Olive Garden With Spencer!!!

Authentic Italian

The family and I decided to go and eat yesterday at the Olive Garden, near 60th and O St yesterday.  It had been a long time since we had eaten at an Olive Garden and I actually was in the mood for some "pasta."

It wasn't the most pleasant of drives down O St.  I had been berating my wife about her cousin, who has been making less than stellar life choices.  Needless to say, wifey was less than thrilled to be stuck in a car with me.  It was one of those situations were you feel that you need to say things, even though you know it's not going to make any bit of difference, but you just have to let someone know.  Usually pissing them off at the same time.  This was no exception.  

So in the heat of the moment, we know just what will cheer us up.  A pile of bread sticks, wading pool sized salad and the certainly not frozen and reheated food straight out of the world class Olive Garden kitchen!!!  (I've worked in a 'restaurant' before.  I know how it works.  The 'World Famous' rack of ribs we sold were diligently made by taking the pre-cooked and frozen ribs out of a plastic bag, in a cardboard box, and lovingly placing them in the microwave.  Aren't you glad you paid $20?)

As we were seated at our table, I had the feeling something was up.  Someone who seemed to be the manager seated us at the table and told us "Spencer" would take GOOD care of us.  Neat... my confidence in "Spencer" obviously skyrocketed.

Let me paint you a picture of Spencer.  Imagine, high school star quarterback from small town Nebraska, moving to the big city, diddy-bopping around like he just partially shit a pogo stick out his ass.  He is obviously God's gift to women.  I bet he gets laid A LOT.

Hello, my name is Spencer!

We order our food and I'm as indecisive as always.  It seems that every time we've eaten at Olive Garden, the prices creep their way up another dollar.  But I broke down and got the Tour of Italy, again, like always.  I mean, it is about as authentic as flying your ass to Rome.  It has Italy right in the name for fucks sake.

My wife gets the chicken parmesan and replaces the spaghetti with fettuccine alfredo.  The kid, macaroni and cheese.  Dipping sauce for the bread sticks. Easy, right?  I remembered this, without any help, for over 24 hours now.  I didn't even write it in my waiter notebook like it looked like Spencer did!  He was prompt in taking our drink orders however.  That is one thing I will give him credit for.  And I am a waiter/waitress worst nightmare with drinks.  I'll have that glass empty before it even hits the table... 4 - 5 times a meal.  Its literally some David Copperfield shit.

After taking our order Spencer asks if we need anything else but then ran away as if he saw his sister lifting her skirt for another romp.  He was across the restaurant before I could say, "More iced tea please."  My wife and I exchanged looks saying, "Damn this was a good idea."

Spencer brought us out our "boat" of dipping sauce.  What the Focaccia...?  The "boat" has a drizzle of sauce on the bottom. Olive Garden really needs to change their menu to "wiping sauce."  Maybe smearing sauce.  There was definitely no dipping to be had.

Pretty Close to Accurate

Finally, I get the "Home Coming King" to pay attention long enough to bring me an other iced tea.  Now, a little fact about me, like most men, we don't use straws.  Just looks a little too much like putting a long stiff one in your mouth and getting the sweet reward out the end.

Coincidence?  I think not

At no time did straw get place into my drink.  But the "Heartland Heart-throb" sure as fuck brought me one, every refill.  Once he even placed a straw on the table, picked up my empty glass, then picked up on of the 2 other old straws on the table.  Genius!

Now our food arrives, which obviously was wrong.  Do you remember what we ordered?  So my wife asks him to bring out the right pasta and if we could get more of the wiping sauce.  "I shit awesomeness" comes back a short time later with 2 condiment cups saying, "Uhhh... If I brought you out another "boat" I'd have to uhhhh.... charge you a couple bucks."  Would you believe there was more volume in the 2 condiment cups that in the "boat."  I should inform the Navy.  I think I found away to end the national debt!

After such a great dining experience, "The Destroyer of Innocents" give us the check.  Which he tells us, "I'm not trying to rush you, but I can take that now."  I hadn't even opened the damn thing yet.  We had enough.  My wife tells him that we need a to go box, and a couple minutes.  "Mom's still waddling from me last night" returns with the to go box; like he fucking sprinted.  I think he got excited when he heard another woman who wasn't related to him say "box."  We paid the bill and left.  Despite my better judgement and the glaring looks from my wife, I gave him a dollar.

Hopefully he will use that dollar for some condoms or a vasectomy.  I should have kept it and gave him a swift kick to the nuts.  Then I know I would have contributed to his possible lack of reproduction.

Thanks for allowing me to pay for that awesome experience Olive Garden.  But most of all....

For Spencer L.

Strategic Air Command Museum

First Stay at Home Vacation

I have just completed my first "stay at home vacation."  My family was in town this last weeks to visit with my wife, daughter and I, (more likely just my daughter).  I took about a week off to spend some quality time with them as we only get to see them about twice a year.  It is always good to see them.

I've never taken more than one day off in a row in order to just stay at home and in the area.  Most times, we leave the state as soon as I can string together more than a few days off in a row and visit family.  Granted, this was essentially the same thing, but we got to see some of the sights and sounds around the area.  I have a pretty stressful job at times, so when I'm off work, I don't feel like doing anything other than vegging out with my beautiful wife and daughter.  I know it can be a disappointment for them sometimes as I feel I don't have any energy to participate in the "fun stuff."  But this week was a totally different story.

One of the high points for me was we finally made a trip out to the Strategic Air Command Museum between Lincoln and Omaha.  Being the airplane nut that I am, it was great to be able to walk around (and in some) of these aircraft that I had learned so much about when I was younger.  I have always had an affinity for airplanes.  My grandfather was a combat pilot in WWII and did tours in the Pacific.  I have always heard that flying is in the genes and I think I agree.  I wish I had more money to pursue the art myself.  Unfortunately I get to resort to sitting in front of my computer, pretending to do the thing that I would really love.

Upon entering the grounds you are welcomed to the site of several ICBMs.  They are truly impressive sight.  These monoliths tower above you as you begin to walk into the main building.  Seeing them in person really humbled me as I thought about how much potential destruction they possess and how close we were to using them not that long ago.  My daughter liked them because they were "rocket ships."  Oh the ignorance that a 4 year possesses when they only thing they have ever seen close to this was a outer space episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

We started walking up closer to the main building and the structure is impressive to say the lease.  Through the glass siding they have as you are walking up the ramp to enter the building you can see a silhouette of an SR-71A.  I could feel my heart rate increasing from purse, unadulterated excitement.  The SR-71 was my favorite aircraft as a child.  My dad and I were talking later in the day about a time that I had gone to an airshow with him and one of his friends.  He said I was only about 3 years old when we had gone.  My only memory of the airshow was the SR-71.  I can still describe it to this day.  We were sitting in the crowd when you could see it bearing down, head on, towards us.  (This is obviously before they had the regulations about flying over the crowd.)  As the plane neared us, it pitches up to a 90 degree climb, engines pointing straight down towards us.  I remember looking up into the sky and seeing the bright orange haunting eyes of the engines receding into the sky accompanied by the roar of absolute power.  It was love at first sight.

I could not help but walk right up to it as soon as I walked in.  I stood there in awe examining her, much like I did when I saw my wife for the first time.  There is a plaque positioned near the nose of this flat black bullet commemorating all service men and their sacrifices.  Being a former Marine myself, I felt welcomed, and at home here.  I even mentioned to my wife how it is nice knowing that this is a place where "we" can go and be surrounded by others like me.

I couldn't help but feel a bit sad however.  While looking around, I begin to notice that I, at 32 years old, am one of the youngest people there (excluding my present company).  There are several gentlemen walking around in small groups, all of which seemed to have been alive during the Korean and Viet Nam wars.  When I mentioned this to my dad, we both agreed that my generation is part of a dying breed that has appreciation for aircraft.  Louis CK made a great joke about this several years ago about how people are so annoyed by wait times in airports but yet we are "sitting in a chair, in the sky."  Then to further think that these machines were used in the defense of our country and way of life.

There were several other aircraft in the 2 hangers there.  (B-52, B-39, B-17, B-25, F-4, U-2 and the list goes on...)  I can definitely see myself going there again.  I only have one complaint, granted, they are restoring aircraft there as well, some of the showing times they have were quite short.  Essentially 2 one half hour blocks of time where you can see some of the other aircraft.  I am greedy and would have liked more time to see them on my schedule.  But this was my only complaint.  I also noticed they had areas for volunteer workers there.  I'm not sure what kind of backgrounds they would want to help there, but it is really tempting for me to investigate the possibility, you know, with all of the free time I have.

If you live anywhere in the area I would highly recommend visiting the grounds.  The beauty in these old war machines are not easily described and must be seen for yourself to have any appreciation for them.

Check them out.  Strategic Air Command Web Page

In the beginning...

First steps...

It's 3:00am and I have been thinking about writing a blog for some time now.  My wife and I have discussed a few times about me sitting down and writing my thoughts down for others to read.  I figured it would be best, for anyone that cares to read my drivel, to have an idea about my background and my current situation.

I have been married to my wife for 6 years had have a young daughter that seems to be growing up too fast for everyone.  We all up and moved from California about 3 years ago for my career opportunity and stepped back in time about 15 years to the Mid-West.  It has been quite the culture shock for us, minus the kid as she knows nothing of mountains, oceans, congested freeways, smog, dry air, bleached blonds and fake breasts.  But she sure as hell can tell you what a corn stalk looks like; but I digress.

As I stated earlier, this will be a place for me to express my thoughts about anything that comes to mind.  My interests range greatly, so unfortunately, this will be a hodgepodge of material until I can find my way.  My original intention was to be one of the other million bloggers that are reviewing games and entertainment.  Have no fear, I WILL be doing that as well, but supporting a family wrecks havoc on buying the latest and greatest.  I'm also interested in flying, guitars, people and culture.  Fortunately, my career path allows me some interesting incite on some of these but will have to be written in such a way that won't get me fired.  (I bet that would make one hell of a post though!)

Being that we are currently residing in Lincoln, NE some things are going to greatly reflect this area of the country and should offer an interesting perspective.  I'm sure I'll make all sorts of friends here when my opinions come to light.  

In hind site, I should have started this from the day we drove into this vortex "GBR" and the shucking of corn, as it would be an interesting testament to the thing that we will put our families through in the name of career and opportunity.

So here's to what should be an interesting journey...