The Fat Man Typos

Any and all typos are the responsibility of the fat man typing this type. Just a FYI for you. You pronounce that, "Fa-why," by the way. Thanks for your understanding. Your patience and manners are only exceeded by your excrutiating good looks. (JP DonLeavy quote.)

Disclaimer: Don't you think that people who notice typos are either authors, editors, English teachers or anal retentive types? There are no editors at closestexit. Every thing is raw and unaltered... except, of course, when I edit the post. Just messing with you.

Raleigh-Philly-DC-Hoboken-Philly-Charlotte-Raleigh-Philly-Boston

Greetings and tired salutations, race fans. This is going to be semi-brief. Long story short: US AIRWAYS is falling down in the customer service department.

As mentioned in an earlier post, a coworker and I went to Philly and the Philly rep took us to DC two days ago ... or was it three days ago, and then to Hoboken yesterday. The idea was to drop us back in Philly in enough time to catch a flight back to Charlotte and then to Raleigh -our home base. The flight out of Philly was for around seven bells in the evening. We arrived at the gate with time to spare. The pilot did not. Repeat, the pilot did not show. Which begs the questions, "Do they have standby people or not?" I mean what happens if Cap'n Bob has some bad sushi? Surely this must happen every now and then. Eventually they flew in a crew from the greater Chicagoland area.

The upshot is that we got to Charlotte around 11:30. Here's a little trivia for you: The second largest banking town in the US of A has an airport that pretty much shuts down at 11:00 at night. Guess which one. We missed our flight and went to get a rental car... may as well drive was the collective thinking. "Sorry, sir, no one way rentals." Why, you may ask, were there no terrific examples of americano engineering and hubris? Because the week before last night took place, US Airways messed up and a lot of people became stranded in Charlotte. Of course, they rented cars and drove the cars one way to their destinations. Thus no one way rentals last night. No airport shuttles either because most hotels were booked. I will skip the rest of the night. Suffice to say, we ended up in Raleigh around 9:00 this AM.

I've had this standing Boston gig creeping up on me for some time. So, I was back at the airport in Raleigh around 10:40 for an 11:40 flight to Bean Town through, you guessed it, Philly.

I arrived in Philly. My luggage did not. The pictures above are poor but demonstrate somewhat clearly the utter chaos taking place at the luggage claim areas for US Airways in Boston. Those people represent approximately, oh, say seven or so different flights. The luggage puppies stopped mushing bags around my half way point of being there. They stood against their respective unclaimed luggage carts and told jokes about thumbs up butts and stuff like that. I can't say I blame them. The unclaimed luggage in front of the unclaimed luggage office was claiming almost all of the previously unclaimed carpet. They would have had to open the doors and stacked luggage on the cabs outside.

This, of course, lead to the the luggage puppies on the "other side" of the wall growing frustrated enough to actually THROW luggage out of their area and into the passenger luggage claim area. That's cool, man. Nice form. Do the Olympics have a luggage heave event? The luggage claim agent, when I finally gave up all hope, suggested that I go out and purchase a suit for my business meeting tomorrow. Wow! That was helpful. Did you have a team of monkeys working around the clock on that one? Unreal.

The other two photos are of the dangerous-tired-man-driving-and-taking-in-motion-pictures-of-the-teddy-williams-tunnel-in-beantown AND a cool zinc project in the great Fly Me To The Moon town of Hoboken, NJ. I'm just trying to keep it real and mix it up a little.

At any rate, I am extremely tired. I am going to bed. More later on all of this, but for now we will just assume that at least one traveler may be looking for alternative air carriers and is a tad bit grumpy.

Disclaimer: US Airways has been pretty good to me in the past. But these two back to back episodes suggest "suckiness" beyond the elastic limit of suck in general. This is only my elastic opinion and should not be misconstrued as gospel, religion, political belief, etc.

OK IN OK-C

Greetings and salutations. Here is a brief rundown of my time in OKC: In addition to going to some good firms (like FSB, Rand Elliott and many others) to pitch my goods along with the local reps -great guys by the way. I was fortunate to see some very nice architecture including: The Federal Memorial, the new Federal Building, this great old building while looking for a Goff rich residential neighborhood in Norman, OK(Bruce Goff www.kebyar.com for more info), Rand Elliott's great boathouse as well as Mr. Elliott's office, the Stage Center by John Johansen(http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/John_M._Johansen.html for more information on Mr. Johansen) , this great ramp project at the Oklahoma Bar Association by David Kraszewski ("CRAW-CHEF-SKI"), a nice private house by Brian Fitzsimmons and another Rand Elliott project-slash-monument (Go to http://www.e-a-a.com/ for more info on Mr. Elliott's work). Needless to say, OKC is OK. In all seriousness, OKC is a little bit of a surprise and a whole lot of fun for an architecture junky like me.

I expected oil and pickup trucks and gun toting cowboys. And sure, there is some of that. But, more importantly, there is a ton of culture happening in this cool central America city. I would take it any day of the week over Vegas. But that is just me... a little bit of a prude or prat.

If you have the time, or are passing through, spend some time... there is a lot more there than the few snapshots I am loading up.

I know that this entry isn't glib or even pithy; please forgive me. We were out all day today... first in NJ, then to DC, then to Baltimore and finally, tonight, back to Cherry Hill. When in Cherry Hill, NJ. Check out The Library 2... great food in a bar/restaurant/library-type-of-vibe. Sorry, no pictures...too much driving and talking and not enough looking.

Take care.

plastic city is not OK, but OKC is...

Hello from the city of Brotherly love and possible murder. I am in PHILLY tonight after a long day of cruising through the city... actually, I am in Cherry Hill, NJ at the DoubleTree. Fun, fun, fun. It has been a while and I wanted to catch up and where, when and how.

Two weeks ago I was in Crapulous Las Vegas. After flying in on the sardine can known as a plane, we jumped in the rental vehicle and ended up at the Luxor. I think that it is entirely fitting that you pull up under the butt of the Sphinx when arriving at the Luxor. What a crappy place... although, at least it wasn't the Excaliber. If you are a non or reformed smoker, like I am, the Luxor is not the place to be. Even with the door closed and a towel in front of the threshold, my clothing still reeked of smoke and I woke up every morning clogged up. If you are going to Vegas and you are not a big party animal, I would recommend that you stay at The Hotel... just behind Mandalay Bay. There are no slots, heavy smoke, etc. Although the hookers are still plentiful. The Luxor has a huge sign out in front advertising one of their shows -Fantasy. Any idiot that thinks Vegas is for kids is a complete and utter moron. "Gee, Jimmy, look at the panties on the redhead." Of course, Vegas has always been for the adult children and so I guess that it is not too surprising that they have issues with reality.

This is the place where you can catch Manilow, Prince and the fabulous Paris casino -which, if my source is correct, was built pre-wired for demolition from day one. I know that there are many people who dig Vegas, but I found it to be what it has always purported to be; somewhat akin to the sign in front of the Luxor -fantasy. I prefer reality. Here is a freaky reality: The new 6 or 7 BILLION dollar city center (site of Veer Towers, the Mandarin Oriental, and other buildings, is slated for completition in November of 2007. Only in Vegas baby.

The Luxor interior was mildly interesting, but only in the stupid human tricks realm of overdone and overbaked. Overall, I will have to pass on Vegas. It is fake architecture at the most fundamental level... as it should be, granted, but it is not for me. The Vegas trip took place two weeks ago...

Last week I was in OKC. Stay tuned race fans. The next post (above this) will be about OKC. I think you will be surprised if you do not live there. Oklahoma is OK... even better, it is a cool town.

Until then... Cheers.

No Disclaimer -it's my birthday today. Have fun.