How lame am I? All I can give you is mini stories right now because I'm between packing and getting stuff done for tomorrow. Yes. That's lame even for me.

Fireworks
Chris, Jeff and I each bought a sample pack of fireworks to play with on Friday night. That was a good two hours of fun and explosive excitement. My favorite were these cone shaped things that I'm sure had a clever name. They made white sparks like a fountain. It was pretty awesome. Speaking of the naming of fireworks. What is with these names. We had one called "peach tea" that was neither peach nor tea. We had one that was called "butterflies" that looked remarkably like the one marked "June bug." Roman candles were not from Rome nor were they very useful as candles. Black cats don't actually look like cats nor are they unlucky like black cats. Well, I guess if they went off in your hand or your pocket then it would be unlucky.

Burns
I burned my finger. On a popper. Not even a real firework. Yes. I am just that awesome.

Cards
Let me just say that Chris's dad is a card shark. We played this game called "Aw shit" which has a real name too, but that wasn't nearly as amusing. I've played it with Chris and his folks years ago when Kerry and I used to road trip to see him. It was a lot of fun. We played it both Friday and Saturday nights and after each game, Tony would look over at me with this "you wanna play another don'tcha" face. How can I say no to that?

The Gulf
Jeff had never seen the Gulf of Mexico before Saturday. I know! Tragic isn't it. So, the three of us when down to Galveston to partake in his baptism by sludge. (That's why the water's brown.) I was surprised by the number of people who were at the beach doing beachy things. I was also amused at the boys planning exactly how they were going to annoy the local bird population. The plan involved super soakers and BB guns. But Jeff did put his toes in the water and then proceed to channel his inner WWE wrestlers. Orton and Batista have both now been to the beach. Come on. It's exactly what you would do.

Space Center Houston
This was one of those touristy things my folks did with me when I was a kid. It was an opportunity to go see all the rockets and learn about space and stuff. When I was that little, I wanted to be an astronaut. It was a great place. Sigh. However. And it makes me sad to say this, but it was kind of a cluster eff. They had a "traveling exhibition" at the center which turned out to be a McDonald's play place and a wooden maze for little kids. Neither of which talk about space. Neither of which encourage kids to want to grow up to be astronauts. So, for what started out as a pretty neat place to visit, quickly turned into a three ring circus with unsupervised children behaving like wild animals while their parents chatted on their cellphones or ignored them completely. So, a place I enjoyed when I was younger, has been completely destroyed by commercialism. There was no way to get those kids interested in anything about the space program.

Even their "Tram Tour" was awful. Something that could have been absolutely awesome was FILLED with rude parents and obnoxious children. We took the tram to go see Mission Control. They usher us into a room where an old Flight Director told us all about Mission Control and the history of NASA and the three ships that have exploded and what that means to the program. It was kind of a deep moment. Behind me this two year old, Hispanic girl was clearly not paying attention. She didn't want to sit in her mom's lap. They didn't give her her own chair. She walked up and down in front of the four or five seats taken up by her family which meant she was clinging to their knees as she squeezed by. She kicked the back of MY chair which my head was about at her knee's height. So, after putting up with this for most of our time there, I finally turned around to look at the kid in the hopes that "oh my god a stranger is staring at me I'm going to crawl back in mommy's arms" would happen. The kid started to cower and the mother said TO ME! "You must not have children."

YOU MUST NOT HAVE CHILDREN.

Are you kidding? Not one appology. Not an "I'm sorry my brat is taking away from this stop on the tour." Not an "oh my I didn't see that my horrible child was kicking the back of a stranger's seat." Nothing. Instead I got "You must not have children." I said nothing because I was stunned that there wasn't an apology attached with that bitchy comment. But I really wanted to say, "No, bitch. I don't have kids. However, that does not entitle me to have to put up with your spawns of Satan."

I would love to say that it was the only incident that happened at Space Center Houston, but it wasn't. There were a lot of shall we say, not-so-much-Americans visiting and while their customs may be appropriate in their country, they were not in ours. They were rude, pushy and annoying. They would leave a crowded theater and stop just outside the doorway and make a call. With hundreds of people trying to walk out behind them. They acted like they were the most important people in the place and took no regard to ANYONE else.

I'm going to stop now or the bitching will just get worse. Needless to say it was unpleasant. I was disappointed in it. I'm that person who will write a letter to the people at Space Center Houston and let them know how awful it was. And that makes me sad because it used to be a place I thought was pretty awesome.

Conclusion
Aside from that rather large thorn, the rest of the weekend was quite lovely. Fortunately, we were all in agreement that Space Center Houston was a disappointment and uncomfortable. So when we got back to Chris's Saturday night, we played more "Aw Shit" and took it out on our neighbors which was probably better than torching that family's SUV.

It was awesome to see Chris, blow up fireworks, see the Gulf and spend the weekend not in Dallas. This weekend, we're going to O! for Jake's wedding. That should be an interesting trip. Hopefully, we won't run into bastard children this time.