Lunch Report: The Columbia, Ybor City...

You may recall that my wife and I yammered on endlessly about lunch at The Columbia in St. Augustine during our trip there in December. Well the original Columbia is located in Tampa in the historic Ybor City district, and since we just happened to jump off the plane during lunch hour, we thought we would take the kids for a visit. The setting in St. Augustine is certainly different than Ybor City, where, though it is certainly an area attempting to attract visitors, there is still local traffic and commerce taking place; don't be shocked if you experience an earthquake-like thumpity-thump of some sick ride with 20-inch rims and such. But once inside, you are transformed back to what we had expected of this old favorite.I'll dispense with the excess details and get right to the vittles. We were somewhat famished, so when the waiter brought us our loaves of Cuban bread with butter, it was like a feeding frenzy. Watch your fingers. Make no mistake, my wife was ready for the Chicken and Yellow Rice not long after we had made our reservations for the trip to Florida; she didn't even need a menu. This is not the same Arroz con Polla you'll find at a Mexican restaurant on the west side in San Antonio, but a Cuban version described as "one quarter chicken baked with yellow rice, green peppers, onions and tomatoes, spices and virgin olive oil". The difference is saffron instead of cumin. They have this dish down to a science and there were no complaints. My son-in-law opted for the original Cuban, a full sized sandwich not suitable for the timid. The menu describes the Cuban as "Smoked ham, pork, salami, Swiss cheese, dill pickle and mustard on hot Cuban bread" The bread is just so soft and wonderful on the inside even though it is sort of toasted on the outside. It came with fried plantain chips - pretty tasty.My son and I opted for the Half and Half. This is half a Cuban and half of a 1905 Salad. You already got the run-down on the Cuban. The 1905 is all sorts of good. The waiter comes to the table to finish building it, then serves it up. They explain it like this: "Crisp iceberg lettuce with julienne of baked ham, natural Swiss cheese, tomato, olives, grated Romano cheese and our famous garlic dressing (our 100 year old family recipe of fresh garlic, oregano, wine vinegar and Spanish extra virgin olive oil)" I love a really good salad and this one ranks right up there with the best I have ever had - seriously.

My daughter (and with everyone else taking bites from it) had an awesome cheeseburger called George's Burger. Not named after any presidents you know, but instead created by long time Columbia employee George Guito, they describe it as "Grilled seasoned choice ground beef topped with cheddar cheese, Ruskin tomatoes, lettuce, onions, ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard on Cuban bread". I don't know if it was just the novelty of putting it on Cuban bread, but I kid you not, this thing was good.Just outside the restaurant, there is a cigar shop that doubles as a gift shop. I'm not a cigar smoker, but the aroma is really wonderful. And it is kinda cool to see people sitting there rolling a few stogies.

Out on the sidewalk, we found a few entertaining sidewalk pavers. You know how people pay a fee to sponsor a paver and have their family name or some special message placed on there forever. Well, sometimes, forever might be a little more than you really want. Like in this case, whoever Lysa felt strongly enough about to buy a paver for, felt even more strongly about erasing any evidence of their relationship later!

I'll leave you with this important advice found on a paver in Ybor City in front of The Columbia:
UPDATE: I got an e-mail from Mr. Richard Gonzmart, the great-grandson of the founder of The Columbia. In addition to inviting us for a tour of the restaurant on our next visit, he provided me with the all important explanation of the "Lysa" Paver. Turns out a couple got married at The Columbia on Labor Day, then got divorced two years later. And then one night, during the cover of darkness, she took the ol' chisel out and erased the evidence! I'm only speculating here, but perhaps she loves the 1905 Salad so much she wants to be able to bring future boyfriends back without the bad memories. And this my friends is why you should always think twice about getting a huge tattoo on your arm that says "Heloise".

Flight Report: Zip It... Check It... Get Off Fast...

To those of you who may have been in Terminal B, Gate 21 at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport Thursday morning, I’d like to apologize for standing there, publicly presenting myself in an unzipped fashion. For some reason, my jeans have this situation where they can magically unzip themselves. And thanks to the lady who, while simultaneously talking on her cell phone, gave me that unmistakable non-verbal that says, “You, sir, are extremely creepy, and standing there with your zipper fully lowered will not get you any action, especially with your wife and kids standing next to you.” Thank you for that – I got the message loud and clear!

But my Faux Pas is not what this is about. Have you noticed that the airlines have started charging you for having more than one checked bag? It used to be that you could check two bags and take a carry-on with no problem. Now, they want you to pay $25.00 for a second bag. No problem, I’ll leave my couch at home.

But as if the carry-on bag situation was not obnoxious enough already, this new rule has made otherwise honest, rule-abiding travelers push the envelope of good air-travel taste. We had just such a case on our flight to Tampa.

This was an overbooked, totally packed flight with no room for shenanigans. As luck would have it, we were in the back of the bus, so to speak, and in such cases, after arrival, you may as well sit there and read a book while people figure out how to un-ass the plane they boarded only 90 minutes earlier. This process is only exasperated when people can’t readily locate and remove their carry-on items and get off the plane. And heaven knows you have plenty of time to think about it.

So meet the remaining members of ABBA.

These people didn’t want their precious instruments to mingle with common checked luggage, so they carried-on a small orchestra along with several wardrobe changes. Oh, and then they proceeded to place said items throughout the cabin, not just above or forward of their assigned seats.

Oh, then they forgot where they put everything. Yea. Instead of just sitting down and waiting for the remain five rows to exit the plane, they attempted to swim upstream searching through random overhead bins for lost guitars and such. Pure comedy.

Hope they have a nice concert.

Whirlwind Week Report: And it isn't over...

I hope you can forgive my lack of exciting reporting coming from The Five-Oh in the past week or more but things have been quite hectic and rewarding on several fronts.

I shan't bore you with the Neighborhood Watch related issues that made big news, but I'll send you to this link regarding a tragic situation and leave it at that for the time being.

In other local neighborhood excitement, our board of directors (there are only four currently) figured out who would be the new Chair and vice-Chair. I'm not sure if it is public info or not, so I suppose we'll have to wait until the next meeting for the announcement. The really interesting thing to me is that one of our board members no longer lives in the neighborhood. In other words, someone who will not be impacted in any way by decisions of the board is helping (or in some cases, hindering) the things that impact me! I think that is wrong. What about you?

Okay, forget all that unpleasantness. So last night we were off to attend my son's commencement ceremony - he graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Unlike many of his fellow graduates, he was on the 4-year plan as opposed to the apparently common 5, 6 and 7 year programs. You know, a lot of people go to college for seven years. I know, they're called doctors. Sorry.

Just as we were leaving the house, my daughter called and said that her flight from Philadelphia had been delayed and that now, she wouldn't be getting into San Antonio until Saturday AM instead of late Friday night. I know, you are probably asking yourself why I, as a good father, didn't volunteer to drive to Dallas, pick her and her husband up at DFW, then drive back to San Antonio? People, Texas is a big state. It would take me five and a half hours to get from my side of SA to DFW and and other five and a half hours to get back! And we still had to attend my son's graduation!

Luckily, she has a friend who lives just near the airport, so they got to have a nice visit and about 4 hours of sleep before taking a flight out this morning. Oh, and in case you are wondering, American Airlines didn't offer them a hotel room, or a pillow - and surely no coupon for a free flight or bag of peanuts.

But back to the graduation. This event was held at the UTSA Convocation Center. Not a bad place for a ceremony of this size.We are usually pretty good at picking out our kids from a crowd of people, but without binoculars or a telephoto lens, we spent most the ceremony fawning over some kid who looks like my son from half a mile away. I'm sure that kid will do well in life, but as soon as he got up to walk, we knew it wasn't our son. Bad posture. As it turned out, we were never in a position to see our son until he got up to walk to the stage. Perhaps that other young man's parents were in the audience and made the same mistake with our kid.

So, they have these things down to a science. The administration knows that you couldn't care less about the other 700 people graduating, you only care about your own kid. Speeches were short, there were no politically motivated anti-W comments and in general, once they started reading off names, it was like fine clock-work.

Unfortunately, they still go alphabetically, and with a last name starting with "S", we had a lot of waiting to do. And we did wait, very politely I might add. But funny, as the end of the commencement neared and as we began to get excited for our son (and apparently some kid who looked just like our son), we noticed that the people who have graduates with last names starting in the first half of the alphabet were starting to simply get up and leave.Hey, I don't care if you want to leave and not watch my kid graduate even though I gave a heartfelt golf-clap when your kid walked the stage, but please don't block my view of the stage as you exit your seat. How discourteous is that? And it wasn't one or two families. I'm talking half the place was emptying when there was literally ten minutes left.Well guess what suckers, when the commencement was over, UTSA brought out the Mariachis! How Purro San Antonio is that, to bust out orange sombrero wearing mariachis? And they were damn good. To all you people who left early - piss off!So it isn't over yet. My daughter and son-in-law got in this morning and shortly, we are off to my son's commissioning ceremony. I know a few of you have seen me around minus the mustache and goatee. I'm stuffing myself into my service dress uniform for the ceremony and had to shave to be in "regs". Hopefully there won't be a weigh-in. My daughter has come with her uniform and she will give my son his first official salute. Bust out your hankies.

We'll zip over to Florida shortly so my dad (who for medical reasons couldn't make it tonight) can slip into his uniform and provide another salute. As you might expect, our military family is pretty proud of our first officer in the family.

So, if I don't have more goofy pictures or updates on the latest restaurants for several more days or so, I hope you can understand. Maybe now is a good time to go back and read some of the older posts. You know you want to.

Strange in New Jersey: Car Pool Dummy...

My daughter has picked up my knack of taking pictures of strange and entertaining things she encounters... why just yesterday she sent me this little gem.It seems that in New Jersey, you can get a benefit of driving in the high occupancy vehicle lane and park in the good carpooler spots as long as you have a passenger in your car.

What Happens When City Folk Move to The Country...

I kid you not, just the other night whilst watching the Spurs Vs. Hornets debacle with the ring of fire incident, I heard my dog barking in the back yard. I interrupted my mocking of the Hornets' staff to go investigate, and sure enough, my dog Gracie is barking at an Opossum frozen on the fence.

Yea, here in The Five-Oh, we get opossums, raccoons, skunks and other forms of wildlife.

So a friend sent me this picture with the caption:"What Happens When City Folk Move to The Country".

Spurs Vs Hornets: Ring Of Fire...Really!

I think I'm going to stick with the Spurs Coyote as a favorite mascot. The NO Hornets mascot, Hugo, tried a little flaming dunk action but things just didn't turn out as expected...Oh, he made it through the ring of fire and even dunked. Unfortunately, the crew couldn't get the fire to stop and the end result was a huge delay while they attempted to clean the fire extinguisher powder from the floor. I'm sure someone is getting fired over this.

HEB Report: Picking The Wrong Line...

Technically, we didn't pick the wrong line; the kind HEB associate directed my wife down the path of frustration, and she was too polite to inform him that her Spidey-Senses were giving her a bad vibe about the situation. So there we stood with half our cart unloaded on the conveyor belt, and in front of our stuff, another family with a full cart of groceries sitting idle. In front of them was a lady who seemed to be having a bad day.

Something to do with buying four candy bars and not getting the fifth one for free as the coupon suggested she should. Then, with the help of the cashier, a manager and a bag boy, that issue was resolved. When everything was resolved as to what the bill should be, just then did she begin to search her suitcase sized purse for the all allusive debit card.

Have you ever heard that term, "Ready Golf"? I'm not a golfer, but once while participating in a tournament for slackers (a Best Ball style arrangement), a co-worker explained to me this concept of playing ready-golf. The idea being that, you don't want to rush the group of golfers in front of you, but by God, as soon as they have cleared the green, you should be ready to take your next shot.

I have applied this "ready-golf" idea to all things in life. For example, if you are at a stop light, you should be ready to go when the light turns green, not when you finish your nails or changing radio stations. And thus, we find ourselves in HEB standing in line behind a lady who already has her bagged groceries in the cart, has the full attention of a cashier, a manager and a bag boy, and she is just now thinking about how she might pay for this little transaction.

We got the sympathetic and knowing look from the lady in front of us who was stuck like chuck, the same as us.Meanwhile, as the lady is pulling out receipts and notes and yellow sticky's and feminine products, her kid has grabbed a box of candy from the counter and opened it and wandered off to eat it. The manager casually rang up a similar box of candy and added the cost to the bill. Here, Everything's Better.

Thankfully, the manager did some sort of technique where he could suspend the transaction, pull the lady aside and let our cashier get the line moving again, and of course, just then the lady found her debit card along with some important documents relevant to The Da Vinci Code. Not quick enough my dear; had you learned to play "ready-shopping" you wouldn't have had to go to another register to finish your transaction.