Month: November 2015

What’s a better way to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to the people in my life that matter the most than to write on my travel blog?  Today we travel to my favorite place on Earth, that of course is a family home for a wonderful dinner.  For many years that was my sister Annette and brother-in-law Morty’s home.  I can remember many amazing evenings spent there.  Lots of fantastic turkey, stuffing and extras.  And how could I forget the desserts.  Typically there were at least 7 from which to choose but occasionally Annette would slack off and only give us a selection of 6 (all homemade, of course).

This year my brother Stephen and his beautiful wife Fayla are answering the call to duty.  I am writing now because with all the spectacular cooks in the family I will have very little energy to do anything after dinner.

We are very lucky to have my son, David, and his wife, Robyn and their boys in town.  Our girls are still in Madrid but we plan to do a Google “Hang out” to talk to them.  Madrid is 9 hours ahead of Los Angeles and they say they won’t be available until after 4 pm (1 AM in Madrid).  Ugh, being a father can be such torture.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family.

Our trips for 2016 are in the planning and I promise you will hear from me again soon.

Robert

P.S.  I was in too much of hurry to post before dinner and I have a bit of energy left so here goes.  Tonight was amazing.  Our “Hang Out” with the girls was not perfect but it was great seeing them even it was just briefly.

Saturday we left to visit our grandson, Charlie, to celebrate his 3rd birthday.  No trip is complete without a visit with our friends at TSA.  For some reason the TSA seems to have their eyes on Patrice. Hardly a trip goes by without her being singled out at one of the check points for closer scrutiny.  Saturday was no exception.  In addition to the usual pat down she had her carry on luggage completely emptied. Does TSA know something about Patrice that has evaded me all these years?  Am I married to a mole for Isis?  If the security of our country involves intense investigations of a grandma of XXX years of age (I know better than using anything but XXX here), who has raised 3 wonderful children, dedicated her life to helping others, not the least of all is married to an amazing guy like me, our country is in real trouble.

Our flight was relatively comfortable except for the crying baby 2 rows behind us.  I didn’t think it was possible for a baby to cry for an entire flight but this little guy proved me wrong.  The one good aspect was that it wasn’t my baby who was suffering.

Arrival was uneventful.  Our pilot failed to alert the flight attendants to “prepare for cross check”.  I have no clue want that means but we seemed to arrive without incident in spite of his failure to prompt the crew to do their job.  Upon arrival we were welcomed to SF by the crew to the best of my knowledge they were arriving at the same time as us and as my friend Gary has pointed why are they welcoming us since they are arriving too?

Sunday was a dream day.  Charlie had a wonderful party at Rock N Jump.  It was a pleasure watching him and his brother romp around on the trampolines.  I even got to coach and root on grandma Patrice scale the climbing wall (no doubt part of her terrorist training).

We had a great weekend visiting with David, Robyn and the boys.  We are now waiting for our flight home.  Our 1:20 pm flight was cancelled.  I assume because they didn’t have an air marshal to monitor Patrice’s activity.  My boarding pass had “TSA pre check” printed on it but somehow it was deleted from Patrice’s.  I need to check this woman’s background, no?

Robert

 

 

 

With our BBQ certificates in hand we headed home.  Memphis Airport is small and very easy to negotiate.  The first leg of our trip home took us to Dallas (DFW) Airport.  That place is much bigger than Memphis and of course the terminal in which you arrive is not the same as the terminal from which you will depart.  That would be too easy.  After a short wait (I first typed weight, I guess I am still feeling guilty about all the eating we did this weekend) we were on our way.  A little lightning as we took off from Dallas got my blood flowing.  There was turbulence which was also a bit unnerving.  The remainder of the flight was uneventful.

One thing is clear, all our traveling these past 3 years has made us very much into spoiled brats.  For example I was annoyed there wasn’t wifi on our flight from DFW to LAX. Unfortunately I asked the flight attendant if there was wifi and she told me, “I don’t think so because this is one of our older planes”.  That got me thinking, lightning, turbulence, older plane……..  why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut?

Also the hotel was not to our liking.  We stayed at the Holiday Inn which was where the seminar was located.  It was clear that we were not at the Peabody (where we stayed during our first 2 trips to Memphis).  First of all, no spare toilet paper in a cloth bag (How uncivilized!), no safe (This is the Holiday Inn, leave your valuables at home) but most important, no chocolate on our pillows at night.   Also we missed the Peabody Ducks.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwo9L8L_i3U

The trip and training was a lot of fun.  We look forward to the BBQ Festival next May.  I hope if you can’t go with us you will at least follow along via my blog.

Robert

Patrice and I prepared for our BBQ course by going to a restaurant we previously visited on our BBQ tour last May, the Blues City Cafe.  The place is nothing special to look at but the ribs are great (see below).

With that great experience from last night still fresh in our guts, I mean our minds, we attended the BBQ seminar and received our Ph.B. (Doctor of Philosophy in Barbecue).  There were about 100 people attending the training (which is a prerequisite to becoming a judge at the Memphis in May BBQ Festival).  They honor the people who come from the longest distance to attend.  Seminar organizer, Mike Davis, announced “I thought my people from California where going to take the honor but today a man came in from Australia”.  Damn Aussies!

Most of our classmates were from Memphis or the surrounding area.  Many have already been certified by the KCBS.  I thought that was our local Los Angeles TV station but it stands for Kansas City Barbecue Society.  A couple of ladies sitting behind us, who are KCBS certified, recognized us as a couple of newbies.  “You are much too thin to be regulars.”  They shared that they judge some sort of competition almost every weekend (“We do steaks in Texas!”).  They also confessed that they had each gained about 25 lbs since starting to judge food competitions.

The course involved a pretest followed by a review of the syllabus.  We also had a demonstration of both “On Site” and “Blind” judging.  The “Californians” were honored by being permitted to be the “Judges” for the Blind Judging demonstration.

Then came the final exam.  The pressure was taken off when the organizers said if you don’t pass the test you will take it again until you pass.  Patrice finished first and when she returned with both her and my certificate I knew I was okay.  We both did quite well but I did manage to miss two questions that I previously answered correctly on the pretest. I guess I didn’t get as much as I could have from the training.

Training accomplished, now it is time to get to working out.  We can’t come here next year unless we’ve done some serious exercising prior to arrival. They don’t encourage health around here.  They even have a run called the Big Hog Run during the Festival.  Male entrants have to be over 175 lbs and females over 150.  The run is a 0.2K (200 meters) and I am told it is all downhill.

Fun times ahead.

Robert

Baby back ribs from The Blues City Cafe on Beale Street

Today we leave for what has become a home away from home, Memphis, Tennessee.  This will be our 3rd trip to the city since June of 2014. Tomorrow, Patrice and I will be attending a seminar.   You all know how committed we are to education and even as our ages advance we want to learn new information and new skills.  If successful, tomorrow’s seminar will qualify us to return to Memphis next May to be judges at the “Memphis in May BBQ Festival”.

Our loyal blog followers might remember the amazing BBQ tour our guide Lance, from Tastin Round Town (www.tastinroundtown.com), took us on last May.  If you recall (or even if you don’t recall) we enjoyed BBQ ribs (pork and beef), a pulled pork sandwich, BBQ egg roll (yes egg roll), BBQ spaghetti (yes spaghetti) and BBQ nachos (yes nachos).  We learned an incredible amount of information about BBQ from Lance but the one thing we found most valuable is that we could become judges for the BBQ Festival.  All we needed to do was to apply, be accepted, and attend the BBQ judge seminar.  What he didn’t mention (or maybe I conveniently forgot this part) is that we need to pass a test after the seminar (you mean we actually have to learn something?).  I just hope they don’t ask us to regurgitate what we learned because if we eat as much as we did with Lance last May, regurgitation might be a real possibility and I am not talking about regurgitation of information.

Currently we are at about 30,000 feet over San Bernardino, California.  I had plenty of time to write and publish this entry while still on the ground but you all know how much I love to use the internet from way up high.  It is my version of the “Mile High Club”.

If any of my readers are superstitious they might be worried that we are flying on Friday the 13th.  We obviously don’t seem to mind (see picture below) because we are seated in row 13.  How is that for tempting fate? My pal, Allen, was born on Friday the 13th (actually November 13th, Happy B-Day Allen) and it seemed to work out okay for him. Actually he is working on his birthday so Patrice and I could have our little getaway.  Thanks, Allen.

Enough for now (some of you might have already said that a paragraph or two ago).

I hope all is well.

Robert