A trip to the restaurant

A few weeks ago a friend of mine (lets call him Eric) suggested we take both our families to a new restaurant that opened in Radford. We all met at approximately 6:00 pm on a Sunday evening. Like good an courteous patrons we put our name on the waiting list.(party of 8, 4 adults, 4 children all under 20 months old) We got our pager and waited for the people who were there before us to clear out so we could sit and wait. After a few minuets we were able to get a seat on the waiting bench. The pager person said it was about a 30 minuet wait but after about 10 - 15 minuets we got paged, so we all loaded up and came forward like good patrons do so we may be seated. We all thought wow this is great getting a seat before the kids got restless.
Well the glad and happy tiding were short lived because the pager person paged us so we could sit at separate booths across the way from each other. The whole point of going out together is to sit and eat together. We told the pager person we would really like to eat together so she said OK we will see what we can do. By that time our comfortable waiting seats had been taken by a group of teenage girls who were not about give them up.
About 15 minuets later the kids were starting to get a little restless and we were saved saved somewhat by being ushered to out table all together. It is now 6:35 pm. We get all the kids settled and start to look at the menu. Eric asked the waitress what kind of adult beverages they had on tap. Well, she couldn't remember what they had. No matter, we just ordered water and tea. All had ordered by 6:39pm, 5 different plates 4 special requests just a little different from the menu. Should be no big deal, difficult to mess up right?
It is about 7:05 now and the kids are on the verge of open rebellion because we have been here 1 hour and 5 minuets. We ask about the status of our meal when we are able to snag our waitress. She said it should be out shortly, the kitchen was backed up. Around 7:10 the food came out. Remember the 4 orders that deviated from the menu ever so slightly, well guess what, those ever so slight "special requests" were re-requested. Eric's wife's meal was almost totally unacceptable so we asked to speak with the manager. The manager finally showed up to speak about the the whole experience. The "manager" was not interested in taking care oh his customers so he offered to comp only the one meal for Eric's wife. We asked for the checks from our almost ghostly waitress who was hardly even near our table the entire night. At around 7:45 we got our credit card slips that the waitress told us what to keep and where to sign she disappeared into thin air. We looked everywhere for something to sign the slips with of find another waitress to help us. Nothing doing... We ended up asking my daughter if we could barrow her crayon so that we may sign the slips and get the heck out of there. And of course there was no tip because there was no consideration for any kind of acceptable service. We exited the place at just a few minuets before 8:00 pm.

Lets just say there will be no more "eating good in my neighborhood" by this family for a long long time. Applebees is not worth the wait and the service and food is definitely not worth the money.

Welcome to Superbowl Sunday

For the past few years it has been a tradition to go trout fishing with my good friend Todd on the morning of Superbowl Sunday. Today may be a bit challenging because the temperature will be in the low 30's with a wind advisory. My dad Bill is a die-hard fly fisherman, but he will be singing in the choir with mom this morning at church. He told me to let him know how we did and not to get frostbite this morning. I am starting to question the wisdom of fishing this morning too. Maybe we will just go to Wal-mart or Dick's sporting goods and look at new fishing gear and talk about the big fish we caught in past trips. Pizza and high-def football later today for those of you who where I live. Later

Happy groundhogs day!

According to the whistlepig winter is leaving early this year. Next weeks forecast highs in the 20s. My girls are the greatest achievment I will ever do on this earth. I could not have done it without the help of my wonderful and loving wife Kim. I am a pretty lucky guy.