Lunch With George!

July 11, 2002 - Jillian's

Agenda

• Still a Diamondback Fan
• Sailing
• Escape to Jemez
• Drive
• Deep Linking
• Minority Report
• Climbing - 50 Summits

I'm Still a Diamondback Fan...

Just this morning, Chloe (our Dalmatian) woke us early to go outside. Teri got up, so I immediately fell back asleep. Moments later, I heard Teri shrieking at Chloe, and I thought I heard "get back!", "leave it alone!" and lots of "NO!!!"

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotelus Atrox) Click the photo!

When she also started yelling my name, I bolted out to find Chloe ignoring Teri and paying far too much attention to a rattlesnake! I managed to get the dog inside, but even after I did, I could still hear the intensely loud rattle.

Teri called the fire department, while I tried to keep an eye on the snake while scrambling for my camera. As I was preparing to snap a few shots (this one was pretty good, huh?), Chloe came up to see me. I turned to give her some attention, and saw two small, red beads of blood perched on the top of her snout, about 3/4" apart!

Teri was immediately off to the Emergency Animal Clinic, But she almost left without her glasses (she was pretty shook up). While she was gone, a sleepy firefighter showed up, said he normally would return the snake to the desert, but since it had attacked someone (a dog?), well, did I have a shovel? Unfortunately for the snake (who had never dropped out of defensive mode since being attacked by the strange spotted coyote), the shovel was used to separate his head from his body. This guy really wanted to get back in bed fast-- he asked if he could just throw it away in my garbage! I didn't let him, of course, since the truck wasn't coming for another six days...

A while later, we got the report from Teri: It was a "dry" bite! In other words, the snake struck and bit Chloe, but did not inject any venom. Now I really feel bad that he was killed-- he pulled his punch! Chloe really dodged a bullet. She's very lucky!

You can learn more about Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes at The Big Zoo.

Sailing

Persistence in Tow

In the weeks that have passed since our last lunch, George has seen quite a few boats! There were three in Michigan, one in Kansas City, and he came close to looking at a boat in Atlanta (he failed to catch a flight on stand-by). There is also a boat in Denver, but he hasn't gone up there yet.

[since George has already bought a boat (click here), I'm not going to provide a lot of details on the boats he didn't buy.]

Escape to Jemez

Teri and I were planning to get away for our 4th wedding anniversary by heading North and camping in the cool pines. Drought conditions (not to mention over 400,000 acres already burning) nixed this idea, with all northern Arizona forests being closed only 24 hours before we planned to leave.

We considered several possibilities (including an over-night trip to San Francisco), and decided to go to Jemez Springs, New Mexico (the more attentive readers may remember an earlier lunch when we discussed Jemez Springs, the village where my Mom runs a restaurant).

We stayed at Casa Blanca, a beautiful house for rent by the day or week right on the Jemez River (yes, it is a white house). We stayed for three nights and loved every minute! It was peaceful, beautiful, and we had the whole place to ourselves. The weather was great, and we ate most of our meals at the Laughing Lizard, which is right across the street.

The only thing missing (for us) was a way to watch movies, so we sat on the bed and watched the Patriot on my iBook! we enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I did find it interesting that Mel Gibson has made two 3-hour epic films about an oppressed people rising up against England. Another sad similarity that stood out for me between Braveheart and the Patriot is that the tactics of warfare seemed to be unchanged after 500 years! Line 'em up, and run 'em at each other. Then, after they're softened up, send in the cavalry to finish them off.

We started off our great weekend by upgrading our America West tickets to First Class. It was like an impulse buy in the gocery checkout line-- they had a little sign behind the counter at the gate advertising First-class upgrades for $50. We looked at the sign, looked at our tickets that were several rows apart and middle seats to boot... SOLD! They had already started boarding, but it took less than two minutes to run my American Express card and print us some new boarding passes. Then the associate gestured toward the door and said "Meet me over there... just go around the line." We got right on! Ah, luxury.

The upgrades weren't over yet, however. At the Hertz counter at Albuquerque International Sunport, the guy processing our paperwork for the "boring" Ford Taurus (as he called it) offered a cheap upgrade to a Volvo S60. Leather seats, powerful V6, fine-tuned suspension, only 130 miles... SOLD! Boy, did that S60 handle well! Driving up and down the winding curves of State Highway 4 in Jemez Canyon really showed off the car's suspension. It felt as though magnets were holding the car to the road. The engine was so smooth and quiet, I almost thought it was wimpy... until I looked at the speedometer.

We capped the weekend off with a hot mineral bath at the Bath House. Very cool (I mean hot!).

Driving

Honda S800

Telling George about the Volvo S60 reminded him that he and Toni finally got a chance to test-drive a Mini Cooper S. The "S" sports a performance suspension, a supercharger, and an intercooler. George reports that there is not a strong sensation of speed, but before you know it, you're doing 70!

New Ford GT Concept

It's looking like they will sell their Honda S2000 to make room in the stable for the Mini. They feel like there are a lot of S2000's out there, and other cars are copying some of it's

Porsche 917K

unusual features. Even the Viper has copied the S2000 start button! This reminded me that I read somewhere that the S2000 was not Honda's first Sports Car with an "S" name-- that there was an S200 and I wondered out loud if it, too, had a start button.

I did some research, and discovered that the last "S" series from Honda was the S800. The number indicates the displacement of the engine in cubic centimeters (yes, George confirmed that the S2000 has a 2-liter engine!). Clearly an S200 would be a little under-powered! I still don't know if it has a start button, though.

Porsche 917K and Ford GT40

Click here to visit the S800 Car Club page!

George was also telling me that Ford is going to produce a GT40 again! That was some car. I still remember Ford GTs from the Steve McQueen movie Le Mans. I jumped to Ford's web page and was delighted to see they have created a worthy version! I always preferred the look of the Porsches that

Coyote

were raced at Le Mans. The younger character ("Skids" McCormick) in the TV series Hardcastle and McCormick drove a race car around (called the Coyote) that reminded me of these cars, but it was just a custom version of a Manta kit dropped onto a VW chassis.

Deep Linking

The implication here is that if I wanted to refer to a news story on a News site such as ABCNews.com here on Lunch With George!, I would be required to only link to their main page and give readers navigational instructions on how to reach the news article. I'm sure that readers would rather I linked directly to the web page containing the article.

I'm opposed to this new trend by web sites, and feel that the web works because of the hyperlinks to direct content. I found that some of the web sites I frequent as a surfer have affirmed the Open Link Policy, a group dedicated to free and open (but respectful and legal) linking to any publicly available web page. I have joined the group, and will subscribe to its philosophies at the Lunch With George! site.

Minority Report

If you like a good story and a novel view of the future, you must see

50 Summits