Remember that huge cash bailout for the auto industry a little while back? Sure you do. The car makers got a huge chunk of cash and, in return, this week they closed a couple thousand dealerships and put several thousand folks out of work. So, money well spent, I see.

And I was thinking about this, and I think the government was a little short-sighted in their bailout process. I keep hearing that the auto industry is essential to the American economy because of the number of workers they employ (minus the several thousand that are no longer working), plus all the dealerships they support (ditto), and then the domino effect of parts manufacturers, shippers, component makers, etc. And that’s where I think the bailout wasn’t thought through all the way. Instead of just handing the various corporations large wheelbarrows of cash for, essentially, nothing, I think they should have done the obvious thing when giving a car dealer a large sum of money:

They should have bought cars.

Think about it. We gave them, what, twenty-five billion? How many cars would that have bought? I’m no mathematician, but I think it’d be something in the neighborhood of 1.25 million cars. What would the government need with that many cars? Well, give them to law enforcement, for one. I’m sure there’s a lot of police stations out there that could use some new vehicles. What about buying hybrids and giving them to local government agencies? Then they’d have new vehicles and lower operating costs, meaning less of a budget burden. That’s win-win. Plus the car manufacturers would be able to ramp up those new hybrid production lines, bringing the overall cost down and making them more affordable for the rest of us, meaning a possible swing away from using so much foreign oil. Another win-win. The feds could also sell some cars at reduced cost to out-of work families. They get a cheap, new car and the government actually recoups some of their bailout money. Win-win again. Plus there’d be the huge upswing in production. Factories would need to work at capacity to meet the demand for that many new cars. Suppliers would have to create and ship thousands upon thousands of new parts to fill the orders. People would be working, jobs would be saved, money would start moving again, and the economy would see a boost. I can’t help but think that consumer confidence would also be uplifted, which would bolster the stock market. And maybe most importantly, America would actually be making something again.

Yeah, it’s too late now, but wouldn’t that have made sense? To get something for all that money? Hell, if I go to the drive-thru at McDonald’s and discover when I get home that they left out my fries, I’m pretty pissed that I just wasted two bucks for nothing. This is twenty-five billion and nobody got anything.

Well, besides screwed.

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One thing I worried about when first contemplating the move to Colorado was winter. I’d heard horror stories about the amount of snow you could get this close to the mountains, seen photos and videos of huge drifts of snow, cars sliding around, people struggling through blizzard conditions. “Relax,” people told me, “Colorado in the winter is no big deal. They’re used to snow. They’re ready for snow. They know how to handle it.”

Having now gotten through part of the winter here, I can agree that, yes, Colorado does indeed know how to handle winter. They handle it, apparently, by not doing a damn thing about it. We’ve had several semi-hefty snowfalls now, and every time, nothing has been done. Oh, sure, they run the plows in a limited fashion along the main interstate, maybe hit the one most-driven surface street, but otherwise they do squat. No salt, no sand, and certainly no plowing.

We live on the north side of town and I can state with conviction that they have never once plowed any street within a fifteen-mile radius of us, preferring to allow the traffic to sort of plow little clear paths with their tires, which really only packs the snow into a frozen sheet of slippery death. So you skid and slide along, guessing where the lane might actually be, and praying at every stop light that you don’t just go spinning merrily through the intersection. It’s fun!

I guess they figure, hey, half the state drives SUVs anyway, might as well let them get some use out of the things.

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As I think I’ve mentioned, I moved to Colorado a while back and, for the most part, it’s been a nice change. The scenery’s nice, the weather’s been mostly excellent, and, aside from an overabundance of SUVs, I’ve had few complaints.

However, here in Colorado, roughly every third person is an avid skier, and they have those metal racks on top of their cars so they can drive their ridiculously expensive pieces of wood or fiberglass or whatever up the mountain where they can use them to try and hurt themselves. Fine as far as it goes, but if they’re behind you a ways in traffic, those racks can look an awful lot like police lights. So you’re tooling along in traffic, glance up in the rearview, “Whoa! Slow down! Cop, cop… nope, skier.” I think this explains a lot about the oddball Colorado traffic patterns.

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Sunday afternoon was gorgeous here in Colorado. Temperature was somewhere in the 60s, light breeze, sunshine. I sat by the open window and watched people walk and jog by in T-shirts and shorts. I sipped a cool drink and thought that this was a wonderful way to spend the winter.

Monday evening was miserable here in Colorado. Temperature was in the single digits, whipping winds, and over six inches of snow dumped on us. I crept slowly home from work, the speedometer never topping thirty, skidding and sliding to a stop at every intersection. I gripped the steering wheel tightly and thought this was an awful way to spend the winter.

Colorado weather: Designed to keep you on your toes.

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Ever hear of altitude sickness? Yeah, me neither. It’s your body’s reaction to going from an area of regular sea-level altitude to a higher altitude where the air is thinner. Your lungs have to work harder to pull the same amount of oxygen into your lungs, your heart has to beat faster to make up for the lower amount of oxygen in your blood, and you dehydrate quickly due to drier air. You feel headachy, tired, nauseous, listless, and, if you’re like the SBM and I, have no clue why.

Everything seemed fine when we got to Colorado Springs. The weather was beautiful, the mountains were gorgeous, the surrounding area seemed lovely. Of course, we’d been cooped up in a car for the last ten hours straight and were in no mood to enjoy any of that crap. But even in the following days, we still weren’t enjoying things that much because we were constantly exhausted. Three flights of stairs would leave us winded at the top. We both had headaches and were grumpy because of it. One day, I actually came over so light-headed it was sit down or fall down.

About a week later, some people at work told me what the deal was, which I kinda think they could have told me sooner, and we’ve made some adjustments to allow our bodies time to adapt. We’re getting back to what passes for normal with us, but still have a way to go before we’re running any marathons. (Not that we run marathons; I can think of lots of better ways to spend five hours.) So if you find yourself moving or visiting a high-altitude area, be warned and take it easy. Or at least pass out someplace where I can watch.

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There’s a stack of cardboard boxes where the dining room table should be. There’s a mound of DVDs next to my desk that I have no idea where they should go. My clothes are scattered around in several different locations, making it impossible to find anything quickly. Several piles of books flanks the doorway to the bedroom.

There’s a Christmas tree in the kitchen.

I’d say this is all indicative of unpacking after a move, but, truthfully, before I met my fiancee, this was pretty much how I lived anyway. Feels cozy.

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There’s that famous saying, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” to which I think the only rational response can be: “Good.” The SBM and I drove across Kansas today in a trip that took, best estimate, forty-three hours and destroyed something precious in my soul. You can drive for hours and swear you’re in the same place because it all looks the same. Kansas is a vast emptiness, full of nothingness as far as the eye can see, and, to quote novelist Terry Pratchett (who admittedly wasn’t talking about Kansas but totally could have been), “All you can say about the place is it isn’t anywhere else.” Near as I can tell, the only thing Kansas has going for it is that it keeps Nebraska and Oklahoma from scraping.

Now, understand, I’m not some big-city snot who looks down his nose at anything smaller than a metropolis and can’t come to grips with something as bland as a meadow. I’m a small-town boy who came from a one-horse burg where the horse took off without leaving a forwarding address. I know about empty horizons, big-ass fields, and large gaps between towns, but Kansas does all these things like it has something to prove. There is literally nothing for miles, and then, when there is something, it leaves you wishing it had actually been nothing because the something is so pathetic. Although I can’t explain exactly how, I’m sure if we eliminated it as a state, divided it into fourths and gave a chunk to each of the neighboring states, the contents of each quarter would instantly improve.

Maybe it’s unfair to trash an entire state based on a single car ride along a single interstate. Maybe Kansas has lots of interesting features, friendly citizens, and a rich culture. Maybe it’s more than just large swaths of grass dotted with the occasional cow, ramshackle towns, and filthy truck stops.

Maybe, but I ain’t going back to check.

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It’s either an hour earlier or later than I think it is. I have no idea the name of the town I’m in and only a partial idea of the name of the hotel. I’m surrounded by suitcases and I’m not sure which one contains my socks. I spent last night in a bed that was far too soft and the morning in a shower that was far too small. We spent roughly eight hours in the car yesterday, stopping only for gas and a quick, unsatisfying dinner. Soon we’ll corral all our luggage (and don’t ever ignore that the root of that word is “lug”), wrestle it back into the car, and drive for another eight hours, hopefully arriving at our final destination.

If getting there is half the fun, I never want to see the other half.

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The SBM and I have just spent the last three weeks throwing everything we own into boxes in preparation for driving across sixty-three states (I get lost a lot) so I can start a new job in a city I’ve never been, at a company I’ve never heard of, working for a boss I’ve never met. So what with everything going on, and the sneaking suspicion that I packed my laptop in with my underwear for some unknown reason, posts are going to be in even shorter supply than normal the next couple weeks. So for the six people who read this blog (and the five hundred spammers who keep leaving gibberish comments), my apologies and I’ll return as soon as I can to fill your lives with mindless drivel.

Ain’t moving fun?

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