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We grilled. I invited you online. (No, you; not you.) Unfortunately you could not make it. This might have been my fault as the invite was sort of a last-minute thing.
Probably for the best. Those burgers were delicious. The Yankee put some crazy new seasoning in them. I think she called it pep … pep-per … or something like that. I didn’t really want to share.
Hope you’re having a lovely Labor Day weekend.
I went with my mother a few weeks ago to this place called Genghis Grill. It is a stir fry place, the gimmick being that you pick all of the items that are going in your ridiculously-sized bowl. There are dozens of choices. My mother picked the place, I think, just to make me squirm over all of those decisions.
One of the things I decided on had something called dragon salt in it. The first part of the name should have been the warning. But, alas. Apparently, I have just learned, it is a mix of salt, garlic, cayenne pepper, ginger and Cajun spices. At the time I just thought it sounded cool. It was anything but.
The food was good, and plentiful. I had a lot to eat later that night, when it was even better, and the dragon salt wasn’t as intense by dinner time.
Anyway, in the restroom, was this sign:
Gengis, get it? I stumbled across that pic again in my phone just now. Thought it was worth sharing.
(Holdover thoughts from our time in Belgium.)
I want a waffle.
Perhaps the biggest disappoint of visiting Brussels — aside from not meeting Jean Claude Van Damme — was that you couldn’t find a waffle magnet. We do the complete tourist thing with the magnets, yes, and our fridge is awesome.
I’d just want a waffle magnet that looks like this:
Of course I’d probably walk by it every day and do that, so maybe it is a good thing.
Here is a panel you missed this morning. We were, I think, both entertaining and thoughtful. It was both theoretic and nostalgic. And almost all of the examples that came out of the panel were tales that started with some dystopian or post-apocalyptic backstory, which I found to be interesting. Just read the description, and imagine you were there:
It led to this quote, from our friend and co-panelist Dr. Brian Brantley, which was spot on:
And I don’t even like zombie films. Or mobster films. I think they’re kind of the same, actually.
I also chaired a panel on politics and sat in on another one where The Yankee presented, and caught a fourth session elsewhere, as well. It was a good day at the conference.
We have friends here in Tampa — Jenni, with whom we ran the Augusta half-Ironman last year and her husband, Gavin, who flies rockets and works for the county. That sounds like he flies rockets for the county, and I think he would appreciate that dangling gerund, so I’ll just leave it as is They took us here:
They took us not knowing we’ve had lunch at one of their cafes for two days in a row. That’s OK. We’re going back there again tomorrow.
The neon side overhead:
Across the street, the local branch of “My bank is more patriotic than your bank.”
Inside the restaurant, I enjoyed the roast pork “a la Cubana.” I even enjoyed the plantains, and I don’t even like plantain. Gavin, meanwhile, ordered the flaming steak. That was a first for me. He said it was delicious:
The restaurant has been around for more than a century, aimed at the working man, but has evolved somewhat over the decades. It is still a family-owned place. The menu is covered in their history. This is one of the best stories I’ve read in a menu (and I always read the stories in a menu):
Outside and around the corner, here are the six generations of that family who poured their lives into the place:
The whole block, it seemed, was dressed up in the style. I wonder what happens to those tiles when the seventh generation comes along.
Having registered for the conference yesterday — name tags, programs and no swag, which has disappeared entirely from this conference — we started off this year’s edition of the Southern States Communication Association in the old-fashioned way, attending panels.
My favorite of the day was one titled “From Teddy to FDR: Rhetoric and he Presidential Roosevelts.” There were papers there from Teddy’s classic 1883 Duties speech to women’s suffrage and FDR’s Lend-Lease debates. I liked it because the papers had such an impact and a chronological bent that you can trace so much of the 20th century weaved right through the words and the circumstance of the time.
There were other panels. There was also this guy:
That’s one surprised conquistador. And so there I am, in the cafe at lunch, a ridiculous imitation of a CSI drama, trying to figure out what in his line of sight has him so startled.It made no sense. Whatever goosed him had moved on and he wasn’t talking about it:
But the food was good at Colombia Cafe. And while I don’t normally take pictures of food, this is the sort of enthusiasm that can occur when you have a sandwich for dinner, skip breakfast and have a late lunch.
It didn’t hurt that one of our friends had already been there for lunch, said it was good, recommended that dish in particular and then decided, “I’ll go back with you.”
Conferences are special like that.
Just across the street from the hotel is the Amalie Center, home of the Tampa Bay Lightning. They were hosting the Devils tonight. We got tickets, got inside just in time for the national anthem and see the Tesla generator hanging from the ceiling spark up the dark room.
They just wrapped up the women’s NCAA finals earlier in the week. Hockey tonight, indoor football tomorrow and hockey the next day. The Amalie Center is a busy place. And so is our conference. Tomorrow we have a cool futurist panel, should be fun, if you’re in the area. Teleport your way on in.
