San AnRAINio

Went to Texas for a few days – right when they decided to see rain after months of drought. River Walk turned into Walking Through River. Figures.

First off, neither Al nor I was feeling all that hot when we got on the plane. Nothing like a pounding sinus headache on an airline too cheap to give out snacks, much less pay to pressurize the cabin properly. And if my cold needed any help, the recirculated stale ‘sick passenger air’ was only too happy to assist. By the time we landed, I thought my head was going to explode.

Our luggage looked like it lost the battle of the Alamo, but at least it arrived on the same plane. This of course, leads me to interject the reason you don’t see many vultures on domestic flights -- only one carrion allowed per passenger.

I spent the whole time there eating cold pills, swallowing vitamins and drinking cups of “Airborne”. Fat good that did. The rain cancelled our plans of walking around and taking a boat ride, etc. We had one sort-of nice day where we saw the Alamo, but that was it. I brought five books and two magazines, and feared running out!

The part I enjoyed the most was when they showed this little informational video on the history of the Alamo. They depicted Mexico as initially inviting Americans to Texas to help colonize the area, but then they became angry when it was perceived too many had shown up and looked like they might take over. HA!! Boy that felt good to hear.

But the best hoot of all was playing fill in the blank with a few evil emperor-wanna-be statements.

Go ahead; see if you can fill in the blanks:

______left a legacy of disappointment and disaster by consistently placing his own self-interest above his duty to the nation.

_______used his influence to lift the losing candidate into the presidency.

_____overwhelmingly elected President …what began as a promise to unite the nation soon deteriorated into chaos.

______soon became bored in his first presidency, leaving the real work to his vice-president, who soon launched an ambitious reform of church, state and army.

_________’s repudiation of ______’s constitution and substitution of a much more centralized and less democratic form of government.

Although his failure to suppress the _________ enormously discredited him…

when his sale of millions of acres in what is now _________ to the _____________ united liberal opposition against him.

_________ had a "take-no-prisoners" policy

Funny how you could put the name George W. Bush in any of those blanks, isn’t it? Well, except for that last one. That one only applies to General Antonio López de Santa Anna.