Supafly.com

Threadless just released the coolest T-shirt ever…an homage to Rob and Big…

Why do I like it? It’s funny, stylish, and the colors are sweet. (They perfectly match supafly.com)

Candyce and I just got back from a quick weekend trip to San Diego. On Friday morning before we left, I got a call from John saying that a group of triathletes were swimming 150 yards off shore when a shark attacked and killed one of them. But it didn’t hit me until I got into California where everyone was talking about it. I was told that on Friday afternoon, planes and helicopter flew up and down the cost looking for the big shark.

I walked across the street on Saturday morning to see if there were any surfers in the water a day after the death. The water was empty. I snapped this photo of a sign pinned to the top of the staircase to the beach.

I’ve learned that shark attacks are rare in the San Diego area. The last shark attack in the area was in the summer of 1959 when a diver was killed. That was almost 50 years ago.

I am aware of the dangers of the ocean. Some people are afraid just because they are afraid of everything…or they’ve watched Jaws one too many times. But my fear comes from a run in with some giant Devil Rays while snorkeling in in Cabo San Lucas. I later found out that the Devil Ray won’t harm you, but running into a massive creature like that is hard to forget. Now every time I look at the serene ocean, all I can think of are the monsters beneath the surface. There is nothing more frightening to me than the thought of being lost at sea.

This recent news reminded me of a weird event last summer. We were having lunch at Ruby’s Diner at the end of the pier in Oceanside…

As you can see from the photos above and below, the pier is really long–almost 2000 feet. As we were walking out of the restaurant on our way to shoreline, I looked right and saw a skilled swimmer turn around at the base of the pier, and then swim south as if he were doing laps.

I marked the point with a orange arrow below…

I was mortified. An awful feeling crawled all over my body. Is this guy crazy? He’s taking a leisurely swim in the middle of the ocean. It was as bizarre as a man taking a nap on rail road tracks. I was confused and scared for him. I asked my friend Dr. Philips standing next to me, a triathlete, if he ever swam that far off the shore. He looked down at the man with disbelief. “No. I would never swim that far off shore.”

Everyone in our group stood in silence, completely unnerved. We were afraid to watch the guy because if there was a shark attack, what could we do? A jump off the pier could’ve easily hurt someone, making the problem even worse. It was such a bizarre moment on an otherwise perfect afternoon in San Diego. It was better to just assume he knew what he was doing and move on with our day.

I’ve told that story to a couple of people over the past year, hoping that someone who knew more than me could explain why someone would swim 1900 feet from the shore. They both told me that there’s nothing to fear…that shark attacks are rare…that it’s no big deal. But the past few days have told us that that sharks do attack people.

Bad things happen. Just because it hasn’t happened in a long time does not mean it won’t happen again.

Introduction: Losing Sucks

I am discouraged by last night’s loss against the Spurs. It’s going to be difficult for the Suns to get out of the first round of the playoffs when we’re down two games to none.

But I will say this, in the past few years, there’ve been two teams that have climbed out of a hole this deep. The Miami Heat was down 2-0 in the 2006 NBA Championship series against the Dallas Mavericks, and the Heat went on to win the next four. The Phoenix Suns were down 3-1 against the LA Lakers a few years ago in the 1st round of the play offs. The Suns went on to win the next three and move onto the next round.

Why does this matter? Both of those come-from-behind teams were lead by two future Hall of Famers: Shaq (Heat) and Nash (Suns.) Now here we are in 2008, and the MVPs are both Phoenix Suns. If anyone can do it, it’s the Suns.

Having said that, lets talk about…

My Trouble with the Police

Last fall, Candyce and I were on our way to see The Darjeeling Limited in the theaters when I decided to swing by her brother’s house to pick up her jacket. (Lesson from first year of marriage: females get cold more quickly than males, especially in air conditioned movie theaters.) While she was inside digging for her jacket, I noticed two cop cars pulled in front of a house down the street. Candyce hopped back in the car and I opted to exit out of the neighborhood through the far gate just to see what the commotion was all about. I know this is messed up, to snoop in on neighbors like that, but curiosity is a powerful thing.

I rolled by the cop cars slow enough to see what was going on, but not so slow that I looked suspicious. Both cop cars gunned onto the street and followed me through the neighborhood. Great. As I sat at the exit to the neighborhood waiting for the gates to swing open, I told Candyce that I was going to get pulled over. “But first they’re going to follow me down the street and into the intersection so they can put on a big show with their flashing lights.” She started to panic, and I told her not to worry because we hadn’t broken any laws.

Twenty seconds later, they lit me up with the swinging blue lights. The whole intersection froze. The only cars that moved was my own, followed by two cops.

A young police officer walked up to the car and put his flashlight in my face. “Do you know why we pulled you over?” I was friendly but honest. “No officer, I don’t.” With the light still in my face, he told me that my license plates expired six months ago.

I did not know this.

He asked for some paperwork and we couldn’t find any of it in the glove compartment. As I handed him my driver’s license and an expired insurance card, I offered an explanation, “We got married earlier this year, and it’s been really hectic. I lost track of time.”

He came back to my car a few minutes later. He leaned into my door and held my driver’s license two feet in front of his face, skipping his eyes from my face to the photo on my license. As I am prepared to defend the authenticity of my ID, he tells me this: “You look really familiar.”

I have heard those four words assembled in that order more time than I can remember…those words have become a part of my life. Without hesitation, I casually told the officer that I was involved in local churches…that I live in the area…that I write for the Phoenix Suns…and that I was on The Real World… (This is my verbal resume for PHX Citizen of the Year, punctuated by a claim to fame.) His stern look of disapproval melted into a smile. “No way! I thought that was you!”

He turned away from the window and looked back to the second police officer sitting in his car. He waved his hand forward with enthusiasm. The second officer was too lazy to get out of his car, or maybe he thought I was a tool and didn’t want to waste his time. No problem.

The cop, Candyce, and I spent the next 20 minutes talking about reality television and the Phoenix Suns. He finished the conversation with a gentle reprimand for having an expired tag, but then told me what I needed to do to fix the problem. I told him I would send his wife an autographed photo. We shook hands and went on with our lives.

(Officer, if you are reading this, I apologize for not sending that photo. I lost your address and I feel really bad about it. If you email me, I’ll make things right.)

Welcome to the Department of Motor Vehicles

I’ve driven around town for the past four months understanding that I could get pulled over at anytime because of my expired plates. As illogical as it sounds, dodging cops all winter seemed like a better option going to the DMV.

You see, standing in line at the DMV is a humbling rite of passage into adulthood. It’s a memorable encounter with lifeless world of tax-funded bureaucracy. At risk of sounding melodramatic, it’s a two-hour experience that makes you feel like you’ve lost all momentum in life. Smart people will experience the DMV once, and then vow to avoid that place again.

Last week my friends made fun of me for my expired plates, and I defended myself be explaining the DMV is a leper colony. Jason told me to renew my plates online and avoid the DMV. It was a dream come true. I walked back inside and renewed my tags on the Internet in less than ten minutes. Just for fun, I played Chamillionaire’s anthem “Ridin’ Dirty” while I clicked through the site.

But what do you do when the stickers don’t come in the mail? You call them and ask what’s up. And what did the person on the phone tell me to do? Go to the DMV.

Sucker Free DMV

Since my last trip to the building, they’ve added a Time-Square like news ticker. In theory, this is a clever addition. The news lights up the screen brightens our spirits by connecting us to the hyper reality outside the walls of the DMV. But since all the news was bad that day, I just got more sad. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to get some spiritual perspective when I was jolted back to reality when they called my number.

I sat in a chair and spoke to the 20-something girl across the counter from me. I explained that I needed to renew my license plate… She nodded her head, and then spent two minutes in silence clicking around her computer. There wasn’t much for me to do in those awkward moments except to size up the gravity of the moment.

I pity the young people who work at the DMV. If you are in your 30s or 40s and you work at the DMV, somehow it doesn’t seem that bad. But if you’re in your 20s and therefore young enough to still want to be a rock star, then working at the DMV is a public admission of defeat. I know this because our entire generation was raised on The Simpsons. Marge Simpson’s repulsive twin sisters, Patty and Selma, work at the DMV by day, and chainsmoke and the lust over McGyver by night. They are the epitome of uncool.

The Springfield DMV Employees of the Year

She got angry at her computer, sighed, and then I got two more minutes of silence. I was searching for something to make the moment more exciting for both of us. So I just blurted it out: “Have you ever seen The Real World?” She nodded her head slowly, only mildly interested in my question. I bounced back, “Well, I was on that show a long time ago.” She instantly came to life.

She explained that she watched the entire season of RW New Orleans, and that she liked me then. She stopped with that statement–I liked you then. She looked at me, I suppose to figure out whether she liked me now.

I still don’t know if she likes me now, because she switched lanes. “You know, famous people come in here all the time…Mike Tyson is in here every other day. I saw Ice-T when I first started.”

Left: Mike Tyson, the boxing ear-biting psychopath.
Right: Ice-T, the aging gangster rapper/ misogynist and now tenured Law & Order star.

Here I was prepared to fill her up with stories from my own life, and she cut me off with stuff far more interesting. Why was Mike Tyson in the DMV all the time? She said it in the same way a waitress would claim to serve up drinks to Eddie Van Halen and his buddies every Tuesday night–trying to play it cool, but barely disguising the fact that she’s excited to host a celebrity.

She continued typing and I sat in silence trying to imagine these two pop culture characters from my teen years sitting in that same chair waiting for a renewed license plate. I was in scene of the Surreal Life at the DMV in Mesa, Arizona.

She slid my precious stickers across the counter with a smile. “It looks like you’re all done here. It’s been fun. You should come back and see us!”

I walked to my car utterly confused. Was she suggesting I renew my license plate more than often than required? Or was that an open invitation to swing by on my lunch break with a Subway sandwich so I could pull up next to her on the employee side of the counter? We could gossip about Mike Tyson’s dumb tattoo and his propensity for traffic violations.

Then I drove to Home Depot and returned a door threshold I purchased 18 months ago, a random object that has resided in the back of my car for just as many months. (Think about how uncool that is.) But married life has made my life hectic and things like this just don’t seem important. I’ve driven my Home Depot many times in the past 18 months, but never with enough time to wait in line. But today was that day. Who knows, I might run into Ice-T.

What is old is new. The 2008 BMW X6 is penned a “sports activity coupe”, which sounds revolutionary. But it’s not new when it’s compared to the forgotten 1984 AMC Eagle SX4. Notice these similarities: nearly identical silhouette, hatches, wing-like rear spoiler, blacked-out b-pillars, beefy 5-spoke rims, and two-color bodies.

I’m not suggesting that BMW used the AMC playbook. That’s not a good idea, because you’ll notice there are no AMCs around today. But it is interesting how few new ideas in the automotive world.

I am here to write about the 2009 Ford Flex. But before we talk about what’s new, let’s take a look back at where the Flex’s got its unique look.

The Toyota FJ and Mini proved the white roof is a cool thing.
But will it work for the Flex?

A couple years ago I wrote about how car manufacturers are releasing new cars modeled after older cars. If you are interested in this stuff, read it and enjoy the photos comparing old school and new school. Here is one of my comparisons from that blog:

1. 1960s Ford Bronco (top)
2. The titanium tough-bot Bronco concept that never made it into production (middle)
3. Concept preview of the 2008 Ford Fairlane (bottom), which was renamed the Ford Flex.

In that blog, I wrote this:

“Concept cars usually don’t get manufactured, but they often hint the visual direction of future vehicles. In this case, the Bronco’s style pointed to the Ford Fairlane concept which debuted a year later in 2005. Although the Fairlane and Bronco have similar lines, the rumor is that the Fairlane will be released as a 2008 replacement for their minivan. I’m afraid the Fairlane will become a bore as soon as it’s marketed as practical and economical.”

It looks like Ford will make the Fairlane Flex, even it is a year late. I haven’t seen the car marketed yet…Ford discreetly added the Flex to their line-up on their website with little commotion. I’m trying to figure out if the Flex has enough cool points to succeed. To get an answer, you have to ask the basic question…

Can Practical be Cool?

Here’s the deal. Car manufacturers spend millions of dollars each year trying to make family cars look “cool.” This statement seems so simple that it can’t be true. But it is true. Most of what you see on car lots today are the result of people needing family cars, but not wanting to look like they are driving family cars. Here’s an abridged history of the last 20 years of self-conscious car buyers with children.

The minivan stormed America in the late 1980s because they were practical, but more “sporty” than traditional full-sized vans (think church van) and the non-sexy station wagon (think National Lampoon’s). Unfortunately, the popularity gained from it’s innovative functionality was lost as soon as everyone sobered up and realized that minivans= family haulers. So stylish people started looking around to see what else was on the car lot. What is this? A Ford Explorer?

We all remember the SUV frenzy of the 1990s and the earliest years of this decade. Everyone and their mother drove an SUV because it symbolized independence and versatility. A subplot in that 15 years was that the very essence of the SUV–elevated ride height, 4 wheel drive, truck-based platform–was evolving out of the pack by natural selection. Car buyers liked the looks of the SUV, but they wanted it to behave like a car.

This highly evolved SUV is now called a CUV, short for Crossover Utility Vehicle. But don’t be confused, the CUV is just a tall station wagon. And what is a tall station wagon? Nothing but a mini-van without sliding doors. Why do we keep coming back to this minivanish vehicle? Because in the end, practicality rules.

The Ford Flex: The CUV Anti-Hero

The Ford Flex is a unique vehicle in the cluttered me-too CUV market. Ford decided to be bold. Rather than having a car dressed up like an SUV, they opted boxed out a station wagon. Essentially, the stretched the Scion xB or Honda Element.

The 2009 Ford Flex. Boxy? Yes. Cool? Hmmmm….

Ford understood that their new creation would be misunderstood, so they worked hard to give it a fresh start. The first move, the best move, was to upgrade the name from Fairlane to Flex. The next move was to not tell people it’s a replacement for the Taurus X, a flattering name for Ford’s lame-ass CUV that replaced Ford’s lame-ass Windstar minivan.

Ford’s most interesting decision to give the Flex a fighting chance at “cool” was to hire the cool kids: Chip Foose and DJ Funkmaster Flex. The two went to work to customize the Flex before it hit dealerships.

I happy that Mr. Funkmaster got a shot at customizing the new Ford Flex, because he didn’t have much to work with on that dorky Ford Expedition project from a couple years ago. If you want to see what Mr. Funkmaster did with the Flex, go to Flex website. I don’t like it, probably because it looks like they took photos of his creation with their cell phone.

Instead, check out Chip Foose’s Flex. Mission accomplished.

Summary

It is difficult to predict whether or not a car will sell. Afterall, car manufacturers spend a gazillion dollars trying to figure out what works, and they often fail. I’m rooting for the Flex because it reminds me of the woody wagons in the 1930s-1950s. I get nostalgic when I look at the car, but this isn’t enough to make me buy it. (If Honda made it, I’d buy it tomorrow. Fords today are more reliable than they were 5 years ago, but I’m not in a mood to gamble.)

I hope some young car customizers see the potential in the Flex and make it their own.