I Blame Canada...mostly

As I pulled into my hotel in Charlotte Monday night, snow flakes were already starting to fall. It helped soothe the frustration I had towards myself for not checking the Spurs schedule. I’m walking down the terminal and at one of those sports bar things, they are showing highlights. Of course I see Tony Parker and I am immediately drawn in only to see “Hey, that was this afternoon. Hey, that was in Charlotte. Hey, I AM in Charlotte!” I mean, what was the chance that the one time they play in Charlotte all season was the very day I am in town? Not only that, but this is the Bobcats we’re talking about here…I could’ve totally gotten like a $5 ticket then moseyed on down to the front row. But seeing the snow made me happy and excited. I figured I would get into the hotel, pull up my email, and they folks who I was meeting with would have sent me something saying “FYI, we’re getting snow here, so let’s work something out” Well…that would’ve been fine if I could get through the Lockheed firewall. Luckily I am amazing and foresaw this possibility and printed out my contact’s information before I left the office earlier. Since it was around 11 pm, I figured I would just call in the morning to see if things were still good. About six hours and five inches of snow later, we connected and decided we would squeeze the meeting in on Wednesday before I flew out.

This left me with all day Tuesday to sit and watch the Inauguration circus. My TV was dripping from all the media drooling over their newly appointed Savior of the Universe. Seriously, I had to get a towel. Luckily, TNT was showing Cool Runnings, so I was spared much of the parade nonsense. Although I am a bit disappointed I missed Ted Kennedy’s exit. Anyway, by the time I left Charlotte, it was a brisk 25 degrees. When I touched down at DFW, it was dang near balmy at 72. I rode home with my top down. Then Friday, put the top down again, went to get gas, return my Blockbuster rental that I never watched, and buy the book I’m currently reading, making a semi loop around Fort Worth. By the time I was on my way home I had the heater cranked up, seat warmers on, and was still shivering. Within like a couple hours the temperature dropped from near 80 to around 40. From that point, the rest of the weekend was miserable. To top it all off, I thought I has left my phone in North Carolina (but it turns out it was just in the bottom of my laptop bag), so I had to go knock on my neighbor’s door in my weakened and vulnerable state and ask if I could use their phone to call in sick for my Temple shift.

I realize the origin of this front was somewhere up in Canada, so I put the blame for my congestion and sneezing and general deplorable station squarely on her shoulders. Well, fine…we all know Okalahoma’s primary role in the galaxy is to stand as a buffer against these kinds of things, so in fairness they really dropped the ball. So let me do the calculations….do the weights and factors….carry the 3….and it turns out my sickness this weekend can be blamed 74% on Canada, 19% on Oklahoma, 4.5% on the other plain states, and 2.5% on Al Gore. Seriously, shouldn’t Florida be underwater and Alberta growing wheat already? Instead we’re now set for an over-exaggerated Texas ice storm. In a time where it is popular to place blame on any and everything that can and will go wrong, someone needs to pay. So when my neighbor lets me know how much the long distance call to Dallas was, I will send it along with my Walgreen’s receipt to Ottawa and they can decide how to split the check.

The Tortilla Soup Quest

It's been over a month since my last post...and quite frankly I'm not surprised it has taken me more than 30 days to write my second entry. In fact, I should have called it out in my previous post so it would make it seem like a) I had no intention to get back to it in the near future and b) all my loyal readers wouldn't get their underthings in a bunch. In all honesty, I just didn't know what to write about. But at least I'm better than George RR Martin and his apparent total disregard to his readers. I mean, how stinking long does it take to put out the next book that was supposedly already half done like 3 years ago...anyway, that's for another post at another time.

I was out to lunch with some peeps this past week and we went to Saltgrass. After thinking about it, we really should have gone somewhere else because I seriously had the best steak of my life not 18 hours earlier down in the Fort Worth Stockyards and I should have known anything would have paled in comparison to the ecstasy I experienced that night. I mean, the thing was soooo good it's almost as if they carved it off the cow itself just moments before searing it. Which considering that we were in the Stockyards, probably wasn't far off.

Anyway, we went to Saltgrass and had an average steak (I wasn't paying for it, so what did I care?), and the all-important question came when I placed my order..."would you like soup or salad with that?" What I usually do is ask "what are your soups today?" knowing full well that I am so not a soup guy and will most likely go with the salad, but I guess I feel that I am being polite by inquiring after their soup selection. My waiter surprised me when he said they were serving tortilla soup, something I had not expected from a steakhouse, so I was like, well now I have to try it. I don't know what it is, but for some reason I have this compulsion to try tortilla soup wherever I go and make a mental evaluation based on previous taste trials. Similar to one friend that has to try and compare calamari, and another who's first order at a new place is always the chicken enchiladas.


So I've tried tortilla soups from a number of different establishments all across the country, (well, at least Texas, California, and Nevada anyway) and I can say that Saltgrass ranks towards the bottom. In fact, let's just be honest, it's dead last as far as I am concerned. First of all, it was kinda creamy, and I am such a fan of broth-based tortilla soup, but it wasn't all the way creamy...more like curddy, if that's a word. And the chicken was tiny cut up processed chunks of something or-nother, and then to top it all off, they threw flippn CORN in it!!! Ewwwwwwww! Why do people feel like that have to ruin perfectly good food items by thinking they are 'spicing things up' and adding CORN to stuff?? Why not throw some nasty peas in there as well? While you're at it, my rice and my mashed taters and my steak look a little dull, I think you know what to do....

So just in case you are wondering, the best tortilla soup I've had is at the Alamo Cafe in San Antonio. Taco Cabana's isn't half-bad either for the price and convenience. If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know, I'm always open to finding a succulent bowl of tortilla soup. I'm headed up to Charlotte, NC tomorrow, but I don't have high hopes of finding anything promising. I believe Bowling for Soup spoke true doctrine when they said in their rock anthem entitled Ohio (Come Back to Texas), "Besides the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway."