God (Satan) Bless Texas

so, here i am in my hotel room in godforsaken harlingen, texas. i've been up since 4am, so the whole writing thing probably isn't such a good idea. but i'm bored (since there's NOTHING to do in this "town") and figured i'd rag a little bit about my trip and how much i dislike this place. oddly enough, i'm actually looking forward to my trip to idaho next week. that place is pretty cool.

so yeah, i'm fucking beat. long day in a foreign office listening to spanish sales calls allllll afternoon. neat, huh? well, almost as neato as leg #2 of the trip. the only thing about leg #1 (denver to houston) was that i had to be on a plane at 6:45am. but the flight was smooth, the plane nice and clean, and the staff was uber friendly. honestly one of the better flying experiences i've had...thanks continental! unfortunately, leg #2 involved being on one of those regional express jets. ya know, the super duper tiny ones with 4 seats per row and is always super bumpy, which makes me a bit uneasy? yeah, that plane.

the flight from houston to harlingen is short, only about an hour. but that hour can seem like a lifetime when you're stuck sitting next to flying enemy #2, the gigantor fat ass. this heffer of a woman took up not only her seat, not only a portion of my seat, but her seat and HALF of my seat. my left arm was rendered essentially useless because it was nearly being absorbed by her blubber. what's worse is that i was sitting on the aisle, and of course the arm rests on those seats don't lift, so i squeezed my legs underneath and hunched over the arm rest and hung out into the aisle....for the whole flight.

cramped, aching, tired as hell and in dire need of a piss (hey, 4 cups of coffee in 2 hours will do that to you), we mercifully landed, headed to the hotel and then to the office. it's now 10:15pm (CST), which is 9:15pm in my homeland. suffice it to say i've been up a while and i'm tired, but still have to wait for numbers to come in from today so i can spend 2 hours putting together reports manually. it's looking an awful lot like a 1am bedtime for me. so, let me tell you about harlingen!

it has an international airport. i'm not sure how or why, but i suspect it's because mexico is about 6 minutes away and, technically, any flight there is international. it has one walgreens, which took us 30 minutes and 4 different sets of directions to find, several mcdonalds and--SHOCK--tex-mex chains out the wazoo! i've never seen a collection of fatter people in my life and i'm guessing the lack of anything resembling a healthy meal option plays a significant role.

whoever designed this place was special. i mean special in a "dinnneyland" type way. there's zero rhyme or reason to the layout. everything is scattered over about 10 miles, and it doesn't even surround a downtown, which allegedly exists. i still need visual proof of this.

the one positive thing about all this is that we scheduled our trip at the perfect time. last week's weather was typical texas--98 degrees, 76% humidity. you'd think being fewer than 5 miles from the ocean would help that, but it doesn't. cold fronts, however, do. and today was glorious. sunny, 80, no humidity and a slight breeze. almost like a poorer version of florida in the fall, but not as ugly.

anyway, i'm done. this place sucks. that's pretty much all there is to it. if i lived here, i'd eithe move or kill myself to end my misery. but hey, i'm just a visitor. so, um, welcome to texas, folks.