(no subject)
Flying out there was interesting, from DC to Cleveland on a commuter plane, I was in the bitch seat of the last row, five seats I was in the middle one. I was sure that I was to be surrounded by overweight peoples but instead had two attractive girls on either side of me at the windows so it wasn't that bad. The middle of the plane was taken up by a bachelorette party. They where a bit loud and monopolized the only flight attendant by :gasp: talking to her, I didn't really care and they weren't that bad
Cleveland was pretty bland, though I did pick up a delicious fruit smoothie. Getting out of cleveland however was fun times.
The bachelorette party spent their layover time drinking and by the time they got on the plane they where pretty well lit and loud and obnoxious. Sitting two rows behind them in the asle there wasn't a lot blocking their voices from me, the two guys to my left where both also drunk but determined to sleep to vegas. Across the asle to my right where a couple on their way to Vegas to get married (awwww) and it was the guy's first time flying he was more than a little scared. I was tempted to say how cute that was but I figured it better to just leave him alone.
We start pulling away from the gate, get a ways out than start heading back. I heard that someone behind me had asked to be removed from the plane for some reason. I heard both fear of flying and heart condition. So we pull back up to the gate and this guy grabs his kit and charges off the plane and we sit there and sit, the bachelorette party getting a bit loud. All I want is for them to shut up and for us to fly to vegas.
Eventually the flight attendants make some passes and let us know we have to sit here while they pull that guys stuff and while that happens a representative from the company shows up and starts explaining that yes someone asked to get off the flight and we have to wait while they find his luggage and pull it per the FAA regs.
Bachelorette starts getting upset because isn't their money worth more than one person, rep is like "Oh you guys" informs them that people have complained about their loudness and how they need to keep it down, company wants them to have a safe flight and fun times in vegas but you know, respect your other passengers.
I wish I had recorded this because it was lulz worthy, bachelorette's start getting more aggressive and bitchy and start skirting one or more of the words you do not say in an air port or on a plane (terrorist, bomb, ertc.) Rep is doing her best to keep them calm and very simply drops the "if you don't simmer down and obey your flight attendants you will be removed."
Now, I'm pissed that my flight is being delayed, but I would rather this guy get off now than freak out, heart attack whatever while we are in the air. The bachelorette party though, pissing me off, I was just hoping they'd say the wrong thing and get pulled off because of how fucking funny it would be to watch the cops haul their asses out. My biggest regret is not getting the name of the company rep so that I would write the company and say how awesome she was.
Eventually they shut the fuck up and we got to leave.
Landed in vegas about an hour late, got a cab went to the hotel to check in. The guy who checked me in looked at my record and said "Oh everything's comped that's cool, have a great stay." I laughed, told him I was here to work 13+ h our days for the next week, he made a sad face and said "Here's your room keys and (looked around) here's two drink tickets that I didn't give you."
...
"You sir, are the man!" dropped my gear in the room, went downstairs and double fisted some alchool, went to bed.
Found myself at breakfast the next morning listening to a middle aged latino woman try and convince her co-worker's (old white woman and middle aged black woman) that they needed to organize and protest the fact that they weren't getting the raise they had been promised. She was rebuffed with cries of "i like my job," "you're just putting yourself up on the chopping block." I would have joined in with an impassioned speech about worker's rights and rallying the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, but I was wearing a bright shirt with my companies name on it so I just smiled and ate.
Days passed, work happened, everything went pretty damn smoothly, my co-workers are good people except when I want to stab them and essentially living with them for a week isn't good for anyone. Constantly amazed at how much more class and how much better my manners are than coworkers who think to highly of themselves. Made new friends and learned new things about co-workers, crazy shit was said and the slogan "This is why HR isn't allowed to come" was uttered more than a few times.
My room was kind of shit unfortunately, I overloaded the one power cord in the room so I couldn't charge everything at once, I was only able to get the internet working one night and the AC was busted. I had maintenance come look at it and we discovered that it looked like someone had stepped on the AC vent and crushed it preventing the cold air from flowing out. They weren't able to get it fixed until the thursday before I left. It wasn't to unbearable in the room but it was far from pleasant. I wasn't the only one though, all of the adjacent rooms to me had the same problem and a couple of my co-worker's elsewhere in the hotel had issues with their AC.
I didn't really go anywhere awesome or do anything awesome I concentrated more on getting my shit done, which I regret now I had the time to go out and hit things up but chose not to. Eat at some good restaurants on and off the strip. The decorating company took us out to a sports bar to rent a private room and watch some basketball game, it was ... not quite the most boring thing I did but it was close, I drank a lot that night.
The best story from the show had to deal with the unusual number of birds in the convention center. Apparently they shat on more than a few exhibitor's products which we can't really do anything about. But one particular exhibitor went up to the show office to complain because the birds seemed to really like his booth and he pointed towards the large and very fresh stain on his shirt that he had received. One of the VP's happened to be present and gave the exhibitor his card and said "Go get a free shirt from the store and give me a call leter today and we'll see what we can do."
Survived the drinking, the late nights, early mornings, finding out that somehow my room's clock had been set back one hour and almost being late for work and never once hit the wall. So I'm rather proud of that.
Flight home was uneventful, though trying to find food in Salt Lake City was a pain in the ass, however it did get me home a bit earlier than it was supposed to. Ran met me at the airport with Roy's and it was delicious. Best girlfriend ever.
I used the nook for the entire trip despite packing a back up physical book. Being able to have 13 different books loaded for my personal reading in such a compact device was a delight, even if I only managed to get through two and a half of them. The biggest downsides to using it are; not being able ti use it during taxi/take off and landing and I can never seem to hold the button down the right length of time to make it go to sleep. It seems like there's a half second difference between getting it to go to sleep and turning it off and turning it on takes longer than I want to wait. So I just stopped trying and let it put itself to sleep which is less battery efficient but I was never in danger of the battery running out so I guess it was all good?