I should mention that Lisa won the chili cook-off, because there was no competition. Literally. There was only her chili. The chili was outstanding, though - definitely different than chili I've had before. It was very sweet, but very tasty. We also had cornbread and salad, but the chili was the highlight. For dessert we had some pumpkin pie and I provided some Swedish Fish, which are, not surprisingly, made in Sweden. I love them, but not too much.

We learned much about Sam during this evening of food and fun. Some of the highlights include the following:

• Sam once tested a battery by tasting the battery acid
  
• He dips his Fritos Scoops in Ranch dressing
  
• He dips the Fritos in backwards (inside part of the scoop remains dressing free)

We played a rousing game of Quiddler. I tied with Sam, but Emilie had the longest word. If Sam hadn't helped me I wouldn't have tied. But I did tie. No one can take that away from me.

You should be aware of the news story involving dolphins trained to shoot terrorists! It sounds like a joke, but it's not. How crazy is that?!

In less exciting news, Thursday night was a night of geocaching. Emilie was off playing Bunco, so I made a Virginia City-Dayton-Carson City loop. I found a total of five caches, which was about what I was shooting for. The adventure included an unintended 4x4 excursion that yielded no results; however, it also included a run-in with a cop. I pulled up to find the Here kitty, kitty, kitty... cache and was promptly cornered by a deputy sheriff. He apparently thought that my choice of parking spot was "weird". He asked if I was drinking and I told him "no" (the truth). He gave me back my drivers license and went on his way. I jumped out, found the cache and left that "weird" spot.

During this same night of caching I saw a kangaroo mouse/rat (I'm not sure which it was). It was the first time I've ever seen one - it was crossing the road between Virginia City and Highway 50.

In other news, I heard the person at the Wendy's drive-through tell the car in front of me "Thank you for choosing Jack-in-the-Box". I thought that was funny.

The guy at Del Taco shorted me $10 and I had to go in and ask for my money.

I've got all sorts of exciting stuff to blog about our evening with Sam and Lisa, but it deserves its own entry. Perhaps I'll post it tomorrow.

On the subject of "Jerk Joseph", what can I say?

Jack Joseph (not to be confused with Jack Johnson, the incredibly talented musician) is somewhat of a Reno celebrity. No one knows why this is the case. The only thing anyone seems to remember about him is that he used to host the Movie of the Week on KAME 21 (now known as UPN). He was in a few local commercials, I think. How any of this made him a local celebrity is beyond me. Finding information about Jack Joseph is difficult - searches on the web return various references to Jack Joseph & Associates Advertising. There are a few references to the Jack Joseph Show, pretty much mentioned exclusively by Greg Steele, a self-proclaimed "Comedy Hypnotist". He lists this show among his references. He's either not from Reno, or he's definitely not trying to impress people who are.

Jack disappeared for a while and then resurfaced in the past few years selling a coupon booklet - the kind you find in your driveway because the distributor is too cheap to send the coupons through the mail.

Although his local celebrity status is difficult to understand, none of this makes him a "jerk".

Roll the clock back about 6 years to when I was working at CompUSA. I worked in the "tech shop" where we fixed computers, installed video cards, memory, etc. and refurbished used computers. One night, not long before CompUSA closed for the evening, Jack Joseph swaggered in and I instantly recognized him. I played it cool as he asked me some questions. He asked how much it would cost for someone to come to his office to move a computer. He needed to move a desk a short distance and just needed someone to unplug the computer and set it back up once the desk was moved. I told him that the cost would be a minimum of $75 for travel and $100/hr for service. He was shocked and I sympathetically agreed that this was a lot of money for the simple task. Nevertheless, that was the cost and CompUSA's fees are non-negotiable. Jack then asked if I would be willing to come by and help him on my own time. To this I agreed and he gave me directions to his office.

After work I went straight to his office and performed the work requested; however, there was a bigger issue that he failed to mention. The computer didn't just need to be moved - it didn't even work. He asked if I would look at it and see if I could figure out what was wrong.I was annoyed by this and should have left right then. Instead, I reluctantly opened it up and quickly realized that it would not be an easy repair. The fan for the CPU was definitely burned-out and the system had suffered severe overheating as a result. At a minimum the fan would need to be replaced but more likely it would need a new CPU, as well. I explained to him that he would need to purchase a new fan and that it might not even fix the problem. Additionally, the system was proprietary and would not accept a standard heat sink and fan. I told him that if he wanted the system to be fixed then he would need to bring it to CompUSA to be worked on.

Upon hearing this news, he began to get aggresive and pleaded for me to fix the computer. It was a bizarre combination of begging and threatening. He used the same tactful techniques that no doubt landed him his spot hosting the KAME 21 Movie of the Week. Although I didn't want to cross Jack Joseph, I nevertheless stood my ground and insisted that he would need to bring it to the shop if he wanted it to be fixed. He then slipped me a $10 bill to pay me for my efforts thus far and asked that I would please get back to him about fixing the broken computer. I took the money, left and never talked to him again.

So, Jack Joseph is a jerk for a number of reasons. There are two primary reasons, though. First, he lied to get me to come to his office to "move" his computer, which he "forgot" was broken until I got to the office. Second, he used somewhere between an hour and two hours of my time and then only gave me $10, when the same service should have cost at least $50-$100, but probably more.

Somehow this conversation recently came up (on Labor Day, I think). I made the comment that "Jack Joseph is a jerk" and Mike decided that the comment should be preserved here on the wonderful blog.

So, now you know the tale of "Jerk Joseph".

I know that you are insanely interested in all the details of my sleeping habits, the medications I take and everything in between, which is why I am giving you this special treat - more information!

I successfully completed night three of no Ambien; however, Sunday night I cheated! Caffeine seems to effect me in a strange way in that it typically makes me sleep better. I drank two cans of Pepsi within a couple hours of bedtime. It seems to have worked, because I slept through the night and only woke up once or twice due to caffeine's magical diuretic powers. Anyway, no more Ambien.

Mike purchased the strangest game I've ever seen. It's called Katamari Damacy. If you want to get a taste of the strangeness, just go to the actual web page for the game. Words cannot describe how strange this game is.

I dropped by Mike's pad last night to help him set up his new Dell computer. As you know, I am a huge fan of Dell computers, but for what Mike needed it seemed to be a decent computer and the price was unbeatable.

Since there appears to be much confusion regarding Jack Joseph, it behooves me to expound on the shoutbox comments. Watch for an exciting "Jack Joseph is a jerk" update tomorrow.

I'm just getting ready to head into night two of Ambien deprivation. I've been seeing my doctor for a few months regarding how tired and fatigued I feel most of the time. Ambien is the second step in our troubleshooting process. It didn't really help me go to sleep much faster and it only helps me sleep better once in a while. Since the effects were minimal I figured I would stop taking it. The problem is that once you stop taking it you get "rebound insomnia", which is pretty bad. You get tired, but can't stay asleep. It lasts two or three nights. I stopped taking it for a couple nights when I was in Boise, but the effects of not taking it drove me to start again on the third night. The only reason I didn't take it in Boise is that they recommend 7-8 hours of sleep, otherwise you can experience memory loss until the effect of the Ambien wears off. I wasn't able to get at least seven hours of sleep so I didn't risk it.

Anyway, since Ambien has several other undesirable side-effects that make me nervous (including daytime drowsiness and addiction), I'm giving it up. Last night wasn't too bad, but that's probably because I was expecting it. Tonight will be more of a test...

The Allreds came over last night. I tried to BBQ some london broil, but I destroyed it with the marinade I used. It ended up tasting pretty horrible. On top of that, Emilie "accidentally" dropped her pasta salad on the floor. It made the whole dinner experience very interesting - in the bad way. Emilie made some root beer cake, which turned out pretty good even though the root beer flavor was so mild that one could argue that it was non-existent. To make this argument, however, there would also have to be one who could argue that the flavor was, indeed, existent. I'm not one for arguing about "root beer existentialism", so I stayed out of it. Even though our hosting skills left room for improvement, we always like having the Allreds over. We played games. We laughed. We cried. We painted easter eggs. Actually, we only did some of those things (it is up to you, the reader, to decide).

It's been an eternity since I've blogged, figuratively speaking. Although much has happened, this will be an abbreviated version of history.

I've been on three bike rides since last blogging. A few weeks ago I did the Whites Creek Loop on a Saturday morning. A few days later I did a daring twilight ride on the same trail. I headed up after 7:00 pm and rode hard so that I could get back to my truck before the sun was down completely. The ride downhill was probably the most exciting ride yet. I could see where I was going, but I couldn't see details of the trail. I bombed over rocks and roots in a race to the bottom. I was afraid of a) it getting completely dark and b) scary animals. I went much faster than usual, beating my previous best time by almost five minutes on the downhill alone. This last Saturday I did the Emigrant Trail ride out and back with my brother- and father-in-law. I pushed myself extra hard since we're getting toward the end of the season. It was dusty, but good.

We had the Barnets over for one last fling before their trek. We played some games and, as Richard mentioned, I laughed myself to tears. I learned a valuable lesson: I should not ever hold the cards when playing "Mad Gab". Although we had fun, it was also sad. There is definitely a huge hole in Reno where the Barnets used to be.

Strangely enough, I had to go to Boise for work the following week. My boss asked me to go on Sunday, although I was originally booked for Monday. I called Southwest to change my flight, but they booked my flight incorrectly and changed it to Monday night instead of Sunday night. I went to the airport on Sunday anyway and because of some cancelations I got a ticket. The flight ended up being about an hour and 30 minutes late on top of everything else. The hilarious part is that they didn't need my help on Sunday after all, but I didn't find that out until just before the plane arrived.

The week was crazy and I worked myself half to death (actually about .56), but I accomplished what I went there to do. I spent a few evenings at Richard and Misti's new pad after work. I thought it was funny that Becky was so nice to me since she seemed to be terrified of me before. There must be something magical about the state line. Anyway, after work last Thursday we had an afternoon of mad geocaching. With the exception of a couple caches (the Ugly Duckling cache in particular), I wasn't very impressed with caching in the area. It was good to try out a new area, though. Once Richard sends me the details on the caches we found I should easily surpass my 350 cache goal.

We had some Chinese food after caching and I got a ton of fortunes for the Fortune Cookie Blog. I asked the girl at the restauraunt for some extra cookies and she hooked us up.

That's enough for now. I could keep going...remind me to post something about Ambien...next time...