Friday, June 27, 2008

Various Travel Tidbits

I meant to post something earlier tonight, but didn't get around to it. I still had a lot of recorded TV to catch up on, and I was still (and still am) feeling kind of worn out from the travel, so I took a nap.
It took about ten minutes to fall back into the usual routine at work. No voicemails, and I'd been able to keep up with my e-mail while I was away, so there wasn't really anything to catch up on.
I have to say that while the hotel I stayed in was nice, I found it absolutely ridiculous that they charged $12.95 per day for Internet access, given how expensive the place was.
It wasn't even that fast, probably around 700 Kbps.

Cheesy Business Traveler Department:
At one point while I was in the lobby at the hotel waiting for the elevator, some guy was heading to the bar to have a cigarette after checking in - all of the rooms were non-smoking - and the girl working at the front desk asked him if he wanted someone to bring his bags up to his room. The guy - who must have been in his early 50s and weighed close to 300 pounds - took on this voice of mock delight and said, "Oh! First they have beautiful girls working the desk, and now they offer to bring my bags up for me!"
If I ever get that cheesy, you have my permission to shoot me on the spot.

Where The Wind Comes Sweeping Up Her Skirt Department:
It was really windy the whole time I was in Kansas (and yes, I do know that the title of this department is lifted from a musical about a different state entirely). While waiting outside for the other guys I was with, I saw this fairly attractive woman standing around in the parking lot wearing a light and airy sundress that was getting whipped around rather violently by the wind. Alas, it never got quite the right amount of force needed to improve the view, though it did get close. If it had been the next day, which was really windy, an errant gust might well have blown her dress completely off.

On the flight back, just as on the flight out, I didn't get a seat assignment when I checked in, so I had to go to the gate to be assigned a seat. This time around I was randomly upgraded to "Economy Plus," which basically means having a little more leg room. I was in the row right behind First Class. While the leg room was nice - albeit, as mentioned, somewhat unnecessary in my case - not having a seat in front of me meant that I had to stow my laptop in the overhead bin, which I hate to do, as when it comes time to deplane you have to fight with everyone else to get at your stuff.
Even so, I managed to get off the plane pretty quickly, but was delayed by the fact that my carry-on bag, which I had to check at the plane, was mistakenly placed on the cart heading towards baggage claim, and the guy unloading the plane-checked luggage had to go and dig for it.
I'd decided to just do carry-on for the sake of expediency, but really it didn't prove to be that expedient on either leg of the journey.
Also, the restrictions on the volume of liquid you can carry on was a bit annoying: the limit is 3 ounces, and my contact cleaning solution is 4 ounces.
So I'd bought a 1 ounce bottle of some other stuff to bring with me, but my eyes didn't like it at all, and registered their complaint rather forcefully when I put them in. For my second night, I bought some stuff at the hotel, and my eyes weren't much fonder of that. My left eye in particular was really irritated and watery most of the day.
While I was on the plane and attempting to doze, my eye started watering like crazy, and the tears were building up until finally I opened my eyes and it felt like something solid fell out, and the front of my shirt got positively drenched.
Still, my eye started to feel a bit less irritated after that, and the watering stopped.
On both flights I discovered an odd new phenomenon that my body has decided to engage in while flying. As I'm sitting there with my eyes closed and just about to fall asleep, my entire upper body shudders as if someone is shaking me awake.
It's like the Universe is saying "No sleep for you!"
I guess that's what I get for forgetting to buy something to read.
At the meeting when someone said "Does anyone have any questions?" I found myself terribly amused at the thought of being like Kelly from The Office and saying, "Yeah, I have a question: how dare you?" I also considered "What gives you the right?"
It would have been totally out of nowhere and utterly inappropriate, and therefore hilarious.
Speaking of The Office, the guy sitting behind me on the flight home was named Michael Scott.
Okay, I suppose I should wrap up this mostly pointless entry.
Tomorrow (well, today at this point) I'm probably going to see Wanted. I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about that.

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