Sardines, Anyone?

I would kill somebody. Seriously. Dead. I don't like people even bumping into me. How in the hell do they get off the train if they are in the middle? Is this a joke? I thought everything on this here Internet was true?

Foul Air Rules

Hmmmm, that title can definitely be read two ways.

Somewhere my old roommate would be rolling if he read this as he is a connoisseur of dick and fart jokes. He would giggle about this story for weeks.

Back On The Road

Wow. I forgot what I missed so much above business travel. Leaving the house at 5:30 AM to make an 8:45 flight rocks! Packing your Chapstick in your suitcase. Waiting in line with my luggage, there was a couple of another nationality that will remain nameless right in front of me. Both smelled like they just ate multiple cloves of garlic for breakfast. In all seriousness, I didn't want to be within 10 yards of this couple, let alone 10 inches. Jesus. I pity the people that had to sit in front of them on the plane. The thing that still freaks me out about airports is how much people talk on cell phones while waiting for the plane. Did we as Americans lose the ability to sit quietly for 30-60 minutes? The woman beside me made at minimum 10 calls and typed furiously on her Blackberry. It's 7:30 AM!! Sit down, drink your coffee and watch CNN or read the paper. Damn! The flight was uneventful and I got my rental car fast. I'm sporting around in a Kia Optimus or something. I wanted the Mini Cooper but then I would have had to pay more. Interesting that the smaller car is more than an intermediate. Anyway, I got to my hotel thanks to my Razr phone's GPS and got settled in. What a place! The Peachtree Plaza Westin. Sweet. I'm on the 52nd floor looking down on the city right now. What a view. Nicest room I've ever had. It's a round floor and each room is a slice of pie with the outside wall being all window. The room even has a nice robe. Comfy! I might keep it. The vendor fair sucked as usual, but they had great food. I ate Cocconut Shrimp all night. I even pilfered some drinks from the bar so I didn't have to drink them from my mini-bar in the room. A can of soda is $2.50! There's a little bag of almonds in there that could be mine for $7.75. No shit. The airplane size alcohol is $7.00 per bottle. It's madness. Madness I tell you. I mean I want to stay in the nicest place possible.....but I wish the nicest places also had vending machines so you don't have to spend $3.00 for a Snickers bar (yup, right off the pricing sheet in the mini-bar. What's cool is looking out towards the airport. You can see the lights from the jets as they come in and out. After the fair ended I got to spend some time with an engineer for another Fiserv product called FIDO. It's an alert system that runs within the core processor for the CUs that is rules based and shoots out emails when something isn't right. It recently foiled a plot by a guy who was depositing large sums via fake checks at multiple branch locations and then started taking it out the next day. FIDO correctly picked the next location he would withdraw from and the police were there waiting for him. Cool stuff. Why isn't our software more sexy?

Yet Another Reason to Hate Flying

I'm supposed to go deep into West Virginia in June for a business trip. I hate connections and view them as a waste of time. From Philadelphia there is a direct flight for $1000. Can you explain that? You can fly to Florida for $139. So I see my trip is 467 miles and driving at or near 80 mph will get me there in 6 hours. 7 is more likely. From Philly airport I can make 1 connection to get there but it will then take 4-5 hours and still cost over $400. I check around for flights out of Allentown, Trenton, Wilmington, Baltimore and Harrisburg. Nothing is available that will be worth the drive first. If I'm going to drive up to 90 minutes to an airport - I need a direct flight from there or it's easier to just drive. Here's the kicker: There is a flight leaving from Harrisburg that connects in Philly for $365. I write down the flight number for the second leg and go back to check the direct flight from Philly - it's the SAME! From Philly it's a 1 hour and 10 minute flight. From Harrisburg it's about a 3.5 hour flight and $635 cheaper! So I'm thinking I'll buy the ticket for Harrisburg and then skip the first leg.....can't do it. The travel agent says if you are a no-show for leg 1, they cancel the entire itinerary. Looks like I'll be driving to WV. I know this cool place in Westminster, MD where I hear you can get a good meal and a few beers around 8 or 9 pm at night if you are a weary traveler.

A Potentially Good Roundtrip Flight?

Well, I'm in Orlando this week for a User's meeting. I'm technical support for the salesman who is pushing my company's product to his core product's users. I was in a booth for a vendor's fair and I'm giving 3 demos. 2 were today. Kind of scary since I'm not used to talking to large groups of people - but I just went to the bar and a knocked back a few Ketel One and tonics first and everything went fine. Anyway I flew US Airways down and for the first time since I started traveling for business - nothing pissed me off about the flight. Decent sized seats, plenty of leg room, friendly help, no trouble in any lines, room in the overheads..... I have to say I couldn't find anything to complain about (which is weird for me). That leads me to one of two conclusions: 1. Everything will be fine again tomorrow and I'll continue to fly US Airways - or 2. the landing gear will fall off the plane somewhere over South Carolina and we'll be forced to belly land near Atlantic City off the coast. Things went so well Monday that I have a feeling the flying gods will be against me tomorrow. Here's looking forward to delays, reclined seats in front of me, a fat smelly woman on my right who wants to show me pictures of her trip, my car being towed when I get back to Philly airport, traffic jams trying to get home and realizing I don't have all my luggage when I finally arrive home at 10:32 PM from a flight that landed at 5:03 PM.

Even More On Why I Hate Flying

So I had another business trip last week, this time to LaFayette, Louisiana. It's about 80 miles west of New Orleans and escaped most of the Katrina damage. I'll try to make this short - but man, so many things went wrong on this trip I can't even begin to describe my level of frustration. So, in chronoligical order - here we go. For a 2:00 PM flight I needed to leave my house at 11:15 to make sure I'm there in time to wait in all the lines. When I got there, I drove to the economy lot - but it was closed because it was full. Instead of driving around to find a lot that provided a shuttle to the airport, I parked in the airport parking lot at a rate of $17 per day. They count "real" days meaning a Mon-Thur trip is 4 days. The economy lot only charges "nights" so that would be 3 days at $12 per day. I had a 3+ hour flight to Houston and then I had to catch a regional jet to LaFayette. To make it to that gate - you have to leave the main terminal and shuttle to the regional terminal. I made it just in time to have a quick snack before boarding. The sec0nd flight was only 38 minutes so it was fine. The small airport didn't have any cars with a gps unit, but I managed to find my way around. Coming back was a completely different story. Just like my trip there - I got to the airport 2 hours before my 5:00 flight. The line to check in had about 50 people in it. I couldn't believe it. The guy in front of me said Houston was full of fog and the airport was 4 hours behind. The 3:45 flight from LaFayette to Houston was cancelled. I waited in the line and found out the 5:00 flight was NOT cancelled. It was running late since it was coming from Houston, but the guy tried to board us in a hurry. It was supposed to get to Houston at 6:05. The new ETA was 6:28 and my flight was to leave Houston at 6:55. Remember, the regional terminal in Houston is a different building from the main terminal. My problems really started when we arrived at Houston. We were informed the 6:55 flight was on-time and currently boarding. I was hoping it would be delayed. I beeped the not-hot-at-all flight attendant and asked if the other flight knew we were on the ground. She said they should be tracking us and that I could ask the person at our departure desk to call over and let them know I was in route. Of course, my bag wasn't on the first cart over to the air walk. It was a regional flight so we still had to put large carry-ons under the plane. I pleaded with the girl in the air walk to radio the guys unloading the plane to bring my bag over. These guys were laughing, talking and not showing any sense of urgency. This is a small issue of mine - when a flight is really late and connections are at stake - they should be prepped to empty the plane ASAP. Obviously they were not. I got my bag and took off stopping to ask the girl at the desk to call over to the next gate to tell them to hold the plane - I was on my way. It was about 6:45. I flagged down a golf cart and hopped on and asked him to get me to the tram to the next building ASAP. He got me there in about 2-3 minutes. I had to wait a minute for the tram. The tram ride took a minute and then I had to flat out run to my gate. Even though I run in my spare time - I was breathing hard by the time I showed up. It was about 6:53 or 6:54. I was told I was too late. Had the plane been backing out, I could understand - but the damn plane was sitting there connected to the air walk and many hoses. I don't need to spell out everything I said to her, but I was loud and I slammed my hand down once in protest. At this point I felt like she may have been searching for the "Asshole" button under the counter so I turned around and walked away defeated. Oh, did I mention it was the last flight to Philly that night? That makes it even funnier. I went to the courtesy desk (oxymoron?) and again was faced with a long line due to the delays they were experiencing. I got a 50% room voucher and a ticket out the next morning at 8:55. After refusing to wait in another line for hotel shuttle calls, I took a taxi to the closest Hilton. The next morning, I showed up early in hopes of getting on an earlier flight. The shuttle dropped me at terminal C which is the gate Continental flies out of. Since I already had my boarding pass, I didn't have to check-in but I didn't have a gate assigned since they don't do that until the morning. When I walked up to the girl to ask her if I was in the right security line, she told me my flight was at terminal E, two buildings away. There are very few Continental flights that go out of E, but this was one of them. It was about a 15 minute walk. Since it was a replacement boarding pass, I automatically got selected for the full search coming through the security gate. Ho Hum. He felt around my groin more than my doctor ever did. I hope when they opened my suitcase they choked on the smell of sweat soaked running clothes. I did make it on the 7:30 flight, but of course it was already loaded and there was little room for my carry on.....and, of course, the dude in front of me had to recline his set the entire way. I could go on and on and on about the things that bug me about air travel, but it would be pointless. If it can happen, it will happen to me. From the cramped seating, to the long waits, I am almost inclined to see if I can pay the difference to fly first class on my next business trip! Or, see if I can get the client to pay for it!

Eating New Things In Louisiana

Well, after another day filled with travel bliss (inject heavy sarcasm here) I arrived in LaFayette, Louisiana just in time for dinner. I went to The LaFayette which supposedly has a good cajun menu. I tried the Grilled Seafood Platter which has 4 strips of local catfish, 6 gulf shrimp, 2 frog legs (ribbit), oysters and crawfish tails. Everything was grilled and then mixed together with a spicy sauce. It was good. The veggies were cooked to death and I hate that, but it wasn't bad overall. I like trying new things. My highlight of the day was discovering that from Houston to LaFayette I was on a small regional jet, not a prop. WooHoo! My take on the frog legs? Like tough chicken. Not bad, but I can't say I'd ever crave it....kind of like the chicken gizzards and livers I had in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Cell Hell

I am not a cell phone hater. I've owned one since 1994 after getting stuck on the PA Turnpike in an ice storm. It was shut down for several hours and family was expecting me home at a certain time. What I continue to struggle with when it comes to cell phones is people's utter lack of respect for noise pollution. I rarely use my phone in public and when I do I excuse myself to a more private area or talk in a very low voice. When I used to ride the train to work in Center City Philadelphia, it never ceased to amaze me that some folks would talk so loudly on their cells that you could hear every word of a conversation 10 seats away, yet you couldn't hear the conversation between 2 people sitting right behind you. My new pet peeve is idiots walking around with bluetooth ear pieces on while they aren't even talking. Do these clowns think they are impressing someone? They cost $100. Big Deal. It's not a status symbol. My passion against public cell screamers was escalated this week while travelling. While waiting to board my plane I took a quick count - of the 28 people seated in my area, 16 were talking on a phone. I could hear every word of 13 of them. Ridiculous. Thank God they are banned on flights. Isn't it funny though that when the plane lands and they say it's OK to turn on phones, 85% of the passengers speed dial someone to say they have "just landed" and proceed to tell them the details of their trip. Why Why Why can't these people wait until they are in the terminal at least to make this type of call? Why I say? The worst offense though and a humorous one at that if you look at logisitcs is the cell phone talking in the shuttle on the way to the rental cars. Seriously...think about it. The shuttle ride is all of 5 minutes. It is small and holds about 8-10 people. 4 idiots are talking nonsense loudly on their cells. No business calls, just mindless babble. Think about it - in 5 minutes they will be in a private, enclosed vehicle....yet somehow they deem it necessary to squawk (and loudly at that) about absolutely nothing while in the presence of other people. Shut Up!! I've heard the easiest way to lose weight is to ask yourself "am I really hungry?" every time food is about to pass your lips. It's great advice in it's simplest form. Maybe we need to start having service announcements that ask 'When you're in public, ask yourself if that phonecall you're about to make is really necessary." Show some respect for other people.

10 Minutes of Reckless Endangerment

I got to take in some local music last week while in St. Louis on business. On a tip from famous blues historian Allen "Double A" Anthony, I programmed the digits from The Broadway Oyster Bar into the GPS system and headed out on Tuesday night. It was a decent drive into the city at night and the Arch looked incredible all lit up as I got closer to it. The bar was only several blocks away. When I first showed up I thought I must have the wrong place. It was old and a tad run down - but it had plenty of character. When I found out it was 150 years old, it all made sense! The walls were so covered with old band postings that you couldn't even see them. One of the first ones that caught my eye was an old autographed photo of Elvis Presley. It was from when Elvis was still a badass, not from the joker wearing the studded jumpsuit in Vegas while holding a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich in one hand and 20 pills in the other. Elvis had played there along with countless other famous blues musicians. I had the alligator appetizer while I waited for the band to start and tried Fat Tire beer for the first time. Both were outstanding. To read their own description of the cuisine and atmosphere, click here as they've won many awards. The band was Big Bamou and consisted of guys that are in other bands but play here as a group every Tuesday. Their drummer, Benet Shaeffer, told me they've been playing there for 9 years. The band was tight. Benet kicked ass. The lead singer played the best live trumpet I've ever heard. His name is Brian Casserly and you can read about him here. They did a song about marshmellows and the crowd pelted him and the band members with them. Some locals brought their own, but the bartender supplied us with ours. I had a superb time hanging out with 2 locals who are opening their own club in 3 months down the street. Mark, thanks for the fun. On Wednesday night, I got in on the act myself. I went to an open jam night at the Backstreet Jazz and Blues Club after being slightly disappointed with the band at The Trainwreck Saloon. They were called Gargoyle Lounge and I won't post the link as they don't deserve the promo! They had no drummer and used a drum machine.....and they were bad in my humble opinion. I see from their website that they do employ a drummer, so he must have been out for some reason. Anyway, I left there and went to the open jam. Local kickass band Reckless Endangerment was tearing up Slow Ride when I walked in. I talked to the MC and told him I wanted to play Crazy Train on drums. No problem. He hooked me up with Mark, the drummer from RE and I started talking to the band. We waited for some other guys to finish up and then we went up and hammered out stuff like Crazy Train and You Shook Me All Night Long. Mark was kidding around with me and said they didn't think I was going to be able to play. I guess the fact that I left on my argyle sweater from the bank meeting didn't help anything out! All the guys in their band are really super cool and I had a great time. Mark is a solid beat keeper ala Phil Rudd. The dueling guitarists Danny and Vince were both outstanding and the wall of bass being supplied by Rich was a driving force. The fact that their lead singer Ritchie could bounce between AC/DC and Led Zeppelin was very impressive. When I return to St. Louis - I'm definitely going back there or looking them up on their website. Mark promised me a tee shirt and I emailed him today. Anyone from Reckless Endangerment - if you got my link and read this, leave some comments so my boys will know I can still kick it!

Hotels Full of Green(backs)

I started to notice something while I was at Disney 2 years ago. More and more hotels and resorts are putting signs in their bathrooms stating they are very concerned about the environment and if you want to help out, please hang up your towels if you don't want to wash them every day. They then give statistics on how much water could be saved if hotels cut down on washing every towel every day. They urge you to hang up a towel and re-use it instead of washing them all every day. While this is a nice gesture, they're so full of shit it's not funny. Come On! I can't even believe they have the cahunas to suggest for one second that they are concerned about the environment. Their suggestion is PURELY profit driven. Are you trying to tell me that all of a sudden, within the last 2 years every major hotel chain just 'came up' with that idea? What is their net profit per day made off of that decision? Furthermore, why don't they donate that amount to some environmental charity? Please don't get me wrong - I'm not a granola eating, tree hugging liberal. Anything but. I want to drill holes in Alaska until it looks like a big slice of Swiss Cheese and I want the fairways on golf courses to be a shade of green that can only be obtained through chemical enhancement. I want BALCO juiced tee boxes. It just really bothers me when people make a decision for greed and then try to pass it off as something entirely different. The Hilton owned Double Tree just cranked up the nonsense. In a $150/night room, there was a note on my pillow explaining that unless notified otherwise - they would only change the sheets every 3rd night unless a new guest was arriving and you were leaving. That makes perfect sense to me also, as there is no need to change them daily - but again - they mention the environment. "Boooo. Boooo, I Say." Also, on the desk was a note about electricity and how much is wasted every day because people leave their rooms and leave the lights and TVs on. Again, it's an attempt to save them money. Is my room rate going to go down next year if everyone turns off the electricity in their rooms? No! I tell my wife when she travels on business to let the TV on when she leaves the room. Maybe if hotels beefed up security...I mean add security....people wouldn't feel compelled to do that. While in New York last week, the Comfort Suites I was staying in had the message in the bathroom about the environment - yet they had a gas fireplace burning in the lobby den 24/7....soley for ambiance. It was in the 50's and 60's and I never saw one person sitting in the den. I came in one night pretty late and it was still burning. Apparently it's OK to waste gas, just not water. Or, does the ambiance of the fireplace in the den allow them to charge more because it's aesthetically pleasing to their business travelers?
And while I'm on hotels....most do a good job of having a free continental breakfast. Some even add waffles to the free mix. Well, the Hilton hotels still charge for breakfast. The rub is, it's a breakast buffet for $9.95. You can get a pound of bacon, a stack of eggs, french toast and a plate of fresh fruit for your money....or you can get a tiny box of cheerios and 8 0z milk and still pay the same price. Idiotic. Well, on the third day of the trip my business companion just had cereal. When the waitress came to see if we were done I asked her if they had another price for someone who just ate cereal. She told us after stuttering around that the cereal bar was $4.00. Great. She had a box of Cheerios 1/20th the size of a box I can buy for $4 at the grocery store. I asked the waitress if there was a menu for breakfast and she said she would see if she could find one. So, only at that point did we learn we didn't have to have the buffet. Before I asked, it was implied it was the only choice. Most things were $8 anyway so the buffet was a "bargain". Charge whatever you want, but please stop insulting people's intelligence!

More on Why I Hate Flying......

Big ups to "Iowa Chick" and "UCLA Guy" for the good conversation at the St. Louis Chili's in the airport. My flight was to leave St. Louis at 4:05 and board at 3:40. My meetings broke up early due to an impending snow storm in Chicago where one of the attendees was heading. I got to the airport at 1:00 Central thinking I would catch an earlier flight home. No deal. In a twist of cruel irony...I could get home 25 minutes faster if I connected in, you guessed it, snowy Chicago. I went to the bar at Chili's to relax and have some lunch...and 5 glasses of ice water to rehydrate myself from Wednesday night (a future entry). I went to my gate at 3:35 and was told my flight was delayed 1:15 because it was coming from .......Chicago. We boarded at 5:10 Central and the Capt. told us we had a good tail wind and we would make up time. We landed at 8:10 (40 minutes late) and then proceeded to sit on the tarmac for 10 minutes because of "some mixup". We were all squished into a regional jet that put all our carry-ons into the belly of the plane...effectively making them not carry-ons at all. So, we now had to wait for our bags to be unloaded while the people that did check bags got to start walking. I was at the front of the steps to the sky walk so as the bags came on, a nice worker asked me to pass the bags back to the end of the line. So, I asked her if she could put me on the payroll. I mean, after all the waiting I did yesterday - she now expected me to smile and do her job for her. Well, if you know me, I'm nice as hell so I passed the bags back....of course...mine was third from last. As I was walking away, I asked her why on smallish jet flights they don't just say you have to check your bags but all of a sudden, she wasn't so friendly now that "her" job was done. Thanks. Buh-Bye. I felt like David Spade had just blown me off. I walked out to wait for the shuttle which got there in a record 20 minutes (heavy sarcasm). Had I paid a private lot to shuttle me, I'm sure the economy shuttle would have passed 10 times in the same 20 minutes. When the shuttle made the second stop, too many people got on and the driver couldn't shut the door so he asked 2 people to get off. There was a small disagreement about who the 2 would be. I hope that old dude didn't get hurt, but I didn't push him that hard and it's only about an 18" drop from the platform. I parked in 'B' and the bus started dropping off at 'K'. I got home at 10:00 PM Eastern. There is something very wrong with this process. It covered 813 miles. I drive 80 mph. Thats 10 hours. I left a meeting at 12:30 Central and arrived home at 10:00 Eastern. I could have taken anything I wanted had I driven. Gas would have cost me about $80. Somebody PLEASE remind me again why we fly?