Matthew's Calendar

Blame Canada

This is a non-fiction story.

I didn’t want to drive to Canada.

Approximately three hours into my trip to Mississauga, Ontario, I saw a police officer cruiser pulled over onto the right side of the road. I slowed down slightly, although I wasn’t going too far over the speed limit and was moving along with traffic. "Nevertheless," I thought, "never can be too careful."

As I passed the cruiser, I looked in my rear-view mirror and noticed that he pulled into traffic directly behind me. His red and blue flashers illuminated. My heart sank deep into my stomach. Immediately, as I followed "getting pulled over" protocol (engaging turn signal, slowing down, approaching the right edge of the road), my mind started reeling with thoughts: "What had I done? I wasn’t speeding, my license plates aren’t expired, I wasn’t talking on my cell phone. Oh my gosh, what is going on?"

I switched off my engine and lowered my passenger window as he approached clad in a bullet-proof vest.

"License and registration, please. Do you know why I pulled you over, son?" scowled the officer.

"No, officer, I don’t."

"You have a radar detection device."

"Yes, sir, I do, although it’s switched off," I replied with politeness I had forgotten I had the power to exude.

"Radar detection devices are illegal in Canada, are you aware of that?"

"Yes, sir, I am, which is why it is switched off." I smiled, knowing I was a law-abiding foreigner.

"I’m gonna have to take it."

"You’re kidding," I replied, smile now gone without a trace of its previous existence.

"Son, in twenty years of law enforcement, I haven’t joked."

"I find that hard to believe," I thought and prayed that it hadn’t come out of my mouth. "Can I give it to you and then send for it when I’m back in the States?"

"No. It will be destroyed."

"Are you serious?" my eyes wide like a child on Christmas morning after seeing that the large box that should contain the super action HE-MAN playset conspicuously missing.

"Yup."

"I didn’t have the radar detector on, though, sir." Again, forcing politeness.

"Doesn’t matter, son."

Why was he calling me "son?" Because I look young? Because I remind him of his son? No. Most likely to be condescending to a law-breaking foreigner.

"Are you serious?" I asked once again hoping, praying that Ashton Kutcher would pop out of the bushes somewhere with a non-celebrity installment of Punk’d.

"Hand it over."

I did. I handed over my $400.00 cross-my-fingers-don’t-get-a-speeding-ticket-so-my-insurance-won’t-go-up-anymore security blanket.

"Valentine One. Nice. Very nice. Wait here," he said.

The police officer disappeared behind the back of my Nissan with my Valentine One. I looked at the empty mounting bracket suction-cupped to my windshield. I looked at the power cord dangling lifelessly on the floor of the passenger side. Gone. It’s gone. I tried with every ounce of strength to muster up tears. I was so desperate. I thought for sure that if I cried he would go easy on me, call me "son" again and give me back my Valentine One. No tears came. Instead, a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. He was going to give me a ticket. I knew it.

He returned to the passenger window and handed me a bright, yellow ticket.

"There’s a date there on the ticket. Now, listen and listen good. Possession of a radar detection device in Canada carries a mandatory court appearance. I’ll explain this. If you do not appear in court, we can issue a warrant for your arrest. Now, in my twenty years as a law enforcement officer, I’ve never seen them issue a warrant for this offense. I understand if you don’t want to travel the time and distance. What they will do is send you a fine of $170.00 Canadian. You’ll have to pay that. Your device will be destroyed." He made a special point to mention that again.

I made one last desperate effort, "Can I write to get it back?"

"Afraid not."

"Wait," I said, "will this go on my driving record in the States?"

"Well, Canada does have a reciprocal agreement with Ohio, but as far as I’m aware there’s no offense for radar detection devices in Ohio. So, I don’t think you’ll get any points on your driving record. Have a nice day."

Then I said something I will regret for a long, long time...

"I’m sorry."

He snickered. "It’s alright, son. Be careful now. With this car, you don’t need one of those things."

What? What was that supposed to mean. It’s because of this car that I do need "one of those things." 256 horses. Premium gas mileage when I’m doing 80 miles per hour. I don’t know what that is in kilometers. I don’t really care.

He went back to his cruiser and I started my engine and began the process of pulling back into traffic on the 401... without my radar detector. I immediately got on the phone to my mom to whine. While on the phone, I noticed that he was directly behind the car behind me. I hung up immediately because talking on your cell phone while driving is also illegal in Canada. Red and blue flashers illuminated once again. This time my heart fell straight through the floor in the car and onto the road. The car behind me pulled to the side of the road. The cruiser followed. I breathed a brief sigh of relief until I once again realized that my Valentine One was gone. $399.00 Valentine One. Gone. $136.00 fine (as long as the U.S. dollar doesn’t tank anymore).

I didn’t want to drive to Canada.

Are we there yet?

Although it is 2:12 AM on Thursday morning, this is my post for Wednesday, May 18, 2005.

Long day.............................. very.

Last day at the Northeast Region General Motors Service Summit. We slept in a little today... 6:00 AM. We arrived at the trade show at 7:30 AM. Ron took off to hear a speaker. Karin and I set up and then abandoned the booth to scavenge for breakfast. Once again, we were offered leftovers from the dealers' breakfast. We both think they were leftovers from the previous day. At least my "fun size" Cheerios was fresh. We then returned to the booth and occupied ourselves with work-related tasks so as not to be completely overwhelmed upon our return to the office. When Ron came back, Karin and I excused ourselves to the hotel to pack. We returned to find the entire trade show in the process of being dismantled. We packed up our booth and then went into the ballroom to hear the conclusion of the motivational speaker.

Let me take a brief detour here...

I usually go one of two ways when it comes to motivational speakers: either I think they're full of it or I think they're repackaging common sense ideas and selling them to naive audiences. The guy today was doing both, and very well I might add. Without going into too much detail, he went on this 10-minute spiel about some previous Nobel Prize winner chosen as Peter Jennings' "person of the week" a couple weeks ago. The speaker did a backwards domino effect about whether this Nobel Prize winner who implemented planting corn and wheat hybrids that flourish in arid environments and has saved nearly 2 billion lives should have been the "person of the week." Maybe it should have been Franklin's first Vice President who assigned this person to the job. Or perhaps it should have been George Washington Carver who invented the corn and wheat hybrids. Or perhaps it should have been the farmer who raised George Washington Carver. "I could go on all day," said the speaker. His point was this: we all affect each other's lives and we have no idea what impact we are having on others, no matter how small the act may seem to us. Wow... I've never, ever, ever heard of this philosophy before. This guy is a genius. He earned his $5,000.00 for the day. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Granted, sometimes it takes a dynamic speaker with overexaggerated hand movements to remind us of common philisophical concepts, but please, do not, I repeat, do not try to pass these concepts off as your own brilliant epiphanies.

OK... detour over. Resume previous course.

After the motivational speaker was done giving hugs to various dealership service managers (ew), the event coordinators proceeded to hand out the door prizes. We stuck around long enough to see who won our door prize -- one year free access to DealerPulse (woo hoo!). Congratulations, Valley Cadillac-HUMMER, congratulations! We then left the Hershey Lodge -- our home for the past three days -- for the last time.

We then headed over to Hershey's Chocolate World to take the Hershey Trolleyworks tour. At $9.95, this tour was a bargain! The amount of chocolate given out during this tour was worth at least $9.95. Well, maybe not. We didn't get that much chocolate, but it was enjoyable. Our tour guide took us on a tour via trolleybus through downtown Hershey pointing out Milton Hershey's birthplace and his mansion, the Milton S. Hershey School, Hershey Gardens, the Hershey Hotel, the Hershey factory, and HersheyPark all while giving the history of the Hershey company. It really is a fascinating story. Afterwards, we departed Hershey, PA (which I learned is not truly a town, just a post office... the technical location of the Hershey enterprise is Derry Township, PA), to head home and our next adventure.

Pardon, but another brief detour...

We rented a Ford Explorer for the trip and the Explorer came with Hertz' GPS system, NeverLost. We affectionately named the NeverLost system "Tina" because of the female voice and Karin and my affection for Tina, the sassy llama in Napoleon Dynamite. Tina had a habit of getting angry with us when we didn't follow her directions to the letter. She would interrupt our travels and firmly but politely let us know that we were no longer following her path and attempted to "recalculate" (find another route to the specified location based upon our current position).

Detour over...

Upon leaving Hershey's Chocolate World, we followed the sign to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the highway by which we arrived in Hershey -- excuse me, Derry Township -- on Sunday. We then followed Tina's directions. About 30 miles into our trip home we began to wonder why nothing looked familiar. Hmmm... we didn't arrive at night on Sunday, we weren't goofing around not paying attention. What could it be? Oh! We're not going back the same way we came. We're not even on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Tina was taking us on a shorter, quicker route via Interstate 80. Cool! We'll get home cheaper -- no tolls on I-80 -- and quicker. Cheaper? Yes. Quicker? No. Definitely not. There was a terrible, terrible accident on I-80 that had shut traffic down for 3 hours and baked up at least 10 miles. We were 10 miles away from it when we were stopped for nearly 2 hours. I read my most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, Ron read USA Today, Karin slept. Finally, we got tired of waiting and decided to drive on the birm of the road to the nearest exit and let Tina guide us back to I-80 past the accident. She did her job and got us back on track. Finally, 9 hours after leaving Hershey's Chocolate World, at 11:00 PM we arrived at my house.

I ran inside, repacked a few things and then hopped on the road to Troy, MI, to stay the night at the Troy Marriott in preparation for Thursday's SFE (Standards for Excellence) FLE (Facilitator Learning Experience).

I am now, officially ready for bed!

There's more details I could share from today (technically yesterday), but my eyes are getting heavy and my fingers tired. Plus, I have to get up in 4 hours! Yay for lack of sleep!

And that's all there is to report tonight from the--Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Matthew

Turkey or Ham? or: Dealers + Alcohol = DealerPulse Groupies

Almost midnight again, but I must relay the day's activities.

We left the hotel at 6:30 AM. Yes, 6:30 AM. That means I was up, showered, dressed, and out the door before I'm normally getting out of bed. Trust me, I was not a happy camper. Karin was chipper this morning, as usual, and Ron was a grumpy guss. We got to the Hershey Lodge and went to our booth to set up. The place was empty! So, we went and grabbed whatever breakfast stuffs that was leftover from the dealers' breakfast. Oh... it was delicious (sarcastic).

After breakfast, Ron went back to the hotel to "work on his proposal" (i.e., take a nap and watch soaps). Karin and I manned the booth. Fortunately, the dead time allowed us to catch up on email and feedback submissions.

Around lunchtime, Ron came back and then Karin and I ran back to the hotel to change into casual clothes in which to roam around HersheyPark. We came back, picked up the booth and then headed out to the buses. We were presented with the question, "Turkey or ham?" as our lunch options. "Neither," I replied. I had no choice. I was forced to choose a bird or pig coupon.

We boarded the bus and were on our way! We were met at HersheyPark by a lovely boxed lunch featuring either a turkey or ham sandwich, a bag of Utz potato chips, a less-than-perfect apple, and (of course) a Hershey chocolate bar. We scared down our lunch and headed out into the park.

The park was not open to the public -- to GM only. They had five attractions open: Wild Mouse, Wildcat, Chaos, Whip, the Hershey Ferris Wheel, Music Express, and Lightning Racer. Wild Mouse was scary. It was one of those old, fair-type small coasters that seat four people in a car. It made several hairpin turns that made you feel like you were going to fly off the track. Karin loved it. After that, we went on the other rides. The coasters were pretty fun, but paled in comparison to Cedar Point... we're spoiled, I suppose. The fair-type rides (Whip and Music Express) were... well... LAME! Chaos is always fun. Karin and I were the only ones on it and managed to get our car to spin upside down 4 or 5 times (Karin: "I feel sick. That was fun!"). They had skeeball available to play for free. Karin killed Ron and I with her high score of 370! (She's short. She has unfair advantage of not having to bend over.) After we completed all of the activities, we headed back to the hotel to take a nap.

The evening agenda was as follows: pre-dinner cocktail reception in the trade show area, dinner, then a post-dinner cocktail reception in the trade show area. During the cocktail receptions, our booth was busier than it had been the entire time we've been here. We had dealers coming up to the booth checking their Daily Updates, checking their scores, and gushing how much they love DealerPulse. Truly, Dealers + Alcohol = DealerPulse Groupies. Karin, Ron, and I may or may not have partook in the free adult beverages.

After the evening events, we drove around Hershey debating whether or not to keep the evening going, but we ultimately decided to call it a night. Another early morning to come tomorrow...

And that's all there is to report tonight from the Fifth Dimension. Good night!

Matthew

"Those Kinky Amish" and other news from Hershey, PA

What... a... day!

Well, it's almost midnight and I have to get up in 5 hours, but I want to write my first "travel entry" in my blog.

We (my boss, Ron, and my co-worker, Karin) arrived in Hershey, PA, yesterday after a long 8-hour drive. This morning we got up and went to Hershey's Chocolate World and took the "factory tour," which is really a sub-par-Disney-type-ride-thru attraction that explains how Hershey's chocolate is made. The ride would be way more fun if you were drunk and/or in need of a nap. At the end of the ride (a la Disney) they dump you into a many-thousands-square-foot gift shop that features apparel, toys, plush toys, dishes, magnets, mugs, postcards, you-name-it-they-got-it with Hershey and Hershey product (Reese's, Jolly Ranger, Twizzlers, etc.) logos. I bought a few candy bars (which were extremely reasonable in price) and some other assorted goodies.

After that, we went to the trade show, which opened today. We set up and then Karin and I went to grab some lunch at Bob Evan's (good recommendation on the cheddar baked potato soup, Karin!) and then ran back to Hershey's Chocolate World to purchase a glass container filled with Hershey's miniatures for the table at the trade show. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the trade show and then departed at 5 PM for our next adventure.

My boss' name is Ron Kleinfelter. There is a Kleinfelter Chevrolet in Jonestown, PA, that he pulls up on DealerPulse for testing purposes sometimes. He gets a big kick out of it because it's his last name but he's not related to the owners (that he is aware of). So, since we were in Hershey and Kleinfelter Chevrolet was not too far away, we decided to pay them a visit. We drove approximately an hour northeast to Jonestown to visit the dealership. Ron was giddy. It was funny. He talked with the general manager while Karin and I played the GM Hot Button game. We did not win. Before we left, the general manager gave Ron Kleinfelter Chevrolet swag -- a long-sleeved shirt, 2 polos, vehicle decals, a trucker hat, and license plates -- in thanks for stopping by and for having the same last name as their dealership. Ron was like a kid at Christmas. Then on to our next stop.

From Jonestown we traveled an hour south to Smoketown in Lancaster, PA -- the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Amish Country -- to eat at Good 'N Plenty, a Pennsylvania Dutch family restaurant, which my parents recommended. And what a recommendation it was! First, the drive was beautiful through rolling hills and small, quaint towns. We passed several horse-and-buggies with cute Amish children waving us around them. The restaurant was i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-e! For dinner tonight they had: fresh wheat and white bread, whipped butter, apple butter, cottage cheese, sweet and sour relish salad, applesauce, a spicy sort of cole slaw, beef stew, ham, fried chicken, lima beans, buttered noodles, sweet corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, and for dessert... peach Jell-O, Shoo-Fly pie, lemon crumb pie, ice cream, and cracker crumb pudding with coconut. Everything was served family style, including dessert! We sat with a couple originally from Pennsylvania but who now live in Sacramento, CA, and their daughter. The husband had served in the Korean War in the Air Force and the daughter runs marathons. They were very nice and we had great conversation with them. After dinner, we went to the gift store to purchase various Amish country trinkets and trash, including signs that feature the names of towns in Pennsylvania's Amish country: Virginville, Bird in Hand, Blue Ball, and, yes, Intercourse. Those kinky Amish with their sexually-connotative town names!

We then began the trek back to Hershey, which was a pretty quick drive on the interstate. I drove while Karin and Ron both made phone calls with the following scripts: "Guess where I am! I'm in Intercourse!" "Matthew, Ron, and I just went through Intercourse, but now we can't go back to Virginville!" "We were just in Intercourse. We just went in and out real quick." I love my coworkers. Back at the hotel we unloaded and then retired for the evening, which is exactly that I should do right now. It's 12:15 AM and I have to get up in exactly 5 hours in order to be at the trade show by 6:30 AM... yes, 6:30 AM. What GM dealers are going to want to talk to vendors at 6:30 in the frickin' morning, I ask you?

Anyway... tomorrow's agenda looks packed. Trade show until lunch, Hershey Park after lunch, cocktail reception after Hershey Park, ugh... long day. I will try and write tomorrow if I can keep my eyes open by the time we get back to the hotel at the end of the night.

And that's all there is to report tonight from the Fifth Dimension. Good night!

Matthew

Welcome!

Welcome to "News from the Fifth Dimension" -- my blog. Seems like everyone nowadays has a blog where they share their thoughts, their problems, their travels, their news (whether it be personal or public that may be of special interest to that person), their philosophies, or what have you. My blog will probably be a combination of all the above.

"News from the Fifth Dimension?" you might ask? Yup! For those of you who know me well, you know where most of my references come from (e.g., my license plate, email address, etc.), so what you're thinking is probably correct? Anyone who answers correctly will win a great prize............. the satisfaction of knowing you solved the riddle!

So... WELCOME! I invite comments, so have at it!

Matthew