DAY THREE – 21 January 2015
Say what
you will about my people watching when I refer to a server or someone as
cute. I’m not freakin’ dead. I appreciate beauty and friendliness
when I find it. I have someone at home my heart has been given to, and
even though there’s an outside event which created a challenging situation
between us, it doesn’t change the way I feel about her, or me being friendly to
people. I’ve always, where possible, have tried to engage people in
random conversations, as never know what interesting things you might learn.
When it
was time to have breakfast, I put on my sweats and went down to the lounge
area. While I was getting my scrambled eggs, I struck up a conversation
with a fellow business traveler named Hannah. Her company had flown her
from Tennessee
for a conference this week, and since she didn’t have a rental car, she could
only eat at the places which were within reasonable walking distance.
There was a Subway, a Denny’s, a Starbucks, and a Thai place next to the
hotel. Any other establishment was more than a reasonable walking
distance from here.
We talked
shop for a bit, but I did offer to drive her down to Main Street Seal Beach
The
morning stop was in Bellflower .
I was still locked out of my work applications, but I was still able to
interact with my dealer contact there. I was also able to speak to a
customer and smooth over some ruffled feathers, which was one of the functions
of my role. Getting close to noon, I then departed for my next
locale. I try to get in the vicinity of my destination, and then look
around for a place for lunch (unless something along the way jumps out at
me). When I got to Carson ,
which is a very industrial area, the nearby food choices were slim. Yeah,
I could’ve driven out a little further, but I wanted to maximize my time with
my clients.
After
making a couple loops around the area, I saw I was faced with two
choices: Jack In The Box or Del Taco. Since the few times I’d had
Jack ended up destroying my stomach lining due to the amount of grease soaked
into the food, I passed on that. I recalled having Del Taco back in Rochester in the 90’s when visiting out there, and it
being pretty decent when I ended up at one in Flagstaff in 2008. It seemed to be the
logical choice.
The
service there sucked. Completely. And the food tasted so bad, I
swore it was rotten. I only took a few bites. Complaining to the
management was met with apathy, and I didn’t want to spend all day there pleading
my case. I just threw everything away, and consumed a Cliff Bar
Next to
my dealership was something which I recognized from my first visit here months
ago. As this was the first time back to this specific location, I was now
able to follow up on it. When I passed by the first time, I asked Evert
if that’s what I thought it was. He indicated that it was probably so,
but he wasn’t as familiar with the show like I was. I’d done some
research later to confirm that it was.
This was
the Los Angeles County Fire Station 127, which was used as “Station 51” in the
70’s show Emergency! As this was one of the shows we watched
regularly (as it gave us an idea of what Dad did, even though he wasn’t a
paramedic, just a firefighter), it was burned in my brain. I hadn’t
thought much about the show since it went off the air, and I don’t think any of
the cable channels were still showing episodes of it (as cable channels tended
to do in order to fill programming slots).
I took a
few exterior shots, knowing that I’d later send these to Dad. I wanted to
see if I could get inside for a shot or two there. I’m sure I wasn’t the
first goofball to come along and do this (especially now since the episodes
have started being released on DVD). The door was locked. I waited
a few moments after knocking, and then went walking back to my
dealership. I really didn’t have all day to spend there, because I was
actually here for work purposes. Still, it would’ve been nice to have a
couple of additional shots.
I have to
make a point of amusement here. After speaking to my contact on business
stuff, and getting myself set up in an office, I called our tech support to see
if there was any ETA on the escalation to return me access to company
systems. The front line guy I spoke to noted the higher levels had tried
to call me, and left a message (which was untrue, because my phone showed no
missed calls). He looked over what his counterpart did, and did a remote
access to discover a permission had been turned off. It took him *twenty
minutes* to figure out what wrong with my system and confirm it was working,
because he did the one thing the earlier guy didn’t do. I was happy at
this guy, and annoyed at the competence of the first person I spoke to.
I had a
lot of escalations to take care of, so I left my dealership a little early so I
could head back to the hotel. I figured I’d be spending most of the
evening playing catch-up, and my stomach was starting to do flip-flops probably
due to crap lunch I had. My access to the work sites lasts until midnight
eastern time, which is 9 pm local, so I wanted to have a quick dinner and then
knock as much stuff as I could.
I still
did my Seal Beach Pier stroll, because I wanted to keep my daily mileage as
much as possible, and made a brief stop at Sparkles to say hi to Alexis.
I wanted something filling, but not heavy, so a burger would be good, and I was
informed The Abbey was pretty decent. From looking inside, this looked
like a café with a bar area running lengthwise down the main room. (Okay,
since places in Seal Beach
aren’t that big to start with, it looked like the best use of space to
me.) Behind the bar was the open-flame pizza oven, and a large wine
selection. There were a couple televisions over the bar, and the Anaheim
Ducks were on. Oh, I could sit watch hockey.
The
hostess seemed to be engaged with a table of her friends (or perhaps they were
regulars, too), but she made an off-handed gesture of letting me know seats
were available at the bar. That’s usually okay when I’m dining solo, as I
could watch the game. The service at the bar was pretty inattentive,
especially since I said I wasn’t looking for any alcoholic beverages. I
could drink on these trips, just as long as I didn’t put it on the company
card. And in an area I don’t know the laws as much, I’m just better off
not having any.
I ordered
a turkey burger with fries, once the server decided to grace me with her
presence. The place wasn’t overly busy tonight, and there was another
server with the hostess at the table with their friends, so it appeared there
were enough people on duty. The turkey tasted like it was undercooked,
and the fries were bland. When I mentioned it to my server, she didn’t
seem to register it. Even when I asked if there was a manager around,
that came off as being ignored. At that point, considering the way my
stomach was churning, I didn’t want to argue all night. I paid my bill,
left, and headed for the closest drug store to buy a container of antacids.
Two bad
meals today was not a good thing. I’ve had food poisoning once before,
and it sidelined me for a day. Having something like that where I’m solo
out in the field was not a good thing. Even if the crap food gave me the
squirts, I just hope it’s done before I have sit in the airplane, otherwise
it’s going to be a long flight.
For more information on the places visited or mentioned:
Emergency!: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068067/
The Abbey: http://theabbeysealbeach.com/
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