If you ever watched the popular Headlines bit on the Tonight Show, where Jay Leno shows what should be blatant typos and misprints in newspapers, you might wonder how anybody could be so dumb as to let something like that slip through. 

Trust me, it happens all too easily. After a lifetime in the small town newspaper business, I know that no matter how carefully you proofread and how sure you are that there are no errors, as soon as something hits the pressroom, the gremlins go to work and everything goes to hell.

I’m proud to say that one of my own newspaper front page headlines once made Jay Leno’s show, when I referred to the Arizona Department of Public Safety (their name for the Highway Patrol), as the Department of Pubic Safety. I missed it when I typed the headline, the spell checker didn’t catch it, the proofreader missed it, the two girls laying out the newspaper missed it, and the guys in the pressroom missed it. But the moment the paper hit the newsstands, everybody spotted it and the phone started ringing off the hook!

Even knowing that things like this happen all of the time, I was still kicking my own butt yesterday when Brenda Speidel noticed a conflict in room assignments on the rally schedule. I never saw it, Miss Terry never noticed it when she proofed the schedule, nor did Brenda when she also proofed it. That would be too easy. We had to wait until after I had paid for hundreds of copies of the schedule to be printed before we caught the error. What can I say? My buddies back home in Arizona would have just shaken their heads and said “Nick happens.”

Speaking of schedules, I had another of those frustrating things happen yesterday that give Bad Nick justification for coming out, but then it turned comic, and eventually worked out okay.

Several weeks ago I called the V.A. hospital in Lexington, Kentucky to make an appointment for my annual medical exams. Because my Primary Care provider recently retired, I had to be assigned to a new medic, and the appointment was set for October 5, right after our rally. Yesterday I received a notice in the mail telling me to call and schedule my appointment, so I called back to tell them I already had.

The lady on the phone said she did not see me on the schedule, and after checking, she said there had been an error and my appointment had been entered for a different patient, who doesn’t even have the same Primary Care provider. Then she said she the next opening available to me was October 29.

That would have really messed up our travel plans, and I asked her why they couldn’t take out the wrong patient’s name and insert mine into that timeslot instead, and she said because it was already taken by the other patient. “But he doesn’t see that Primary,” I told her, “So he won’t show up, because he doesn’t know he has that appointment scheduled. All you have to do is change names, I show up as originally scheduled, and all is good.” She started to tell me again that the time slot was already filled, but about that time I dropped the telephone, and when I went to pick it up, I managed to push the disconnect button.    

I immediately called back, reached another clerk, and told her what I had done and that I didn’t want the first lady to think I was being rude and had hung up on her. She said no problem, she’d pass that on, and they’d see me October 29.

The call ended, and just as I was telling Miss Terry that our travel schedule was going to have to change, the phone rang again, and it was the original clerk, who said after she lost my call, she started to tell another clerk about this stubborn patient who “just didn’t get it,” when suddenly it hit her that yes, she could just delete the phantom patient’s name and put mine back in the original time slot, since he didn’t see that Primary anyway! What can you do but laugh? All’s well that ends well.

Dropping my phone and then disconnecting my call wasn’t my only telephone adventure yesterday. I think I’m phone challenged.

Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour were here, and Chris was checking out my Blackberry Storm. After they left, I returned a phone call that had been interrupted earlier. As I was talking, I started moving some pillows around on the couch and rummaging around on my desk. Terry asked what I was looking for, so I asked the person on the other end to hold on a second, and then told her “My phone. I don’t know where Chris put it when she was done looking at it.”

She gave me one of those looks you usually reserve for the village idiot, or my weird cousin Terry up in Michigan, and then said “Dear, you’re talking on your phone. It’s up against your ear.”

What can I say? Nick happens.

Thought For The Day – If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

We spent some time yesterday installing a wireless backup camera in my cousin Beverly’s car. Bev has some real problems with arthritis, and twisting around in the seat of her car to see behind her as she backed out of parking spaces was a real problem for her.

As with any project we undertake, Miss Terry did most of the work. She spent over 20 years running commercial glass shops, doing a lot of automotive work. So removing the plastic covering on the inside of Bev’s Trail Blazer so she could run the power wires for the camera was a piece of cake for Terry. One of the few things I know how to do is a little bit of electrical work, so I hooked up the wiring so the camera comes on when the car is put in reverse, and then we put everything back together.

The hardest part was attaching the camera to the license plate mount. Arizona has a new law saying you cannot cover the state name on a license plate with a frame or any other device, so we could not mount the camera through the two top bolts that hold the license plate in place. The two holes at the bottom of the plate led to rubber inserts in the tailgate, and it was a bear to get the screws to tighten up. Finally Miss Terry rummaged through her pile of goodies and came up with some vinyl inserts that would take the screws.

Not content to show off her mechanical skills, Terry cleaned up and then prepared a delicious homemade lasagna dinner. Yummy!

After Bev left, we needed to run to the store, and as I turned onto the Interstate 10 frontage road, I noticed a Highway Patrol car following close behind me. Then he flipped on his overhead lights. I knew I was not speeding, so I thought maybe I had a turn signal out or something.

Once I had pulled over, the officer walked up to Terry’s window, since there was no shoulder and I was in the right lane, in rush hour traffic. I asked what I had done wrong, and he told me my license plate sticker was expired, because it said 08 on it.

I was sure we had current registration, and mentioned that we are due to renew in August, the 8th month of the year. In South Dakota, where we are registered, the month you expire is printed in large numbers on your sticker, and the year is smaller and on the side of the sticker.

The officer took our registration, walked back to the rear of the van and confirmed that we have a valid sticker, then returned to say that yes, we were legal, but it sure wasn’t an “officer friendly” way to do things, and that he was going to write us a warning ticket to record the traffic stop. So I got a warning ticket for an “obscured license plate.” No fine or court action involved, just a warning. Hey, warn the folks in Pierre! I didn’t design the van’s sticker, I just drive the darned thing!

I had a similar incident several years ago, when we used the Escapees in Livingston, Texas as our home address. In Texas, the registration sticker goes in the bottom left corner of your windshield.

We were visiting Terry’s grandkids in Wyoming when a policeman pulled me over because I didn’t have a sticker on my license plate. I showed him the sticker on my windshield, and he insisted that it belonged on the license plate. The Texas sticker is large than a wallet sized photograph and would cover a good portion of the license plate. I happened to have the paperwork that came with our registration in the glove box, including the instructions to “display in lower left corner of windshield.”

The officer read that, then called his supervisor, who arrived with another officer. The sergeant actually had the dispatcher call someone in Texas to confirm that I had the sticker in the correct place. Finally they handed my drivers license back to me, told me “your state has a dumb way of doing things” and sent me on my way. Your tax dollars at work.

I appreciate everybody who visited my new Todays Hero Blog and sent e-mails saying how much you enjoy it. I hope you’ll become regular readers, and share some of your heroes with the rest of us.

Thought For The Day - There is no achievement without goals.