This has nothing to do with swine flu.

Sorry for the lag between posts; between Trailblazer playoff games, multiple trips to the vet, a date (!?!), and other miscellaneous excuses, I haven’t been able to get in the groove with this thing. I’m sure the advent of triple-digit temps will change this pretty quickly (I actually turned on my A/C last weekend, when even alcohol couldn’t get me to fall asleep in 98% humidity).

One thing’s for sure: it’s not lack of topics that’s keeping me from posting. Dallas-Ft. Worth (or “DFW,” which makes at least a little more sense than the Portland nickname “PDX”) is chock-full of weird social mores and strange quirks.

An example: I’m perfectly fine with the holding of doors for females, either following or coming the opposite way. I’ve even been known to open a car door or two in my time (though my motives there sometimes go beyond chivalry). But one custom I immediately noticed (and have since confirmed) is that of letting women on and off of elevators first. And it’s not just “tie goes to the vagina”; this applies even if they’re standing behind you! This results in scenarios where it’s me and a female coworker both getting off of a crowded elevator at the same time, but I first need to squeeze even further to the side to let her off. Ignorance of this rule can result in anything from polite throat-clearing to a terse “exCUSE you!” I wish I were joking. In my opinion, this custom should only be observed if accompanied by an operator tipping his cap and saying “ma’am.”

Another thing: Panhandlers are much more aggressive here than pretty much anywhere else I’ve been. Not “aggressive” in the sense of persistence; I’ve had a Portland street person follow me for over a dozen blocks asking for money or cigs. And not “aggressive” in the sense of violent; that honor goes to San Francisco street people, many of whom have a strange violent energy lurking just below the surface (I’ve witnessed multiple grapples and even a roundhouse kick applied by S.F. homeless on civilians, and that excludes the many, many bus stop bumfights). No, I mean “aggressive” as in being forward to the point of not asking for money (e.g. “spare change?”), but demanding money (e.g. “give me five dollars/lunch money/your bus ticket”).

Last week, I was on a run through a neighborhood just north of downtown. Since I still don’t know the street layout very well, I kept running into deadends when trying to get to the other side of the 366 freeway. During one of these attempts, I tried cutting through an obviously low-income apartment complex (Sidenote: I’m pretty sure the name of the complex was “Mexican Apartments”). I went about 300 feet back into the property before I saw that I couldn’t get around the chainlink to go under the highway.

As I turned around to go back, a raggedy, possibly homeless guy started walking toward me and said something to me. Being too naïve and trusting for my own good, I took out my iPod headphones. The conversation went something like this:

Guy: “Give me a dollar.”

Me: “I’m on a run, man. Don’t have my wallet, sorry.”

Guy: “Okay, can I have your iPod?”

Me: (Laughs, believing a demand this forward is obviously a joke.)

Guy: “No, seriously.”

Me: (Again, not the most street-smart person) “Sorry, I like it too much.” (Jogs off).

-Scene-

Believe it or don’t, it took me about five minutes to realize that the incident may have actually crossed the line from panhandling into attempted robbery, especially considering it took place in a fenced-in deadend of a poor apartment complex at dusk. Or maybe dude was just having a laugh, and I’m blowing it out of proportion.

Next time: As promised, something about the tunnels. And maybe a rant about how there are only two used record stores in a city of 1.3 million, and one of them really sucks.

These are the brakes!

At the risk of turning this blog into a rant-fest, I just wanted to share a recent crazy experience I had with a local brake repair shop.

A little background: My trusty Toyota Corolla had run like a top since I bought it in 2002, needing only oil changes and the occasional alignment. Part of the reason is that I don’t really drive that much; I’ve averaged about 4,000 miles each of the last four years, and that includes several out-of-state road trips. However, in the last 12 months, I passed 90,000 miles, and repairs have been catching up with me. Last summer the starter went out. Then the steering wheel started shaking at high speeds, a quirk that a realignment and tire rotation helped but never cured. In January, a big one: my power steering system failed, including the pump and rotary valve, and during the harrowing drive to the nearest shop my car overheated. Still paying off the good people at American Express for that one. At the time, my car was inspected and I was told everything looked good except for “some brake wear” that might need to be addressed “down the road.”

Upon arriving in Dallas (towing the car on a trailer, not driving), I noticed a metallic squealing whenever I braked. Drawing upon my vast knowledge of auto maintenance, I quickly realized I needed new brake-thingies.

One of the worst parts about moving to a new place is that you need to find all new “guys” for things: car guy, hair guy/gal, weed guy, etc. Instead, I picked a shop that sounded like what I needed: “Just Brakes.” They even advertised a $99.88 special on brake shoes and pads. I scheduled an 8:30 am appointment so I could get it in first thing Saturday and not spend all day in the waiting room.

My first warning sign should have been when I arrived just after their opening, with an appointment, and was told they were already running a couple hours behind. They told me they’d call me around 11, so I took the bus back home instead of waiting there.

At 2:30, I got a call telling me that my brake system had a number of things wrong with it. The guy sounded like he was reading from a script, and while some repairs at least sounded legit (“worn pads,” “bent calipers”), others sounded dubious at best (“dirt and grime”, “corrosion on metal works”). The damage was going to be $650, and the best I could talk him down to was $350. Alas, “company policy” prevented him from just performing the work covered under the special. I called his bluff, and told him to put the car back together and write down the litany of problems so I could get a second opinion.

When I got back to the shop an hour later, my right front tire was completely flat. When I asked the mechanic “what the hell happened?,” he told me that it was fine when they put it on and that “slow leaks happen” and that there was no reason for me to “cuss him out.” It took the “let me see a manager routine” for him to fill up my tire with air.

A week later, my tire was still fine. I have no clue whether the tire was flat due to retribution or incompetence, but I’m sure as hell glad I didn’t let them work on my car. I ended up getting work done for $200 at a more reputable shop after asking around. And, as it turns out, the internet is full of similar anecdotes to mine, with customers either paying upwards of $900 for unnecessary or incompetent brake jobs, or having their cars sabotaged via superglued lugnuts, brake pads installed backwards, cars held overnight, and the like.

Today’s takeaway lesson: don’t trust anyone.

Mo Money, Mo Problems

I'm sitting here at, from what I can tell, the only non-Starbucks coffeeshop in downtown Dallas. It’s no Stumptown or anything, but at least they have free wifi and are playing not-good-but-not-crappy-music.

You could probably consider this splurging, the way I’ve been living over the past month. It’s kind of been the perfect storm of expenses since I made my move, despite the fact that I’m making more than I ever have before. The Chase credit card I used to float my moving expenses decided to double my APR due to the “volatile credit markets” (as a U.S. citizen, don’t I own part of Chase now?). All but one of the jobs I worked at last year elected to label me an “independent contractor” rather than an employee, meaning that I owe Uncle Sam an extra $1,000 next week (and had I moved in December, I could have written off my moving expenses). My car insurance literally doubled because I’m living in Texas, even after raising my deductibles (Justification: Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured drivers). The return of state sales tax is an 8.5% pain in my ass. And I no longer qualify for the “economic hardship” scaled student loan payments. I could go on, but hey, we all have problems.

Since the problems of Wall Street are trickling down to Main Street (and especially since I now live on Main Street) I’ve had to limit my exploration of what Dallas has to offer for the thrifty gentleman. No Mesquite Rodeo, no Leonard Cohen, Morrissey, or Flight of the Conchords shows, no Texas Rangers home openers. And by the time I can afford such things, I’ll be at the mercy of Summer and her 100-degree temperatures (it was already 89 on Thursday!), and won’t want to do anything anyway.

This has resulted in me being even more of a homebody than usual, especially during weeknights. Lots of reading (almost done with my inventory of David Foster Wallace), Wii (Okami is the longest single-player game I’ve played: 45 hours and counting), and Netflix (Let the Right One In: Hot. Synecdoche, New York: Not).

At least my hermit existence has led to one worthwhile pursuit.

(By the way, I hadn't realized who drastically David Foster Wallace, and Infinite Jest in particular, has changed my writing style. I now want to add footnotes asides to everything I write, and even footnotes on those footnotes. An eloquent tribute to Wallace and his footnotes can be found here.)

Preface

Hello, Blogosphere! Or, should I say, “Howdy!” Okay, no one has actually used that phrase to me yet, other than at the western apparel where I stopped to ask directions my first weekend in town.

Yes, I’ve moved to Dallas, with little warning: I’d applied for the job last July, interviewed in October, and just got the job offer in mid-January. HR even admitted on the phone that the acceptance papers had “been sitting on out desk for a few weeks, with the holidays and all.” “By the way,” they added, “can you start on February 2^nd?”

All that aside, it was too good of a job to turn down, especially considering the lame quality of the part-time jobs I had been stringing together. It was tough leaving Portland for Dallas (quite literally, too: stay tuned for an entry on my Uhaul misadventures!), but getting any full-time job in environmental law is damn near impossible right now, much less one with this kind of potential for advancement/relocation down the road.

(Sidenote: employees at my job technically aren’t supposed to post things electronically about the specific goings-on in the position, so just to be on the safe side I plan to be vague about what I'm working on. I'll still drop the occasional anecdote, but just so you know. If you don't know where I'm working, please email or call me and I’ll give you the skinny).

Matt Ryan has inspired me to start a blog chronicling my adjustment to, and misadventures in, the Dallas-Forth Worth "metroplex." I really don’t know how interesting it will be, but I’ll try to post at least a couple times a week. I might also go on unrelated tangents from time to time if something is really grinding my gears.

Today’s topic: Dallas TV stations.

Since I’ve survived without cable for the past few years (and since my first months' paychecks have been pretty much exclusively going towards rent and moving expenses), I’ve been using my federally-subsidized digital cable box to pick up local channels. And man, do I get a lot of them. There’s dozens of Jesus-channels, Spanish-channels, and at least three Spanish-language Jesus-channels (including a music-video-only channel). There’s not only PBS, but specialty PBS’s showing nothing but cooking shows, nature shows, travel shows, and kids shows. There’s a station that shows nothing but the 2006 Winter Olympics.

My favorite is channel 68, which doesn’t appear show anything past about 1977. So far I’ve watched the original Mission: Impossible, The Twilight Zone, Hogan’s Heroes, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Local TV, and its commercials, are also a great way to get a real sense of “local flavor.” There are Buddy Garrity-types selling cars, and other commercials with down-home flavor. There's also a great commercial with a fake Obama "bailing out" customers with a great deal at the local Hyundai dealer. It's also comforting to know that, whereever I move, there is always a mattress dealer that, if they can't beat a competitor's price on a mattress model "then the mattress is FREEEEEEEEEE!!!" If you stop and think about it, this is the dumbest guarentee ever.

Also, you know how in the “northern states,” it seems like “Friends” and “Scrubs” reruns are on all the time? Replace those with “George Lopez” and “King of the Hill.” Seriously.

So, while Dallas free TV is great when you just want something on the background, I'm just glad that my internet is now hooked up so I can catch up with “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “24,” and “BSG.”

(Sidenote: Time Warner Cable are assholes. I may have to do a separate post on this.)

(Also: I really need a better term than “northern states” to describe everywhere else where I have lived. Who lived in the north, Mason or Dixon?)