Rob’s Happy Funtime Travel Blog: Desert

Posted on April 19, 2012 at 3:38 pm

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

Somewhat shockingly, the team assembled at the agreed upon start-time of 8:30am this morning, in the little cafe near the lobby of the Sands Casino in Reno.  It was a bit of a rough start for me, personally, thanks to some perhaps poor choices made between the hours of 1 and 3am. I failed to appreciate the fact that casinos pump supplemental oxygen through their ventilation systems to help keep patrons awake and, presumably, spending money.  In my case it worked, and worked well. I stayed awake sucking down glasses of Jameson and bottles of Bud like it was my last night on Earth.  OK, maybe not quite that much…but certainly enough to wish I’d had less when MattBrown threw on the lights at 7:30 and my eyelids suddenly scraped back and forth across my retinas like sandpaper as I struggled to locate a blunt object with which to bludgeon away his gratingly upbeat morning attitude.

After a couple of decent breakfast sandwiches, I hopped into the van with Matt, Andrew Moore and Jon, and we hit the road. We stopped for a second to get some shots of the Reno sign for my postcard project, then headed south toward Vegas.  The landscape, though somewhat barren and homogenous in color, was actually enjoyable to take in. About 20 miles outside of the city we had to stop for some construction.  Along the side of the road were some mountain goats grazing, and a broken down shack about 100 yards out that must have been built in the late 19^th century.  Andrew and I jumped out to shoot some pics. Almost immediately, I remembered hearing stories about hikers on the Olympic Peninsula being attacked and killed by feral goats of a presumably similar variety.  My brain cloud was still in effect, though, so the process of determining whether this photoshoot might result in my own bloody death was a slow one… Ultimately, it was decided to go for it, so we ran up and shot the shack….and of course the traffic started moving again right as we set up, so we had to dash back down through the high desert scrub and rattlesnake-infested killer-goat gauntlet. Thankfully, no injuries or deaths occurred and we were soon rolling on toward Sin City.

Around 11 we pulled into the small, dusty town of Hawthorne which, evidently, is rather fond of bombs and other military ordinance, as there were items of that sort all over the place, as well as a museum dedicated to their legacy. As we refilled the tank, Andrew checked the Googles for any nearby pawn shops where we might be able to requisition a decent road guitar. A place called Wee Hawk Pawn Shop came up just down the road, so we headed over and parked outside.  Unfortunately, there were no acoustic guitars available, but the two guys working there turned out to be perfect for the film. Danny, the owner, and his buddy Tom, were fantastic characters. Gregarious and outspoken, with more than a touch of showmanship, Danny was thrilled to talk with us about his life in Hawthorne, his children and his passionate feelings about the need to teach children trades and marketable skills, rather than just tossing them out blindly into the workforce.

It was at this point that I began to feel strongly that the education component should become a priority for the film.  I started looking back on my own experience and realized that I’d had virtually zero financial education prior to college, and even then there was little, if any. I majored in history and philosophy, so math and the future weren’t of particular emphasis.  I finished 12 years of public education and 5 years of college with minimal understanding of credit cards, interest rates, Social Security…or really anything to do with finances.  These topics simply weren’t covered outside of business and finance classes, and they were virtually non-existent during my years in public school.

Until relatively recently, I had only a limited understanding of retirement plans like 401(k)s or the viability of Social Security, and I have never really put much thought into retirement options. I guess I’ve just assumed that either:

A: I wouldn’t live that long, or

B: It’s a question that can’t be answered until I finally start making some money, so there’s no point worrying about it yet.

My lack of understanding of even these basic financial systems was certainly not unique. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. Very few people understand these issues, and I believe that to be a fundamental flaw in our entire educational and economic system. The primary focus of this film is to get people to start thinking very seriously about just how broken the system is, and in order to do that they’re going to have to understand the fundamentals. That needs to happen in schools and in homes, and it needs to happen soon. Now look at the pretty pictures I took.