My wife and I made an abbreviated trip to the HEB Plus on Potranco this morning and during the course of our little shopping trip, I was provided with a little bit of insight from an attractive Cowboys fan.
I have said it before and the fact remains, I have the worst luck when it comes to choosing lanes. This could be while driving, while going through a bank drive-thru, or as is mostly the case, while selecting the perfect line to check-out at the HEB. Today was no different.
As we finished up our shopping, my wife went over to Spoonz, the grill at HEB Plus to grab us a few malts to hold us over until we could get some real food later this afternoon. I decided to go ahead and get in line to pay for the groceries. We both figured that by the time the malts were made, I'd be through the check-out, and we would meet out in the parking lot.
But, my normal luck kicked in and there were three lanes all in a row, where it looked as though the groceries had been rung up and ready to go in the basket. I suppose I could have gone further down and looked for even shorter waits, but with three all so clo9se to being ready, it was literally a coin-toss or rock-paper-scissors moment. I opted for the first one and eagerly unpacked my shopping cart. 
About the time I had the 35-pack of water on the little conveyor belt, it occurred to me that there was no customer standing in front of me, just her groceries. My gut reaction was to simply load all my items back into the basket and move along to another lane. But just then, a nice lady squeezed herself between me, my basket and the shelves and began a discussion about coupons and chicken prices and the like.
Did I mention that my initial gut reaction was to gather up my stuff and move along?
So, I have been told by many people that I have more patience than the average person. Life is too short, ya know? But there is another thing that sort of bubbles under the surface sometimes. I often have the urge to blurt out (Cover your ears, kids) "For F**K's Sake!" at the top of my lungs, but I rarely actually do it.
Instead, I had this urge to offer to pay the difference of whatever coupon was in dispute or even offer to have the cashier put the nice lady's entire package of chicken on my bill. But, before I could make such a fine gesture, a manager came up to the register to help with the dilemma. Again, I thought, maybe this thing was over but sure enough, the kind lady in front of me found some other issue requiring mediation.
Just as I was beginning to wonder if perhaps the HEB Plus had a shotgun section, a very attractive Dallas Cowboys fan strolled up behind me and threw down some fajitas, tortillas and a few other odds and ends on the conveyor behind my stuff. She struggled with the little item separator thing because they always seem to be stuck, so I reached over and ripped it away from where it was lodged under the magazine rack above. I told her this was a poor design.
So I usually don't strike up conversations with people in HEB; that's more of my wife's thing, but I thought it only fair that I warn her about the lane she had chosen. I looked at her directly into the eyes because I was somewhat worried that if I allowed my gaze to notice the huge Cowboy's star on her shirt, she'd think I was a creep, or more importantly, my wife would walk up just at that moment. So, I quietly told this lady that she might want to pick a different lane because the little transaction in front of me had been going on for at least 10 minutes now.
The Cowboy's fan just looked at me and her jaw dropped. She said, "This is exactly why men hate women!" Then, she went on with a very expletive laced rant about how the lady "is probably making a big deal out of 14 cents worth of difference" and wasn't she aware that today is NFL day and so on. I liked this woman but I was afraid that some fisticuffs might ensue and my wife wouldn't be around to keep me out of the fray.
Just then, the Cowboy fan's "friend" showed up with some beer and tossed it onto the conveyor belt. She too was prepared for the game though and now, the original Cowboy fan was giving her a blow by blow account of how this lady in front of us was the reason men hated women.
Thankfully, if the lady who had caused the NFL Day Delay, had heard any of the profanity laced discussion behind her, she was smart enough to ignore it.
By the time I got through the checkout and out to the front of HEB, my wife was walking around looking for me thinking that I must have gotten lost. As we loaded groceries into the van, I got her to stare out toward the direction of the HEB exit so I could point out all the different people involved in the incident.
Never a dull moment.
My wife and I spent the day at her mom's house so we could help out with a few chores that needed to be done. The city is supposed to start brush pick-up in her neighborhood Monday, so we went over for some tree trimming, fence mending, pecan picking, and a little entertaining rake repairing.
By the time we arrived, my brother-in-law Junior, had made quite a project of the deforestation of the yard. The house, over in the Lackland area of town, has pecan trees, front and back. But, many of them have outlived their pecan life and the branches fall without warning. So, some major trimming had to occur.
My big project involved the replacing of an old gate with an older gate. I know, doesn't really make sense, but what the heck. A few months back, I had built a new gate for my own privacy fence with the intentions of throwing the old one out with our brush collection. My mother-in-law saw it and said it would be perfect to replace one on the back of her yard. She has a small section on the side of her shed that we often store old wood and stuff in, and the gate covers the ugliness from view.
Plus, when some people drink beer, they often get the urge to pee outdoors, and that little closed area allows them the freedom to be one with nature, but not offend anyone else. I know what you are thinking, and no, I prefer to use any of the three "regular" facilities available. I can't take my wife anywhere. Just kidding.
So, the gist of it is, I pulled off the old gate with no problem but found that the new old gate was a bit wider and heavier and was going to need some heavy duty hinges. So, a trip to Home Depot, then a trip to my house to grab my circular saw, and we were in business.
During the course of all this work, my wife and her sister started picking up pecans. This led to Junior throwing a leaf rake into the tree so as to shake loose some of the pecans. The end result was that my mother-in-law's favorite gardening tool was damaged during the turbulent flight into one of the unforgiving and unyielding tree branches.
Junior made a valiant attempt at hiding the damaged rake from view, but my wife promptly ratted him out to the mother-in-law, and over the next hour or so, he began a rather unorthodox attempt at repairing the yard implement.
Luckily, my late father-in-law Nando, was always good for having some spare screws, washers and other assorted items handy in his workshop, so Junior had all he needed, provided his imagination held out.
In the meantime, my sister-in-law's husband Armando, used a plastic spatula tied to a rope to lasso a dead branch from the tree and pull it down. Everyone cheered when on his 7th or 8th attempt, he found success.
My son watched from mid tree.
Naturally, we couldn't let this day pass without some vittles, so the grill was lit and we threw on some chicken, ribs, and a few burgers for good measure.
Armando repaired an extension cord that had seen better days.
Finally, after several screws, a few pieces of hardware and lots of sheer determination, Junior had successfully put the rake back into clean, dry, and serviceable order. And he even took it for a test drive to prove it.
The only problem is, it requires safety gloves, eye protection and a hard hat to use it, due to the China-like refusal to follow any acceptable OSHA standards!
You may recall a while back, I gave a report on lunch my wife and I had at the Sea Island at Bandera Pointe near 1604. I wasn't really impressed with the quality that time around. Well, here is an update: Go to the Sea Island at Loop 410 near Ingram Park Mall.
What with it being Columbus Day and such, I took a half-day off work and celebrated this holiday with lunch. I have been wanting some fish, and though it wasn't catfish, I figured Sea Island would do. My wife insisted that we go to the restaurant near Loop 410 as opposed to the 1604 location, and it was a good choice.
We both had the B Lunch (shrimp and fish) and were quite pleased. First, the fish was not dry at all and I got the bonus of having an extra piece thrown on for good measure. The hush puppies were perfectly cooked - not hard as a rock. And the cole slaw was out of this world.
My wife was so happy that she went to the manager and thanked him for the quality and complimented the friendly staff and quick service.
Sorry, I was too hungry to take a picture before eating, but it was such a Tasty Treat that shortly after this photograph was taken, I joined the "Clean Plate Club"!
I was at the downtown office this morning and took a few shots of the progress since my last visit. 
You can see the walls of the river bed starting to form. 
It looks like it is a pretty moist environment to work in.
Through a series of perfectly explainable events, I had come to believe that today, I was going to have the chance to see my beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers play live on national TV via the Fox network and local affiliate KABB-29 against the Super Bowl champion Indy Colts, coached by my favorite coach in any sport, Tony Dungy.
How could I make such a mistake? Well, last week there was some promos for it, then when checking online through the MySA.com Express-News listings, it showed the game. So, when I remotely logged into my DVR via the internet to record the game in HD, I was shocked to find out that instead of the football game, KABB was showing a movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I went back to the web listing I found earlier on MySA.com, it was linked to a national listing. When I entered the Zip Code, sure enough; no game.
So, I did what any normal person would do. I sent the following e-mail to KABB and to the folks at Maximum Sports:
Nationally, Fox is carrying the Bucs-Colts football game this afternoon. KABB is playing, "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers".
Are you people communists? Immediately turn in your Man cards, all of you. Even the women.
Unbelievable.
Not long after, I received a series of e-mails from the various members of the Maximum Sports crew, including Chuck Miketinac, Hector Ledesma and Drea Avent. They were all sympathetic to my plight, but explained that the rules between the NFL and the networks are the reason they can't show the Bucs-Colts game. Only one network can show a double-header - and this week, CBS had two games. So, they had to choose between a game that would impact the Cowboys (the one they showed) or the game I wanted to watch. I lost out on that.
But, they were all nice to me in their responses so I replied back authorizing them the return of Man Cards and such. Though, Drea is too pretty to carry one. But I did assure her that I did not think she was a Commie either.
So, the moral of the story is this: KABB isn't the bad guy here; the NFL is the bad guy. So down with the NFL! Booo!!!
And go ahead and watch Maximum Sports tonight so we can at least see the highlights of the Bucs-Colts game.
My wife and I have been meaning to try out this new BBQ place that recently opened on Bandera and Eckhert in Leon Valley called Dickey's. According to a friend of my wife, this place is the cat's meow. So, we took a little drive over and gave it a try.
First mistake was deciding to go at the exact same time every other person in Leon Valley got the bright idea to try it. We stood in line for close to twenty minutes, primarily because they only have a single cash register/order taker. So, if you try Dickey's and see a long line, be prepared for a wait.
The crowd also resulted in a seating situation. The dining room is small so people were literally standing there waiting for other people to un-ass their seats so they could sit down. Again, timing is everything, because by the time we had finished eating, (around 7PM) seating was not an issue.
I would like to point out kudos to a proactive floor manager. There was a large table of folks sitting next to us (8 to 10 people) who had clearly finished dinner, had to-go containers filled and were sitting there enjoying after dinner conversation. This is perfectly fine and a reasonable thing to do if the situation permits. But in the case of having people literally standing there waiting for a table to sit at so they can eat their food, most reasonable people will get up and leave. The Dickey's manager came by and asked the people how everything was and if he could get them anything else. They said it was all great and no, they were fine. So then he gave them the boot. Bravo.
To the vittles. I genuinely had a hankerin' for catfish and had thought about it all day long. I figured my wife would get some brisket or something and I'd get fish. Important note: You are not at Grady's and there is no fish.
When we started looking at the prices for what she wanted and what I wanted (since there was no fish, I was going to try some pulled pork and some brisket) we decided it would be cheaper if we went all out and ordered what they call the Full House. You get 2 ounces each of the eight different meats they serve so you can get an idea of what it is like. You also get rolls and two sides. Dickey's does not skimp on the portions, so this Full House platter could easily feed a family of four.
They have a condiment bar so you can load up on the standard pickles, onions and other needed accoutrements to dress out your buffet, and I especially liked that they had a selection of three or four sauces that were in heated tins. You basically grab a plastic tub and fill it with the sauces of your choosing.
Though it took an eternity to order, our food was out rather quickly and by the time we had filled our drinks, gotten the sauces and prepared ourselves for a heart attack worth of food, it was delivered to our table.
I found it all to be fine. I had no issues with any of the meats or the two different sausages. Both the chicken and the turkey were cooked nicely and they were not dry. My wife said a piece of ham she tried was hard, but the piece I had was fine. The order came with a single pork rib which we took turns gnawing on, and it was cooked to be very tender. The pulled pork had great texture and the brisket was fine. For me, the key to all of this was the sauces. I took a bite of each item without sauce, and then tried the "Hot" sauce and the "Sweet" sauce. The Hot had a nice taste to it but I've had better. The Sweet was very nice and complimented all the meats. My wife felt like the Sweet had a bit too much of a kick to it, but I was already numb from the Hot, so I guess I didn't notice.
Our sides included the Onion Tangles (onion rings) and green beans with bacon. Oh, the green beans with bacon also included cooked potato slices. A nice touch and very tasty indeed.
We really couldn't make a dent in the full platter and opted instead to finish dinner with a soft serve cone, sort of like they used to have at Bananza.
Okay. I'd say give it a try. It may be that we are just hard core Grady's people, but overall, I didn't see this as being anything special. My wife was a little more blunt in her evaluation, giving it an Eeee-Yuck! I don't know how that translates in restaurant review jargon, but it definitely means we probably won't go again. But I'd say it is worth giving a shot. Just don't go at 6PM on a Saturday night.
And just remember, if you don't like it, Grady's is just across the street.
We just took a trip over to the HEB Plus on Potranco to grab some fruit and such when we remembered that a new memorial had been built, recognizing the fact that Pope John Paul II had made a trip to San Antonio and spoke before an assembled crowd of 350,000 people in Westover Hills. So, we stopped in and took a gander.
I thought it was pretty clever of Northside ISD to choose the name of the high school there as John Paul Stevens (after the Justice) but have it also fit John Paul (the pope) since the school and the memorial are on the same spot. Hopefully, some numbnuts won't try to file a suit claiming something to do with church and state and school prayer and such.
Anyway, if you thought about going by, this is what you can expect.
About the time I had the 35-pack of water on the little conveyor belt, it occurred to me that there was no customer standing in front of me, just her groceries. My gut reaction was to simply load all my items back into the basket and move along to another lane. But just then, a nice lady squeezed herself between me, my basket and the shelves and began a discussion about coupons and chicken prices and the like.
Just as I was beginning to wonder if perhaps the HEB Plus had a shotgun section, a very attractive Dallas Cowboys fan strolled up behind me and threw down some fajitas, tortillas and a few other odds and ends on the conveyor behind my stuff. She struggled with the little item separator thing because they always seem to be stuck, so I reached over and ripped it away from where it was lodged under the magazine rack above. I told her this was a poor design.
