anarchitectitude

Ugh, finally!
I got up this morning at 5 so my buddy Dan and I could get down to Clear Creek before each of us had to work today. Good God that's early.
We were at the wall by 6, and had some really cool weather to greet us. He and I warmed up and then went to work on Anarchitect, a route I've been trying to send since before I went to Greece. My arms felt like hell, given all the time I've been in Rifle and my complacence in working my antagonist muscles, and on my first burn I fell at the first bolt. Things weren't looking good at all. On my second burn, I managed to make it to the third bolt (of 8) before I lobbed off the wall.

On my third and final burn, with the day creeping on and work calling, I slowed things down and managed to keep it together long enough to make it through the high crux and finish the route, putting the project to bed before I head back to NY for Katie. Psyched on both counts!

Now I'm back at the office, working on a few projects and wishing I could take a nap. Getting up at 5 just doesn't feel as good as sleeping in to a more civilized hour.

I'll attribute the send to my sister Megan, who threw down a fantastic dinner last night of grilled veggie pizza, followed up by a little Glacier Ice Cream on the Hill. She and I were laughing about how nice it was to spend some time on the porch, drinking wine and catching up. It will be great when we can get into the double date themed porch nights, too. Life is going along pretty well, save for the fact that there is remarkable acrimony in the Pharo house given my blog posts about Greece. I'm super frustrated by the whole thing.

bike wreck

I ride up to the street corner, headphones blaring from underneath hair that falls below my ears. A bum is already at the corner, waiting for the light to change. I can't hear what the bum says, though his lips are moving. He is jogging in place, and has a noticeable black eye beneath a pair of coke-bottle glasses. The bum points at my handlebars, and even reaches down to touch the pink bar tape.
I removes the headphones, and asks, "Do you like it?"
Bum: "Well, yeah." He continues to run in place. "I just don't want you to take too much shit for it."
I laugh, and the bum looks up to see that the light has changed. And off the bum runs, across the street at the urging of the LED signal of a white man crossing Broadway.

The music continues to blare, and as the sun sets behind the mountains to the west, I sing along.
"Deniaaaaaaal.......Deniaaaaaaaallllllll........ehhhhhhhhhhhhh.......
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh."
I let my hands come up from the handlebars, the same pink steering wheel that the bum had just admired. Arms at my sides, I ride down the path as an airplane.
"Just as you take my hand.........Just as our drinks arrive........"

Up ahead, another traffic signal turns to red, and the cyclist slows with the sound of squeaking brakes. He thinks about all the work that needs to be done, but remembers that he has made it this far. The vanity can wait. He has to get home to brush his teeth, and fall asleep.

"Just as you dance, dance, dance."

It'll be an early morning, alarm at 5 AM for climbing before work. Nothing to worry about. No mental haymakers necessary, nor bosses to appease. No cancer to cure, no rent to pay. Just an early fight with gravity. The only fight that's immediately real.

Stranded in Meeker

Eli just called so we could finalize the plans for the weekend. He is on the docket to get married in July, so we are going to do our best impression of a bachelor party in our pseudo mountain-man style this weekend. A group of us are headed up to Independence Pass for a few days of camping, hiking, climbing and beer drinking. The word from Bri, his wife-to-be, was to eliminate the strip clubs, so the wildest we might get is a dinner down in Aspen. Don't spend too much time tuned into the police blotter, I imagine we'll remain pretty tame.

Originally, the plan was for me to get to the camp site early and stake our claim, with the rest of the team arriving later in the afternoon. My schedule already had me on the Western Slope, with work meetings on Friday morning keeping me busy until just after breakfast. The timing was looking good, until I got to the Planing Department. The guy I was meeting with hadn't come into the office yet, and calls to his home came up empty. I gave the office manager my cell number and headed to the one place in Meeker I could count on for wireless - the public library. Lately, I'm having great luck with podunk WiFi.

The office manager called me back, and told me that Jeff and I could meet at 2. So here I am, hanging out and reading about Israel threatening Iran with military strikes, thinking that I'll be a touch later than originally planned. Oh well, we're still on for dinner in Aspen.

Give me the bitterness of too much wine.

Play for me the slow, sad music that sings of every end, but no beginnings.

Grind my enemies into dust and send them into the sun.

Take away the dictators, national and cubicle, to their own private Gulag where I'm not welcome.

Lift away the heaviness that the rabbit feels when the fox is close at hand.

Shout for freedom, pray for the time to love.

Greece Revisited

Kate and I were on the phone this morning. It's the best start-of-the-day we can share 2,000 miles apart, and that's the hardest part of the famed long distance relationship gig. There aren't the cups of coffee in pajamas while getting ready for work. There is no breakfast in bed. There isn't even morning breath. Just a phone call. But when you know that the end of that dance is coming soon, even cell phone bills take on an air of romance. Kate moves back at the end of June.

We generally spoke of how each of us had spent the previous evening. I took my dad out for an early Father's Day dinner, leaving me little time to chat with her yesterday. A fair trade, but as it turned out, not always a comfortable one. Dad and I started our evening together with his admission that my previous post about Greece had left him frustrated and put off. He and Joey had gone to an extraordinary end to take the family on an incredible vacation, and I termed it "monotonous." I failed to mention the fun I had on the trip. In a rush to describe my feelings from the trip, I sounded exactly like a brat. Kate summed it up perfectly, "there's a line between blogging and journaling, and you just crossed it."

I realize there's no turning back on some things, but hopefully there is some qualifying available.

The two most important things in my life right now are Kate and rock climbing. They require constant attention to maintain a level of health and vigor with which I'm comfortable. I am obsessive, and have a particularly hard time letting something rest once I've determined to pay it my mind. In Greece, I was largely cut off from both of these priorities, and the experience left me a bit discombobulated.

Kate moved to DC for a job in November. We have been treading water, hoping to find rescue in the form of reunification, ever since. Faithfulness to the relationship, not physically so much as emotionally, took a strong effort on both of our parts. And while I was in Greece, that lifeboat appeared. Her deciding to take a job in Boulder, to resign from the expectation and opportunity of the East Coast, in some part to nurture our relationship and probe for long term fecundity, took an enormous leap of faith on her part. Instead of being able to share in it with her, I was a tiny speck in a blue sea, out of contact. During arguably the most important two weeks of our lives together, I was unavailable. This wore heavily on my mind.

As Kate called my father's Blackberry to tell me she would be moving back, news which should rightly have been met with Champagne, I was headed to dinner with an Amstel Heavy in my hand. I could briefly share in the excitement, but quickly had to go. I had to go back to a generous, gorgeous, fulfilling family vacation, but I couldn't be entirely there. I wasn't entirely anywhere. And when I'm out of balance, out of whack, out of touch, I go climbing. In the middle of the Mediterranean, I wouldn't be doing that, either.

Before I left for the Cyclades, I was climbing really well. Grades that spurned me last year were coming with unaccustomed ease, and admittedly, I selfishly wanted to keep going with my momentum. Taking time off was, in reality, not going to cost me a bunch of fitness, and would actually in the long run benefit my health, but I lost sight of that just a touch, and allowed a tinge of resentment to creep in and taint my ability to set back and really relax.

And here we are, revisiting Greece. I'm sorry I couldn't be everywhere. I should have given Kate more mind, left climbing at home, and been entirely immersed in the sailing experience. I tried to say this the first time, but swung and missed. Such are the lessons when you're trying to learn how to write.

Spreadables

Simone and Jen, my room mates, get annoyed when they open the drawer containing silverware. This raw emotion stems from the irony that when they open the drawer, it contains very little of what they hoped to find. Specifically, knives are usually greatly outnumbered by spoons, forks, and their donkey-like spawn, the spork. "Where did all those knives go?," one might ask. Let me answer one: they are dirty. Soiled by some culprit (me) in one flavored activity particularly favored, the spreading of spreadables. Peanut butter, almond butter, soy nut butter in chocolate flavor, cashew butter, and certainly the Robin to the Nut-Butter Batman, the fruit jam spread.
At one point while living in New Zealand, I had my mom send me two jumbo sized containers of PB of PB&J fame. One smooth, one crunchy. I love it, and have been disassembling proper clean cutlery ratios since my early years.
On a recent trip to Hueco Tanks to boulder and visit my buddy Nuno, he introduced me to a new use for this, the greatest good: Peanut Butter on cereal in the morning. That, my friends, has become a staple in my life. I get granola and slivered almonds (albeit in their non-buttered form) from the bulk aisle, and combine them with fruit, yogurt, and the PB. I'm a morning person, and I hold no reservations about crediting this upbeat attitude to my early morning consumption habits.
Kate, however, tells me that this AM alacrity is annoying. Megan and Spencer agree. They describe standing over them, staring at their sleeping faces and holding two cups of coffee until they wake up startled, as "creepy." I just thought they might want a beverage.
Maybe if they had a little more spreadable in their lives, they'd understand me better. Relationships: made better by a shared love of food since the late Triassic.

Greece

I'm trying to figure out how to describe my recent trip to Greece without sounding like a spoiled brat. Here goes nothing...

My youngest sister graduated from KU earlier this spring, and in celebration for being freed from the shackles of his children's tuition, my father decided to basically pay for another semester's equivalent in the form of a Grecian sailing trip for the Pharo/Porcelli/Kimball (Dad, Megs, Reilly, me, Joey, Spence) clan. Let's just say that being an oil executive outweighs the horrendous ass kicking the Euro delivers the American Dollar, and off we went.
We hatched the plan of going to Greece while on our last family trip In 2007 we were at the cottage on Lake Michigan for the Fourth of July. Joey loves to sail, so she proposed the Aegean, and as I knew there was no way I'd afford my own personal sailboat for decades (if ever), I gave my support to the idea. We cruised around on a 45 foot catamaran, which sounds huge until you pack 7 people on board (Capitan included). Somehow, and I can only credit the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, Superstar, we made it home without one single incident of fratricide.
The fact of the matter is that when I look back at the trip, most of the islands we visited blend together. So do the days. There is only so much sitting on a sail boat while playing Gin Rummy that a person can indulge in before a certain sense of monotony sets in. The biggest event of the trip was Kate's decision to take a job back in Boulder. This made being abroad even more difficult, because in reality, all I wanted to do was get back home to my cell phone and talk to her about our plans for finally living in the same city again. When all you can think about is what you're missing back home, it's hard to be away.

And with no segue whatsoever....


Poop. That's all that goes down the drain in Greece. No paper. I'd heard rumors of this astonishing phenomenon in Franco's Spain, but it went the way of his fascism...down the drain, if you'll pardon the pun. Every time I answered the call in Athens or any of the islands we visited, I was reminded that toilets make distinct frowns when you try to recreate what I'll call "The happy housekeeper situation." That is, in Greece, a housekeeper has to empty a trashcan every day, and I can only imagine that this job grows tiresome. I'm no patriot, but at least in the States, all we ask is that they vacuum and dust. There is some good in that, right?

Back to a subject of higher brow. What's good? It's good to be home. It's good to know Kate is coming back to Boulder. It's good to be able to go climbing again. It's good to ween myself off the steady diet of Feta. And it's good to be back to the blog. I'll try not to leave you for such a long time again.

oil in walden

I'm in Walden, a little town about 60 miles east of Steamboat Springs, doing some work. I do land contracts and ownership research for the oil and gas business, an important irony given what I just read.
Back up. I'm in Walden, a town of about 1,000 people. I got shut out of the courthouse because they close for lunch. This is Small Town America's version of the Spanish siesta, a vestige of times long forgotten. Rainy and cold, this was no afternoon for a rest on a park bench until the Treasurer came back from her Reuben. I shuffled back to my Subaru, beautiful rusting Abby, and fired up the computer to look at some files. What pops up, but a wireless signal! In Walden, of all places.
So here I am, wildly distracted from the lease files I was going to review. The New York Times led with an article about oil futures flirting with $140 a barrel, and my reaction of "good" comes with two motivations. First, I work in the oil and gas business. Work is plentiful and I'm fairly compensated. But on a deeper note, and here is where things get more complicated for me, I really wish people would drive their cars less, buy smaller homes, manage their energy demands, and live lives less connected with machines connected to power outlets. I'm as guilty as anyone. How else can I write this blog, save with a computer and its "sinister" power cable?
But as crude prices rocket towards the stratosphere, we are quickly going to be faced with a difficult reality. We can't continue to believe that energy is cheap, and we will need to treat it accordingly. When gasoline is $5 a gallon as it will surely be in the next two years, we are going to ride the bus. When our electricity bill triples because Congress finally enacts a carbon tax on coal, we are going to turn off the goddamn lights. (Unrelated to crude prices, I know, but I was striding towards a blanket energy tangent) When diesel is $6 a gallon, our food might be expensive enough for all of us to take those outrageous quarter acre lots and grow a garden.
The point is, energy is the hub of the entire economy. And the more expensive our current forms of it are, the sooner we are going to have to rethink the way we do business. Starting with this blog. Power off, saving juice.

anarchitect

Andrew took one for the team today, and went with me down to Anarchy Wall in Clear Creek to give me a belay on the route I've been working on. He hurt his finger to the point that he hasn't been able to climb for about a month, but was psyched to get outside and catch me as I lobbed off the quintessential, benchmark 12d on the Front Range. I really appreciate the fact that even though he is incapacitated right now, Andrew is willing to give up a few hours of his afternoon and let me try the route.
I first got on "Anarchitect" a few years ago, and it was entirely over my head. The opening moves were impossible, and I ended up aiding through on a top rope so that I could try some of the higher sequences. I remember lowering off and thinking that there was absolutely no chance of me ever linking all the moves together on lead.
Fast forward to this spring, and I've gotten a touch stronger. Beyond muscles and tendons, though, I think the real key to me getting close to sending the route is an understanding about just how much effort goes into doing a hard route. Before I had been beaten up by harder local routes and projects in Rifle, I naively assumed that people just walked right up and did whatever route was in front of them, regardless of the grade. There might be a few people who have the incredible talent and skill to do that, but I sure ain't one of 'em. That is, as far as I can tell, a major reason that I enjoy climbing routes that give me fits. I've learned to embrace the fact that routes like Anarchitect take a number of tries spread over days of work, and the reward isn't cheapened by its relative ease of attainability. Sending this route is going to be hard earned and well worth it.
The route starts with some interesting and insecure moves along a sloper rail that feels delicate and slimy. I think I've tricked out a sequence that involves a fair bit of knee scumming, and I'm doing this low crux at just the first bolt on virtually every go at this point. From here, you get a bit of a reprieve at a break in the wall, but immediately dive into another hard section. Fortunately for me, I'm tall and have some decent footholds to use. Otherwise I'd be doing a moribund shuffle along the likes of what my friend Olivia has to conjour, basically pulling on a small sloping rib of a hold with zero feet. Above, a couple of small holds give way to a decent jug at the fourth bolt, but the feet are small, a bit polished, and sloping away from the climber. It makes getting much energy back a tough order, but I keep telling myself to take big breathes and wait until my body is ready to launch into the final difficult section.
Out of this good hold, I move left into a pretty poor finger lock with misplaced footholds. I nearly have to campus across to another finger lock, and this saps a lot of whatever juice I can get back while at the rest. From here, I move up to a sloping pinch and small crimp where I need to fire in a pretty desperate clip, or skip it and face a much bigger fall if I blow the crux. Fortunately, the feet are better through this part of the headwall, and if I can just remember to pull really hard with my left hand and right foot, I uncoil myself up to a reasonable hold in a slot. Doing the move after a hang on the rope feels well within reach, but after all the difficult climbing below, I'm debilitated with hypoxia and have a hard time making my body do everything it needs to in order to stick the move.
There are a great couple of moves above this final toss to the slot, but hopefully nothing that will spit me off. Getting this done before I head off to Greece would be really satisfying, but I may only have one, or at most two, chances before the flight next Tuesday.

rock chalk jayhawk

Graduations and weddings come ready-made for overindulgent celebration. The University of Kansas' Commencement took place this weekend, and Reilly was there for her final send off. The rest of the clan rolled into Lawrence primed to properly acknowledge the sordid truth that the final Pharo sibling (under)graduated, and only rip roaring rollicking would befit such an accomplishment. I know the kids read this site, and as such, I'll minimize my lauding of a weekend that can be best summed up by my sister's drink of choice. "The nicest vodka that still comes in a plastic bottle." So that's how it's gonna be...
To be fair, vodka is more the serf's drink of choice, and most of us pick gin. The gentleman's rotgut. Reilly seems the one most prone to Russia's poison, despite our efforts to right her.
The Pharo/Porcelli/Kimball clan came in from Denver, and my uncle and aunt came up from Dallas. Another uncle came in from Portland, and my grandparents are just up the road in KC. This adult show of force complimented the dozens of friends and family that arrived in support of the other 13 girls my sister Reilly lives with. In some states, that kind of living arrangement has been outlawed as a brothel. Best I could tell, 1334 Ohio Street in Lawrence masquerades as a saloon. Music pours out of the windows, and beer comes right out of the faucet. A cowboy's horse may have even been tied to the fence. The wild west lives on!
We spent time at a few other locales around the college town. Namely: the Chi-Oh fountain, a sweltering football stadium wreathed in round Midwesterners, The Wheel, The Hawk, Yokohama's, and countless shops. The best t-shirt of the week featured the faces of Bush, Cheney, and Rice with the caption "GOODBYE, FUCKERS!" below. Do not for one moment believe you have your finger on Kansas' pulse when your digits trace the Lawrence Artery. The blood that flows here is young, idealistic, and dreadlocked. "Make Tea, Not War" they announce at a parade.
The biggest night of the weekend was a Saturday feast at Pacemamma's, one of the town's nicer establishments. 50 or so arrived to hear the jazz quartet and eat. When things finally wrapped up around 1:30, my uncle Mark was searching for me under planes, trains, and more likely, automobiles. To no avail, because I was happily asleep back at the hotel.
A quick word about Mark. My dad's brother is a fantastically entertaining ringmaster from the Big D. Ironically, he is about 5'6. He perpetually speaks with that irrepressible Texas twang that only comes out of my father when speaking of the glory of horse punching, and tells stories about anything and everything that would make his wife blush, if she weren't so used to the shenanigans. Due to the fact that "you fuck one midget," "grab the scrotum and TWIST," and an incredible Sling Blade impression came out of his mouth on this trip, I'll forever refer to him as Jethro.
Monday, and I'm finally back in Boulder, re hydrating, and praying for a nap that the shakes keep at bay. I have to go to Greece for 10 days in June with much of the same cast? I don't know what scares me worse...more than a week in the Aegean with the pirates from this weekend, or the fact that I was at times so incapacitated on graduation weekend that I alerted people to my impending trip to Greek. This could be a long spring.

countdown

I need to make this short, because it's late and I'm tired.
Reilly graduates this weekend, and we are headed to Lawrence for a weekend of celebration, family time, booze, and outrageous behavior by Pharos young and old.
Just know, there's a storm coming. Given that my youngest sister is going to finish college, and we are all heading out to see it, we could be talking a replica of Pearl Harbor. Just with less Kamikaze Asians. Same amount of fire, though.

Young Mr. Lee wears a rat tail

Brian asks me if I remember middle school with fondness, suggesting that it might even be possible to do so. We are driving down Boulder Canyon after climbing; I'm exhausted, my fingers pulse, and my soul is full from being outside in perfect vertical meditation.
"Not at all."
"Oh, I did."

And that seems strange to me. I remember middle school in the form of Jessee Lee. Young Mr. Lee wears a rat-tail, the Mullet's love child, both badges of depraved upbringing. Jessee is my age, but takes a distinct abhorrence at my existence. Demographic elitism prods me to think it's my good bloodlines. He swears to the class that he'll kick the shit out of me, and I swear to myself to avoid him at all costs.
My main memory is a public threat, humiliation from a bully in a Metallica shirt with the sleeves cut off.
"No, I was ready to move along. I didn't like it too much."

Brewery Bar, go to hell!

I woke up this morning with some sore guts.

When Eli suggested that's where we meet for dinner last night, I should have listened to my instincts and found an alternative rendezvous spot. Instead, I followed his lead and headed to the Brewery Bar for the most gut wrenching Tex-Mex this side of a Mazatlan water faucet. He was ultimately persuaded by $1 Margarita Monday. I arrived a few minutes late to find a table of 4 already seated to a chips, salsa, and glasses rimmed with salt. A millisecond scene survey announced that I'd be playing fifth wheel while destroying my insides. Great.

A quick bit of background...
Eli is a good friend from WAY back. I mean 'kindergarten' way back. 'T-ball' way back. 'Pre-pubescent, neon clothes, AIDS-ain't-even-on-the-radar, email-yet-to-be-invented' way back. You get the idea. He's getting married to his longtime girlfriend this summer, and I'm the best man. They just bought a house down on the south side of town, near my office. Oddly, we don't see each other that often despite the proximity, probably because I try to spend as little time down there as possible. But last night saw me at the office working late, and I was able to sneak out and meet everyone for dinner.

Eli and Bri's pending wedding led to a natural theme in the conversation. This was augmented by the presence of the other couple, married for two years. The planning and processing of Eli and Bri's rehearsal dinner, hotel arrangements, parties and guest lists wasn't in and of itself a negative. It just made me realize that Eli and I were in VERY different stages of our lives. I love my girlfriend, but am terrified of the traditional choices Eli seems to be making. I don't want to spend 70% of my day in a cube. I don't want to have a mortgage. I don't want to own a treadmill. When the inevitable cake disaster story came out of the other couple, I buried my head in my menu and swore to myself that I'd die before I ever reached the point in life where I would require the services of a wedding planner.

Bri, a total sweetheart, could tell that I wasn't much for the wedding conversation. She put an end to it in an authoritative manner befitting a woman who would eventually run a house. We were free to slurp our food in relative peace. At least until our bellies churned in painful digestion. I unearthed the Combination #8, a taco plate I hoped would be somewhat gentle as it masqueraded as "health Mex." False. Our dinners arrived under individual mountain ranges of shredded cheese, and smothered in a boiling lard masquerading as green chile.

As plates were being cleared, the waiter told us about the Dessert Nachos. Given that I was already catatonic, a pile of sopapillas, ice cream, high fructose corn syrup and diabetes seemed like a bad idea. We paid the bill instead, and said our goodbyes before exiting to a pouring rain. I walked out to the car, and headed back to the office, happy to be working quietly. Eli and I are good friends, and share plenty of history, but right now we have two very different lives. I spent one night working late and consider it Blog worthy. He's a normal, everyday, American adult.

haaamana five, now ten haaamannna hammmmannna sold!

Hans and I got blown out of the water in a live auction bid. It was great.

The day was supposed to have started at a leisurely pace, and eventually move into a lunch reunion with my father and Hans (coincidentally). Hopefully, dad would weave tales of horse assault and energy policy into my brain., and Hans and I could catch up as good friends who see too little of each other. Instead, my boss called, and I answered the phone in my underwear. He was "assuming" I was on my way to the BLM office where they were having a federal oil and gas lease sale in 45 minutes. I told him I was on my way, and tucked my shirt in on the way out the door only a few hurried minutes later. Drive fast.

I was a little frustrated that I didn't have more time to steel myself for my first time sitting in on a real life, funny-as-you-might-assume auction with a man in a ten gallon hat, boots, and a belt buckle.

The sale started at 9:00 AM, and I walked in at 8:59 to find Hans already there. The boss sent backup. Given how the morning started, I'd say that was a reasonable proposition. Plus, have you met me?
Hans and I had a few moments to discuss strategy. Our top bid was $60, but we were under strict orders not to let anyone buy the lease for that amount. If the auctioneer got to $60 and it looked like it was going to get sold, we needed to make sure the price was bumped. This way, if the client looked at the eventual sale price, he would see that the lease sold for more than he was willing to pay. We decided that I'd bid on the first of the two parcels, and Hans would bid on the second. That way, we both got part of the auction action.

Jim and Bob were the auctioneers. Of course they were. Their names couldn't have been anything else. Jim explained that they were professionals from Brush County, Colorado. (Read: B.F.E.) Judging by their matching embroidered maroon oxfords, blue jeans and hats, they looked the part. The rules were explained, and off we went.
My parcel was about tenth out of the forty or so up for sale. When we got there, the bidding started at $2. Within a matter of seconds, it was up to $50. My heart started to pound. When Jim got to $60, I had yet to enter a bid, and someone else held their number aloft. Jim then asked for $70. I was a man with a conflict. I wasn't supposed to go that high, but I wasn't supposed to let it get bought for our top price, either. I meekly waved my number.
"Hammmmbannnna hemmmmennaa sixty dollars up front-ah! Sixty! Do I have seventy? Seventy? (At this point I gave the half wave) Sir in the back! Hammmannna bahhhhammmmaaannaa Seventy? Yes? (I shake my head no, like the child who broke the window with his baseball, and is avoiding the eyes of an angry father who knows full well the weighty truth) Seventy??? In the front I have seventy. Seventy five? Hammmmaannna heeednemmmma oooooohhhhmannnna......"
The parcel eventually sold for $175, but you couldn't really argue that I even landed a punch.

Hans' parcel was next, and after witnessing my mini fiasco, he knew which way the wind was blowing. Hans never even raised his number card for a parcel that was sold for $110. Like I said, we got blown out of the water. But we walked out feeling like we had at least seen something memorable, even if it was two poorly dressed men do their best impression of the micro machine man. And what the hell? Hans and I still had a lunch to attend with my dad as the main source of entertainment. Today was full of it.