For anyone checking in on my blog, I apologize for the mess. My webserver at work is off because we had a scheduled power outage at work on December 22nd for 12 hours and it's a desktop style machine, not server style, so you have the physically press the power button to make it boot back up when power was restored. Since just about all of my images for the blog are on that webserver, they're all showing up as broken right now.
We were in Tampa until last night, had dinner, picked up tickets for the Liberty Bowl, and got things packed up last night and got on the road this morning. No time to run to downtown Columbia and turn it back on, so things will be like this until January 2nd when I go back to work.
More on our trip to Tampa for Christmas and our trip to Memphis for the bowl game later...
We sure picked the right night to go out to eat dinner last night. We decided to try the new Carolina Ale House that just went up behind the mall. As we were walking around the building from where we parked (it was packed), we noticed a whole indoor/outdoor area still under construction... first sign that they weren't fully open.
Anyway, turns out it was Friends and Family night last night. We walked up to the door and the restaurant manager was out front introducing himself to people that came in... he asked if we had reservations and of course we didn't since we didn't know it was Friends and Family night... and he said to go ahead and come in anyway.
On the way in we were each given two drink tickets for two free drinks each. One appetizer, two entrees, and one desert were also free.
It's hard to beat a free dinner. Of course, their system for processing plastic wasn't up and we don't carry cash on us usually so we left afterwards and came back to give the guy a tip since we didn't have anything to leave on the table.
Turned out to be a nice place... and I got to talk to the guys installing the rat's nest of audio-video cables and DirecTV HD boxes too. I think they thought at first I was just one of those guys who comes up and says "Oh, I just bought myself a big TV at home" and thinks they know a lot about everything A/V. Instead, I started talking to him about how to point a DirecTV AT-9 dish, what signal strength levels they should have on different satellite transponders, and ended by pointing out that the NFL game they were showing last night on channel 212 was in high definition on channel 95 instead, which they didn't know.
We had planned on going down to Tampa this Christmas, but that was about all we knew. We booked plane tickets tonight though because there is a new airline in Columbia that flies direct to both Tampa and St Pete/Clearwater. They have a special right now for $29 per person each way. Of course, it's also +$11 per person each way to be able to pick your seat. Or more importantly to have "seating priority". In other words, if you don't want to fly Standby you have to pay an extra $22 each for a round trip flight. Then there's a $4 charge per person if you want a checked bag. Basically, they're trying to get fares as cheap for people who don't care if they fly Standby and don't have checked luggage I guess.
Anyway, two round trip tickets for $209 after taxes and fees is still a really good price. And they fly at decent hours and everything - no red eye flights.
So we're flying out of Columbia on the 19th and coming back into town on the 26th. We very well may try to go to Carolina's bowl game in Memphis which is on the 29th. Still waiting to see if we get bonuses at work or not, which would certainly make it easier that's for sure. Regardless, bowl trips are always full of good times and memories, so it would be nice to make the trip. I know I really enjoyed our two trips to Tampa for the Outback Bowls in 2000 and 2001 and I'm really glad we went then.
