Tokyo Travels Part 21: Conrad Tokyo

When we stayed in Tokyo, we stayed in what would be considered a luxury business hotel. Rooms at the Conrad Tokyo regularly sell for $400+ per night. More importantly, they also sell for 50,000 Hilton Points a night.

Hilton Points (and their equivalent from Marriott, Starwood, and Holiday Inn) are the hotel version of frequent flier miles. I build up Hilton Points whenever I stay at a Hampton Inn, Embassy Suites, Homewood Suites, Doubletree Hotel, or any other property in the Hilton family. I cashed in a bunch of points for the trip to Tokyo so the room cost us nothing.

The hotel is on top of an office building. An express elevator takes you up to the hotel lobby and its high-end restaurants. The staff at the desk was awesome. They were friendly, and spoke excellent English. After checking in, we didn’t have to deal with them often except to get change for 10,000 Yen notes and ask for directions to the subway. When we checked out, they were even able to charge our bus tickets to the room (Note: even on a reward stay you still earn Hilton Points for incidentals).

It was a fantastic room, and fairly large by Tokyo standards. We had a king room with a great view of some neighboring office buildings, and a couch of sorts that ran the length of the windows.

That long couch was a fantastic place to stretch out at the end of the day, with a blanket and a reading light, and write about my thoughts and experiences while looking out at the city lights before crawling into the soft king bed to rest up for more adventures.

The bathroom had a deep soaking tube (which the GF loved (especially since it came with some neat rubber duckys)) and a separate shower.

The toilet had more electronic controls than many cars.

We also had access to the Executive Lounge, which meant we could start each day with complimentary snacks and coffee.

One thing we didn’t see was a housekeeping cart or an ice machine. Apparently all that equipment gets hidden in secret alcoves and closets. I’m not entirely sure how the staff conjured them into existence when they needed them, but they managed it.

Whenever we needed ice, we would have to call room service to deliver some. There was of course no charge, and the advantage is that I didn’t have to hear or figure out the machine in the hall. And since it’s Japan, we weren’t expected to tip the staff.

Guests at the Conrad also get to take home some little reminders of their stay.

The location was convenient. The hotel was across the street from the Hamarikyu Gardens, a short walk from the Shiodome and Shinbashi train station where we could catch the Japan Rail Green Line, a loop that runs around the city. Walking just a couple blocks more brought us to the heart of Ginza. To the south, we were just a 20-30 minute walk from the Tsukiji Fish Market. When I walked a few blocks the other way, I found a great collection of convenience stores which were always a great place to pick up a shockingly tasty dinner and beer.

In short, the Conrad was fantastic. If you have the cash or points it’s a fantastic place to stay. The room was awesome and the staff was friendly and fluent in English. I can strongly recommend the Conrad.

You can see more pictures from the hotel here.

You can find more pictures from my Japan trip here.

And you can find more posts about my trip here.

Sharing hotel room

The Hampton Inn in St. Charles, MO, decided I needed a room mate.  So they made me a swan.

I think I'll give him first dibs on my USA Today.

Hampton Inn at the Milwaukee Airport

Tuesday night, I flew into Milwaukee (MKE) and after spending 2 hours waiting on the tarmac waiting for a gate (thanks, American Airlines) eventually made it through the airport, to my Toyota Corolla rental car, and on to my hotel for the night.

It was snowing.  It had snowed much of the day.  And it continued snowing through the night.  I managed to make it to my hotel (the Hampton Inn in Oak Creek, WI) without incident as my snowdriving skills kicked back in (6 years of living in MT will teach you something).  I pulled into the last parking spot, and dragged my luggage through 8" of snow to the check in desk.  It continued to snow throughout out the night.

The next morning I got out to my car and prepared to dig out in my dress shoes.  But when I got out there, the Hampton staff had already dug out my car, and those belonging to the other guests.  Not only that, they had wiped the snow off the car and scraped the ice off the windows.  They saw me walking over to my car, and met me over there so they could sweep and scrape the windows again.  The guy even offered to pull my car out of the spot for me so I didn't have to walk in the unshoveled snow next to the car.

I've stayed at a lot of hotels over the years, including some really pricey ones. Still, the customer service I've gotten from Hampton Inn is second to none.  I never expected this kind of service from a hotel, especially one where I don't pay for parking.  This unexpected effort on their part is the kind of thing that will keep my coming back.

It seems it's always the inexpensive hotels that provide the freebies and excellent service.  Over the summer I wrote about another great experience at a Hampton in Clemson, SC.

While $200 and $300 per night hotels will charge $20 or $30 for parking, plus $15 for a continental breakfast, a $50 package acceptance fee, and $9.95 per day for WiFi, the inexpensive Hampton includes all this in the room rate.  The rooms and toiletries may not be as fancy, and they may not offer room service, but the little things they do are outstanding.

Keep a lid on your Pepper Spray

This story struck me as odd:

Emergency teams rushed to a Seattle hotel and at least five people were treated when a chemical irritant was released into the air Sunday morning.

Dozens of police, hazmat teams and medics were dispatched to the scene, the Hotel Andra at Fourth Avenue and Virginia Street, at about 11:15 a.m.
...

The chemical irritant turned to be a pepper spray, according to a statement from the hotel.

"The can of spray belonged to one of our guests, and was accidentally tipped over by a member of our housekeeping staff while servicing the room," the statement said.

...More

Presumably, the guest drove to the hotel  Or obviously, our highly efficient and effective TSA would have secured the Pepper Spray before they got on a plane.  Right?  Of maybe they just had less than 3.4 ounces of it.

But "tipped over"?  Was it in a cup?  Did someone fill their travel mug with pepper spray instead of coffee?  Is pepper spray really the kind of thing that can, if "tipped over," sicken 5 people and result in a full hazmat rollout?

In High School, Brother Paul Bernard opened the school year in Chemistry class by releasing a copper-based brown gas into the class room from an experiment.  That stuff poured out of the box on his desk and drifted towards the floor like a fluffy liquid.  Of course he reminded us, "THIS! is poison GAS!" but continued to do it for some reason.  I think he'd be considered a felon now.

So close the lid on your pepper spray.  You don't want housekeeping to spill it. I guess.

Hospitality for the night

A couple weeks back I mentioned by travel adventures trying to get to Savannah, and I mentioned and odd hotel room.

It was at the Hilton Garden Inn. They were pretty full by the time I got there, and they had two rooms choice left for me. One had recently been a smoking room, and one doubled as a hopitality suite. I wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but it seemed like the better option anyway.

A hospitality suite is generally for receptions or other casual events that make it a more comfortable alternative to spending more time in the conference room across the hall. That means it is a large open space with a concrete floor under the carpet. And a Murphy bed that flips down from the wall.

Now, I'm not complaining. The staff as great, and the room was reasonably comfortable. And I found it way more amusing than I probably should have. And the door to my room was only 10 feet from the door to the meeting I was going to the next day.

Here are some pictures.

Travel and storms

It was around midnight when we spilled off the regional jet at the Savannah airport. I'm not sure why going to the Georgia coast in July seemed like a good idea. The three feet between the airplane door and the air conditioned jetway said, "Go home."

At most airports the mix of jet fuel, jet exhaust, and late passenger desperation combine to make their own potent cocktail. In Savannah, they didn't stand a chance against the dank scent of plant decay and swamp air laden with moisture so think your luggage gets we just because you carry it.

It was the end of a long day in the air and on the ground. 14 hours after checking in at SEA, I had my bag back in SAV and trundled out to the rental car.

The day started with a 2.5 hour weather delay in Seattle because of storms in Dallas. When I finally made it to the overcrowded, low ceilinged labyrinth that is the Dallas airport, I got my fist piece of good news -- the connection was delayed. But they didn't seem to know where to put it. Thus, I completed my triathlon training dragging carry on luggage to a different B-Gate every 5 minutes. A lunch of Twix and juice would have to be enough. And it would undo my triathlon training.

But eventually I did make it into the moist city of Savannah. Cars were strewn about the hotel parking lot, popped up on random curbs as people sought anyplace they could find to stash their car. All the locals checked in to the hotel because of a blackout. But the hotel honored my reservation, and at 1:00 AM, that's all I can ask. They gave me the weirdest hotel room I've ever had, but that's a tale for another day.

So there's not much point to this post, other than to point out Savannah is wet even when it doesn't rain, and to play with language a bit. I imagine I'll have a much more favorable opinion of the town after a few hours sleep.

Hampton Inn in Clemson, SC

I left my hotel room to get dinner and found this waiting for me in the hall.

It really confused me because it's not like I sent any laundry out to be done. Was this somebody else's clothes? Or did I actually have them clean my pants in my uncaffeinated state?

Hampton Inns are generally nice hotels. They're not fancy; they are the lowest price properties in the Hilton chain. But they are mostly consistent from city to city.

The Hampton Inn in Clemson, SC rocks. The staff is friendly and helpful. Coffee is available in the lobby all day. And, despite the SC summer, the air conditioning had no problem keeping my room at 65 degrees.

Of course wi-fi is free, and the continental breakfast is free. But this is my favorite example of simple, excellent service.

On Wednesday, I left the hotel early and was back by 11:00 AM. Housekeeping had not made up my room yet, which is fine. It's not like I used 4 towels and all the shampoo that morning. And my bed was still mostly in one piece so I didn't really need it to be made.

So I just stuck the "Do Not Disturb" tag in my key slot, plugged in my computer and got to work.

And they left me alone.

Do you have any idea how unusual that is? At "nicer" hotels, house keeping thinks the "Do Not Disturb" sign means, "Knock loudly on my door at 10:15 AM instead of 9:45 AM. And then call me at 11:00 AM. And then call at me 2:00 PM to tell me in a mildly annoyed voice that you won't be providing service today because I left the sign on the door."

At this Hampton, however, housekeeping had a different take on, "Do not disturb." They took it to mean, "Do not disturb."

Shocking. Totally shocking.

And very much appreciated.

I peeled myself out of my chair at 8:00 PM and realized I hadn't moved or eaten much during the day. I decided to head out to Taco Bell. And that takes me back to the beginning of this post and the mysterious bag of underwear.

When I opened it up, though, there were not clothes in it. Instead, I found this:

The fresh towels and toiletries they couldn't put in the room due to the "Do Not Disturb" sign were waiting for me right outside me door for whenever I decided to leave.

I've stayed in $200, $300, and $400 a night hotel rooms and never had this kind of service.

It's simple. It's cheap. It's respectful. And it works.

Hampton Inn and Suites -- Atlanta Galleria

Most of the time I spend in hotels is spent in Hilton properties. That includes Hilton, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites, Doubletree, and a few others. I spend some much time there I've held Diamond status in their loyalty program for about 6 years.

One of the perks of being Diamond is that when space is available, I sometimes get a free upgrade. That's what happened this week in Atlanta.

I spend three days at the Hampton Inn and Suites -- Galleria. The staff was quite friendly. And they upgraded me to a two room suite. It had a kitchen with a stove, full size refrigerator, and microwave. The bed room was comfortable with nice bedding. There was even a kitchen bar.

And the room cost only about $100/night.

Here are some pictures of it.

Star Trek Book Week Part II: Electric Boogaloo

Star Trek Book Week Parts I & II Posts:

1. Book Review 15: Star Trek Memories (William Shatner)
2. Book Review 16: I am not SPOCK (Leonard Nimoy)
   
3. Book Review 17: The Longest Trek (Grace Lee Whitney)
   
4. Book Review 18: Star Trek Movie Memories (William Shatner)
   
5. Book Review 19: I Am Spock (Leonard Nimoy)
   
6. Book Review 20: Beyond Uhura -- Star Trek and Other Memories (Nichelle Nichols)
   
7. Book Review 35: Up Till Now (William Shatner)
8. Book Review 36: Beam Me Up, Scotty (James Doohan)
9. Book Review 37: Warped Factors -- A Neurotic's Guide to the Universe (Walter Koenig)
10. Book Review 38: To The Stars (George Takei)
11. Book Review 39: Just a Geek (Wil Wheaton)

I have an idea how the rest of the week will go.

At 11:00 PM the soft ding will let me know the hotel elevator reached my floor. I'll step out of it and wander down one of three halls to my room. I'll get halfway down, realize I chose the wrong hall, and reverse direction.

Once I pick the right one, the echoing click - click of my shoes on fake marble will accompany me to my door, where I will put my card key in backwards, get annoyed that it's not working, then realize it is working and I'm just being an idiot. I'll get the door open and pour into the room, every last cubic inch of my belly filled with Bread Pudding and Guinness. I'll turn on the alarm clock for the next morning, start up the computer intending to check email, and then collapse into bed for the night, before the machine even asks for the fourth password.

The alarm will go off at 6:00 AM; I'll ignore it until 6:45, then panic because I have to meet folks for breakfast at 7:00. I'll roll out of bed, shower, get dressed and be only 10 minutes late.

It should be against the law to wake up at 6:00 (or 6:45) in Las Vegas.

But this isn't just Vegas. It's CES. And after I make it to the convention center, I'll spend the next 9 hours standing in three square feet of space, shouting at hundreds of people as I demonstrate awesome products in my employer's booth. At 6:00 PM, we'll slowly make our way back to the shuttle bus that will get us back to our hotel a few miles away in an hour. I'll go up to my room, do some other work, change, desperately beg my abused feet to go back into another pair shoes (as they howl their swollen objections), go downstairs for dinner, and the whole process will start again.

This happens every year at CES. And I love every minute of it.

Unfortunately, that leaves little time -- or mental energy -- for blogging. Thus I give you Star Trek Book Week Part II: Electric Boogaloo.

I know we're already 4 days into the week, but I didn't set the CES schedule.

Two years ago, CES meant you got my 5 part series on credit card arbitrage. Exciting stuff, I know.

Last year, though, I hosted the first Star Trek Book Week. I published my reviews of autobiographies by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Grace Lee Whitney, and Nichelle Nichols.

This week, continuing in that fine tradition, you can expect to see reviews of autobiographies by William Shatner (again), James Doohan, Walter Koenig, George "Oh, My!" Takei and finally a little bit of a surprise.

So while I may fall behind on my Entrecard drops, there will still be plenty of fascinating things to see here at Cromely's World. And I promise to stay awake long enough to read all your comments.

And next week, I can start work on my posts for CES 2010. And try to work off the Bread Pudding.

Tomorrow: Up Till Now, by William Shatner.

Guest of the day

Last week I made it to my hotel and and was about to check in when I saw a sign on the front desk. It announced that I was the Guest of the Day.

It's kind of nice to see that sort of greeting. They offered me my choice of several freebies -- free internet, a free movie, a free appetizer, or a free bottle of wine. I opted for the wine (a Redwood Creek Merlot). Traveling business usually means traveling by my self so I got a couple days out of that bottle.

I guess I've been a pretty good customer for the Hilton near the Orange County Airport (SNA). At the same time, it's a little frightening that I've stayed there enough to justify being Guest of the Day.

Hotels and fresh towels

In every hotel I stay at there is a flyer on the bed. Or on the clock. Or hanging on the towel rack. Or stapled to the forehead of the desk clerk.

With lush green leaves and glittering waterfalls, it explains that hotels use the equivalent of the Pacific Ocean everyday to wash towels and sheets. They dump the equivalent mass of the moon into the environment in the form of laundry detergent -- just so your sheet will be clean every day.

Won't you please think of the environment and the health of the planet and pretty please reuse your towel for just one more day? By doing so, you will personally save half the Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. If you do it again tomorrow, you will save all of the pandas in China.

And all you have to do is put this flyer on your pillow. Or take it off your pillow. Or hang up your towel. Or turn around the door hanger. Or put a check mark on the desk clerk.

I can never keep the instructions straight. So I don't really make any particular effort. If I have the same towels and sheets for the stay, that's fine. I don't really care if they change them every day. And I'm usually too tired at night to pay attention to the instructions and in too much of a rush in the morning to deal with it. I'm fairly clean. Unless I have another Chicago Incident, I comfortable with the sheets I used the night before.

But how do the number turn out?

Scientific American just reported on tactics to encourage people to reuse the their towels.

They looked at what happens when they used two different messages. In one set of rooms, they implored guest to protect the environment. In another, they said that most other guests reused the towels.

In rooms with the latter message, guests reused the towels 25% more often.

It seem peer pressure trumped altruism.

When they took it a step further and said that previous guests in that particular room often reused their towels, the numbers went even higher.

The discuss various reason for this, including various social science discussions of human behavior.

They also discussed the cynicism guests have about the environmental message. This may come as a shock to you, but I actually share that same cynicism. It the belief that the hotel doesn't care about the environment, but just wants to lower their own energy and water costs.

Regardless, there are some interesting lessons in that short article.

Hotel TVs and HD

Wide screen and HD TVs are the newest feature hotels are promoting to draw travelers in. It's great...in theory.

But they take these new TVs and then run a standard signal to the TV. To make things worse, they set the TVs to widescreen mode, even when the signal is a standard 4:3 signal. They do this so people don't have to see bars on the side of the screen. Of course, this screws everything up because the stuff on the screen in s stretched and squashed terribly.

And then they disable the settings so someone who knows what they are doing can't even fix it.

So not only do they not take advantage of the cool HD hardware, they make sure that the picture looks worse than it would on a 20 year old RCA.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Marriott and Newsweek

I checked into the Marriott near the Minneapolis airport and walked into my room. I looked over at the desk and saw this waiting for me:

What is Marriott trying to tell me?

Hampton Inn in Hurst, TX (near DFW)

When I flew to Dallas for Tim's wedding, I stayed at the Hampton Inn in Hurst, TX. It's a really nice Hampton Inn. And the folks at the desk are great.

When I made my reservation, I screwed up the dates. I was supposed to arrive on Saturday and leave on Monday. When I booked the room though, I booked it so I would arrive on Friday and depart on Sunday.

I realized this on Saturday morning when I had already "no showed."

When I got to the hotel I talked to the desk agent and explained that I was an idiot. She spent several minutes figuring it all out with the property manager, and they took care of it. I really appreciate that, especially since I was using Hilton Points for the room and not cash.

The room itself had a lot of characteristics of a traditional Hampton Inn. Wi Fi was free. They had the new, surprising comfortable Hilton bed and bedding. And there was free breakfast in the morning.

Beyond that, the room didn't look like a Hampton. The walls was a darker color than most hotel rooms. The bathroom had a bold, dark, striped wallpaper. I'm now using a picture of that wallpaper as my Windows wallpaper.

There was couch against one wall, and a chair/ottoman combo in the middle of the room facing the TV.

You can see more pictures here.

So if you need a decent, inexpensive hotel near the DFW airport, check this one out.

A room at the Venetian

A couple weeks ago I stayed at the Venetian. Often regarded as one of the 3 nicest hotels on the Vegas strip, the Venetian has great dining, atmosphere, and attention to detail in the public areas.

I was a bit disappointed in the room, though. It was definitely nice. It was big. The automatic curtains were very cool, but there were a lot of little things that put me off. If I had this room in a normal hotel, I would be thrilled with it. But the Venetian is a luxury resort and the room did not live up to that. It's not major issues -- it's in the details.

The room was a lot like Ikea furniture -- it's almost something I like. It's almost really cool.

But it missed it by that much.

The little room in the bathroom with the toilet spelled like mildew. The fabric on the colossal L-shaped couch was worn. The night stand lights could only be turned on or off from one side of the bed. The air conditioner could only get the room down to about 75 degrees. The DVD player was set up for only the living room TV. There were lots of little things like that. It sounds like I'm nitpicking, and maybe I am. I just expected more. If it was one or two of these things I wouldn't care. But it the dozens of little issues just annoyed me.

The worst was the alarm clock. It was unlike any other alarm clock I've seen in a hotel. It was complicated to set and even more complicated to turn off. It also had a nap function.

Now the nap function might seem like a good idea. It's so you can have it go off in a 20 minutes or an hour, or some other time frame, rather than assigning a clock time. I'm not sure how you turn it on, but apparently I turned it on quite a bit.

I went to bed at 2:00 AM and (I think) set the alarm clock for the following day. I drift off to sleep until the nap function went off 20 minutes later. Some random button mashing in a darkened room and eventually turned it off. 20 minutes later, it woke me up again. This time I yanked the plug out of the wall and threw it to floor. Twenty minutes later I discovered it had a battery back up. I had to turn on the lights to deal with that.

The next day, housekeeping had set they damn thing up again.

It was like Phoebe trying to get rid of whining smoke detector or Batman trying to get rid of a bomb.

There were some nice things about the hotel. Room service was great and almost on time. It was also reasonably priced for a Vegas strip hotel . This whole meal for 2 cost about $87, and was a ridiculous amount of food.


The bath tub was huge.

The first day that I left the do not disturb tag hanging, housekeeping left a note saying they didn't service the room due to that sign, but if I wanted the room serviced all I had to do was call and they'd take care of it. They did.

Of course the next day they forgot to leave that note. I left the room at 1:00 and since there was no note I figured they'd be back to take care of it. But they weren't . That evening, I called housekeeping and they took care of it with no problem. Again, the problem with the hotel was little things.

I liked the hotel and like the room. It just didn't live up to its billing or potential.

Grand Sierra in Reno

I'm in Reno for a few days, and, well, it's not Vegas.

My first real experience with a casino town was going to Comdex in Vegas in 1998. I've been to Vegas more than 20 times, mostly on business. And Vegas has ruined me for other casino towns like Reno.

I'm staying at the Grand Sierra Resort (formerly the Reno Hilton) and the remodeled rooms are fantastic. The desk have a huge surface, there are leather chairs, modern lighting, and a large LCD TV on the wall. The bathroom has beautiful and stylish fixtures. The bath towels are as tall as me and they're even soft.

Sure, the pillows are terrible. And reception on the TV is pretty poor. The sink splashes, and the power connection for the desk is on the floor. But I can't complain too much.

Afterall, I'm only paying about $40/night.

That's right. This room is dirt cheap, but is nicer than rooms I've had in other cities that cost 4 times as much.

But the hotel itself (despite the ongoing remodel) is old. It near the airport and isolated from the hip, young casinos like the Peppermill and the Atlantis. You can see them in the distance, but they're not really walkable. So you either rent a car, take a cab, or drive your own car to escape the Grand Sierra.

Then again, the rooms are $40/night.

The casino downstairs isn't particularly compelling. They have all the standard games, but they have a lot of empty space. They just don't have enough tables and machines to fill the floor. The crowds are also pretty thin. There is very little action going on the casino.

It actually kind of sad. There's now vibe coming from the floor. It's just blah. Of course that's much better than that heaping pile of depressing that is the Tropicana in Vegas, but it sad nonetheless. And unlike the Vegas strip, you can't just walk to another place.

Did I mention that the rooms are dirt cheap?

I did play some in the casino. I dropped $100 on Black Jack in about a half hour, and anther $20 on the slot machines in the 25 minutes. It's what I budgeted when I knew I was coming here, so it's not a big deal.

The past few years, it seems the only place I can win at the tables in the MGM Grand in Vegas. It must be good luck for me. I get clobbered whenever I play somewhere else.

So while my hotel in Reno isn't particularly exciting, if I ever want to go somewhere and just lock my self in a hotel room for a week, Reno will be at the top of my destination list.

Elevators in process

Last week, I stayed at the Hilton across the street from the Orange County airport (SNA). The hotel, located on MacArthur BLVD is quite nice, and the rates are reasonable for a full service property.

They've been remodeling for quite awhile now. The rooms are updated, the bedding is improved, and the lobby is a shocking white color that is probably supposed to be cool but instead comes off as trying to hard. They've done a nice job.

Now, if only they would finish the elevators...





They ran fine but it's a bit disconcerting to ride an elevator under a construction lamp, surrounded by tattered foam core, while watching the shaft zip by through square holes cut in the sheet metal.

Delays and more

I'm sitting at Gate L2B at ORD (Chicago O'Hare airport). It's 7:12 PM and I'm waiting for my 3:35 PM flight to Seattle (AS 23) to start boarding. Right now, we are due to leave at 9:05 PM, after a 5.5 hour delay.

The delay started out as a two hour weather delay. Due to pending snow in ORD, Air Traffic Control wouldn't let our in bound plane take off from SEA (Seattle). When it finally arrived, they discovered something was wrong with the engine and put us on a mechanical delay. Personally, I'm not sure what the big deal is with an engine problem. After all, there's another one right on the other wing.

Of course they couldn't find the part here. They started calling around because it's not something that NAPA typically stocks. They finally found at part at MDW (Midway, the airport on the opposite side of Chicago). I'm guessing they got the part from SW (Southwest Airlines). Now they are driving this part from MDW to ORD. Through Chicago traffic. At rush hour. Good luck, guys.

But, after all, it's ORD. It's an extremely reliable airport. Your flight is guaranteed to be late. It's just a question how late. if you are flying though ORD, you should just accept it.

This lateness is not just about the flights though. The decorators are also delayed, which would explain why the Christmas decorations are still up in the K terminal.


While the delay is annoying, it's not the worst thing to happen to me today. Things got off to a rough start.

Now, before I go on, I'm going to recommend that those of you who have a weak stomach or are squeamish about blood click away. You will not be interested in the rest of this post. I'm fine. I'm uninjured, but if you don't like to read about those sorts of things, don't. I won't mind. Seriously. You won't hurt my feelings.
.
.
.
.
.
Are you sure you want to keep reading? It gets kind of nasty.
.
.
.
.
Okay. You are an intrepid interneter.

There are a lot of ways to wake up at 5:30 AM in a hotel. You can use your hotel alarm clock. You can get a wakeup call. You can use an alarm clock you brought from home. You can use your watch. You can use the timer on the hotel TV. You can even use your cell phone alarm.

But none of them are quite as effective or as unrecommended as waking up with a mouthful of your own blood.

You know how hot water heaters start spilling water out through a safety valve if there is too much in the system? I think that's what happened to my circulatory system. It seems to have overflowed.

Some where high up in my nose or sinuses, a blood vessel apparently broke. I don't know why. i felt fine the night before, and because of my flight schedule, I though I might actually get a full 8 hours of sleep. Then I got my 5:30 wakeup call. I woke up, coughed and felt something wet on my arm. I knew that wasn't good, and turned on the light. Then I saw the blood on the pillow from my nose and what had come down the back of my throat and out my mouth. I was mildly annoyed and still half asleep when I grabbed some tissues from the nightstand. They started to soak up some of the bright red liquid (from a tiny artery, I guess) and quickly became useless. I stumbled to the bathroom to assess the damage and contemplate my next step.

I stood in front of the sink and tried using tissue to slow the bleeding. At this point it was coming out in large fast drops that were splashing all over the sink and the little hotel shampoos. I've never had this happen before, and quickly abandoned the paper products, and turned to the cotton ones. I'm sorry Hilton. I grabbed a hand towel not so much to stop the flow as at to contain the damage.

By now, I was also spitting out blood that was coming from my sinuses. It spattered all over the sink, shelf above the sink, floor, bathmat, and toilet. It coagulated in the sink forming this weird gelatinous goo that wasn't washing down easily. I found a clean spot on the towel and leaned over the tub where I figured I would do less damage due to the larger target.

After about 20 minutes, the flow hadn't really stopped, but I had an effective blotting/capture system in place. My higher brain functions had come on line and I was out of bare survival mode. I began contemplating my next steps and whether I needed medical attention. I decided to give it a couple hours and if the problem didn't go away, I'd ask the front desk to call their house doctor or paramedics.

Since it was forming that goo in the tub now, I knew I did not have a clotting problem. Since it was bright red, I assumed it was arterial and full of oxygen. I figured my body would probably heal itself given enough time.

Now at this point, I pulled the towel away, since my nostril felt clogged. With it came a thick plug of this goo, which was a nasty mix of mucous and clotting blood. I dumped that in the tub and the flow started again. I put the towel back to my nose and tried my other tried and true nose bleed technique.

I leaned my head back so gravity would not encourage the bleed. When I was a kid, this always helped. This time, it did not. Instead the blood flowed straight down the back of my throat. That was not the result I was looking for.

I tried stuffing tissues under my upper lip, another tried and true technique. That did not stop the bleeding. Instead it just made a ramp so when blood flowed out of my nose it could jump further an spatter in new places in the bathroom.

So I continued to close off my nostrils with the towel.

Since I was out of ideas, there were only two paths to choose. Call an ambulance, or wait it out. I wasn't in any pain; this was really just annoying. Sticky, wet, and annoying. I chose to wait it out since I had not yet become woozy from lack of blood. So I got dressed, and undid the dead bolt from the door. I figured this way, if I passed out, housekeeping could still get in and find me.

Then I started taking notes on my condition and writing out a timeline of these events. I wrote about what was happening and at what time. I wrote about the rest of my condition (height, weight, no known allergies, not on any medications, etc). I included my health insurance information and emergency contact numbers. I also finished packing my bags so if I did get taken away in an ambulance, the hotel could easily store my belongings.

I also decided to remain close to the floor. I didn't feel faint or dizzy but I figured if something takes a sudden turn, at least I won't have far to fall.

And I kept going back to the tub to cough up more of this excessively sweet and salty syrup. And to remove the occasional mucous/clot plug.

After an hour and a half, I though I might be feeling a little light headed, but the flow had definitely slowed down. By 7:15, I could retire the towel and rely on tissues. By 7:30, the incident was basically over.

I think there is still some leak in there someplace since I've been sneezing out some blood today and coughing up clotty phlegms every few hours. But over all I feel fine. I was a little light headed much of the day, but then had lunch at the airport and that helped.

I guess it's like the ham sandwiches and cookies they give out at blood drives. But I didn't get a cute sticker for my donation to the Chicago sewer system.

I'm glad my flight is delayed, though, it gives my body more time to make repairs before I have to contend with dry cabin air and changes in cabin pressure. Just in case, I have extra tissues and a stolen wash cloth in my carry on.

The final casualties included probably a pint of my blood, one pillow, three pillow cases, a bed sheet, a hand towel, possibly a bath mat and the good day the house keeper may have been having that day. I did tip them well for the mess they have to deal with.

The bathroom looks like something right out of CSI. I can just imagine the scene. Delco is looking down at the mess and says, "What do you think H?"

Horatio Cain hold on to his sunglasses. "I think someone nose what happened. And soon," he pause to put on his sunglasses, "so will we."

I do have pictures of the scene. I don't know why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm not sure why I want to remember this though. It was just odd, random, and messy. It's not how I wanted to start the morning.

So. How was your day?

Mandalay Revisited

Last week I spent 5 nights in Las Vegas working CES. It is a thoroughly exhausting show. Fortunately, I had a decent place to get some sleep -- the Mandalay Bay.

Two years ago, when I last commented on this property, it had really gone down hill (What?! No bath salts?!). Since then they have remodeled.

The cleaned the halls and redid the rooms in a darker, more subdues color scheme. It's a pretty nice look. Previously they were going for a light, tropical, airy, and wicker-y look. Now, they've gone for a cooler look with darker colors and more comfortable furnishings.

The bedding is also new. It's soft, supportive, and comfortable. They replaced the fuzzy old TVs with flat panel, high definition TVs. They even included HD channels.

My king, non-smoking room had two chaises - one that's left handed, and one that's right handed. It was little difficult to type on the computer while reclining on the chaise, but I suppose Vegas resorts aren't exactly focused on business use. Even so, it was surprisingly comfortable.

The rooms even had clock radios that dock with an iPod. And they even fixed the issue with the hot water in the shower.

The internet connection was spotty, and I couldn't get a decent connection on my Sprint EVDO card. There were nights I was desperately internet deprived.

The had some funky looking lamps, but the odd thing was the change to the bathroom. They cut a hole in wall above the bath tub and installed frosted class.

So now, I'm looking forward to my next CES just so I can stay at Mandalay Bay again.

The white balance in this pictures is terrible, but it should give you an idea of what the rooms look like now.