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!

SUNDAY 12/14: This started on Saturday with the rapid drop in temperatures. Finally on Sunday we got a bit of snow, which was little more than a dusting mostly affecting east Portland. West Portland was slammed with a couple of inches and ice, but once you crossed over the river there was nothing, very disappointing.

THURSDAY 12/18: We finally got a good inch in the morning. I woke up around 6:00a and there was nothing, but after the shower and some breakfast it was accumulating fast. Natalie had to work from home, I was not so fortunate.

FRIDAY 12/19: More ice accumulating than snow, it was not a tough drive to Beaverton for the Gingerbread Party.

SATURDAY 12/20: Oh wow, now the snow came down, and it did not give up all day. We have 4-5 inches on the ground by the end of the day.

SUNDAY 12/21: The snow kept going through the night, but later changed to freezing rain leaving a 1/2 inch of ice all over everything. Took about 30 minutes to de-ice the truck. Definitely enjoyed driving in this! Kept snowing into the night.

MONDAY 12/22: Got a few more inches of just snow during the night. Surprisingly the commute to downtown was not too bad, did I mention my truck rocks? Natalie headed out in the afternoon to build the snow bear.

TUESDAY 12/23: Well the roads have greatly improved, of course still have not needed chains. The downside is that everyone decided today was the day to go to work, made for a bad commute.

WEDNESDAY 12/24: Well it is snowing very heavily again, nice for driving and snow creatures. Going to make Christmas more interesting though.

THURSDAY 12/25: Started out warm, but the temperatures dropped quickly and we received at least an inch of fresh snow right before the Christmas party.

SATURDAY 12/27: The great thaw has begun, the temperatures have increased to 48 degrees and the snow is rapidly disappearing. Too bad!

This week and the following I will be in Minneapolis, MN for to finish an engagement with Best Buy. Minneapolis is not too bad, there are plenty of restaurants and shops to help cope with the business vistors. But there is little to do in the evenings. Yes, my hotel is within 2 blocks of the Mall of America, to which I have spent much time. So I have been taking this opportunity to catch up on miscellanous projects for work and continue experimenting with new technologies. My latest endeavor to learn all things ESX, so far so good!

Anyway, enough for now. I will promise more regular updates on my travels and thoughts as the weeks go by. The good thing is that Natalie and I are heading to Dragon*Con here is little over a week and will provide regular updates!

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!

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!!!”.

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