ClearTheRail

Mile High

Well I just got back from Las Vegas and I have to say it is definitely the weirdest place in the world in some respects. The hooker catalogs being passed out on the side of the road seem to be mostly replaced by the much smaller baseball card style ones now. What would possess anyone to purchase a ho is beyond me though I must say their advertising is getting rather good. I saw two of them making out in a casino to solicit clients. What a brilliant scheme that must be for them. Much better than some Mexican handing out baseball cards with pictures on it.
The food in Las Vegas is like nothing else in this world. You can get so much great food there at reasonable prices that I don’t know why anyone would ever eat at those cheap buffets where the food is just mediocre. For just a few dollars more you can get a 4 star meal.
Traveling was actually much less of a hassle this time than any of my previous trips. I flew Continental which has the best food of the major airlines I have used recently. They were on time both ways and their online check in made you not even have to worry about the wait. After spending hours upon hours waiting in airports this year I finally decided not to show up early, arriving only about a half hour before boarding which was more than sufficient both times. The line at the metal detectors was very long in Cleveland but very fast moving so it only took maybe 15 minutes. Still there are a few questions I have about the whole thing.
1. Why do you have to show your ID 27 times. The people who check them don’t look that close anyway, and even if they did I'm sure terrorists could manage to forge one. Or just get actual ones like last time.
2. Why do baggage screeners look at you like an idiot whenever you don’t pass through the detector? Sorry, I forgot about my belt buckle jack ass. It’s not like it ruins their day or anything. In my case I forgot to pull my laptop out of the bag and this dumb bitch who works for $9/hr screening baggage looks at me like I'm stupid for it. I'm pretty sure a TSA employee who puts items on a belt all day has no reason too look down on anybody.
3. Why does it take so damn long to get on the plane once boarding starts? You walk in, put your carryon in the over head and sit down. It should not take hours for this, yet it always does. People are just so dumb sometimes. Same thing goes for getting off the plane. Everyone stands up real fast and waits forever while the idiots in front of them struggle to get their 200 pound bag out of the overhead.
4. Why do flight attendants always have such a shitty attitude? This is almost universal among their profession. You serve people drinks and maybe some pretzels all day, it isn’t a rough or stressful job. If your life sucks it has nothing to do with the people on the plane, so shut the hell up and give me my cranapple juice now bitch, and quit scowling at me before I buy you and sell you to gypsies. The only tolerable flight attendants are the gay guys, who are generally cheerful and provide much better service. Just for that I say let them marry. Then maybe we’ll have more of them and less bitchy stewardesses.

Cruises Suck

Well I am back from my cruise and I have to say that all and all it sucked. It was just boring. You wake up sometime around noon or 1 (or at least I did) and get some food and there is literally nothing to do. The food was great, I can get used to a good 5 course meal every evening and a nice buffet for lunch. But on the days at sea I would have given anything to be back at home where I could at least do something.
I was lucky that it was a poker cruise and therefore a much younger crowd than normal. The ship had a dance club on the top floor where we went every night to drink with all of the WPT players and the younger people on board and that was good times, but that only accounts for 4 or 5 hours of each day. The 2 days in port were fun too, but again that’s 2 out of 5 days, and even then you still have half the day with nothing to do.
I really don’t see what people like so much about cruises. From what I am told they usually seat you with random people and keep you with them the whole cruise, but on ours they didn’t do that since many people already had friends on board. However I did not have any close friends there so we often ate alone or with different people, so we didn’t really get to know anyone that way. I did make a few friends at the bars though, which was cool for the evenings. But still most of the time there was nothing to do. The movies on the cruise I had already seen or looked awful, and very few of them didn’t feature Paul Newman. I should have spent some time in the gym, since I have gained at least 5 pounds, and I guess that might have filled an hour of each day.
I am a much bigger fan of just going places. Then you can fill your whole days with sightseeing, shopping, etc. Also you don’t have asses trying to charge you $1.75 for a can of Coke, or $5 for a Bud Light. I understand cruise lines have to make money and that’s fine, but I hate to feel like they are taking advantage of me, and that is exactly what they do. $1.75 for a can of Coke isn’t profit, its exploitation. Same with phone service for $16 a minute. It just isn’t right. If I ever cruise again I am packing bottles of water in that spare suitcase, which will be perfect because after I drink them I will have plenty of room for water.
Also it turns out my packing job was almost perfect, as I did use almost every piece of clothing I took. I had just enough room left over for the few items I purchased in Mexico and the duty free shop on board, where you can buy a bottle of Captain Morgan for $8. But the Coke to mix it in is $1.75 per can.

Airport Blues

Right now I am stuck on a plane somewhere between Chicago and San Diego and think I will be here for some time. My experience with airlines seems to get worse every time I travel, and today was no exception. Things started going wrong the minute we got to the airport. I had done the online check in thing that American Airlines offers so all I needed to do was go to the curbside baggage check, check my bags, and then go to the gate. But as soon as we got the luggage out of the car a porter who didn’t speak the English so well grabbed our bags and threw them on his little cart and started wheeling them inside to the normal check in. I already had my boarding passes and had no need to go there and I told him so, and all he said was “I’ll take care of this you just take care of me”. First of all I don’t respond well to people begging for tips in such a way. Second I am certainly not going to tip the jackass for performing a service that I don’t want, didn’t ask for, and in actuality does nothing but waste my time.
So we go to the window and I tell the lady I have my boarding pass already and just need to check my baggage, and I think she figured out what was going on. The little porter fellow (who I think was Russian) loaded the bags onto the scale and said “you are all taken care of” about 15 times, blatantly begging for a tip. Vicki even said quietly to me “I think he’s waiting for a tip” to which I replied “well that mother fucker can wait all day cuz he isn’t getting one.” I'm not sure he heard but I'm pretty sure the check in lady did, and even after she hinted to him to scram he stood there staring at me. Perhaps he thought I was debating whether or not to tip him $5 or $10, when really I was debating whether or not to give him a pile driver and then urinate on him. Luckily for him I really want to go on this cruise so I decided to just walk away and leave him holding the proverbial bag. Oh well, thanks for lifting my heavy suitcases sucker. Next time don’t hijack people’s baggage and take it to places they don’t even want to go and maybe you’ll get a tip.
So then we go to the metal detector line. This is kinda like lanes at the grocery store where whatever decision you make will be the wrong one. If you decide to get to the airport 30 minutes before your flight there will be a huge ass line and you will miss your plane. If you get there 2 hours early like we always do you will check in quickly and spend 5 minutes getting through the metal detector line, then be forced to sit in the airport lounge drinking $7 beers. At lease they had a Great Lakes Brewery (a top notch microbrewery from Cleveland) in this airport so I could throw back an Elliot Ness (a rich lager that is a 5 star beer in my book) while I waited.
Sometime during the hour and a half we spent there and the same amount of time in Chicago on our layover I decided that whoever owns airports should be shot. There is absolutely no reason to not have wireless internet. You could charge people the standard (ridiculous) rate of $6 per hour with ease. Lets see, thousands of business travelers, laptop in hand, waiting for their flights for 2 hours. I couldn’t think of a better place for a T-Mobile Hotspot. I would have gladly paid $20 per hour to be honest.
What is strange is that I have been in numerous airports across the country, and the only one I have found with a decent wireless internet connection is Lexington Kentucky. I couldn’t find them in the Atlanta airport (and I know they have them somewhere), not in Jacksonville, not in Cleveland, Memphis, Chicago, or any of the other cities I have been to this year. But good old redneck ass Lexington has free wireless access, explain that one to me. Better yet don’t, just get me on my cruise.

Traveling

Well I leave for my cruise tomorrow. Then I return next Saturday night, spend a few nights here and leave for Las Vegas to meet my friends on Tuesday. Then I return the following Saturday and stay home for a whole week before going back to Vegas with my family on April 4th. Man that’s a lot of traveling.
The worst part about all this is that I will have flown 5 times in one year on 5 different airlines, so while I am racking up the frequent flyer miles I do not have enough on any one program to make any use of them. But at this rate in about 10 years I’ll have free flights on about every major carrier.
My girlfriend is making fun of me because I am taking 2 bags for our week long cruise. I really could (and probably will) cut down the amount of stuff I am taking, but I really do want to save room for the copious amounts of duty free souvenirs I will be buying. I am sure laundry on board is ridiculously expensive, so I really would rather just pack enough to get by and do laundry when I return. I am an over-packer by habit, but this time I don’t think I've gone too overboard. You need shorts and a t-shirt every day, plus nicer clothes in the evening. I am told the dining room will be cold so I packed pants and long sleeved shirts for that. I am taking my suit for formal night and my new sport jacket (very stylish I might add, I’ll try to take a picture of it) for other occasions, and because my girlfriend says I look hot in it. Normally I would say that she is biased, but it is one hell of a jacket.
So all those pants, shirts, t-shirts, long sleeved shirts, dress shirts, formal wear, underwear, various adaptors for electronic items, toiletries, plus space for gifts on the return voyage leave me no choice but to take a second piece of luggage. Luckily I recently purchased a very nice 5 piece set from Sam’s Club, because I never even owned 2 pieces of luggage at the same time before. Even with the 2 bags I may have to ditch some of the shabbier clothes before returning, but I doubt it. I once read an article from someone who said she packed a lot of junky clothes whenever she traveled that way she could just donate them and have the extra room for souvenirs. So if I buy too much alcohol I guess I’ll do that.