Cardinal flying

There was once a time when packing up my bags the night before a flight would make me all jittery, and the excitement of it would keep me up for several hours and make my stomach would stir and tumble. Frequent flying this year has gradually lowered this excitement, but today I feel pretty much the same. My excitement comes from me going to Chicago to visit my parents and youngest siblings again, and my jitteriness and stomach uneasiness derives from the reckless, unusually large, and even unusuallerly carnivorous dinner I ate last night.

But WHAT A MEAL! I DO declare that it was THE meal of the HIGHEST quality I remember having EVER perceived. Either on TV or on real-life or in my imagination... it was simply THE best meal I remember EVER seeing/having heard about, not to mention actually eating it.

I usually don't care too much for food quality - I keep it simple. If I'm hungry, I find something to eat. When I find something to eat it, I eat it. Simple as pie. But last night was a night of celebration. A successful and unexpectedly shorter deployment than that that was planned caused the whole team to either smile and or/state "I am very happy".

So the team asked permission to celebrate it grandiosely at a fancy downtown restaurant. Not only that - the customer company gifted us 4 tickets and top-level access to a local baseball game :). Just like that. The assumed facility manager came to us and just gave us the tickets - four tickets: for John, Gabo, Layne, and me. (Oh yes, and Layne is our company's new hire. He is expected to take on the position of a PM. We just met him yesterday morning on his second day on the job (and already onsite with a customer!). Seems like a great guy and someone who could take on the position really well).

So that evening we drove to downtown and entered the Autopark Stadium. I slept through most of the way, but I remember waking up, getting out of our H3 rental, and being inside a very dirty-looking, low-ceilinged parking lot. I think I'd seen worse, but some fallen ceiling lying around, some metal beams protruding from the ceiling, and a very abandoned, unused look made it especially remarkable.

As we walked out the stadium, we were met with scalpers trying to sell us tickets for the game. Gabo skillfully talked them off, and we went into the stadium. We went up to the second floor, got some food and drink, saw Gabo get a picture taken of him with a group of Redbirds cheerleaders by John, and went out to watch the game. It was funny to listen to the game announcer speak about the "Redbirds" team and have all of us Reddwerks people just look up wondering why had our company name had been called at the game. We cheered for the Redbirds team until we left, at which point they were losing 4-3 to the Iowa... Cubs, I think?

So then we headed out to search for the restaurant. "Texas de Brazil" was the name of the place Gabo had found on the web. It was a meat-eating place, so I decided to shed off my repulsion to meat for that night and expose my body and my soul to the cruel, controversial food that is meat.

A pregnant-looking waitress told us about how the Churrascaria served us food. We each had a little red-and-green button on the table, with the red face on top. If we decided we wanted meat, we had only to turn the button so the green side was visible, and Waiters with sticks full of meat would come by and offer us a piece/slice.

There was quite a lot of variety. I started with grilled cheese (not the sandwich kind, but actual grilled pieces of cheese) and lettuce from the salad bar, mashed potatoes, and little round pieces of bread available from our table. Then as the waiters passed by, I started eating. First Chicken breast covered in bacon. Parmesan chicken afterwards. Then another kind of chicken. Then Filet Mignon. Then some piece of some kind of lamb. And so on... I don't remember the other names. The point is - I ate meat like a very carnivorous and hungry human being.

I have to say WOW. I had never ever felt so masterfully, exquisitely food-served by complete strangers. I except of course the cases where the food-maker/server is a family member, a friend, or someone dear to me, for then the meal's value and quality is augmented in a manner unrivalable by any kind of restaurant. But yeah, the food was awesome. AWESOME. It was just totally AWESOME. Not a flaw, not a remark, not a single suggestion on improvement from my or my last night party's part. And if it had been my opinion alone, I would probably not have made such a big deal out of it. But everyone in the group expressed the same sentiment. Everyone tried, but no one mentioned another place superior, or even equivalent in quality to Texas de Brazil.

So then today I woke up, took a hot bath in the tub, almost fell asleep in it (being 4am and all), got dressed, brushed my teeth, put together the little packing details that were still missing, and lay down on the bed again. I woke up again and looked at the clock - 6:27AM. Good thing, because we were supposed to meet at 6:30 in the lobby. So I went out and sat with the others, who were already having breakfast. I then thought about breakfast, and my stomach churned. And then it churned more. And more. And it made all these squishy, stomach-like noises inside me, and I started to feel a strong stomach-ache. Of course, it was only my stomach coming back at me: "What the hell??? You don't eat meat for years on end, and then you suddenly drop me like 2 pounds of heavy, greasy, unhealthy blocks of dead chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep? I got rules, you know?? I can't just start processing pounds of meat when I'm only trained for milk and rice and stuff! FU!"

So after I decided not to have breakfast, Layne dropped me off at the airport and I checked in for my 8:30 flight to Chicago on Northwest airlines (which was weird, because my itinerary said Continental). And then I thought "hmmm, so I flew from Austin through Dallas to Arkansas on Southwest, and I'm flying from Memphis through Cleveland to Chicago on Northwest. It's my first time flying on both these airlines. Sweet - appropriate airline names for my flights for my little trip." (Please get a map to find out why if you're not familiar with these cities). The "west" suffix only makes sense if we say we're on the western hemisphere, but I don't think there are "North" or "South" airlines anyway.
But yeah, so my airline names turned out appropriate. Cardinal flying.

And now my flight to Chicago is leaving like... NOW... so I gotta run. Bye!!

Oh, it seems like the flight boarding was somewhat delayed. Now I'm sitting right beside the gate, but they've just started boarding the elite passengers and so. I think I still have time to actually post this on Blogger, turn my laptop off, and even get a Frapuccino or something at the nearby Starbucks store.

Oh, I also found now that my flight to Chicago is on Continental, not on Northwest. Only my Memphis-Cleveland flight was on Northwest, oh darn. Ruined a big part of my trip's airline cardinality. Oh well, the title's settled. So I guess this blog wasn't too much about cardinal flying or airline naming geodirectionality at all, was it? It was more about how good food can be bad to your health. Or to my health. Yeah.

OK, posting on blogger. And buying and drinking my Frapuccino and boarding the plane. Bye (2)!