6 Years later

Well today is the 6th anniversary of 9/11. Unfortunately I have an early flight this morning at 7:00AM. I figured the airport at TPA would be a nightmare so I woke at 4:20 did the morning routine and left a little earlier than normal. I got to the airport parking deck about 5:35. Of course there was a nice vacant spot for me on the 5th floor behind the purple elevators.
My favorite spot in the remote garage always an open spot for me on the 5th floor behind the purple elevators... Of course if you are reading this go to the 6th floor or the gold elevators and leave my 5th floor purple spots alone!! :-)

Good thing too as the Gold elevator people had to wait for the next shuttle bus as the beauty of the purple elevators is obviously getting around. OF course there was one exception ... a Fella... that was as they say light in the loafers who crashed through the bus doors when the driver opened them a crack to let everyone at the gold stop know the bus behind him was going to get them because he was full. This guy crashed the door with 3 carry-on bags and a guitar and said ... "I don't mind standing" Of course he had to stand in front of me and place all his crap in front of my luggage in the rack. What a dork. Never ceases to amaze me with how rude and narcissistic people can be. Of course he was in the way the whole ride to the terminal and made everyone wait 30 seconds while he gathered all of his "Carry-on" Hope they make him check 2 of them... :-)

Lovin the FREE wifi internet that TPA (Tampa Airport) provides. I'm confuddeld as to why.... Yes confuddeld... Confused and puzzled/Muddled well you get the point... As to why few other airport provide free wifi. Yeah Yeah Starbucks had free wifi... blah blah blah.... Over roasted coffee and overpriced.... as far as I'm concerned.
But there have been only 2 or three airports that have provided free Internet that I can recall. Everyone else charges 9.99 per day. Hate that. Tampa and Fort Wayne Indiana go figure...

Anyway. back to 9/11.. The airport was fairly light for traffic at 5:30AM... ( Imagine that) My flight is set for 7:00AM to ATL (Atlanta). I had to change seats at the check in kiosk because some dweeb decided she had to have the window seat next to my aisle seat on a friggin 2-3-2 airplane seating chart with over 67 available seats. Guess she has to look out dah window cause she never been in an aih-pane before.... I moved to the aisle across so I can get a look at this nut case. She looked like a feminazi liberal... Why can't I e er get an aspiring Pamela Anderson as a seat mate...???

The fly ass Delta coochie just announced we will board in five minutes. Of course they use this weird boarding zone method. I'm in Zone five which means good luck getting overhead. So I still have a few minutes before having to shut down the laptop and board.

Security was light too as not much traffic at 5:50 am either. I did notice about twice as many TSA agents standing around and a few more highly secure red vested Aramark agents. Yeah black slacks white shirt and a Red Aramark Vest and I be a photo ID checker momma... Hope they have all been vetted for background checks ... Wonder if that background includes their previous 20 years in Mexico??

Well my bag made it through. Did not leave my contraband toothpaste or other surprise liquid in my carry-on this time.

Well as I sit here I can't help reflecting back on that day 6 years ago. I worked for the Purple M&M and got an email from a co-worker that a plane had crashed into the world trade center. I of course went home to work from home and put Fox news on and saw the second plane hit live. It was freaky. We all thought it was a small private plane the first one that hit. It was just too surreal to see a full fledged bigass Boeing go straight into the tower and leave a shadow of an airplane hole in the side of the tower.

I of course would have preferred to spend this day in Cancun like I did on the one year anniversary. Which was also my 40th birthday week extravaganza.

Happy birthday to Miss Ruth. She was born on 9/11/1907 she would have been 100 today. I really miss you Miss Ruth and hope you are having a blast wherever you are. I'm going to go have a nice southern meal tonight in honor of you. Hope they have green beans made just the way you did them. I can still smell the wonderful aroma now.

Gotta close the laptop will beef this up once I get to the Hotel in Athens.

I'm taking Windridge Family practice live on Allscripts Healthmatics EMR this week. Should be fun. One MD and one PA at the practice with 2 nurses. Piece of cake. Look forward to the Misys reunion this weekend in Raleigh. Well they just called Zone 1.

Love you Mom and Dad and Family and Kids and Amy. Chat with you later tonight. !!


That last line was in case the plane went down. Thankfully it did not. When I showed up at the practice I was surprised to see that the Dr the PA and the nurses were already documenting in the EMR and were printing prescriptions etc. If you are in the EMR business this is a very positive sign and you know you have a VERY easy week of training and Go-Live support ahead of you. The stress level has gone form 9 to 1. The front office is already scanning paper charts and the nurses have entered historical summaries for the next days patients. Woo Hoo this is hot. Man I'm a good trainer... (Sorry could not resist). So I did some clean up tasks and trained on faxing, printing and did a 3 hour session from 3pm to 6pm with the Doctor the Physicians assistant (PA) and the nursing staff. It's such a pleasure to full teach each screen as the students already have the basic screen navigation down and now I can show them the cool stuff that I never get to show or I show and they never retain.

I went back to the Hampton Inn Athens on Broad street and checked in at about 6:15pm. This hotel is under renovation and they are about $90.00 per night. Not too bad but I remember when Hampton Inns were $65.00 to $75.00 per night and now they are routinely $100.00 or more now. This hotel has free wifi and it's a five story hotel. the rooms still have the old decor and they need a renovation in the worst way. I can only imagine the hard partying that goes down in these rooms on GA Bulldog football weekends.

I researched Soul food and southern food restaurants from the room and found the Tuesday night in Athens is not that exciting. this website has some great reviews and links... http://www.dixiedining.com/dixie/georgia.htm Most soul and southern food restaurants in Athens close at 6:00pm on Monday and Tuesday??? What up whid dat??? So I wanted Peaches Southern food but it was closed. Weaver D's was closed. Wilson's Soul Food was closed I got a inkling that Chondell's might be open so I hopped in the car and drove there. Not easy to find. CLOSED... So I was out of options. So I started driving around and spotted the Hilltop Grille. Looked like a yuppie fern bar. I checked the menu as I was on a mission to get Green Beans for Miss Ruth's Birthday celebration.... No such luck but they did have Collard Green... Ding Ding Ding... We are getting close to southern soul food which I just call home cooking.... So I figured I would try it. Being alone and on business I did what most business travelers traveling alone do and I went to the Bar to eat.

The Braves were kicking the snot out of the Mets. I perused the menu and decided on a cup of crawfish gumbo. 8ozs vs 14 ozs for the bowl. Jenna the bartender rings me up and not 2 minutes later a piping hot BOWL of crawfish gumbo appears for me. Jenna promised me she rang in a cup but she will only charge me for a cup. $4.00 vs $5.00 hope they can spare that... extra dollar profit... As I'm eating the gumbo which is great... I asked for some hot sauce. I had the choice of Texas Pete or Tabasco. I asked if they had any Habanero and of course I got a no. This is the South so hot sauce is on the mild side.

Great Gumbo by the way nice seasoning and texture and the ingredients were all uniformly sliced or chopped. No big hunks in other words. Sausage was slightly spicy... which was great. Roux was nice and well caramelized. Nice dirty dark brown color. The menu offered the usual Caesar, House and and Iceberg wedge salads with crumbled Blue cheese. LOVE the iceberg wedge. I often ask if they can chop it for me so it's easier to eat and nice and tossed for me so I don't have to work so hard when the salad arrives. The menu had the prerequisite Steaks and seafood and pasta entrees... I noticed a chopped steak with mashed potatoes and sauteed onions and mushrooms. Ding Ding we have a winner for a southern meal. I asked if I could substitute the Salad for Collard greens and this was fine as far as Jenna was concerned... so I had my Quasi Southern meal to Share with Miss Ruth on her Birthday. The chopped steak was not bad... It had a hard crust for some reason??? Maybe the grill cook left it too long on one side and it got crusty on the grill. IT was hard to cut with a fork which is not a good sign on a chopped steak., The mashed potatoes were good but about 30 minutes past their prime. The Collard Greens were good but there were large crunchy stems which means a white boy cooked them.. and did not cook them long enough. They were not gritty which is always good and you can get them not gritty by washing them 4-5 times to get rid of the sand and dirt they are grown in. Tasted like they were boiled in Wateer with a bullion cube or 2 added. Salt pepper and some fat back.

I had my Southern style hot sauce to soak the Collards in and Jenna even had the Chef whip me up some gravy on the side. Can you believe they served a chopped steak with mushrooms and onions without gravy??? Even Outback back Steakhouse has gotten this dish right.

The Gravy hit the spot and I relished each bite thinking of Rudie (Miss Ruth) and how much I missed her cooking and her sweet smile. No desert as I'm watching the waist line.

Well that does it for me have a great one Miss Ruth Love you and look forward to next September 11th and celebrating your birthday. Take care and goodnight