26) Trip down Memory Lane, Restaurant Style

I smelled someone cooking food in our office kitchen that smelled very much like the King Ranch Casserole served at the Great Charcoal Chicken in Houston, TX...the first restaurant I worked at. I immediately craved it and decided I would like to make it sometime soon. This got me thinking about all the restaurants I worked at, and inspired me to think of the one dish I would love to eat from each one.

The Great Charcoal Chicken: I already mentioned the King Ranch Casserole from Charcoal Chicken, but I would also like to have their lemon pepper chicken sandwich. I ate many of those the year I worked there, and I took that recipe with me to college, where I averaged 6 lemon pepper chicken sandwiches per week in my third year (2 sandwiches per meal, 3 meals a week).

Casa Ole: I do not have anything positive to say about Casa Ole, and have not eaten there since I quit my job many years ago. I honestly cannot think of anything there I liked eating. I ate fajitas mostly, but remember Dugat liking the Flameado, which made me sick the one time I tried it. They have decent green sauce.

Chili's: I have many things I like from Chili's, but there is definitely one meal that stands out. I love the Cajun Chicken Sandwich with a side of Blossum sauce. However, because of the fat content of their awesome blossum they were forced to discontinue the appetizer, which forced them to abandon the sauce. The sandwich is not the same without the sauce. So now I look to the Chicken Ranch Sandwich, which is almost as good. Plus, I cannot forget the El Presidente Margarita and the Texas Eggrolls.

Ninfa's (Waco): I worked more than 3 years at the Ninfa's in Waco, and thus have many meals I must mention. My most common meal, and the one I get when I visit Waco now is the Fajitas Ala Berry. This is one of the best meals ever. I have tried to recreate it and failed miserably. My second favorite meal at Ninfa's Waco is their Ribs (The Rico, I think). I get Ratones (Peppers stuffed with shrimp and cheese and deep fried) as an appetizer and get the full rack of ribs for my meal. Ninfa's is a Mexican food restaurant, but this particular one offers the best ribs I have ever had. Do not forget the margaritas. I would also get 2 sangria swirled frozen margaritas, and hope that Lisa was not walking around so I would not have to talk to her.

PF Chang's : My final restaurant is PF Chang's. I worked at the PF Chang's in Dallas for a month before beginning my marketing career at TSM Skyline. My go to meal here is easy. The restaurant is family style so I can order many things and share them with the table. I would get the lettuce wraps for an appetizer, of course. For my meal I would order Crispy Honey Shrimp, Kung Pao Scallops, Mongolian Beef and Vegeterian Lo Mein.

That all sounds so good right now, doesn't it? I would love to do any or all of these this weekend. Instead, I am going home and will eat a sandwich with a side salad.

25) Johnny Wedding

L. and I went to Johnny's wedding this weekend. We sat on the groom's side of the aisle, and as the ceremony commenced my mind began to wander. I did not think of the things you might expect: Johnny eating more than 20 something hot dogs at our camping trip, the numerous times he passed out early at a party and had tortuous things photographed around him while he slept, Johnny spilling food all over himself, the time he put on a shirt his dog urinated on and when someone said "that shirt has pee all over it" he responded by saying, "I wondered what that smell was." I did not think of these things, nor did I wonder how he found a girl who would love him despite his drastic idiosyncracies.

Instead, I wondered how long we would have to be at the wedding. I do not care for most weddings. I like the idea of people being married, and I like a good party. I enjoy being there when I truly care for the people being united. But I do not like the churchesque proper quality that exist with most weddings. Especially when I do not really care about the bride and groom. And I am not impressed by the tired traditions involved in a wedding (cutting of the cake, first dance, the toasts). I like the bouquet toss, but only because it is funny to watch girls scramble around the dance floor.

I suppose my point is: people should only go to weddings that they want to go to. When there are people like me there (and there were many like that at this wedding) most of the time is spent sitting or standing around. No momentum or granduer builds up. I felt guilty going and not adding to the effect. Instead, my lack of enthusiasm took away from the experience for everyone.

I suppose the counter argument for this mentality is: The Wedding is not for the attendees. It is for the bride. The dumb guys who do not care to go need to suck it up and take one for the team...the team being the other guys, because eventually most of us will be married and we will need our wives to be happy at having a successful wedding.

All of this to say, I took one for the team this time. And I appreciate all of you who took one for my team.

24) Guitar Nightmare

A veteran sales rep at the station learned on the day of my first interview that I play guitar and bass. Since my first day here, nearly 2 years ago, he has asked me every other week to play guitar with him and 6 friends. They get together and sit in a circle taking turns playing songs. The group ranges in talent level, 2 of the guys just now learning to play the guitar.

The idea sounds fine, and I am all for musicians jamming together when at all possible. However, the group of intstruments represented are as follows: 3 guitars, 2 of them inexperienced, 1 fiddle (he calls it a fiddle not a violin), 1 harmonica, 1 banjo. I am not interested in bluegrass, and we cannot play Tejano without an accordian. So, you can see why I have been conveniently busy each day they get together.

Yesterday this Sales Rep entered the station with one of our most consistent advertisers. He also spends a good deal of money with us. I was introduced to the man with my boss in the same room. The man responded with, "Is this the guy whose wife never let's him play guitar with us?" The sales rep answered in front of my boss, "Sure is."

Just for the record, my wife has nothing to do with me not playing guitar with the group.

Anyway, at the end of the meeting my boss said, "You should go play with them. He has been talking about it now for 2 years." I said, "I will have to see what the wife has scheduled, because I am pretty sure we have something going on that day."

23) Possible Work Regret

I work with a small law firm in Tyler. I got them on the air for the first time in November. I helped him write and produce two commercials and placed them on my station with a heavy schedule, assuring him that his advertising campaign would be successful.

It was not. He received a couple of calls the first week, one turned into a client, but then he received no calls whatsoever. He pulled the final two weeks of his schedule off of the air because he did not feel comfortable spending money without the return.

I was not ready to give up on him. If we figure out how to make his ad dollars work for him, it would mean a long term client advertising with me. So I compiled an analysis of where his spots ran, how many ran, what the message of each spot was and compared them to other successful lawyers advertising on TV. Through my analysis, which I ran by my sales manager, I determined that we did not focus the dollars on the right times throughout the day.

I just left his office an hour ago where me and my sales manager convinced him to give us three months to prove our station and our plan will work.

This is the part of the job I am afraid of. I spend time selling potential clients on: Me, The Power of Television, The Power of KLTV. And I believe in them all. However, what happens to the clients who believe in me and I let them down? I work hard for them and am willing to do what I need to ensure success. If the next three months do not work for this lawyer (in a down economy) he may be in serious trouble.

And at least some of the blame falls on my shoulders. That is a tough pill for me to swallow.

22) Pacman

I do not want this to be a sports blog, but I have a couple of thoughts on the cutting of Pacman Jones. He played in 9 games and shared the team lead with Newman for pass deflections. To me that says he has potential to be a shut down corner. Much better than Michael Jenkins, anyway. Sure, he was no good at Punt Returns and he has off the field issues, but that is part of having a superstar on your team. You must deal with the problems that come with a diva.

This is what I think: Wade Phillips has been criticized (fairly in my opinion) for being too soft on the team. He claimed, in an attempt to keep his job, that things are going to be different next year. He claims he is going to be tough on players. And then a day later he cuts the first person he sees as a problem...Pacman. If he were a good coach, he would say, "Pacman has some problems, but I am going to Coach that World Class talent. I am not going to run away from it! I am going to make him be a responsible player who contributes regularly for the Dallas Cowboys!"

But no, he does the easy thing. This situation reminds of me of a junior high kid who gets grounded for not doing his chores. Daddy takes away the video games and the kid suddenly claims things will be different. The kid takes the garbage out to the curb and says, see, things will be different, I can do my chores! If that kid really wanted his video games back, he would have turned that garbage into something useful.

That's my point...

21) Sleep Disorder

Last night I could not fall asleep. I made the painful decision to get out of bed, hoping that a change of scenery would encourage drowsiness. I searched all 700 channels at my disposal and was forced to decide between: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Robert Downey Jr. Movie), Asteroid Disaster: The Earth's First Apocalpse, Sportscenter Reruns, Law & Order. Late at night I try and stay away from movies for fear of getting hooked and prolonging my insomnia. Sportscenter is always a good choice, and usually what I start with. After the basketball scores, however, I was caught up and not at all interested in College Football. I gave the Asteroid Disaster show a chance. The idea has merit, but the execution annoyed me. A geeky scientist yelled at me about the global ramifications of a 2 kilometer wide asteroid striking the earth's surface. He acted like it is a new idea, and it is not. The little kid in Jurassic Park 1 was the first to bring it to my attention, so after that it is simply redundant.

Finally I chose Law & Order. Law & Order is one of the best shows ever. The show began 12 years ago, or something like that, and remains interesting and relevant. And it is addictive. I stray from my original story...

I transformed the couch into a bed by taking off the pillows and wrapping myself in a blanket Burrito-style. My house has one huge problem for insomniacs. I live with an insane cat that, in his opinion, never gets enough love. The cat jumped on the couch and rubbed his face on my face. My arms being pinned within my burrito blanket, I was helpless. I turned my face and tried bucking him off. Finally I dislodged one arm and swiped him to the ground.

He returned with vigor, as I knew he would. My arm was still out and I swiped him down again. This happened four or five times, each time my swipe hardened, until I almost threw him into the TV. He shook his head and ran off.

I finished the episode, turned the TV off and vowed I would finally sleep. The cat jumped on the couch. I did not buck this time. I withdrew my arm from the burrito and swiped him off. He jumped back on. I decided that 3rd grade engineering was necessary to thwart his onslaught. I covered my face with the blanket and using two pillows propped it up in such a way that I was able to breathe fresh air without sacrificing protection from the cat.

There were two problems with the engineering of my fortress. 1) I did not have much room to move. 2) The cat curled up on my face to fall asleep. I pushed him off but he managed to wedge himself uncomfortably between the back of my head and the couch.

This turned out to be a long story with a simple message: I did not sleep well last night.