Welcome Home

At the risk of making this a travel blog (airport rants, airplane rants, views from a hotelroom, etc), I have to do just one more travel-ish post...  When I moved to KC I obviously had a pretty huge change in airport landscape, from O'Hare International, one of the largest and busiest in one of the largest cities in the nation to KCI, which is probably somewhere on the lower end of the middle.  A big difference here is the lack of crowd, well and the obvious lack of a Great American Bagel Co. which saddens me every trip I take, I digress.  Back to the crowds, a lack of crowds and crowds of people allow me to notice a lot more than I used to, add to that KC's proximity to Fort Riley I have witnessed many many emotional reunions between men in uniform and their friends and family.  These are often just as you see in the movies, posters, balloons, the works.  But the images are very moving and the emotion of myself as mearly a bystander witnessing the hugs and tears far surpasses anything that you can attempt to convey in picture or film.  These men and women have been who knows where some of them risking their lives, others training so that should they be called upon to risk their lives they will be ready.  Seeing these reunions really drives home the point that there are people out there willing to leave behind their families and friends to work and fight for something bigger than themselves.  It really makes me stop and think that these men and women are more deserving than ever of our respect and support.  I know that the images are something that I'll not soon forget and I most certainly moved these men and women forward in my mind. 

So to these men and women I say thank you for all that you do.

All About the Comfort

Now as a frequent traveler I am all about comfort, I will beg borrow and steal for an Exit row and seeing myself in a middle seat makes me what to explode.  But I've noticed lately a comfort trend that is somewhat odd to me: People who take there shoes off on airplanes.  I mean don't get me wrong to each his own, but this trend perplexes me.  Especially lately, because my flights have all been under 2 hours, but on each one the first thing my single serving friends (again thank you Fight Club) do is remove there shoes.  I mean as I said I'm all about comfort but chilling in a hot plane inches from your seat-mates, may not be the place for letting the dogs run free.  I should qualify... I don't have a "problem" with them going native and shoeless, but more find it "odd." 

Other odd travel observations:

• Don't you DARE board through the preferred customer lane... I mean granted it's not a moving walkway, it's not faster, really all it is is a wornout red rug that looks exactly like one I saw in Pizza Hut but with a United logo on it... 
• A Quizno's sub costs about $17 more in the airport than it does 1/2 a mile away
• People honestly think that during "rush periods" the guy on the 8-wheel golf cart can weave through the crowds faster than they can on two legs

View From a Hotelroom... Spokane, WA

Picture of the Week

The Westport St. Paddy's 4 mile run pretty cold day but while running it wasn't too bad... finished in 31:44.  Which was better than I expected considering my "training" was done exclusively on tredmills in hotels for 2 weeks.  Anyway below are the runners pre-race at Kelly's.  Post race celebration was also at Kelly's with the biggest papercups I've ever seen filled with beer.  Which was delicious after 32 min of work.

Shish Kabobs!

One of the brightest spot of the new house was the fact that I got to dust off my massive 4-burner grill.  Now in Chicago I had a grill, but it was only out of sheer determination.  My "baby Weber" was a good little grill, but sadly its 14in cooking surface, whilst squating over on a 5x3 landing - just wasn't very easy to use.  However, I now have a good 4 sq. ft. of meat searing, grill marking, delciousness.  Last night was my reunion with my personal fire pit and I'll have to say it was a flaming success.  I cracked open a bottle of New Belgium's Range IPA (which if you haven't tried it, you should) as as the title suggests Shish Kabobs were on the menu and they were delicious.  Meat was awesome - way better than I expected after several bad experiences with steak purchased from the grocery store.  Now hopefully old man winter will realize his reign of terror is over and give way to some sunshine so that full on summer grilling can commence.

Video of the Week

George Carlin is probably my favorite comedian of all time and this rant (he rants) is one of my all time favorites.  Part II of this contains one of the funniest things ever... I literally smile evertime I travel and hear the statement... In the unlikely event of a "water landing"....

Dickey V

Dick Vitale's Final Four

I must say I like it, although, Baylor in that 4th spot would be pretty sweet.

College Man

NFL Defensive End Ty Warren is giving up $250k in bonuses to skip offseason workouts... to work towards his degree from Texas A&M.  Pretty refreshing to see a grown man in a professional sport make a grown-up decision and skip a set of workouts for something other than more millions to add to the already millions that are millions more than even the most extravegant of people could spend.  I recommend you read this article after you read articles about Gilbert Arenes and those broke retired NFL players.  They guy should be contacted by the commissioner immediately about teaching at the NFL rookie camp.  Ty has a plan: a degree, NFL for as long as possible, then teach.  Solid plan, and with the poor, unfortunate, and underpaid NFL stars, owners, etc looking at totally justified lockout in 2011 (yes that was suppose to be sarcasim).

Obviously I'm in the "It's okay to come out of college early and enter the draft camp" because face it - if you are that good, you've got a limited time table on your NFL career and every snap could be your last.  You stick around for Senior year and blow your ACL, your football career is over, you finish out get your degree, and you get a real job.  Option 2, you leave your Junior year go to the NFL make $100k+ and if you blow your ACL, you can then go back to college, get your degree, and still get a real job.  Same end but in option 2 you have a heck of a lot more money.  I mean 80 year olds are getting degrees, there's no timetable on a college degree.  College degree at 45, very doable.  4.3 40 at 45, not likely.

Good job Mr. Warren hopefully some of these youngsters in the upcoming draft will take a read of this article and follow your example.

Traffic Jam at MSP...

Observations from a Day Spawned in Travel Hades

So a somewhat fitting (or unfitting, really depends on perspective) end to my 3 week FCA travel bender, my inbound plane which I was suppose to board was struck by Zeus and thus was grounded. The result? 7+ hours in the MSP airport, sitting on the floor, charging my phone and people watching...

-old people (I'm talking super old people) are fun to watch. They are in awe of everything, they're like little kids with credit cards.

-never underestimate a goup of people in matching shirts

-even if you are a good 15 feet from the pedway people will undoubtedly still feel the need to walk inches from your feet for fear that diverting from thier path will either a. Cause them to miss the pedway (damn turning radius) or b. Cost the valuble seconds that will be needed to hit up Starbucks for a $9 latte.

-MSP has what must be 5 Chilis resraunts or morethan the entire city of Chicago

-did I mention how funny old people are?

-I ecountered a unicorn, a ticket agent that was calm, polite, and exteremly helpful.

-off to Chilis #5 for a bite of Lu-nner

View from a Hotel Room... Bloomington, MN

Hilton's Embassy Suites ... in Bloomington, MN... again, so I was on the same side of the hotel so the view was the same, so here's the atrium, a view from the "front" window.  A note to hotel staff:  Just because you put a palm tree in the middle of the hotel isn't going to distract from the 30 something temps, snow, rain, and fog.

Rise Against

This is my favorite song at the moment... enjoy.

Sugar

So the reasonible thing to do on a Monday after waking up at 4:30 in the morning to travel to Minneapolis would have been to sleep.  However like a moth to flame I was drawn to HBO. Sugar was the move dujour.  First off the movie was not a good one to watch whilst sleepy because 95% of it is subtitled.  But alas, I made it and turns out it was a really good movie, it followed a group of Dominican baseball players as they tried to make it to the majors.  I won't spoil too much but if you like sports movies that aren't either way over the top or super "win one for the gipper" then I'd recommend this one.  Great story, that wasn't as cheesy as I feel like most sports movies are.  I feel like it was pretty "real" as far as what it might be like for someone who is trying to come up through the big leagues.  Which, as if that weren't daunting enough, these kids were trying to do so without many of the advantages that are afforded to stateside players.  Now the movie wasn't a true story, which makes it even more impressive because it felt like it really could have been.  Anyway, I liked the movie a lot so if you are looking for a good Netflix rent, look it up.

Now That's a Burger

Majors in Apple Valley, MN is the home of this lovely little creation.  To break it down we have a bruger, pepperjack cheese, pulled pork, bacon and BBQ sauce... protein stacked on a protein topped with a protein, whenever there's three proteins invited to the same pary you know you are in for a rowdy time.  This is one of those menu items that you read it and you think to yourself, now that's cool, but you dismiss it as overboard and move on.  However, as the waiter takes longer and longer to arrive your eyes curiously make there way back to this little devil until you give way to the curiosity, throw caution to the wind and order it.  The burger was good, although not as good as I was anticipating, I wouldn't go so far as to say I was disappointed, but it was close.  Now if you'll excuse me, I must run an additional mile cause that little lovely was likely a weeks worth of calories. 

Up in the Air

First off really want to see this movie hear it was fantastic, so I mean no disrespect to Dr. Ross (yes for those who are curious it is sad that I knew that without looking it up).

In my travels I go many places (and a lot of the same places) as evidenced by my Views from a Hotel Room posts, and I cross paths with many people: cab drivers, ticket agents, TSA workers, flight attendants, hotel workers, single serving friends (ah-thank ya Fight Club), and really just people in general.  There is however a cross-section of people I meet up with that I can't stand and you can see them a mile away I dub them the Travel Jackass.  Now the Travel Jackass can most commonly be found wearing a suit, power tie and most often has a blue tooth device because he didn't get the memo that presently the only people using blue tooth headsets are twelve year old boys (and 28 year old men) while fragging noobs online.  His behavior is often such where you'd assume he was a man of distiction... like the President or Will Ferrell.  This man will not hesitate to hit you with his wool coat, run into with is computer bag, cut you off in line and the worst offense of all, take your arm rest.  He will generally make your life terrible because of one simple truth: In his mind where he is going and what he is doing is far more important than anywhere you are going or anything you could possibly be doing.

This man must be met with strategic force.  You must not show fear or mercy, for fear is what he uses to dominate.  The armrest.  The Little Big Horn of the travel world.  It is key that you not lose this position for if you do suffice it to say all is lost and the Travel Jackass has won.  You must remain steadfast in your resolve and whatever you do DO NOT yield nary an inch.  My most common method is to hold my ground.  He will, in and effort to assert dominance, butt his arm next to yours.  HOLD.  Wait 5-10 min. HOLD. Then, ever so slightly apply pressure to his arm, increasing it once every 5-10 min.  If nothing else it is fun to watch him squirm uncomfortably as he trys to figure out want to do next.  Most often I can dislodge his arm from the arm rest and claim victory, but everyonce in awhile a fella is particularly stubborn, I'd say my KDR is 0.50.

Essentially, these people need to be given only minimal latitude because it only fuels their ego and their unjustified feeling of self-importance.  I have on more than one occasion battled for arm space, and uttered a louder than really necessary "EXCUSE ME" to the man who insists on standing with his shins touching the baggage carosel dispite the fact that his suitcase is not in view. 

Where I have to go is just as important and what I have to do is just as important.

The ULTIMATE victory however is left to forces beyond my contol... and I smile inside everytime I see one of them sitting next to a baby...

View from a Hotel Room... Bloomington, MN

Hilton's Embassy Suites ... and for those who are wondering No, this is not a repost, different location, different logo on the door... pretty much the same view.