Corpus Christi

Not sure why I do this to myself but I had another early flight today. I got up at 4:15 did the usually morning routine and was out the door by 4:45am. My destination? Corpus Christi Texas. I have not flown Continental in quite some time and today I was giving them a try since they get me to CRP sooner than Southwest would. I had no trouble finding my regular spot on level 5 purple behind the elevators at the remote parking deck at TPA. No usual drivers ether. I often get Coffee he is a great shuttle driver but I have not seen him lately. Checking bags was quick as most have the kiosk now. I had a few minutes to get some laptop time in on the free wifi at TPA. The A gate is where Continental flies out of in TPA and I had not been to the A Concourse in over 3 months or more. I was glad to see they got rid of the big bale of weeds that was hung from the ceiling at the security check point. That always bugged me that hard earned tax payers money funded some jerk-off artist to go pick a bunch of weeds and spray them and bale them and then hang it from the ceiling.

I got to go through the puffers on this trip. Still funny to hear the auto attendant say Air on. Puff, Puff Puff. Doors open please proceed. I got a window seat Bleech.... I slept most of the way to Houston and felt sorry for the nice lady stuck in the middle seat between me and another large man on the aisle who had to hear me snore the whole way. I asked numerous times if my snoring was bothering her and she answered no... So fair warning... I get snore approval I'm lettin it rip baby!!

I landed at IAH and only had a few mins to get to my connection flight. Maybe 25 minutes.. And I had to hoof it from C over to the B concourse and then to the commuter section. I was not familiar with this airport and had to take 2 people movers filled with people not interested in moving, a monorail train to concourse B and then walk a ton down to the commuter aircraft gates. The CRJ flown by Chautauqua seats about 60 or so . I had an aisle seat 12C but the guy in the window seat fidgeted the whole way. So I put on my Bose noise cancelling Quiet Comfort 2 head phones and read the latest book on my list. The 4 hour work week by Tim Ferris.

I got to HOT Corpus Christi at about 10:00AM Central Time 11:00 my time back in the Eastern time zone. Avis rented me their version of a premium car for Corpus Christi... a Toyota Camry... Wow that's definitely on the same level as a Buick Lucerne or a Lincoln Town Car. Grand Dad Cars as my wife would say.

I made it to the practice and got started early at about 11:00am. I was on a follow up visit to a previous Go-live so this was a cake walk. Had lunch at Hu-Dat... An Asian noodle/rice bowl restaurant similar to pie wei. Good stuff !! The afternoon was filled with more training of exciting stuff!!!.

At 5:00pm we decided our brains were mush and to stop for the day. I headed back to the Hilton Garden Inn and Changed into my throwin down clothes. Golf shirt , Shorts and flop-flops and headed to happy hour at La Playa across San Padre Island Drive.

La Playa came highly recommended by the DR's at the Internal Medicine practice. Guaranteed to raise my Lipids if I tried the Stuffed Avocado... so I was in luck Margaritas were on special for $1.95 till 7:00pm. I had an hour. I perused the menu and found out the Stuffed avocados were a meal not an appi... Bummer. Wanted a stuffed Avocado a stuffe Poblano and an enchilada or two with green sauce but they did not offer creat your own platters. The chip guy was the Bomb and had red and green salsa and chips on my spot of the bar 2 seconds after my stool cushion flattened out past comfy and hit pain full. .. Which took 3 seconds.

Chips were good and man the gren salsa was unique... it was almost creamy but it had a decent kick to it. I asked for hotter salsa and there was none to be found.

I ordered the Avocado stuffed with Shrimp. Now this is a quarter of a fresh avocados that is peeled and then shrimp is placed in the cavity and queso Blanca (White Mexican Cheese) is stuffed in and the whole thing is lightly breaded and then deep fried... ( Kinda reminds me of deep fried Mars bars at the State Fair... Do I really need to start deep fat frying my candy bars now. The candy bar alone is not enough I gotta now dip it in batter and deep fry it. Anyway it was good. So was the tortilla soup and the Fish Taco that came on the platter. Yum.. After dinner i headed back to the hotel and got 2 coronas "dressed" for the room and a late night of blogging.

How do you dress a Corona you ask? Take the long neck bottle and rub a lime all around the neck from top to bottom of the neck. Sprinkle Salt on that and THEN open the bottle and shove in a lime. Then you take a napkin and wrap it just so so it looks like a corona shirt. Now you just lick some salt squeeze the lime sip and enjoy... and repeat till the bottle is clear.

The next day I had the great pleasure of meeting a coworker how was in town and trained this client on the Practice management side of the software. The Dr's myself and the coworker went to lunch at Utopia's... Nice Asian fusion restaurant . I had the Shrimp wrap kyoto with Aeoli. Nice and spicy and they even had Sweet potato fries too!. Well my flight was at 2:30 and it was now 1:15 and that left little time to mess around. So I hightailed it to Valero and filled the rental up and headed back to the airport which was a 20 min drive. Visions of missing this flight were dancing in front of me. The weird thing is they have a security guard at the rental return who makes you pop the trunk and looks in the trunk... Guess they are checking for Illegals or something. Weird. I parked the car and hustled inside did the return and check a bag. Security was bus with 5 people it still took almost 10 mins to screen 5 people. The Main screen on the x-ray was like putting her right eyeball on the screen and moving it around to find some contraband. Guess at these border states they have to be vigilant. I made the commuter and got an aisle with no window occupant. YEAH!!. Made it to IAH in Houston in about 30 mins and it was a good thing because I had 30 mins to make my connection. (What's up with that Continental??) And I swear it was the longest connection I have ever had. I had to go from one end of the airport to the other. No lie. Gate C84 to E19... I made the 737-300 at gate E and had seat 23C.. An Aisle in the 3-3 configuration... I was sweating like a pick and obviously it was noticable because the Flight attendant got me an ice water and a hand towel.

MAn was I impressed. Never have I had such great service... Tony was his name and he was full of Hustle... unlike your normal I'm to sexy and busy to serve you Stewardesses they have at Delta or Airtran or American, or Northwest.... Need i go on? Tony was THE BOMB and he is getting a letter on his behalf at Continental. I hit ATL right after a thunderstorm and got my Buick Lucerne... (ATL knows a Premium car now don't they) and headed out for the 2 hour drive to Demorest. I had a conf call to listen to from 8:30 till .... so after the usually phone calls and test messages to the wife and kids I dialed in and prepared myself. This call lasted 1.5 hours. I actually stopped and ate dinner while the call was going on... Listening the whole time... I even finished dinner and got back in the car and drove for 15 more mins before the call was over... Thankfully so because cell service diede just after that.... Which means GPS navigation dies too. Bummer... Que the Deliverance song... Lost in Northern GA mountains...

I made it safely to the Hampton Inn after trying to check in to the Holiday Inn express first by mistake. They Share Driveways....