Travel Trials

You knew this was coming, didn't you? You knew that since I haven't really complained too much about any major travel issues lately that I must be saving them all up for single "I hate business travel" blog entry, right?

Well, it hasn't really been that bad, but there have been some "moments" lately:

-- My seatmate on a JetBlue flight got called up to the front of the plane before we took off and was met by police officers. Heck, I'm just happy that I wasn't sitting next to this woman. (Don't worry, my seatmate was not an escaped convict -- he was a commercial photographer with a bunch of random equipment that the friendly officers questionned him about. He returned to his seat and made the five-hour flight right beside me.)

-- On another JetBlue flight (again, a cross-country flight), I walked right in on a guy using the bathroom. Honestly, buddy, LOCK THE FREAKING DOOR! Thank goodness he was just in the standard standing position with his back to the door.

-- The American Airlines folks are starting to crack down on carry-on's even more... I think they've all been trained to force people to check their bags so we can all pay the new bag fee. I'll strike a deal with them: If they will stop stealing things out of my checked bags, I'll consider actually checking a bag again at some point.

-- I now know the secret location of the modem in the rooms in the Santa Clara Hyatt, having had to watch a tech engineer crawl around under the TV stand for 40 minutes while he ascertained why my internet connection was not working.

-- Car rental lesson: Hyundai Sonatas get no respect. I was cut off three times just getting from the San Diego airport to my hotel. But the XM radio almost makes that worthwhile.

-- Car rental company plea: If you have the nicer car on the lot already, why don't you just GIVE me that car instead of the crappy, smokey 30,000 mile piece of Chevy crap that you TRIED to pawn off on me??

-- Car rental shuttle bus driver jack*ss: Screeches away from the curb before I'm sitting down and nearly sends me (and my bags flying). Drops me at the "preferred" area in the car lot and mumbles something unintelligible when trying to tell me what space my car is in. I ask him three times to repeat it and he finally just gets up, comes back and gets in my face with "I SAID F-22!" Well, F YOU, too, buddy!