On the Road - Columbus and The NHL Draft

Ok... Where were we?

Last time we visited I was in San Antonio and Cleveland supporting the NBA Finals.
After we (Blee & Yours Truly) finished with that, we needed to do a little NHL work in Columbus OH, so we (FNG Ryan and Yours Truly) loaded up an Avis rental car with equipment and drove to the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.


From The Instigator...

Ryan from the Help Desk with the designated victim for this trip... It was his turn in the barrel since Sean and Hector had done their time, they figured it was someone else's turn to get abused, berated and beaten down for the better part of a week.

Ryan would be considered a "hottie", based on several indicators during the trip... Afterwards I showed a pic of Ryan to the Perfect Child, my barometer of pop culture and trendiness, who confirmed his Hottie status.


Hottie after 8 hours in the car.


Hottie Technician

"Ooooo." she said. "He IS a hottie!"



Yo, FNG... Stay away from my daughter. She's only 13; I have a shotgun and a shovel, and no one will miss you.

More on Ryan's prowess later.

I'm not sure who schedules events in big cities, but the folks in Columbus must have gotten a big laugh as they were putting together the schedule for Mid June. Wait... Let's hold that thought a second. We actually had to get to Columbus first. No mean feat in itself.

In order to facilitate the trip, I picked up the option on Avis' in-car navagation GPS, the "Where2" Garmin Streetpilot c550. Ours was named Jill and she had a nice Australian accent.



When you program the GPS for your selected destination, Jill will give you good turn-by-turn directions to your destination. And as long as your follow her directions, everything is Ola Kala.
"In 2 miles, turn right on highway 200"
"Bear left on Highway 77. In 1 mile your exit is on the right."

However... If you were to do anything as foolish as take a wrong turn, or miss your exit...or stop for gas... That's when she turns from a sweet, helpful Aussie girl into a Cast-iron Bitch.
And I don't mean that in a good way.

"Please make a U-turn. You have missed your last turn."
"Please return to the highway and follow the original driving directions."
"What is wrong with you, can't your follow simple instructions?"
"Please pull your car over and shut off the engine. You are too stupid to drive a car."

Oh, Jill...She can be a nasty one...

----

I have to say, one benefit of the GPS unit was it's ability to receive traffic bulletins and navigate a detour around delays.


Miles and miles of backed up cars...

Up in the hills of Virginia and West (By God) Virginia, the traffic was at a stand still.
I punched up Jill's "Detour" button and she led us on a merry and scenic chase through the backwoods of Virginia...


Warning signs don't lie...


Back and forth...


Forth and Back...

Pay attention...

The back edge of that truck is a widowmaker...
But if you can't stop make sure you smile as you are decapitated.


Oops. Someone wasn't paying attention.

I kept a sharp ear out for banjo music while Ryan herded us through several miles of twisting and turning roads, eventually returning us to the interstate beyond the roadblock...at a town called, get this... "Bland".

Just up the road, no doubt, from "Spicy".

Good times... good times.

If you take more than 2 or 3 roadtrips a year, pick up a GPS - especially for the Integrated Traffic Broadcast receiver. Definitely worth the $$$.

----

We finally made it into Columbus and went directly to the Arena, just to meet up with Oh-Danny-Boy, JR, Luc from Montreal (One of the "Dirty Dozen" Constant Readers), and Patrick and have a nosh.

Getting back to the point I was making earlier about making schedules for city events...
I'm sure the folks in Event Planning in Columbus got a real giggle as they were planning Mid-June...



Events & Attractions Staffer 1:"Hey, looky here...We have the NHL Draft in town. Why don't we schedule 'Gay Pride Week' at the same time."
Events & Attractions Staffer 2:"We'll have a parade... Maybe a nice concert or two."
E&AS1: "Yeah... And just imagine having the NHL staff, all the media covering the Draft, the new players and their families all sharing the same hotels with the folks in town for Gay Pride Week."
E&AS2: "I'll bet there will be some fireworks! That will get us some exposure in the national media."


"What street did you say the hotel was on?"

Nice move, Columbus. What's next? Kicking it up a notch and scheduling a Klan Rally on Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday?
Here's a dollar- go buy a clue.

----


One evening we were having dinner at Ted's Montana Grill...
(If you go, try the bison. I had a rib eye, medium rare. Awesome.)
There about 11 of us...sitting outside since the restaurant didn't have a table inside big enough for our group. It was Dan, JR, Luc, Patrick, Yours Truly, Ryan the Hottie, Ned, DL, and a host of hangers-on looking for a free feed on the NHL's dime.

Midway through dinner, our waitress came out to do drink refills and had another waitress helping out. Since she really didn't need help carrying out another pitcher of Sam Adams, the reason for the second waitress became apparent.
She introduced herself (Lindsey) to Ryan, asked if he was married or had a girlfriend, wanted to know if he was looking for a girlfriend (it IS Gay Pride Week and all...) then went back inside.
Ryan pretty much took it was a certain air of non-chalance bordering on boredom. Like it happens to him all the time.

A short while later we had another visit from Lindsey... This time she gave Ryan a folded sheet of paper- "Here's my phone number. Call me."
He took it without even a "Thank you"...slipped it into his pocket and promptly went back to his burger without a second thought.

We were astounded.

I believe it was Mark Twain who said "Youth is wasted on the young."

Truer words were never spoken.

Post Script- He "forgot" the slip of paper with the phone number at the hotel the next morning.

We need to work on his social skills...



The women are just falling off the trees around this guy. A sad commentary on the state of the young women today... I'm going to have to have a chat with the PC and the concept of "Hard to Get"...

----

The NHL hardware installation went well...
Issues arose, ensued, were overcome.


RtH and Patrick working on the system.


Hey... Nice rack!

There was much rejoicing.

The Nationwide Arena in Columbus is a pretty cool facility. Lots of good restaurants in the area, a good selection of bars, and the staff at the arena was very helpful and technically capable.
They have an odd take on how to secure an IDF closet...

No knob, deadbolt or hasp. Just a sign.
Yeah, that will keep the riff-raff out.

Perhaps it is a tradeoff of security vs. cost. A "Keep Out" sign is much cheaper than a locking doorknob.


Ned and DL were on hand in Columbus to meet with the NHL Broadcasters. All went well, or so we assume since we didn't get a call to throw bail or or otherwise rescue them from either crazed broadcasters or frenzied "Pride Week" celebrants.
We picked up the equimpment they had on-hand for their presentation about midnight to transport it back to Jacksonville with us the next day. Somehow it grew from one large case to one large case, one medium case, two boxes and a bag. Let me add that to my resume... Delivery Boy.
Amazing.

----

Ryan the Hottie and I lit out Thursday AM- around 7 or so.

The trip home was mostly uneventful... I drove the entire 800+ miles that day. We stopped twice for gas enroute - (Toyota Highlander- big "Thumbs up" for gas milage.) and once for lunch, where, once again, Ryan had a girl throw herself at him...


This is not her...

We stopped at Hooters (suprise, no?) in Statesville NC.
The waitress practically threw herself at Ryan...Making inane conversation, making lewd and suggestive remarks, drooling on the table as she gazed longingly at him, not unlike a starving dog begging at the table during a steak dinner.
Did he capitalize on the situation? No. Who, praytell, carried the burden of the conversation upon his broad shoulders?
Yours truly, of course. Heh.

Sad, really.

----

We made it home... 13.5 hours, including the 30 minutes we spend trying to remove Sarah the Hooters waitress from the back bumper of the car... She clung to the back fender, promising all manner of indentured servitude to Ryan "Just so I can be close to you!" she pleaded.

Pitiful...

I did get a kick out out of the Runaway Truck Ramps on I77...



The concept is that if you are going downhill on these highways and you have a brake failure, you hit one of these to stop your truck.



I'm not sure I'd want to hit one of these things in a truck while doing 70 or 80 miles per hour... It looks more like a Launch Ramp than an Escape Ramp. I'm envisioning an Evel Knievel-style-over-Snake-River thing.
We don't have these in Florida- I can just see Bubba and Skeeter on a boring Wednesday night...
"Hey Skeeter... Here's one o' them escape ramps... Watch this. I saw this in a cartoon once. You best hang on...."

Fun fun fun.

4 days to Loggerhead. I can barely stand it.

TBG out-

Drugstore

A nice, calm, and respectable lady went into the pharmacy and walked right up to the pharmacist, looked straight into his eyes, and said, "I would like to buy some cyanide."

The pharmacist asked, "Why in the world do you need cyanide?"

The lady replied, "I need it to poison my husband."

The pharmacist's eyes got big, and he exclaimed, "Lord, have mercy! I can't give you cyanide to kill your husband! That's against the law! I'll lose my license! They'll throw both of us in jail! All kinds of bad things will happen! Absolutely not! You CANNOT have any cyanide!"

The lady reached into her purse and pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist's wife.

The pharmacist looked at the picture and replied, "Well, now. That's different. You didn't tell me you had a prescription.

Heh...

TBG out-

Answers and Explanations

And the answer to the Quiz...

Yes! The answer is...Dope!

Or as Tammie put it... Square Grouper.
(Showing her deep knowledge of 80's Keys slang terms.)

And to answer Constant Reader Luc's (and no doubt several other Enquiring Minds) question:
"Pardon this winter-dazed Québecois ignorance here but what's a square grouper?"

As quoted in the Urban Dictionary,
"Nickname given to bales of marijuana thrown overboard or out of airplanes. Origin is reportedly from members of the US Coast Guard in the area of Southern Florida."

In this particular case, a bale of Cannabis floated into the harbor at Garden Key.
Sometimes they are well-sealed and in pristine condition... this one...not so much.
Some seawater had gotten into the bale and the dope had become "sea-weed"...
A term given to salt-water-damaged-but-still-sellable reefer.
In this case, it smelled awful, as Tammie mentioned in the previous comment.

(Referenced in Shel Silverstein's poem "The Smoke Off" -
"Maui Wowie, Panama Red and Acapulco Gold.
Kif from East Afghanistan and rare Alaskan Cold.
Sticks from Thailand, Ganja from the Islands, and Bangkok's Bloomin' Best.
And some of that wet imported shit that capsized off Key West.")

It was called into the DEA in Miami who said, after finding it was less then 50 lbs:
"Y'all just get rid of it... It's not enough for us to fly out and pick it up."

They kinda left it up to us as to the "how" of disposal...


Dry Tortugas Law Enforcement Ranger dumping the 45lb bale of Marijuana in the drink.
(What did you think we'd do with it? Put it on the burn pile?)


Floating dope. I guess we need to make sure it sinks.


Ranger shredding dope chunks.


And just for good measure, let's run over it a few times to chop it into little pieces.

Good times... Good times...

DRTO Veterans

This is a quiz for Al and Tammie, friends from down at Dry Tortugas National Park...

Ready?


Here's a picture of Tammie and Al...



Question...

What was floating in the water between Garden Key and Loggerhead that day?

Hint: Ranger Tim was driving the other boat that day.

America's Best Beaches, my ass...

Stephen "Dr. Beach" Leatherman has released his list of "Best Beaches" for 2007...

1. Ocracoke Lifeguarded Beach, Outer Banks, North Carolina - National Winner
2. Caladesi Island State Park, Dunedin/Clearwater, Florida
3. Coopers Beach, Southampton, New York
4. Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii
5. Coast Guard Beach, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
6. Hamoa Beach, Maui, Hawaii
7. Main Beach, East Hampton, New York
8. Coronado Beach, San Diego, California
9. Lighthouse Point Park, Daytona Beach, Florida
10. Siesta Beach, Sarasota, Florida

No doubt there are many beach communities in an uproar, especially in South Florida.
Nothing south of Sarasota got a mention... In 1992 Bahia Honda State Park in the Keys got the Best Beach award, and his previous winners are ineligible to make the list again... (Political reasons, no doubt.)

After reading his lists, criteria and other propaganda, he has an affinity for Hawaiian beaches...As he should. Beaches there are quite nice...
I have had my toes in the sand there and I have to say, they are (in my not-so-humble opinion) nicer than most Florida beaches.
(Face it... when the Army Corp of Engineers have to suck sand from a quarter-mile offshore and replenish your beach, it makes for some pretty nasty sand.)
And these hard-packed crystalized quartz "sugar sand" beaches are not my cup of tea anyway.

There were few real beaches down in the Keys: Bahia Honda, Sombrero Beach (now Switlik Park), Harry Harris Park in the upper Keys, and Smathers Beach in Key West are about all you are going to find.
There are a few others hidden away in the nooks and crannies of the Keys. The Chamber of Commerce beach on 33rd St. in Marathon for instance. A nice little beach on the bayside, not even 100yds long.
There is a little beach at the foot of Simonton St in Key West...
The problem with most of the beaches in the Keys are that the water quailty isn't that great...

(Now, you know where this is going...)

I know where there are a couple beaches much better than ANY beach in mainland Florida, or even in the Keys... Guess where?
My thing is, I'd rather they NOT show up on Dr. Beach's list, since that will drive even more people to the place. And Ghod knows, we really don't need more people cluttering up the beach.

With that in mind, let me share some more pictures from the location of my upcoming vacation:

Views from atop Loggerhead Key Light...

Looking north, toward the old Carnegie Labs ruins.

Southeast shore


Southwest shore... Great snorkling here.
This is where I saw the Loch Ness Lobster back in 2001. A spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) the size of a medium-sized dog...probably 20 lbs. Scary.


South end of the island... That old Loran tower isn't there any more...
That story coming shortly.

Back to Current Events:
So... The Cavs made a valiant effort at the end but they still didn't make it...
Now the series comes here to Cleveland. We're almost ready for the game tomorrow.
We should be 100% by the end of the day today.
Then it's all over for me... I'm heading back to Jax and Bill takes over for the rest of the series, and I go to Columbus for the NHL Draft for a couple days.
After that... I'm heading south. Really south.

The countdown is on... 21 days...

TBG Out-

Current Events - NBA Finals

Last week started in Jacksonville on Monday, had a late flight to San Antonio to get started with Stats Support for the NBA Finals. Bill Lee from the Help Desk had an earlier flight and got in a bit before I did.

Setup was a bit of a challenge in SA- mainly due to the heat... 100 degrees and 100% humidity. We hit the arena early and did our outdoor cabling before the sun really started to bake the TV Compound.

We did first game coverage with Bill inside the arena to handle inside support while I handled TV Truck support. Fun fun fun.
All went well with the game, and we packed it in about 11:00 that night.

On Friday AM I headed to Cleveland to start prepping the TV truck compound at The Q for games 3, 4 and (hopefully) 5. Bill will follow along on Monday with the rest of the NBA game support staff.
(Alas, Bill is not on the charter, he's on a commercial flight...so he won't be in until much later.)

Anyway- all will be in readiness.

There is a game tonite- live in San Antonio, and via a fiberlink there is a 3D simulcast here in Cleveland. The fun never stops here in NBA-land.
I'll be supporting the live announce position here via our ASS...heh.

(Never let it be said that we don't have a sense of humor. The NBA wanted a way to send stats from any arena during a game... Hence, the All Stats Server, the ASS.
When we add the additional code that will enable to info to be fed to multiple users and metered for revenue sharing it will become the BADASS, Brokered And Distributed All Stats Server. Heh.)

Anyway- game time, 9:00 PM. Be there, Aloha.

TBG out-

Overheard on the SMS

Excerpt of a SMS converstaion intercepted by the NSA anti-terrorism data sniffer in San Antonio Texas.

6/6/07 - 10:35PM CDT
SweetYoungThing: What kinda trouble you gettin into on the fake river?

6/6/07 - 10:37PM CDT
SomeGuy: Arrest, probably. I'll let you know later tonite. I feel like misbehaving.

6/6/07 - 10:38PM CDT
SweetYoungThing: Uh oh no good can come from that except for entertainment value of course!

6/6/07 - 10:40PM CDT
SomeGuy: It will involve a willing waitress from coyote ugly, and there is no doubt that it will all end and tears. Or perhaps bondage.

6/6/07 - 10:43PM CDT
SweetYoungThing: Whose tears? Yours or hers?

6/6/07 - 10:45PM CDT
SomeGuy: A little bit of both. Hers from fear and amazement, mine from the pepper spray.

-End of Transmission-

This can't be a good idea.

Another chapter from the "Like-my-nutritional-habits-aren't-bad-enough-already" department:

Beer Battered Deep Fried Bacon Double Quarter Pounder


"...it was the heaviest thing I'd ever munched on, and left me unable to eat for a good 24 hours afterwards."

Wow.

Saucy Shrimp

I had a jones for shrimp on Friday, so Saturday the Perfect Child and I headed out to Safe Harbor (the seafood purveyor of whom I have sung praises before...) to get some scrimps to cook up for dinner.
5 lbs of jumbo shrimp later, I was back at the Humble Abode and digging through the spice rack and dry storage to see what was available to work with...

I got out several cookbooks, including one from Uglesich's and made notes on several recipes and after a quick trip to Publix I set to work. At the risk of sounding full of myself, the results were famous amazing astounding beyond compare pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.

For your gastronomic pleasure, I present to you, lucky reader,

Saucy Shrimp...
(serves 4, or 2 if one of the 2 is an ogre)

Hardware:
10" saute pan
6-quart soup pot
Shallow bowls for serving

Ingredients:
1/2 small onion
2 celery ribs
5 garlic cloves
1/2 stick of butter
2T bacon grease.
(What? You don't save your old bacon grease after frying bacon on Saturday morning? For shame. Tsk tsk tsk. Use another 1/2 stick of butter.

2T rosemary
2t thyme
1T fennel
1T cumin
2t celery seed
2 tsp black pepper

1 Qt chicken broth
8 oz bottle clam juice
2T Crystal Hot Sauce or Texas Pete
Juice of 1 lemon
1 6oz can of tomato paste
1 bottle (12oz.) Red Stripe beer.

3 to 4 lbs of prepared* shrimp.

2 loaves Cuban bread or baguettes.
Optional: white rice

*A note on Shrimp.
There are 3 schools of thought on preparing and serving shrimp.

1. International Method
Buy whole head-on shrimp, cook & serve them intact, so their beady little eyes are watching you as you shell and eat them. Big in Europe and in Asia.

2. Lazy American Method
Buy headed shrimp, leaving tail shells intact, or just cutting the shell a bit to remove the sand vein, but leaving the bulk of the shell in place.
Some people will make the case that this method makes the shrimp more tender and keeps more of the flavoring of the cooking spices close to the meat of the shrimp.
I've tried it and I'm calling bullshit on this theory. When you peel them, the spices come off with the shell.

3. Uncle Jay's Method
Buy head-on jumbo shrimp. (They are bigger, fresher and cheaper than their prepared counterparts.)
Head, peel and de-vein shrimp while listening to Jimmy Buffett's "A1A" album.
Before the last strains of "Nautical Wheelers" are heard, you will be finished with 3 or 4 lbs of shrimp.
I peel them completely for 2 reasons... 1) because I don't overcook them, and 2) that way my dinner guests can concentrate on enjoying the food, rather than peeling their meals and dealing with shrimp shells and legs, and messy hands...

Do it however works for you...

Ready?... Here we go.

Slice and dice the onion and celery, peel and mince the garlic.

Melt the butter and bacon grease in the saute pan, and fry the onion, celery and garlic until soft. Don't brown the ingredients...just fry until soft and translucent.
(Hey! No salt yet! That's later.)

While the veggies are frying, it's time to work with the spices.
You can use fresh or dried spices, depending on what you have on-hand in your larder.
I had no fresh spices...not even a sprig of rosemary...so all mine were out of rack...
If you have fresh, so much the better for you.
If your using fresh you want to do a little cut and crush to release the oils in the herbs. For any dry spices you are using, you'll want to chop/crush them, or take them for a spin in a spice grinder, if you use one of those things.
I have a mortar and pestle for just such an occasion. Heh.
So.. Have at it... cut, crush, chop and/or grind away...

Once you have prepared your spices, and your veggies are nice and soft, reduce the heat under the saute pan and add your spices. Stir to combine. Cover the pan and head to the next step.

Get all your liquids ready to use, open all containers and bottles. Put your soup pot on the stove.
Set your burner to med-high heat and transfer the veggies from the saute pan to the 6-quart pot. Add the chicken stock, the clam juice, Red Stripe beer, hot sauce, lemon juice, and the tomato paste. Bring to a boil, the reduce heat to just above a simmer (slow boil) for 1 hour, uncovered.

After 1 hour, test for flavor and texture. Now will be the time to add salt, more garlic or garlic powder, or any other spices you like.

(Nota Bene: You will notice there is no mention of cooking shrimp up to this point. Just want to make that clear.)

Serving / Presentation.

I really hate it when some people make a shrimp dish and insist on cooking the crap out of the shrimp, making them hard, bad-tasting shrimp nuggets.
If you drop your shrimp in a pot of, say, file gumbo, and boil it for 20 or 30 minutes, the shrimp will cease to taste like shrimp and will taste like, well, not good.
Shrimp only need a few minutes of cooking to make them tasty and flavorful and wonderful.
For this particular recipe, do it my way... It's a lot of work, but worth it.

Heat your saute pan over med-hi to hi heat.
Using a soup ladle, put 2 ladles of the broth in your hot saute pan. As soon as it starts to bubble (almost immediately) add a handful (8-10) of raw, peeled, de-veined shrimp.
Let them cook for 30 seconds, then turn them over and let them cook for another 30 or so seconds...
Give them a swirl or two, and maybe pan-flip them a time or two if your are able to do that kind of thing without slpattering the entire stove with sauce. The shrimp should be over the heat for 90 seconds to 2 minutes tops. They will continue to cook in the sauce for a minute or two more after plating, and will be completely and perfectly cooked if you follow the directions correctly.

Transfer the shrimp and pan sauce to a shallow bowl and serve with crusty bread for sopping up the sauce to one of your lucky dinner guests.
Repeat for each guest.
Cook only as needed to serve each guest. Be prepared to saute more sauce and shrimp as needed for seconds and thirds.

As an alternative, serve over rice.
Have some Texas Pete or Crystal hot sauce on the table for individual taste.

Addendum:
Leftover sauce: Put it in a jar- keeps in the fridge for 2 weeks.

For saucy crawfish - Use a bigger pot, add another beer and another quart of stock, 2 T of cayenne, 2T of
hot sauce, and 1t of black peppercorns.After broth simmers for 1 hour, increase heat to low boil, add 4 lbs whole crawfish to the full pot of broth.
After 20 minutes, ladle sauce & crawfish into bowls and serve. Have lots of bread on hand for sopping up sauce.

Enjoy.


TBG out-

Phase 1, Wrapped. Sort of.

Well… The Stanley Cup Final is underway. Finally. (Is that redundant?)

I’m putting the finishing touches on the first part of arena installations...
In this part I’ve installed hardware in Atlanta, Anaheim, Buffalo, Calgary, Carolina, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Montreal, Nashville, New York Islanders, Madison Square Garden, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, San Jose, Tampa, Toronto, and Vancouver. The last stop for phase 1 is in Columbus Ohio during the draft on June 18-19...

There are a few that will need follow-up trips to get them completed... Basically any team that didn’t make 2nd round of the playoffs will get a second visit.

Phase Two is in late August. Boston, Chicago, Denver, Edmonton, Florida, LA, New Jersey’s new arena, Philly, Phoenix, St. Louis, and Washington.

I’m just back from Anaheim right now, cabling the TV Trucks for feeds from the new interface, and after taking a nightmare of a red-eye flight from LAX to Jacksonville and sleeping for 13 hours, I’m back in the saddle, getting ready for the NBA finals.

The countdown is on for my sojourn to Loggerhead Key...


Can you see Loggerhead Key out on the horizon?

Here... An aerial shot...

Talk about a deserted island...


The Lighthouse and the Keeper's Quarters...


Much more info on this forthcoming…

TBG, out-

Homeward Blog

Anaheim pulled it out last night so the series is now Anaheim 3, Detroit 2. The series goes back out to Anaheim for the next game.

I, however, am going home. At least for a day or three.

Fortuitous, since I promised the perfect child that I would take her and her minions to the midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean – At Worlds End on Thursday night.

So… Polly was heading back to Jax, and Steve was heading out to Anaheim for game support, and I gave them a ride to the airport. At 4:45 in the morning. Heh.

Steve’s flight was at 7:00 and Polly’s was at 8 something… Mine was at 11, and I'm loaded with equipment from the TVI Test. I dropped them at the curbside check-in at about 5:20.

I was there a bit early… Like 5 hours, after I did all my travel chores… gassing the car, dropping it off at the rental drop, and taking the shuttle back to the terminal. Southwest won’t let you check in more than 4 hours before your flight, so I got to sit and kill some time near the security line…

It was kind of a “A Day at Disneyworld” kind of thing… the line went through a series of s-shaped crowd management turns, and then due to the early flights, the line snaked back down a blind hallway that you couldn’t see from the entrance…

As people would walk up, the ubiquitous Crowd Control “let me see your ticket” TSA guy was herding people back down the hallway as they tried to find a way past the bulk of the line.

“Sir, follow the line.”

“Mam, the line is there.”

“Please, back of the line, sir.”

The fun part was the reaction as people turned the corner and saw how far the line extended.

“Oh Man….I don’t believe…”

“Damn.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Geez!”

“Oh no…”

“What the hell…?”

Or some variation on the above themes.

The there are the people who were late for their flights and tried to go through the “Crew Only” lane…. Not pretty.

“Please sir, we go by the line, not your flight times…”

Two girls turned on the waterworks trying to avoid the 30 minute wait.
Very entertaining, to say the least. Mr. No Tolerance didn’t budge.

Oh well.

I’m on Fistfight Airlines… I mean Southwest Airlines. Time to go stake out my position in line.

TBG out-

Helpful hint in Detroit

Tip #34,

In Detroit sushi bars, don't order the Octopus.


Big Al

TBG out-

Is that what they do in there?

Damn you, auto-correcting spell checker!

From: *********
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 12:40:11 PM
To: Everybody
Subject: Downstairs Lady's Bathroom

Good afternoon everyone,
You may now use the downstairs lady's bathroom; however, please be couscous.

Thanks,
--------------


Couscous?

There are so many comments and jokes that I don't know where to start.

TBG, Speechless-

For Luc...

(Click picture for the full image)

The front row are the LA Kings RTSS officials, the back row are the Anaheim officials scoring on the new NHL HITS System.

Ain't technology a blast?

TBG out, taking pictures.

Spectator sport

Quote of the night:

We're (some guys from the NHL) sitting in a bar in Anaheim watching the Buffalo / Ottawa game...
10 minutes left in the game- the bartender asks Damien,
"Hey, you want another beer?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact bring me ten, then you better call the cops."

Wow.

TBG, out drinking.

P.S. Ottawa won, 0-1, they are up 3 to 0. Someone tell the Fat Lady she's on in 5.

Memo from the Desk of Captain Obvious:

As we sat in lobby of the the Marriott (not the bar, go figure)
we were watching the Ottawa/Buffalo conference final go into overtime.
Dan P came up with the "uh...y'think?" quote of the night:

"This next goal is gonna be huge."

TBG, dreading overtime games, out-

Detroit- Round 3, Game 1, West.

Fun in the Motor City.

TBG Out-

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

From our "Don't-listen-to-what-she-says-Listen-to-what-she-means" Department:


Obviously a newlywed.

TBG out-

Fallen off the face of the Earth?

Well... Not really...

Last time I posted I was in on the road in the San Joaquin Valley heading for San Jose.

Since then I've been in San Jose, Seattle, Vancouver, Detroit, and finally back to Jacksonville.
As the late great Jerry Garcia said: What a long strange trip it's been.

Let's see...

A few pictures and a recap seem to be in order.

First- The drive from Jacksonville to Dallas was mostly uneventful.

I rented a Pontiac Vibe from Avis- gas milage wasn't too bad- I got about 360 miles per tank of gas. Not too shabby.

I got a late start out of Jax and as the sun was going down over Mobile it was killing my contacts so I stopped at one of the seafood places on Battleship Row...

My favorite one is being rebuilt after Katerina blew it out, so I had to go to the second choice.

Felix's

The oysters were local and not too bad, but not great either.
I had some crab soup too... Again, nothing to write home about.
They were out of the fried crab claws, which was the entire reason I stopped. Bummer.

Oh well... Just my luck.


I got back on the road just after sundown.

I made it all the way to Breaux Bridge just outside Lafayette LA before I had to break for the night, and I was off again just after daybreak.


I caught a quick lunch at Crazy Bob's BBQ in Hog Eye Texas...
And I arrived in Dallas fairly early that afternoon.

So with my carload of equipment I got to work the next day and the first of a oft-recurring problem presented itself.


"Uh... did anyone get a tape measure and measure the brackets and the rack?"

Once Dallas was finished I was off to laid-back California...Home of Pearly Sweetcake, you probably knew her well...

The Honda Center in Anaheim was on the list. I loaded their equipment in and found that their rack was even shallower than the one in Dallas.
Lovely. We'll be putting a new rack in there... Probably doing it the 3rd round of the playoffs.

I loaded up my rental car and drove the next shipment up to San Jose...

Ever driven up I-5, through the Breadbasket of California?

It's nasty.
Farmlands and stockyards. Yuk.
I had left Anaheim in the early evening and made it up just north of LA before I took a short nap, then drove on to Coalinga and got a room at a Motel 6, so I'd have a real bed and a shower before getting to the HP PAvilion Arena in San Jose.

I arrived in San Jose early the next day and spent some time in the arena,
and had dinner at a place called Hukilau in Japantown, San Jose. Not a bad little place.

I finished out (most of) the install the next day. There are a couple things outstanding that we'll iron out during the off-season, but overall we're doing good there.
The UPS took a little damage in shipment...

The shipping company obviously dropped it right on the corner of the unit...
(heh..heh...he said "unit") but I got it straightened out and it's ok now.

One thing about California- they wear their hearts on their sleeves and they wear their politics on their bumpers...
One sticker I really got a tickle out of...



I caught a flight out of San Jose the next morning for Seattle on my way to Vancouver...
There is a big, long explanation concerning why I went to Seattle and drove to Vancouver, involving reasonable airfares, rental car drop-offs and border crossings, and if you really want to know the details, email me.
Otherwise just accept it and move along....

Crossing the border at the Peace Bridge north of Seattle was cool...

I got into Vancouver that evening and stayed in a funky little Best Western called the Abercorn Inn in Richmond... The motif was Highland Scotland, and the folks in the bar were right friendly. The game was on that night and I hung out in the bar with a bunch of tourists from "Minna-Sowta" and had a great time.

Again, into battle the next morning, installing the UPS, switches, server, wiring, shelving and what-have-you...

The Canucks were practicing as I was installing my equipment... I peered over the edge of the press box to see what was going on...

Looked like a big druid worship circle, imploring the big fish-god to bring them a victory...
All went well... Obstacles were encountered and overcome.

I headed out that night, crossed back into the good ol' US of A, and stayed in one of the little neon-lit cut-rate hotel-places that border SEA-TAC, since I had a 5:30 AM flight to Detroit.
Just for the record- the Red Roof Inn at Sea-Tac is not worth the $59.00 a night that I paid. $39.00 would be overpaying. To call it a nasty shithole would be an insult to other nasty shitholes.
Avoid avoid avoid.

Back to Detroit. Again.

I got into the arena and got my hardware... I even found the cables that the building guys had run for me...
None of them were labeled, and I had no idea which ones went where, but I never let a little thing like that stop me... I jumped right into the fray.

What the hell...?

Doesn't that look suspiciously like a forklift tine hole in the side of my server box?


Why yes, so it does look like a forklift done skewered my server!

I'm fortunate, Constant Readers, that I was alone up in rafters of Joe Louis Arena; Had anyone been with me it would have been an embarrassment, As I stood there looking at the pierced box (No out-of-context jokes please) I went through all 5 stages of the Kubler-Ross grief cycle:

Denial - No way! They did not run a forklift tine into my server!

Anger - If I find the M#*&%@er who did this...I'm gonna razzel-frazzin...

Bargaining - Oh, C'mon... If I could fix that UPS in San Jose, I'm sure I could get this patched up...And besides, Detroit probably won't make it to the third round anyway.

Depression - Oh man... I'm screwed. This thing is dead-dead-dead, and they'll never believe it was like this when I got here. They'll blame it on me. It will all end in tears.

Acceptance - Screw it. I'll give it a shot just to see if it will work. Who knows, I might get lucky.

Well... It was ok... the damage was superficial. I dodged a bullet there.

I did as much as I could and then split out of there...

As for the East- teams like Ottawa, Bufallo and the NY/NJ multiplex, my compatriot Sean handled them...

Sean? You know Sean.

This is Sean. (He's the one on the right.)
The other one is Nicole. You can visit her at the Hooters near the Long Island Coliseum.


Ok... Onward. More stuff as we proceed into Round 3.

(Oh yeah- By the way- Luc, I got your message. I said *I* liked "Galapagos"... I didn't say *you* would... I am a warped and twisted literary omnivore. My taste is quite suspect. The only thing I like better than Hunter S. Thompson's writing is perusing pornographic stained-glass windows. )

TBG out-

Flight Tips

I sat with two Flight Attendants while waiting on my flight to Orange County...

We discussed the issues surrounding Flight Attendants and passengers...
I had to share my irritation with them about getting whacked in the shoulder every time the beverage cart passes, and they told me the Flight Attendant's Litany of Passenger Stupidity.

Here are my takeaways from this oh-so-enlightening chat.
(Bear in mind, it was 5:30 AM when this took place.)

Good Ideas:

1. Never push the call button.
(Get up and find your own blanket or pillow, I'm not your Mom. And we'll be back around with the beverage cart or to pick up the trash shortly. Cool your jets.)
And NEVER ever push the call button just to ask when we are going to land.

2. Unless you absolutely have to be up, keep your butt in your seat. If they're doing a snack-and-beverage service, it's almost impossible with people in the aisle.
This especially includes you 18-to-24 year olds... You don't need to go visit the other folks in your group to discuss the hottie in row 14. You'll have plenty of time to do that when you get to our destination.

3. If it's a short flight or a small commuter plane, use the bathroom in the terminal before the flight.

4. If there is a food service of any sort, asking for seconds of anything is a way to get the big "ASSHOLE" tattoo on your forehead by the Flight Attendants.

5. Look- here comes the Flight Attendants with the fod service. I think I'll wait until they arrive and are holding my tray out for me to take before I start putting away my laptop and papers...
(you can wind up wearing your beef-with-brown-gravy-stuff if you take too long.)

8. If you are traveling with little 2 year-old Precious, find out what he or she wants before the Flight Attendant gets there for the beverage service. Asking Precious what he or she wants as the Flight Attendant waits and waits and waits is a Bad Thing.

7. You are a dipshit if you ask for a pillow, watch the Flight Attendant look through 8 overhead bins to find you one, then when she finally finds one for you, you then ask for a blanket too.

7a. You are REALLY a dipshit if you watch your neighbor ask for a blanket, then a pillow, and THEN ask the Flight Attendant to find you one (or both).

8. Don't ask the Flight Attendants to help you lift your bag into the overhead bin. Jerk.

9. If you absolutely have to take off your shoes during a flight, have the good taste to wear socks. Please. And don't put your bare feet up on the bulkhead walls or the back of the seat in front of you.

10. A good way to get a drink spilled on you is to request a refill of your beverage by rattling your cup of ice at the Flight Attendant.

11. You have ample warning as the Flight Attendants get the plane ready to land before they make the announcement to shut your Gameboy, iPod, Walkman, MP3 player, laptop, Crackberry, or whathaveyou... If the Flight Attendant has to come remind you to shut you item off, you are an asshat.

12. Don't let little Precious wander up and down the aisle. And clean your kid up, for crying out loud. No one want to see Precious' candy-bar-stained face and hands rubbed against their clothes as he/she meanders down the aisle..

13. Don't paint your nails on the plane. (This is from 5/1/07, on my flight from Seattle to Chicago) The smell irritates everyone for 4 rows around you.

14. Don't touch!! Don't poke, tap, grab or tug the Flight Attendant to get her attention while she's serving someone else...

15. Speak your order in tones loud enough to be heard. (I'm guilty of this... Just mouthing the drink order, because I'm afraid of yelling over the ambient noise level of the plane.)

16. Don't call the Flight Attendant a Stewardess. No no no.

17. Don't, under pain of getting stragled with a seat belt extention, as you are getting off the plane, tell the Flight Attendant to "Smile!". Big mistake.

Never Never nevers:

1. Never yell at, curse at, intimidate or threaten a Flight Attendant.
They are protected by federal statutes (just like manatees and spotted owls). Any interference with them doing their duties can land you with a hefty fine and prison time (up to 10 years). The law and the TSA is on their side, and they will make your life miserable if they want to...

2. Don't upgrade yourself. Aside from the walk of shame *when* you get caught (and you WILL get caught)...it is theft of service if the Flight Attendant and the Captain want to make a case for it.

3. Don't take anything off the beverage cart. Unattended or not, don't take sodas, ice, water or booze... Stealing is stealing...Even in business class, where the booze is free, you can't just take it. It must be served. Part of the regulations for service. Don't touch the cart.

Things I still don't understand...

Why I get yelled at when my seat is reclined 2 inches during take off.

Why do we get the life vest and seat-cushion-floatation-device talk when we are flying from Dallas to Denver. Aside from the obvious futility of a water landing (i.e. a crash), I doubt the captain will be trying to land in a lake or a swimming pool if we are going down during that flight.

And the ubiquituous "to fasten your seat belt, to unfasten your seatbelt..." lesson:
Do they think there is anyone on there that hasn't ever used a seatbelt before?

TBG, heading out, again-