A Prairie Home Companion

For the past few years I have enjoyed listening to A Prairie Home Companion. It's modeled after an old time radio show and is recorded each week by Garrison Keilor, http://prairiehome.publicradio.org , for National Public Radio (NPR). I was able to convince my buddy Mark, a native North Dakotan and former resident of the "Frozen Tundra" to accompany me to St. Paul, MN this weekend to attend a live broadcast.

We flew up early Saturday morning. The flight was wide open and we both landed ourselves nice seats in First Class. We arrived at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, hopped in a rental car (which had North Dakota plates, we figured it was a sign) and drove to our hotel to drop our things off and then headed for St. Paul.
It was a gorgeous day. Temperatures were in the mid 70's and it was the perfect weather to be outside. We started out on Grand Avenue. It's kind of a yuppie section of St. Paul with lots of restored houses and small shops, organic groceries, etc. Mark had located a little restaurant called The Italian Pie Shoppe, that the Internet had reported was the maker of Rhubarb pie (in keeping it a true Prairie Home Companion weekend we wanted to try Beep-bop-a-ree-bop Rhubarb pie) but we soon discovered that this restaurant was not a place to get said pie. (We never did get to find a place that served it). We walked up and down Grand Ave. Mark found a place called The Northern Brewer, a store that specializes in things one needs to home brew your own beer (his hobby) and I stumbled across a place called Northern Lights Tea, where I got some great new loose teas to try.


Next we headed for downtown St. Paul. Half the streets were closed for repaving, so we kind of had a hard time finding a place to park. We wanted to park close to the restaurant called The Liffey, a Irish pub where we would be meeting some of his friends after the show, but for the life of us we could not figure out where to park. We finally settled on a parking garage connected to the Holiday Inn, which ironically was also the home to The Liffey, so we couldn't had that work out better. We walked across downtown St. Paul for the Fitzgerald Theater, where APHC was recorded. We got to the theater no problem but still had some time to kill so we went in search of beer. We must of walked over half of downtown but for the life of us we could not find a place. The bars we did find did not open until 4, and it was more like 2:30 - 3:00. We did manage to find a fancy hotel called The Saint Paul, and sure enough they had a bar. It was actually quite nice, and had a nice collection of Single Malt Scotch (but I stuck to beer). We had a few brewskies and enjoyed talking with the bartender. He even cracked a joke about The Christmas Story, which is one of my favorite movies, and had me on stitches.


On our way back to the Fitzgerald Theater, we stumbled across some Peanuts statues. St. Paul was the home of Charles Schultz. After some creative posing, we made our way to the "Fitz". We stopped at Mickey's diner on the way, but still no Rhubarb Pie.



We arrived at the theater and Mark saw they had Grainbelt, which is some sort of beer you can only get in this area and he grew nostalgic so he had one. I tasted it and it was nothing special, but he was so excited to see they had it, so I was happy for him.

Our seats were 2nd Balcony, 2nd row, so we had a great view of the stage (albeit a little higher than we would have liked, but fine nonetheless). In addition to Garrison Keilor and his normal repertoire of radio actors, the special guests featured a singer/song writer from Montana, Stephanie Davis; country singer Becky Schlegel, master fiddler Stuart Duncan, and this man who could play all sorts of instruments, Mike Seeger. The show started a few minutes before 5pm with Garrison and Becky Schlegel singing a song. The show went live at 5pm sharp and Garrison started off with a joke about Fidel Castro, saying that in a recent interview Fidel proved that not only is he alive, but that he intends to outlive the Bush Administration.... just like all of us. The theater erupted in thunderous laughter! (Mr. Keilor is a huge liberal, perhaps why I am such a fan). In addition to some great music and the weekly "News from Lake Wobegon", we got to listen to skits involving perennial characters like Ken, the starving artist; The Lives of the Cowboys with Dusty and Lefty, and a particularly funny episode of Guy Noir, Private Eye, involving a stint working for the TSA; and the Powdermilk Biscuits song (Heavens! They're tasty and expeditious)

The show came to end around 7pm and we made our way down from the nosebleed section. I stopped at the gift stand and got a Dusty and Lefty T-shirt and an American Duct Tape Council cap, and we made our way back across downtown to meet up with Mark's friends Lisa and Ryan (her husband) at the Liffey. Mark and Lisa grew up together in Partial, ND (pop. 900) and went to UND together, but had not seen each other in 10 years, so he was real excited to see them. They had a good time catching up about their old friends from back home, and it was interesting to hear them talk about life growing up in a small town in literally the middle of nowhere. The food was fantastic. Mark had been talking about having a Walleye sandwich since before we left Dallas, which he did. I had Corned beef and Cabbage. We all sat on the terrace up on the roof. The weather was still quite nice. We got to see a white trash bride and her white trash friends. Colorful people always make the evenings more fun.

Around 10pm, we said out goodbyes and headed back to our little Residence Inn at the MSP Airport. We were both exhausted and we slept pretty well. The alarm rang pretty early at 6am. I had taken my laptop and got us put on the standby list and we headed down to the lobby for breakfast. We returned the car no problem and got thru security just fine. At that point the easiness of the day came to a halt when a Hockey team of 25 that was confirmed on the 5:30pm departure that evening decided to standby for the 9:15am flight we were on. They gobbled up all the open seats. To make matters worse, the rest of the flights that day up until the 5:30pm flight were full. I of course could have taken the jumpseat, but since Mark was on a buddy pass, he was at a lower priority, and I didn't want to abandon him. At one point he was #35 on the list! We ended up sitting at the airport all day, watching all the flights go out full. We did enjoy a nice lunch at the Rock Bottom brewery (I had a nice unfiltered Wheat beer) and towards the end of our ordeal, did some stress eating at Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.

Of course the 5:30 flight was wide open now (and Mark had graduated to #4 on the list) since the schmucks from the Hockey Team had gotten the earlier flight, so we got the bulkhead seats in the first row of coach and the flight home was uneventful.

All in all a great trip (minus the non rev drama). The show was fantastic. Watching it live was just like I imagined it would be when I listen to the show on the radio each week.

Mid Life Crisis in El Paso

I had an El Paso layover last night. As we were checking in to the hotel, a group of girls walk by and they are all wearing UNF T-shirts. I was a little shocked because El Paso Texas is not the place I imagine to see the UNF Girls Soccer Team. I get all excited and tell them "Go Ospreys!" (our mascot) which catches them off guard. They asked me how I had heard of their tiny little state school and I told them I was an alumn. One girl in particular had a T-shirt from her 2007 Honors Orientation. I told her I had the same shirt from the 1994 Honors Orientation, to which she replied, "I was in kindergarden then..."

This will no doubt be the turning point in my life that I will remember as when I offically started getting old.

I called my friend Crystal today to tell her about it, and she remarked how it just feels like a couple of years ago, when in reality we started college 13 years ago.

It's all downhill from here... This incident gave me a whole new bunch of gray hairs.

My 31st year begins....

Last Monday, I started my 31st year of life. I really don't feel like I should be 31, but for some reason, I find myself getting older. I think I look the same, although the gray is more noticeable than it used to be, and my waistline is bigger than it used to be.

I spent Sunday night playing cards at my friend Vicki's place. A bunch of flight attendants got together and played a game called "99". It was loads of fun and I was hoarse from yelling so much. Each player put 20 bucks in the pot and the last player standing wins the whole amount. I was the first one out, but it was still fun. In the end, Frankie (Vicki's 84 year old mother) took home the pot.

We had cake for my birthday.... the beginning of a week of eating like crap.

Surprisingly, I had Labor Day (my actual birthday)off and spent the afternoon with my sister helping her buy a laptop and then we went over to my parents house for birthday dinner and the FSU/Clemson game. My mom and dad had some friends from the GTE days over also.

I ended up picking up a trip on Tuesday. There was a lady dropping it for 100 bucks, so I took it off her hands for a little extra cash and hours. I had three hours of sit time in St. Louis so my Aunt Carol came to the airport and visited with me on my layover. We played cards and she stopped at a deli on the way and brought us sandwiches.

Incidentally, my next door neighbor's sister was on the trip with me so it was nice to fly with someone I know. We layed over in McAllen, Texas, along the border with Mexico. It's a sleepy little town, but great food. We went to a great place called the Costa Mesa for dinner. I had Enchiladas Suizas and I ate my weight in chips and salsas. They had three different types of salsas and all were fantastic.

We got up this morning and flew back to Dallas and then on to Dayton, Ohio and back. We got held up with the rain this morning and sat on the runway in Dallas for about an hour due to ATC flow control problems. It was real light onboard so the passengers behaved, and we picked up an hour in extra time on the ground stoppage.

Mexico.... more like Mexi-NO

So I was all excited because I had a carryover trip from August into September that had a two day layover in Mexico City. I have been there a lot, but never with that much time, so I was excited that I would have a complete day to do something on my own. I went online and booked a tour to Teotihuacan, the Aztec pyramids, and the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the most visited religious site in all of Latin America.

We were scheduled to fly to Mexico City on Thursday, then head back to base, and then back into Mexico City for the layover. We started out fine. The loads were light and we even commented on how something was bound to go wrong. Well, go wrong it did.

We arrived back to base only to encounter massive delays. The earlier flight to Mexico City had cancelled, so we went from a light booking to full full full.

We boarded our plane, with no air conditioning mind you, and no pilots. With the pilots nowhere in sight, we got a mechanic to come out to the plane and turn on the APU so at least we had some air conditioning. Me and my coach flying partner, John, served juice and water and most people were pretty cool about everything. There was a rather obnoxious lady in 7D who would repeatedly ring her call light for minutes at a time, and then yell at us that this was part of some conspiracy.

Well, in the end they found us some pilots, but they had to be wheels up (in the air) by 2336. We pushed back from the gate and were about to take off when they went illegal, so back to the gate we went. At this point we had a mini revolution on our hands. In the end the flight was cancelled, and we were sent to a local hotel to layover over and deadhead the next day.

I of course missed out on my tour and after contacting the tour company, was told they would not issue a refund or credit, so it was a total loss.

I did have some chicken fajitas for dinner last night along with Montijo, my new favorite Mexican beer. We did have some cool passengers on our last leg home today from SLC, including a little Jewish bubby named Bebe. She was a stitch and we were joking around with her. She was standing in the galley as we put the carts away and we ended up putting my apron on her and she took the trash cart out with us and picked up the garbage. She enjoyed schmoozing with the passengers and she said when she was a girl she always wanted to be a stewardess, so she got to live a little of her dream.