ok one more thingie

Just because ending a post in some pseudo-homophobic epithet (even when ironic, like my intent) is just so uncool.

I'm in a Courtyard by Marriot tonight, in Denver. And a little tipsy on 2 glasses of wine, and tired as hell to boot. See, I haven't had more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep since Sunday night, the last night that the winds were blowing under 50 miles per hour.
See, I was in a Hampton.

They're owned by the Hiltons. I have had nothing but bad experiences in Hilton hotels. Last week I was in Columbus and had a nightmare experience, where the first morning they forgot the breakfast I ordered (and thus I was late for work because a guy's gotsta eat) and the shower was clogged so badly I could only squeeze 5 minutes in before the bathtub was filling up.
These are relatively ordinary problems in a hotel, I'll grant you that. Sure, people fuck up. Hotels aren't staffed by post-doctorate degrees in Hospitality Management. Hell, at Michigan State you only needed a 2.25 to be in the Hospitality program. It was what failed accountants and finance majors went for. And alcoholics, they had classes on wine tasting. (WISH I'D KNOWN THAT THEN!) I would have done it Borat style.

Throw transport down the well, so my people can be free!

Ahem.
Where was I?
Ahhh yes. People fucking up at a hotel and why I should forgive them. Sure, I buy it.
Except this hotel was $300 a night. In Columbus OH.
You know what, if you fuck up at $300 a night, there should be a call girl waiting for you to make it all better that evening, not a plate of cheese and fruit and a hand written note. (which was rather nice but still)
And that was day one. Every day something went wrong in that overpriced shithole. On Wed evening, though, I found the Residence Inn in the area and I'll be staying there from now on. I've been staying at Residence Inns since I began consulting and I have NEVER had a problem in one yet. Ever.

So last night at 3 AM the kazoo starts. Whenever the weather's about to change in Denver the wind picks up. And I'm not talking about some lazy ass "go fly a kite" wind. I'm talking about blowing semis over on the highway sorts of wind; 50 MPH is a good speed and it's not unheard of to hit 100 MPH winds (it was approx. 70 MPH last night). You know, almost hurricane force. I'm on the east side of the hotel and the wind hits my window just right to make it start vibrating quickly, like a kazoo or a clarinet reed. And the sound is similar - a mid pitched buzzing hum that raises in pitch and volume as the wind increases, and lowers in both as it decreases.

Can't sleep, clown will eat me.

I spent an hour trying to cope; I put my iPod headphones on. (they're Shure noise blockers based on hearing aid technology) Not enough so I turn on the iPod and throw in Yo La Tengo. Enough, but I can't sleep because I'm fuming and whenever I turn my head to the side I get scared I'm going to jam the earbud so deep in my ear I'll never get it out.
I try wedging business cards in the crack between the window and the molding. The noise stops!
I'm fucking MacGyver.
I crawl back into bed.
Waoooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
The wind had died down. I am not MacGyver. I am retarded thinking I could solve this problem with a small stack of business cards.
I go back over and attempt to solve it with the business cards again. I recall the old phrase, "If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."
And I think, yeah, I should hit the window.
So I do.
Damn that felt good.
I hit the window again.
The sound doesn't stop.
One more time, just for the catharsis. SMASH
The window shatters. At first, I think I've punched a hole THROUGH the entire window. I felt like MacGyver again. All action hero-like. I wanted to yell "Get DOWN!" and leap from an exploding building. But I was tired and had precious little napalm.
Or anyone to yell at/record the whole thing.
And I was rather embarassed about breaking the window. It was only the one pane in a double pane system. Which sucks because you can't pretend a bird or a jabberwocky did it. Unless I punched the OUTSIDE window out too, and I was afraid I'd cut myself. Plus I didn't think of it until just now when I'm writing.
So what the hell could I do?
I packed up all my stuff and checked out. I made it seem like I was checking out because the window was unacceptable. They credited me the night and let me crash in the handicapped room on the first floor for the next 2 hours prior to going into work.

I'm not sure if I feel bad. I'm in a new hotel that's about 10x nicer at the same rate. It's closer to the restaurants in the area, and only 1 more minute from work. Additionally, the gym is open 24 hours and most importantly: it's not another Hilton chain. It's a Marriot. And I have warm fuzzy feelings towards Marriot.
And they have an all you can eat buffet. It costs $8 so I suspect there's real eggs that you can't just shape into a uniform yellow patty the same size as a sausage, as they did in the Hampton Inn.

AND it's a real high speed bandwidth connection, not this bogus 10MBps wireless connection that I needed a hub to use.

So it's very good tonight and I can't wait to stay here next week. Hopefully the itchy legs and sides are from that awful hotel (my suspicion is shitty detergent) and not chiggers.

P.S. I love wine