It was several years ago at an eatery called “Rio Bravo”. It was an OK place. Not a fancy joint but the food was decent. At the time it was myself, my mother, father and brother. We were immediately seated as there were only a few people in the place and we had come early enough to beat the dinner crowd. We were sat down next to a table of about 16 people. We waited about 10 min and the waiter came and dropped down some water. He said he would be back shortly to get our drink orders. We waited and waited while we watched him cater to this table of 16 people. He just kept hovering and hovering and not paying any attention to us. About the time we were getting ready to get up and leave the Manager comes around. He asks “Is everything going OK? is our server assisting you OK?” My dad replied, “As a matter of fact, NO!” he went on to tell him how we were getting ready to leave as we had been waiting 30 min and only received water and our waiter had still not taken our order.

The manager immediately apologized and said he would find our waiter. My dad pointed out that he was at the table with 16 people and had been there since we sat down. The manager asked that we stay and said he would return in a moment. We watched as the manager walked over to the waiter and asked to see him for a moment. The manager and waiter walked to a little alcove directly in my line of sight and hearing. I listened as the manager asked why he had not gotten our order yet and asked if he realized that it had been 30 min. The waiter boldly replied “Yes I’m aware, but it’s only four people, I’m not going to get as good of a tip from them as I am going to get from the 16 top.” The manager simply replied “I see, well I’ll handle the 4 top then”. I saw this sheepish grin on the face of the manager as the waiter walked by giving us a dirty look. The manager noticed it as well and immediately walked over to our table. He announced his name again and said he would be our waiter this evening. He then said “Please order anything off of the menu tonight, and I mean anything! Dinner… will be on him!” as he pointed his finger at our previous waiter. We all looked at the manager in shock and awe!

At that moment we immediately looked over the menu and ordered appetizers, expensive main meals and desserts that we would not have ordered if we were paying the bill. At the end the manager walked over and laid the check down in front of us. We all looked at him, then at the check, then back at him. He stated “I just wanted you all to see what he is going to have to pay before he leaves here today”. Looking at the bill we realized that the 4 of us ran up a $90.00 bill. It was amazing. We were so stuffed we could barely move. At that moment the manager picked up the check just as the little waiter was walking back the the alcove, he then handed the waiter the check and told him “I hope you made a real good tip off of that 16 top”, the waiter said “yep, sure did! and thanks for taking care of that table”. The manager then handed the waiter the bill and said “this will need to be paid before you leave tonight, it’s the bill for the 4 top you abandoned”.

The manager made it a point to say it loud enough that we could all hear it. The waiter was pissed and immediately snapped us an evil look. At that moment we decided that it was time to go. But before we left, my dad took 30 dollars out of his pocket and handed it to the manager. He told him that he deserved this for taking such good care of us. The manager tried to refuse it but we are rather persistent people.

It was the greatest thing I have ever seen a manager do and I will never forget it for as long as I live.

You are reading That’s What You Get!. Read more at Life After Marriage.

Watching all of these movies made me think about the relationship with my wife. We met almost 12 years ago. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her. I will never forget how she looked walking in to Walt’s bar and grill. Unfortunately, at the time she was with one of my coworkers. But I didn’t let that stop me.

I waited and when the opportunity presented itself I made my move. Luckily she liked geeky guys and I realised soon enough that she was just as into me as I was into her.

We had our turbulent moments. She even dumped me one time. But she returned and I accepted her with open arms. Ever since then we have been inseparable. People that don’t know us think we are newlyweds, people that do know us think that we are crazy. But we just tell all of them that they are jealous that they don’t have a love like ours.

I would not trade this life for anything. I tell my wife all the time that she is the best thing that ever happened to me and that I can not imagine my life without her. I also tell her that if not for her, I’d probably be a hermit and not ever leave my house.

She is my soul mate, the love of my life, and until the day I die, I will always be grateful that she came into my life.

I love you baby, always and forever.

You are reading The Love of My Life. Read more at Life After Marriage.

Had to post these photos of Gavin that I took a couple of weeks ago while at the Phelpi for WSOP night because the blog needs cuteness every once in a while. Nothing beats the cuteness factor of a baby in the bath tub with his rubber ducky.

You are reading Too Good Not to Share. Read more at Life After Marriage.

Even before that other stuff, we had the Dills and their niece Ashton over for dinner. We had I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (totally not appropriate for children or teenagers, by the way) so we ended up watching that. I hope that Ashton’s mom doesn’t find out because she will probably murder us or at least forbid Ashton from being around us ever again.

P.S. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell wasn’t as good as the blog or book, which explains why it was straight to DVD. I can’t believe they got the guy from Bring It On to play in their movie. LOL. If you feel the urge to watch IHTSBH coming on, just rent The Hangover instead. =P

You are reading Movie Night with the Dills and Ashton. Read more at Life After Marriage.

Before we went to Kelly’s Irish Pub on Thursday to watch Virginia Williams, we stopped by Tita Sol’s house to visit her and Molly. It had been several weeks since we’d seen them both. I had almost forgotten how cute and cuddly Molly is… She is soo adorable. Seeing her last week made me miss her all over again.

Thank you, Tita Sol, for letting us visit Molly.

You are reading Visiting Molly and Tita Sol. Read more at Life After Marriage.

We finally made it out to watch Virginia Williams perform. It’s been almost a year since we last saw her. She used to be a regular at Highlands. Ah, those were the days.

Anyway, I love, love, love Virginia! She is so awesome!

You are reading I ♥ Virginia Williams. Read more at Life After Marriage.

I wish that our new phones weren’t at home charging so that I could have taken better pictures at the concert with its 5MP camera. We had to take this one with Brian’s crummy work phone. Photo quality is crap. Even my HTC Touch Pro 2 probably would’ve been better to have with us. Oh, well.

P.S. My favorite songs came on at 8:35 PM, 8:45 PM, 9:15 PM, 9:40 PM, 10:05 PM… Actually, everything that happened after 10:05 PM was fantastic. That’s when they really got going. The video backdrop, lighting and visuals were fantastic all night, but in the last hour they had pyros and fireworks. It was crazy! Neil Peart’s drum solo was Brian’s favorite part. I liked it because it led into Alex Lifeson’s guitar solo, which led into “Closer to the Heart,” one of my all-time favorite Rush songs at about 10:20 PM. They closed with “Working Man,” another Rush classic. What a great show!

You are reading Rush Time Machine Tour 2010. Read more at Life After Marriage.

I’m glad we stayed with T-Mobile because our rate plan is unbeatable. We got to keep our grandfathered calling and messaging plans, and simply added unlimited data for $20 per month on each line. Also, I really, really like the Vibrant because I can control our TV with it. I can show pictures and videos stored in my phone on the TV wirelessly through the AllShare app. It is soo neat!

Check out what the phone can do below…

P.S. If you can’t see the video, you need to get out of Facebook for a second and visit my actual blog.

You are reading Our New Cellphones Arrived on Friday. Read more at Life After Marriage.

Brian and I missed seeing Virginia Williams perform at The Shamrock on Thursday night because we were stuck at home reorganizing my closet. It had gotten to the point where I could not find anything, so it was in dire need of sorting. These are the fruits of our labor.

It doesn’t look like much, but this is a huge improvement from the condition that the closet was in prior to the reorganization. Trust me.

Brian, who is quite anal, helped me group the clothes into specific sections for dresses (separating dressy from casual), suits, pants, capris, shirts, work blouses (separating long-sleeved ones from short-sleeved ones), everyday casual tops, camisoles, jackets and blazers, polo shirts, work logo shirts etc. He even grouped similarly-colored articles of clothing in each section. This made me realize that I have over a dozen black work blouses. That’s not counting the long-sleeved ones!

I’m actually rather boring and wear mostly whites and blacks and browns. I really need to inject more color into my wardrobe not be so conservative in my clothing choices. Brian says I dress like I’m 50. (I don’t think I really started dressing this way until about four or five years ago when I started getting fat.) Hopefully, I can lose some more weight. Maybe we can change that as I start to feel better about myself and my personal appearance.

P.S. Since we missed Virginia Williams last Thursday at The Shamrock, we are going to try to catch her on Tuesday at Kelly’s Irish Pub. We’re going to be out and about anyway (we have a late night mystery shop that evening) and figured we could hit Kelly’s before heading home. I believe there isn’t a cover charge on this night. The music starts at 9 PM. See you all there!

You are reading Reorganizing My Closet. Read more at Life After Marriage.

Tuesday night was spent at the Phelpi. It was Tekken and WSOP night. I went undefeated at Tekken for most of the night until the very last game that Jay and I played. I think seven consecutive wins is pretty good, though. I don’t know that anyone else in our crew has achieved the same feat. We left our Tekken game over there because Cory was whining that he’d only played the game twice. I figured he could use some practice. =P Just kidding, Cory!

Mr. Miyagi

Brian and Miyagi

Ching and Miyagi

Jay and Becca

On Wednesday, Misty and I had our first laser hair removal appointments at the Kellogg Clinic. We went in together. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, but it was pretty painful. The nurse practitioner, Steve, said that he will numb me next time, though, since I am such a wuss.

Misty could handle a much higher laser setting because she’s fair-skinned and fair-haired. It’s more painful for me because of my dark skin color. That is what Steve says, anyhow.

Misty got to wear the cool shades.

Misty and I agreed that we like going together because we’re chatting while we’re getting treated and so it keeps our mind off it. Although, there was no getting around the pain that I felt. It burned! Also, burnt hair smells bad. FYI.

After our appointment, we treated ourselves to “Bang Wednesday” at Bonefish Grill. Mom, Dad, Jenni, JenTevs, her husband Armand, Mikki, Mikki’s sister, Misty, Brian and I all met up there. I think the Bonefish folks were starting to get annoyed at us because we started out with a reservation for four, that turned into six, that turned into nine, that turned into ten. We just kept calling back to add more people to the reservation. I can’t blame them for being irritated. We were a bit of a pain.

Tonight was supposed to be Shamrock night, but I got home too late last night to organize my closet so that ended up having to be done today. We didn’t finish early enough to make it to The Shamrock. I really wanted to see Virginia Williams, too! The last time I’d heard her perform was last year before Highlands closed.

Tomorrow night is Rush night. Looking forward to that. Brian’s isn’t too excited about it, though. He hates Rush. Mostly he’s just going for me.

So yeah.. Here’s to another busy week, which means no workout. Ugh. I will be hitting it hard this weekend, though, to make up for slacking during the week.

Until next time.

xoxo,
Ching

You are reading Another Busy Week. Read more at Life After Marriage.