2 Wheels and 5 Gears

So a little over a month ago, I blogged about the bike bug--the fact that my interest had been piqued by a friend of mine who bought himself a motorcycle.

Where does all that stand? Well, I still have it, and a 2-wheeled purchase is most likely on the horizon. Eventually. Being the analytical type, I'm still reading online reviews, talking to people, visiting dealerships, and checking on insurance. I've been to FRS Powersports, Kawasaki of Memphis, Leo's Cycle Sales, Polaris of Memphis, and Performance Plus Cycles. I've sat on a Kawasaki Vulcan 500 LTD (with only 406 miles), a 2000 Vulcan 800 Classic (like this one), an '05 Vulcan 750, as well as a brand spankin' new Vulcan 900 and a Suzuki Boulevard C50. And today I picked me up a copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Motorcycles.

I can definitely see how people get the bug, and it seems like a fun hobby to have. Of course, people love to tell you that you'll probably become a parapalegic before it's all said and done, but the funny thing is that I've run into more people who have been riding bikes 20 or 30 years and have NEVER been involved in an accident. Something like 50% of cycle accidents involve alcohol, and another large part of them occur within 5 months of people starting to ride (the lesson: practice, practice, practice, and....don't do anything STUPID!!). There seems to be a comraderie between riders, even if they're not Harley riders and participating the portable strip-clubs that are some weekend "rallys." I'm constantly hearing about people who have bikes who I'd least expect to have them or enjoy riding. My 50-something boss just got his license because his son just bought one (I think he might be renting one for a day or so on vacation). Steve said that Chopper 5 pilot Miles Dunagan has one. And let's not forget America's favorite late-night motorcycle enthusiast, Jay Leno.

Most salespeople start by highly recommending a rider course, which I'm planning on doing anyway. For one, I don't have a clue how to ride a motorized bike, but two, this course is coordinated through the non-profit Motorcycle Saftey Foundation and covers everything from classroom instruction to doing figure 8's in the parking lot. And Tennessee state law mandates a minimum 10% discount on insurance if you take the course (not that it's a big deal for me--I'm old and responsible, and it'll cost me about $250-300/year)

I know what you're saying . . . "Yeah, but what does Leah think?" Actually, she fully condones it. Her only request has been that we wait until we get into our house--mainly because we will have a garage to keep it in and take care of it. Leah's position is that there are a lot worse things that I could be doing besides riding a motorcycle. When I started driving, my dad started the incessant, "Be careful" routine. Almost annoyed, I said something like, "I WILL, Dad." His comment was, "It's not you I'm worried about--it's the other guy." I know that the "other guy" element is probably 10x worse on a bike, but it seems that the common element in most riders is a desire to be a better, safer, and more experienced cyclist each and every time you hop on. I plan on spending lots of time on empty parking lots and quiet streets, and I hope to enjoy many, many years outside of a 'cage.' (See--I'm already learning the lingo).

Where will it all end up? New or used? Kawasaki or Suzuki? Chain drive or shaft? Blue or black? I have no earthly idea, but I'll be sure to keep everyone posted.

Big Fish, Little Fish

So Regions Bank and AmSouth are merging. Here we go again. Here I was, a happy-go-lucky Union Planters customer for, oh, the last 8-10 years or so. Then they go and merge with Regions. I feel sorry for the old Leader Federal customers--this would be the 3rd merger/takeover for them.

The Regions/Union Planters deal was kind of a win/lose situation for us. That is, there are some aspects of it which were annoying, yet another aspect of it which was a change for the better. For example, the Visa Checkcard that Regions offers has free rewards, which we didn't have with UP. Sure, the exchanges are absurd--spend $4000 and get a $5 Starbucks gift card. But hey, they're giving it to me, so I'm not complaining. Leah and I are awaiting $40 in gift cards for the Olive Garden/Red Lobster/Bahama Breeze family, which was ours for the bargain price of 16,000 points. But a free meal at Olive Garden is well worth it. I earned it, by gosh, by buying a refrigerator, groceries, gas, and online porn memberships. Wait, those cancelled--never mind.

In the annoying category, Regions online interface SUCKS. I basically refuse to open a bank statement (unless it's to file it), but would rather sign on and check things off. On the internet account interface, some online payments are so generic you can't even tell who they were written to. It'll say something like "DDA Post $25.00." Would it be too much to ask for a NAME? Another thing is that the branch that I usually visit--G'town and Trinity in Cordova--had a decent amount of business BEFORE the merger. Then it had to absorb not one, but TWO branch closings because of the Regions merger. There was a small branch inside of K-Mart, and a branch about 2 blocks away (across from said K-Mart). So now it's REALLY busy. And of course, on Fridays at lunch time, there's always 2 lanes of traffic backed up and 1 person working, which must be an FDIC mandated rule or something. 1 person--no more. 20 minutes in line is always acceptable.

Now you have the AmSouth deal. A branch right down the road from my Cordova branch. They gonna keep both branches? I doubt it. Service will definitely suffer. For a short time, I had an AmSouth account. I like their ATM's better, but there weren't too many of them. AmSouth is also a big partner with the Titans, and they currently offer a Titans logo Checkcard, which was cool. It wasn't the standard one, but there wasn't a cost for choosing the Titans design. The radio broadcast even features Mike Keith saying, "That's another AmSouth FIRST DOWN!!" It'll be interesting to see how the Titans relationship plays out with the new company, especially since they're keeping the Regions name. But then again, the Titans don't get too many first downs anyway, to it might be a moot point (he he he).

In short, I don't think it'll affect me much. My account number stayed the same with the UP/Regions merger, so hopefully there won't be any issues with the new deal. I guess the website will stay the same, so my login ID won't have to be changed to ER8%sel1?X or something like that. And if I can get a new Regions checkcard, with rewards, with a Titans logo, I'll be all set.

Fun at the Stanford St. Jude Classic

...or "the tournament formerly known as the FedEx St. Jude Classic." Actually, this is the last year of the FedEx sponsorship, as their name will now be lent to the season-long points race. But it is funny hearing the new name.

My friend Russell asked me a few weeks back if I would be interested in going to the Pro-Am on Wednesday. He is off on Wednesdays and apparently that was his only feasible option to go (aside from Sunday--championship day). His dad works for some division of FedEx (something to do with Singapore) in Mobile, AL and had gotten tickets as well as passes to a hospitality area. So we headed out to the Stanford Pro Am on Wednesday morning. We immediately noted something with the pairings--the more notable golfers were teeing off early (7A-9A), while the more notable celebrities were teeing off late (12P and after). Early golfers included Chris Dimarco, John Daly, and Justin Leonard. The players for the most part seemed very gracious and relaxed, signing autographs for little kiddies (who where skipping school, by the way) on the green-to-tee walks and even for the plethora of volunteers at each hole who had parephenalia in hand and would ask after the tee shot. One notable occurrence--a guy standing with us asked Chris Dimarco to sign a golf ball, and the reply was something to the effect of, "I don't sign golf balls--do you have anything else?" The guess is that they feel like stuff like that might be sold on eBay or something (unless they just realize how utterly awkward and difficult it is to sign a small, round, dimpled sphere). This guy said that he collects them and has a rack of them at his house. But apparently it IS a common thing for players to NOT sign golf balls. Interesting.

Of the "celebrities", I saw Mike Miller (wish I would've had something Grizzly for him to sign), Shane Battier (already have his autograph on a jersey), Penny Hardaway, and Tommy Tuberville (I wonder if he would've signed an Ole Miss hat?). Probably solely because I was with Russell (a HUGE Alabama fan), I met Deshea Townsend of the Pittsburgh Steelers (an alumni of Alabama). I don't mean that I had special access or anything....It just wasn't somebody that I would've set out to find. But I must hand it to the guy--he was very well prepared, and had an assistant of some sort handing out colored 2-sided publicity cards for him to autograph (kinda like an oversized baseball card). Russell got his Alabama visor personally autographed (To Russell......Deshea Townsend....Roll Tide!), and I just go a regular old vanilla signature, but being that I have absolutely no loyalty to the kid or to Alabama and certainly not to the Steelers, I gave it to my friend Mike, who is a Steelers fan. Of course, if Townsend goes and does a lot of stuff and his autograph's value skyrockets, then I'll selfishly demand payment or the card, one of the two.

Then one of those annoying "isolated" showers started. No big deal at first. But then it got harder and apparently there was lightning and stuff in the area. So out come the courtesy vans to pick up the players, and it became a waiting game. I think the tee times were pushed back an hour, so we missed an opportunity to see the likes of Chris Berman of ESPN fame. Oh well. By about 2:00 or so, we were tired and hot (humidity, anyone?!), so we headed for the car.

Bunko, Fajitas, and the A/V Crew

After the first part of last week was filled with nothing but work (had to work @ Kroger Mon, Tue, and Wed nights), I was eager for some days off. The schedule-makers smiled upon me, and had given me off Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (and Sunday, as it turned out).

Thursday night, Leah wanted to cook dinner and us have a nice, peaceful, relaxing evening at home. I offered to pick up Nicholas, since she had to start cooking at the trip to the babysitter's would've delayed her by 30-45 minutes. I got home with him, he ate some dinner, and then Leah and I settled down at the table for chicken enchiladas. It was a new recipe, and Leah thinks she might do a couple of things differently the next time, but all in all, it was good. Not too far from the end of the meal, the phone rang. It was Leah's dad, informing us that some relatives of his from Arkansas were in town for the evening and would LOVE to see the baby. I think they saw Nicholas at Christmas, but obviously he was only a month old at the time. As much as we wanted to just chill out, we didn't think there was much way to get out of the "come see your relatives" situation. So off to Bartlett we went, but only for probably 30 minutes to an hour. Nicholas was starting to get fussy--it was close to bedtime--and they were heading out on Friday for a cross-state drive toward North Carolina. So in reality, we were looking out for their best interests. : )

Friday night, our sunday school class was having a social. Originally, we were planning on a Saturday evening cookout at Buckhead Creek, our recreation complex. Plans changed when the church announced Friday evening childcare from 6:00-9:00. Being that most people in our class have 1 or more children under the age of 5, we decided to switch it to Friday and have a child-free get-together. Not that kids are a drag or anything, it's just that, well, never mind. If you have kids, you understand. The party was hosted by someone who recently moved into a new house, and the theme was mexican. There were chips, mexican dip, enchiladas, chicken enchilada casserole, tacos, and who knows what else. The recreation for the night was the fun part: Bunko. Leah has never played it. I certainly haven't (which I'm very proud of). But apparently several ladies of the class do on a regular basis and thought it'd be fun to play a nice, big, loud, full room game of Bunko. There isn't much to it, but the irony wasn't lost on me that the object was to take some dice and roll 3 6's. At a church function. And these dice were painted RED on the "6" side. Ohhhh....red 666. I'm cure Lucifer was smiling at his accomplishment (I'm SO kidding, by the way). But Leah and I were both able to avoid demonic infestation, because we didn't roll on the entire night. When asked about the game, Leah's replies were something like, "It's stupid" and "There is no point." So ladies, if you're down a Bunko player, I wouldn't exactly call Leah to fill in for the night.

Saturday morning, it was off to Home Depot to get stuff for the house. D-Day had arrived as far as getting the house ready to show. We had already extended our deadline by a week, and we'll never get it sold if it ain't showing, so it was time to put the finishing touches on the cleanup and repair. I won't go into too much detail, because I've got an entire blog dedicated to the process.

Saturday night, our friends Stacy and Mike came over. Wanna know what we had for dinner? Fajitas. Yes, that's mexican food for us 3 straight nights. Stacy and Leah work together, and the four of us have developed an incredibly unique friendship, perhaps strengthened by the fact that our lives have been virtually parallel since around 2001 or so. Leah and Stacy started at the bank around the same time, we got married around the same time, and had a baby around the same time. It's created some very unique friendships, and I'm sure will give the 4 of us lots of opportunities in the future involving our children, who are only 9 weeks apart (I don't know if we'll get that close on future kids, but at least the first ones are!). Anyway, we had a good time hanging out, and we've got a little weekend trip planned with them in the next couple of months.

A few weeks ago at church, we filled out a "ministry survey"--basically a selection of opportunities for service around the church. Maybe somebody has been wanting to get involved with Prison Ministry or Mother's Day Out or Welcome Center or whatever and just doesn't know how to go about it or who to ask. Being kind of technically inclined, I marked the Audio/Visual team. The head of the group, who is actually the father of somebody in our sunday school class, called me and told me about a meeting on Sunday. I think he was a bit disappointed in the turnout--only me and one other "new" person were there--but the team seemed genuinely grateful for us being interested. As it turns out, the crew is subdivided into stuff like video, audio, lighting, and recording. I think I'll probably start out on the video side, coordinating the big screens with song lyrics, pre-service info, sermon notes, and all of that. We use some software called Easy Worship, which I'm guessing is a slick, Jesus version of Powerpoint. I'm familiar with PowerPoint (the terms "Bill Gates" and "monopoly" come to mind), so hopefully I can pick it up without a prob. Heck, maybe when we host concerts and stuff (like Phillips, Craig, and Dean in September), I'll get one of those cool lanyards with a pass that says All Access or something like that. Yeah, that's what it's all about. A cool All Access pass. : ) I did a little of this stuff back at Merton (a LONG time ago) as kind of a backup deal, but never really felt really comfortable with it--but then again, it was a very simple setup. The hardest thing was turning up the volume and pressing "Play" on a cassette deck. But instead of 8 or 10 channels on the board that we had at Merton, I think we have 4 or 5 times that amount. But I'm anxious to learn.

New Blog

I guess it's common knowlege that Eric and Leah are looking to move into a new house. To that end, I've started a new blog to carry us through that journey. Hopefully it will be a nice, smooth, uneventful 3 or 4 months as we sell our existing one, close without any problems, and move into the new place without any significant problems or delays. But nevertheless, there are still lots of things that have to happen to get us from Point A to Point B.

So without further ado, I bring you Moving On Up . . .and East. Set your bookmarks and join us for the ride. See you in the 38002 zip code. Hopefully.

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

So my mom had a very interesting evening. Nothing like your local news covering a breaking story of criminal activity on your street, and not being allowed to even drive to your house and pull in your own driveway.

It seems that some folks on her street were utilizing their culinary skills to cook meth. Yep, about five or six doors down, on the opposite side of the street. I must say, I'm very, very surprised. Mom has lived on this street for probably 8 years or so, and has never, ever had any sort of issues. Berclair is traditionally an older neighborhood, and many of her neighbors have been in their house for 20 years or more. The son of the pastor of Macon Road Baptist Church used to live next door to her, and another neighbor of Mom's occasionally mows her yard for her. I've attended a party at a house across the street, owned by a young guy, probably close to my age, who shares a mutual friend with us.

Does Mom live in a "bad neighborhood"? I don' t think so. I could be wrong, but for the most part I don't think she has been worried about her safety or the declining of the area. Certainly this is a story to keep your eyes on, but I just don't think it's gonna do very much to her street. Time will tell.