The idiocy burns.

This morning, I had to leave the house way too early for a 0545 meeting for my new job. This meeting was at our Hayward warehouse, which I'd been to once before, and that was during daylight. I took a wrong tun off the freeway, and quickly became lost.

When I realized that I had strayed from the streets listed on my GoogleMap, I did what any reasonable adult would do: I found an open gas station, and asked for assistance and a map.

Three times I tried this tactic. In each case I was met with a wall of stupidity and lack of useful English skills as to indicate that all three of these worthies were hired only because of their close relationship by blood to the station owner. I wouldn't trust any of them to lead a platoon of Marines to a chow hall.

Just the basic concept of "Where am I?" was too much for these morons to fathom! The first kept saying "Mission" over and over, while pointing at the sign hanging over the nearby intersection. I can see that, but Mission and what? Mission runs for close to twenty miles, and passes through at least eight municipalities! The second evidently had never learned these words in his ESL class, as he kept shrugging and chatting on his cell phone. I finally got the concept of "map" across to him, and he pulled out the most tattered, faded, example of the cartographers art I've ever seen. Treasure maps in pirate movies are usually in better shape! Needless to say, every attempt to establish my location (even miming "this place" then pointing on the map with a shrug) was met with more blank stares than you find in a George Romero movie.

Eventually at station 2, a newspaper delivery woman was able to point me to Industrial, which would at least get me back to where I went wrong. However, Industrial splits, and unsure of which fork to take, stopped at a third gas station.

You'd think I'd learn.

The sole worker of this establishment was an elderly Sikh. I have nothing against the Sikhs, indeed, their culture is one of the ones I find admirable in this world. But not when I'm perilously close to being late to a meeting at a job I've held for three whole days. We went through the whole "Where am I dance", again, and finally got to the subject of maps.

"No, no maps" says Grandpa Sikh, moving off to sweep and away from a display of.. wait for it..

Maps.

Deciding that there just might be a jury in the world that would convict me, I grabbed a map, threw money on the counter, and bailed. Found out where I was, where i needed to be, and broke the laws of man and physics getting there. (I swear, the only reason the CHP didn't stop was they didn't believe a '93 Ford Taurus could move like that.) I didn't park at the warehouse - I reentered!

Along with screaming barbs and the fact that gas station clerks in Hayward seem to have Greek mythos thing going (they have one brain cell, and they trade it between them as needed.) I have to rant on the subject of language.

I am by no means in favor of English being the official language of the US. Let a thousand flowers bloom, I say. But if you are going to have a job that brings you into daily contact with a large block of people speaking a particular language, you had better be able to speak it! This goes both ways, were I to get a job that require heavy contact with those speaking Spanish as a primary tongue, I would feel an obligation to master at least a basic command, so that I could communicate with my clients and customers! What if I had had a real emergency? "My wife is having a heart attack, please call 911!" "Your building is on fire!" "Tom Cruise is down the block and he knows you're in therapy! Run!" A lack of ability to communicate when you may be the only place in miles with a working land line and a safe address is simply criminal. I don't care who they are related to, if a worker is incapable of assisting with the most basic of requests by a potential customer (i.e: "Where am I?") they need to either get with the program of get a job with little or no customer contact.

OH, I was five minutes late, but we hadn't started yet. Donuts and coffee were still incoming.

Lower the flags, please

and fire off the 21-phaser salute.

James Doohan dies at 85

James Doohan, who played engineer Montgomery Scott, the scrappy Scotsman who repeatedly gave the Starship Enterprise "all she's got" in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures, died Wednesday, his publicist said here. He was 85.

Almost every week, the frazzled Scott was asked to perform an engineering miracle with the warp drive, shields or phasers to save the ship from certain death at the hands of Romulans, Klingons or other assorted aliens.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

Doohan inspired the phrase "Beam me up, Scotty," although Capt. Kirk never issued that order until the fourth movie. He told his family he wanted his ashes blasted into space, Stevens said. Houston-based Space Services Inc., which specializes in space memorials, said it would send Doohan's remains, along with 125 others, aboard a rocket later this year.

Doohan will join "Star Trek" series creator Gene Roddenberry, whose ashes were launched into space six years after he died in 1991.

The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.

"The producers asked me which one I preferred," Doohan recalled 30 years later. "I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, 'If this character is going to be an engineer, you'd better make him a Scotsman.'"

One of nicest, most outgoing, fannish pros i've ever dealt with. Sitting around listening to him read Trek scripts in different accents one night will rank high on my list of great moments.