Despite SXSW being 2 and a half months away, it was time to get the ball rolling on planning for my trip to Austin, so I decided to book my flight today. I had enough points on my ScoreCard Rewards to take at least 3 flights for free, so I won’t have to pay anything out of pocket (other than surcharges) for my flight there and back. I don’t doubt that this probably the best credit card rewards program out there too, especially after fiddling around with the travel section and checking out some of the items you can buy with their points system. They even have a wind generator you can purchase! :-D 400 watts baby!
Anyhow, as luck would have it, there were nonstop Jet Blue tickets right out of JFK for the day I needed to leave. YAY! I was worried that I would have to take a {gag} American Airlines flight instead if I wanted to go nonstop, but the JetBlue airline at JFK Airport came to the rescue. This was the one airline I wanted to try too, especially after hearing nothing but good things about it from some of my coworkers.
The earliest Jet Blue reservations I could make were available at 8AM, so I carefully checked my options, and happened to notice there was another flight leaving around the same time. For some odd reason it cost $30 less, so I figured why not, I’ll book that flight instead. I ended up adding trip insurance for another $30 as well, and booked my flight. I quickly received my email confirmation, excited and terrified that once my Jet Blue tickets officially arrived, it would be only the second time in 20 years that I’d be flying again.
Then I noticed the departure time: 8PM????
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!
I hadn’t realized the flight that was $30 cheaper was departing 12 FRICKING HOURS LATER AT NIGHT. I had gone over the details with a fine tooth comb, and yet somehow I still couldn’t notice 8AM was actually 8PM.
I can’t believe how stupid I am. It never once dawned on me that there’s no such thing as there being 2 planes from the same airline leaving the same airport, for the same destination, at the SAME TIME.
I scrambled to call the ScoreCard rewards program hotline, and was placed on hold for probably over 30 minutes while I banged my head on my desk. Finally, after endless minutes on hold, the rep reimbursed my points again, freeing me to re-submit the Jet Blue reservations with the CORRECT time. Eeesh. I hope I finally got it right now.
I’m telling you, if left to myself I’d book a flight to Denver and then wonder how I wound up in China after getting off the plane. Sigh.
This post covers some of the events during my stay in Las Vegas from Oct. 13th to Oct. 17th.
The day after Serendipity, I attended a few more seminars on travel blogging and did what I could to promote Murphy USA every which way I went, to the point where I was wondering if people were secretly restraining themselves from punching me in the face. Seriously though, who gets offended at the idea of getting a free Red Strike energy drink? It was the only thing keeping me awake too.
Free Drinks! Cheap Gas! WIN!
I was dreading the dinner we were having tonight at the Hofbräuhaus, which was being sponsored by Collective Bias, partly because it would first start off with drinks at the Hard Rock Hotel. Oh Lord…
Somewhere during this whirlwind of a visit to Vegas I did manage to find a chance to run away and do some geocaching in the late afternoon. There was a nearby cache (Cache With a View #2) hidden somewhere at the top of a boring parking garage, but its location put you in a prime spot where you could enjoy really awesome panoramic views of the strip.
Oooooooooooo...
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh...
Ooooooooooohhhhhh...
That’s definitely something that won’t show up in a tour book.
With my geocaching fix out of the way and the meat of the conference done with, it was time to have dinner. I taxied uptown and opened up the doors of the Hard Rock Hotel and immediately got SLAMMED by the noise. Holy…
I managed to spot some of the Collective Bias crew in the darkness, meeting Ben Spark and a few other awesome bloggers, and managing whatever conversation I could in the midst of whatever godawful music was being thundered over the building sized speakers. And the worst part of it? I didn’t hear anything from the 80s being played.
After about 15 minutes of this I had given up on trying to follow the conversations. I just sipped my diet Coke and nodded my head like a moron, praying the night would go quickly.
A new group of people had arrived, some of who I recognized from before, but at least one I didn’t, a beautiful girl whose radiant smile easily lit up the darkness of the hotel bar we were in. I politely said hello to the newcomers and sat down again. I was utterly surrounded by beautiful women now and feeling ridiculously self-conscious as a result. Fortunately though I wasn’t the only ugly dude at the bar (thanks for being there with me Casey!) so I didn’t feel TOO out of place. :-D
And then something happened. Something that I thought was impossible, yet it happened anyway: Girl with Radiant Smile actually started talking to me.
I’ve lived on this planet long enough to know and accept that beautiful women just don’t talk to me, except possibly to ask me what time it is. They don’t look at me, they don’t talk to me, honestly, they would rather I not pollute the air they breathe with my very existence, and yet here this particular girl was, projecting warmth and hospitality and friendliness that I don’t remember having EVER experienced before. So I regarded her the way any single, lonely New Yorker would regard a beautiful girl who suddenly gets chatty with him: with outright suspicion.
Fortunately, I suppressed the overwhelming urge to interrogate her: “Who are you, what do you want, and why are you being so nice to me?” and continued to remain cordial. Still, I was completely perplexed. WHY IS SHE BEING SO FRIENDLY??!?!?!111
But as we got to talking, I started to understand why. What was in front of me was an honest to God southern belle, right here in Las Vegas. Not only that, but she was DEAF too. She had shown me her hearing aids and when I saw them, I just gawked in utter shock.
Somehow, the only other deaf blogger that was at this entire conference ended up sitting right next to me here at one of the noisiest places in the city.
It was then that I finally let my guard down, and we talked about almost everything, being hard of hearing, her husband and adorable kids, her youngest who was also recently diagnosed with a hearing loss too, our blogs, frrrozen hot chocolates, and more. When it came time to go to Hofbräuhaus, which somehow was even more boisterous and noisier than the Hard Rock Hotel, instead of dreading it, I was now looking forward to it. Having the sort of camaraderie that we shared finally put me at ease for the first time since I arrived at Vegas, because now, here was someone who really understood what I was going through.
And I only had to travel 3,000 miles to meet her.
So who was she? Her name is Bailey Vincent Clark, founder of MakeoverMomma.com and with a lengthy resume that makes me look like a complete BUM. Teacher, ballerina, writer, fitness trainer, nutritional consultant, op-ed columnist, it just goes on and on, a lifetime of success all at the precocious age of 24. And I suspect she’s only getting started too. Oh, and she is also wrapping up her first book, already prepping to work on a second. Oh, and she is quickly becoming more and more fluent at sign language (ASL). At this pace I expect her to either be governor of Virginia by the time she’s 30 or an inventor of cold fusion.
Bailey poses for an OpenSky Promo. Yes, she really is THIS awesome.
Still, I wasn’t feeling too intimidated at her brilliance. I can roll my tongue for one! And I can like, um, do like, um, cool stuff… uh… …
Ok, maybe just a little intimidated.
The Hofbräuhaus turned out to be more fun than I expected, especially when I got to watch people getting spanked (I still don’t know what that’s about, but hey, I’ll roll with it as long as the food’s good.) John Andrews (CEO of Collective Bias) was the perfect host, genuinely glad to have met me, as were so many other CB members, making me wonder: Why couldn’t these guys be my coworkers? Instead I have to work with the children of the corn.
Ah well, maybe some day they will end up being my full-time business partners. Some day…
The night was finally nearing its end, and doing a complete 180 from before, I was truly sad to see it end already. I would see Bailey one more time tomorrow at the closing party, and then that would be it.
Or would it? Bailey had told me of her home town, Staunton, Virginia, so I looked it up on the map and stared again in disbelief: I would be driving RIGHT through her town as part of my road trip itinerary as I return home. It would have been stupid of me not to see if we could meet up again after Vegas, this time under quieter circumstances.
Quoting Samuel Jackson from Pulp Fiction: “You know what this was? This was divine intervention.” Indeed, before my trip ended I would have a chance to meet and greet the entire Clark family.
Part of the reason for coming to Las Vegas was to network and establish new partnerships that could help my goal towards becoming a full time blogger. But the biggest value I think gained here was a new friendship with a fellow hard of hearing blogger. Bailey was the best thing I found in Vegas, and I feel truly blessed to have met her.
Still, I was so, SO ready to get out of Dodge. The mountains of Tennessee beckoned…
I’m in Pennsylvania Dutch Country now (Lancaster County, PA) to recuperate before making the last leg of my journey back to New York tomorrow. Still need to recap the events from the past week, beginning with my trip to Vegas, but that should all be forthcoming soon.
In all, I’ve traveled over 6,500 miles in a little over three weeks, both by car and plane, spanning 14 different states. My coworkers have probably forgotten what I look like now.
As much as I hate the thought of coming back to New York, I do need a few weeks of down time while I recharge, have my car fixed up with remaining repairs, finish a few projects and get myself prepped for my next adventure. I suddenly have a few things on my plate I’d like to get done as well to bring more traffic to this site, enhance my blog’s profile and move forward from there.
I also learned a lot of things that can help me figure out how to successfully function as a travel blogger, but one thing’s for sure: I definitely need a real iPhone. And an iPad. And maybe portable Bose speakers. :-D
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take the time to enjoy my last day with tasty foodsies from the famous Shady Maple smorgasbord, then cry into my pillow for a good while.
Ok, it’s official. My job (and I don’t mean my coworkers) is a living, breathing evil sentient being that has made it its number one mission to destroy my sanity until all that is left of me is a drooling shell of a man cowering in a corner at the looney bin humming Archies tunes.
Five days left before I undertake the biggest road trip I’ve ever done in my life. And in that five day stretch, my workload has suddenly decided to increase by tenfold, inexplicably. Plus I have to do field work all week long, and of course the weather forecast is rain, rain, pouring rain, more than the rains on the plains of Spain… while the world’s turning circles running round my brain…
And some of my coworkers have taken the next few days off too.
Yep, my disgustingly evil and self-aware job has seen it upon itself to inflict as much pain and agony on me as possible for daring, DARING to take some time off in October.
But if anyone can withstand the violence that is my dead end worthless crap of a job, it’s yours truly. Yep, only a man’s man of a man like this man can take the pain and say, “Thank you, may I have another?”
… … … you are my candy girl!… And you’ve got me wanting you…
So I got up early this morning for a 3 day trip to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, where I would meet up with a few relatives to celebrate a birthday at a bluegrass show. The next few days though would be all about meeeeeeeeeee, as I go off to do some geocaching deep in the heart of Amish Country. :-D
So I have my GPS all set up, and I take off, first with a stop at 7-11 for some coffee.
And yep, I knew things were going to go south the minute I poured Half and Half into my coffee and the cap fell out and landed right into my cup.
“Ow, ouch, ow, ouch!” My fingers burned as I tried to pick the cap out of the sizzling coffee. Finally I wised up and used a pair of stirrers to get it out. The coffee of course tasted flat too.
Afterwards, I start heading south and already my spirits were beginning to improve, knowing I would be out of New York and breathing a bit easier over the next few days from being away from this accursed place. Then I see a road sign:
“Verrazano Bridge Closed.”
Nah, that can’t be right. Who completely closes a major metropolitan bridge anyway? Refusing to accept the warning, I pressed on, thinking the sign meant they only closed a few lanes.
THEY CLOSED THE ENTIRE @#$%^ VERRAZANO BRIDGE WHAT THE @*&$%^ GAAAAYEEARRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
I furiously started tapping the detour button on my GPS, but it kept telling me to take the same route that was now completely BLOCKED by barriers and cops. Livid and ready to mow people down, I turned around and made my way back uptown again. The GPS finally wised up to my location and rerouted me through the Battery tunnel and the Holland. Thank God the traffic was light or I probably never would have made it out of New York alive. Eventually I did make it out and before I knew it I was zipping along on the New Jersey Turnpike at high speed.
I didn’t drive slower than 80-90… (ok maybe 100 at times) until I was finally in Pennsylvania. Breathing a bit easier now that I was out of the craphole that was New York and New Jersey, I noticed there was a geocache right by the rest area, so I decided to take a quick look so I could log this one as a find too.
Unfortunately I didn’t find it, although I did manage to muddy up my shoes and cut my hands too from the blades of the grass I was pulling up to find this bloody stupid cache. Oy! Plus for some reason my cell phone was not cooperating, so I could not access the Internet to get more info either so I could locate it.
I gave up and eventually continued deeper into Pennsylvania, then stopped by a Walmart to pick up a few things. I noticed there was yet another cache nearby the parking lot, so it was off I went. (Yep, I am in fact hooked to this.) This time I managed to find it, though not before stepping around in what I’m pretty sure now was poison ivy. I am really, really hoping that’s not the case, or this mini-vacation is going to take a very miserable turn for the worse in a hurry.
I arrived at the hotel around 3PM and checked in, dragged my suitcase up to my room and tried to open the door. After jiggling around for a minute, the door suddenly swung open and the guy whose room that DID belong to stared curiously at me.
“Whoops, sorry, wrong room.” He had just about scared the living crapola out of me too. Yeesh. I quickly moved away, only to move back again when I realized my room was directly across from his. A few minutes later, after I went out into the parking lot to grab more stuff, I saw the same guy again heading out and waving at me. I happened to notice a sticker on his car too, and it was an emblem that had become all too familiar to me. The guy actually worked for the same agency I did. We were, in fact, coworkers.
200 miles I travel and I still can’t get away from my job.
As soon as I realized it I ran to see if I could catch up to him to find out more, but his car had already left the parking lot. Are these people watching me or something??
Regardless, the whirly day finally began to simmer down as I met up with my folks again and we went off to the bluegrass show. I had a nice time, came back to the hotel, and somehow concluded the evening by having a pretty, sweetheart of a girl stop by my room so she could help light my fire.
But that’s another story.
Anyhoo, that’s it for the day. It’s 1AM, I’m exhausted and I need to get some sleep. Plus I’m starting to itch a little here…
