Chasing the wild goose

I'm grabbing a quick Wendy's lunch at a Pilot truck stop on I-40 just west of the Mississippi and Memphis after a fruitless ride to Best Buy.
I was told yesterday that I could pick up the old hard drive from my laptop, only to discover today that the Geek Squad kid was mistaken. The drive remains at the Sony Service Center. I can pay to have the data retrieved, but I can't have the drive back.
Oh, well. It's a nice day for a ride.

New mouse in the house

I bought a new mouse yesterday while I was at Best Buy in Memphis picking up our repaired laptop.
And, yes, the laptop was repaired for free because I got it to the Geek Squad with a few days remaining on our three-year extended warranty - one of those rare occasions when an extended warranty turns out to have been a good idea. They sent it to a Sony repair site where the 80GB hard drive was replaced.
That means I get to reinstall Windows XP and about a bazillion patches and fixes and try to reconstruct the software configurations we had. All of the data, of course, is gone, but then we never put anything on that computer that we didn't have backed up or couldn't afford to lose.
But I digress.
As I was shutting down my desktop computer Tuesday night, I discovered my right mouse button wasn't working. I'd been using a Microsoft wireless mouse for the past two or three years - I bought a couple of them on the cheap when an office supply place was blowing them out to make way for a newer model. They worked well - Maria's continues to work just fine - and I had no thought of upgrading.
So I surveyed the mice at Best Buy, bit the bullet and bought an $87 Logitech MX Revolution (Oooooh, sounds edgy, doesn't it?) wireless mouse.
There are a lot of things to like about it: The scroll wheel scrolls much faster, it has a button that lets you jump from one application to another and fits my hand a bit better than the Microsoft mouse.
If you highlight a word or a phrase in text and push the button just aft of the scroll wheel, it launches a Web search of the highlighted item using the search engine of your choice.
And it came with a rechargeable lithium ion battery and desktop charging holster, so I don't have to go searching for a couple of AA batteries every nine months or so.
Is it worth $87? Probably not, but I have a working mouse again.

I must be off

I'm off to Memphis this morning to the nearest Best Buy (100 miles distant).
I dropped our Sony VAIO laptop last week and now it won't boot Windows or recognize the USB mouse.
Fortunately, we have about a week left on our 3-year extended warranty/service contract - one of the few times I've ever opted for an extended warranty.

Well, now I know...

I was Jonesing for BMW motorcycle dealership fix today and, since the weather was good and I had nothing else pressing on my agenda, I decided to ride to Memphis to check out BMW Motorcycles of Memphis.
Riding down U.S. 63 in bright sunshine and a stiff southeasterly crosswind, I pictured a pleasant oasis of BMW motorcycle kultur where riders like myself pass the hours regaling each other with trip stories or discussing plans for summer rides. Something like the late, lamented Revard BMW Motorcycles in Indianapolis where everyone who walked through the door was a friend, whether you'd met them before or not.
I also envisioned a spacious, elegant showroom with all of the latest BMW models and a wall full of BMW riding apparel - maybe something like Foothills BMW in suburban Denver, which was the last BMW dealership I've been in (and that was last August).
So I rolled down I-55 to I-40 and followed it across the Mississippi (which is back within its banks after the spring floods), through downtown Memphis and on to Exit 10. A quick jog up Covington Pike and a right onto Pleasant Valley Road and I started searching for the BMW roundel. I finally spotted it up ahead on the left, playing second fiddle to a Yamaha sign on a tall post in front of a squat nondescript building with the tiniest of parking strips out front. Multi-brand dealerships where the other brand has top billing are usually bad news when it comes to BMW shops, and this was no exception. I noticed a "No Loitering" sign prominently displayed in the front window (see red circle in photo) and wondered if it meant this is a rough neighborhood or if the management is actively trying to discourage customers from socializing in the parking lot. Not a good business model for a BMW shop where the ambiance should promote socializing.
My heart sank when I walked inside. Aside from five or six new BMWs arrayed across the front of the store, it was wall-to-wall Japanese bikes. Searching the shelves of lubricants and other chemicals, I finally found the 10W50 BMW motor oil and grabbed a quart. The only BMW apparel in evidence was a new style of baseball cap. I bought a cap and the oil and headed for the door. Now I understand what Charlie meant when he said all of the BMW riders in Northeast Arkansas go to the dealer in Little Rock or, in the case of airheads, up to Grass Roots BMW at Cape Girardeau, Mo.
I can't imagine ever going back to the Memphis shop.
But I got a nice day ride out of it and averaged 36.094 mpg.

The Memphis report

Thanks to our Jonesboro BMW friends Charlie and Deb, we now have a new favorite Sunday brunch place in Memphis.
We took Maria's parents to Boscos (yep, no apostrophe before the s) and had a delightful brunch made even nicer by live music. Memphis jazz vocalist Joyce Cobb and her group perform every Sunday for the listening pleasure of the diners and it was well worth the trip.
We're eager to share our discovery with guests from the frozen north.
Despite image the local TV stations paint of a blood-soaked crime-ridden battleground, Memphis is a beautiful city with lots to do. And we didn't even get to Beale Street.