Travel Notes

Okay, so I've been to Chicago, Lansing and New Jersey in the last 5 days, and now I'm finally back home to post some updates. I planned to do it last night, but I didn't get home until 9:30ish. I'm going to make a bold statement here: That was the worst traffic I've ever seen in DC. I think it had something to do with elections, because it took hours just to get to the beltway, but from there it was clear. Anyway.

I finally got the picture of my Halloween costume up. When I first saw the picture I thought "Oh Lord, maybe I have gotten a little skinny." For what it's worth, that's the most that I've ever looked like my Grandpa.

This whole round of travel started with an impromptu trip to Chicago for my E-2 stuff. The first weird thing was that as I was sitting at my desk at the Residence Inn, this ladybug kept attacking me. I would shoo it away, but it would always come back and get caught up in the lampshade. Finally, when I'd had enough, I grabbed him out of the air, stormed over to the door, threw him out in the hallway, then closed and locked the door. That's right, I locked the door- as in deadbolt and the security chain. As though the ladybug might be able to obtain a counterfeit magnetic key card and manipulate the handle of the door. Plus, what good would the security chain do? The lady bug would only need the door open like an inch to get in anyway. I'm telling myself I did it all out of habit- it wasn't threat-specific.

Since my flight the next day was so early, I returned my rental car the night before and caught the hotel shuttle in the morning. I had a brand new Chevy Cobalt that had 3 miles on it when I drove it off the lot. So after the meeting on Thursday I refueled it (I had to force it to take $2.00), dropped my stuff off at the hotel and headed back to Budget, where I returned the car with 19 miles on it. They have a new, asinine rule that if you drive less than 75 miles, you aren't supposed to refuel- they just charge you a flat $9.50, which is highway robbery. You're supposed to let them know if you do fill it up. So as I drop off the car, the girl says "Did you refuel?" I say yes. "Do you have the receipt?" "No (it was at the hotel with the rest of my stuff), but it was 2 bucks." "Okay, that's a $9.50 charge." I say "But I just filled it up." She says "You have to show me the receipt." I say "Okay, or, you can look at the gas gauge and see that the needle is above F, or you can see that the car only has 19 miles total on it, so there's no way it needs gas, let alone $9.50 worth." Without making eye contact she repeats "Gotta have the receipt," hands me my Budget receipt and walks away. I headed into the lobby to complain, but there were about 20 people in line and I was already getting cranky so I gave up and got on the shuttle. What annoys me the most is that Budget just made an extra $9.50 for absolutely nothing! I was forced to pay them ten bucks for 0.8 gallons of gas that was already in the car! That I already paid for! Grumble. It softens the blow to know that some small portion of that fee will come out of that girl's taxes. Of course some comes out of yours and mine as well, but who's counting?

On my way out of Chicago I had my first run in with the new TSA liquid/gel/paste guidelines. I usually put all the newly outlawed substances in my checked luggage so I don't have to deal with it, but this time I got stopped. The TSA professional rooted through my carry-on for a minute, before opening up my toiletry kit, grabbing my inhaler and saying "Ah hah, here we go." Now, this was my rescue inhaler. I haven't needed one in at least 2 years, but if I (or any asthmatic) had a freak attack in-flight, it would sort of be important. So the guys says "Let me see if you can take this on the plane" to which I reply "That's a rescue inhaler." He takes it, goes back to his TSA colleagues, they examine it, flip through a little book and discuss, and eventually decided that I can have it back. Which was nice, considering that it was emergency medication and I've had it with me on the last 200 flights. But the fun didn't stop there! He continued digging and found a little bottle of cologne that had all of 3 drops inside. Again, I didn't even know it was in there, so I've been flying with contraband for months without even knowing it. He again says "Ah hah! You're not supposed to have liquids." I point out there had to be less than 3 ounces left, and he says yes, but it still has to be in a plastic bag, and he asked if I had one. I said that yes I did, I had a little "snack" sized Glad bag with some Advil and Tylenol PM in it. He takes my little bag, opens it, drops in the cologne, reseals it, hands it to me and says "There you go," and walks away for good, leaving me bewildered. What the hell was the point of that? Isn't the whole plastic bag thing supposed to speed up security, which I was already through? Air travel is just getting annoying.

As a side note, I was pretty hungry when I got back to Baltimore, and I had a few hours to kill before my flight to Detroit for part 2. I ended up eating a sausage and egg McBisquit or whatever (and hating myself for it) but I noticed that my favorite combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bell was gone. I know you're wondering what has taken it's place- well, now it's a combination Pizzeria Uno/Ortega Taco. It's like the one restaurant left, and they thought, "Well, really the only logical choice for this location is a combo pizza/taco place. " Or maybe they just already had the personal pizza warmers and taco stands and went with the path of least resistance.

The second leg was actually travel for pleasure- I was able to visit my family in Lansing and watch Purdue do their darnedest to lose to Michigan State. It was a fun visit, and it's made me really look forward to Christmas when I can get back. As for the game, it was really a contest to see who could play worse, and Purdue sucked slightly less than MSU. I won't go into detail, but as Carly pointed out, had the teams traded kickers it would have been a blowout. Purdue K Chris Summers has only made 3 of his last 12! If this was the NFL, he would be cut. Of course if this was the NFL, MSU wouldn't have burned all their timeouts because they could never figure out who should be on the field.
Conversely, I got home in time on Sunday to watch the Colts dispatch the Patriots. Now, I like the Patriots as much as the law requires, but I do like to see Tom Brady pout when things don't go his way. I don't know who could watch the Colts play without thinking Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the league, but moreover, did you see that catch Marvin Harrison made? Phenomenal.

After that I went to New Jersey, and it was New Jersey. I think I'm home for at least the rest of this week.