It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

This post title has nothing really to do with the content of the post, but as I was sitting here, it roused itself from the depths of my cerebrum and poured itself onto the page (so to speak) through my fingers. I actually had very little to do with it.

I've turned in my Acura TL and collected a BMW X5 in its stead. Many people would love the opportunity to drive around $34,000 and $56,000 cars, respectively. If they are intuitive, comfortable and offer good performance, I would too. Therein lies the rub.

I picked up the X5 on Sunday afternoon at my hotel airport in Memphis, where the trucking company had delivered it only hours before. It was evening, I had to prepare for my first day of training the next morning, and I did not have much time to get really familiar with the car.

Waitwaitwait I hear you saying. Aren't you supposed to be teaching other people about this vehicle? Well.... Yes. If you put it that way. But it is impossible to learn everything about a vehicle in a short period of time, so I start with the stuff that I'm scripted with, and then I expand my knowledge from there. The first significant expansion of knowledge occurred on Monday, after completing my morning class in Memphis.

If it's Tuesday, it must be Jackson, Mississippi. (I actually just found myself spelling it in my head, as if I were a kid. M I S S I S S I P P I). So on Monday afternoon, I made the 200 mile drive from Memphis to Jackson.

Before I got out of the parking lot, I had a problem. I placed my briefcase on the front passenger seat. I always place my briefcase on the front passenger seat. (You never know when you're going to need that crucial piece of information (or that protein bar) wedged firmly into the bottom of your briefcase.) My X5 didn't want my briefcase to be unsafe, so it kept beeping at me to buckle the seatbelt around my briefcase. I gave it some time. BEEP - BEEP - BEEP. I moved my briefcase onto the floor.

I'll be up front - I dislike German cars. Not so much the cars, as the controls. VW, BMW, Mercedes, Audi. You get in, and you have to think like a German. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I think like a person.

We'll start simple. Driving down the freeway listening to the radio. (FM, because Serius doesn't give you three free months to get you hooked like XM does, so I have no satellite radio in the car.) I settle on a station and press and hold the "1" button. No beep. I continue to hold the "1" button. On the center dash display a message pops up and says something along the lines of "What do you think you're doing? Why are you continuing to hold that button down while it is clear that this car will not let you program that radio station on that button?"

Okay, so it didn't really say that, but it may as well have. It did say something along the lines of that function not allowed. So I spent the next 10 minutes driving down the freeway sideswiping cars and trucks for miles as I tried to program my radio station into the "1" button. Eventually I figured it out by finding the secret key held within the I-Drive system. I used to think that I-Drive stood for Intelligent Drive. Now I think that it literally means "I-Drive". The car is driving, and whoever sits in the driver's seat is just along for the ride.

Continuing on my journey, I set the cruise control, which I always use when driving on the freeway. I learned many years ago that you can't get speeding tickets when you let the "cruise" do the driving. In the X5, the cruise control is operated by a stalk on the left side of the steering column, just below the stalk for the turn signals. Operation of the cruise control system is as simple as you might imagine it to be in a German car:

To set the cruise control speed, pull the stalk toward you. Or push it away from you.
To disengage the cruise control, move the stalk up. Or move the stalk down.
To increase your speed, push the stalk away from you. To floor the accelerator, push the stalk further away from you, past the detent.
To reduce your speed, pull the stalk toward you. To apply the brakes, pull the stalk further toward you, past the detent.
Oh, and there's a button on the end of the stalk also. I haven't pressed it for fear that I'll start shooting somebody. I suppose I could read the book, but I was able to figure all that stuff out just by driving the car, and moving the stalk. Except the gun thing.

So I'm cruising along in the fast lane, closing on someone moving slower than me. He feels that he's going an appropriate speed and sees no reason to move into the right lane. (see a previous post on my thoughts) So I figure I'll be nice to him and just slow down and see if he'll pull over. I pull toward me on the stalk to slow down, but I got the wrong stalk and I'm flashing my brights at the guy instead, and I continue to close on him rapidly. I'm pulling past a car in the right hand lane, but there is enough room to move over to the right and move past the rolling road block. So I turn on my blinker and pull into the right hand lane, only I didn't turn on my turn signal. I turned off my cruise control. Now I'm slowing down in front of this car I just pulled in front of. You can perhaps sense my dissatisfaction with the situation?

By the way, the button numbers 1 through 6, that one would expect to program preset radio stations are, in fact, multi-function buttons that not only preset radio stations (once you learn how), but also program other functions. I'm not sure what yet, as I haven't read the book.

Two out of three Hernandez children walk in their sleep

At least, that we know of.

Mattea has been walking in her sleep for years. You may recall that I mentioned that we changed the lock on the front door, just so she wouldn't wander outside while we slumbered, unknowing.

Theresa said that the other night, Grayson was wandering around crying. She found him in Mattea's room. When asked if he needed to go potty, he wouldn't answer, but figuring that's what it was, Theresa took him to the toilet. He went, but seemed very confused, still crying.

There is no stool for him to stand on in Mattea's bathroom, so Theresa held him up so he could wash his hands. He kept pressing on the handle of the faucet trying to get soap out of it. Finally, Theresa moved his hands over to the soap dispenser, and put soap on his hands. Thus prepared, he commenced rubbing his hands together ad infinitum. Theresa finally turned the water on for him to rinse the soap off, and when his hands were placed under the running water, he burst out sobbing as never before.

After his hands were clean and dried, Theresa put the poor boy to bed.

When asked the following morning why he was so upset when he went potty in the middle of the night, Grayson responded "I never went potty last night!" He had no recollection of it, at all.

Come to think of it, the last time Mattea wandered around the house somnambulent, she was agitated and walking into various rooms looking for something. Turned out she needed to go also, and couldn't seem to find the right place to take care of her need. Very interesting stuff.

Clarification!

I just wanted to let you know that I do not listen to 10 year old NASCAR races on satellite radio or twenty year old rebroadcasts of "American Top 40" (which has, in today's shorter attention span era, turned into American Top 20). Although, I do know someone who does.

I don't know... watching old movies that you've seen before is one thing. Listening to an old race? I don't really get it.

Speaking of listening to (or watching) racing... I'm not much of a race fan. It's been said that racing is kind of like sex. It's a lot more fun doing it than it is watching it.

Don't get me wrong. A lot of people like watching races. I don't know... maybe they like watching sex too. I'd just much rather race than watch.

You can see why I don't blog that often. When I do, I get myself into potentially problematic thematic ideas with this tangential thinking thing that is hard wired into my brain. I can't help myself. It's in my nature.

But back to the original topic at hand... satellite radio.

I've determined that I do like satellite radio. It's too bad you have to pay for it.

I can listen to the BBC on a daily basis. I can listen to any style of music, any time I want, wherever I am. Bloomberg has a satellite radio station, so I can keep up on the market and financial news without having to wait for the 2 minutes that business gets on a normal radio broadcast. Unfortunately, I always have to return these cars that have all of these cool features when I get done with whatever program I'm working on.

Fortunately, my next program is Infiniti vs. BMW, so I'll be driving around in a new BMW X5. Interestingly enough, being a performance kind of guy, you'd think I'd be all over BMW. My personal experiences with the BMW's I've had for various programs is less than stellar. Are they nice cars? Sure. Do they deserve all of the accolades bestowed upon them. I'll leave that to you when you get your opportunity to spend some time in one.

"Slower traffic keep right"

It doesn't say "Unless you are going the speed limit".

It doesn't say "Unless you are going XX miles per hour over the speed limit"

It doesn't say "Unless you feel compelled to police all other drivers on the road"

It says "Slower traffic keep right"

Yeah... I'll probably be a grumpy old man.

"It puts the lotion on its' back"

I can't help thinking of that line from "Silence of the Lambs" whenever I spend significant time traveling in Arizona or Nevada.

With the extremely low humidity, my skin dries out horribly and my hands look like they belong to an eighty year old. I get out of the shower and slather lotion all over, but by noon I am this sea of dry, wrinkled oldness.

(sigh)