GENEPOOL GIVES HOUSTON A PROBLEM. DAY ONE.

Paul and I left for Clutch City at 10:40 a.m. Thursday morning to officially kick off what could be the best week of my life. We arrived at Reliant Stadium before 4:30 p.m. Good enough timing.

There are three key elements that could make this the best week ever (copyright VH1). you know, besides the fact that I'm not at work for eight consecutive days.

1) On Sunday, I'm going to WrestleMania 25, which could be the best wrestling show ever.

2) On Monday, Tyler and Co. may be cutting down the championship nets.

3) On Tuesday, I will be at the second Cubs game of the year. If 101 years is the charm, I can say I was there at the beginning of the run.

Take a look see at my packing: backpack for notepad and gadgets, H20, snacks in a bag, another bag with my dress shoes and VCR (quite the dynamic duo) and a suitcase with, um, clothes.

This picture is my attempt to capture the famous sign near the Texas border that says El Paso is 857 miles away. If you have magic powers, move the focus of the camera to the left a little bit and you should see the sign. If not, I apologize for not timing up the shot.

Ah, the beautiful scenery of downtown Houston. Paul went about 90 mph most of the trip. However, when we got around this turn, we met a little something called a traffic jam. That's when I knew we were really in Houston.

On the trip to the city that Hakeem built, Paul came close to getting in an accident three times.

1) Somewhere near Lake Charles, a car (without a blinker on) cuts Paul off on the Interstate. Paul slams the break and misses rear ending the car by about five feet. He bomps the horn at the other driver several times.

He then passes up the car. The other driver is a good-looking 20-year old white chick yakking on her cell phone.

2) Somewhere near Beaumont, a car swerves over into our lane. Paul avoids the accident by going to the edge of our lane. The other driver eventually swerved back into the proper lane.

Paul then passes up the car. The other driver is a good-looking 20-yard old black chick yakking on her phone.

3) The third one would have been Paul's fault. And he never would have known about it had the other driver not pulled over to explain it to us.

We park for lunch. We get out the car, and there is a woman leaning her head out the window in a car behind us. I thought she was going to tell Paul his lights were out or something.

Woman: You almost hit me just now when you turned.
Paul: I did?
Woman: Yeah, if I wouldn't have slammed my brakes, I would have hit you.
Paul: I apologize.
Woman: You can't just swerve from the middle lane into the parking lot.
Paul: I apologize.
Woman (shaking her head): OK. (And she drove off.)

File that under we're not in New Orleans anymore. In New Orleans, Paul would have gotten the horn and a finger. In Houston, he gets a detailed explanation. I don't think too many drivers in the Big Easy would take the time to pull over and deliver a speech. The finger does that.

We then went to Fan Axxess, our first of three four-hour sessions. It's like a Star Trek convention. But for rasslin'. This part of the event scared me a little. It was like a day care that lets children get a little rough.

Sure, they had workers there, but kids were rolling around on the floor. Nothing serious happened. Well, that I saw, anyway.

At the end of the session, we were in a long line to get Kane's autograph. A worker came near us and cut the line off. Those feet are of the last person in line. We were two people behind the cut, as noted by the gap on the floor.

We showed them, though. We went up the side and sneaked to the front of the line. Oh yeah.

THE TINA CURSING CORNER
(Note: I'm spreading Wednesday's and Thursday's curses out over the week of vacation.)

I posted my April Fools blog at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, not yet having gone to sleep. My mom sees me walk to the front door looking for an Internet signal. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Mom sees me packing my computer for the trip. "You going on vacation. Can't you put the fucking blog on hold?"

Some TV thoughts.
-- On Tuesday's American Idol performances: "That was the worst fucking show in eight years."
-- On Lie to Me actually coming on but us missing it: "What the fuck! ... Son of a bitch. ... When I hit play on American Idol, there was a preview for next week's episode. I bet fucking Lie to Me came on."
-- On my love of TV: "Have a good time on vacation. Don't worry about the fucking TV."

FREE STUFF FROM THE HORNETS

On Wednesday afternoon, I called my Hornets ticket rep. Before I could muster a sentence, he went into a long apology about the screw-up with my Hornets-Rockets ticket. I told him it wasn't that big a deal and not to worry about it. He then apologized even more.

By the end of the conversation (without ever once complaining about the situation), I had gained the following things:

1) $70 tickets (instead of $25) for the Dallas game on Easter, which is the last game of my 10-game ticket package.

2) $10 in cash. There was a $10 fee to ship my playoff tickets. He just gave me the money back.

3) $75 in cash to make up for the Hornets-Rockets tickets. So, Kelli, Stephen and I basically went to that game for free. I got all the money back for it, and we didn't miss any of the game. Wow.

I jokingly told my ticket rep that this shit better not happen again. He was so sorry about the whole thing that he didn't realize I was joking and and instead apologized again.

I'm hoping the Mavs tickets get screwed up, and I'm sitting next to Shinn for the playoffs.

PARTING SHOTS
Chuck, Bob, Little Joe and I are hanging out on South Liberty on Wednesday night. Chuck realizes he's missing Lost as it's about to end. He knows I'm only on Season 2 as he turns the TV to ABC.

Chuck (to me): Close your eyes for eight seconds. ... You know who said that. (Ted. Ted said that.)

Paul and I stayed at Matt's house in Houston on Thursday night. We leave Fan Axxess and begin heading to Matt's house.

Paul (to me): Take out your little thingy. (He meant Betsy, my GPS.)

THE DAILY TOP LIST
This is my third trip to WrestleMania. The top five moments of the previous two extravaganzas. None of these are wrestling related.

5) Gambling. Detroit. 2007.
Detroit sucks. Except for one street, which happens to have a casino. I went there three times. Made $115.

4) Girl on the Interstate. Orlando. 2008.
At some point on the drive to Orlando, I began flirting with the chick in the next lane. Paul would pass her up, and I'd give her a look. Then, she'd pass us up and give me a look. This lasted for a solid hour.

When she took an exit ramp somewhere in Florida, we took that exit as well. I kept the game going by telling Paul to pull into the gas station right off the exit. He parks. I said: Wait for it. Wait for it. And boom, we watched her car make a U-turn and head to the gas station.

As she was stopped at a red light, I decided to play it coolly. I went to the bathroom inside the store and figured she'd be in the store when I came out. While I'm relieving myself, my phone buzzes. I wash up and see that it's a text from Paul: Abort! Abort!

She had sunglasses on, and we were driving fast during the flirting period. I didn't get a good look at her. I figured I'd keep flirting for the heck of it. But now ...

In the parking lot, I talked to her. She was on her way home from a day of classes. Her commute was 45 minutes to whatever college it was. I think she could tell I wasn't interested, and the conversation ended pleasantly after five minutes.

We'll always have the I-10.

3) Two Kells are better than one. Orlando 2008.
When we arrived in Orlando on the first night, we stopped at Universal Studios. Kelly and her friends happened to take a vacation there that week, and that day was their last day. We hung out for a while before they headed back to the Crescent City.

Then a few days later, Paul and I were at Universal Studios where Kelli also was that day as a chaperon for Senior Trip. We went on the Spider-Man ride before Kelli was off to a roller coaster. They make me vom.

2) I make a deal. Detroit. 2007.
On the first night in Detroit, I won a trivia contest for two WrestleMania tickets, which were better than the ones we had. I gave one of the original tickets to a teenager who was the only one of her friends not going to the show. Aww.

The other ticket I got rid of the day of the show on a street corner. Some sketchy dude walks up to us and says: "Wanna buy some WrestleMania tickets?"

Me: No. I'm looking to sell one myself.
Sketcher (thumbing his nose and looking around): I see. How much you want for it?
Me: Just the face value.
Sketcher: Which is?
Me: $45.
Sketcher: We got a deal.

He then proceeded to take a roll of bills out of his pocket to pay me. He counted it out. One five-dollar bill. AND FORTY ONE-DOLLAR BILLS.

1) Looking for roof. Orlando. 2008.
The hotel accommodations we had for Orlando began Friday. We left Thursday morning and figured we stop at the beginning of Florida for the night. However, we ended up making it all the way to Orlando that night. That's how we got to see Kelly.

Unfortunately, every hotel room in Orlando was booked for the evening. Besides wrestling, there were like two other major events (I don't remember what) going on. We went to damn near every hotel within a seven-mile radius of Universal Studios. Nothing.

Finally at 2:30 a.m. (we stared looking at 11 p.m.), we found a hotel that had just got a cancellation. Paul never quit in the venture to find a hotel. Kudos.

At about hotel No. 15, I was ready to just sleep in the car in the parking lot of a grocery store.