Guess Who

One week from tonight, the college football season begins anew. The investment partners STP (Petey and I) will once again be looking to improve their financial standing as the games go on and on, over 4 1/2 months of games, taking us through the wonderful madness of bowl season.

By the way, I counted 31 college bowl games last year, and STP had a financial interest in 30 of them. We somehow just overlooked that last one. For our efforts we earned a very, very modest profit, but a profit nonetheless.

One of the fun ancillary things of this endeavor is getting acquainted with the sometimes obscure nicknames and tradtions of these institutions of higher learning. So, today I offer three questions arranged in decreasing order of difficulty, about teams who will kickoff their seasons next week. See if you know what schools' teams are the :

1. Miners
2. Commodores
3. Cardinal
   Answers, and a little trivia background on each, tomorrow.

Really, I Was the Governor

During the "dot com" craze, when internet related businesses were springing up everywhere and everyone had hopes of becoming an instant millionaire, I spent a couple of years working in one of those companies. I didn't make millions, or even many thousands, but it was a pretty fun environment and had its perks.

One of the responsibilities I had was to find new office space for our burgeoning enterprise. We were housed in a business incubator on the Northwestern campus in Evanston at the time, and I was intent on taking us to downtown Chicago. The process involved inspecting a lot of available downtown real estate, that was a story unto itself. maybe another time.

On one particular day, I had a series of inspections scheduled and was joined by the planning person, a lovely woman named Linnea. Linnea was born on the east coast and would eventually settle on the west coast, but for this period of time she was in Chicago. She obviously couldn't have had a native's perspective to the city, so on the day in question, as we tromped from building to building, I added some historical perspective and sidebar visits.

One of the visits was spending a few minutes inside the State of Illinois building, a.k.a. The Thompson Center. Like most people, Linnea was dazzled by the visuals inside and outside the building, a Helmut Jahn work of art (saddled with lots of operational problems like poor ventilation, lack of privacy, there was a whole series of events). We resumed our appointed rounds and strolled north on Wacker Drive, headed for the Sears Tower.

I told Linnea that the building was a somewhat self aggrandizing monument to its namesake, former Illinois governor Jim Thompson. As the words came from my mouth, who should come walking toward us but----Jim Thompson.

I motioned toward Mr. Thompson and greeted him with something like "Hello, governor, we were just talking about you". He stopped to chat and I told Linnea that this was the guy after whom the building had been named.

She looked at me, and then at Mr. Thompson, and responded with "Just how stupid do you two think I am? Pretty good improv, you guys, but puh-leeease!"

Thompson was clearly confused by this less than warm reception from Linnea, who obviously thought that this was some pal of mine who was quick on the uptake of a joke. I explained the same to him.

It is a fond memory indeed that I hold of the six foot six Thompson bending toward the barely five feet tall woman and in a tone somewhere between mildly offended and totally astounded explaining "Young lady, it's true, really, I was the governor".

Mr. Thompson continued on his way, appearing a bit vexed. We continued on ours, with Linnea still challenging me "Come on, the governor? The building? Give me a little credit. Not really that funny..."

As we entered the Sears Tower, I picked up a newspaper that serendipitously had a photo of Thompson on the front page, and held it up for my companion.

You can imagine the rest, 'cause it's beyond me to describe the look on Linnea's face.

He really was the governor, Linnea.

Duck, Gecko

What comes to mind when you're asked about the best commercials or ad jingles? They don't have to be likable, just memorable. Here's some of mine.

• 5-8-8, 2-3 hundred, Empiiiiiirrrre! Everybody knows this one. Luna is the new Empire, by the way. 7-7-3, 2-0-2, Luuunaaaaa....


• Where you always save more money! Memorable, but Celozzi & Ettleson broke up, eventually.


• The gecko. I found him annoying at first, but he's grown on me. I particularly like the radio spot where he starts chatting up the guy working under his car. "How'd you get under here?" "Walked, actually."


• The AFLAC duck. Don't like AFLAC's products, love the duck, especially the spot with Yogi Berra. "They give you cash, which is just as good as money."

Which commercials work for you?

Chicago 2016?

I'm pretty lukewarm on the whole Olympic fever thing. NBC brings a zillion hours of TV coverage of what happened the night before, there's a lot of flag waving, and there's a collective chest beating about medal counts. It's just not that interesting to me.

I find that the athletes themselves present a compelling story. They've worked countless hours to develop skills in their respective sports, and I respect that. My issue is that some sports aren't all that, um, Olympic, and others aren't really that interesting.

Take beach volleyball as an example. Why is beach volleyball an Olympic event? It's a nice passtime for the hardbodies who hang at the beach while the rest of us are working, and it has a professional tour for the devotees. But a world competition for Olympic medals, I don't get it.

Equestrian events should present the medals to the horses. Basketball in the Olympics...not as good as a the NBA, or even most NCAA games. Gymnastics and track and field events, those seem to me to be most "real" Olympic events, traditional events that have some heritage. I take a bit of notice, and hope there's not too much drug enhanced performance in what we see, and it's fun to see world class track stars go head to head.

That brings me to the subject of Chicago's bid for the summer games eight years in the future. Is it really a matter of great local pride, or is there something else? Check out the Chicago 2016 website, where you can already buy souvenir clothing http://www.chicago2016.org/

If Chicago hosts the Olympics, there could be events added that have local significance, for example:

• Olympic competition to quarterback the Bears. It's usually the more the merrier anyway, and the Bears aren't likely to have regular quarterback eight years from now...or eight weeks from now.
• Olympic competition to determine the best pizza, New York need not apply, and there will be no French judges.
• Olympic stacking old kitchen sets to save parking places. This really belongs in the winter games.
• Olympic fastest driving through a construction zone.
• Olympic beer chugging. The women's division would be more interesting.
• Olympic pickle bucket drummer and saxaphone player doubles. Events would be held under the train tracks next to Sox Park, where all the great pickle bucket drummers got their start. Saxaphone players gold medal round is based on playing "The Flintstones" theme over and over. And over. And over.
• Olympic polka dancing, a real crowd pleaser. Favorites usually come from Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Chicago area, known world-wide as "the polka belt".
• Olympic "see how many relatives you can give patronage jobs" competition. If he hasn't been ousted by then, the Toddmeister will likely have the gold clinched years before the games.
• Olympic auditing. This would determine, as part of the games themselves, who made the biggest pile of money putting on the games in Chicago.

Any events you want to add?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

NASCAR yesterday at Michigan: Carl Edwards wast he winner --as predicted here on Friday. Not so good for the other recommendation, Jimmie Johnson was 17th. This weekend: BRISTOL AT NIGHT!

Haunted Cadillac

Our rental car here in paradise has a navigation system. These things aren't very useful in and around your hometown (you know how to get back and forth to work and the grocery store at home), but the GPS can be a great tool when you're in an unfamiliar place.

It helps if you read the instructions. We never do.

So, off we went this morning, leaving Anna Maria island, across Perico Island, through Bradenton, across the big bridge and onto Treasure Island and all the connected communities. Mrs. Purple Flag on Saturday was drawn to the GPS like a moth to a flame. She started jabbing at the screen like a pensioner at a penny slot machine. After about ten minutes of furtive and assertive screen jabbing, she flopped back in her seat, quite flush, and announced "It doesn't work".

Not being in an argumentative state of mind, and hearing the kids' growling stomachs, I ignored the proclamation and asked her to watch for a suitable lunch destination.

Suddenly, an English accented gentleman's voice implored me to turn right in eight tenths of a mile. I looked at Mrs. PFOS. She issued her standard response, one that the children all learned very early, "I didn't do it".

I did as the Englishman had directed, turning at the assigned intersection. He responded, telling me to proceed two point two miles and then veer right. I did as told and Mrs. PFOS began anew with rapid fire denials of any involvement.

I followed the chap's series of instructions for five or six miles, at which point he told me to enter the parking lot of my destination. I hadn't interacted with him to this point, hadn't given him a destination, but I pulled in anyway.

We looked about and were silenced, all. We were in front of a Carabba's. Mrs. PFOS was clutching a wad of Carabba's gift cards in her mitt, denying any knowledge of how Chadwick (we had named the disembodied voice by this point) had managed to pull this off.

Unfortunately, Chadwick apparently wasn't aware that the restaurant wasn't scheduled to open for another hour. As punishment, we spent the next half hour ignoring his instructions,purposely driving other than what he said, finally stopping for lunch at Leroy Selmon's a few miles away.

We didn't offer to bring anything back for Chadwick. Kitt from Night Rider would have known what time the place opened.

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NASCAR this weekend at Michigan: look for Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards. Mrs. PFOS will be looking to squander cash on Kenny Wallace, so hope he doesn't qualify.

NASCAR last week...STP Investments got schmeeaarredd.