The Hotel Life

Our house won't be available until the 6th of May, so until then, that'll mark the longest consecutive amount of time that I've lived out of a hotel.

Hotel living is kind of odd.

I never feel completely comfortable, mainly because I am always thinking about people that have walked on this carpet before me.

Someone that's used this shower before me.

And the sheets.

And the towels.

I'm not a germaphobe by any means, but just the thought that possibly hundreds of people have been through here just kind of grosses me out.

And I know - the housekeepers come through and vacuum and put in clean sheets everyday, but even that in itself is weird.

I mean, imagine (for those of us who don't have maids or butlers or servants) someone coming in to your house every afternoon, replacing the sheets and pillows on your bed and giving you new towels for the next day? Kind of weird.

Over this past road trip, and right now, I have stayed in a La Quinta (good for the money), Westin (terrible for the money), Sheraton (also terrible), Hampton Inn (pretty good) the Oxford Inn - which was also nice, and now the Residence Inn - which is probably the best I've been in over the past week.

The nice thing about this Residence Inn is that they do a free breakfast (and not the standard continental kind - the better than IHOP kind) and on top of that they do free beer and dinner from 5:30 to 7:30.

We have taken full advantage of the breakfast and dinner (and beer for me) for the past 2 nights that we've been here.

Who wouldn't? I mean breakfast at the cheapest is usually $8 for us - if we're eating at a place like McDough - and Dinner is at the cheapest twice as much. Why not save the money and eat off the hotel's dime?

I personally was questioning how they could afford feeding us two meals a day. I mean, there are 4 floors in this building with at least 50 rooms per floor. That's a lot of effing mouths to feed. (And a lot of beer and wine too!)

Another thing for me about feeling weird in hotel living is that I know it's temporary. I know I won't be here for even longer than 2 weeks. And knowing that, I can't really make it my own. It's definitely not my furniture. And I'm not going to tack up any posters on the wall or play my music as loud as I want to. There are people across the hall and above me that I've obviously got to be considerate to.

Tomorrow is the wife's first day on the job.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself (or with the dog) while she's gone. She's taking the only car to work...and there really isn't much around here for me to do.

I'm thinking of walking to starbucks to day trade there.

At least I can get away from this hotel for a bit. And get out and walk around.

The whole free breakfast/dinner/beer thing I think is starting to show up on my gut. It's been more than 2 weeks now since I've broken a sweat from exercising for more than 30 minutes.

I mean, what is the first thing you do when you get in to a hotel room for the first time? After unpacking and unloading? For me, it's turning on the TV to see what channels they have in the area. Fox on channel 10! TNT on channel 28! Crazy! Heh.

And of course, you get all the premium channels you always want for yourself at home but never will splurge the extra $8 a month for.

I can't imagine how people who travel on a normal basis do it. I wonder at which point they get used to seeing different cities and experiencing different hotels.

I know for sure that I haven't reached it yet.

Random Thoughts on Moving...

...From one coast to another.

By car.

Over 5 days.

These past few days are probably one of the most amazing feats I will have ever accomplished.

I have seen it. I have seen this great land of ours. And I have stayed in a few hotels. And filled up with many expensive tanks of gas.

There is a lot to write. But not so much time.

Now that I'm on eastern standard time everything is later. I am watching an interesting Celtics vs. Hawks game right now at almost 11 pm. Where as on the West coast I would've just been settling in after dinner - I'm assuming I'll be struggling to keep my eyes open to watch Atlanta pull off what should've been a "sure thing" for Boston.

We left on Thursday afternoon.

We forgot stuff.

Our vacuum.

Her makeup.

My toothbrush and shampoo.

And I'm sure a few other things we won't realize that we forgot until we actually move in to a place.

She picked me up from work on Thursday. What a terrible day to go out on. Semi-sunny. On the verge of what I love best about the Northwest: The summers.

The plan was to go to Spokane that night. About 50 miles in to the trip we were out past Issaquah when I realized that we only had another 3,000 miles to go. The task seemed very daunting at that point. Almost impossible.

(They are showing the preview for the lakers/nuggets game right now on TV. I won't be able to watch because it's going to start at 11 pm out here).

But Spokane was fine. Looking back on it 250 miles in an afternoon is almost laughable now.

Friday was the hardest day. Well, it got harder as the days wore on. I honestly never want to make that drive again. We drove from Spokane, WA to Rapid City, SD on Friday. All of more than 900 miles. More than 12 hours in the car. 3 full tanks of gas at an average of 320 miles per tank.

Idaho was short. A bit of a climb, but other than that, no biggie.

Montana was terrible. There is nothing there. Nothing to look at. Not even cars. And rolling storm systems. That you can see as you approach. Giant dark, gray clouds hovering on the horizon. The gusts of wind pushing us all over I-90. Big climbs to some nice elevation and snow and hail raining down all over us. If there is one place in this country I will never live, it would probably be out in the boonies of Montana. How people do it is beyond me.

It's only bright spot? The Testicle Festival. I'll let those interested in it look that up.

Wyoming wasn't much better. In fact, for those of you in Seattle ever thinking of making this wild trek out East - there is a section between Montana and Wyoming where there is not ONE gas station for about 120 miles. We finally arrived at a gas station with less than .8 of a gallon in our tank left. About 24 miles. Fumes. I have no idea how travelers can make that every time - I consider us lucky (and there were a lot of other people at that gas station who looked pretty scared too).

And South Dakota? Well at least we were finally stopping for the night. I was feeling a bit stir-crazy by the time we pulled in to the La Quinta in Rapid City. The wind had been whipping us pretty hard and I remember saying that it felt like I had lived through 4 days in the span of one after seeing all of that weather - and all of that road...

And you know how you could tell I was getting crazy?

Because I thought we could pull 2 more 900 mile days over the weekend and be in Charleston on Sunday night. No way the wife was having it. And really it wouldn't have made any difference anyway. So we decided to take it a bit slower.

Saturday things started picking up a bit.

The plan was to drive from Rapid City to Kansas City or possibly Saint Louis. After the ridiculous drive on Friday we ended up heading to Kansas City.

The drive became more interesting. Suddenly things started getting greener. And with the green came the cities and towns. People! Cars on the road! It was all very exciting. Iowa was our first touch of green. Missouri was probably one of the most beautiful (overall) states we drove to and through.

We stopped for the night in Kansas City at the Westin. Balling at the 4 diamond resort. We were completely underwhelmed.

On Sunday morning we left for either Nashville or Knoxville.

But unfortunately the directions we got from the hotel staff (again - Westin in Kansas City completely not worth the money) were wrong. So we ended up driving south for a bit too long and had to turn around. That hour of being lost would end up being a huge frustration for us throughout the day.

Still in Missouri for most of the day we were enjoying the area when we came along a ridiculous detour. Regretfully the maps that were provided to us don't include all the changes to certain roads (and interstates especially!) and it being spring there was a big closure on the 64 East running to Saint Louis from Kansas City.

The detour had me taking at least 3 different interstates to get where I was going. And there were signs everywhere pointing us in every direction. I am amazed we didn't get lost again at that point. If there had been heavier traffic, watch out.

To the residents of Seattle: Go check out Saint Louis. I think they copied us! They've got something that looks like the Viaduct, and then they've got their baseball stadium right next to their "viaduct" too! Biters.

We pulled over after downtown Saint Louis at an exit - "Kingshighway". Note to self: Anything with the name of "King" (which I soon realized was named after MLK - I think) is automatically going to be the ghetto. We were waiting in a popeye's drive through and I've never had so many people staring at me before.

I hate to admit it, but I was scared (in the daylight too).

We hauled ass out of there (and ate our Popeye's on the road).

We stopped for the night in Nashville. Or so we thought. We couldn't find a place that would take dogs, or that would be cheap enough for us. (The company is covering our hotel costs and wants the nightly charges to be "reasonable")

I was irritated because I had a feeling that something like this would happen...and I had wanted to go to Knoxville that night (another 170 miles up the road). We ended up in Cookesville, which really wasn't that bad. Except for the fact that I could now feel the humidity beating down on me. I could feel it stuffing up my lungs and my nose. I can feel it on my neck.

It's been tough (after all of the 2 days we've been down here in the South) getting used to the accents. I hate having to ask people to repeat themselves, but there are just times (like out at dinner tonight) where I have no idea what is being said to me.

Tennessee is gorgeous. Where I thought Missouri had a lot of green to offer, I think I was just a little bit biased after driving through the bad lands.

All the trees and all the green grass on the sides of the freeway really makes for some relaxing driving. At least as relaxing as it can be when you're trying to make it cross country in less than a week.

North Carolina (what little I saw of it) was amazing. The path you take to get to South Carolina drives you right through a national forest. Lots of winding roads a few tunnels - and we arrived at probably the 2nd best time (spring instead of fall) as a lot of the leaves and flowers were just starting to bloom.

Well done on my allergies on that note.

And throughout the entire trip, we brought the Seattle weather with us. Gray clouds, rain, hail and snow followed us everywhere we went. I honestly believe that it was sunny on us - meaning the sun peaked through the clouds at us, for about 3-4 hours during our 50 hour drive. It was terrible.

I shook my head this morning in Tennessee when I saw a weather report that said, "Unseasonably cold and wet" in the South. Which means this is abnormal for this time of year.

Sorry guys. We brought the crappy weather with us from up North. I hope things turn around soon though.

So here I sit, writing on my bed in the Sheraton about 5 miles outside of downtown Charleston. We'll be looking at our condo tomorrow (and hopefully we like it - we don't really have a choice at this point) and we should be signing a lease to keep us here at least until Halloween.

I've got a lot about this area I've got to learn. And of course there's tons of new things to experience. Hopefully there won't be any time left for me to miss home.

I’d rather be snowboarding

I have nothing I'd like to post up for tonight, although I found this post listed as one of my "drafts". I first started writing this back in October of 2005, and have added to it a bit tonight:

My feet are cold. This word document looks cold. It’s white and black. Little blue links on the side. There are lots of things that make me happy. But right now the thing that would make me happiest would be to be night snowboarding.

The rats inside the walls of my parent’s house scurry from left to right. It is gross. Sometimes I hear them fight and squeak and fall in to heating ducts, scrapping and scratching against dry wall and metal. They have a way of getting in here from the outside I think, but they’re asleep now. Unlike the rats I am not asleep. They sound like huge badgers too, I forgot to cook rice for tomorrow *smacks forehead* maybe they’ll eat my rice. Just checked the rice, it’s still there. No signs of eating. Enough for lunch tomorrow.

I’m not wearing a coat or any waterproof gear, but if I was snowboarding, I would be.

I’m not outside enjoying the fresh mountain air, but if I was snowboarding I would be.

I’m not doing anything athletic, but if I was snowboarding I would be.

I’m not complaining about moguls, oh wait…nope, I’m not. “” (repeat)

There are plenty of places to snowboard, but I’m not there.

There’s not snow in many places, it’s too early in the season.

Some places, like BUTTE Montana got 4 inches of snow last week, suckers, all that snow and no boarding.

The first time I ever half snowboarded was on a thin sheet of ice about a block away from my parents house. In 7^th grade Willy Hindeman (where is he now?) lent me his board and it was like standing on a narrow sled because my feet were too big for his boots he wasn’t willing (thanks willy) to take off anyway, so I was trying my best to keep them in the bindings. That taste was enough for me, and skiing looked like too much work.

There are REALLY COOL people that bomb down the mountain out of control and maybe hit people that fall and then everyone gets hurt.

Once I went off this jump and almost drowned in snow because my head landed in a huge snow pile after I did a half flip and then didn’t know which way was up.

When I rub my head with my hands it looks like little snowflakes falling, like they do in the mountains sometime when I’m snowboarding.

I once got high at Whistler in one of those bubble gondola type things. I don’t recommend getting high and snowboarding. Amazing that’s such part of the culture.

Some people get high, bomb down the mountain and listen to their Ipod at the same time. These people are basically my Gods.

I used to fall off the lift at the top all the time. Since everyone else doesn’t fall there it is a hard pack of ice. Falling when you get off the lift hurts.

Most people go to sleep without telling you. I go snowboarding without telling most people I know.

My mom makes good soup and biscuits for us when we get home from snowboarding. I like listening to depressing emo music after snowboarding too.

My last two instant messages to people read as follow: Hey call me when you get a chance. Did you see the penis? These people are obviously not snowboarding.

I would never be a professional snowboarder. Those guys think doing amazing tricks and getting “major air” is awesome. Getting paid to do that is not my style. Maybe in the near future people will say, “Man! You should go pro!” and just them saying that alone will be enough payment for me.

I have a 3 inch long cut on my head. It would’ve been cooler to say I got this snowboarding.

I just told another person that she likes penis after she saw the drawing that someone made on her wall on facebook of a guy holding his wang job. She obviously isn’t snowboarding right now.

The first time I did a toe-turn I was going way too fast, but I hung on and was screaming at no one afterwards. I will remember that feeling forever.

I taught my sister to snowboard. She is amazing. I guess you could say she taught herself, but I wish I could take some credit.

Here’s how most of my advice went my first time at Whistler: “If you feel like you’re falling, dig in and lean back”. For two years I dug in and leaned back. My thighs hurt just thinking about it. To this day I can't help but revert to my old ways. Almost everyone that I know that snowboards has graduated to the "intermediate plus" runs and I hate when the mountain is so steep that I'm basically falling right down it. I apologize to everyone for not keeping up. I don't like to bite it super hard.

A girl who likes to snowboard is hot. Hopefully not so much that it melts the snow. The problem with women and snowboarding is mainly the clothing. Almost everyone looks the same with snow gear on. And you don't want to be one of those annoying girls that wears all pink do you? If I was a woman I wouldn't want to be. Big snow pants, a big jacket and a beanie can make a lot of women look like 15 year old boys. Or maybe I'm just crazy. So crazy that I seen teenage boys when I go snowboarding. But there seems to be a higher population of those types up on the mountain. I sit there and quietly wonder to myself while waiting in line at the lift - "Boys - how did you get up here? Are your parents off skiing somewhere? Shouldn't you be in the park going off jumps with that crazy helmet of yours? How did you get the money to do this? Even I can hardly afford it." That's about all I think of them. When I might actually be accidentally thinking that about a woman I was looking at but couldn't tell.

I saw this thing on FSN where guys sand board and board down volcanoes. The second one you can die from. I understand you can die from basically anything but putting yourself in to a higher probability of death rarely makes sense. Not only did they show guys boarding down volcanoes, they also showed a bunch of guys boarding down sand dunes. That I probably wouldn't want to do either. Mainly because sand is really hard to get out of your hair. And your ears. For those that have spent some quality time at a beach resort - and hopefully played beach volleyball or tackle football know that sand basically gets everywhere. And it doesn't go away for a few days. You know what the worst is though? Is when you're chewing on something, and then all of a sudden...*grrriiittt* you bite in to sand. Now maybe you're eating a clam that you just dug up. That's expected. But maybe you were out flying a kite at the beach and your first bite in to your filet mignon that night opens up like sand paper. Terrible.

Someone should just make a machine where right after you come back from the beach, you step in to this cube and it sucks all of the sand off of you. There's gotta be a machine like that.

You know how on TV and YouTube or whatev - they've got those bulldogs or dogs that skateboard? Show me a dog that snowboards. That would be awesome. I don't think my dog could do it. We'd have to basically get her an enlarged popsicle stick for it to work. And even then she'd probably be way too cold to figure out what the F she was doing out there. Hah! It makes me laugh imagining her wearing a giant snow coat. Made especially for her of course.

If I had the opportunity to live in a cabin for about 2 months, like walking distance from a lift? Maybe in Tahoe? I would do that. In fact, I think that'll be one of my goals in life. Would be to just hang out in a cabin all winter. Maybe by the time I have enough money to do that they'll come up with some new fangled way to snowboard. Maybe instead of having to heel and toe all the way down the hill they could come up with some sort of motorized way to do it for us lazy types that just enjoy the feeling of speeding down a hill. Maybe. The future is wild though.

Can I just say something? Snowboarding would be better than chatting on AIM and posting in this stupid blog. 100 times better. The end.

You Made It.

On the eve of my 26^th birthday – I couldn’t find 3 better words to fit the given situation. Knowing the situation, a good friend of mine – thanks D – wrote those words in a card. Perfect.

See, the whole premise was that I would pass on – more specifically die somehow – after 25 years of life.

I’ve probably written this before, but whatever. Back when I was in my late teens I was living a pretty unhealthy (and somewhat dangerous) life. Now I’m sure that most kids go through this phase. They test themselves – see what kind of limits their bodies hold up. But I am sure there were nights during those years where I basically got very lucky to live through to see the next morning. Looking back at it now I just have to shake my head and laugh at what an idiot I was – as I’m sure I will do the older I get.

For right now though, I’ve got my favorite boxers on for my birthday tomorrow, and of course I’m wearing my “World’s Greatest Grandma” t-shirt. Perfect for me. Assuming I don’t somehow go through cardiac arrest in the next hour and a half, I’m going to be solid.

26. Time for me to leave the mid 20s and enter in the mid to late 20s. How sad.

I was just talking with someone the other day about how when I was in 5^th or 6^th grade (like one of my neighbor’s children) I used to look at people in their 20s as ancient. Dinosaurs. Now that dinosaur is me.

And I’m feeling it.

2 months ago I jammed my thumb in a basketball game. 6 to 8 years ago, I would’ve done the same thing and within 2 weeks it would’ve been good as new. To this day, 8 weeks later my thumb still hurts. And part of me is worried I broke it.

In a flag football game 3 weeks ago I jumped and dove for a ball that flew through my outstretched arms and landed squarely on my right hip. Even last night when I rolled on to that hip I could feel an inkling of pain.

Getting old sucks. I want to take my brain and trade it in for a new body please. Unless somehow this body is going to get better. But honestly I feel like I’ve now passed my prime. Sad.

I wanted to touch on the past a bit. Because annual things always make me want to reminisce over what’s happened over the past year. And for that, I’m going to skim through my blog post from my last birthday.

And skimming through that post, I realize that it sucked. Damn.

Anyway, I’m going to try and put myself in a frame of mind from April 16, 2007.

One year ago:

-I was accompanying the wife to her running lessons. What a waste of money. We got to see a lot of cool trails around the area though.

-Virginia Tech shooting. Absolutely ridiculous.

-My left eye was twitching (my belief is because of stress). It twitches on and off now. But not as much as it did a year ago.

-The stress was caused by:

1) Losing a few people in my department and having to pick up the slack. Since then we’ve switched managers and have become a lot more efficient. Still there are days…

2) Applying for a home equity line of credit (for money I could use to invest) through Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and finally settling with BECU. I love you BECU. You gave me everything I wanted with no hassle at all. Citigroup and Bank of America you guys were terrible.

3) Studying for a technical certification exam that basically became worthless in the summer anyway.

-Being excited about the DC/New York City trip. For all of the excitement/anticipation that I had built up about the trip, it definitely lived up to it.

Now of course there were plenty of other things that happened throughout the past year. But I think I’ll save that for my new year’s post – coming in only 8 months! Wild.

For my 27^th birthday I want to look back on this post and know the mentality I was in as I was turning 26. So here are some quick notes on my frame of mind:

-This is going to be my first real recession. I have never worked (read: had a full time “real” job) through a recession. And it’s going to impact me a lot more than the average Joe because I play the market. Finding a scalable position.

-The market. Wow. Enough said.

-South Carolina. A minimum of 6 months away from home. (For the first time ever!) Leave from a solid job.

-Stoked about the Europe trip. Not stoked about the USD to Euro conversion.

-Just finished helping build a fence. First fence ever built. Along those lines – owning properties (plural) can be a major pain in the ass. Especially when you won’t be living in either of them.

-Getting cysts on my neck and armpit removed on Thursday. I’m hoping they’re not very serious (they shouldn’t be).

-I love rec sports. I always have but right now in my current frame of mind I realize how much joy they add in to my daily life.

I’ve got a lot of things on my plate for right now – which I’m sure will be coming in the next post (I wrote a beginning and middle to the post…but yeah).

My wish for 26 – and this might seem boring, but for tonight it sounds pretty nice – is to put myself on cruise control.

I’ve always felt that I have a pretty strong sense of a life plan. What I’m going to do in life and how I’m going to get there.

At this point in life, I think I’ve arrived at a point where the vehicle is up to speed – and all it takes is a push of a button and you can let everything else do the work while you enjoy the scenery. That sounds very pleasing to me right now.

How I’m living right now, I can handle that from now until about my mid 40s. Life is just dandy and the good times outweigh the bad.

Happy 26^th to me. I made it. I honestly couldn’t foresee myself getting to this point even 8 years ago. But here I am. And I can almost guarantee now that I’ll certainly be here for many years to come.