BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

So… Just got back from a family vacation. E K and I haven’t taken too many of those in recent years… Well… In sorta recent years. You see, it goes like this – After the o-spring was born, vacations weren’t terribly feasible, what with us being “old parents” and not wanting to drag an infant, then toddler around on long trips. Besides, have you ever seen how much crap you have to carry around for an infant/toddler?

Then after that, I was spending tons of time away from home on tour, so the last thing I wanted to do was get on the road, or an airplane, to go somewhere. I just wanted to be HOME.

However, as the o-spring has grown older, the economy and changes in the book industry have reduced the amount of touring I do, and other silliness has occurred, over the last few years we have started to take family vacations.

Ahhhh… Nice… Relaxing… Well, not always. There’s a lot of hurry up, rush, rush, rush involved in vacationing. However, we definitely try to make it as relaxing as possible.

At any rate, this year we used some vouchers I had picked up from being bumped from flights while on tour, and turned them into a 6 day getaway in The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. In the coming weeks I’ll be posting pics and detailing some of the more interesting – and sometimes funny – moments of our adventure. However, for now I am going to relate to you a few links of places we visited, and my “Twitter Travelogue” for those of you who might not follow me there or on Facebook (also because some of the texted tweets never made it to the web due to cell phone issues)… At any rate, the following is captured from my cell phone (note – the embedded links will take you to info or websites about specific locations, etc):

At cattle yard waiting for jet-propelled, wing-ed semi. Skipped breakfast. Dunkin’ Donuts in my very near future. 😀 6:53 AM  6/12

Dead pig croissant installed. Mmm good… Coffee being installed NOW… 7:16 AM  6/12

In airplane, everybody can hear you sneeze… 10:07 AM  6/12

On ground Salt Lake City. 3 hour layover. Was going to shop for an extra wife, but E K said NO.  10:12 AM  6/12

Squatters “Captain Bastard’s” Oatmeal Stout… A. Loots should be JEALOUS! 10:50 AM  6/12

Squatters Pub at Salt Lake City Airport… Mentos would love this place… 11:38 AM  6/12

Longest leg of flight, small airplane. Shortest leg (under 1 hour), big
airplane. E’splain that one, Rucy… O_o  12:35 PM  6/12

There’s a bookstore next to my gate. I wonder if they have anything by that Sellars guy? 12:51  6/12

Onboard cattle car. The “Loud” FAMILY seated behind me. :-< 1:25 PM 6/12

 

Beefalumps and mountains EVERYWHERE! I don’t think I’m in Missouri anymore.  12:01 PM  6/13

Sorry for the lack of updates. They took me up into the mountains last night, but this morning I es-cop-ayed! 12:15 6/13

I’m like wayyy closer to the clouds than normal… It’s kinda spooky… 12:21 PM 6/13

Whooa! I think I just saw a whole mess of those airplane eating cloud monsters from the Shatner Twilight Zone episode… 12:25 PM  6/13

Fellow authors, research note: a chase scene inside Jackson Hole airport in Wyoming probably won’t work. Too small. 12:43 6/13

Mucho excellent lunch at Snake River Brewing Pub. www.snakeriverbrewing.com. Killer fish & chips and an excellent black & tan! 2:26 PM  6/13

In Wyoming lookin’ for a liquor store… 2:39 PM 6/13

Shades of an adventure movie, Batman! I’m riding a funicular tram! 3:02 PM  6/13

On tram. Trapped at top in thunder-sleet storm because of lightning. No sh*t. How cool is this! 3:19 PM 6/13

Back down off the mountain. Hammered a Red Bull. Heading for Moose… Town or mammal, not sure which… 4:23 PM  6/13

What happens when two unstable air masses collide in the mountains? Pretty much the same thing that happens at sea level, only way colder 6:23 AM 6/14

“The Mask” 2011 – A vacationing author’s CPAP mask disassembles itself in the middle of the night. Hilarity ensues. (R) Language  6:40 AM  6/14

Rafted the Snake River with a philosopher named Steve. His advice: It’s all about the unknowns. Embrace yours… 1:05 PM  6/14

Following the advice of the great Snake River Philosopher Steve, I am now ascending Signal Mountain. In a car. I’m not crazy ya’know… 4:46 PM 6/14

Made pretty pictures of mountains. Played hide ‘n seek with ground “skwirlz.” Now having a Starbucks DS from the Gen Store. 7:36 PM 6/14

Ate Elk. Drank Scotch & Irish coffee. Visited with rather large Grizzly bear & took his picture. AMAZING sunset over Tetons. Pics taken. Bed 10:00 PM 6/14

Blue sky over the Tetons this morning. AWESOME view! On tap – Breakfast, hike, lunch, then North into Yellowstone… 7:26 AM  6/15

Please excuse the odd timing of updates. Cell service has been dicey, and my phone just empties the outbox whenever it gets a signal… 😐 7:31 AM 6/15

At Jenny Lake. Forest is here too… JEH-NAYYY! 10:59 AM 6/15

Yes. Bears DO poop in the woods. 11:00 AM 6/15

Yellow-bellied Marmot, ain’t askeered. Moose on path, no “skwirl” though… 12:56 PM 6/15

Gal in miniskirt & heels (not E K) on mountain hike. That’s dedication… 1:46 PM 6/15 (FYI – this was NOT a joke tweet…)

I forgot. Here in the valley, curvature of the Great Divide prevents my text signal from reaching you. You’ll have to entertain yourselves 10:00 PM  6/15

Running Bear Pancake House, West Yellowstone, MT – Too much food, even for a fat guy like me. Tell ’em Missouri Merp sent you… 7:32 AM  6/16

In a big country, la la la la-la. Montana… If your sky is missing, they probably have it… 12:00 6/16

Contrary to rumor, I have NOT been eaten by a bear. Bison, however, could be a different story… 12:00 6/16

 

Egg beater into Salt Lake all good. Now flight home overbooked. Not this time,  Delta. No effin’ way… 7:35 PM  6/17

On ground STL… 12:13 AM  6/18

So there you go… Vacation via Twitter. Details and pics coming soon…

More to come…

Murv

Continued from Lolly, Lolly, Lolly…

See previous notes. If you are joining this party late, go back and read the other three because we aren’t going to explain ourselves… Mostly because we can’t. We just don’t have a satisfactory explanation for all of this, so please bear with us…

Thai Pizza... NOM!

So… The pizza people finally got around to feeding me. All good. We had a laugh, I cowered on my side of the table hiding from “Bouncy Brandi” as her husband tried to run interference for me  and everyone was happy. (Gotta love Mike – I have no idea how he does it on a daily basis… That much perky all in one place would kill me within a week.)

(BTW – I was mugging it for the camera – on request – for the pizza picture. I really do have better table manners than that…)

Sunday… Last day of OstaraFest. Fans from all over had ponied up cash for raffle tickets. But not just ANY RAFFLE tickets. These were for a special event, jokingly named “FEED MURV.” Four lucky (or unlucky as the case may be) winners received a catered lunch with yours truly. Honestly, I think they were buying the tickets in hopes of winning the food, and I was just sort of a nuisance they would have to deal with in order to get the chow. Fortunately, those who won had the constitution to put up with having said lunch with me at the table too.

At any rate, this was a very cool thing because not only did we get a nice lunch and 90 minutes to sit and visit, the proceeds (minus costs) from the sale of the raffle tickets went to a local no-kill animal shelter – and I’m all about that sort of thing.

But moving right along – I arrived at the VFW hall, entering in serpentine fashion as I attempted to dodge “Bouncy Brandi,” who today was all decked out in a skirt and her hooker shoes. Seems that $750 was getting spent whether I wanted it to or not. But we’ll talk about that in a minute…

As soon as I arrived, the emcee was announcing that the “FEED MURV” luncheon was being delayed by 15 minutes. Why? Because Olive Garden – the restaurant providing the meals – had neglected to prepare MY lunch.

Yes.

Srsly.

Feed Murv Luncheon - Carolynn, one of the winners, is responsible for the pic so she's behind the camera...

Me. Murv. The guy who Texas refuses to feed was once again sans food. And, once again, Joyce proceeded to launch an offensive upon the establishment. In the end, they took a chunk of change off the bill, AND provided all of us luncheon folk with free Tiramisu. (That was some damn good Tiramisu, I’m here to tell you.) And one of the really cool things about the discount on the food was that it meant EVEN MORE proceeds to the animal shelter – WOOHOO!!!

So, see what I mean? Texas has got it in for me. Left up to the lone star state, I would go hungry until my spare tire disappeared… Hmmm… You know, maybe I should go spend some more time there…

Now, before you get all antsy I didn’t forget that I promised you a conclusion to the whole $750.00 thing. For that, we pretty much leap right back to that first day, during the Saint Patrick’s Day dinner at Butch and Joyce’s place.

You see, that phone call Joyce received was from Cammie. She was closing the store and had done the batch run on the credit card machine. Problem is, it was off against the drawer. Not just a little off either. It was off by $675.00.

What does that have to do with $750.00? Well, you see, the store is the sponsor and organizer of OstaraFest, therefore payments for things like vendor tables, tickets, etc can go through there. A one day vendor table space was $75.00. Make note – Seventy-five dollars. Not Seven-hundred fifty dollars. And guess who was responsible for ringing up a $75.00 vendor ticket with a couple of extra zeros? Yep… “Bouncy Brandi.”

In the end, although the batch job had already been run, which made things slightly more complicated, the issue was fixed. However, this didn’t mean we weren’t going to razz Brandi about it – or that we aren’t going to razz her about it until the end of time. Why? Because we’re like that. It’s a moral imperative.

Yeah. I know. Not really as exciting as you were expecting, right? See why I started out with a whole lap dance sort of scenario? We call that “literary license” in my business…

“Yes, Murv,” you say. “But what’s all this stuff about hooker shoes? Is that just another bit of fiction from your warped brain too?”

Evil Women vs. The Author

Well… Yes and no. The hooker shoes were high heels, but they were more like “not really hooker shoes” and they did exist. And Brandi did bring them on Sunday. And Brandi did wear them. And what’s more, Michele brought her high-heeled, “not really hooker shoes” and wore them too.

Why?

Because they are fans of the RGI series, and moreover, fans of the Miranda Saga. Actually, I think they are just fans of Miranda, but who am I to say? At any rate, like many ladies in the past who have been impressed, tantalized, excited, wowed, and otherwise inspired by “Miranda,” the dominatrix serial-killer from the series, they were all up for a photo op. (Other Miranda Fans) Of course, them being all UP for a photo op meant Murv got to be all DOWN for a photo op – as in on the floor. But, ya’know, I don’t mind at all. They had fun, the crowd enjoyed it, and yeah… I had fun too. (Largely because I got to lay down and rest for a few minutes…) Besides, Evil Kat stomps on me way harder, and way longer than they did, and with spikier heels…

And so, there you have it – Brandi and Michele got a $750 dollar picture.

Rumor has it I just might be invited back to OstaraFest next year. Something tells me I’ll have to deal with The Girl, The Shoes, And The $750 all over again… Ya’know, they have flu shots to keep you from getting ill. I wonder if there’s such a thing as a Perky Shot? (Just kidding, Brandi… Besides, it’d probably cost $750…)

More to come…

Murv