I hi-tailed it out of work a bit early, with a few birthday errands to run, and a handful of chores to complete. The workweek had been pretty dern stressful, so it felt good to leave, feeling kinda like I'd "gotten away with something."
By 4:30pm, we were well on our way to Houston. Stopped for a quick supper, and back to the Woodlands. The crowd and the traffic on the way in were pretty minimal. Yet again we found ourselves in a different parking lot, this time a totally different direction walking it. Commit to memory where the truck got parked, important for leaving later.
Ever walked towards a concert before, heard the warm-up band, and wondered, "Geez, who is that?!? I know I know that voice from somewhere! Who on earth is that!!" Staind opened up for Creed, and did a great job. We found our seats & got settled before they finished up - a first. Sitting for the warm-up band! :)
The seats around us slowly filled up, with quite the variety of crowd. Waiting on Creed to start, I saw what looked like an ittie bittie flame in the middle of the stage. Oh yeah, that was fire, alright. That little flame spread into a huge fire spread across the width of the stage - absolutely cool! They were absolutely awesome! Great sound, fabulous voices, not a lotta yapping, and a ton of singing. The event was also being simulcast with cameras all over the venue, broadcast live to troops overseas. Now, that is pretty darn cool!
The folks sitting around us, were, um, colorful? Yeah, that's a nice way to say it. One lady was, um, rhythmically challenged? Well, no, she did move in a rhythmic fashion, but I think it might benefit her to watch Footloose about, hm, a dozen times. The few in front of us, um, again, same deal. Didn't help their cause that they were all considerably taller than I am, making it just a bit hard to see if they smooshed all together. Between these two "bunches", they were very, um, "touchie feelie" - high 5'ing complete strangers around them, including us. The lady across the aisle had the "touchies on everybody" boogers. There was a younger group of folks in front of her, the girl directly in front of her started showing signs of really not feeling well. I don't mean a little bit, I mean sitting down, head between her knees, left for a while, not feeling well. Poor girl... All that, to come back to her seat, and have the lady behind her constantly patting her on the back & hollering in her ears.. Yeah, glad that wasn't me. On the opposite of those personalities were the girls sitting to my right - talk about polite! The girl right beside me very accidentally bumped into me one time, and apolgized, then elbowed her friend to "scoot over" & give me a little bit of room. Very very polite girls. Their parents should be awful proud of their maturity. By far the most entertaining crowd-watching, was near the end of the event, behind us & over a section. One gentleman was, um, preparing to cause fire to reach one said illegal substance. =) He was asked to stop by security, shook his head "no", and was promptly shown the way out of the seating area. By then, I quit watching, but it sure was fun to see two very large security guards, one each at his shoulder, "showing him out". *giggle*
There was another outdoor event at the same grounds, causing a HUGE bottleneck crowd on the way out. At one point, I had a guy, um, leaning up against me, shoving me, and quite honestly, parts of his body were entirely too close to all of me. I stepped back and introduced the top of his foot to the bottom of mine, twice, in some effort to show him that his space and mine were to remain two different things. R quickly recognized my frustration, and got in between us - good thing, too (for the guy, that is). After the bottleneck chaos, it felt good to see most of the crowd turn one way getting to their parking, and us a different direction.. *whew*
We grabbed a midnight breakfast before slipping of to sleep. At check-in, our hotel clerk got a little mini-free-lesson on "how to NOT tell the customer where there room is at check in." I could post an entire entry on hotel & travel safety, but let me give you a snippet right here.
Never, never, never, EVER, let the hotel clerk announce your room #, room location, or even brief directions when you're checking in. Take the card, your room #, and ask for a map. Go sit in your car and read the map, and find the room on your own. If you're still not sure, go looking without your bags first. This is especially true if you're checking in alone. I don't care how safe you feel, how armed you are, or how "big & powerful" you think you can be against a criminal. If the clerk even gives remotely useful directions to your room, he/she has also given them to the other customers in the lobby with you. And which of you wants the boogity man showing up at your hotel room door faking to be room service? Huh? Not I, as I scolded the girl, "That's quite enough. You can stop there." while she was offering the floor & general directions to our room. She had a look on her face of absolute shock, and said to me, "I wasn't going to say the room #." And I responded, "That's fine, but everyone else here in line doesn't need to know the floor number, or directions to the room. You've done enough, thanks."
No comments:
Post a Comment