Richmond Trip #1 Monday

Got in very late the first night but I really appreciate that on this project they are building in travel days, whole entire days so I didn't bother to leave until about 1 PM and landed at like 10 or something. This time of year of course its 3 hours worth of time zones which is insane but when I come east I realize that even with the artificial time zones in place, the sun still goes down much later which seems weird.

The trip out itself was the usual mix of pain in the ass and interesting sociological study. For example I became obsessed in Dallas listening to the girl from Georgia behind me say 'mewved' for moved for 20 minutes. Our flight from big D to Richmond was held for a bit after everyone got on as we waited for a connecting International passenger. Its always fun to be THE LAST person on the plane because everyone watches you as you board, some staring lasers but the point is that everyone is looking. The lady that got on board was hefty, porcine really. In fact the first words that jumped to mind were 'Chris Farley'. This was helped by the fact that she looked to have put on a new coat of lipstick over her pancake makeup during some very, very bad turbulence. It was layered thick and sort of all over the place. She was loudly describing as she passed through THE ENTIRE PLANE how her flight from London had arrived late which forced her to run all the way through the terminal ruining her buzz. I just don't know what to say, it was terrible and fantastic all at once.

The Embassy Suites was about you'd expect except I got room 520.....get it? 520 like my area code!!!! I was unnecessarily proud of this all week. The desk man said the TGI Fridays in the adjacent parking lot was the about the only thing open that late so I went by for a beer and a sandwich.

TGI Fridays at midnight on a Monday is a hard place. On my left a gangster looking black guy cadoodling with the girlfriend on his left while ignoring for most of the night the completely bored looking bodyguard looking friend on his right. I call him a bodyguard cause he was like a man mountain. He appeared to be angry that he was there then, and in fact that anyone else was also s he scowled throughout the whole evening. On my right were 3 empty stools and on the other side were 2 groups. 1 a motley collection of well-worn desperate looking local bimbo types and a growing gaggle of what seemed to be servers from other restaurants that had recently closed. The servers were pretty laid back, seemed to know the bartenders well and were having a good time. The bimbos however all had an edgy sense of desperation. Didn't speak to anyone throughout, staring silently like predators. It was unnerving.