One long Day

This has been one long day (Saturday). Thanks to the City of Houston's shortfall in traffic ticket revenue, I got a citation back in January for running a red light. Now, let me say first that, I hate red light runners. They're a danger on the road and should be routinely beaten. For me, this was the usual making it through as the light was yellow. In Houston, unless you got a good amount of distance, you don't even think about trying to stop on a yellow light, becuase chances are the two people behind you are gunning it to beat the light.
That said, I don't doubt that the light went red before I cleared the intersection. If you're not out of the intersection by the time the light is red, you've run a red light. 99% of the time you don't get stopped for this (shoot, most times, the flagrant red light runners don't get stopped either, but that's another rant). I don't bear any ill will to the officer. Those guys have a tough job in Houston, particularly trying to fill a quota of tickets that shall not be named becuase, of course, it doesn't exist (wink, wink).
It's been a while since I'd gotted into any trouble, so I was allowed to take Defensive Driving. Funny thing about government information, it seems everyone can get there hands on it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Houston sells it as a revenue stream, but over the last few months it has resulted in a weekly barrage of ads in the mail from what seems every DD school from here to Dallas.
I finally picked a "comedy" class being held in Clear Lake at a Ryan's steakhouse/buffet. I hadn't been there before and I would definitely recommend Golden Corral as having better food in the all you can stuff your face cheap buffet category. The state mandates a six hour minium course, so I was there from 9a to 3p. As usual, the information was all good an important and mostly stuff I do already. The comedian was ok. I don't think I'd seek him out if I was looking to go out for a night of comedy, but he got the job done. I'm sure part of it was him having to be "clean" in his humor for the mixed crowd. He said as much. Although, if you can't be funny without having to be dirty, that's not much of a comedian in my book. During the breaks, he had a videotape of "Bill Cosby - Himself" running on the TV. Getting to see that classic again was probably the best part of the class.
So, I survived that ordeal and returned home. I was able to go to the community pool for a while with my daughter and that was nice. We went a few weekends back when it first opened and boy was that some cold water! This time was much better. We only were able to make a short visit as we get to the rest of my day.
The KC council that I'm a member of has a nice hall here in Pearland. One of the main ways it is being paid for is through rental of the hall to various events. The two biggest are wedding receptions and Quinceaneras. There is a bar that serves beer and other soft liquor along with sodas, chips, popcorn, etc. Volunteer teams of Knights work the bar each weekend for these events to raise more money to get the hall paid off. Last night was my team's turn and it was a Quinceanera. If you've never been to one or seen one, it is often a most elaborate production, often times bigger than wedding receptions. Days like this, I'm glad I am not Hispanic, because this looks like an expensive proposition.
The hall was reserved from 6p to midnight. So, I show up at 6p with the other guys and things are very quiet. Guests don't really even start showing up for the first hour. We send about half the guys home at it looks like it is going to be a rather small and quiet affair. Uh-oh! About 8:30, the action starts picking up and from 9:30 to midnight, that bar was hopping and the three of us still there were scrambling. Working the bar crew is a lot of fun, but it will wear you out.
Was was really interesting this time around is that there were a lot of small kids. The parents of the young lady had prebought a bunch of tickets for sodas and beer. About every 15 minutes, the dad would come by, pull out a wad of tickets, and walk off with a dozen beers or 20 sodas. The sodas (actually, Cokes - they literally bought every can of Coke that we had in the coolers that night) were being given out to the kids by the mother and father and the father would walk off with a case of beer at a time to pass around to the adults guests. Always Bud Light. I'm not sure why, but it seems like at least 80% of the beer we sell at the bar is Bud Light. The Corona was also a big seller as well. It was pretty amazing to see how much work the father and mother would putting in to paying attention to the guests. Those two have got to still be asleep recovering after the night of work they put in!
I finally made it back in about 12:30 on Sunday morning and crashed. (Yes, I know the timestamp says Saturday, but that is the day I'm writing about).
Whew!