I Miss Dallas Already
Well, I’m home safe and sound after a long day yesterday. A few photos from my last couple of days in Dallas:
That’s my best buddy, Pat, and I enjoying wine and cheese at the Cru wine bar near the Angelika theater. The wine was wonderful, had great legs and a wonderful nose, and - oh, who am I kidding? My palette is about as refined as that of a prohibitionist bootlegger.
We saw a FANTASTIC film, by the way, called “Young at Heart.” I highly recommend it. It’s a documentary about a senior citizen chorus with ages running from 73 to 92. Touching, hilarious, and inspirational. I hope I have that much energy and life in me 30 years from now.
My favorite theater in Dallas. They run lots of artsy and indie films. Run, don’t walk, if you have such a place in your town.
Mr. Ian strutting his stuff. How I love this child. He took to me instantly, and I to him. Amazing, he has all the best qualities of Pat and Jasmine all mishmoshed together in a neat little 18-mos-old package.
My buddy Cathy and I at the Corner Bakery in Plano. I’ve known Cathy going on 12 or 13 years now, one of the many great friends I met thanks to Saint Rita’s Young Singles in Dallas. I was heavily involved with that group for a long time, acting as Spiritual Coordinator for two terms (and stirring up the shit on more than one occasion). That group saved my life in more ways than one.
Cathy is married now with a 3-year-old son who I didn’t get to see this time around. Gotta love her.
That’s Jim, me, Craig, and Mark…all of us former officers with SRYS. I was thrilled to see them all, especially since we organized the gettogether at the last minute. Craig I was REALLY surprised to see. He just graduated from medical school and is about to move up to Oklahoma for his residency. The timing was perfect, since he’s only in Dallas for a few days. Proof positive that you can start changing your life and career at any time. Craig is my age (41).
That’s Catherine, Craig, me, and Jim. Loved seeing Catherine again, and we were able to catch up on the latest news around SRYS and some of my old buddy alums from the group.
There must have been 14 or 15 of us there at Blue Mesa Wednesday night. Most I knew, some I hadn’t met before.
That’s Brent, me, and Tom, enjoying the dryness of the Blue Mesa interior while it absolutely POURED rain outside. Eventually, we had to make a break for it because there was no sign of letting up.
I was in bed pretty early (for me) at 11:30 Wednesday night, since I had to get up at 5:15 the next morning for my flight. But you’ve already read that story from yesterday.
Many big thanks to Jester for his help getting my blog working properly last night. He did it in record time after I got home last night. God bless the gays! Ha. I’m going to be on Jester’s amazing radio show in a couple of weeks. More on that as the date draws near.
And I want to plug the Alive Campaign once again. My daughter is part of this incredible project and she set off yesterday with her four teammates. Check out the blog with links to video news stories of their departure. I teared up. Yeah, I’m a proud daddy. Both of my girls are just wonderful ladies. You can donate to their cause, a documentary about the trip to Alaska all in the name of suicide prevention, here.
Filed under Travel, Weblogs | Comments (14)Ugh
So I’ll post about my last couple of days in Dallas soon. For now, I just got the blog finally working on the new host (Laughing Squid), but the actual post links appear to be 404. Ugh.
I was scheduled to fly out at 8:50 this morning. Boarded just fine, even got “upgraded” to the exit row. But they had trouble with some cockpit sliding window. Supposed to be a few minutes. 2-1/2 hours later still on the tarmac and NOT in the air, they took us all off the plane since the plane was officially out of service. And it was within the last 10 minutes of the movie “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” Ugh.
20 minutes later, they announce the whole flight is canceled, so I (in my infinite wisdom) called American Airlines, rather than wait in line at the gate. Got the last seat on a 4:45pm flight. Went outside security, made out a couple of times, and got my new ticket. Then I took the shuttle bus to Terminal A, went BACK though security, and ate lunch at TGI Fridays.
Now I’m totally sitting in the Admiral’s Club just so I can smoke without going through security again. I have a couple of hours on my hands. I hope I can get the blog fixed by then, but I’m not counting on it.
Filed under 2HT Mentions, Blogging, Travel, Web/Tech | Comments (15)It’s a Long Way to Tipperary
Kevin is The Man that introduced me to my new way of life: Guinness. We met working at CTG (Computer Task Group) around 15 years ago now, but really started hanging out when we jumped ship and went to work for REIS (which no longer exists). There he taught me the ways of Lotus Notes and drinking, though not necessarily in that order.
He’s one of the best storytellers I’ve ever known, and a hell of a writer, too. So I was happy we were able to get together last night at my favorite place in Dallas: The Tipperary Inn. It’s an Irish pub, natch. I love what they’ve done with the place. Last time I was there, they’d revamped the whole place to make it more upscale, but the problem with it was that they took the “pub” right out of the pub. It was TOO nice. And the people showing up to go there were what I like to call “The Pretty People,” of which there are gajillions in Dallas.
I’m not a Pretty Person. I’m a pub person. I like down-home comfortable places to get my drink on. I’m glad to say the Tipp has regained its former glory, and then some. The waitress was friendly and warm and asked me what I wanted to drink after I walked in the door and was greeted by Kevin and his wife. “Guinness, of course.”
And she brought me a properly poured Guinness, with the little clover in the head, so to speak.
This is the look I get on my face when a properly poured Guinness is set before me. Oh, and there was a Celtic band playing behind me there. Marvelous conversation music.
I had their world-famous shepherd’s pie…yummy. Truth is, I’ve never had a bad meal at the Tipp. I also had their scrumptious bread pudding, but was a good boy and only ate half of it. Not so good that I didn’t eat half of it, though. (Yes, mom, my blood sugar is fine. 101 last time I checked it.)
It was pretty dead in there last night, I suppose Mother’s Day had something to do with it, I don’t know. But we had a great time catching up on things and I once again found myself saying, “It’s been too long.”
I miss Dallas pretty badly. It’s a great place to live. Lots to do and see…The Angelika, the Tipperary, Six Flags, concerts galore, many of my best friends, my favorite church (St. Rita’s), and plenty of places to sing, play trivia, and play poker. In fact, tomorrow night is karaoke night at the Tipp, Tuesday night is trivia night, and Wednesdays they have Texas Hold’em tournaments. Guess where I want to be every night through when I leave Thursday morning?
I forgot to ask Kevin and his wife if I could post their pics here. And I figure I ought to, since I spent a few minutes telling them how much I respect other people’s privacy and wouldn’t put them on my blog unless I asked. Dammit.
It’s so much easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Filed under Local Goings On, Travel | Comments (25)
