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The more things remain the same the more things change

This afternoon I packed about all I can pack for my upcoming business trip to Kansas City. It will only consist of a three-night stay so I shouldn’t need much, right? Ha.

Even If I am going off for a weekend I appear as if I am undertaking an expedition of the Lewis and Clark magnitude. Here is the thing: I want to be comfortable. I want to be prepared.

Thankfully, I will not be traveling from 70-degree to 20-degree weather as I first feared a week ago. It will only be in the 50s when I leave “The Golden Triangle” in the a.m. and a high of around 24 degrees upon arriving in KC in the early afternoon. The wind is expected to be 11-15 mph with gusts up to 25. Snow is forecast on Wednesday. A slight chance of snow on Thursday with the low Friday morning between 1 and -4. Then, I fly home where it should be around  50 degrees when I return that afternoon.  I won’t be traveling through a lot of extremes but it is extreme enough. Then I have “business casual” to wear to those two days of our meetings. Will I do anything after the days’ meetings? I don’t know. But I’d like to be prepared.

Also, there is always a chance of a canceled flight. I have only had that happen once. But I did have to cancel another flight because of delays elsewhere which would prevent me from making a scheduled connection.

Along with the preparation category is making sure I have all my medicines. I take a bunch, I am not very happy to say. One doesn’t want to be off without a supply of their blood pressure or diabetes medications. And methadone. Don’t leave home without it.

I am not a frequent flier. I’ve taken perhaps 30 or so flights over the last 10 years. Actually, a couple of those were in 1999 and before 9/11.  During this time I have found that each flight could behold something different. Most of this is from our friends at TSA. It can be a pain the butt but if they have actually learned something new to help us stay safer, then I suppose it is worth it. Then, of course, you have to be aware of what new restriction or fee the airline has put out.

Perhaps if you fly every week or every couple of weeks, you get the routine. But if you are like me it seems everything is different only by the slightest degree. This time the 800-pound gorilla was a heavy winter coat. Where to put it? Well, if  the temp will be in the 20s when I get off, I think I probably should have a coat. I could put it in checked baggage, but what if my checked baggage gets lost. That’s happened twice to me. I could buy another coat, but I’d be freezing my huevos off going to a store to find one and probably having to pay for a taxi  instead of the shuttle. If you absolutely positively got to have it, take it with you . So instead of my computer bag, I’m taking my trusty backpack to stow the computer, winter coat, camera and all my electronic chargers. Crap, I feel like an electrician sometimes.

So now I just thought of something else I need to do.  Hopefully I will have a chance to blog the next couple of days. Ta. See you in KC maybe.

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Working for the weekend? Stop. Go home.

Sometimes I wonder if the American people work on Friday?

I know when I had a full-time job I certainly worked on Friday. It seemed, though, as if most of the rest of the world didn’t work on Friday. This was especially true in government offices. Now that I work part time for “them” I know that isn’t true. But since I work part-time, I don’t work every Friday. In fact my schedule this year has quite a few free Fridays. There is a reason for that.  That’s the way it goes.

When I am out and about on Friday afternoon, in full-blown errand-running mode, it really seems as if no one works on Friday. The bank lines are full. The shopping district traffic is almost as crazy as on a Saturday afternoon.

I would imagine that a good many of those who do work on Fridays and Friday afternoons are thinking about not working on Friday or Friday afternoons. So in honor of all of those who aren”t working or thinking about not working or thinking about the weekend or dreaming of that first glass of cold beer or imagining  a hug from the kiddo or your cat jumping up in your lap — Work’s over. Go home.

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Going, going, going, says Kay

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, announced today she will not seek a fourth term. That isn’t so surprising since she took a 51-30 percent thrashing by Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry in the 2010 Republican Primary. And make no mistake about it, Kay Bailey Hutchison is a Republican, By God! Her people let me know it in a heartbeat once when I mistakenly put a “D” after her name in a newspaper story. That is really kind of petty when you think about it. It was in a small-medium-sized newspaper and the “real” folks outside the Beltway,  with more time on their hands than sense and who always search for that kind of thing in the paper would have been sure to call me up so Kay’s gestapo needn’t have spent the taxpayers money on such bulls**t.

That’s a bit harsh. Kay’s people aren’t gestapo they are just probably so afraid that Kay is going to whack them with a big stick that they leave nothing to chance.

When you make the rounds in Texas newspapers for a number of  years you are bound to see some politicians again and again. Such was the case with George “Gee Dubya” Bush who I watched before my very eyes transform from a Major League Asshole Baseball executive to governor to president. With Kay, I watched her become Texas State Treasurer and later U.S. Senator. Politicians, I’ve seen a few.

Kay has done some good at the local level, delivering the pure pork sausage so ably she must’ve made Jimmy Dean jealous. That’s not a slam on Kay, that’s actually a compliment. I have also seen her not do what she could do to help at the state and local level, until she was pushed. At the national level, she was a bit to the left of George Bush and John Cornyn, but way the hell to the right of Olympia Snowe. I’m not sure what all is going on with her personally. Pro-choice on abortion, the senator and her husband adopted two children in 2001 so that may have influenced some of her political activity.

Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is called “the 800-pound gorilla in the room” when it comes to replacing Hutchison. We shall see. I would bet on him and half a dozen more Republicans before ponying up on a Democrat. I’m not even sure a Democrat Party exists in Texas anymore. If there is, will you please write? Two of us can be one hell of a force!

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Holy snowdrift!

Those few of you who read this blog every now and then must think I have an obsession with snow. Not so do I have an obsession with snow. But by damn, do I fancy my green eggs and ham. Okay enough Seusseneugen. Hey, I don’t know if that means anything but if it really is a word and it means something really bad, sorry. I don’t Sprechen Sie Deutsch.

My longtime friend Sally, who lives in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, sent me the snow picture right after I woke up this morning and it must have not been long after she woke up. I was watching the Weather Channel and noticed on the map that nothing but snow was on it from Boston to the west. I went to my e-mail and found Sally had by then sent these pictures to her friends, including truly yours or whatever.

Waking in a winter wonderland called Berkshire County, Mass. Photo by Sally McLaughlin

It isn’t I am obsessed with snow. It’s that I am obsessed with wondering how people can live all or most of their lives where it’s cold.  Why???

I know, it’s pretty, the snow is. It’s nice to have seasons. In the region in which Sal lives they have probably the most gorgeous-looking autumn foliage in the United States. There are trade-offs, I know.

Here on the Upper Texas Coast today the wind chill has been in the 30s. We see days once in a blue moon where it stays below freezing all day and sometimes longer than that. We get ice. We get snow. Plus we get rain, lots of it, tornadoes, hurricanes, and steaming freaking hot weather that is humid enough to smother an elephant.

And those who live in the cold all the time don’t do a dance of joy each and every time they see winter storms like the one they had today. I am  not going to repeat what Sally said in a follow up e-mail regarding all of this crazy weather.

You have to admit, though, it is pretty fascinating what it is that draws one to the place they live. It can be a place of family, one gal, or one guy, a place of memories, of having whatever it is in a place that one needs, the world’s best tacos, the list goes on. What about those place near the Arctic Circle that have sun-lit days for 24 hours during the summer? I think I mentioned here before that I had a real homesickness for rain during the seven years I lived in Central Texas where the rainfall averaged only half or so the amount of  rain that falls here in Southeast Texas annually. I guess of what I speak is geographical sociology. I enjoyed the 18 college hours of sociology I took, so maybe that is part of my fascination.

I just can’t help but wonder how people live where they do. In Western Massachusetts during the winter? In Alaska in the summer? In Central Texas during cedar fever season? Anywhere along the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season? In Beaumont, Texas, in the humiditity. Oh, the latter is where I live.

See what I mean?

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Wigged out Baptists — KC bound — Good eats at Starvin Marvin’s

So I see those lunatics from the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka plan to protest at the funerals of those killed in Saturday’s shootings in Tucson. The  Rev. Fred Phelps and his gang of Baptist jihadists go wherever there is publicity so they can spread the gospel of anti-gay hate. Amazing those folks with their syllogism that the departed in these shootings and others including KIA American soldiers died because a) God Hates America  b) Because we have turned our backs on God’s way especially by allowing homosexuals in our midst. Well, maybe that isn’t really a syllogism perhaps it is 1/2 a syllogism, or even a half-assed syllogism. It’s been awhile since I studied logic.

I can’t believe these folks from Kansas call themselves Baptists. I’ve been around Baptists all my life. I went to a number of Baptist churches in my younger days. And I can honestly say I never came across any devout Baptists, any devout Christians for that matter, who were such antisocial jackasses.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Speaking of Kansas, I should be in or near there one week from today as I am supposed to go to Kansas City next week thanks to one of my sidelines. I expect it will be cold. It”s been cold the last couple of days. Here on the Texas Coast a 45 degree day, especially one with wind chill in the 20s or 30s passes for cold. Well, in my estimation it is cold. Have I mentioned lately that I  live in Southeast Texas because it is usually pretty warm here? That’s not the only reason, but that is a major one. We also have the best chili in the world in Texas. And the biggest dips**t for a governor. But that’s not really a plus.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Today I had lunch for the first time at Starvin Marvin’s, kind of in the neighborhood. I was a bit afraid it might be too rich for my blood as their TV ads kind of give that impression but the place that is best known for its ribs and hand cut steaks had a reasonable lunch. I had what was the special, which I believe is called their Texas Club. It looks pretty impressive coming from the kitchen as the sandwich is stood up on its ends. I found it a good eats nonetheless with several meats and cheeses. I smelled garlic somewhere, perhaps on the toast perhaps in the meat, if you can smell it you know it’s there. The price with a tip was about $11 for just myself. A little high, perhaps for a sandwich and steak fries and iced tea, but not really, not these days. They have a huge outdoors area with a large fireplace, that was stoked up on “hot” today and some other outdoor fires were burning while plastic helped keep some of the cold out. Still, I wasn’t brave enough to try it.

This is what used to be Rocky’s Road House and who knows what before that. It’s now part of the “Beaumont music scene” and it was the first place I’ve been in years where I knew every song playing from the sound system, from The Doors “Roadhouse Blues” to “I’m Free” from The Who’s “Tommy.” Impressive to an old rock n’ roll fart like me. Oh, and the waitress told me the truth, at least in her mind, about certain menu items. Give that gal a raise. For dang sure give her a good tip. Good atmosphere, reminds me of the Armadillo Palace in Houston.

Whether the name of this bar and grill — they have happy hour specials — was influenced by the little African cartoon character from “South Park,” I don’t know. I do know I had to wear my heaviest coat today which has a hood and it sometimes makes me look like Kenny from South Park, as in “Oh my God, They killed Kenny, you bastards.”

Starvin Marvin’s

2310 N. 11th St.

Beaumont, TX

(409) 234 5002

Deep O’ Meter: 4.5

(I occasionally do a restaurant review. I decided I would put my own stamp of satisfaction/dissatisfaction upon those eateries with the “Deep O’ Meter.” Eight Feet Deep, the name of this blog inspired it so an 8 on the Deep O’ Meter would be the best you could get. You won’t see many of those. I am pretty picky about restaurants, yeah, sure you are. The 4.5 I gave Marvin’s is above average.)