Who currently travels or has traveled as a part of their job? I am among those who are required to do a fair amount of travel for my job. While I have been fortunate recently to have received many local or west-coast opportunities, it is not uncommon to hop on the plane to fly to the east-coast or another country on a weekly basis.

As frequent traveler, there are only a few benefits of this lifestyle, the most important being the point accumulation for hotels, airfare, and car rentals. As frequent travelers you should never, ever have to pay for your vacations. Of course, like many the last thing you want to do is head to the airport for your vacation. I am more than willing to make the exception for some place tropical or European.

You are rewarded for your frequent travels by obtaining different elite levels, each one granting you more privileges and opportunities than the previous. With programs like Platinum-members, Premier-Executives, 1K members, MVP-elite, and so on. . .it is easy to start to look down upon those poor individuals who are holding a “group 4″ boarding pass or get to stay on the second floor when you are offered the 47th floor with concierge service. One needs to remember that at the start of our traveling, we too had the opportunity to guard the lavatory back in row 36. I guess it is easy to look back simply because the rewards appear to diminish as you climb the ranks. Sure there are plenty of perks, but they become less significant. Does the 47th floor really offer a better view than the 45th floor?

It hit me the other day that I have been overlooking an aspect of traveling elite-ness. As I boarded a flight to Atlanta, I noticed that I recognized one of the crew members. I had seen Jim and the rest of the crew for this flight on a few other previous flights. Now this got me thinking, what type of status do you acquire when you get on a first-name basis with TSA members? The airport coffee shop staff?

I think that this should serve as a reality check, if you know too many people (especially those that are not from your home airport), you may be traveling too much!

So many months back Natalie found out that Jonathan Coulton was going to be performing at the Mission Theater again. We had such a great time at the show, that missing an opportunity to see another one would be unforgivable. Little did I know that some evil will had set it’s sights on me.

I had made arrangements to depart on UA581, leaving Chicago at 3:25p, arriving in PDX around 5:30p. Plenty of time to make the concert at 8:00p. Well, “plenty” was what I got.

So the whole cluster-fuck of a trip started like this:

~2:30p Gate change to Concourse B from Concourse C.

~3:05p Ready to board, all crew aboard, and first-class called up to board. Suddenly a problem has been discovered with the aircraft, need to change planes. Gate change #2.

~4:00p New plane located, however we need to change gates yet again. Gate change #3.

~4:15p Wrong gate, need to move again. Gate change #4.

~5:10p Supposed to be leaving at this point, however the crew is still “cleaning” the aircraft. At this point it is taking over an hour to polish it up.

~5:30p Still cleaning, however there are a lot more people entering the plane, and no one is coming out.

~6:00p Captain announces that there had been a security issue and the crew was instructed not to provide details. She apologizes and assures us the plane is safe and we are ready to board. The security issue was the crew found some book in Arabic with no owner, so according to United policy they had to sweep the plane and re-screen all bags.

~6:30p Almost ready to go, the captain is getting pissed that the boarding is taking so long. Announces that everyone needs to sit down in 60 seconds or else the crew many be flying illegally due to the time previously spent in flight. At this time four people get up and choose to hover around the bathroom. The crew is running around with their heads cutoff. Apparently they over booked a flight that was able to accommodate 20+ standbys, and they were looking for two volunteers to take another flight. Nothing was getting me off the plane. Finally the volunteers were selected and the door was closed.

~7:00p All alboard, finally we have pulled away from the gate only to stop on the tarmack. All outbound flights have been postponed due to a huge thunderstorm over head. Captain is on the PA wanted to start a trivia game to guess how fast the winds are, offering a bottle of wine to the winner.

~7:30p Tornado warning issued for O’Hare, some planes are returning to the gates.

~7:45p We are cleared for departure and get the hell out of ORD! Only four hours late!

This is part one of our recent trip to Seattle, WA. This trip was a two-fold trip, visit and hang-out with Scott while he promoted his new book “Infected“, and take the opportunity to dive Edmonds Water Park.

We arrived in Seattle around 3:00p and had plenty of time to kill. Seattle is notorious for it’s horrible traffic, especially on a Friday afternoon. One would have to be mad to voluntarily enter Seattle on a Friday, but there we were. Much to our surprise we had no problems, and ended up having the time to walk around downtown Seattle. We went to the typical places like Pike’s Place Market, the downtown mall, and the lower east-side. Finally around 5:00p we were starting to get hungry, and for a lack of other things to do, Natalie sniffed out a great restaurant called “The Taphouse Grill“. Now I can’t say enough good things about this place, and a restaurant that boasts having over 160 beers on tap can have the worst food and service, and still be a winner in my book. Fortunately, the “The Taphouse Grill” had neither, the food was delicious and service was excellent. This was one of those places that could sucker me in every week if it was here in the Portland-area.

Finally after some great food and beer, we headed to Barnes and Noble were Scott was the guest of honor. Scott started out reading the prologue and first chapter of his latest book, “Infected”. This was especially important tour since this was his first book to be published by a major publisher, Crown. Scott found popularity in his work by starting to first podcast his books free to the public on PodioBooks.com, which is a totality kick-ass site. His following exceeded 30,000 with his latest release. Most publishers do not take podcasters as serious authors or artists, mostly from their lack of understanding about the medium, unsure of how to capitalize on it. Much of the same can be said for the RIAA, but that is another topic. Crown was wise enough to see the potential and signed a 5 book deal with Scott, that may even transition to a movie deal at some point.

After getting anyone who has not read the book hooked on it by reading the first few pages, Scott spent the better part of hour responding questions from the audience. His pasted along great advice on how to get started, explained where the industry is with its view on podcasters, his evil plans for world-domination, and what his fans could look forward to in the future.

A large group of his followers, ourselves included, headed off to a bar to celebrate and hear the stories that would get us thrown out of B&N. Unfortunately the woman that put together his post-signing celebration I don’t believe ever went to a bar. The Comet is a shit-hole tavern a fair walking distance from B&N. Not normally a problem, but it broke two rules: 1) it was uphill and 2) not within stumbling distance of the hotels. So to the woman who planned this, we offer you “EPIC FAIL!!!”.

Anyway the bar was shit-hole, it made our old hang out of the T-Room look like a 5-star establishment. We took over the back room and were treated to over an hour of stories from Scott. Unfortunately, around 10:30p, a band started playing and drown out Scott. Normally this would be fine, go and enjoy a band for a bit, by they really sucked. If you needed a good example of off-key, look no further. For the band, we also offer “EPIC FAIL!!!”.

So I am patiently waiting to depart PDX for Cincinnati, and like all good United flights it has been delayed. While I wait can’t help but notice that the majority of those who travel on Sunday are business-types, like myself, I find it amusing that many wear their business suits as if they are walking right in to a meeting upon arrival. Now I understand that if I was waiting for a red-eye flight, this is not uncommon, but early on a Sunday? Seriously, pull out the jeans and t-shirt, it won’t hurt!