The Tauz Does Tucson! Days (-1) and (1)

The Prep, The Traveling, The Arrival/Greeting, The Food, & The Indoor Rock Climbing

The night before I left on my westward venture, I stopped at my health food store on the way home from work. I bought a couple of things, but I didn't end up bringing anything I bought, since Terry (The AZ Sister-In-Law) said there were health food places all around Tucson. I also stopped by my comics shop and bought some reading material for my journey. (Naturally, I ended up killing most of the stash before I even touched down in the desert...)

When I got home, I realized that I had to go back out to Giant to get food for supper. I did so, returned and ate and packed up while watching Annie Hall . (I thought it was weird, but good.) In my usual ritual, before actually getting on the road that night, I got out to my car, and had to go back inside twice, once for some random thing and once for my phone charger. I'm quite absent-minded sometimes...

Where was I? (Ha ha.)

I drove down to Mom and Pop's and slept there so it would be easy for my dad to transport me to the airport very early the next morning. I got to their place before 10, printed my tickets, consulted with Dad on a get-up time, and then hit the hay around 11:30pm. I roused myself at 4:15am. showered, chowed on some GF cinnamon buns, repacked my shower shtuff, and we took off on schedule. We also got there with no problem. We did a tuck-and-roll drop off and I headed into BWI.

I was already checked in (via the Airplane Internet), so I headed through security. I beeped when I went thru the metal detector, and it was then that I realized that I'd forgotten to take my wallet and phone out of pockets. I chucked 'em onto the conveyor belt, mentally called myself a dumbass and went through again, this time beepless.

I went to my gate and sat. I should have taken a self-pic at this time, but I didn't. I kinda felt self-conscious and lazy, so no picture of me at the gate. So I slept off and on for a while. During one period of awakeness, I watched two dudes almost miss their flight b/c they were too busy talking like schmoes to each other to realize they were at the wrong gate. I laughed openly at them after they ran off to catch their flight. I also eventually boarded my flight on time. I was so short on zzz's that I conked the fuck out almost immediately. I even slept thru the safety instructions! During the flight, I woke up a few times, only to realize that I still wanted to be asleep.

After a smooth first leg, I disembarked and wandered around the Houston airport for a bit. I grabbed a banana (heh...naw, not like that...) and a water. I plopped down in a cafe area and read some Green Lantern Showcase while eating my banana. I then went down to my tiny, over-crowded gate, realized that it would suck to sit there for the next hour and a half, and then went back up to a bookstore that I remembered from my last trip through Houston. I remembered it had a comics section, so I checked to see if they had any of the Endangered Species issues I was missing, but it turned out they only had graphic novels and some Hellboy TPB's. Meh. So after killing a few minutes looking through the rest of the shop, I set off to sit somewhere closer to the gate.

I picked a spot that was much less crowded. There was a chick across the way from me, who was clearly busy. First of all, she was rockin' her laptop like there was no tomorrow. But then, just to prove how very busy she was, at one point she was on two cell phones at once. I found her to be ridiculous yet intriguing. More on her later...

I, being the opposite of her, decided to flaunt my slackerly ways. I slunk down low in my seat and busted out some geek lit in the form of Booster Gold 1 & 2.



I totally got into BG right away. It's a pretty cool concept. I've always been a fan of the unglorified hero types. And besides, for a DC newb like myself, I thought this would be a way to bone up on the DC Universe, seeing as he is trying to save all of it. Each issue will seemingly have him saving a different DC hero and spending some time with them. Also, I think I dig that he's the superhero version of Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap.

As boarding time neared, I headed to the gate, and finished up BG2 before boarding the tiny plane. As it turns out, Miss Wicked-Busy sat directly behind me, and she was chatting with people across from her on the plane. It turns out Miss Wicked-Busy is an assistant to some rich guy whose daughter got busted for DUI while visiting Tucson. It was now Miss Wicked-Busy's job to travel there to bail this spoiled little bitch out. She unfortunately had no idea where she had to go once on the ground and was generally pissy about the whole situation. Last I heard of her, she was asking the people on the plane if they knew where the courthouse was. Airport people stories are so interesting...

...and so are comic book stories. One of the books I've gotten into (mostly thanks to Molyneaux on this one) is B.P.R.D., which stands for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. It's the former teammates of Hellboy and their stories as they continue with their job to protect Earth from crazy shit w/o Big Red. I picked up the trade paperback (TPB) of The Black Flame storyline and I used my time in the air from Houston to Tucson to ingest it, cover-to-cover. I love Roger the Homunculus, who is proudly featured on the cover of this TPB.



We ended up landing early, which made me happy, as evidenced by the following picture that I took on the plane, shortly after landing.



I marveled at the landscape from my window seat: flat and tan everywhere, enclosed by beautiful mountains in the not-so-far-off distance.



Shortly after I landed, I texted Jeff and Terry with the message "touchdown!" They responded that they were on their way, but it sounded like they would not make it to the airport before I deplaned.

I had no checked bags...so I didn't have to wait at the baggage claim, and even if I had, they'd have gotten there after I was done. So I sat outside cuz it was friggin beautiful (at least, in the shade it was). The shitty thing about it being nice outside, tho, is that that's the only place where the smokers can suck fumes. I wanted to tell them that they could suck something else, but I just sat there and tried to enjoy the scenery and the general dryness of the air.

I waited for about 15-20 minutes until I saw them walking toward the doors from the parking lot. I saw them way before they saw me. They had printed out signs: Josh Tauzin (of The Tauz Blaug) and a.k.a. Super-Sloshman. I would have loved to de-plane to that, but the airline system screwed me outta that experience. It was still hilarious and great, irregardlessly.

So...being a Tauzin Reunion, there were hugs all around. Jeff came from work and Terry from class and they both had the rest of the day to spend with me. So we went to get food at a chain restaurant called Chopped. This is a salad place where you fill out a card and pick what you want in your salad and they wrap the salad you requested in a wheat tortilla (or not...in my case). I got a bowl with avacado, corn, red beans, romaine lettuce, grilled chicken, carrots, mixed bell peppers with basalmic vinegar on the side. Wow. Good shit.

After catching up over our leafy meal, we went next door to the Trader Joe's for some groceries. Even though it did not hold the bounty of Gluten-Free food we thought it would, we did get some corn chips, some interesting GF soda, and some kickass tomato-basil hummus.

Then we headed back to the pad where I got a quick tour and a reunion with Shaida-girl (their husky). It's a really nice place they have out there. Since they live in the desert, the air-conditioners would have to work super-overtime, so they use something called a swamp cooler instead, which helps to cool the house, but not a ton. They do have an AC unit for their living room, tho. We hung out for a bit, took Shaida for a walk and showed me around the neighborhood.



Then it was off to Rocks and Ropes!!

Back when Jeff and I were planning my impending visit, he asked me what I wanted to do while I was out there. I said "rock climbing". He later said that "the rock climbing was a bit of a surprise..." but we planned it out and found a great indoor rock wall gym. He even found a deal: if we show up between 3 and 5pm on a Wednesday or Thursday, you get a free lesson...and it just so happened that my first day there was a Thursday and my flight got in around 1pm. It worked out perfectly.

We showed up, ready to rock. Climb. At the counter, we were greeted by a stoner guy was a groovy combination of laid back and energetic. He had a graying ponytail and beard and "I love life" eyes. He gave us all clipboards and we filled out our info and signed waivers, etc. We all listed each other as our emergency contacts, cuz we're asses like that.

We then met the sweet, cute and somewhat reserved blonde girl working, Allie. She looked at stoner-guy and said "I got these guys" and took us to the wall to teach us how to tie proper knots and how to belay each other. We put our gear on: special shoes and a harness that combos as a life-saving device and a genital-crusher. This invaluable device is made of straps that go around each thigh and your waist, thus accentuating your junk as well as your ass.

We then discovered that it was a good thing we came in a group of three because while one climbs, another has to belay, and the leftover takes pics!

Once in our gear, Allie instructed us on tying knots and attaching ourselves to the rope, both as a climber and as a belayer. (Belayer sounds like some shitty supervillain, doesn't it? Or maybe a shitty metal band...)



So once we knew how to set ourselves up, we got a crash course (for free!!) on climbing safety and procedures. This required someone to get to climbin'. And that wall looked pretty daunting from all the way down at the bottom.



But we were all quite ready to attack this thing head on, and since I was "the guest", I was first up. Here I am, bustin' my (indoor rock wall) rock climbing cherry:



The training was for both climber and belayer, so it required the climber to "fall" off the wall, so the belayer could practice stopping their rapid descent. Here I am giving my belayer (Jeff for the first climb) a test fall. And YES, you smartasses... it was ON PURPOSE that I fell. (That time.) Note the fun amount of playful fear on my face...



Jeff was up next (I think), with Terry belaying. And yes. It IS as comfortable as it looks.



Next, Terry hit the wall as I belayed for her. After her first climb, Terry said "We're totally getting a membership!" At that moment, hippy guy creepily popped up outta nowhere and said that if you join next month you get a discounted membership rate.



Terry loves to say things. Here's my reaction to hearing her explicitly describe exactly how the harness was making her lady place quite uncomfortable. (She did not use the phrase lady place... Use your imagination. Or don't.)



After the training runs, we were set free by ourselves. The whole process is really quite easy and tons of fun. There are lots of attractive people there, too. It was like an active person's singles club for a while there. I really want to find an indoor climbing gym in PA! While we were there, though, we chose our walls and took turns climbing and belaying and had a grand ol' time.

Here's me, all the way at the top! It was sweet up there...



Here's a shot of a mini-Jeff stepping onto the wall from Terry's shoulder.



I just like this shot because it gives you an idea of how damn high the walls go...



We all reached the top and touched the pipe above the wall a bunch of times on different walls in the place throughout the night. Here's Terry doing so...



Jeff turned out to be really good at this... He schooled me on one of the harder walls where I couldn't get up more than halfway. I think he might have even made it to the top on that one, the jerk. I was way impressed. Here's a nice shot of ol' Spider-Nauz in action.



In addition to the walls, they have a free-standing boulder in the gym, which is surrounded by big floor mats to fall onto. The sides of said mats are apparently different firmnesses, and are labeled accordingly. But to me, it kinda looked like the mat was wearing an "I'm with stupid --->" T-shirt and trying to insult the boulder.



Here's me hamming it up on said boulder, which was fun to try to climb for a few minutes. The difference here, tho, was that you were not tied on. So, if you went up, you 1) had to be able to climb back down and 2) if you couldn't, you would be forced to jump or fall to the floor without the safety of the ropes. Extra challenging!



Here's Terry, mid-wall. She specifically requested that there be "No ass shots" taken by photographers. I complied by going up the stairs and taking this shot while she was halfway up the wall.



Jeff, however, took one decidely purposeful "Terry's ass in a harness" shot. I've decided not to post it, but instead post this shot. I thought that me being a bit of an ass would somehow be appropriate in this instance.



And just to even up the scales a bit, here's a shot of Jeff, mid-wall, non-ass.



We stayed until about 8, and we were fucking tired after that. By the end of the night, the muscles between my shoulder blades were really sore and my forearms were hella-weak. I couldn't squeeze anything, which made lifting the door handle to the car an amusing challenge.

Also, we went to the grocery store afterwards, where I lifted a rotisserie chicken to check out the ingredients that were listed on the bottom, but I couldn't lift it above my head. (We passed on the chicken.) I did find some frozen dinners like the ones I usually eat back home, so I stocked up on those. We also got some ice cream for me, then went to Cold Stone Creamery for them.

We floated back to their place for hanging out and some TV viewing. I discovered that their channels were fucked up (the info said it was one channel when it was actually a different one, but a majority of them were blacked out anyways). We pulled the sofa-bed out and set me up in the air-conditioned living room. I ended up going to bed at 11pm or so (roughly 2am, SPATTT [Standard PA The Tauz Time]).

Nice. So far, I love Tucson...and it's only Day (1).