Paris Hilton and the time Iowa went to the Capital One Bowl

Club Paris in downtown Orlando didn't last long. Two-and-a-half years, to be precise.

I can't say I was too surprised. What did surprise me is that it existed in the first place. And that I and several other members of the Iowa sports media bumped into Paris Hilton outside the club when it was holding its grand opening.

Let me explain. Club Paris Orlando opened on New Year's Eve 2004. After having dinner in downtown, a group of five or six of us from Iowa newspapers and Hawkeye Web sites were out walking. I don't remember precisely, but my educated guess is that we were headed back to an Irish pub that we had sort of set up nighttime shop at in the several days before the Capital One Bowl, which pitted Iowa and LSU.

It was a football game. You may remember it.

First off, downtown Orlando isn't exactly midtown Manhattan or the Las Vegas Strip. Orlando is built on theme parks on the edge of the city and beyond, not an urban scene. To me, downtown Orlando wasn't much different than downtown Des Moines or downtown Augusta, Ga.

That may be on the unfair side, since Orlando's Church Street area (where Club Paris was located) did have a bit of vibrancy to it, but we remember things the way we choose.

Why Paris Hilton got persudaded that it was a good idea to open a nightclub in downtown Orlando, I have no idea. But look at the woman. Does it seem like all of her ideas are good ones?

She got busted by Las Vegas police over the weekend when .8 grams of cocaine fell out of her purse, told the police it wasn't hers, and also said she thought it was gum.

Felony drug-possession charges are the result. Weirdly, it's looking like a good career move for her, and I'm not the first one to float that theory. Hilton's name is in the news again, and this time she actually did something semi-newsworthy.

Anyway ... our gaggle of Iowans inadvertently walked in the vicinity of Club Paris when we saw that something was clearly abuzz. The heiress herself was outside the club, posing next to some sports car worth more than all of us put together. In terms of financial worth, that is, not spiritual or intellectual value. Yeah, right.

We approached the scene, but were kept at arm's length and a little more by security. As if we were going to gate-crash. We weren't exactly Club Paris types. Club Kiwanis, maybe.

We were like people who see a jellyfish washed up on a beach. It's unusual and you stare at it for a while, but getting close probably isn't the greatest idea.

By the way, Ms. Hilton was supposed to have been at her own club the night before we saw her, at a pre-opening party for specially invited guests. She didn't show up. As you can read here, she didn't pour her heart and soul into the club that bore her name.

We didn't hang around very long, since it's not much fun being on the wrong side of a barricade. But I read later that she bolted the club fairly early in the evening and hopped a private jet to Miami, where New Year's Eve means something.

I wonder if she had gum in her purse that night.