Brainsprain.net » travel

Tuesday in Vegas

Chad — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:51:27 +0000

I woke up Tuesday morning (my birthday) to the sound of my iPhone dinging. Seems a couple of people due to arrive that day had missed their flight, and were texting me to let me know that they would attempt to catch the next flight to Vegas and to sit tight. I got up, and Colleen was still asleep and it was pretty early, so I decided that a great birthday gift to myself would be to go work out. I went to the fitness room and spent some time on a stationary bike and then ran about a mile and a half on a treadmill and returned to the room. I got back and showered and woke the wife and we dressed and met up with everyone to eat breakfast. We ate at the inappropriately named “The Coffee Shop” inside of TI. I say inappropriately named because the coffee was just drip and terrible. No lattes, cappucinos, nothing. The food was pretty good, though. By the time we were finished eating, the stragglers arrived from the airport, having managed to make the next flight. They dropped their stuff in our room, and we hiked across the street to the monorail station and headed over to the Las Vegas Hilton, home of Star Trek: The Experience and where I wanted to spend my birthday.

We got there about fifteen minutes before they opened, and got in the line to buy tickets to the attractions. We got a package deal which included The Klingon Encounter, Borg 4D, pictures on the bridge and in the Borg chamber, and a backstage tour. I waited impatiently for everyone to buy their tickets, and was very excited. When we were finally ready to go through, we presented our tickets to a lady who looked at me and shook her head a little.

She said, “I’ve worked here for ten years. I’ve admitted Klingons who refused to speak English. I’ve seen families of Andorians including infants — PAINTED BLUE. I’ve seen it all. I have never seen anyone as excited to be here as you are.” Best. Compliment. Ever.

We went through and did the two rides, and then stopped for a quick appetizer and drink in Quark’s Bar before the backstage tour. We went on the tour where we learned all kinds of interesting secrets about the attraction, and then had our pictures taken. Exhausted, as by this time we’d spent a good five hours Experiencing Star Trek, we sat down in Quark’s Bar for actual food and even more actual booze.

My geekdom sated, we made our way back to the hotel and drank even more in Kahunaville that night.

Monday in Vegas

Chad — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:46:33 +0000

We got to the airport at dark-thirty Monday morning, and, because we had PAPER TICKETS (which we bartered for with chickens and marked their sale on a clay tablet) we had to wait in Southwest’s long line to exchange them for paper boarding passes per the TSA. The security line was really long, which is to be expected for a Monday morning and then we all sat down together to eat breakfast. Some of us opted for boring old breakfast tacos, while others of us opted for the ingenious Mangia breakfast pizza. Instead of pizza sauce, they use frickin GRAVY. It was devine. We got on the plane and split up into our respective middle seats. Yay. The flight was uneventful, which is my favorite kind of flight.

We arrived, grabbed our bags, and hopped a shuttle over to Treasure Island, which was now known as TI, and had been almost complete de-pirate-ized. That makes me sad. You’d think with Johnny Depp’s latest string of blockbusters, they’d be more into the whole theme. We lined up at the buffet for second breakfast (the most important breakfast of the day), and April scampered off to her room, looking a little green. We ate, and then retired to our rooms for a nap.

Colleen and I went down to the pool for a bit after our nap, then we met up with everyone (including a recovered April) for dinner at Kahunaville, a restaurant/bar which was very tasty. Everyone but Colleen and I had gotten tickets to see Mystéré, so off they went, and we waited in the bar to meet up with Dawn, a friend of mine from high school who now lives in Vegas. She and her husband took us to dinner down the way at Palm Steak House in Caesar’s Palace (YUM!) and we met some of their friends. After the show, Shane and April joined us and William (Dawn’s Hubby) drove us to a club where they comped our entry cause it was almost my birthday. We drank too much and had lots of fun, and then took a cab back to the hotel and passed out.

Best. Birthday. Ever.

Chad — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:37:54 +0000

Just got home from a week in Vegas with some of our very best friends. We missed everyone who wasn’t there, but we had a blast. There is a ton to blog about, and I’ll get it done this week, as pictures are circulated, I’ll be sure to post them here. In short, we drank too much, ate too much, gambled too much, saw too many shows, sat in the hot tub way too long, and definitely overstayed our welcome at Star Trek: The Experience. We have set the bar very very high for great awesome vacations.

jetBlue and Delta

Chad — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:32:35 +0000

In my last quick trip to New York, I had the misfortune of having to fly two airlines I never fly. My jetBlue boarding pass actually congratulated me that I would have “36 channels of DirectTV at my seat!” I have no preferred status on jetBlue. There is no upgrading anyway, as there is no first class. I trudged on to the airplane at 6:30am with everyone else. Sure enough, there are television monitors in the back of every seat… except the one I sat down in. Mine was, naturally, not working. Nary a flight attendant even made eye contact with me, much less apologized or offered to reseat me. Don’t get me wrong, I had other entertainment options for the dreary 4 hour flight, but it’s the principle of the thing. That’s jetBlue’s key differentiator, and I missed out on the JETBLUE EXPERIENCE… Oh well, I thought, maybe the flight on Delta would be better…

No such luck. I sat behind two little boys, obviously brothers, who lacked adult supervision. First they had a push fight over who would get the armrest. Then they flicked each other’s ears. Then they stole each other’s caps. Then they flicked each other’s ears. It wouldn’t have bugged me so much if the little boys weren’t about 22 years old. Old enough to know better, in other words, but still acting like 8 year olds. No, I know more mature eight year olds… I hope their mother is proud.

New York. Rinse. Repeat.

Chad — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:56:25 +0000

Colleen and I went to New York last week. I went for a client, and she went cause I found a great deal on airfare. It was lots of fun. While we were in transit on Friday, however, another customer had some issues and they decided to send me out there for a day.

The new client was in Manhattan. If I look at Google Earth and measure the distance from us to Manhattan, it’s roughly 1500 miles. I made that trip three times in a 34 hour period, meaning I averaged over 132 mph the whole time. Tired. More New York blogs to come…