You go girl

I walked out of The Color Purple on Broadway at intermission because it was so bad but evidently I'm making another trip to NYC in the next 7 months because Fantasia is going to be Celie. So she can't act (did you SEE her Lifetime movie???). Who cares? I loves me some Fantasia. And I love her even more after she inadvertantly(?) gave Ryan Seacrest the finger while hugging him last night.

What was wrong with the musical? Well for starters, did anyone involved see the movie or read the book? No excuses there since Alice Walker, the author of the book, was involved with the production. Maybe I just was there on an off-night. Let's see... No one was afraid of Mister. Not even Celie. Mister wasn't even that mean to anyone. Mister's Daddy wasn't mean to anyone either. There was no connection between Celie and Nettie so I didn't feel much of anything when they were separated. Well that's enough to ruin it for me. No emotional connections = extremely bad musical.

Queen Bee is no more

I just got word from my friend Paul that my favorite restaurant, Queen Bee is closed. It's in Arlington, Virginia and I used to be obsessed with it. They have my favorite summer rolls of all time. I used to go several times a week and when I travelled I would go on my way to the airport and on my way back home. Anyone who was anyone in my life for the 10 years or so since I discovered the restaurant went to Queen Bee.

I would call and say "can I place a take out order?" They would say "what would you like". I'd answer "2 orders of summer rolls...." and the immediate response was always "oh hi! how are you?" One time I was on a date going to the movies and was hungry. So we called ahead gave our order and asked if we could eat it there. So we showed up 15 minutes later and there was our food on the table waiting for us. 15 minutes later we were gone. Good times.

I checked the web to see if the restaurant had moved but couldn't tell. So I called the number and asked if this was Queen Bee.

The answer was "No, Queen Bee is no more."

Be careful what you wish for...

My Mom has been lamenting the lack of snow for months. Her last two visits were snow free until the day after she left (1st time) and after she was dropped off at the airport (2nd time). She's here again, she's seen a little but not much. So last night we go to Black Hawk to do some gambling. She doesn't get to do it often but loves loves loves it. She even won a nice chunk of change unlike me who lost $20 in five minutes and called it a night. It started snowing hard while we were there but didn't leave until 10:30 pm. Big mistake. 70 was closed so there was only one road out of Black Hawk. One lane each way, narrow roads through a canyon with the river on one side (and not much in the way of guard rails where there are any... So long story short a 45 minute drive home took three hours due to four or five different accidents (I lost count) including cars, minivans smashing up against Buses, Buses not being able to get up the roads with wheels spinning away, etc. Once we finally got past all the accidents people started passing us like crazy. Keep in mind that the roads were just sheets of ice. No salt, no nothing.

At least Mom got to sit and watch the snow on the trees, mountains and river. Be careful what you wish for.

Greetings from 35,000 feet

Ah, first class is nice. I get so many free upgrades now that whenever I don't like my seat, I just upgrade myself to first! It's really the only time I can work on the laptop since the seats in the back are too narrow for those kind of shennanigans.

So I've been extended on my current assignment for another two weeks which is a lot of fun. San Jose doesn't have too much to do, but the weather is beautiful. Even last week the trees were blooming.

The former chef of the White House (under Clinton and B*&^) was doing a book signing in the cafeteria of my work building. So I thought I would get a book signed for Skippy the chef as one of his V-Day assignments. Well the cafeteria is HUGE and totally mobbed so we normally go to lunch at about 1 pm to miss the crowds. The book signing was from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm but by the time I got there at 1:10 pm he was gone, gone gone. How rude! I wasn't the only one standing around waiting for him either. How rude!

Do you every listen to a song on your iPod (or other inferior music player of your choice) and just start playing it over and over? I'm doing that right now with Heather Headley's song Change. I've been playing it for about an hour now.

My mom is here! She's been staying with my sister down in Castle Rock so we saw her for lunch on Sunday, but she is ours for the weekend starting tomorrow. Custody of the Mom! We'll be off to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch and gambling in BlackHawk tomorrow night. Skip doesn't bother to ask me what casino I want to visit (as I'm not into gambling), he knows the answer is "whichever one is the least smokey". I hate hate hate hate smoke and the longer I am away from it the more I hate it.

Have a great weekend!

Ah, Lucky 7

Have you ever been to howmanyofme.com? One of them wants my domain name! There are 26 Jeffrey Daytons. Do they go by birth certificate? Who knows.

San Jose

I'm finishing up my first of two weeks here in San Jose. The work is fun (I'm architecting a Sametime upgrade) and there is a great mall, (called the Great Mall, haha) that is probably one of the best malls I've ever visited. I went to a Vietnamese restaurant last night (Minh's) and it was one of the better ones I've ever tried. Of course it's nowhere near Denver.

Speaking of Denver the snow is actually melting at home! We have gotten close to 11 feet since December 15 and I'm sure more is on the way, but for now...