Friday Five

The Excuse

Ok. It’s been quite a while since I've been this late on posting my blog. Unfortunately, life just got away from me the last couple days. As you’ll read below, I flew home on Thursday night and the weekend was an absolute blur. Next thing I knew, it was Tuesday and I still hadn’t posted a five. So let’s fix that.

The Week

Houston.

Yup.

Houston.

Again.

Trust me – I’m as tired of going there as you are of reading the fact that I’m going there. Well, I hope you’re not tired of reading about it. But I’m certainly getting tired of going there. I did manage to actually do dinner with a friend out there who, coincidentally^[1], was also in Houston for business that week. But beyond that it was a week of work, run, eat, sleep.

The one bonus was being able to fly home on Thursday night. Short work week also means more time at home. This gave me the opportunity to spend time with Jumbo on Friday. In an effort to get out and do things I’ve never done before we went rock climbing. Frankly – it left me just more frustrated than anything else. I’d like to try it again, but on the whole I found it just annoying.

That night I got a chance my first Padres game of the year that night Karin and Donna. (Special thanks to Donna for scoring sweet seats.) We intended to take advantage of the beer festival before the game, but as you can see we weren’t the only ones with that idea. After fighting our way through the crowds and seeing the lines to get beer we abandoned that plan and just went to the bar to pregame. The game itself went the Padres way, 3-0.

The Travel Note

I really wish every hotel offered guest laundry. There have been many occasions I just needed to wash a couple of items and just can’t bring myself to pay $5/item.

The Restaurant

This is another “I can’t believe I haven’t highlighted this place yet” restaurant – Gulf Coast Grill. This is one of our standby restaurants – when we can’t figure out where else to go, we head here. Their food is terrific – a good hearty creole/cajun. They do their core dishes very well – their jambalaya is the stuff of legends, and catfish crawl here just to be deep fried and covered in their mustard tarter sauce. It’s also a hidden secret on weekends for breakfast; unlike almost everywhere else in North Park, there’s never a wait for brunch here.

The Five

As Karin and I were enjoying dinner at Urban Solace on Thursday night, it dawned on me it’s blatantly obvious I’ve worked food service in the past. Here are my top 5 signs you’ve worked food service in the past.

1. When you walk behind a waiter/busser you say “behind”. It’s just drilled into your head to always let someone know when you’re in their blind spot, and I do it without even realizing I’m doing it.
2. You start your tip range at 20% and move up/down from there.
3. You know what software a restaurant is using on their kiosks.
4. You have a towel on your shoulder while cooking. Karin is convinced this is because I’ve worked in a kitchen before. I really just want it in the drawstring of my apron, but I refuse to wear an apron at home.
5. You use the phrase “86” rather than “no”. Eg: “86 the blue cheese” when ordering a salad.

^[1] Not ironically