Eddie Van Halen

My 1992 GMC Vandura is acting up again. As I type this, it is in a Bellingham auto shop getting serviced with a new muffler, a transmission fluid change, and a quadruple bypass. Of course, none of this directly addresses the original reason I brought it into the shop, which is its random inability to start when I turn the ignition.

Yes, my vandominium is old, unreliable, and I suspect slightly sinister. And part of me likes it that way. What's the fun of traveling when you know you're safe and secure and there's absolutely no chance of your vehicle/house careening off a cliff because the brakes finally decided to give out?

The truth is, my van is my transportation, my shelter, and (thanks to my nomadic reality and complete and utter lack of personality) my closest companion on this journey. It is the Kit to my Hasselhoff, the Herbie to my Lohan, the Wilson the Volleyball to my Hanks.

It is a key character in the projectmeaning.com story. Which is why it is an unforgivable shame that I haven't named it yet.

Unfortunately, I have a tendency to be a poor judge of taste when it comes to naming things. I still shudder when I recall that I desperately wanted to name my second dog, a Tibetan Spaniel/Toy Poodle mix, "Little Lady."

As if its not hard enough being a young boy with a small lap dog, I was going to compound the problem by giving it the most effeminate name imaginable. Paris Hilton wouldn't name a dog that, and I'm pretty sure she's a chihuahua purse suffocation away from being lap dog enemy number one.

(I still have a lapdog, this time in the form of a Shih Tzu, but he is considerably more manly than most Mastiffs when you factor in his rugged state of mind, and I have made sure to protect his masculinity by naming him Sexbeerviolence, or "Wicket" for short.)

The point is, I'm worse at naming things than your average Zappa.

So I'm leaving this one to you, my millions and millions of readers (numbers are estimates) to help me name my beautiful vanpartment. Feel free to send any and all suggestions to Logan@projectmeaning.com. With any luck, this could be the greatest promotion since they decided to add a new M&M color.

Please be advised that the following suggestions will be given no consideration:

+ Little Lady.

+ Anything having to do with the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, or Los Angeles Lakers.

+ Stupid Logan's Stupid Van. (This includes all similar insults or curse words designed to demean me as a human being. I'm looking at you, Mom.)


On a separate note, I will be heading to Canada tomorrow, so my cell phone service and internet may not be readily available for the coming week. I will try to continue to update this blog daily, but I can't promise anything, so I apologize in advance for any days missed.

It's not because I didn't want to blog, it's because I couldn't resist riding that moose after my 27th Labatt Blue.