The Great Mexican Caper… The Prologue, Morals, and Pac Man
Super Nat’s off to Baa-Jah!
This could possibly be my last diary entry ever. I built a “Mexico Bike” and I’m leaving tomorrow for a 5 to 10 day to… as long as it takes… bike tour in Mexico. The goal is to reach the southern tip of the Baja (NB. Baja = Baa-Jah in Canadian) Peninsula. My wing-man in this adventure is Canadian Buddy, Jason Crookham. To make things more exciting neither of us speak Spanish, or own a map of Mexico. The rough plan is to keep the ocean on our right hand side, and the sun in our face. He’s got Panniers, and I’m borrowing Zippy’s Kiddy trailer and a sleeping pad this afternoon to complete my gear.
The Action Sports employee’s have started betting pools; not only on how long until Bandito’s rob us, but how much of our stuff they will take. The most common advice is that we should put Copper tone everywhere as we might not be returning with the clothes on our backs. Ha, what a good story that would make! I bet you don’t have a picture of that! I just hope that they don’t take the memory stick from the camera so that I can capture us getting robbed at gunpoint on “film”. Of Note: the person most convinced that I’m going to loose everything to highway robbery is Larry the Lama Farmer (literally, this is the central valley after all). Larry is also lending me the camping gear on a “you loose it, you buy it” rate, guess he’s banking on new stuff.
I’ve been getting a lot of negative feedback from my trivia, (people want to focus on stories about my situations).
So with out waiting any longer here’s my next trivia question:
Is it Possible to Win Pac-Man? The game can’t go on for ever, but I don’t know anyone who has ever won it. Does the game just get to a point where it is impossible to eat all the dots. I bet if the game where pauseable saveable, or I could download cheat codes, it would be much more winable.
Part B. Is it won on pionts, or beating levels, is there a secret?
Finially: If you have won, or know someone who has, what happens when you win?
It’s interesting to note that some of the contest critics, submitted losing entries to past contests.. Hmm!?!
OK now, to make EVERYONE happy, here is an un-expired Nat-Stories from a different side of the Continent which has two morals:
I was attending one of the many Carnivals that takes place in Vermont. This carnival also goes by the conventional name of Halloween. I had been doing push-ups twice a week, and dyed my hair black to better enable me to become the Incredible Hulk. In an rare demonstration of foresight the Carnival chartered a bus to take us from the Kubas-whoever residence up to Killington Mt. I donned my green paint (which quickly rubbed away onto everyone else) and we where off. Not long after our arrival, an AStronaut in our group was relieving himself outside the bar when he noticed a sneaky someone stashing something suspicious behind a rock. When the suspicious hider-persons had cleared out, Spaceman Spiff advanced to find a tupperware full of baked goods. Being a good chap, Spiff left the kid his empty tupperware.
Moral Numero Uno: Don’t eat things you find hidden in parking lots in Killington. You just don’t know what could be in there.
One chartered bus ride and 12h later the carnival was waking up, but I still wasn’t feeling so hot. After realizing that I wasn’t paralyzed and that I could move my toes (don’t laugh this decision took 2 hours to make), I decided that I bike ride would help. I donned a toque and set out on the Calvin Coolige loop.
After a few hours of riding I was starting to return to my normal senses, but also starting to go into glycogen debt -I NEVER Bonk- For brunch, I stopped at a little convenience store (other than ski chalets, this is all they have in Vermont) and decided that 2 L of Vanilla Pepsi would hit the spot just right. It was then that I found the only money I had was $10 Canadian. When I convinced the lady behind the counter that I really needed all that Pepsi she agreed to accept my purple money, and rang me up. The really exciting part of this exchange was that she gave me $8.21 US along with my Pepsi.
While I sat on the stoop of the store, watching the Brooke run between the green hills, and finishing my 2L of pop, I realized what I will now dub
Moral Number Two: Canadian money is worth more in Vermont than Canada.
Why are telemarketers calling the house at 11 am. If I’m answering the phone at 11 am, I don’t have the job to get the money, to pay to you!
END NOTES:
-The initial bike-tour plan was to ride from the Coast here to Durango, but Mexico sounded much more exciting as well as warmer. We were planning on stopping in Moab for Jimmy D’s Trek VW camp. Next year Jimmy!
-A Canadian Passport easily sells for $6-7 grand US in Mexican Boarder towns. The actually street value is around twice that. Before you rush off to sell your passport consider that there is a real chance it will be sold to a terrorist who will assume your identity.
-I guess we’ll have to wait for the Battle Royal of Canada-vs-USA, but maybe we’ll be able to make it a NAfTa thing with Mexico in on the mix as well.
