Save A Life, Take A Life

It looks like my effort to save a young Red-tailed Hawk was not in vain. He (she?) faced fairly certain death hobbling along on the pavement at the Hillsboro Elementary & Middle School parking lot last Saturday. Relocating him to our peaceful 11 acre spread seems to have been the right thing to do.

We saw him yesterday sitting high atop our kids playground set keeping a watchful eye for field mice in the yard. I startled him and he flew to the trees nearby. As I watched him fly he looked much better than he had the day I found him.

As I headed out for the day today to catch a meeting I saw him once again on top of the swing set looking as content as a Hawk can look.

It felt good to have helped save the life of that little bird. As I pulled out onto our main road and hit full-speed I thought about how cool it would be if he hung around permanently and added to our rich array of wildlife in the DigitalRich Crew’s backyard.

Just then a large bird flew right into my windshield and died instantly.

Weird.






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DigitalRich and the Munich Symphony Orchestra

One of my best friends growing up was a gent named Achim Gross. His father worked for the West German government, and was stationed at the West German Embassy in Washington D.C. We hung out together and with our mutual friend Tim Hazen constantly.

As my 18th birthday approached in March of 1984, I learned an important lesson in that senior year at High School. Foreign embassies are truly sovereign soil and not subject to the laws of the United States. This was very important to me, especially when I was able to go on the embassy grounds and have a beer at 17 years of age without any trouble.

Why am I remembering all this now and writing about it on DigitalRichDaily? I’ll tell you. Yesterday I had lunch with a record company president and we rode together in his Audi Quattro. As soon as I saw the car, the memory of Achim and 1984 flooded my mind.

That fall Achim got Tim and me an awesome job. $500 a day kind of awesome. Audi was sponsoring the Munich Symphony Orchestra’s US Tour, and Audi contacted the West German embassy for help while the orchestra was in the states. They asked if the embassy could round up volunteers to drive the members of the orchestra around town during their stops in NYC, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, LA and a few other major cities. Audi would provide a fleet of brand new cars at each city for the volunteers to use while whisking the members about town to lunches, shopping, and then the big show in the evening.

Achim’s dad was put in charge of the DC duty, and Achim volunteered Tim and I. The coolest part was that Achim’s dad made special arrangements for us three to keep the cars 24/7 during the multi-day stay the orchestra was making in the nation’s capital. So, we were all able to drive our sporty new 1985 (yes- fresh next year models) Audi Quattro’s about town. I went to pick up mine, and headed home. The next morning I got up and headed to class (Montgomery College freshman) excited to show-off my awesome ride. I had time to get through all my morning classes, and then to the Four Seasons Hotel to pick up my assigned orchestra members. It was a bit rainy, but not too cool. I reasoned that I could probably drive with the sun roof open once I hit enough speed and the rain stopped pouring in the car.

Got to class on time, wrapped up my morning, and jumped in the car to head to DC. There was a group of students nearby and they posed the perfect opportunity to gun the engine and show off the Audi. I slipped the engine into gear, gunned the accelerator, and popped effortlessly into second and then third gear as I whipped out of the parking lot and along the winding tree lined college drive. Then something not good happened. I started skidding.

I slid to the left, I overcorrected to the right, and shot right off the road, bounded down a hill, and slammed hard into two massive trees. Not one, but two. Its as if God himself arranged for those two trees to grow exactly in their place so as to mature to have a space in between them exactly 3 feet narrower than the front-end of a 1985 Audi Quattro. With a massive tree embedded into the front of the Audi- one on each front quarter panel- the engine struggled, hissed, and then cut-off. I had to roll down the window of the car to get out as both front doors were jammed shut. I was devastated. And very worried that a large mean giant German man was going to kill me.

I called Achim and he picked me up. We drove to his dad’s office and I broke the news to him. It was not a fun conversation at all. He started screaming at me in German, and then finally explained that I was to go to Audi’s DC offices and tell the executive in charge of the tour what I did. The Audi exec threatened to make me pay for the car, but calmed down after he reminded himself that he was not authorized to let us use the cars personally, but had granted Achim’s father’s request to allow us to use them. He asked me where the car had been towed to (I told him it was still stuck between two trees at the college), and then asked me to leave and to make sure he never saw my face again.

Great memories.






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Kinda Feels To Me Like Someone’s Out To Get Me

Today I had a 3:45PM meeting at EMI Christian Music Group- my former employer. I had an appointment to talk about a few projects from one of my clients to a retailer that was in town for product pitches.

I have driven between my house and EMI for many, many years, and I have the timing down to a science. Most of my driving is this way. I know this reveals something about me that I probably shouldn’t, but I actually keep records of how long it takes me to drive certain places. I then average them and develop a mental record of these times. As I reread this I realize how insane I sound.

Back in the day before strict airline security, I could without fail walk onto a plane 5min before the doors closed. Walk into a lunch meeting just as the buzzer went off letting the group waiting know the table was ready. Walk into a meeting right as people were finding a seat and introducing themselves. I try to cram so much into each minute that each minute I have to cram is important. Crazy.

So as I set out to start my 23.5 minute journey from Leipers Fork TN to Brentwood TN and EMI CMG, I felt just fine. I was leaving a full 30 minutes before the meeting start time. Plenty of time to chit-chat with a few former staff and friends as I meandered through my old stomping grounds. Even enough time to grab a cup of HupkaBrew (that’s what we call the Starbucks ground coffee used to make a pot, only you put 2 or 3 bags in the filter holder instead of the normal 1 bag. Named affectionately after the lovely, gracious and hyper Cathy Hupka).

As always, I pulled out of the garage, rounded the house, and headed down our long 500 foot driveway. As I readied to pull out, a giant garbage truck was coming so I waited to pull out behind it. After I did I regretted not gunning it to get out in front of him. He practically crawled at 35MPH on the 45MPH road.

After a mile or so he slowed down to turn left. Finally! With him out of the way I could get to normal speed (about 50-60MPH). As we stopped and waited for oncoming traffic to get out of the way, and older lady came up to the stop sign where the truck was about to turn left. The trucker waved her on so he could make his turn easily. As he turned out of the way I got stuck behind grandma. We tootled along enjoying the scenery together. She slowed down every time she saw a cow or horse. When a hawk landed on a power line she practically came to a stop. I was about to scream.

We got to the main road (where 90% of traffic turns left or right), and fortunately she put her blinker on. I was headed straight. As I got through the intersection a school bus pulled out in front of me from a side road. Yep. 8 or 9 stops with the little stop sign and lights lighting up. An eternity later the bus turned right. A few miles later I hit a school zone (Grassland Middle School- 15MPH).

Turning onto Manley Rd provided a 50MPH zone and I gunned the car. Shortly after, I hit another school zone (Ingram Curry Academy- 20MPH), and then another (Scales Elementary- 20MPH). After finally getting through these, I came around a corner to see a nice man dressed in orange, holding out his hand at me, and a stop sign in the other. Lane closed. One side of traffic through at a time.

50 minutes total. 20 minutes late to the meeting. So much for my system.






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The Great Race

Occasionally Michelle and I will have to take two cars as we run errands or head out for the day, usually because of some unusual circumstance. Sometimes its Sunday morning at church when I have a meeting somewhere right after service, sometimes its out on errands because I need to swing by Home Depot and she has something earth-shatteringly important to get at Kohls after we see a movie.

Tonight, it was really unusual. Our van has taken ill. The transmission is bad, and a $3000+ repair bill awaits us at the end of the week. We headed out for softball games tonight all in one car (the 6 DigitalRich crew members), and planned on hooking up with my parents at the second game. They each drove their car to the game, and then gave one of them to Michelle to use for the week.

As we departed the last of two games around 9PM, Michelle was directly in front of me, and we kept it that way until we got to downtown Franklin. From there several routes are possible to reach our home, and often when these situations present themselves Michelle and I know exactly what to do. We race.

She takes one route; I take another, and most of the time I win. And I did again tonight. Sort of.

Michelle, pure and white as the wind-driven snow, always accuses me of secretly speeding when we are out of site of each other. She claims to always drive the speed limit. I believed her until tonight. Tonight I made a point of driving reasonably close to the limit. As I made my way through the side streets I hit each light just right, came to two stop signs with no other traffic, and made record time through town. I knew without a doubt I would win the great race.

As we made it through town and had to stop at the last light between us and home, Michelle was nowhere in site, and unless she took an obscure route, had to end up coming up behind me at some point. As we sat at the light and the cross traffic was moving through the intersection I felt the familiar warmth of assured victory flowing through my veins. The light turned yellow for cross-traffic, and readied to turn green for me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a speed demon probably hitting just shy of 50MPH on the 30MPH street. As the car blew through the intersection, the light facing it turned red and mine turned green. I recognized the car- it was my dad’s Ford F150 being driven by my wife Michelle. She had beaten me. And she was speeding like a mad woman.

I turned through the intersection and took my humble second place position behind her for the remaining 8 miles of rural road before we got home. R, my 5 year old, was coming up with all sorts of solutions to help us still beat her. She wanted me to pass her over a double-yellow line. Then she suggested tearing through the grass in our yard when we got to our driveway (its 500 feet long). I told the girls it was over. We lost.

As we turned into our driveway behind Michelle a grinchy idea came to me. We circled around the front of the house and around the back to our garages in single-file, Michelle in the lead. When Michelle hit her garage door opener (she had taken it out of her van when we dropped it off at the shop), I hit mine too. And then I hit her button on my controller as well. Her door stopped halfway as mine opened all the way up. It took her too long to figure out what was happening. She thought something was wrong with the door, and sat 2 feet in front of it as I pulled in. It is well understood in our family that to win, you must pull INTO the garage all the way and turn the car off.

Victory is sweet.






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Trip To Los Angeles Part 2- Minor Miracle

After my flight arrived from Los Angeles to Nashville Tuesday afternoon I hurried to my car parked in the long term lot. I had to get home quickly to bring two of my girls to softball in about 90 minutes. K had practice and A had her first game.

When I arrived at my car I was startled when a man came around the front at said “Excuse me, sir, could you give us a jump start?”

After I jump started my heart, I noticed he was with his wife and their car with the dead battery was parked right in front of mine…among thousands and thousands of cars. They just arrived from out of the country and were exhausted. They just wanted to get home, had no friends of family in the area, and their cell phone battery was dead.

I asked them how long they had been waiting and they said 5 minutes. They had just arrived to their car on the shuttle bus before mine to find their car battery dead. They had prayed for help, and I arrived 5 minutes later. We popped the hoods and I had their car started in under a minute.

Pretty cool. My brand new car battery came in handy.






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Late Night Meeting

A few of the clients I work with are start-ups. One in particular is made up of a team that all have day jobs, so the regular conference calls and meetings all have to take place in the evenings or during lunches.

Last night was our big meeting- several hours spent hammering out the details of the first product to be launched. The meeting was set to start at 6PM and expected to run for 3 or 4 hours. We wrapped up about 10PM, and I headed out to the car. I couldn’t figure out where I had parked- the building we were meeting in was massive and byzantine, and I feared I would spend the next 20 minutes walking the circumference of the complex looking for my car. Fortunately Keith, one of the team members, offered to drive me around the building to find my car.

I turned the key- and nothing happened. Not a click, not a light, no sign of life whatsoever. I pulled out my cell phone and called Keith asking if he had jumper cables. He did, and turned around to help me.

I carefully set up the cables and tried to get it started. Nothing. No sign there was even a drop of electricity running through the system. Not good. I played with the cables again to make sure there was good contact, and climbed back in. Nothing. Well, that’s not exactly right- there was something. A not good something. Smoke.

A wave of smoke and a foul smell started to waft through the air illuminated by Keith’s headlights. I climbed out of the car to see something really not good. A single flame flowing out of the negative terminal of Keith’s battery. Then smoke from my battery. I think I said “yikes” and Keith said “wow.”

I approached Keith’s car and had one of those flashes- I could read the headline on the Drudge Report: “Two Men Permanently Blinded By Two Simultaneously Exploding Car Batteries.” I grabbed onto the jumper cables, noticed they were burning hot (another ‘not good’ sign), and ripped them off each of our batteries from as much distance as the cables would allow.

The flames and smoke stopped after a few seconds, and we escaped the maiming that seemed so imminent. Keith headed home after I called my wife and asked her to come pick me up. While waiting, a man offered to help and identified himself as a mechanic. He checked out my car battery and noticed that the positive terminal connector had literally melted off my battery. My car was going nowhere until I purchased and installed a new battery. So, I have a new item on my agenda for today.

Michelle picked me up (my meeting location was a full hour roundtrip from home), and we got back home and to bed just before midnight.

Yesterday goes in the bad column.






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Should I Call The Police?

I am not a car buff, but several years ago I bought an antique car on a whim. I had heard that eBay sold cars and so checked it out online, and the web page logo for the online store featured an image of a car I had never seen. It was amazingly cool.

After some research, I found out it was a 1956 Austin-Healey BN4 100/6 and decided I wanted to buy one. It was a sizeable amount of money and it took some convincing to get Michelle to feel ‘ok’ about the purchase. I reasoned that it was an investment- something that would grow in value and provide some really fun spare-time driving.

I found one on eBay in my budget, watched the auction, and then jumped in with 2 minutes to go and bought it. The car was coming from Florida, and they drove it up on a transport within a few days. It was thrilling to drive and a wonder to look at. The curves and lines were stunning.

Again, I’m not a car buff or a weekend mechanic, so my justification for the purchase as an investment was out the window the first time I needed to have it serviced. I found a mechanic nearby that specializes in antique British roadsters, and he put his youngest through college on me. Each year I owned the car represented one major repair and another year of college funded.

I decided to sell it after a particularly bad mechanical failure. It was a beautiful spring day, but held promise of afternoon rain, and Michelle warned me I probably should drive my everyday car to work. I really wanted drive the Healey, so pulled out the bad weather gear (the canvas and vinyl top, along with the polished wood front rim all reside in the trunk) and assembled the convertible top in the garage. On many old convertibles the process can take 5-15 minutes- not something you can do while stopped in traffic when the rain drops start. Off to work- no problem. On the way home in massive winds and torrential rainfall? Really, really bad.

I was driving down a back road when the pressure of the rain and wind caused the front of the convertible top to buckle and break. It popped halfway off, and turned from a protective covering into a giant intake valve. Its hard to describe exactly what happened so I will give you this picture- imagine in a horrific rainstorm the front section of the roof of your car lifted up 2 feet, and convexed out efficiently scooping massive amounts of wind and rain, and depositing it all nicely on your head. There you go.

I pulled over to try to fix it, but the structure was bent and broken and could not be fixed or removed without tools. I drove the rest of the way home- about 20 minutes, and arrived with a foot of water in the bottom of the car, and soaked to my underwear and socks. Hahaha. It’s funny now.

So…Shortly after that fiasco I listed it on eBay, and sold it for about what I paid minus my dignity.

The gent that bought it, among the hundreds and hundreds of watchers/bidders, turned out to live only 10 miles away. He arranged to come see it during the auction, and ended up as highest bidder. We picked the day for him to come over and drive away my car. He showed up with a friend, we chatted for a bit, and then he handed me a big manila envelope- the 8.5 x 11 kind. It was bulging and about to burst the frail paper seams. “Here’s the money” was all he said.

What?

I opened the envelope, and inside were stacks and stacks of $100 bills. “Go ahead and count it” were the words I imagined him saying, right out of the movies when bad guys are transacting drugs or weapons. Sure enough, those were his exact next words.

I dutifully counted the stacks of bills, arrived at the right number, and then pulled out the title that has a place on the back to transfer it during a sale or a lost drag race. As I filled it out, he leaned over close and quietly asked if I could remove a zero from the sale price so that he could keep the state sales tax low. Yikes. I politely refused, tightening my grip on the money and making sure his friend wasn’t reaching for a weapon.






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Car Problems = Ruined Day

On Monday our van started acting up. The engine stalled and skipped when we accelerated. I found that when I drove like my wife (slow acceleration from a stop, keeping under the speed limit, no pedal-to-the-metal gassing) it seemed to run fine, but as soon as I had to gas it harder than a tap it skipped and sometimes stalled.

Last night I decided to test it out and drive out to get the mail (yes- we sometimes drive to our mailbox 1/10 of a mile from our front door). The way I typically do this is to pull out to the left into the oncoming traffic lane, back up 10 feet, and lean out the driver side door and reach into the mailbox while sitting in the wrong lane. There is usually not a problem doing this as there is a hill some distance away and if you do this while no traffic can be seen there is enough time to pull off the maneuver, get the mail, and head back home.

Last night all went well until I backed up to the mailbox, at 8PM in the pitch dark, and the van died. Didn’t stall or skip- it died.

I turned the bright lights on, flipped on the emergency flashers, and tried to repeatedly start it up again. The engine tried, but wouldn’t turn over and start. After a couple minutes of trying this while also going through a plan in my head of how and when to dive out of the car if an oncoming truck came over the hill doing 70MPH (not uncommon) and couldn’t get over due to oncoming traffic in the correct lane, I decided to try to push the van into the driveway.

I got out with the van in neutral, and tried to push. I quickly jumped back in to apply the brake when I realized there was no way I could do it alone. This was very clear to me because the van started to drift backwards towards the 3 foot drop-off on the side of the road and I couldn’t stop it.

I sat there dumbfounded with absolutely no plan whatsoever. Fortunately on the 100th try or so the engine started. I drove back home and Michelle and I made plans on getting the van to the shop today.

Got it there about 9AM, got a shuttle ride home from a nice guy named Sean (Michelle drove my truck to R’s pre-school- she volunteered to help at school today) and waited for the bad news.

Apparently our battery is leaking acid, which has burned through several wires in the wire-harness- one of them the controller to the accelerator. Cost? $2,100. We opted for the cheap fix: hand repairing the specific wires damaged with fresh electrical wire and electricians tape. Plus a new battery. Only $350.

Lovely day.






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No Cruising Zone

Christmas season is officially underway in our home. I know for sure because yesterday I went to the mall. That only happens once a year.

We made a family day of it and after dropping off our girl A for a birthday party at Build-a-Bear, walked the length and width of Cool Springs Galleria’s two levels, grabbing lunch in the food court (ugh).

After making a few purchases, and picking up A from the party, we headed to the car. Our daughter L wanted to go back to JCPenney’s to buy a shirt she really liked. I asked her why she hadn’t bought it when she saw it, and it turns out Michelle is training her in proper shopping etiquette.

“If you see something you really like, and you really want it, and can afford it- don’t buy it. Keep shopping because somewhere else you may chance upon something better, or at least the same thing at a lower price.”

My philosophy is different- it ends in BUY IT.

We decided to drop Michelle and L off at Penneys while the rest of the family stayed in the car as the store was on the other side of the mall. After dropping them off, and realizing there was not a single parking space anywhere to be seen, we did the only thing we could do: Turn up the radio, drive up, down and around the parking lot killing time, glance to see if the ladies had emerged from Hades, Repeat.

By doing so I was able to observe a human condition I have labeled PSDS- Parking Space Deficit Syndrome.

I was stuck behind one older lady driving down a long aisle, literally going 2mph as she scanned her surroundings for the tell-tale signs of reverse lights, even though no one was walking to their car in our aisle. By the time we got to the end of the lane there were at least 10 cars behind me.

Another guy was exchanging words with a driver as he stood guard over an open space blocking it with his body. From what I could hear as we slowly passed, it seems he was with his buddy in the next aisle and saw the space open, jumped out and crossed over to lay claim until his friend got there.

At one point we were cruising behind another car down an aisle when I saw a hidden open space (the ones tucked behind Ford Excursions you can never see until you pass them). The lady in the car ahead passed it before she saw it, hit her breaks, realized she lost it to me and threw her hands up in frustration, starting to move forward again. She was amazed when I flashed my lights at her, called her back, and reversed 20 feet to give her the space. She looked like she was going to cry. I think I made her day.






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Our Family's Off-Road Adventure

I live in a relatively rural area, full of horse farms and rolling hills. We moved here three years ago from a large development about ten miles away. Living in Leipers Fork has been a dream of ours since we came to Nashville in 1994. Shortly before we moved into our new home I thought it would be a good idea to get a truck as I imagined having to haul manly things around since I would soon become a gentleman farmer (we don’t really grow much here on our land except for lawn grass and the occasional wild flower)- things like planks of wood, chain saws, stuff like that.

I’m not really a pick-up truck kind of guy, so I went with a hybrid (not the environmental kind- more of a mix between a rural truck and the kind of ride Tony Soprano drives- a black tricked out Chevy Suburban). When I bought it I instantly felt a bit of country bloom in me. Just the idea of pushing the button on the dash board and transforming my Suburban into a 4x4 was appealing. This lead to my demise, and taught me 3 things:

1. My wife’s concerns and worries can sometimes come true
2. Humility
3. A Chevy Suburban is neither a sports utility vehicle or a 4x4

Our eleven acres is flanked on one side by a 15 acre lot and a 60 acre lot on the other. Shortly after we moved in I secured permission from the land owner with the 60 acres for our family to use his land for taking walks and exploring. He lives in downtown Nashville and plans on building his dream home on the land when he retires in a few years. I got his name and number from my realtor. I didn’t specifically ask if I could go 4x4’ing on his land- I sort of put that under the “exploring” classification.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and for some reason I can not recall, our family took 2 cars on an outing. I think it was because I had to pick something up in my truck and bring it home, while my wife was going to stay out shopping, meeting up with her sister. After lunch, and after picking up whatever it was I had to pick up, I headed home with my two oldest daughters.

We turned into our driveway, and as we headed towards the house I made a fateful decision. “Girls- you want to take the truck out onto the land next door and do some off-roading?” The word “yes” rang loud and clear, and so I veered left, and made for the opening in the woods that took us “next-door.” We went through the clearing, down a small hill, and crossed the small creek in my new 4x4. Great so far. It was awesome bouncing and splashing over the creek like I was in a Land Rover commercial.

We spent the next 10 minutes bounding over hills and through sparse woods exploring the land, and it got real exciting when I told the girls we were going to speed up and shoot across the clearing up ahead- hoping to catch a few bumps and jumps that would cause some epic bouncing. As I accelerated and sped forward a strange sensation came over me. It almost seemed like the truck was on an elevator going down, and the horizon line seemed to unnaturally rise around me. The truck started to slide sideways, and then we came to a sudden stop. I noticed that if I reached out my hand from the window, it wouldn’t take much to touch the tall grass. We were stuck in mud.

If anyone tells you that the best way to get your car or truck out of stuck mud or snow is to slowly rock in back and forth, alternating between drive and reverse, don’t believe it. Especially if you are already in about 3 feet of mud. The result of doing that is to sink to about 4 feet of mud.

I decided to get out and take a look, and when I opened the door I had to push hard to get it open far enough to step out- and when I did the bottom of my door scraped about six inches of mud off the top of the ground. Big trouble. Bad. Very bad. The words my wife spoke to me only a half hour before were ringing in my ears- the words she said as a response to my mentioning that I might do exactly what I ended up doing…”Rich- don’t do it. I’m telling you something will go wrong- you’ll get stuck or break something, and it will cost a ton of money to get it fixed. You might even ruin your truck. Don’t do it.”

I had left my cell phone at home that day- of course- and so, took my shoes off, jumped into the mud (I sunk up to my thighs), and carried each girl, one by one, to the safety of the shoreline. The “field” I thought we would trek through was actually a large swamp that collected the rain from the surrounding hills. It was deep in the back part of our neighbors land, and I could not see any homes or roads from where we were. We walked home, I changed clothes, and set about fixing the situation- hopefully before Michelle got home.

Earlier that week I had seen my neighbor across the road working in his field with a tractor, and though I had not met him before this, I walked to his house and knocked on the door. You can imagine the conversation…”Hi my name is Rich- we live across the street…nice to meet you…you have kids?...so do we…its a nice day, isn’t it?...can I use your tractor to try to get my vehicle out of 4 feet of mud way back in the field behind my house?”

He agreed to help. He drove the tractor while I jumped on the side and held on, and we made our way to my car where we promptly got the tractor stuck.

I called a tow truck. The trucker got within 100 feet and started to sink fast. He was able to back out to safety, and informed me he couldn’t help me and drove away- charging me $50 to tell me so. I went back home and sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out what to do. I looked in the yellow pages under towing and learned there was a specialist in the towing field that was an expert at off-road/extreme vehicle recovery. That was the one. I called and they were out to our place in about an hour- right after Michelle pulled in and I gave her the update. That was fun and humbling.

The recovery team had a truck with 2 wenches- and seemed to know the drill perfectly. They purposely drove their truck full speed into the mud, sliding to a stop as close to my truck as possible sinking to the full four feet. They attached one wench to my truck, and the other to a tree behind the tow truck about 150 feet away. They pulled my truck to within 3 feet of theirs, and then turned on the other wench and pulled both of the trucks out of the muck while almost pulling the tree out of the ground. Success. 10 minutes. $250.

I have not, and will not again, take my 4 wheel drive off the road, I listen to my wife’s cautions (even though I don’t always indicate to her that I do), and I am content to stick to the excitement of navigating the pot holes in our 500 foot gravel driveway.

Switchfoot And Stolen Cars

Last night my 13 year old daughter K and I went to a Switchfoot concert in Nashville. It was the umpteenth time I've seen them live, and I never tire of it. They were amazing, and besides playing most all of their hits and a few lesser known oldies, they managed to do what many bands attempt but fail to do- play a few cuts from their not-yet-released new album and keep everyone engaged. Absolutely wonderful show.

My wife and 11 year old daughter were supposed to come with us, but ended up backing out. A few days before the show we were notified the venue had changed from Nashville’s War Memorial (with somewhat comfy padded seats) to City Hall (SRO). As soon as my wife heard that she would have to stand for several hours she was “out.” My 11 year followed suite.

The show brought back a flood of memories. I was part of the team that worked with Switchfoot up until I left EMI Music last year. It was kind of sad to stand there last night listening to these amazing musicians and vocalist and think about how fast life is moving by. It seemed just a couple of years ago that I got to meet the boys at Charlie Peacock’s Nashville home- when they were young teenagers that barely knew how to write songs and perform. I will never forget that day- chatting with them, amazed at how young they were, eating mediocre barbecue and drinking sweet tea. I knew then, along with several others, that there was something special about these gents, and that they would have many years ahead of them making great music.

After the show, K and I walked quickly back to my car. We had parked around the corner from the venue in a small office building parking lot. We chatted about how great the show was, and wondered why they had not played one of their biggest hits- Learning To Breathe- during the show. As we talked and approached my car, I suddenly realized that it should have been parked in the VERY spot we stood. It was not there.

“My car has been stolen” I remember numbly muttering as my heart sank. I couldn’t believe it. 11PM, downtown Nashville, 30 minutes from home, freezing cold, no car, with my daughter. My wife mentioned I should wear a warmer jacket, but I thought my light windbreaker would be fine.

I looked up, and immediately saw my car, moving away from the parking lot, facing the wrong way. It took a second to figure out what was happening…it was being towed, and there were 2 other tow trucks ahead of it towing other Switchfoot concert-goers that were unlucky enough to stay for the encore like us.

My mind raced- a car was pulling out of the parking lot and I grabbed K and chased it down. Fortunately they rolled down their window, and the young couple amazingly- and a bit reluctantly- agreed to allow K and I to get into their car and chase down the tow-truck. As we raced to catch up, and blew through a stop sign, I noticed my Chevy Suburban doing something very unnatural….it had started moving down the road sideways. Somehow part of the Suburban became dislodged from the tow-truck and it looked like it was about to jack-knife. The tow truck stopped, and as we slowed- and were still moving- I opened the door and jumped out. K followed when the car stopped, and I think I remember yelling out a thank-you to our chase-car driver as I ran the 20 yards or so to my car…or maybe it was K.

5 minutes later, and $65 lighter, I got my vehicle back and headed for home. What a night.