Just a reminder that the Red Rooster’s “Girls’ Night Out” is tonight from 6 to 9 PM. Girls only during those hours, with drink specials, food, and prize giveaways. Ladies, if you’re looking for somewhere to go with your best friends tonight after work, this would be a good spot. Guys will be admitted after 9.
A big win for the Handling-Panhandling forum and the CCC’s Downtown Safety Task Force: Over the past year we’ve repeatedly posted about one particular parking scammer who pretends that he works on the Premier lot at Main and Beale, as well as other locations around Downtown. Well, yesterday the CCC safety director informed me that the owner of the lot swore out an Authorization of Agency against the scammer, not only for the Main/Beale lot but for 5 other Premier Parking lots Downtown. If a police officer catches him on any of those lots in the future, he will now go straight to jail for criminal trespass. The Downtown security patrol will carry copies of the Authorization of Agency on them at all times, so if they see him on the lots, all they have to do is make a phone call and he gets a ride to 201 Poplar. This guy is most certainly not homeless, is usually well-dressed with neatly pressed clothes, often the same colors as the actual lot attendants. Maybe he’ll finally move on now.
Note for people planning holiday/Christmas parties: If at all possible, make sure everyone knows about them at least a week in advance. If you announce a party 3-4 days before it happens, a lot of the guests are already going to be committed elsewhere this time of year. That said, if I have any parties on the 18th to attend that I haven’t been told about, please let me know by the end of the day. Otherwise I’m going to accept a very interesting invitation that arrived in my e-mail Inbox this morning. (Edit: Just checked Facebook Events and remembered that’s the night of a very large, can’t-miss private party elsewhere in Downtown.)
Fun night last night! Mpact Memphis’ holiday party was at a private residence on Mud Island, and it was a lot of fun. It really drew upon the group’s diversity. There were a variety of dishes, all prepared by members, which are the kind of dishes they prepare for their own holiday celebrations. There was also a discussion of Christmas traditions observed by Mpact members, and several charities and nonprofits presented opportunities to donate in someone’s name as alternatives to traditional gift-giving. I’ll say it once again to my friends who were active with me in Mpact in 2002-04: It’s fun again. Time to come back and give it another try. I hear they’re planning a beer tasting in early ’09. Hmmm may have to show up for that one.
As the party wound down, my friend Sam asked me, “Hey, do you want to go to the Saucer?” Do fish like water? So I drove back to the Downtown core and headed up there. We hung out for a couple of hours, and I filled him in a lot of details like how I became part of the Sunday brunch crew, how my group of friends all got to know each other, etc. Sam took off about 11, and I hung out at the bar for a little while, then my friend Kacy saw me and said to come join her group.
After a little while, someone suggested a venue change to Bardog. I’m always up for Bardog, so I said I’d meet them there. They took a cab from Saucer to Bardog, a 3-block trip. Geez. I refused to take part in the cab ride and walked there to meet them.
We ended up sitting in the corner booth near the kitchen. Kacy and her date had been to Felicia Suzanne’s for dinner and raved about it. “The service was impeccable,” she told me. “We had 5 people waiting on us. I’ve eaten there maybe 30 times and the food is always so consistently good.”
I tried to get some of the Bud Light and Miller Lite drinkers at the table to upgrade to PBR, but didn’t have much luck. They left about 1:30 and I moved to the bar, where some of the Saucer waitresses had come for a drink after their shift ended. One more PBR and I was home as the clock struck 2.
7 hours’ sleep and I was in front of the computer at 9 AM this morning, ready to get started on the personal finance software I plan to unveil in early January. The program is just so brilliant. I can’t wait to get it out there.
In summary, life is good. I’ll probably be out somewhere tonight, not sure where.