Why is GEICO awesome?

Time for the debut of my alter ego:

The Marketing Genius('s Assistant)!

Frank, my editor, added in those punctuations, so neveryoumind them. Except the exclamation point, of course. That's all me! The first rule of marketing is: Emphasize the awesome by adding exclamation point(s) as necessary!!!

The second rule of marketing is: If you disagree with the first rule, just leave this stuff to us, the geniuses (and their noteworthy assistants).

Today, let's ponder GEICO, America's 3rd largest auto insurer who could save you 15% on car insurance if you just give them 15 minutes; a process so easy that modern day cavemen could even do it.

Why is GEICO awesome? It's clearly not because they put a (!) at the end of their brand name or slogans, which they don't, but they do have an ALL CAPS brand name, which is almost as good. (However, I did hear that Sam Mendes is working on a musical based off of the company's history, set in rural London, tentatively titled "GEICO!") No, it's truly awesome because I did absolutely NO research to tell you that information. I know those things because of effective use of the tried and true element of the advertising biz, the "TV ad".

Am I saying they're awesome simply because they have gimmicky characters, like a cheeky talking gecko, or the aforementioned cavemen, or googly-eyed stacks of money (my personal fave)? Nope, that's not enough in the bottom-line world of marketing, no sirree.

As this one great economist once said, "It's the message, stupid". It's not the gimmick itself, or the way the message is presented. It's the content of the message. The ink on the paper, not the pretty letterhead. The trailing banner behind, not the single engine aircraft. The concept of "d-e-f-e-n-s-e", not the cheerleaders barking it. And other interesting analogies, too.

Look back at all the silliness, the purposely low-budget appearance of the ads, the cavemen spin-off opportunities, and remember that all they're trying to get you to remember (point approaching) are the following words: "save", "money", "car insurance", and "fancy a crisp?"

Now, what about the results? Does the brand's obvious effect on this marketing genius guy put the googly-eyed money stack where his mouth is? (maybe rethink that sentence. -Frank) Answer: No. I don't really think about my insurance very often. I used my parents' insur...er? insurrector? back in the day, and then when I switched states I took my wife's insur...ance provider. I'm big into family plans, I guess.

So I don't pay any money to GEICO, but I love GEICO's message enough to write about it. Which leads us to the 3rd rule of marketing: If you can't sell your product to someone, maybe you should think about giving that person your service for free, in return for them writing an awesome column unmonetized blog post about you.

Track Day photos

Have Skills, Will Drive

If you haven't heard by now - and that's a possibility since I tend to speak softly - I had a rare and thrilling Monday. That's right, a thrilling Monday. Probably the most surprising part of it all. I didn't wake with the "ugh, weekend over" feeling despite the fact I was coming off a Vegas weekend of all things! No, I woke with the thought, "what is appropriate apparel for driving a race car?" Answer: Depends. Depends on what? No, just Depends. Get it? No? Oops-I-Crapped-My-Pants? Ring a bell with anyone? From the scary fast driving? You'll get it later on.

A couple design guys I work with gave me the opportunity to drive their cars, really fast, on an incredible road course here in Utah called Miller Motorsports Park. Our caravan from Salt Lake to the track included a Shelby Mustang GT, which I drove, a Lotus Elise, and a Shelby Cobra. (Not actual images of the owners' cars, just for reference.) I don't know all the car guy details of these vehicles, so don't ask. I know that they are all fast, and they make a terrific rumbly sound when the engines are revved. The Mustang had what's called a "Hurst shifter" with a "short throw". I looked it up on the Internet. It means that when you put the shifter thingy into gear and then go to another gear you don't have to throw anything very far, unless you are trying to get your opponent off the track with a green turtle shell, like in Mario Kart. "Here we gooooo!"

Once we arrived, we parked our cars amongst a variety of other souped-up rigs, like Porsches, Corvettes, an actual pointy-nosed race car, some BMWs, a Mini Cooper or two, and I'm pretty sure there was a Mazda Miata thrown in for good measure. Don't hate, it did very well on the track. The Lotuses and Cobras were the best looking cars in my opinion, very track-ready vehicles. I received an orange paper bracelet that said, "You are in the slow group, so don't try and go all Tony Stewart out there. Maybe more like Tony Randall." It didn't say all those things on the bracelet, but orange indicated my status as a novice. I could tell the organizers there weren't used to true rookies, as more than one asked me to clarify my claim of having zero experience.

"I'm Steve. This is my first time doing this."

"So what high performance vehicles have you driven?"

"Uh...my old Taurus SHO that had a stick shift? I grew up on a lot of country roads, so..."

"So how many laps have you driven before?"

"This is my first time here. It's my first time doing this."

"And which other tracks have you driven on?"

"You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition. It would be, 'On which other tracks have you drived fastly?' and the answer would be NONE, this is my first..."

This happened at sign in, in casual discussion with other drivers, and mostly with the instructor with whom I was paired. (I forced that one a little.) Ron, who I outweighed by a good 150 lbs, seemed REALLY alarmed that I had nary a lap of track driving in my career as an amateur race car driver. I mention his size because I found driving to be a very physical activity, but his slight stature was clearly a non-factor when he threw that Mustang into the first corner off the straightaway. I gripped the door handle, the center console, the dashboard - anything I could grab to keep me from flying out the side of the car. There is NO WAY I'm going to be able to drive this car like that. How does it not spin out or flip entirely?

As Ron is whipping through the first several corners, he is trying to explain the strategy to me. A real-time tutorial on how to make your passenger barf in 10 turns or less.

"Now in this corner, it starts sharp but it levels off here, so let the car stay out wide a little longer and then get into your turn HERE and aim for the apex..."

After the word "HERE" I'm totally tuned out as I try and get my bearings after another sharp left. High speed corners have a way of reminding you what's important in life: balance, control, just living. Fortunately, I am wearing a helmet and, as prescribed, narrow shoes with a rounded heel. Surely that's all the protection I'll need in a fiery crash! We get to turn twenty-something, and we're finally on the long straightaway. I can breathe for a moment. Ron decides we better do another lap with him driving, since I hadn't spoken or even nodded my giant helmet the entire circuit. After a second lap on the 4+ mile course, we pit, and do a quick Chinese fire drill where I end up as the driver! BONUS. I shove the Hurst shifter into first gear, and promptly forget everything Ron told me. The first lesson in the driver's meeting was "coming out of the pits, do NOT cross the double white lines. Cars are doing about 140 down the straightaway here." While I did remember to check my mirrors and felt comfortable accelerating, I did maybe inch over the line just a hair. Fortunately, the coast was clear and I was into turn one before I knew it.

I mentioned the word "apex" before. I heard this word roughly 1,000 times during my laps. It's the point at the inside of corners where your vehicle should ideally reach the edge before gradually straightening out of the corner. "Use the whole track!" was another repeated phrase. Anyway, proper cornering for maximum lap speeds involves speeding frantically toward a cone on the outside of the track pre-turn, braking like you're told not to in driver's ed (stand on it!), then turning sharply to make a bee-line to the apex cone. All the while gripping the wheel like it's pulling you behind a boat and bracing your body with your knees against the door and center console, respectively. At least, that was my style. A more comfortable position, as the "pros" mentioned, was moving your seat so close to the wheel that you look like your Grandma Edna, except you can see over the steering wheel. This lets you drive with your elbows and wrists, not with your shoulders and entire torso, as I was. Again, I don't think racing is designed for people with legs longer than a newt's so that wasn't going to work for me.

These minor details are endless and I cannot possibly do them justice. So let me get to the point which is HOW AWESOME WAS DRIVING A RACE CAR ON A RACE TRACK?! In my 14 or 15 laps over 3 sessions, I got better and better at the throttle-brake-turn-apex scenario and started really having fun and really testing the car. The hardest part is learning to trust the vehicle through these corners. Especially considering it was not my vehicle! A man I've known less than a year was trusting me with this machine, and that may have been the subconscious restrictor plate that kept me on the track. (WHOA! Race-speak in metaphor, kids!) If you've never been subjected to G-forces like this in a car, as I hadn't (despite my Mom's best efforts on the way to church years back), you just can't imagine that you'll come out of the turn with the nose pointing forward. But it did, over and over, and I hit straightaways at 120+, and I bested S-curves at 80+, and I only maybe lost a layer or two of rubber in the process (sorry, Zach). Ron was super pumped with my very last lap, where I reached deep within my 40 minutes of racing experience to finally nail the double-apex turn in the middle of the track, and certainly pull off my best lap time. My shirt was entirely sweat through, my arms and knees ached, and my ears burned from being shoved into that helmet, but I had the biggest grin on my face the whole way down pit row the final time.

An epic experience, and I recommend it to anyone who truly enjoys driving. My folks always bought cars with a little "extra" under the hood - even if it was a giant, gold Oldsmobile, which I proudly drove for several years as a hand-me-down - and I've always been the "I'll drive" volunteer when it comes to friends or family or road trips. I also had the benefit of learning how to drive on manual shifters from permit days on, which took out a potentially challenging part of this event. So this was a true thrill, and I'm very grateful to Zach and Allen for the opportunity. I have some photos and video footage from them, and I'll try to get it online somehow for those who think I'm a big fat liar.

Did I mention they let me drive the Lotus home from the track? That is, after I folded my legs up into my body so I could get in. Rolling at 90 down I-80 in a yellow convertible import didn't suck.

And if anyone needs an amateur race car driver with an impressive resume driving one car on one track with a professional instructor, then I'm your man. Shake and bake, baby!

This was cooler than it reads

Something very strange happened today. With kids at their Grandma's and wife working late, I packed up my gym bag this morning for a post-work workout, making sure I set 'record' on the Tigers/Pale Sox game since I would likely miss several innings. Work was work-like, and not strange at all. Lunch was entirely normal. My drive to the gym? Smooth sailing, and had an excellent discussion (on the bluetooth - safety first) with Murray, who, with his doctorly knowledge and triathlete's body awareness, dropped some advice on how to control my recent hamstring aggravation. 

Lately, gym visits seem difficult to come by, so I've adopted a policy of staying a minimum of 1.5 hours, oftentimes 2, to make it worthwhile. Let's say I haven't been much of a workout freak in my life. Playing sporting games and jogging now and again? Yes. But working out for fitness' sake? Not so much. Until I turned 30. The impetus being fear of physically breaking down and losing my incredibly manly psychological edge over children. What in Insecurities' name am I rambling about?

So 1.5 hours seems plenty for me at the gym, and I make it work by cross-training. And by cross-training, I mean casually shooting basket hoops for a good hour, then doing 8 curls, then jogging for 10 minutes on some sort of futuristic moving floor apparatus, then hitting the hot tub and sauna for as much time as I can stand without shriveling up or becoming that creepy guy that is just ALWAYS in there.

Today, I started my workout like I often do, in the basketball courts. The gym I frequent is not your pick-up game type place. The court is used for local high school lacrosse practice more than basketball, but I relish the isolation at times. I still LOVE shooting. It's not because I think I'm going to become a rec-league All Star, it's because I love the rhythm and the sounds and the satisfaction of still being reasonably good at something athletic. And I don't just play H-O-R-S-E with myself, I do shooting drills. Really. I have to make 10 of 10 alternating right-then-left hand layups from under the basket (harder than you think, especially for those who played intramurals with me at GVSU and remember that 2 year period where I had layup mental block), then 8 of 10 free throws, then 6 of 10 3-pointers going back and forth from the corners of the arc to the top of the key. If I miss my goal in a given drill, I finish the 10, then start that drill over until I get them all. In between, it's just normal dribbling and shooting and imagining I actually get to take my warmups off this time- wait, that was high school. Super lame, right?

After totally sucking at free throws today, I finally hit my 80% mark, then decided it would be a good idea to test the hammies and see if a dunk was possible. Upon smashing the ball into the front of the rim, I realized another benefit of having, essentially, my own gym: lack of witnesses. This fact, however, would prove to be somewhat disappointing in a few minutes. That is, of course, because the strange event was about to happen.

Standing in the right corner, I watch the wall clock for the seconds to wind up to 0 again, knowing my 10 threes routine takes about 90 seconds. At 5:28 I loft my first shot: CLANK. Rebound, opposite corner, nail it. Retrieve ball, move back across but a bit further off the baseline, bury another. This continues until I hit my 6th trey, in 7 attempts. Nice, I'm at my goal with 3 shots to go. With minimal effort and my form locked in, I can 3 more in a row. 9 of 10 - as good as I've ever done! In my movements, I was cutting the lines a little shallow and never got to the very top of the key, straight away from the hoop. So I sauntered there and threw up another shot for good measure. Swish. 10 of 11. What the hell, I think, let's start over. Corner - boom. Opposite - boom. At 14 of 15 shots it hits me: I missed my first shot. That's 14 in a row. At this point I am starting to giggle a little bit as each shot falls. The meat heads doing lat pull downs outside the court door are probably thinking, "What's with Grinny McSkinny?" I continue my circuit and finish again at the left wing with #19 going down easy. At the top of the key I hoist again and it finally, belligerently, rattles out. 19 of 21 is sweet, but more freakishly, those 19 successfully scoring in order. 

83% of you (basically, everyone who didn't play IM hoops with me) are waiting for a point, a different tangent, a horrifying ankle sprain to spice things up. But that was it. I made 19 straight 3-pointers today, and have no witnesses to corroborate my story. I considered leaving the gym immediately and rushing to Energy Solutions Arena to apply for a job as Kyle Korver's understudy (clarification for non-Utahans: that dude can shoot and has dreamy good looks. What?), but decided instead to do strenuous actions with heavy things for a bit before calling it a workout.

I am a man, I'm 30, and I still think it's important to be good at some sort of sport. Even if 'good' means able to make shots I've practiced a jillion times, without defenders, in an empty gym. It's my world, and you're all just not witnesses.

The Seatbelt Shot

I have a pair of jeans with pretty tight hip pockets. This story ends with a call to action, so hang in there. I also have a mobile phone which I keep in my pocket most times - I don't have one of those clip things. I've had those belt clips before with 2 other phones, and they both broke. They both broke in the same way, too. Getting into the car. They would somehow catch on the edge of the seat or on the seatbelt buckle as I sat down, and it would snap the clip off. They should make mobile phone belt clips stronger.

I like to call them mobile phones lately, not 'cell phones'. I know that 'cell' is really short for 'cellular', but I don't know what 'cellular' means in relation to the phone. Does it mean it's a living, breathing thing? Mobile phone makes much more sense, because the key benefit of mobile phones is that you can take them with you. Well, that's the original key benefit. Now the key benefits of mobile phones are the ability to play music or set your lineup for fantasy football (nerd alert!).

Anyway, I was driving the other day and my phone was really uncomfortable in my tight hip pockets, and I wanted to get it out. Actually, I can't say if the phone itself was experiencing any discomfort, but my hip certainly was. But due to the tightness of the jeans and the lap portion of the seatbelt, I couldn't get it out. So at the next stop light, I unbuckled quick and pulled the mobile phone out.

The light turned green, and I quick shoved the phone into the cup holder and resumed driving. I'm a left handed driver, by which I mean I steer 95% of the time with only my left hand. I grew up driving stick shifts, so my right hand was often shifting gears and I was 'left' with only one hand free to steer. (I apologize for that horrible use of single quotation marks.) Also, steering with both hands is something only done by driving instructors, and driving students.

Needless to say, I needed to buckle up again. And this is when the cool thing happened. The cool thing happened, and I'm sure it has happened many times before, but for some reason I thought about how cool it was this time. I'm steering with my left hand, and my right hand reaches under the left arm, grabs the seatbelt, and in one swift motion, my eyes up on the road ahead, shoots the seat belt directly into the buckle. CLICK.

"Big deal", right? But think about it. Seatbelt buckles are generally perched on the end of a semi-rigid piece of plastic, or sometimes just on thick vinyl material. The flat part on the belt-portion of the buckle obviously must go squarely into the buckle. How do we do this without even looking, much less in a quick one-shot pull? Think of the spatial variance between where the belt is mounted and where the buckle happens to be angled that day. What if your hand bumps your hip on the way down? Even worse, what if you smash your hand into the buckle and pitch the fat part of your hand into the buckle? Now stop thinking about those things, and go take a drive. And unbuckle your seatbelt at a traffic light. Then, because you instinctively fear being unbuckled in your vehicle for even one second because of the Click It or Ticket campaign, go for it:

The Seatbelt Shot

Vegas Idea

Dudes, dudes, seriously, dudes: This is what we should do in Vegas. Just look at how much fun they're all having! That side shot is reminiscent of the Beatles on Abbey Road, so you know it must be good. I wrote a song about it to the tune of Ode to Joy:

Segways Segways Segways Segways
Segways Segways Se-egways!
Segways Segways Segways Segways
Segways Segways Se-egways!

Vegas Segways Ri-di-ing Segways
Dudes o-on Segways su-per rad!
Watch us rock those safety helmets
Flowered shirts and Se-eg-waaaaaaaaaaaaaaays!

Even though you knew - just by glancing - that the entire first verse was just the word Segway over and over again, you still had to sing it in your head to get through to the next verse, DIDN'T YOU! Ha! And that, my friends, is the magic of song. Good night now.

Fake instruments

So we bought Rock Band for PS2. I became fairly adept at the fake guitar while unemployed, playing Guitar Hero until my left hand fingers cramped into a permaclaw. But oh, the joy of FAKE DRUMMING. If you know me at all, you know I'm a rock 'n roll drummer at heart - my dream of thrilling arenas full of people with ear shattering fills and big finishes unfulfilled only because my Mother never bought me that drum set that I had on my Christmas list for like 15 years. (I love you, Mom, it's not really all your fault.)

Rock Band comes in a bundle with wireless guitar, 4-head drum kit with bass drum pedal and Ludwig drum sticks, and a microphone for the singer. The guitar is a bit heftier than our Guitar Hero axes with a softer feel - I like it much better. The drums are 4 rubber heads, sort of like the drum pads that you practice with if you take percussion in junior high. The plastic kick pedal is weighted well, but it feels like it will break if you kick too hard. The day Annie bought it, I was playing drums on the Medium level within 4 minutes of getting home from work.

[Flashback: end of 6th grade, band tryout day. An array of instruments in the library includes various brass and reed instruments on tables. No xylophones or snare drums to be found, but I'll check out some of the horns. I try out several, settle on the trombone. Unknowingly, I am now committed to trombone in the band. Later, I found out the kids who did get into percussion, like my friend Travis, simply told the teachers "I want to be in percussion", and were granted said wish. Fastforward 3 years, I am a freshman in high school, 1st Chair trombone ahead of 2 seniors, and in no way did that make me a huge geek. I quit at the end of the year and joined the choir. And in no way did that make me...]

My point is, if I had been a more assertive youngster, my future may have involved much longer hair and way more bus trips and ruinous addictions. As it stands, I can accept my 3 year stint with the slide T-bone - we did have a sweet marching program freshman year - music from the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Anyhoo, we now have a fake family band. Preston is really good at the drums, which makes me insanely happy but privately bitter, and Zoey loves to sing into the mike, but only to Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive. She struggles reading the scrolling words on the screen, but she knows just enough to keep the game alive. Heh - get it? Annie is a dual threat on mike or guitar, doesn't really care for the drums it seems, and me, well - I of course can rock them all. Oh, I forgot - I won a Yamaha keyboard at a work luncheon raffle, so we have a fake piano, too!

The song selection in Rock Band totally sucks, but that doesn't really matter. Playing fake drums and fake guitar and doing karaoke through the TV is pretty much the coolest fake thing ever. I'll drop in some pics of us jamming soon. If you're lucky enough to come to our house (Is anyone ever going to visit me in SLC?) we can give you a demo. Maybe I should call it a "session".

Thanks to my parents for reminding me of one of the best and funniest reads of the year: Dave Barry's Year in Review. Here's a snippet:
"In other show-business news, the surprise contestant on American Idol is llama-hairstyled Sanjaya Malakar, who, with the support of millions of viewers, all apparently deaf, manages to reach the late rounds of the competition before being eliminated by a blowgun dart from Simon Cowell. Upon being revived, Sanjaya is signed by the Miami Dolphins."

He also has some hilarious coverage of the political races. Check it out.