Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cracker Barrel.....Panera...

  I am sitting behind my registration desk outside of the seminar room which happens to be in a golf course clubhouse here in Kansas City, MO.  My speaker this week has good taste in music and blasts songs over the facilities sound system from artists like Elton John, The Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and others I enjoy.  Its refreshing to not have a teacher that plays songs that swoon and slowly swing everybody in the seminar to sleep, not to mention bug the shit out of me (god forbid I be bugged by the seminar I am not attending or participating in).  Since my last post, not a lot has happened, but I still got some things to tell.  I left off, I think, with the ferry ride from Port Jefferson, NY to Connecticut.  That might have been the most relaxing ride on a ferry I have ever had.  It was also scenic and for some reason it was like a hot female convention was being held on the bow or something....(figure of speech, there was no hot girl convention on the bow terdface).  

  From the port in CT we docked at to north Hartford, it was a quick drive and when we arrived I asked my speaker where she wanted to go to eat.  Shes from Iowa, and LOVES Cracker Barrels.  I on the other hand dont share the same enthusiasm she has. Well what do you know?!  Theres a Cracker Barrel right across the street from our hotel.  She says she wants to go and pay for my meal.  When you eat at a Cracker Barrel there is nothing to chew.  All the food is soft and slides down your throat like pancake batter.  This is due to the fact that EVERYTHING there is cooked in tons of butter and glistens with the fat and cholesterol that will soon be settling into your arteries and slowly starting to clog the much needed red cells from getting to the rest of your body (too much?).  I ordered the turkey dinner, complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, a buttered roll, and mushy mushy green beans.   This was the healthiest thing on the menu as far I was concerned.  My speaker got the chicken fried steak, with EXTRA gravy.  She had literally like a coffee cup of gravy in front of her and by the end it was absolutely clean.  (Can you imagine somebody waking up in the morning and having a nice relaxing smooth cup of gravy to start the day?) She loved that shit man.  Literally as she was finishing this stuff off, she was telling me how she used to have cholesterol problems.  I was like,"No shit?!"  Okay, I may not be the healthiest guy but ya know....whatev, enough ranting.....  She was a sweetheart and she could eat anything she wanted as far as i was concerned, not my business. We both went to the airport and we were both anxious to flew home.  

   As I ended my 6th month doing this job, I have seem to acquired some status with the airlines and hotels.  This part of the job is so clutch.  As I get to my... (ridiculously hott P.E. teacher just showed up to seminar....HOLLA!!!!) anyways..... as i get to my gate there are literally like close to a hundred 5th and 6th graders cackling, jumping, running, yelling, and overall being obnoxious in the terminal.  At that time, United had me in the middle of the plane in a middle seat no less and I can only imagine what ADHD spaz I could be sitting next to in 20 minutes.  Now, to be fair I'm sure I wasnt the most pleasant tween back in the day, but now that I am more mature (poop poop poop pee pee pee...AHAHAHAAHAHA) I don't want to sit next to any of these little bastards on my 4 hour flight from Chi-town to Sea-town.  Well, I go to give them my ticket and my status has paid off, I have first class.  Thank god!  I have never been so grateful in my life.  The next 4 hours fly by as I get 4 jack and cokes and watch Seven Pounds (delicious drinks, sad movie).   My break was filled with finding a new APT (found one) trying to find a job (didn't find one) and catching back up with friends and family.  

  I left a week and a half later on a Monday (day late, awesome) at 10:30 (later than usual and as well awesome).  Once again I go to give them my boarding pass on the flight and I get bumped up to first class.  Holla!  I get to Minneapolis, rent a car, go to the Country Inn and Suites, run 5 miles and hit the hay.  

Wake up, have b-fast, go to the seminar facility, eat some Panera, and make a mad dash to the airport for the  5:15 flight we have to Kansas City, MO.  

  We arrive in Kansas City and we are staying at an Embassy Suites....clutch.  I check in, have a free beer with my speaker and go to my hotel room.  I get into my hotel room

 and notice that there is a plate with fruit, cheese, meat, crackers, a couple Bud Lights, a few bottles of water, and some granola bars.  HELL YEA BRAH BRAH!!!!!!  Well, as I make a few cracker sandwiches and drink a Bud Light I notice an envelope that says,"Mr. Abernethy" on it.  I am not Mr. Abernethy.  I open up the card and its a letter saying, "Thanks for choosing the

Embassy Suites Daniel Abernethy.  Here are your refreshments you requested.  Have a nice stay!"  Well, after having a few more cracker sandwiches, finishing off the beer, drinking half a bottled water, and stuffing the granola bars in my briefcase, (I know, I am a dickhead) I decide I should call the front desk and tell them they might have made a mistake.  I get put on hold for a few minutes and they say that I can have the treats, but the alcoholic beverages I'm gonna have to pay for, to which I say,"What alcoholic beverages?"  and they reply,"Enjoy!" and hang up. BOMB!!!!!!!  I eat a good portion of it, decide working out is a bad idea because I am full and don't wanna move.....

 As I look at this picture, I realize I am a hypocritical bastard with all the Cracker Barrel ranting.  There I was stuffing my face with prosciutto, salami, brie, beer, and some unhealthy combinations and I rant about unhealthy lifestyles.....  dammit. The only way I can justify this is that I didnt pay for it. This shit was FREEEEEEEEE BITCHES!!!  Oh well...

  I woke up this morning to the sunrise pictured above, made my way to the golf course where

our seminar was being held and here I sit.  Never had a seminar at a golf course club house.  Its beautiful outside and I think at break I am going to go hit a bucket of balls or something.  Kinda bummed I cant workout, but golf should suffice until I get to the LaQuinta in Oklahoma City tonight and burn some calories.  We fly American Airlines tonight and stay, as I said before, at a LaQuinta.  Although I get FF with AA I have never had a good experience with them, not to mention American Airlines regional jets have the worst record for baggage handling and customer service.  The only experience I have had at a LaQuinta ended in confusion and disgust.  I forget the details, but the employees were horrible from what I remember.  God, what a travel snob I have become.  Okay people, have a good day and deuces from Kansas City, MO.....

I'm slackin.... Denver all over again and Southwest flight attendants....

Whatup behotchies....  thats right..... behotchies.... anyways....I am outside of Hartford, CT and had a good day yesterday.  but first let me tell you about these past couple days, it been a while since i have posted, I know I am a slacker....

   Lets start in Atlantic City.  I had my hopes up for Atlantic City, but it was kind of a piece of crap.  Number one, there are parts of the city where everybody was saying "Dont go there during most times of the day."  Thats a sign that suggests the city your in, sucks. We stayed in the hotel that hosts the Mrs. America Pageant, and it had all sorts of stupid memorabilia and stuff like that.  I can honestly say that i think that the Mrs. America Pageant is a waste of time, waste of money, superficial, shallow, pointless and is just flat out ridiculous.  Great, you're good looking, lets all give you a crown stand up and clap for you while you answer some fuckin random stupid question as you wave at people who could care less about you and some cheesy asshole sings some song like, "Look at her....Isnt she fuckin gorgeous".  Thats how I feel about most beauty pageants anyways.  Strong man competitions too....i mean....really?!?!  So you can lift a 1500 pound boulder, who does that help, we have machines for that now you idiot.  On top of that, your metabolism is just gonna be SUPER fucked up now...good luck you dumb bastard.....  okay, rant done....  So to sum it up, Atlantic City was a bummer.  Next was Allentown, PA.  As we pull in we are downtown, and its a Holiday Inn.  It was just remodeled and they had a managers reception (free drinks and snacks....BALLIN!) and I met the General Manager of the Hotel.    After telling him i have the seminar tomorrow, he hooked me up with some free drink coupons for the bar downstairs  I talked with him for a bit and i left with a beer in hand and some crackers with cheese.  After that I traveled to Bethlehem to meet another Program Manager and go get some grub and drinks.  First we went to a bar where they serve 400 different martinis.  Im not a martini drinker, and dont think i have actually ever had one.  I got a berry surprise or some shit, drank it down, and we went to another place for dinner.  Its a place called the Bethlehem Brewery.  Kelly, the other PM, said I had to get the Mac n Cheese, cuz its the biggity bombastic shizzle frazzle dazzle wigwam (shutup haters) mac n cheese.  SO.... we start with a Christmas salad, which is pretty good with spinach, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, and an awesome cinnamon vinaigrette dressing.  Next we had a crab dip with chips and pita bread (decent) and the crem de la crem, the mac and cheese.  This stuff was amazing.  It totally lived up to the hype....  It had 4 types of cheeses, bits of bread, and great pasta.  It was bomb.  After the meal I went back to the hotel, used my free drink coupons from the GM, talked/ignored some old guy from Florida who was pretty bitter at my generation for "taking jobs from elders" and went to bed.  I woke up and this day started as a disaster.  My speaker needs internet for her seminar, and the hotel didnt have internet in the conference rooms.  I called the GM and told him to get his butt down to the hotel to fix this.  He did this, but not until the seminar was half over.  They had to run a 400 foot ethernet cable from the hotel front desk, through the lobby, through the hotel kitchen, through some back hallways and finally into our room.  It was a bitch.  On top of this my speaker is flipping out, yelling at hotel staff, constantly calling me into the seminar with all 40 people there and asking me if i had heard anything and would just be a pain in the behind.   To sum it up, the day sucked.  Kelly came around 1 to my hotel and brought some desserts from a place called vegan treats in Bethlehem.  It was a brownie with vanilla mousse on top and a peanut butter cake thing.....all vegan, and it was delicious.  Also, a band called Slightly Stoopid was staying at the hotel, and I talked and hung out with them for a bit.  It was a day of good things and bad things.  After that seminar we went to Harrisburg, PA and it went off with no problems.  I flew home for a quick 24 hour turnover, and headed back out to Cherry Hill.  

  I take off to Philadelphia at 830 in the morning on Sunday and we were projected to arrive at 430 that night.....Nope!  There were some bad thunderstorms in Philly, so we were stuck in a flight pattern for 2 hours, and had to land in Baltimore to refuel and just sit on the tarmac for another 2 hours until we were given the okay to fly in.  By the time we got in, i had been on that damn plane for 11 hours.  It was 10 o'clock and i had a horrible headache.  I felt like i was going to throw up.  I never get headaches, but for some reason, was suffering till no end.....okay.... (stop whining you pussy)....  In Cherry Hill, was another PM, Hillary Schmidt.  We hung out and talked and the day went by super fast.  After that seminar, Hillary left and my speaker and I went to Bethlehem.....again, and I ate Bethlehem Brewery again, and went and got Vegan Treats again.  My speaker had some and was blown away that they were vegan.  She loved them.   My speaker this week is a kind woman from San Diego who has a bad leg, and I help her out ALOT.  I do it because she is super nice and is 10X better than my speaker last week.  After enjoying Bethlehem again, We drove to Newark to the hotel next to the prison.  This was an easy seminar and nothing exciting happened.  Afterwards, we had what I thought would be a quick drive from Newark to Long Island, a 45 to 50 mile drive.  It took 3 hours for us to get to our hotel.  Traffic was stupid, just stupid.  When I arrived, I met up with the program manager I was with in Denver, Kyle.....pictured below on the cow.... 

This was gonna be another night ending up almost like that one had above in Denver....  We go to the bar and get some drinks and immediately start playing photohunt (the game where there are 2 exact picture but they have 5 small things different in them and you have to find them.)  Well we start playing and are coming so close to the record but we just cant get it.  This whole time we are ordering Long Island Iced Teas (ON LONG ISLAND!!!!) and not even thinking about anything around us but this game of photo hunt.  Well we are loud and making a scene from coming so close, and eventually a few people start to join us.  It was a group of 4 people 2 hot chicks, an 2 FABULOUS!!!!!! dudes.  They eventually notice our determination and start playing photohunt with us.  After several drinks later we learn that these people were Southwest Airlines flight attendants. We defeat the record, the Holiday Inn in Ronkonkoma, NY has a record under photo hunt that says heckssert....(heckendorf and dessert), and we talk with the attendants some,  We sit down with them and they are going to town on drinks and evetually start sharing with us.  Somebody brings up the topic of getting drinks on Southwest flights and they comment on how they have stacks and stacks of the free drink coupons.  they pull out like 10 of them from their pockets and give them to us and we give them our addresses and they said they will send us another stack for us in the mail.  FREE DRINKS ON SOUTHWEST HERE I COME!!!  After eventually stumbling my way back to my room and going to bed/passing out I wake up in a daze, but feeling good.  I go downstairs to my speaker who is  ready to get this show on the road.  Everything goes fine and we head to Bristol, CT.  Unfortunately, to do this, we had to go through New York and that traffic again.  We eventually found out there was a ferry that goes from Long Island to Bridgeport, CT  (Thank God) and we were just going to catch it.  We departed form Port Jefferson, NY where the picture below was taken....

  The Ferry ride was nice and relaxing.  After we got off the ferry, it was an hours drive north to Hartford and here I am.  I have come to the conclusion that in every state there is an unwritten rule about how fast you can go over the speed limit and not get pulled over.  In Washington, it tends to be about 5 miles an hour.  In Pennsylvania, most likely going 5 to 10 miles an hour over and you will be okay.  In small towns in Illinois, where most of the cities money comes from passing through speeders, stay going the speed limit and you should be kosh.  In Connecticut, I was going 10 over, and was still getting passed on my right and on my left.  These people were hauling balls.  Interesting thing to notice tho.  I am in a Clarion Suites and its dec.  I had a continental breakfast, some subway, downloaded a new app for my IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPHOOOOOOOOOOOONE (say it like you have a monocle on) and fly out at 530 back to Seattle for a week.  I have an interview on Wednesday that I am stoked on, and look forward to relaxing for a bit.  Hope all is well with you peeps..... deuces from East Windsor, CT......