I arrived at El Toro at 7:30, the scheduled time for the interview. Beaudin arrived a few minutes later and Pops at 7:45. The candidate arrived around 8:00, dressed in shorts, a golf shirt and hat. He didn't appear to be aware that he was 30 minutes late.

The candidate is friendly, very outgoing and obviously possesses finely tuned social skills. However, they seem to be social skills specific to a certain kind of environment, i.e. one of drinking, gambling, sports, the ladies, etc. Not sure how would adapt in other settings. I also suspect his social skills exhibit the same correlation with alcohol consumption that we have seen with Barfield over the years: positive correlation with moderate to heavy consumption reversing to a sharp negative with over-consumption.

He doesn't appear to be the most knowledgeable gambler, based on a couple of comments that he made, meaning he may not understand the "math" behind it. He seems to like quantity more than quality and above all else, he just likes "action". He had two bets on the Colorado State full game and attempted to place second half bets during dinner.

We noticed that our waitress was cute and while dark skinned with an accent, she didn't appear to be mexican. I guessed Russian, the candidate guessed that she was from Slovakia or something.

Somehow the candidate was led to tell a story about breaking out of a mock prison camp while at the Air Force academy. The breakout involved two men, other than the candidate, digging a hole under a fence while on night duty, and two other men staging a fight at the north end of the compound, allowing the candidate to escape under the fence. When the sirens and spot lights immediately commenced, the candidate took refuge in the swamp and swam to safety, collecting several leeches along the way. His award for successfully breaking out was a half a sub sandwich which he immediately threw up because his stomach had shrunk from eating nothing but ants and worms for three weeks.

Two notes about this story. First, about half way through, the candidate stopped to observe, in a very loud voice, that the table behind us completely stopped both their conversation and their meal because they were locked into his story. I believe this was true. They also didn't seem to stop listening when he pointed this out. Second, with most of what the candidate says, you have no idea whether it is true or not. Part or all of his stories seem like obvious lies or at least exaggerations, but he also strikes me as someone CLEARLY capable of anything, so you get the sense that he is in fact telling the truth.

As the end of the dinner approached, the candidate wished to discuss the subject at hand:

C: "So Gil, what do I have to do to get into this motherfucker? Who do I have to blow?"

G: "Well,.."

C (interrupting): "Cause you strike me as the guy in charge of this thing, am I right? You're going to decide this, right? I think you and I have connection here. I think I'm going to be alright."

G: "I'm the commissioner, but I only have one vote.."

C (interrupting): "Oh I'm IN. You're the commissioner dude, just make it happen."

G: "It's a one-ball system. Everyone has to vote. At this point we've spoken to enough people to feel fairly confident except for Dave Jones. We don't know where he stands, so he will probably be the deciding factor."

C: "WHO? who is this Dave Jones?" He slams his hand into the basket of chips and crushes a handful as he says "I will kick his ASS! Get him on the phone! What about this Barfly guy, who is he? Does he have any say in this? get him on the phone too." The candidate calms down as we attempt to call Barfield but get no answer.

C: "Look. Let me just say that I've done all I can do here. I'm not kissing any more ass, not that I've kissed any here tonight. I'm not meeting anybody else. Tell your group, I'm either in or I'm out. I'd love to get together during the season and watch games, meet everybody then, but this is it for now. I'm in or I'm not, period. I'd love to be in your thing, but I got a lot of stuff going on, you know. You understand? I think you understand. I think we've got a connection here."

G: Is this something you're telling me to base my decision on, or do you really want me to pass this along to the group"

C: "Hey, you can do whatever you want with it. Tell your group, and they can read into it whatever they want."

As the candidate prepares to pay the bill (for all of us since we are "clients" of his), he tells the waitress how much he loves her accent and asks where she is from. She says "Slovakia". The candidate goes nuts. "I totally called Slovakia! I knew it!" The girl asks if he knows Slovakia and he responds that he was a spy in Slovakia when he was in the Air Force. She doesn't seem to know what he's talking about, but she is very excited that he knows Slovakia. He now gets his bookie (codename Southern Trucker) on the phone and says "you gotta give me a second half line, I'm hot, I can't lose. I totally called Slovakia."

Pros:

He is a very likeable guy. You get the sense that he can get away with saying or doing almost anything. He clearly loves to gamble and would provide great entertainment for the group, especially if we got together.

Cons:

With so much "action", the LYA may not, or likely will not, be his top concern. The rise and fall of the weekly LYA results mean a great deal to those of us in the pool (except maybe G), and having someone not paying close attention or not knowing whether he won or lost until Tuesday is a concern.

I don't plan to ball him as long as he is willing to show a commitment to the pool. One form of commitment should be a franchise fee. Another may be to host a game watching day, which he has said he would be willing to do. I think we need to vote today and have it decided by Monday at the latest, so I'd like to hear other thoughts.