Bennigans in Miami

We finally made it to Miami this evening. It is late, hot, we are worn out, but ... we need to eat. So, we decide to take a short walk over to the Bennigan's in the parking lot adjacent to our hotel. We enter and are quickly seated in a booth between several other occupied tables and booths by an Asian hostess. After sitting patiently for 5-6 minutes, fanning ourselves with the menus because it feels as though we are sitting under heat lamps, a waitress walks by and asks if we have been helped. Although we replied, "No. No one has waited on us yet," she just walks away. We pause our fanning for a brief moment and look at each other - both wondering why she did not stop to take our order or to let us know that she would send someone over. So, we continue to sit - tired, hungry, and roasting!

Finally, the Asian hostess who seated us, arrives at our table and announces, "I'll be your waitress this evening!" Since we have been waiting quite a while, are tired, and hungry, we decide that we better place our entire order while we have her attention. Blake orders us the buffalo wing appetizer, a chicken and shrimp meal, a beer, and a glass of water. Cindy, our Asian waitress, wearing a "trainee" name tag, begins to ask a lot of questions. Each time that we answer, she says, "Just one minute," and walks away from the table. The first time, she headed to the bar and returned only to tell us that she was not sure if they had the beer that Blake requested. So, Blake asked what beers she did have to offer. "Just a minute!" and she is once again off to the bar. This time, she returns with a laminated beer menu. Although the beer Blake requested is not listed on the menu, he selects a beer from the list. Cindy looks at him, a bit confused, so Blake repeats his request. Cindy still does not seem to grasp what he has said, so he points to the name of the beer on the menu. At this time, Cindy bends down over the menu - her face within inches of the table as she reads and says aloud the name of the beer - and then writes it down on her order pad. Then, she just stands there and looks at us; smiling. So, Blake orders the buffalo wing appetizer. Again, Cindy seems confused, so he points out the buffalo wing appetizer, and she bends down until her face is within inches of the menu, says aloud "buffalo wings", and then writes it down. Mind you, we have only ordered two drinks (one of which was water) and a appetizer, yet Cindy is on the second page of her order pad. On to the entree. Instead of just stating the name of the entree, Blake points out the item on the menu so that she can see it, Cindy repeats the same process, and writes down the entree order on the third page of her order pad. It has been a long and cumbersome ordering process, but our order is finally placed. Or so we thought.

So, we sit - sweating beneath the heat lamps shining down on us. After several minutes, Blake walks to the bar to see if he can get us some water. He discovers that it is much cooler in the bar, so we decide to relocate. We explain to our new waiter that we placed our order with Cindy, the trainee, and ask him to follow-up with her to make sure that the order was placed and that she knows that we have moved. He never returns. Instead, we flag down the bartender and ask for the manager. After speaking to the manager, Cindy returns. She has not placed our order. We get the manager a second time, he takes our order and says that he will make sure that we get it.

In the meantime, the bartender brings us two glasses of water, and here comes Cindy with two glasses of water in her hands. She mumbles something as she reaches the table and sees that we already have water and starts to turn and leave. Blake asks her to please leave the water and assures her that we will drink it. Again, she turns to leave, and Blake stops her by reaching for the glasses of water. He eventually has to take the glasses from her hands so that she does not walk away with them. We just have to laugh. After all, it would not do us any good to get angry.

Finally, our food and our appetizer arrive at the same time. Instantly, it is apparent that our shrimp is raw. So, we flag down the bartender, she locates Cindy, and we try to explain to Cindy that the shrimp is raw and needs to be cooked longer. Once again, Cindy says, "Just a minute," and walks away. She returns with another waitress. We show her the shrimp, she explains the situation to Cindy, and they take our shrimp away to cook it. We begin to eat our chicken, and a few minutes later, Cindy returns with the shrimp - still RAW! We laugh, decide to give up on the shrimp, and ask for our bill. Cindy finally figures out that we are asking for our ticket and leaves to prepare it.

The bill arrives. Blake begins to scan the bill. We have been charged for three beers, even though Blake only had two, were were charged for the shrimp, even though it was never fully cooked so we could not eat it, and ... there is a $5.00 service charge on our bill! A service charge? For what? Seriously!?!?!?!?

So, we flag down the manager, for the third time, to discuss the bill. Although the manager is sympathetic to our plight, he knows that we are from out-of-town. He agrees that we should not pay her a service fee for her "service" (and I use that term loosely), and we know that customer service is not his main concern, otherwise he would not have ever hired Cindy "the waitress" (Ha!) in the first place. The manager reduced the bill a bit and handed it to Cindy to return to us. After placing it on the table, she stood just a few feet from us and watched as we reviewed it and made our payment. I guess that she thought we were going to walk out without paying her.

Wow! What an experience! Like I said, "We had to laugh. Otherwise, we would have cried!" Cindy, the Asian Trainee from the Bennigan's in Miami, Florida ... I wonder how long she'll last? I wonder how many other travelers she will torture?

Want to be a Speed Reader?

I just saw this on a Twitter post. It is one of the coolest things I have seen all week! It is Zap Reader, and it actually allows you to read text on the web at 300 words per minute without the loss of comprehension. Basically, it takes the paragraph formatted text and shows it to you one word at a time (by default); therefore, you are focusing on only one word at a time rather than trying to stay focused on one word after another in paragraph form, so you read at 300 words per minute. If that is too fast for you, you can slow it down a bit, or if it is too slow for you, you can speed it up. For example, if you select to see two words at a time, you will read 600 wpm. Click here for demo and additional information or go to http://www.zapreader.com/ to try it out for yourself.

Working Out ... Continued

I am so proud of Blake. He has been eating so well, drinking his water, eating early, not snacking, and is now exercising. He has lost about 15 lbs. recently, and is looking great. Yesterday, I tried to go to the gym, but it was closing, so I head out to Connor's baseball practice to see if Blake wanted to walk around the park with me. Where did I find Blake? In the outfield fielding balls for the boys. He was running back and forth fielding balls and throwing them in. Wow! That is awesome! Getting a little exercise, spending time with Connor, and helping out the baseball team. Way to go, Blake!

Blake signed us up for the FAC last Wednesday (the FAC is our city rec center), and he got up the very next morning and went to work out at 5:00am! Yeah, Blake! The next morning, I went with him. It was hard to get up, but we made it. We went back Saturday morning and again this morning. We are sticking with it!

For those of you familiar with my eating habits ... I have eaten fish three times this week. I know. You're in shock! Sherri doesn't eat fish! Well, I am trying. Some of it I only tolerate, others, I like. The tuna steak is good when it is cooked. Blake tried to serve it to me half raw last time, and that was not so good. We tried Mahi Mahi last night. We ate a Mahi Mahi that we caught deep sea fishing once, and it was fabulous. So, we bought some at Sprouts and cooked it up. Parts of it were fabulous, while other parts ... very fishy. I don't do fishy. So, we may not be doing Mahi Mahi again. Well see.

Well, I best get ready for work. Stay tuned for continued updates on our work outs.

MacBooks

Yesterday, I assisted in a MacBook intro session as principals in our district received their new MacBooks. During the session, Maria (the Mac rep) highlighted some of the great Mac features and had a chance to work with PhotoBooth and iChat. It was great to watch them engaging in the 21st Century Skills that we want to emerse our students in through the use of MacBooks, Web 2.0 tools, and more.

Tonight, as I was cleaning up some files on my MacBook, I stumbled upon a video that Megan made of herself and Sophie. She created the movie in iMovie and recorded herself and Sophie with the webcam on my MacBook. Enjoy Megan and Sophie as they perform YMCA. I am sure that Megan will LOVE seeing this movie when she is about 16 or so!

Working Out

I am trying to commit myself to working out on a regular basis. I know that I avoid activities because I am not comfortable with my weight, my appearance, and when I really stop and think about it, I am causing my family to avoid activities, too. That is really not fair to them. I want to be comfortable in my own skin, and I really never have been. So, I started walking on my treadmill on Friday. I walked for just over an hour, and I walked for an hour and 3 minutes today. I use the handweights for a while while walking to work on my arms a bit. I hope that maybe it will help them to feel more toned and less flabby, as well.

I have a full length mirror which leans again the wall in my bedroom. While in the treadmill, I can see the backs of my legs. Not a pretty picture, but one that I hope to change with more and more walking on the treadmill.

We are going to Jamaica in June, and I don't want to be miserable the whole time that I am there and feel subconscious every moment. I know that I always feel uncomfortable the first few days, and then I seem to settle in a bit and just accept it and have fun. But, I really would like to be more confident in my appearance so that I did not have to deal with it at all. One day. I just have to keep walking. I am good at walking on the treadmill, and I know that I can do it, so I just have to keep making time for it. Then, who knows ... maybe I will move on to something even bigger.

Image Chef

If you have been on my blog lately, you probably have noticed the Join Me on Twitter Image Chef that I added a few weeks ago. (I just deleted it, and I will be adding a different Twitter gadget soon).

I found Image Chef while reading another blog and decided to try it out. It offers several options for posting unique image posts. Check it out for yourself at http://www.imagechef.com/.

Here is a YoungLife heart that I created with Image Chef Mosaic.

FISD Blog

I have set up a new blog on the FISD server to use during the book study. You can locate my FISD blog here ... https://wiki.friscoisd.org/users/richarsh/blog/.