Texas Trip Part 1

The trip to Houston was a lot of fun.  I've been wanting to visit Al Williams for a while, but between my injury, the kids schedule and Tim traveling so much, things didn't work out until the beginning of this year.   In addition to seeing Al, I planned to have dinner with another friend, Derron, and then drive to Austin in a rental car to see my friends Anita and Daniel for a few days before flying back.

I flew out of Orange County directly to Houston on Friday the 1st.  Fortunately, Al had some upgrade certificates that were set to expire this month, so he generously upgraded my flight to Houston and the long leg on my trip back.  

We just relaxed on Friday night and picked up dinner at a Mexican restaurant.  Saturday was a lot of fun.  Al had to drop off some football tickets at a friend of Trinity's.  We then went to a retro-arcade when you paid $15 and could play all these old school video games and pinball machines.  I am not sure if I was always that bad at playing the games, but I was glad I wasn't feeding quarters into the machine.  We had dinner in the Woodlands that night and I had some good ribs.

Sunday was the big day, however, as Al had tickets to the corporate box.  I have to say that this is a pretty good way to watch a game.  The food in the box was absolutely first rate and since they didn't have any Scotch on hand, I was drinking Al's drink of vodka plus cranberry juice.  Unlike Al, I skipped the grapefruit.

The family of Trinity's friend also came up to the box.  It turns out the father is Tommy Miles, aka Nephew Tommy,  the nephew of comedian Steve Harvey, and the co-host of Steve Harvey's radio show.  Tommy was a really nice guy and had a great family.  His daughter had gone to the arcade with us the day before and had impressed me with her ability to give driving directions and amused me with her statement that she "disliked Walmart passionately".

One of the other guys in the box was the former Seattle Seahawks football player Michael Sinclair.  It turns out that he and Al had a connection.  Al's roommate in college went on to play pro football and had roomed with Michael Sinclair at the rookie combine.

If all that wasn't enough, the Texans cheerleaders came to the box for photos because it was also fan appreciation day.  Oh, and they played a football game as well, although the Texans manhandled the Jaguars.

On Monday I grabbed a rental car and saw the latest Star Wars before heading southwest to meet Derron for dinner.  Fortunately I had managed to remain spoiler free for the 2 or so weeks the movie had been out.  When I came out of the movies, Al was waiting for me.  He had copied some photos onto a flash drive for me, and Trinity had been unhappy that I had left before she had the chance to say goodbye. That was unexpected but nice.  I thought this was the last that I would see of Al for a while, but it turns out that I was wrong.