Had Gary Kubiak in the cab tonight

You may know him as the longtime Denver Broncos Offensive coordinator who was recently hired as the Head Coach of the Houston Texans. I consider myself a football fan but not that big of a fan I guess because I cant say that I recognized him when I first picked him up.

I loaded at 16 and I got out as usual to help with luggage. As I was walking around he jumped in and threw his bag in the back seat. I only seen the top of his head. It actually (at that moment) reminded me of that repetitive scene in "home improvement" with the neighbor guy whose face you only half see all the time.

He gave a destination of the Bellagio. Really nice guy. Before it became apparent to me who was sitting in my backseat, through the conversation he informed me that he was in town meeting his family (wife and 3 older boys) whom he hadn't seen "in two months". I asked him where he was from and he said he had been in Denver for the last 20 years but he just moved to Houston for work. I still had no clue. (smacks forehead) He asked me about which shows to check out and other standard Vegas info stuff, but it was obvious he'd been to town before so he was asking good questions. I remembered thinking when he told me that it had been months since he'd seen his family and that he must travel a lot for work. So I asked him that and he replied with no. So then I couldn't figure out why a guy who doesn't travel not see his family for 2 months so I asked him what he did. He told me:

Im a football coach.

For a college team?

(Smacks forehead...harder this time) I also remember thinking at that point that maybe it was a arena league or something.

no, professional...Im the head coach for the Houston Texans..

..and he kinda mumbled the last part so I repeated it (like a dumb fuck) and he confirmed it.

So now of course it goes from him drilling me for info to me having a thousand questions for him.

But alas I only had time to get a couple of them off. After congratulating him on the new gig the very next thing out of my mouth:

So, are you guys gonna trade down or what?

Which is something I've been on record as saying they should do...

He laughed about that...prolly hearing that one a lot lately. I think before he could even answer I followed up with the how it worked out pretty good for San Diego example as a reason for them doing it and he came back with the fact that Mike Vick was in HUGE demand in that draft. That guy was wanted by lots of teams some of which had some good stuff to trade with. ...and that no longer appeared to be the case in this draft, if it ever was at all. Im sure at this point he had his notepad out.

I didn't say this, but the truth is the Texans need help in all sorts of areas.

And with that we were already at the Bellagio. He hands me 30 bucks for a ride costing half as much. A very nice tip. He then extended his hand.

Im Gary

It was great to meet you Coach and good luck this year!