This & That

Here's a lot of little things that aren't lengthy enough to warrant their own blog post.

There is a guy up here who does a syndicated traffic report for several of the radio stations and his voice sounds just like Zephyr, a friend of Cindy's and mine in Orlando. Zephyr has a pretty distinctive voice and I wouldn't characterize it as a "radio voice", but this guy sounds just like him in tone, timbre and enunciation. It certainly "woke me up" the first morning I was driving to the office and heard him do the traffic.

I was driving down to Somerset, Kentucky last week for a meeting and I noticed that the closer I got to Nashville (which is only 170 miles from Somerset) the more the radio dial filled up with country music stations. I was so glad I had brought my mp3 player with me. Fair warning.

The Watchmen movie opens this Friday night. I've already got my ticket from Fandango for the 7pm showing, which I SHOULD be able to JUST make after getting off work. It lasts almost 3 hours, so I didn't want to try to go to the later show and be getting back to the hotel at 2am when I have to be back at work at 8am Saturday morning.

Monday I ate lunch at a place I had never tried before called Qdoba Mexican Grill. I ordered the chicken grilled Quesadilla which was 3 times the cost of a Taco Bell chicken Quesadilla but at least 10 times better. Thicker, with more chicken, cheese and fresh pico de gallo. It was delicious and filling! Do they have these in Florida? I can't remember seeing one.

And here's a couple of things that I found I had written in my old mini-composition book when I cleaned it out Monday evening to begin using my new moleskine notebook:

Competing Hotel Commercials

I was sitting in the lobby of the Comfort Inn Suites in Cedar Falls, IA on a Sunday afternoon while housekeeping was cleaning my room. I was reading and occasionally looking up at the TV as "Kill Bill 2" was being aired. Twice there were commercials for other hotel chains; once for Best Western and once for Hampton Inns. I wondered if hotels ever think of trying to find a way to block other chain's commercials to guests while they're staying in their hotel? On the other hand, unless someone is already unhappy with their current lodging, does anyone really see a commercial for a competing hotel and say, "Damn, I'm packing up and moving over there"?

A Child's Smile

I walked into the men's room the other day in a restaurant. There was a dad with his toddler son and the son was just finishing up a man's "business" and obviously pleased with himself. As I walked in and he saw me he smiled the biggest smile of happiness. I smiled back, smiled at his dad and then thought about how there is something so pure and unpretentious in a child's smile. No agenda, no ulterior motive, no making a mask of the smile to hide anything behind it...just an honest expression of happiness. It's a shame we lose that as we get older.

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