Film is Pwn

I’ve been hearing a lot of horror stories of heightened airport security and precautionary measures on planes where passengers aren’t allowed to have books in their lap or go to the bathroom for the last hour of the flight.  It reminded me of the last time I got on a plane, on my Business Trip From Heck, which I have sworn will truly be the last time I get on a plane.  It wasn’t so much the flight as the entire experience, a business trip no less.   This is prior to Film Is Pwn’s existence, and I documented it all at the time (September 2007).  I initially posted it on my myspace page (remember those?) and I’m republishing it here for your amusement and because I’m feeling lazy and don’t want to post an actual film related blog.  Enjoy!

I had a business trip recently.  I got a laptop from the company specifically so that I could work, check e-mails, and what not while on the trip.  As I’ll go into detail in later, getting online was not meant to be.  The laptop has no games of any kind, so all I could do with it is write, so I made a journal during the trip.  What follows was written at various hotels, classrooms (during breaks, I assure you), restaurants, and airports.  While it was not a fun trip, I am convinced if I’d shared these experiences with a friend it would have been MUCH more enjoyable as there would have been someone with whom to say, “Can you believe this is happening?”  Anyhoo, here we go:

Mission: Possible . . . TOO possible.  A four-day business trip to New Jersey from some Oracle training – the only thing that could seem less ominous would be a three-hour tour.  The class is Wednesday through Friday in Iselin, New Jersey (I’ve never heard of it either).  My company’s travel department booked the flight and the hotel (a Hilton, in a town called Hasbrouch Heights, NJ which I’ve also never heard of, but certainly must be near Iselin, one would assume as this was put together by the TRAVEL department, after all).  All I have to do is get on the plane Tuesday afternoon, take some cabs that the company will reimburse me for on my return, and fly back late Friday.

Getting out of Charlotte was remarkably easy – too easy.  The flight attendant did possess the enthusiasm of someone serving some sort of court mandated community service, but other than that things were just downright peachy.  TOO peachy.  The seat next to me is empty, so I can stretch out a little.  I’m comfortable.  TOO comfortable.  I should have known something would go horribly, horribly wrong.  I actual remember wishing something would go slightly wrong, as if that meant things would go smoother in New Jersey if they’d go rougher on the trip.  I got whacked in the shoulder by the refreshment tray on the plane, my back starts to ache, and the guy in front of me leans back suddenly and whacks my bad knee, pressed nearly against his sit at the time, causing a sharp but brief pain.  These things encourage me in a strange way.

In Newark, I ask at the information desk if there is a shuttle to the Hilton.  There are shuttles to TWO Hiltons, I’m told.  Sweet! Says I.  I take a train to where the shuttles are, only to find after further investigation that neither of the Hiltons is mine, in Hasbrouch Heights.  I call my hotel and ask about a shuttle from the Newark airport, and am told with disdain, “No!  You’d have to get a cab.”  This is my first clue about the distance to Hasbrouch Heights.

So I go back to the terminal via train, get a taxi, and pay $60 to go to this Hilton.  Iselin, NJ, where my conference is, my helpful cab driver informs me is in the other direction from the airport.  I make some phone calls, try to get in a Hilton closer (there are four which my cab driver thought of off the top of his head, thank you) and they are all booked.  I wonder if this means all the hotels in the area are booked, which is why I got stuck in the middle of nowhere – a possible excuse for the TRAVEL department.  In retrospect, I was really lucky to have a cab driver that spoke really good English despite sounding just a little bit like Apu from the Simpsons but he knew his way around very well.  I ask him what his rate would be to my venue in Iselin, and he says it’s too far for his company.  Not a good sign.

The Hilton I’m staying at has really nice people, really helpful.  There are no real attractions besides office buildings, and insanely intricate and busy roads surround it, so it is virtually impossible to leave without a car for little things like going out for food.  I stay in the hotel and get overpriced room service.

I try to book a cab that night for the morning so that I’m not doing things at the last minute, and the first place I call won’t take me as far as I need to go.  The second place will, but they won’t take checks or credit cards (and I don’t have enough cash or know where an ATM is).  The third place is the most expensive, but they take credit cards and will take me where I need to go.  I don’t recall the conversation very well; I don’t recall asking for a foreign driver who didn’t know his way around time and couldn’t communicate well, but I got him regardless.

Staying in a Hilton was amazing.  Amazingly similar to a Motel 6, I mean.  There were more pillows than the cheap hotels I’d stay at on my own money for $200 less, and a nicer bathroom, but that’s about it.  Not much on TV on a Tuesday night – The Black Dahlia is on HBO.  The Black Dahlia is not a good movie, and I give up rather quickly.  ESPNews takes its place, and I watch the ticker as the Cubs lose and the Brewers win.  We’re trying to make the playoffs, people!  Back to Black Dahlia.  Crappy, crappy acting, though it’s a strange mix over and under acting.  Oy.  It’s trying to be L.A. Confidential (both are based on novels by the same author) but it fails.  Miserably fails.

I was confused as to why my hotel room – booked over a month in advance, by the way – had two small, twin-sized beds.  I assume the person who booked the flight and the one seat on the one plane knew I was one person.  Granted, they didn’t necessarily know I was a big person and was in danger of falling out of such a tiny bed.  Perhaps they thought the second bed would catch me if I were to roll over in my sleep to either side where there was no room.  Or, perhaps they thought I could bisect myself at will, in which case there would have been plenty of room.  Or perhaps they thought I’d be sharing my room with a small, homeless midget.  Considering how much of my own money I’d be spending on cab fare, I might need to rent the other bed to someone – though not to a homeless midget; homeless people generally can’t pay well, nothing against midgets.

I don’t usually get a lot of sleep in hotels, but overpriced hotels with (two) undersized beds while preoccupied by the horrific cab fees I’m about to endure not to mention the distinct possibility that if I so much as fart in my sleep the released gasses will be enough to propel me off the bed and plummeting to my certain death does not make for an easy night.

Wednesday morning I’m outside eight minutes early, looking intently for a cab.  There is a guy sitting by his non-descript black car waiting around – I say “hi,” and wait for a cab.  Thirty minutes later, we’re both waiting, and he asks if I’m Daniel Roos.  “Um, yes,” I say.  Turns out he’s my cab, just isn’t marked as a cab.  Go figure.  So we’re off, twenty minutes or so behind schedule and I’m getting in an unmarked car hopefully taking me to my destination and not some kidnap/ransom compound.

Next, this cabbie, who’s English is none too good (though in fairness most Americans don’t speak any better), asks for the exact address.  Ever prepared, I hand him the e-mail that contains the address as sent from the conference I’m attending.  For the record, I later confirmed that this address is completely, 100% accurate.  He tries and tries, but the GPS does not recognize the street name.  Super.  Later I’d find out it’s listed as US 1 in the GPS, and the street address is Route 1, but that discovery wouldn’t be made until it was far too late.

“Can you call someone and get directions?” He asks as we head in the general direction of the town through dense traffic.  Sure.  Roaming charges aren’t too bad, are they?  I’m the kind of guy who got lost on his way to the bathroom when I was living in a one bedroom apartment.  My attention to detail so keen that, while a teen living with my parents, I didn’t notice when my Mom redid the wallpaper in my bedroom and could not tell her the before or after color of the room when quizzed.  That is why I opted for cabs and not a rental car in the first place.  So I call the number given to me by the conference under “if you have any questions,” get voice-mail, leave my name, number, and the urgent request for a callback.  As of this posting, I have not heard a response.

So I’m driving down some highway in Jersey toward a destination not found on a GPS with a cab driver who doesn’t speak much English or know our destination, and I get the bright idea to call the one person I know can always help (excluding Jesus): Mom.  From somewhere in New Jersey, I call my Mother in Charlotte, NC and ask her to go to mapquest and give us directions, which she does.  Apparently, our destination is adjacent to a real big mall, which my cab driver used to work at many years ago – great!  This should be enough, I have the correct exit and a landmark my driver is familiar with.  Right?  Of course not!

We get to the exit my Mom said to turn at, come to a fork, and the driver asks me, “Which way we turn.”  Whaaaa?  It turns out he doesn’t precisely remember where the big freakin’ mall is exactly.  So we guess, are not seeing a big mall, pull up to the nearest pedestrian, and the cabbie asks ME to ask for directions to said mall.  I do, we get a general idea, head that way, and no mall.  We repeat the same steps a few minutes later, are given better directions, and find the mall.

Now we have to find the venue – I have the street address, but the GPS is still no help.  We ask a mall security guard, and are pointed to the building.  Yea.  That’s a $120 cab ride, ONE- WAY.  For the record, I am the kind of guy who will ask for directions.  If I wasn’t, I’d be in some alley in New Jersey, huddled by a burning fire hydrant for warmth beside my poor, confused cab driver as we cursed his GPS together.  For those thinking that I was being taken for a ride, the cab company doesn’t charge by miles driven, but based on the distance between two points and is quoted in advance, so I was charged the same all three times I went with these people (not for lack of effort to finding someone cheaper/better, I promise you).

Here’s my favorite part.  The building where the class is being held is an office building/Sheridan hotel.  Yes, my company’s travel department booked me in a far off hotel when I’m going to a class held at an actual hotel.  I left my suitcase back in the Hilton so I have to go back for Wednesday night, but I book a room for Thursday night at $200 to save myself $240 in cab fare plus the joy of two hours stuck in New Jersey traffic.  The Hiltons in the area were booked solid, but plenty of availability in the HOTEL FREAKIN’ ATTACHED TO THE BUILDING WHERE THE CONFERENCE IS BEING HELD.  Oh, and is there a shuttle from THIS hotel to my airport?  You betcha.  AAAAAARGH!

Wednesday: the class was very neat and informative.  I have nothing bad to say about it, which is shocking considering the mood I am in.

The cab driver picks me up a half hour late for another overpriced cab ride back to the Hilton, where I inform them I’m checking out a day early.  They are nice about it, and I talk to a really sweet lady who helps me out a lot.  I complain about the food, and she gives me a brochure to a great pizza place that delivers here.  Neat.  I order a pizza, and watch Everybody Loves Raymond (which I never plan on watching but when it’s on I always enjoy), Baseball, Criminal Minds (which is kinda like CSI except they go into peoples heads figuratively rather than literally), and then the new show Life (it’s okay, not great).  Not a great night of television, but in fairness my really expensive hotel appears to have gotten a hold of my friend Sowka’s crappy old TV after he *finally* upgraded to a new one.  My beloved Chicago Cubs lost again.  It’s strange having to watch commercials, as I am without DVR or Tivo here.  Still, commercials?  Life is hard. *Sigh*

Thursday I check out of the Hilton, and I have a different cab driver from the same company.  Super.  It is possible, I suppose, that I specifically requested a driver who spoke even less English, understood none, and did not know his way to the destination while in some sleep deprived stupor.  “Do you know where we’re going or do you need the address?”  I ask.  “Yes, I know.”  The driver makes no attempts to make conversation, which I thought was just a personal choice, but it turns out this was because he did not understand the language well enough even to try.  Turns out he doesn’t know where we’re going – he starts to turn off at the wrong exit, which was the mistake I’d lived through yesterday.  I tell him to go to the next exit, which he ignores, then apparently comprehends the words I’d said twenty seconds earlier and makes an illegal and very dangerous turn to get back on the highway to go to the next exit.  At this point I knew I was in deep, deep trouble.

I tell my new Cabbie it’s in the Sheridan right by Woodbridge Center mall right off exit 130 (not 131!).  He says “OK”.  We exit 131, and he asks me which way when we need to go right or left.  “Right, I think,” I guessed wrong.  We go right for half a mile before I know we should have gone left.  “Sorry, we’re going the wrong way, we need to go the other way.”  “Other way?” He asks, appearing quite annoyed at my bad direction giving.  I’m annoyed I had to give them.

We go to the Sheridan; I point out the adjacent office building attached to the Sheridan, and says that’s where I need to go.  He says “OK” and takes me to the Sheridan.  I don’t argue.  I can walk.  Fine.  Whatever.  I pay the man, and ask him if he can pop the trunk and get my suitcase (which I’d like to point out that he insisted on putting in the trunk for me).  He says “OK,” I get out, stand by the trunk, as he handles some paperwork as I stand beside a still closed trunk.  I get his attention and ask him to open the trunk.  “OK,” he says.  After about twenty seconds of nothing, he puts the car in drive.  Frantically, I get his attention and say, “My luggage is in the trunk.”  I am pointing toward the trunk as I do this, which apparently causes him more confusion.  He appears quite befuddled, as if I were telling him I wanted to have sex with his car right then and there, and says, “OK.”  Then he starts to drive off.  I run after him waving my arms.  He stops and I tell him loudly and angrily, giving up on complete sentences as I slap my fist repeatedly on his trunk.  “Bag!  Suitcase!  Luggage!”  “Oh, Luggage!” He replies in an accent that makes Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1984 sound like Winston Churchill.  He pops the trunk, gives me my suitcase – sorry LUGGAGE – and says, “Here you go!”  I thank him out of pure habit, and am on my way.

I call my brother later in the morning during a class break, tell him this story, and he humorously theorizes that “Trunk” may mean “Thank You” in my driver’s native language.  I’ll have to check that out.  I would get on my laptop and do that, except for the laptop I was given by the company especially for this trip has no wireless internet.  The hotel and the class have free wireless Internet.  I need wires.  None of these people even have a place to plug my wires in.  Neat-o.  No DVR, no Internet, I’m in a strange world.  My out of office message I left at work stated I’d have limited access to e-mail, which is true in the same sense that prisoners on death row have limited access to amusement parks.

I write this in a decent but overpriced steakhouse getting a rather mediocre Asian salad at the hotel where I’m staying now.  I haven’t had a good meal on this trip.  I long for our local Chinese food, or even Backyard Burger, or anything.  Sitting alone in a restaurant is strange, but I’m typing so furiously on the keyboard that the people at other tables think I’m too busy to have lunch with a friend, and not that I have no friends.

Lack of sleep and some rather sharp and intermittent pain in the back makes class Thursday afternoon really, really long to the point of madness.  I’ve never fallen asleep at either a class or at work (and this qualifies as both) but I came close today.  I’m reasonably sure the eight hours took at least a week to complete.  When I get to my room, I’m wide-awake.  Go figure.

Thursday night I am now checked in the Sheridan a four minute WALK from my class, in a room with a dandy view of a nearby Hilton, which is pretty darn funny.  I walk across the street and go to a shopping center that has a Best Buy – what a night.  This is the life.

The room at the Sheridan is nice – there is one, king-size bed, which seems to make more sense for one, king-sized person.  Even though there was more bed per square inch in the Hilton, it was rather uncomfortable trying to bridge the gap between the two beds there, though the effort really did build my abdominal muscles.

The Cubs lost again and nothing good is on television.  The Office was enjoyable, another show I enjoy but never plan on watching, but that was it.

I brought two books; one is Stephen King’s “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.”  I’d never read a Stephen King novel before – I had read his non-fiction, biographical On Writing book – and this is not what I’d expected.  It’s about a girl lost in the woods with only her remarkable courage to survive the adventure and, if possible, entertain me.  I lose interest, skip to the end, rest assured the girl is okay, and move on.  Oh, don’t read the previous sentence if you don’t want the end spoiled.  I guess I could move the spoiler warning before the spoiler, but I decide it’s funnier this way.  The other book is a Peter David novel, and while he’s my favorite author I can’t get into it.  I could be working on my own novel right now, but I forgot to bring the zip file I’d saved it on, which is lying right beside my computer in Charlotte. *Sigh*

I’m looking forward to being back in Charlotte.  Roads with four different names, the layout of the Arboretum, the obsession with sweet tea – it all seems to make perfect sense after this trip.

I have to be at class, downstairs, at 9 a.m.  I set my alarm on my cell-phone for a little after 8.  I get to sleep after midnight, and am presumably on pace for a good 8 hours of sleep until the room’s alarm goes off at 6 sharp.  I presume this is a friendly, Jersey greeting from the previous tenant, and the affection is so strong I can’t get back to sleep.  Home!  I want to go home!

Class is a breeze on Friday, and it ends three hours early.  I hitch a ride with two instructors and another student who works in Chicago and recently moved from Egypt.  He’s only been in the States for three months.  We talk about Chicago, he asks about my Cubs hat and I manage to convince him the Cubs are good and decent and he should hate the White Sox.  He says he doesn’t understand baseball, and I explain that doesn’t matter: Cubs good, White Sox evil.  He agrees, and talks to me about soccer and how it’s the only real football.  The conversation on the ride to the airport is the best human contact I’ve had since Tuesday – it feels really good, and I didn’t have to pay them $120 for the ride.

I’m at the airport a little after 3 p.m. for my 9 p.m. flight.  There’s an earlier flight at 6ish which I try to get on, and am told it’s an extra $25.  Easiest decision of my life – I don’t care if the company reimburses me for it or not, I want to get home.

For the first time I hear a authentic Jersey accent, and it’s several people running the security check at the airport who are basically berating poor, little, and old people into taking off their shoes and belts and saying things like, “Why are you wearing your shoes?  Take off your shoes already!”  It’s extremely humorous, but I have my shoes and belt off well before they get to me.

In the terminal after eventually getting past security alive, I hear something so hysterical I wish I could have recorded it for posterity.  There’s a kid on the intercom who sounds remarkably like the voice cracking teenager from the Simpsons paging people with long, strange names which he is unsure how to pronounce.  “Phone call for Mr. Sargu – uh, Sargeahopo – SargeahaMOpolis – Sahargehapamololis?, pick up the courtesy phone.”  Priceless.  He had so many pronunciations that I might think he was talking about me if there hadn’t been so many darn syllables.  The key young man is to guess, and say it with confidence.  That way you only sound like an idiot to the one person who knows there name is being butchered.

I am writing the last several paragraphs from the airport terminal, an hour from take-off.  I’m on my way home.  I’ve learned a lot from class and the experience, not the least of which being that New Jersey is at the top of my list of least favorite states, right behind Delaware.  Grrrr, I hates me some Delaware!  Really, Jersey wasn’t that bad now that I remember six months as a kid living in Delaware.   I really appreciate my job, wherein I don’t travel a lot.  I’d do another trip as long as I go with someone I know/like.  My kingdom for someone to turn to and say, “Can you believe this?”

Epilogue: I made it back.  The flight back was eventful in and of itself.  We sat on the runway for nearly 2 hours before taking off.  I was jammed in a seat so tight that my butt was molded into a perfect square for several hours upon disembarking.  The woman beside me had a DOG as a carry-on item.  Yes, a dog.  And my luggage was on the wrong plane, but I got it delivered the next day.  My mp3 player I jammed into my pocket while getting off the plane stayed in my jeans through the wash, and is now broken, naturally.  My poor brother who picked me up was taken quite ill the very next day, a victim by proxy of this trip, I have no doubt.  But the Cubs did win and clinch the division, which only happened AFTER I got home, I might note.  The moral of the story: I love Charlotte, and next time I’m driving.