Friday, March 07, 2008

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! It has been a kick ass week here in NLR (North Little Rock), AR! My mind has been stimulated to the max this week. The Ho Jo where I live and work is one busy hotel and the season is just starting!. Not only have I been leaning so many new things about my job but the clientele is a real step up from that of the properties I worked at in Dallas. Two nights ago we had the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra in house for a concert here in town and last night we had the Kilgore College Choir arrive for this stop on their concert tour. Yummy college guys that can sing, yes! There was this one cutie who was looking for a place to play his acoustic guitar where he would not be a disturbance, it was about 10 P M, so I said just have a seat over on the sofa and play away. We have this humongous V-shaped leather sofa across from the desk. I told him to sit there as the club was open and so there was no way he could disturb anyone as the club was noisier than he could be. He sat across from the desk and strummed for about an hour, great eye candy and entertainment to boot! We were rally blitzed with customers on the 4-12 shift what with the choir and the club was hosting a western swing/bop dance club among the crowd coming and going, mostly coming. We were on the leading edge of a winter storm so a lot of people were looking to get out of the weather both locals and travelers. Tonight and tomorrow we are sold out so it will be another couple of nights of blitzkrieg with lo9ts of people coming to stay, usually in waves. It is like we are Molakai beach and the surf is pounding us with breaker after breaker. I have learned so much about the computer system under fire which is a really good way to learn. Hands on learning under pressure causes some stress, but it is a happy challenge as it forces my mind to figure out what to do in a hurry, sometimes with out help as there is so much business that all of us here at the desk have our hands full. Not that they aren't willing to help, it is just that they have their hands full also. My mind is has not been this stimulated and inspired to function at a high level in a long long time.

I have also gotten to facilitate some romance for one of the friends I have met here. Our main security guard (SG) is a young navy Iraq veteran with a girl friend (SGGurl) who is an admitted "fruit fly". She attends a spiritual community church whose pastor is Gay that she says is about 80 per cent GLBT in membership. We may have to check that one out as an alternative to trying to meet some GLBT folks in the bar scene. Anyway, I digress. SG likes to surprise SGGurl every couple of weeks with some romantic encounter to keep the sparks flowing in their relationship. SG and I have gotten off to a great start friendship wise, so we plotted a romantic interlude for them last evening. I played a significant role in the success of the evening even though I was at work. SG wanted to do a romantic candlelight dinner for SGGurl as a surprise. We talked about how to pull it off. It happens that SGGurl and SG both love meatloaf (loafing with meat? lo!l). I happen to make a killer meatloaf so we planned the menu with SG, then went shopping for the fixings. I helped him pick out the candles and the holders, advised him on the table setting, and together we plotted how to pull off the surprise. We planned for me to make the meat loaf and he would do the side items. While we were shopping he asked what seemed like a million questions but it was fun to see my suggestions take root and blossom into ideas for him that brought a devilish smile to his face. When we returned from shopping the maintenance man said the General Manager wanted to speak with me. The GM had said don't go to bed real soon after I got off at 8 A M as he was going to discuss how I was to be scheduled with the owner and would let me know the results of their discussion. So I called the GM and he informed me he wanted me to work the 4-12 shift that evening and to get some rest. This kinked the dinner plans a little as well as the rest idea as it was already 9:30 in the morning and SG and I had made the plan with the idea of me working 12-8 instead. But no biggie, we would just have to have to come up with an alternate plan which as it turned out worked to perfection. I had planned to get some sleep then get up around 3:30 to prepare my part of the meal. Since I now had to work at 4 that presented a challenge. The meat for the loaf was still defrosting at this point so I called SG and told him how we could meet this challenge. I did all the slicing and icing of ingredients for the meat loaf placing them in the fridge and set my alarm for 2:30 and got up, combined the ingredients, and put the meatloaf in the oven for SG to take out when it was done. He had planned to send SGGurl on a fictitious errand to get her out of his room so he could do his part of the cooking and the table setting, pull the meatloaf from my oven (he does not have a stove and oven in his room) and have everything waiting set up when SGGurl arrived. Then I got ready and went to work at 4. It worked brilliantly as SGGurl was totally surprised and rewarded SG appropriately (I will not go into details on that but let's just say a good time was had by both SG and SGGurl!). SG came to work at 10 with a BIG smile on his face!

I was hoping for a slice of meatloaf for an after work meal and SG said there was a little left over so I had my mouth all set for that. After I got off at 12, I went home to fix some trimmings for my meal and SG came over a little later but brought back an empty pan :(. I guess I made the meatloaf too good as SGGurl polished off the remainder while SG and I were at work. I baked me some chicken instead. I am always pleased when my cooking is well received, so I really did not mind switching gears to chicken instead, I guess I will just have to make another killer meatloaf for me to enjoy some other time. If you would like the recipe that I use just drop me a line or a comment and I will send it to you, it is really simple but ultimately delicious! Speaking of delicious I do have some delightful men for the eye candy section today that I will leave you with. To say that I am terrifically pleased with the results of my decision to pull up out of Big D and move to NLR is a giant understatement! Things have turned out so much better than I expected, I am really inspired and intellectually stimulated, so much so that my mind is almost on overload with activity. But that is such a good thing! I will close out for now but look forward to seeing you here tomorrow for the further adventures of yours truly here in NLR! Until next time as always, Enjoy!






























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