Ah the wonderful world of Johnny. Details, details, details of Keith’s visit to suburban hell… er, Tampa Bay.

So I was f’n stoked on a Saturday Night when the Lightning tied the Stanley Cup finals. Keith, of course, is in disbelief. He had expected to be attending one of the upteenth city parites that would be going on if–no, WHEN the Flames had won.

But it didn’t happen that way.

So what happens when Keith gets home from Saddledome? He’s got to book hsi flight to Tampa. He had tickets lined up since the Flames / Lightning NHL Finals had been set. Game 7 tickets in fact. The series hadn’t been as good as we both had hoped but – gods – this was a game seven! You can’t scalp tickets for an event like this for less than 500 bucks… We got them through Ticketmaster before the game was even scheduled – so we’re in luck.

Sunday night, Keith was due to start flying to Tampa — going to Vegas first and then getting a connector flight / red eye to Tampa. Only problem was his flight was 2 hours late to begin with, which thus made him miss his connecting red-eye flight to Tampa.

Back in the Bay area I am going nuts Sunday night trying to figure out WTF has happened to Keith. He’s stranded, or is he moving? Flyte Comm basically confirmed where Keith was — just leaving Alberta – about the time I was ready to call it a night.

I decided to indeed call it a night, wondering what the hell was going to happen and how Keith woudl be when he finally got here – if he got here…?

I wake up bright and early Monday morning and have a sense of urgency running over me. Not just urgency but anxiousness. Within a couple of hours the Lightning would be playing for a world title and I would be in attendance.

Maybe.

My first thought is – where Keith? His connector fflight took off on time (fuck America West) and that meant he indeed missed his connector flight. I fought on the phone for a good hour trying to find out what happened to him and I find out (through America West customer service) that he’s “Taken another route and going to another city. He’s all right.”

Well, whoop-de-shit. He’s OK. Now where is he? “Sorry, can’t say… but he’s all right.” :rolleyes

I call his cell phone (which I am still told is a wrong number by parties that call back later — but it’s the same number that America West has in their system and same number I have from Keith directly) but I still tell him on his message service to give me a ring to let me knwo what happened and where he is…

I find out a little while later it’s Orlando, and he’s still on his way here.
(more…)

Can someone tell me what the rule is when it comes to going to a restaurant and acting like a total asshole? Or totally snobbish?

It seems the last two times I went to a finer restaurant — not a fine restaurant where there is a proper dress code, but nicer, finer restaurant where sandals and tank tops still find there way into the building — I’ve been told to act like a pompous prick and seen family do just that when things go weird. My mom especailly…

Maybe a year ago I went to a restaurant in downtown Dunedin with family. Nice place, nice atmosphere, forgot the name of it though so you’ll have to forgive me. While dining I dropped my fork and family insisted that I not pick up the fork…. Well, not much family, just my mom. When other things happened, I was told that the waitress will handle it. It drove me insane to be waited on over mundane things. This wasn’t like “Let the waiter put a napkin on your lap” type stuff. This was just normal “I’m not a lazy slob” type stuff.

Skipping over that event and finer details of the event — we jump to last night and my dining experience at Sam Seltzers Steakhouse in Clearwater. Not fine dining but it was a hell of a nice place to go to and a hell of a long wait to have. We must have waited an hour and a half for seats (which I’ve always told my parents “Get reservations to that place if you insist on trying to eat there sometime”) and in some ways it was worth it because it was just a nice place to go to…

But then my mother’s pomposity came into it.

Maybe she’s getting eccentric in her age or maybe I’m just too damned sensitive to others. A waiter was trying to handle some dishes — i didn’t pay attention to the fact if they were dirty or clean plates he was handling. What happened was, he tried putting them on an assistance tray/table next to one booth and slipped — he had the plates come crashing down. And my mom clapped and applauded him.

She applauded him with the attitude of a pure-spirited “I don’t give a fuck” woman who was stuffing her face and trying to have a good time at others expense.

Rage bubbled up from within me in embarrassment. I wanted to get up and actually help the guy with the mess but the gimp known as Me can’t quite handle that. I fumed and started telling my mom exactly what I felt. “I can’t believe you did that! Lift your nose up a little higher, mom, lift it up a little higher for everyone to see you’re the most pompous person in the building.”

Yes, that was disrespectful… And who knows, maybe I was over-reacting…. But then again? I’ve been the guy who has to face a crowd after an embarrassing episode and I do NOT want other people to experience the humility of it all — especially when one prick goes off and tries to make me feel worse than I already do. Maybe the waiter didn’t care? Maybe he’d been through this a thousand times already? In any case, wrong is wrong and acting like a asshole in a restaurant is a no-no. You’re supposed to do unto others a you want done unto you right? So why do you start exploiting a persons goof / mistake in embarrassing circumstances instead of trying to help the situation?

If I was at my friends house and that happened — where my friend is the one dealing with dishes and what not, or someone who knows who I am and what I stand for is handling the dishes — I’d possibly do what my mom did and start exploiting it because it’s in jest, it’s good fun and people around me know I don’t mean any harm by it. I’d tell the person (if it wasn’t a person totally familiar with me) that I was just kidding around and teasing and try to help them out after… That’s the type of person I am after all.

I’m not going to act like a dick, however, in the company of strangers and make one person feel like complete shit…. That’s just plain wrong.

The city of Clearwater has plans on being a vital part of Pinellas County’s (flawed) Monorail plan that is on the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s drawing board. The monorail would run into downtown and then across Clearwater Harbor and arrive at Clearwater Beach as an alternate mode of transportation.

Overkill. Over costly and not a sure fire way to bring in tourists or re-vitalize downtown.

I came across a thread on Skyskraperpage that talked about Sky Gondola’s that will connect Detroit with Windsor, Ontario and I thought that it was a perfect mode of transit for a link between Clearwater and Clearwater Beach. Why? First off, it would be a surefire tourist attraction among those who are out-of-state visitors along with drawing the curious from in and around the Bay area. Secondly, it is a much less costly mode of transit than a monorail between the two land masses.

Another part of why I like this idea is because you can really obtain a better termination point for the Gondola because the station would not have to take up a lot of land (I think?). I would think that a terminal close to the main strip of the beach (and much closer than the termination point / terminus of the Monorail system) and the main drag would be a possibility. Depositing people in the heart of the area would be outstanding instead of letting people get lost trying to find attractions.

Of course, the biggest positive of this idea is getting people out of cars and onto their feet. Pedestrians are much more manageable than cars and a ton of traffic. Plus, if you are going to the beach to begin with, don’t you want to get out in the sun?

It’s an interesting concept and a viable one at that…. The question is, will Clearwater even consider looking into this (I wrote the City Counsel and Mayor a letter with regards to this)? My guess is no, but you never know….

I was hanging around the house yesterday morning when I got a call — which is a rare event because I NEVER get a call. Especially a TDD call. So after the initial freak out and such I finally got my bearings and found out it was Mark from SkyscraperPage. I alluded to some things on here months ago but I never really described them — well, until now.

Mark and me have been friends on the SkyscraperPage forum for a while – we knew each other but we didn’t really KNOW each other until I got real depressed after my operation in August. (one link but a bunch of stories on the subject in the past). I had been real down over a few things going on at the time and had talked about that stuff on SSP. I started finding relief by writing in here and Mark, a fellow writer, had been started chiming in on the forum after I made mention of the writing. We got to talking and I found out he was a screenwriter and a bit more. He was interested in my story after some private communications and we’ve been talking a bit about me and some story ideas since then.

Well, Mark had also told me he’d be in the Bay area in March of 2004 and at the time of the call — Mark was here :smile. We set up a little encounter this afternoon and I just rambled for him some points about myself and what I have gone through. Anecdotes and what not from my life and about who I am. We were doing this over coffee at a new place I discovered not too too far from my house. Looks really cool and I am hoping to be able to hang out with a few of my friends there in the future.

Anyway, back to the story. I told him of a few things – like giving him some details I could remember from the Beatles Lyrics incident, some anecdotes from childhood and growing up, moving down to Clearwater and such. It was fun to ramble like that but sorta awkward too. You couldn’t imagine a story about dear old John appearing in film, could you?

Didn’t think so :wink.

When I am out west next time (not sure when) I need to meet up with him again to keep going over things and just build. He’s got a ton of notes to work with and research if he wants. H also has a ton of work to do as is :tongue. Patience, John, Patience….