoming the lead developer’s highest priority! I wrote back asking what had happened in the intervening two weeks and was given this reply “Unfortunately, the development team is now down to 1/4 its size from last year. I apologize for overcommitting in my June 28th message.”

  Now at this point I didn’t see any reason in having a correspondence with this government entity. I don’t know what overcommitting means since either it was or was not the lead developer’s highest priority. If it wasn’t then I wasn’t being overcommitted to – I was being lied to. It is clear that this was just something said to me in the hopes that I would stop asking about the issue which I did for two weeks. If the development team had been cut to a quarter of its size in the past two weeks I could understand the shift in priorities but a development team having been cut over a year shouldn’t be a reason to tell me the delays had become the highest priority of the lead developer.

  I understand why people don’t tell the truth sometimes. I was working on a program change for a company and when it was done I sent an email out to all the interested parties detailing what the changes were. Ten days later (the day before the changes were to go live) I got an email from the president of the company saying my changes weren’t what they wanted. I sent an email back referring to my prior email mentioning there was ample time to let me know that my changes weren’t what they wanted. Then I got an email from the project manager saying they didn’t get my earlier email BUT I had an email from this same project manager thanking me for the update so I know they got the original email. This was a lie but I can understand someone dropping the ball and not wanting to admit it. I don’t agree with it but I understand it. A few years ago I wrote about this person from the chess world whose advice was to "never tell anyone the truth" and showed an example of how he lied to me in an email the very next week. I didn't agree with this liar either but I understand why someone whose stated philosophy is to never tell the truth would lie all the time. One thing I don't understand is why telling the truth is so often the last resort instead of the first option.

  I don’t understand why I wasn’t just told that there was no hope of having this issue resolved weeks ago. I could have changed my interface to run later or let the end users know the delays are now a part of their daily process or adopted any other number of strategies or just done nothing. Maybe the government support person I talked to was instructed to tell me something that wasn’t true or maybe they thought it up on their own. In either case I don’t see how I can believe anything that comes from this particular support group. I could look on the bright side and be glad this group isn’t in charge of kidney transplants (“Your kidney is on its way! It’s our driver’s highest priority!”) but I’ll settle for hoping I don’t meet any of these lying types if we both make it to heaven.

If Benny from the 1990 film classic 'Total Recall' ever needs to find a job to feed his '5 kids' I know a certain goverment agency where he would fit right in although he might need to clean up the language a bit...

The Five People I Don't Want to Meet in Heaven - Part 1

  The Five People You Meet in Heaven is an interesting and acclaimed book by sportswriter Mitch Albom. It covers the life and death of Eddie the amusement park maintenance man. By all appearances Eddie’s life was inconsequential. He had a wife and no children and worked at the amusement park from when he got out of the Army until he died at the age of 83 in an accident at the same amusement park. Once Eddie dies he meets five people who touched his life and whose lives he touched in impactful ways. I believe Albom’s point is that no lives are inconsequent and we touch and are touched by people in ways we can’t even begin to imagine. When I read the book I find myself empathizing a lot with Eddie which is maybe why I find the book so interesting.

  I can’t say I’ve ever thought about what five people I would meet in heaven based on the premise of the book but I’ve often met certain people where the thought crosses my mind how I hope I don’t ever meet them again. Then I start to think that if I went to hell I would probably be around these people all the time. I wanted to write about some of them but I’m normally a pretty positive person so I figured instead of calling this series of posts ‘The Five People You Meet in Hell’ and writing it in a sort of ‘No Exit’ Sartre-esque vein ("Hell is — other people"), I would instead call these people the ones I don’t want to meet in heaven:

“Heartless”

  A couple of weeks ago Kathy and I were taking Daisy and Baxter on our Saturday noon time walk that winds around town and through an alley that leads to a parking lot by some businesses. While we were walking through this familiar guy was trolling through the dumpster that each business has. I’ll call him ‘Dumpster Dave’ for lack of a better name. Dave has a bicycle with a trailer and is a regular around all the area dumpsters. Most of the time he doesn’t talk to me but when he does he calls me ‘sir’, tells me a tale of woe, and asks me if I can spare a dollar or two. Sometimes I give Dave some money and sometimes I don’t. When I've dropped a George or two Dave would thank me and if I didn't he would move on to the next person or dumpster on his rounds. One time Dave tried to sell me a broken 78 rpm record he found in a garbage can and I gave him a dollar and even left him his broken 78 rpm record to try to sell to someone else. Once Dave was featured in the newspaper for finding a copy of a local newspaper featuring the 1969 moon landing (which was as big a deal for that generation as the Kennedy Assassination, Pearl Harbor, and 9-11 were for theirs). With his wayward beard and shaggy unkempt gray hair to go along with his dumpster diving and panhandling ways Dave gives off an aura of poverty and/or mental disease which juxtaposes oddly against the his nearly new Carhartt jacket, sturdy boots, and while not an overweight man certainly not emaciated.

  Well on this particular Saturday Dave saw Kathy and I walking. We were the only people in the alley even though it is a convenient shortcut that people that live east of North Center St use to get their cigarettes and cans of Steel Reserve from the Liquor Depot. It must have been a poor day for dumpstering so Dave yelled from a block’s worth of dumpsters away “Excuse me Sir!” and started running over to me. I knew what was coming and Daisy and Baxter were already starting to bark and howl so I yelled back “Sorry I can’t help you”. I was having a nice walk on a Saturday which I didn't want interrupted by trying to listen to Dave's tale of woe over the incessant barking of my beagles. Dumpster Dave must have been pretty upset because as he trudged back to the dumpster where he left his bicycle and trailer he yelled “I should have known better than ask a heartless guy like you for anything!” which was decorated with some expletives unsuited for a family friendly blog like mine.

  I guess Dumpster Dave didn’t remember me as someone who’s dropped a buck or two on him in the past. Maybe he thought I was the kind of guy who would be overcome by guilt and run to payday loan to line his pockets or maybe he thought I’d run over and try to punch him is he could sue me and get on easy street but he was wrong on all counts. I've never felt like I was paying my way to heaven or building up Karma by giving someone a buck or two and I've never thought too much about saying no to the same requests - I kind of go where the spirit moves me. I just continued on our walk and on the next block asked Kathy how she could have married such a heartless guy like me. The next afternoon I was walking Daisy and Baxter (without Kathy). I was listening to music from my amazing iPod with my headphones on heading south and as I passed the iconic Liquor Depot who should I see heading towards me on his bicycle but Dumpster Dave! I turned up the volume on my headphones and if Dumpster Dave had anything to say I didn’t hear it but I doubt he even remembered me since he never looked at me but headed straight into the Depot. I didn’t wait to see what he came out with but my money is on a couple of cans of Steel Reserve. The next time I see Dumpster Dave will be too soon. I don't care if I'm thanked for doing something but I sure don't want to be cursed out for saying no to someone. Dumpster Dave's seen his last buck from me and if he ever calls me heartless again I’ll tell him he’s wrong because when it comes to him I do have a heart – a heart of stone!

  Now don’t get me wrong – When I say that Dumpster Dave is one of the five people I don’t want to meet in heaven I am NOT saying he won’t be in heaven or that I will be in heaven. After all Jesus said “Blessed are the poor” or “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (depending on the version and translation and etc...) so Dave probably has a better shot than me despite his sturdy boots and Carhartt jacket. All I’m saying is that if I should happen to get to heaven one of the five people I don't want to meet is Dumpster Dave!

An evening with C.A.

Meet C.A. and his Red Solo Cup!

  As great as the Okoboji Open was this year, there was one glaring problem: The hotel where the tournament was booked a fraternity party from the University of Northern Iowa for the same weekend as the tournament. When I heard that the hotel was full for the weekend I figured that maybe there was a wedding or a reunion but I knew differently when during the first round of the tournament Friday night there were all these college age kids filling up coolers with ice and rolling luggage carts stacked with cases of beer and liquor and boxes of wine in a seemingly never ending caravan to their rooms.

  College kids were running around in the halls until the wee hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Many of the players who stayed in the hotel told me that the noise woke them up or kept them from sleeping and a few told me how someone would bang on their door screaming to be let in because they thought it was their room or their friends room. I had two encounters with the college crowd, one direct and one indirect. On Saturday night, I was going to give Ken Fee and Frank Whitsell from the Kansas City Chess Club a ride to the El Parian restaurant for the annual Okoboji dinner. Everyone had left and I was still waiting for Ken and Frank. I called Ken and he told me they couldn't leave their room yet and would be down in a bit. When they finally came down they told me that this drunk college girl said she was locked out of her room and begged to use their bathroom. They let her in and she proceeded to throw up all over their room and they had to call room service for a cleanup and that's why they were late getting to the lobby.

  To a person, the staff at the hotel was super helpful and very embarrassed by the fact that the management had made the decision to host a bunch of loud, drunk, vomiting college students. This embarrassment wasn't just for the chess tournament – the hotel advertises itself as a place you can bring the family and offers a Romance Package starting at $169 with champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, and a 'rose-petal turndown'. I hope no one bought the romance package for the 'frat party weekend'. I may be old-fashioned but is there anything that says romance less than some drunk college guy banging on the door of your $169 romance suite (based on double occupancy - I found threesomes, etc... are extra when I researched this) because they think it's their room? The only less romantic thing I can think of is maybe some drunk college student begging to use your bathroom and vomiting all over your 'rose-petal turndown' and chocolate covered strawberries. And the only thing I can think of less romantic than that is if the champagne had been opened and got vomited on also!

  There were two moose sized policemen patrolling the hotel both nights - this was a first. The policemen were friendly and great about keeping the kids away from the tournament but there were only two of them and they are policemen and not hall monitors and there was only so much they could do about the children (who were customers of the hotel, after all) yelling all night and banging on doors and exercising their regurgatory rights. Booking a frat party at the same time as a chess tournament wasn't the most synergistic idea I've ever seen. Perhaps the next time the frat party weekend could be paired with a convention of vomit collectors (Yes there is such a profession and you can read about it here) since they would be right at home or the next meeting of the local or regional insomniac support group (perhaps this one would do) since they probably wouldn't be sleeping much anyway.

  I received a lot of compliments about the playing site - it was the people staying at the hotel that had the problems. The tournament wasn't interrupted directly except for Sunday morning when 50 or so college kids gathered in the breakfast room next door to the tournament room and started yelling and screaming. I asked the front desk to see if they could quiet them down but Jodene just went into the breakfast and yelled 'QUIET' and told these kids that they had been making noise all night and now it was the chess players turn to have some quiet. I was expecting some of these kids to tell her to shut up or curse at her or just continue making their noise but to their credit they quieted down, ate their breakfasts, and headed off to do whatever hung over fraternity college kids from the University of Northern Iowa do on a Sunday afternoon after breakfast. Don't let the fact that Jodene is a nice person and has cerebral palsy fool you - this is one tough customer if you get in her way!

  Up to this year I wrote about what a great place this hotel was to stay when I publicized the chess tournament because it always has been. I slept like a rock both nights because I use headphones to listen to music on my amazing iPod when I sleep. And since my next door neighbor's drug dealing business in Marshalltown leads to banging doors at all hours of the night (My neighbor Ernie isn't a 3 time participant of Marshall County's 10 Most Wanted for nothing) it would have taken a gunshot to wake me up and maybe not even then. I would have no problem staying at the hotel in the future but I don't see how I can write about the room rate or in any way encourage people to stay there during future Opens until I know that the hotel is willing to turn away this particular client base. Luckily there are plenty of hotels and motels in this resort town.

  So that was my indirect involvement with the leaders of tomorrow. On Friday night after the first round I had a more intimate encounter. When all the games were done, I was sitting alone in the tournament room at my computer loading up the games and pictures to my website when a well-dressed young man came in the room. I thought for a second that he was registering for the tournament but since he smelled like an alcohol sampler and had a cup of what appeared to be vodka and orange juice I figured he was one of the frat party kids. I thought he may be from Marshalltown since the cup he was holding was a 'Red Solo Cup', the drinking symbol made famous in country singer Toby Keith's song of the same name and the logo approved by Marshalltown in 2012 to welcome the bicyclists as they stopped overnight for the annual RAGBRAI ride across the state.

  I said hello to my guest and he said "I'm C.A. and I'm drunk and high on cocaine!" His name really isn't C.A. but if he graduates from college I may end up working for him and I'd hate to antagonize a future boss so I'll use a fake name. I gave my name and asked if C.A. was from Marshalltown. C.A. said he was from West Des Moines and was here with his frat and asked me what I was doing on the computer. I explained that I was loading the games and pictures to my website. C.A. liked my website and asked me if I wrote it and I told him I did. C.A. then told me he was going to UNI for Information Technology but he was failing his PHP class and was $20,000 in student loan debt and was going to flunk out of school.

If C.A. ever decides to give up his Red Solo Cup for some chess play, he met the right person in Iowa State Chess Association President Eric Vigil.

  I told C.A. I felt sorry for him and I did a little anyway even though he would be a little less in debt if he would drink less and maybe not get high on cocaine either and it might even give him time to study for his PHP class. We talked for a bit and C.A. told me that he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life and he got drunk and high because he was failing in school and was going to be in debt without a college degree. I tried to cheer C.A. up by telling him that even if he flunked out of school by the time the next election rolled around there would probably be legislation to forgive a large part of all the student loan debts that everyone seems to have. That seemed to brighten C.A.'s mood a bit and he started asking me about my website and what school I attended to learn programming and was unable to comprehend the fact that I never went to college for programming. Of course, C.A. had a hard time comprehending much of anything so I changed the subject to areas more in C.A.'s wheel house by asking him how much he had to drink, if he snorted his cocaine out of a hundred dollar bill, and if he did could I have one as a souvenir?

  The answers were a lot, no, and no. At this point Will Liang came into the room to say hello. I'm a people person and since C.A. had introduced himself to me the way he had I thought it would help us to bond if he knew that I saw him as he saw himself so I introduced C.A. to Will by saying "Have you met C.A.? He is drunk and high on cocaine." Will's eyes got a little big and C.A. laughed and then I introduced Will to C.A. by mentioning how Will was the father of the 10 year old world chess champion. I was going to ask C.A. if he snorted his cocaine out of a 50 dollar bill so I could ask for one as a souvenir when C.A. asked Will what he did for a living and they talked a bit about the sacrifices that Will and his family make as the family of a chess prodigy. C.A. couldn't quite comprehend the concept of sacrifice but C.A. was having a hard time comprehending much of anything and mentioned that he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. Will just laughed, told C.A. that he should do whatever I said to do, and that I was a very wise man. We talked a little bit and then Will wished us both goodnight and left. C.A. and I were alone again.

  I asked C.A. if he played chess and he said yes but he didn't remember how the pieces moved. Then my friend Sam Smith came into the tournament room and I said "Sam, Have you met C.A.? He is drunk and high on cocaine." Sam's eyes got a little big and C.A. laughed and rather quickly the subject turned to C.A. not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. Sam told C.A. that he should find his passion and put all he had into it.

  After a few minutes, the Iowa State Chess Association (IASCA) President Eric Vigil came in with another IASCA board member. They had just arrived and were going to start play on Saturday and I introduced the pair to C.A. by saying "Have you met C.A.? He is drunk and high on cocaine." Their eyes got kind of big and C.A. laughed and we all made some small talk and soon the subject turned to C.A. not knowing what he wanted to do with his life.

  Eric had much the same advice as Sam about finding something you loved to do and suggested that C.A. play some chess and handed him his IASCA presidents' card. The IASCA board member with Eric suggested that if C.A. wanted to get ahead he should "never tell anyone the truth". My eyes got kind of big and the IASCA board member didn't laugh. I think not telling anyone the truth is probably as hard as telling the truth all the time and as I found out this past week this fellow can't even follow his own advice since on April 23rd he sent me an email about a West Des Moines youth club he was starting and said (and I quote) "I do not intend to runs (sic) tournaments" but on Saturday I was forwarded an email from him to a chess parent who is helping with the club dated April 18th saying (and I quote) "I will have a rated tournament once month (sic) on Saturday." I guess it's good he can follow his own advice half the time assuming he was telling one of us the truth.

  I'm a fairly big believer in telling the truth whenever possible and I also believe that is almost always possible to tell the truth so I mentioned my own notion that anyone can do anything they want as long as they are willing to suffer the consequences of their actions and also mentioned that I occasionally pay a steep price for the consequences of my actions. I was mostly talking about my penchant for saying what I see without any sugarcoating but it really applies to all walks of life. You can do what you want but you have to be willing to take the hits and pay the price. I wasn't much different in high school than C.A. was that weekend. I was drunk and high all the time although I never traveled half a state away to get wasted for a party weekend like C.A. and his cohorts and never borrowed a penny to go to college. When I wasn't willing to pay the consequences for that lifestyle anymore I straightened up. I try to be a truthful person (sometimes painfully so) and there are consequences for that also but in my experience I have found that being untruthful (or politic as some may say) carries even more unpleasant consequences. Having said all that preachy sounding stuff I didn't use C.A.'s real name so I think it can be safely said that I am as much a work in progress as the person who thinks that 'dishonesty is the best policy' and as much a work in progress as are we all.

  As I was opining on my own philosophies of life I had a rare moment of epiphany! I suddenly knew what C.A. wanted to do with his life and I said "C.A. I know what you want to do with your life! You want to get drunk and high on cocaine!" Everyone laughed except C.A. and I because we both knew I was serious. C.A. said "No, I don't want to get drunk and high." To which I replied "OK. So you don't want to get drunk and high! That's what you want to do with your life!" After this breakthrough we spend a few minutes refining C.A.'s ambitions and we decided to remove the word 'not' to give things a more positive spin and determined that what he wanted to do with his life was 'to be alcohol and cocaine free'. Satisfied that one of life's many problems had been solved, the group broke up and everyone left the tournament room except me. I finished loading the games and pictures, cleaned up some emails, and then C.A. came back for a few minutes because he said the cops were looking for him because he spilled his drink on some lady. Eventually, the coast cleared and C.A. and I left the tournament room for our respective beds.

  I met C.A. the next day outside the tournament and while he was (and I quote) "never been this hung-over" he did remember my name and much of our talk. I had an odd number of players and offered to let him play in the tournament for free but he didn't want to. I felt pretty good that after 19 years of C.A. not knowing what he wanted to do with his life, after just a couple of hours with me he knew what he wanted to do with his life. I think being alcohol and cocaine free is an OK thing to do with your life but if C.A. had agreed with my first conclusion that he wanted to get drunk and high on cocaine with his life that would have been fine by me also. After all, I was just there to help. As much as I've been poking fun at C.A. in this post I have to admit that he is way ahead of where I was at his age. He's 19 and knows what he wants to do with his life – I'm 53 and I still don't know what I want to do with my life although I suspect I may have a future in social work.