Category: Travel

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Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  Of all of the regular weekly blog entries that are posted on here this is the one that I look forward to compiling and posting more than any other. This is totally unrehearsed, and I am totally unprepared for it. This is raw, and that’s what makes it so cool. I have absolutely no clue what I plan to blog about for the next 9 items of interest, but I’ll just let my fingers do the talking and watch what happens.

2.  The 10TH season / 9TH summer edition of “Big Brother” on CBS-TV begins this Sunday night at 8 PM EDT / 7 PM CDT. Please don’t bother me while it’s on (three nights a week as usual).

3.  Some days everyone around me is a lousy driver. They either drive too slow in front of me, pull out in front of me, or tailgate me. This was one of those days. I couldn’t wait to get off of the streets.

4.  Everytime I sneak a peek at this book I spend more time in it than I intended. I need to find some time this weekend to intentionally spend a couple of hours with it. It’s what I do for Life Pointe Church. It’s how I serve God and His children here in Homestead.

5.  This afternoon I ordered a medium roast beef sandwich combo (with curly fries and a Sierra Mist) and an apple turnover via the drive-thru at Arby’s in Florida City (where all the food is). That’s what I paid for, and I’ve got the receipt right here to prove it. I got the curly fries, the Sierra Mist, and the apple turnover, but in lieu of the medium roast beef sandwich that I was truly looking forward to devouring I instead got – get this – a REUBEN !  I can dig mistakes like that when they work out in my favour flavour !

6.  Are you tired of all of the rain here in Homestead (nearly 14 inches over the past 22 days) ?  GOOD – I’m forecasting very little to no rain at all for the next 5 to 7 days (until perhaps early next week). Let’s see if I’m right.

7.  The Washington Redskins and The Indianapolis Colts kick-off the 2008 NFL season with the annual Pro Football Hall-Of-Fame Game in Canton Ohio on Sunday August 03RD 2008. That’s only 26 days away. THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT !

8.  I saw my hot new laptop on sale at a Best Buy in Plano Texas last week. The longer I wait the cheaper it gets with more power. Laptops with 4 GB of RAM are pretty much standard nowadays. So are desktops with 8 GB of RAM.

9.  I survived my 5TH cold in 8 months. It lasted 6 days. I kinda knew that I was getting it before I got it, and it was pretty much gone before I realized it. Here’s hoping that I don’t have to be blogging about my 6TH cold in 10 months come Labour Day Weekend !

10.  THIS JUST IN – My brother and his wife (my sister-in-law) now have a cold. My 6-DAY cold ‘peaked’ on its 3RD day. That was my last full day at their house. I felt a little bit better on the 4TH Of July – the day that I left them behind and flew back home. A single contact with my nasty cold germs left behind and it was pretty much all over for the both of them. They’ll probably infect each of their coworkers.

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Health Holidays Travel

Saturday Morning Shenanigans

Here now is a final ‘quick-hit’ wrap-up of my 7-DAY / 6-NIGHT Texas vacation:

1.  I spent 4-DAYS and 3 NIGHTS on the River Walk en San Antonio.

2.  It was my 4TH trip to San Antonio, but the 1ST that wasn’t military-related.

3.  I adore the River Walk. If I had to live in Texas then that is where I would live.

4.  Every day would be a ‘Major’s Walk-A-Thon’.

5.  How did I get my 5TH cold in 8 months ?  I touched things !

6.  The 5-HOUR drive to and from San Antonio with my brother was a lot of fun.

7.  My brother and his wife live in a ritzy suburb of Dallas – Allen.

8.  They live in a peaceful and quiet suburban yuppie neighbourhood.

9.  Allen is surrounded by McKinney, Fairview, Lucas, Parker, Plano, and Frisco.

10.  I’ll be back in Allen in exactly 20 weeks for Thanksgiving !

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Food Health Travel

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon: Special On-Location Edition – San Antonio River Walk

1.  In addition to all of the walking that I did on the River Walk en San Antonio on Monday morning (by myself) and on Monday night (with my brother) I walked the mother of all walks long and short on Tuesday morning. It was longer than any previous walk (around my neighbourhood) in ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ history !  The River Walk may just be the greatest place ever to do a ‘Walk-A-Thon’.

2.  Me and my brother ate dinner at Casa Rio on the River Walk on Monday afternoon. It was quite tasty Mexican food Jesse. I enjoyed the ‘Casa Rio Deluxe Dinner’. It’s apparently their #1 seller. It consists of a Cheese Enchilada, a Tamale, a Crispy Beef Taco, Chili Con Carne, Guacamole Salad, Chili Con Queso, Mexican Rice, y Refried Beans. ¡ Era delicioso !

3.  On Tuesday afternoon we ate dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack on the River Walk. I also ate there for dinner during my last visit to the River Walk in October 2003. I enjoyed the Shrimp Pasta Alfredo. It was an abundance of tasty pasta and succulent alfredo sauce with mucho bits of shrimp. That’s What I’m Talkin’ About !

4.  After all of that walking and eating we took a 30-minute tour of the river by water. It was a lot of fun, and our tour guide was the king of corny one-liners on the river. I think that he may have been a reject from one of the local comedy clubs. Nevertheless he made everyone giggle throughout the cruise. The cruise was sort of like a final wrap-up or summary of all of the walking that had been previously done by me / us (moreso me) on Monday and Tuesday.

5.  After the fun cruise we bid a fond farewell to the Paseo Del Rio, and we walked on up to the street level of the city. We took a few pictures over at the Alamo Plaza. (The Alamo itself was long closed by the time that we got there at 7 PM.) We spent about an hour over at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not ! right across the street from The Alamo. There was a lot of loco stuff to look at inside that place !

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Advertising Blogging Computers Driving Food Movies Sports Television Travel

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Just because I’m not there doesn’t mean that I can’t do this:

1.  It’s 10 PM EDT in Homestead – and 9 PM CDT here on the River Walk en San Antonio as I begin posting this blog entry, and that makes it a true ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. Normally these weekly thoughts are compiled and published late on a Tuesday afternoon, but that’s not the case this week. I was busy being a tourist on this particular Tuesday afternoon.

2.  As the 10:30 AM service was just getting started at Life Pointe Church this past Sunday morning me and my brother were just getting started with our 5-hour / 300-mile trek from Allen Texas (north of Dallas) to San Antonio. (We’ll be making the return trip back to Allen on Wednesday afternoon.)

3.  I saw this on a billboard on the President George Bush Turnpike north of Dallas – ‘YOUR WIFE IS HOT !‘ (in big bold letters). Underneath that it read (in much smaller letters) – ‘Better Get That A.C. Fixed’. Now that’s effective advertising that grabbed my (short) attention (span) !

4.  We stopped by my brother’s office in a generic high-rise office building in Dallas to pick up a few items. My immediate observation of the joint – he’s got absolutely no pictures of me in his office. Hopefully this public thought right here will give him a substantial guilt complex that will remind him to go home and retrieve a picture of me so that he can proudly display it in his office.

5.  Parts of I-35 southbound away from Dallas and towards Waco, Austin, and San Antonio kinda sorta reminded me of parts of I-4 westbound away from Orlando and towards Lakeland and Tampa. Central Texas looks a lot like Central Florida in many areas.

6.  We hit 100,000 miles in my brother’s 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee while driving southbound on I-35, and my brother actually captured the flip-over from 99,999 miles to 100,000 miles on video while driving about 75 MPH in the fast lane and passing an 18-wheeler. (I was slightly terrified during those couple of minutes.)

7.  Me and my brother ate dinner Sunday night at this place in San Antonio about 9 miles from downtown. It’s a place that I’ve been to once before – in October 2003 the last time I was in town. We saw the WWE PPV ‘Night Of Champions’ there.

8.  My brother is an official exhibitor (representing the company that he works for) at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) 2008 presented by the International Society For Technology In Education (ISTE). Picture the Exponential Conference that we attended up in Orlando this past April but much bigger than that, and instead of Pastors and church staff members it’s teachers and principals.

9.  One of the most popular blog entries of all-time on here was from January 2008. It’s the one where I posted all of those funny names for Chinese restaurants that have ‘Wok’ in its name. Well here’s a new one. Yesterday I enjoyed Lunch at a mall joint known as the ‘Side Wok Cafe’.

10.  I saw “The Happening” Monday afternoon at the movies, and I thought that it was near-perfect (if you’re in to that type of box office entertainment). It was more eye-popping than it was bonechilling. What was even more horrific than the movie itself is the fact that parents actually brought their small school-aged kids into the theatre to watch the movie as well. If you know anything about this movie then you may just agree with me when I refer to those parents as ‘irresponsible’.