John Holmes.....Really???
This one is too hard to pass up (pun intended). Here's a quick tale of a fairly exciting few days for me last week.......it goes like this: I had to go to Indianapolis for some insurance continuing education classes. It was 2 1/2 days of class time involving life insurance and health insurance (try not to fall out of your chair with excitement and jealousy). So, I tried to book a hotel room downtown using Priceline. It gave me University Place at a really good price. That's great; however, University Place isn't exactly downtown. It's about a mile away and it's located on IUPUI's campus. That would be fine if classes were in and smoking hot ladies were walking around, but it's summer time and classes are out. Thanks a lot Priceline....way to screw me over this time!
Anyway, I go to check into the hotel and a very nice gentleman helps me. As we are making banter (I like that word) I notice that his name tag says John. Then, as I'm scanning his side of the desk, I notice that his full name is John Holmes. You can imagine my enthusiasm as we talked it up for the next few minutes about the issues with having a "unique" name like Pigg or John Holmes. Before we parted ways, he gave me his card....
If anyone from University Place happens to read this, take my advice and give this guy a promotion and raise. He provided excellent customer service!
From there things were up and down for me. I survived class that day and then headed to Indiana Live Casino in the evening. I must say that I was impressed. The place if very nice. It was the first time that I played poker in an "electronic card room" though and that was a little bit different experience. Basically, you sit at a table just like in a real game, but cards are dealt electronically and you see your cards on a screen in front of you by cupping your hands over the screen. I don't like it as much as real poker, but it was OK. I left the table up $75 after about an hour of play because I got 4 calls in a row and I thought something was wrong at home. Nope....just a coincidence that several people called back to back to back to back. Anyway, I got to watch the horses at the track for a few minutes too and that was cool. If I was a horse, my track name would probably be Ranger Danger Dan.
I roll back into the parking garage of my hotel that night around 11pm. Life's good until I step out of my truck and realize that my front tire was bleeding air from a screw that I just ran over in the parking garage. (Thanks again Priceline...I blame this on you!). I panicked when I realized that if I didn't plug it really quick, my truck would be stuck in the garage under someone with a big jack could fix it. So, I jumped back in my truck and sped out of the garage in pursuit of a tire plug kit. Do you know how many places are open to buy tire plugs at 11pm on a Wednesday night in downtown Indy? Not many. After a few unsuccessful stops, I lucked out when the Speedway next to Lucas Oil Stadium had a kit for only $5.99. I would have paid way more that than....suckers! I race back out of the store and do everything I can to pull the screw out and then force a plug back in. 10 minutes later the job is done and I'm covered in grease and dirt. At this point, I'm really glad that I have nice clothes on. As I get up from fixing my truck, two gentlemen in Cadillac ghetto cruisers walk by and say to each other, "Now that's a truck". I feel pretty good about myself at that point and just give them a smile. To say that I didn't fit in at this time of night at this gas station would be an understatement. So the tire is plugged and and I check the pressure.....10 pounds of pressure left. That's not good considering my tires take 45 lbs. No problem, I'll just use the air compressor machine at the gas station......wrong! The machine is broke (and it looks like it's been broke a while). I have a feeling that it probably gets broke pretty regularly at this particular station. At this point, I decide to limp back to the hotel on 10 lbs of air and get up early to air it up. I was back in my room around midnight. I got up around 5 am the next morning to find air and make sure the tire plug held. Things went smoothly and although I was super tired, I was pretty happy. It was a good thing. Then I sat through 8 more hours of continuing education involving life insurance. It was a bad thing. I told you all that that was an up and down type of story, right?
One funny note from the class....halfway through the morning session an older guys phone starts ringing really loud and the ringtone is Welcome to the Jungle. Everyone cracked up!
Fast forward to later that next afternoon when Sarah got into town. We went out and had a great lunch, look at a few home stores and talked about the house. It was a pretty good time. That night we went to see the movie Bad Teacher downtown. Darn funny! It was then that we realized that staying at the University Place was actually a blessing. Why? It was the weekend for Black Expo and downtown was packed! (thank you Priceline) Half of the people were there for the expo and the other half were law enforcement officers. I've never seen so many officers in one location that didn't have Krispy Kreme in the name. We're talking 10 officers on the corner of each side of every block. We're talking horse patrol, atv's, officers on roof's. It was crazy. I was a little concerned at first, but once I threw my Tupac shirt on everyone was cool with me. It was an experience!
Anyway, I go to check into the hotel and a very nice gentleman helps me. As we are making banter (I like that word) I notice that his name tag says John. Then, as I'm scanning his side of the desk, I notice that his full name is John Holmes. You can imagine my enthusiasm as we talked it up for the next few minutes about the issues with having a "unique" name like Pigg or John Holmes. Before we parted ways, he gave me his card....
From there things were up and down for me. I survived class that day and then headed to Indiana Live Casino in the evening. I must say that I was impressed. The place if very nice. It was the first time that I played poker in an "electronic card room" though and that was a little bit different experience. Basically, you sit at a table just like in a real game, but cards are dealt electronically and you see your cards on a screen in front of you by cupping your hands over the screen. I don't like it as much as real poker, but it was OK. I left the table up $75 after about an hour of play because I got 4 calls in a row and I thought something was wrong at home. Nope....just a coincidence that several people called back to back to back to back. Anyway, I got to watch the horses at the track for a few minutes too and that was cool. If I was a horse, my track name would probably be Ranger Danger Dan.
I roll back into the parking garage of my hotel that night around 11pm. Life's good until I step out of my truck and realize that my front tire was bleeding air from a screw that I just ran over in the parking garage. (Thanks again Priceline...I blame this on you!). I panicked when I realized that if I didn't plug it really quick, my truck would be stuck in the garage under someone with a big jack could fix it. So, I jumped back in my truck and sped out of the garage in pursuit of a tire plug kit. Do you know how many places are open to buy tire plugs at 11pm on a Wednesday night in downtown Indy? Not many. After a few unsuccessful stops, I lucked out when the Speedway next to Lucas Oil Stadium had a kit for only $5.99. I would have paid way more that than....suckers! I race back out of the store and do everything I can to pull the screw out and then force a plug back in. 10 minutes later the job is done and I'm covered in grease and dirt. At this point, I'm really glad that I have nice clothes on. As I get up from fixing my truck, two gentlemen in Cadillac ghetto cruisers walk by and say to each other, "Now that's a truck". I feel pretty good about myself at that point and just give them a smile. To say that I didn't fit in at this time of night at this gas station would be an understatement. So the tire is plugged and and I check the pressure.....10 pounds of pressure left. That's not good considering my tires take 45 lbs. No problem, I'll just use the air compressor machine at the gas station......wrong! The machine is broke (and it looks like it's been broke a while). I have a feeling that it probably gets broke pretty regularly at this particular station. At this point, I decide to limp back to the hotel on 10 lbs of air and get up early to air it up. I was back in my room around midnight. I got up around 5 am the next morning to find air and make sure the tire plug held. Things went smoothly and although I was super tired, I was pretty happy. It was a good thing. Then I sat through 8 more hours of continuing education involving life insurance. It was a bad thing. I told you all that that was an up and down type of story, right?
One funny note from the class....halfway through the morning session an older guys phone starts ringing really loud and the ringtone is Welcome to the Jungle. Everyone cracked up!
Fast forward to later that next afternoon when Sarah got into town. We went out and had a great lunch, look at a few home stores and talked about the house. It was a pretty good time. That night we went to see the movie Bad Teacher downtown. Darn funny! It was then that we realized that staying at the University Place was actually a blessing. Why? It was the weekend for Black Expo and downtown was packed! (thank you Priceline) Half of the people were there for the expo and the other half were law enforcement officers. I've never seen so many officers in one location that didn't have Krispy Kreme in the name. We're talking 10 officers on the corner of each side of every block. We're talking horse patrol, atv's, officers on roof's. It was crazy. I was a little concerned at first, but once I threw my Tupac shirt on everyone was cool with me. It was an experience!
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