Ever have a meal that puts you in that proper happy place? On my recent trip to San Antonio for the NCAA Regionals at the AlamoDome, my family stayed with my brother and his family. The first morning after arriving I awoke with a kink in my neck from a restless night in a strange bed. My physical therapist sister-in-law did wonders working some of it out but it continued to nag me for the next day or two. Then one morning, the adults, after feeding the kids their fill of chocolate chip pancakes and cereal, left the 13-year-olds in the hands of the 10 and 11 year olds and headed to a local home-spun Mexican diner, Ruthie’s.

On my first trip to San Antonio, 14 years ago with my best friend and very pregnant wife, we had a breakfast on the famed River Walk that involved eggs mixed up with Mexican bacon, blue corn tortilla chips, refried beans, salsa and served with fresh hot tortillas. That restaurant was gone on subsequent returns and I’ve been trying to find an equal to that breakfast ever since.

I found it at Ruthie’s. Ruthie’s appears much like any small roadside diner/kitchen type place. According to my brother there’s a Mexican style eatery like it on every block. They had The Price Is Right playing on a static’y TV up on the wall and menu’s were the requisite laminated paper style but with a full listing of items en Espanol that even my seasoned San Antonioan brother and sister-in-law couldn’t identify for me.

Rather than play a guessing game or play it safe, I asked the waitress if she could tell me what I wanted based on my description. I laid it out for her in all its glory and she said, you want the ‘Chilaquiles’. I’ve seen them described as something other than what I had but what I had was lovely.

Enjoying that full breakfast made me stop at one point and lower my cheek to the dish and cradling it with my arms, I said, “I want to love it.”

The best part of the meal was that when it was all done, that kink in my neck was all gone — replaced with the satisfaction in my stomach.

The majority of the traffic to this blog is the result of people doing Google image searches. A month or two ago my sister-in-law, Pattie, who is a Physical Therapy instructor at Fort Sam Houston — Home of the Combat Medic — in San Antonio, TX, was googling for juggling images for a class she was preparing on motor skills.

She was surprised to find an image she wanted to use was one of my doodles from a couple years ago. She asked if she could use it for her lesson and I said, “OK” and wanted to see how she used it.

She just completed the class and I was thrilled to receive a photo of her class (including juggler!) and this note:

“I taught the Motor Learning class this week, where juggling is taught as a means of reinforcing the content.  Your illustration is on the cover of the binder that I must place in the back of the class for the “visitor” that never seems to come.  The student juggling in the photo never juggled before but was taught during the class and practiced for 24 hours both mentally and physically.  At the end of 24 hours he was able to juggle.  Very fun.  The students agreed to be photographed for use on your website.  They are a mix of Army, Navy and Coast Guard enlisted personnel soon to be physical therapy technicians/assistants.”

Thanks, gang, for the excellent photo and especially for serving our country and your fellow troops.

Fort Sam Houston is the largest military medical training facility in the world and is the location of the Brooke Army Medical Center where many of the servicemen and women severely injured in Iraq and Afghanistan are treated.

Want to support the troops? One of my favorite charities is Fisher House that provides temporary housing for families whose loved ones are in military hospitals like Brooke Army Medical Center.  You can donate online through their site.

It was a happy accident that I stumbled on their visit. A couple of us at work were discussing Rick Neilsen’s guitar collection and I pulled up the Cheap Trick site and saw that they were coming to town. I think it’s been 5 or 6 years since they were in Philadelphia.

I was an early fan back in ’78 with the release of Heaven Tonight and then quickly picked up their earlier records — the first purchased by my grandmother for a birthday. As I got older and headed into my concert going years they lost me especially with 1987′s The Flame.

As I got older still and they had their 25th anniversary tour, I got hooked back into them, buying the cd’s and framing the vinyl’s. But their tours and my schedule never crossed paths until now. They’ve long been on my list of bands I ‘gots’ to see before I or they check out.

I wasn’t able to match the wink my wife got from Tom Petersson as a teen in Saratoga, but I was able to give Rick a pat on the shoulder as he made his way through the bar crowd during opener, OK Go’s act.

OK Go was good sport. They’ve gained viral fame this year with their treadmill Here It Goes Again and backyard A Million Ways dance videos. Their encore for the evening was a re-enactment of the backyard video. Well done, lads. Good infectious entertainment.

Cheap Trick went full force through their set and gave it all, covering the hits from Candy to Surrender to Dream Police and including songs off their new record, Rockford and even The Flame.

Rick spent the evening spitting while singing and spitting on stage and stomping about, showering picks throughout and finished strong with the 5-neck. Robin Zander’s vocals seem just as strong as ever and show no sign of aging like so many of his peers and elder rockers. Tom Petersson kept things humming with his 12-string bass and Bun E. Carlos kept the beat well — though his sticks didn’t seem to be as big as they used to be.

That’s one more of those goals that I can cross off the list.

I’ll probably dig into the archives and post them this week from San Antone.