Greetings from yet another Hampton Inn & Suites hotel, this time in Calgary, AB in the Great White North, aka Canadia. What’s it look like in Calgary, you say? Just like this:

You can’t see it in the picture, but just out of frame on the right there’s a McDonald’s. Now, I don’t know if it’s just the McD’s I stopped at on the way here from the airport or if it’s all Canadian McD’s, but the one I went to didn’t have a Quarter Pounder with Cheese on the menu. WTF is up with that? No QP? Why, it’s unAmerican! I let them get away with it because this is Canadia, but I’ll be investigating this matter further. I see a trip through the parking lot in my near future. I’ll report back later.

And how’s the room? Remarkably similar to this:

And you can’t really see it in this picture, but just out of frame on the left is a wall, and if you put your nose right up against and look really really hard, you can almost see through it. Because the walls here are tissue-paper thin.

Which means I can hear everything my neighbors are doing (watching Still Standing on the TV right now, volume up high– shoot me now, please). And my neighbor is here with friends who are staying in rooms across the hall. And they’re all REALLY REALLY LOUD. And they keep calling each other on the phone to ask “WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW? HAHAHAHAHA! I’M WATCHING THAT TOO!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! NOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” And they keep shouting across the hall to each other “CALL ME ON THE PHONE!!!! NO, YOU CALL ME!!!! HANG ON, I THINK BRETT’S CALLING ME NOW!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!”

Grown men. Thrilled to the gills at staying in a hotel. I remember when staying in a hotel was that exciting to me. I was six.

Edit: Canadian McDonalds’ do carry the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Whew. And my neighbors are still loud and obnoxious.

I’m taking Bob and Doug McKenzie‘s advice: I’m going to take off to the Great White North. It’s a beauty way to go, after all. I’m flying to Calgary Wednesday, and I’ll be there ’til Friday.

That’s one of the nice things about this job (aside from watching The Office at the office) — I’m still traveling but the trips are short. Instead of being stuck in a hotel room and away from Beth and Zoe for 10 days like I was for my last job, with this company it’s a 2 day quick in-and-out. I fly in the night before, train on-site for two days, then fly home the evening of the 2nd day. Nice.

This will be my second time going to Canadia, and each time has had something to like it for. The first time, in Vancouver, I enjoyed dirt cheap sushi. My boss and I feasted like kings for something like $11 US each. And Calgary has the Elbow River and Stampede casinos going for it, with poker rooms and blackjack and craps tables and everything else I love about a casino. I like Calgary already, and I haven’t even been there yet.

Koooo-loo-koo-koo-koo-loo-koo-koo!

Part of my job is to back up the Help Desk, so I get to see all the help email that come in. I’ve done tech support before, and if there’s one thing it teaches you, it’s that people are stupid. Witness the following email that just came in:

“We are getting kicked out of (your software) after about 20 minutes. Are you having others with the same problem?”

Our software is designed to log you out after 20 minutes of inactivity. It’s a security feature. It tells you it’s doing this. You get two pop-up messages warning you about it: one tells you you’re going to be logged out in 2 minutes if you don’t do something, then after you’ve been logged out another window pops up telling you that you’ve been logged out and why. So it’s not like there aren’t any clues to what’s happening.

But still, Genius up there wants to know if there’s a problem. Yes, in fact there is, and there’s a name for it. You’re experiencing a PEBCAK error: Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard. There’s also the ID-10-T error, which also applies. Pick one. Or both.

People are stupid.

I like my job pretty much these days. I don’t think I’ll ever love a job — I’m just not wired that way (translation: “lazy motherfucker”) — but I like this one pretty good. Last Friday is a good example of why.

My boss and I are big fans of NBC’s The Office. We throw favorite lines back and forth and talk about what happened in last night’s episode and generally carry on like Office geeks. Because we are. So when episodes of The Office became available on iTunes, my boss ran right out and downloaded them to her computer.

So last Friday afternoon we’re sitting around talking about The Office and the phones are pretty quiet and there’s not much going on and we were talking about the previous night’s episode… And she says “Fuck it, come over here and let’s watch it again!” So I rolled my chair over next to hers and she fired up The Office on her computer and we watched it all over again. And when it was over, she wanted to watch another episode, too. And then when that one was over, a little after 5:00, she said “Go home.”

That’s the way to spend a Friday afternoon at work: watch your favorite TV show with your boss for an hour, then go home early.

Greetings from room 512 of the Hampton Inn in North Andover, MA. First the photos, then the complaining:

What a nice view!

What a nice room!

And now, let’s commence with the bitching. Oh. My. God. My trip out here was not fun At All. I left for the airport in L.A. at about 9:30 a.m and finally got to my room here at 2:30 a.m. the next day. Fun, it was not.

On second thought… Eh, who cares about the bitching. Here’s the short version: I had to wait several hours for a connecting flight at Dulles. Poor widdle me.

Anyway, I’m here now, and on tap for tonight is dinner with my former coworker Gavin. He lives about in Salem, about 20 minutes from my hotel. Small world, eh? I haven’t seen him since we both got laid off from the Evil Empire, and he’s now working for the San Francisco company I interviewed with a year ago that didn’t hire me because (I think) I held out for another $5k/year.

Maybe, if I’m lucky, he’ll take my picture at the Samantha “Bewitched” statue!

I’m back in my old stomping grounds: Longmont, Colorado, just outside of Berthoud and Loveland, where I lived during 8th grade. I’ve lived a lot of places around the US and Colorado certainly wasn’t one of the longer ones, but this area has always been where I’m “from” in my heart. It’s nice to be back.

Here’s the view from Room 204 of the Longmont, CO Hampton Inn. It had just started snowing when I shot this picture and the snow was gone within an hour.

And here’s how the room looked before I trashed the joint:

Guess who missed another flight home? So here I sit in a hotel in Chicago, on the stand-by list for a 6:20 a.m. flight tomorrow morning. It’s not like I’m new to this traveling thing. So what is it with me and missing my flights back home lately?

This time around I knew how to get to the airport and left in plenty of time (I thought) to get there, but Chicago traffic got in the way. Mapquest says the drive from Milwaukee to Chicago Midway airport should have taken 2 hours and 13 minutes, but Mapquest obviously wasn’t listening to the traffic report. For the last 35 miles, I was going between 3 and 10 miles per hour. I finally got to the airport four hours after I left Milwaukee — and 1 hour after my flight had left without me.

So here I am in room 114 of the Four Points Sheraton at Chicago Midway Airport, right next to the soda, snack and ice machines, which would be nice if they weren’t so fucking loud and the walls so thin. But at least I’ve got a view of the parking lot!

So here it is, the View From Chicago:

…and let’s not forget the Room in Here:

Back in San Diego again. I’ve managed to live in California for 25+ years and only come to San Diego maybe four times, and here I am coming twice in a month. Go figure. I got in last night and I’m outta here tomorrow, but in the meantime here’s the requisite View From Here picture — and what a view it is!

Sorry, kids, but no Room From Here this time. The room is too small for a decent picture and I’m too tired to stitch one together for you. I’m doing you a favor, really. I mean, let’s face it, you’re living vicariously through me with this pictures, right? So by not giving you the Room From Here, you don’t have to suffer through it too. Damn, I am such a giver.

Next up: Milwaukee on Monday. Woo.

Don’t fuck with Baltimore, I’m here to tell you. Literally. Here. Stuck.

After talking all kinds of shit about Baltimore in my last entry and on the phone with Beth and over lunch and dinner with the coworker I’m out here with… Well, apparently Baltimore didn’t take too kindly to it. And so to punish me, Baltimore has made me stay. Technically I’m in Herndon, VA, at the Dulles Airport Hilton, but figuratively I’m still in Baltimore.

First I got hung up at work and didn’t leave when I planned. My flight was at 7:03 and my hit-the-road-at-4:00 plan would have gotten me there, only I didn’t leave until about 4:30. Then I couldn’t find the frickin’ airport. Three thousand fucking highways they have here — all ending in 95 (95, 495, 695, 395, etc.), by the way — and they can’t put a fucking sign up on any of them saying “This way to the airport”? Then I finally pulled a cop over (Ha — I pulled him over instead of vice versa. Who’da thunk it?) to ask for help and the fucker gives me directions that have me getting off the 495 about a mile before a huge (and the only) big-ass sign saying “This way to the airport” and instead going 20 minutes out of my way in crawling bumper-to-bumper traffic. Then I finally got going the right way and got stopped by every red light on the way to return my rental car. Then the rental car shuttle driver decided he needed to stare into space for ten minutes while a busload of people waited before finally driving over to the terminal. And as a result of all that, I got to the check-in counter for my 7:03 flight at about 6:40 and the agent wouldn’t check me in — I had missed the 30 minute cut-off. And this was their last flight of the day.

But I’m an intrepid traveler. A little thing like missing the last flight doesn’t stop me. So I took my ticket over to United, who had a flight to LA in two hours, to see about trading it in over there. First I had to wait in a short line to speak to an agent. But we were waiting because of the amateur-hour traveler at the counter, who was unpacking and repacking and unpacking and repacking all of her overstuffed bags in a vain attempt to distribute her voluminous piles of crap across her multiple bags in a such a way that every single one of them wouldn’t be subject to an over-weight penalty fee. And after waiting for about 15 minutes, another agent finally called me over and then interrupted me halfway into my “I missed my American flight and want to see if I can trade my ticket in here” spiel to tell me that I needed to go to the ticketing window on the other side of the kiosk. So first I headed off in the direction she pointed, and 50 yards later discovered there was no exit in that direction and I had to go the other way. So I walked the 50 yards back, and then another 10 yards to go around the other end of the kiosk, only to find a line 100 people long. So I got in line. And waited. And waited. And waited. And finally I stepped out of line and got pushy and interrupted someone and asked another agent if she could at least check to see if there were any open seats on the LA flight so I’d know if waiting to trade my ticket in was a waste of time or not. Her response? Oh, you’re in the wrong line. You need go to ticketing, 50 yards down on this side of the kiosk.

So I headed over there and got in the right line. A short line, just three or four people in front of me. But we were waiting on the world’s stupidest ticketing agent who was helping the world’s second stupidest passenger (the world’s first stupidest passenger was on the other side of the kiosk packing and repacking her bags) with some incredibly complicated ticketing scenario that involved much staring into space and listening to the telephone and generally ignoring the growing line of passengers needing help. And when I finally got to the counter to do my spiel about trading my ticket in, the agent interrupted me about 5 words in to say that he wouldn’t (wouldn’t, not couldn’t) take it because American hadn’t “endorsed” it. So I was fucked. Stuck at Dulles Airport.

Back to American, where they put me on the stand-by list for the first flight out tomorrow at 7:55. But stand-by, not confirmed, which means I might not get on the flight at all. Only way to know for sure is to show up in the morning — 90 minutes early — and cross my fingers. But I was in luck: they could get me a distressed passenger rate at the Embassy Suites: only $130. Such a deal. And they’ll even send a shuttle for me. Just go half a mile to the shuttle area and wait — it’ll be there in 20 minutes.

45 minutes later, after watching shuttles for every hotel under the sun — including friggin’ low rent Days Inn — come and go with no sign of the Embassy Suites shuttle, I gave up. I called Hilton — because their shuttle had come and gone four times by that point — and worked the system. I used my high-level frequent flier Hilton status and 25,000 of my carefully hoarded Hilton points for a complimentary room. So it was free, only not really.

So here I am at the Hilton. But the fun hasn’t stopped yet. First, I’m starving, so I wanted to order some room service. Only guess what? There wasn’t a menu in my room. But no problem, the front desk will send one up in 5 minutes. 20 minutes later it got here. So I ordered some food but balked at their $2.00 price for a soft drink. Instead, I asked them to send the server up with change for a $5 so I could get a drink from the machine down the hall. The food got here pretty quickly but the server didn’t have my singles. Too bad for him: no tip for you!

So I grabbed my five, grabbed my room key, and headed down to the bar to get change. I came back upstairs and found the Coke machine was behind a locked door that my room key wouldn’t open, and it took me a minute to figure out why. When I first came into my room I had thrown my room key on the counter by the door, along with the three room keys I forgot to turn in when I checked out of my other hotel this morning. Three guesses which room key I took downstairs with me. Meanwhile, my food is up in my room that I can’t get into, getting cold.

Back down to the front desk for a new room key. Only guess what? No ID — that’s in the room too, and the desk clerk wants to see it before he’ll give me a key. I finally convinced him I was me by answering a number of security-type questions, the trickiest of which was: “What’s your last name?”

Back upstairs and into the heavily guarded Coke machine room. I feed my dollar bills into the machine and begin to make my selection. I want a Diet Pepsi, and wonder of wonders this machine has Pepsi products. It has several bottles of regular Pepsi and one bottle of what looks like it might be Diet Pepsi, only the label is turned away from me so I can’t read it. But it has a different colored cap and there’s a Pepsi logo on the back label, so I figured it’s a Diet Pepsi. So I buy it. And a Lipton Brisk Lemon Iced Tea comes out. I gave up. I took it.

So now I’m fed and watered and internetted and watching TV and about to be bedded down for the night in a bed rather than on the floor at the airport, so things could be worse. But on the other hand, there’s a long black non-pubic hair clinging to the toilet rim in my bathroom right now — and I’m bald. So Baltimore clearly still has me in its crosshairs.

But what the fuck. I’m in another hotel, so here’s the requisite “View From Here” picture, the view from Herndon, VA:

And a new feature I think I’m going to start doing, “The Room From Here” — what the room looks like when I first check in, before I turn it into a pigsty. So here’s tonight’s room:

Don’t fuck with Baltimore. Seriously.

Not much more to say now than: “Baltimore. Been there, done that.”

I’m not loving it here. First, nobody on the freeway here can seem to drive faster than 60. Second, all the stupid restaurants around my hotel close at 10:00 and I didn’t get in ’til 11:00 — because nobody around here can seem to drive faster than 60. Third, I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. Not one. It was too quiet. Fourth… Eh, fuck it. Baltimore isn’t worth this much effort.

I’m coming home tomorrow night. I wish it was tonight.