Escape From Baker City

Hello from Tacoma, WA. It feels good to return to civilization. Here's how we pulled off our great escape. First we rented "the car" in Baker, then we drove 2 hours to Boise, ID which is the nearest "big" city, where we rented a Dodge Ram pickup (with a Hemi I might add, whatever the hell that means). We drove back to Baker in our seperate vehicles and met up back at the Ford place where we loaded all of our personal and work crap from the van into the pickup, attached our hitch, drove over to the towing place, picked up our trailer, snapped a couple pics with Heath and stormed out of town like a couple of fugitives. It was a sweet sight to see the last bunch of tumbleweeds blowing around in our rearview mirror I must say. Hopefully when we return next week to swap vehicles again it is a much much shorter stay.

First day here we had the night off so we drove 30 miles north up to Seattle and caught the Mariners / Expos game at Safeco Field. It wasn't exactly an exciting offensive display (home team won 1-0 in the bottom of the ninth) and the garlic fries are still in the wearing off process but I got another free credit card sign up t-shirt to add to my growing collection.

As we were driving around downtown looking for the I-5 onramp a car full of dutes pulled up alongside of our new machine and started gawking. Soon enough the passenger looks up at Boom and says "Let's see what that Hemi can do." The light turned green and Boom, in an uncharacteristic but downright bold move, presses the pedal to the floor and we blow down three downtown blocks leaving those dutes eating some major hemi dust.
The dutes rolled by sheepishly at the next red light too damn embarassed to face their dominators. I tell ya it was just like the commercial.



Today we had to work a race in Tacoma called the Sounds to Narrows 10K or something. We drowsily arrived on site at 6 am and watched the rows of local army dutes shouting and banging on while they ran the first heats of the race. Not an hour into the damn event and one of our bosses, no disrespect to the orientals, pulls a total jap move, and shows up from Boston.......no disrespect to anyone at all. This is a sure reflection of our poor performance thus far we are sure. She said she was on vacation in Seattle and couldn't resist "stopping by to check out the event." Well what a coin-ki-dink. I for one am not buying it.

A pattern seems to be emerging whereupon Boom and I both feel as though we are working hard and kicking ass setting up and doing the damn promotion when one of our bosses asks us one silly question like "Guys, where are the decoder cards?" and it simultaneaously makes us look like dumb schmucks, turns Boom and I defensive and annoyed, and takes all the precious "enthusiasm" right out of the whole day. Needless to say the decoder cards are back in Baker City and the imminent threat of a cheated customer filing a huge lawsuit against our company, and in turn NB, looms. (I think she was serious about that). The tricky thing is that we are actually screwing up but it......ahhhh nevermind.

After breaking down we had a talk and got yelled at and then we were seperated so she could talk to me alone. Boom thought she was talking to me about firing him when actually she was threatening to fire me if I was mean to the office manager back in Boston again. ("If it happens again, you're done.")

She did fill us in on our upcoming schedule so I guess we're not out of here just yet but she did add that "if you guys aren't into it please let me know so we can get someone out here who is." Which begs the question, just how damn enthusiastic do we have to be???