JOURNEY TO THE WAC TOURNEY

(The biggest sporting event in Las Cruces, N.M., not including Thursday night bingo at the Elks Lodge.)

Tuesday

As you may or may not know, Gary Estwick and I are headed to the Western Athletic Conference Tournament – 2008 tourney motto: They’ve got to let one of us in!* – where we will be covering the Fresno State men’s and women’s basketball teams.

*I’m referring here to the NCAA Tournament and the fact that the WAC has so many below-average teams that only by the grace of an automatic berth will one of them be allowed into the Big Dance. I was not referring to whether or not Gary and I will be allowed into the WAC Tourney, although now that you mention it, it would be nice if they let at least one of us watch the games.

You might have seen the little caricature of Gary and I, drawn up by talented Fresno Bee artist SW Parra, that has been appearing in the paper the last few days. If you missed it, here it is:

I've come to the realization that people who use initials for their first names -- P.T. Barnum, W.C. Fields ... I can't think of any more -- are at least 15% more intelligent and talented than the rest of us. Although I'm already taking some grief about the drawing, Mr. Parra did a great job considering what he had to work with, and I thank him for not including the crude beard I am currently attempting to grow. (If Baron Davis shaved at the scorer’s table during the National Anthem, he would have my current amount of facial hair by tip-off.)

Gary would be the one driving the little cartoon car. He's the beat reporter who covers the Fresno State men’s basketball team. I am … it is not entirely clear what I do, even to me, but my agent** continues to insist that I’m underpaid.

**Several years ago I was at Oktoberfest in La Crosse, Wis., sometime after midnight, when it occurred to my buddy Dave that I needed an agent. I did not really need an agent, nor do I need one now, but at the time, in a crowd of several thousand people with at least two rock bands playing, he seemed to be on to something. So I paid him $1, securing his services for life. As of yet, he has not, technically, provided any services other than making up these great business cards with a picture of a mouse pushing an elephant. I believe they read, “We’ll get your career moving,” or something like that. Those cards alone were worth the $1, but I also used him as column material a few times back in La Crosse when I was a general news columnist. At least once a month I’d write a column about traffic, whether it was just telling crazy stories from readers, or discussing obscure traffic laws, or figuring out what to do when your motorcycle wasn’t big enough to trigger the automatic stoplights, that sort of thing. Dave always had great ideas for traffic columns because he was the single most frustrated driver of all time. He once followed a random driver to his place of work and explained to the guy what he'd done wrong on the road. I guess it was super awkward and the guy didn’t know what to say, just stood there hoping the man who’d followed him to work to explain traffic laws wasn’t carrying a bazooka and obeying the voices in his head.

(That was possibly the longest footnote of all time.)

We are currently in the Phoenix airport, "America's Friendliest Aiport," a claim I am not completed prepared to disprove, but I'm building a case as we speak. I will jump back in and update when we land in El Paso, Texas. Hopefully, I didn't just jinx it.

[edit]

OK, we made it to La Cruces, N.M., and can I just say the smell of the drive between El Paso and Las Cruces is something to behold. Actually, it beholds you. It Karate-Kid-Part-II's your rental car window and repeatedly kicks you in the face. It reminds me of home (southwest Kansas), all those feed lots full of cows. Gary, who was driving -- yes, just like the caricature -- looked like he might vomit. I was inhaling like someone trying a new wine.

You'll notice that I haven't as of yet made the caricature of Gary and I appear on this blog. There's just a box up there and I've spent the last hour trying to resolve the issue, and by that I mean, re-naming the photo and saving it again. Shockingly, it still hasn't appeared. For those that actually saw the drawing of us in the paper, we obviously did not drive all the way to New Mexico, considering I made a reference to the Phoenix airport.

Couple thoughts on flying. I do not ask for much in an airline experience. I don't care that I have to undress in front of 50 people to get through security, or that they now charge for snacks, or even that there's turbulence, because I assume that is out of human control. My only request is that on the landing, the back sets of tires touch the ground at relatively the same time. The flight from Fresno to Phoenix had some issues in that area, and immediately after the landing the flight attendant could not stop laughing while giving her "we have arrived/the local time and temperature is" speech. I could only assume the crew was doing tequila shooters and that the pilot had successfully landed the plane blindfolded, but it turns out that during the landing a passenger's hands-free, phone-in-the-ear dealie had come flying up and hit the attendant. She said she had no idea where it came from or how it happened. (This blog likes to imagine someone ripped it off someone else's head and threw it.) I think what I hate most about those stupid things is that awkward moment when you think someone is talking to you, and you answer them, and then they turn and you see the ear piece and they just look at you like you're an idiot for attempting a face-to-face conversation when you could be calling someone. Everyone should be allowed one hour of cell phone use per week and anything beyond is a misdemeanor. I'm kidding. I meant felony.

The flight from Phoenix to El Paso was uneventful, although entertaining in the fact that the head flight attendant (I'm assuming they have ranks of some sort) had the thickest Boston accent I've ever heard. The second flight attendant, who I never saw because she did her announcements from the back of the plane, had a Thai accent, according to the guy sitting next to me. He did not present his accent-recognizing certificate from DeVry University, but I think it's safe to assume. I love accents of all kinds, it was just strange to hear the nations of Thailand and Boston represented on a flight from Arizona to Texas.

We shared that flight with a fuzzy dog the size of a hot-dog bun, some sort of Mexican singing group with guitars, and the Nevada women's basketball team. You should know that at baggage claim a senior named Andrea Sitton was quite concerned about the team leaving her while she was in the bathroom. It did not. This is not the time of year to be abandoning 6-foot-3 centers at the airport. I would report to you the name of the fuzzy dog, but the owner was either deaf, a non-English speaker, or somewhat rude. Probably talking on a phone I did not see.