Airport hell, part two

Delayed due to mechanical issues, again. I'm sitting here on the plane waiting to hear if this one will get cancelled or not... Yuck.

Some more comedy... As we hear one of the first of several messages lengthening the delay, some frickin' woman sitting behind me yells out "United, you should be ashamed of yourself!". Everyone else on the plane, despite being quite pissed off themselves, says absolutely nothing, thankfully. It's like, really? It's gonna help to gang up against the flight attendants? Puh-leeze. Insert a little bit of reason into what you say before you blurt and make yourself sound like an idiot.

I suppose I could delve into some of the good TX activities... Number one, the FOOD. I could get used to this tex-mex cuisine. Fajitas and then brisket I just can't describe with words right now. Absolutely fantastic.

Number two, my friend's crazy friends. Wow. The one thing I'll mention is the stop at the red light where our car stuck a tape measure out to a car with two girls next to us. They grabbed it, naturally, and a tug-o-war commenced. They loved it. We loved it. Everyone was dying laughing... Again I cannot adequately describe with words, you probably had to be there. One of the most ridiculously fun and random two minute stretches of my life.

More time to blog... Minute Maid park exemplifies how crappy the Metrodome really is. I wonder how the new Twins stadium will stack up.

Hmm that's all for now, more later when I have a real keyboard to hack on.

TX extended; airport hell

So TX was great, and I'll talk more about the fun stuff later. Right now I'm in the middle of airport hell after a cancelled flight yesterday... Long lines of similarly pissed off passengers just wanting to get the hell home.

After getting over my wave of disgust and anger, I looked around and tried to find the comical in the situation, which really wasn't too difficult... So this horribly disgusting fat lady wearing clothes much too tight for her build was behind me in line telling half of her mobile phone contact list that she was delayed in Texas while also trying to show everyone in line how goddamned important she was... and while slowly creeping up to the side of me in an attempt to budge. Well her greasy little plan slowly but surely worked. She gradually slipped past, leaving me to decide whether to make a scene and save two minutes out of about 120, or to just let the bitch pass. I opted for the latter. It did piss me off a little bit though.

The situation got even more funny when this big oaf of a human being behind me in line decided to start a conversation with the greasy budger woman that is now in front of me. Slowly but surely, this oaf really gets into a deep (well mostly retarded) conversation with this slob and begins taking short yet deliberate steps toward her, going for the complementary budge. He succeeds. I had to say something this time, saying do you realize you are the second person to budge past me but I don't care so much that I need my place back in line... and he acknowledged what happened but said he didn't care at this point as we were all in for a long wait anyways (which I agreed with).

Seriously, sometimes I just hate people. If it matters to you so much, FINE, whatever, I hope karma nips you back. You have to live with yourself... No thanks.

So anyways, after about two hours in line waiting to be re-booked (and after sitting on the plane for 90 minutes before cancellation and getting 75% through the in-flight movie), they gave us a hotel voucher and told about 100 of us to catch a 7 person shuttle to the hotel.

Let's assess this situation... One shuttle for 100 already pissed off people and a 20 minute round trip shuttle run -- yeah, that equals ridiculous and more anger. It was funny watching the first round of shuttle pick up, around 30 people scouting the shuttle names as they pulled up, recognition of our hotel shuttle, and finally a rush of mostly fat people hobbling toward this white van clunkily with their mostly generic black luggage. I opted for a taxi after shuttle round one.

As I made my way to the taxi line, I decided to ask this nice woman I had stood in line with earlier if she wanted to share a cab since it wouldn't cost me anything extra. She happily obliged. As we made our way over to the Taxi line, lo and behold, the greasy budging slob lady must have had her leech-radar on as she ended up slinking up beside us and conveniently inquiring about taxis. Thankfully we were both on the same page and just ignored her and left her to squabble about to find some other poor soul to mooch on. She seemed distressed, which made me crack a smile. KARMA, Bitch :)

One more funny observation this morning in the McDonalds line (hey it was the only thing open!)... The pair of dudes behind me are reading the menu and start discussing McGriddles. This is how their conversation progresses:

"Man, those McGriddles... Who would ever want that mix of sweet and sausage, ick.".
"Yeah man."

"You know, I guess that doesn't sound too bad, like pancakes and sausage."
"Hmm, yeah, I feel that."

"I'll have the number 7 McGriddles value meal."

From cool to warm to hot to hotter

I survived San Francisco and made my way to Vegas part A, the part where my friends fly in for a relaxing few days. We relaxed at Tryst on night one, ghostbar on night two, and Tao on night three, with pool on every afternoon. I'm thinking it was the best Vegas trip ever. Out of nine. Pretty good. And I finally got another digital camera, and oh, did I take pictures. I have a lot of them and I'll get them up on here and facebook soon.

I moved from Vegas part A to Vegas part B, the part where I work at the Golden Nugget in the downtown/Fremont Street area. The work got done and I found an early evening to see the fantastic pool at the Golden Nugget... the waterslide goes through the middle an aquarium with fish and sharks it. Pretty cool.

Today I traveled to San Antonio to set up for our show... and then I explored a bit. I was pleasantly and extremely surprised to learn that A) the downtown area of San Antonio is absolutely beautiful with a riverfront full of shops, restaurants, and absolutely beautiful views, B) the Alamo was literally 2 blocks away from my hotel, and C) apparently there's this thing called Fiesta going on here...

Fiesta: http://www.fiesta-sa.org/ . A 10-day bash that I'd call comparable to the MN state fair. They have a ton of different ethnic food stands, fun activities, and things to do packed into a few blocks. I had already eaten dinner, but the smell of so many MN state fair-like foods got me hungry again pret-ty fast... I indulged in a piece of fried chicken on a stick with a jalapeno that was absolutely delicious, but absolutely killed me with the spice (I was literally dripping sweat, but well worth it), and some grilled corn on the cob that rivaled the MN state fair's. De-lish.

I'll be in San Antonio until Saturday when I head over to Houston to meet up with an old friend for some more relaxing. Then it's back to MN for a few days... whew

1st leg nearly complete

So I'm at SFO finishing up the first of many upcoming legs of travel. Right now it just feels natural... exhausting, but I'm managing to get up early and into the workout room before long days, at least so far. I keep hearing the experienced ones tell me I'll tire of being a road warrior, but I have yet to reach that point. I really love this. I just miss everyone back home... but I know I'll see them again.

In Vegas in 2 hours...

Another great weekend

Friday was all preparation for the Saturday surprise party. Menu planning, surprise itinerary planning, food prep, and rest. As requested by the birthday boy, bleu cheeseburgers were on the menu, along with jalapeno burgers and cheddarwurst. It may have snowed this weekend, but if I can stand outside with a t-shirt on, I'm a goin' to grill. That's just what I did.

Apparently the b-day boy had some idea that something was up, but what can you expect when you try to get 25 excited people to keep a secret for a month? While I do wish he would have been COMPLETELY surprised, he didn't know exactly what was going to happen so I'll have to live with that. An early birthday grill-out followed with some bowling at Gameworks and other downtown fun.

And... while hosting a party results in an unfair amount of clean-up, one does retain the rewards of leftover food... and so on Sunday I continued the grilling with an encore to go along with opening day of baseball. Having a bye on Sunday for hockey actually was a bit of a relief, not having to prepare for a late and physical activity to end the weekend. The long day of on-and-off cooking included making caramelized onions for the burgers... it's nearly a two-hour process, but they're SO DAMN GOOD. I also love how much they reduce down. I cooked four large sweet yellow onions down to... well I took pictures. Here are the before and after:




This week is prep for several weeks of traveling. I already took a two-week trip earlier this year, which I loved, but that is nothing close to what I have upcoming. I'm excited and am ready to meet challenges, let loose, see old friends, meet new people, and finally use my passport! The tentative schedule:

April 13-16 San Francisco, work
April 16-19 Las Vegas, leisure
April 19-22 Las Vegas, work
April 22-25 San Antonio, work
April 25-27 Houston, leisure
April 28-30 MN
May 1-3 Madison, leisure
May 3-7 Las Vegas, work (seriously!)
May 8-9 MN
May 10-22 Brazil, Argentina, Chile, work
May 23-25 Madison, leisure

I should start packing like right now... :)