Archive for the year 2011
Kevin and Kasey’s Wedding
Posted on October 22, 2011 by Ching under Events, Family.
I missed Kevin and Kasey’s wedding because we got stuck in Atlanta overnight. Instead of arriving in Wichita by 10:00 pm on Friday night, I didn’t end up getting home until after 1:00 pm the next day. Brian had to be at the church in Derby by 1:30 pm, but had to drop me off at home. He actually ended up getting there late. They were able to work around him for the pre-wedding photos, though. Here are some of the photos that Brian took at the wedding…
Even though I missed the wedding and cake reception, I was able to attend the party at the KMMH that evening. Not a lot of people came, but we still managed to have a great time. I met Robby and his fiancee Elizabeth for the first time.
Kevin was quite jolly with his bottle of Kraken.
I can’t wait to see the official wedding photos!
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(Poor) Quality Hotel
Posted on October 22, 2011 by Ching under Travel.
Thanks to Delta, Carmen and I got stuck in Atlanta overnight. They did give us a hotel voucher, but the hotel they sent us to was terrible. Our hotel voucher was for Quality Hotel and Conference Center by the airport. It used to be a Ramada Inn.
We arrived at the hotel via the hotel shuttle. When we got there, the front desk rep couldn’t care less. She didn’t even make any eye contact. She simply wrote my room number on the key sleeve and sent me on my merry (or cranky, as I wasn’t too happy about getting stuck in Atalanta overnight but tried to make the best of it) way.
When I first entered my hotel room, I noticed a weird smell. I thought it was me at first because I did get sweaty from running through the Atlanta airport, but after taking off and smelling my tanks I knew it was the room. LOL. The smell went away after a while. I didn’t have a change of clothes so I put on the t-shirt that was in the amenity kit that Delta gave and hung my tanks to air out and dry.
Besides the gross smell in the room, I noticed that the refrigerator in the room wasn’t plugged in. Not that I needed it, but I was looking for power outlets to charge my phone. The coffeemaker in the room wasn’t plugged in either. There weren’t any open outlets, but the cord wouldn’t have reached because of where it was situated. Anyway, I found an extension cord behind the fridge so I used that to plug my phone charger. Then I needed to plug in my computer. I couldn’t find any other outlets so I had to unplug the alarm clock.
I did call down to the front desk to see if they had any other rooms. I asked for one with only one bed instead of two double beds and was hoping that I could get a non-stinky room in the process, but she said this was all they had. No apology, no empathy or anything. Just flat out that’s all they had. Anyway, I figured that they were probably full because of all the passengers that Delta stranded in Atlanta that day.
Carmen was having similar problems with her room (it was stinky, the carpets were sticky, and the bathroom was dingy) so she came to mine to see if we could move to another hotel altogether. She got on the computer and began searching for alternatives. In the meantime I wanted Delta to take care of our other hotel because I didn’t want to have to charge it to work, so I called Brian who called Delta customer service. After several minutes on hold, he finally reach someone who told him that we would have to go back to the Delta desk at the airport if we wanted a voucher for a different hotel. That was pretty much a dead end.
Carmen wasn’t having much luck with finding alternative hotels either. Most of the ones around the airport were completely booked. I suspect it was because several people were stranded. Carmen did find a couple of rooms available at the Double Tree on the other side of the airport from us. We were going to take care of the room and just deal with it later, but we wanted them to pick us up from our existing hotel. They couldn’t do that, though. They said we needed to take our hotel shuttle back to the airport and then we can pick up their own shuttle from there. Our shuttle only runs every 30 minutes so Carmen and I figured it would be midnight by the time we made it to the new hotel. Besides that, Brian was doing some checking online as well (trying to help us out) and he found that our current hotel was ranked #1 in the area on Trip Advisor. I was like, I would hate to see what the other hotels in the area are like if this is the best one. Rather than take our chances, we agreed that we would just stay and leave first thing in the morning.
Carmen told me how bad her room was, but I didn’t realize the extent of it until the next day when I went with her to her room to get her stuff. Her room smelled bad too, but the odor was different than my room because I could smell it. I had grown accustomed to the odor of my room so I couldn’t smell it anymore. Carmen said that she couldn’t even wash her hair that morning as she didn’t have any shampoo in her room. In her bathroom she had conditioner and lotion and someone’s leftover lotion. It was in a totally different container. It seemed like they didn’t clean her bathroom at all between occupants. Anyway, we survived the night and were out of there.
Our flight back to Wichita wasn’t until 10:50 am, but by 7:00 am we were both in the hotel lobby waiting for our shuttle to the airport. We’d rather hang out at the airport than spend another minute in that nasty hotel. Yes, it was that bad. I’m so glad that all of that is behind us now. The whole thing (terrible service, gross hotel) has left me with a negative impression of Atlanta overall. I never want to set foot in that city or airport ever again.
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Ching Gets Scanned (Tomorrow)
Posted on October 20, 2011 by Ching under Health.
They gave me a pill at the doctor’s office today in preparation for my scan tomorrow. It was a quick 30 minute appointment. We were pretty much in and out of there. I left work at around 9:50 am and was back by 10:30 am or so.
I have a little bit of radiation, which I’m hoping that my thyroid nodules will absorb. They’ll take “pictures” of my thyroid tomorrow and then we should find out the results by next week. Wish me luck!
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Adventures in Atlanta
Posted on October 19, 2011 by Ching under Travel.
This saga really begins in Nashville, TN on Friday, October 14. Carmen and I arrived at the airport about two hours early, just in case there were delays at check-in and security. Better to be safe than sorry. Incidentally, this was my first experience with one of those TSA scanner things. It’s not really as big of a deal as all the hubbub made it out to be.
So our departure time was 5:15 pm and we were at the airport by 3:00 pm or so… There was a 4:00 pm flight to Atlanta that we could have made, but Carmen said it would have cost us $50 each to get our flights changed. Plus, we were thinking that we would end up waiting in Atlanta so we might as well save our money and wait for our original flight. In hindsight, we should have gotten on the earlier flight but we had no idea of the events that were about to unfold.
Shortly after the earlier flight left, I got a message from Brian saying that our departure time was pushed back an hour. He has a flight tracker app on his phone that gives him updates of any flight or gate changes. I told him that they hadn’t made an official announcement yet. Sure enough, the announcement was made and a line formed at the desk. I guess the plane that was supposed to pick us up ran into some mechanical trouble, which caused the delay. People were freaking out about missing their connections.
We were originally scheduled to arrive in Atlanta at 7:32 pm and leave at 9:02 pm, giving us an hour and a half layover, which is plenty of time to get from our arrival gate to our departure gate. With the delay, we were only going to have 20 minutes instead of the 90 minutes that was planned. Atlanta is a pretty big airport consisting of multiple terminals so we were quite worried. We went to the front desk to ask about our situation, but they figured we would be okay. There were many people who were in worse situations. One group flying to Paris had 9 minutes to get from our arrival gate to the international terminal. Talk about disaster. They were at the front desk for a good hour and a half, trying to sort things out. After that, Carmen and I quit keeping track. We figured we might as well have dinner since we won’t have time to grab a bite to eat in Atlanta. We will be too busy trying to make our connection.
According to Brian’s flight tracker we would arrive and depart from the same terminal. The arrival and departure gates were a few gates apart, though. However, that changed too. We ended up arriving in concourse D and then had to make it to concourse C for our connecting flight. Carmen and I were worried, but we were both fit and of good health so we figured that we could take the tram and make it to our departure gate even though we only had 20 minutes. We would have to run like hell and we’d be cutting it really close, but we believed we could do it. Talk about optimism.
So there two flights to Atlanta leaving Nashville around the same time. Our flight originally scheduled to leave at 5:15 pm was rescheduled to depart at 6:25 pm. The other flight was still on schedule and it was to leave at 6:30 pm. Around 6:00 pm or so, our plane still hadn’t arrived and the other group was already boarding. Our plane arrived just in time for final boarding call for the other group. Carmen and I joked that we should have gotten on the other plane. We asked one of the Delta folks and they said that ours was a smaller plane so we’ll actually arrive in Atlanta sooner. Something about not having to get as high to reach our cruising altitude. Whatever. So they get a head start, but if we’re going to get there sooner or at the same time then I can deal with that. Inside I was freaking out a little though, because this was cutting into the 20 minutes of time that we had to make our connection.
We were worried so we told the flight attendant our predicament as soon as we got on the plane. She was very nice and politely explained that they couldn’t tell the other plane to wait for us. I guess they used to do that years ago, but they don’t any more. We told her we just wanted to make sure that we could get off the plane first so we can start our mad dash to our departure gate, specially since we were at the back of the plane and people tend to move really slow when deplaning. She said she would make an announcement, but couldn’t guarantee anything. She did explain that there were others in similar situations with tighter connections than ours.
The flight attendant made a few announcement as the plane descended. Carmen was really worried that she wouldn’t make an announcement about getting us and others in the same situation getting off the plane first. I told Carmen that the flight attendant seemed trustworthy and I was positive that she would keep her word. She made the announcement and the way that she went about it was really brilliant so I want to give her kudos for this. She listed several cities and told all of us that had connections to the cities that she mentioned to turn on our attendant/service lights. She told everyone else on the plane that all of us with lights on needed to get off the plane first because of our tight connections. Pretty much half the plane lit up. I guess she wasn’t kidding when she said that several people were in the same situation and some worse off than us. It was a little daunting, but I think it’s worth mentioning that her idea was really good as it helped to minimize confusion while deplaning. Not that it made that much difference because there were so many of us. I appreciated the effort, though.
So our lights are on and we are glad to know we’re all getting off the plane first, but then we’re stuck on the tarmac. There’s another plane at our gate. We have to wait for it to leave before our plane can take its place. Ugh. The world is against us. By the time all was said and done, our 90 minutes that turned into 20 minutes turned into about 5 minutes. Carmen and I got off the plane and made a run for it. I’d never seen Carmen run so fast. She was smart and wore sneakers to travel. I was running as fast as I could, but I was in cowboy boots and was hindered by my heavy tote bag containing my laptop. I was worried that the bag would give and my laptop would crash on the floor at any moment, but I still continued to run. Carmen was a good 30 to 40 feet ahead of me. Mind you, Brian had been having nightmares (three nights in a row) that Carmen was able to get on the plane and left me at the Atlanta airport. Brian said that, in his dream, I was stranded in Atlanta by myself. The entire time this was happening I kept thinking of Brian’s dream and how he’s freaking hexed me. He calls it premonition. I call it bad mojo.
Carmen was a little confused and, in her hurry, she rushed past gate 31. Brian had sent us several texts earlier that day and Carmen had 41 in her mind so she ran all the way there. When I got to 31, I stopped. The lights were off and there was absolutely no one there. I was like, “Where’s everyone?” Of course, I knew everyone was already aboard the plane (which was still there, by the way) but I was expecting someone to be at the desk. As Carmen was walking back to where I was, a Delta rep emerged from the door and came to the desk. It was exactly 9:02 pm. We could see the plane still there and we told her that we needed to get on. She simply told us that the doors were closed and to talk to customer service. She expressed no empathy whatsoever. I don’t think we would have been so upset, except we just ran a 5k in record time through the Atlanta airport and still missed our flight.
We walked to customer service only to find a long line of people. It must have been a terrible day for Delta. The people in line looked angrier and more frustrated than we were. A bunch of people missed their flight to Sydney. The icing on the cake is that as they were pleading with the Delta desk rep to let them aboard the plane, a flight attendant who was running late came running up screaming “I’m sorry I’m late!” They watched in frustration as the flight attendant was allowed to board the plane. Yet, they were at the gate before her and couldn’t get on. At least that wasn’t me in that situation because that would have really pissed me off.
When we finally got to the front of the line, the customer service rep was not helpful at all. We asked if we could get our luggage and she said we could but it could take 4 to 8 hours. Carmen was like, “So we can’t get our luggage?” The Delta rep was like, “I didn’t say that. I said you could, but it could take 4 to 8 hours.” She was quite condescending in her tone and, like the first rep, didn’t express any empathy at all. There was no, “I’m sorry we totally screwed up your plans of arriving home tonight.” Nothing. I was beginning to think that this terrible customer service is not just representative of the kind of service you’d get from Delta, but typical of Atlanta locals. I was really missing the nice, friendly service we’re used to getting in Kansas. It would be pointless to use the hotel voucher they gave us if we’re going to have to wait at baggage claim 4 to 8 hours for our luggage so Carmen and I just said forget it. The woman did give us these amenity kits containing a t-shirt, deodorant, a small pouch of toothpaste, toothbrush, folding hairbrush and detergent. I guess that was something.
Helpless and defeated, we made our way outside the airport to the area where you hop on the hotel shuttles. We took the shuttle service to the Quality Hotel (formerly Ramada Inn). That’s where Delta sent us. I knew that we were in for a bad experience when the hotel rep at the concierge desk didn’t even make eye contact. She simply wrote my room number on the sleeve that the room key slid into and went, “Here you go.” I can’t say I was surprised. At this point, I pretty much figured that while in Atlanta this is all the level of service I’ll receive. The irony is that we were coming home from a Quality Assurance and Training Connection (QATC) conference so we were particularly sensitive to service issues. There were several problems with the hotel, which I will tell you guys about in a separate blog entry. Needless to say it was so gross that we made every effort to find another hotel. Unsuccessful, we ended up staying and leaving first thing the next morning. Our new flight wasn’t until 10:50 am, but we were out of there by 7:00 am. It was so bad that we would rather wait at the airport than spend another minute in that nasty hotel.
At the airport, I got to go through the TSA scanner thing again. I also got a pat down this time. And then they rubbed this paper thing on my hands. I guess it’s to see if I handled any harmful chemicals or something. We used the meal vouchers that Delta gave us to get breakfast. I also picked up some Danish pastries and chocolate croissants since I had some extra vouchers left over. Carmen got some bread. We both agreed that we weren’t going to let Delta off the hook by not spending our vouchers. I used every single penny they gave me. Even then I didn’t feel like it was sufficient compensation for being stranded in Atlanta and made to stay in a nasty hotel. I expected to be home on Friday night to make Kevin and Kasey’s wedding the next day. As it was, Brian barely had enough time to pick me up from the airport and drop me off at our place before heading to the wedding. He actually got there 15 minutes late, but they worked around him. Basically, they just did the photos that didn’t include him first and then took the group and family photos after he arrived. So thank you, Delta for nearly ruining my weekend.
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Fun Thursday Night in Nashville
Posted on October 16, 2011 by Ching under Travel.
NICE sponsored our outing to B.B. King’s Restaurant and Blues Club on Thursday night. We had a great time.
Beer and wine was free at B.B. King’s so we stayed there for most of the evening. The B.B. King All Stars featuring Natasha Young, Carl Steward and Teddy J were awesome. Carmen got all of their autographs.
A couple of the guys from the conference got up on the stage and sang for the rest of our group. At one point in the inviting they invited me and another conference participant up on the stage to make fools of ourselves. LOL.
I had a great time. Can you tell?
After B.B. King’s Carmen, Rich and I went to the Wildhorse Saloon down the street. The door guy was really nice and let us in without paying cover after we told him that we were staying at Opryland. I went straight to the dance floor where they were doing a line dancing lesson while Carmen and Rich got something to drink.
Carmen got out on the dance floor too, after getting her drink.
At one point, she made up a line dance and got everyone to do it with us. It was awesome! We had a great time at the Wildhorse Saloon also.
We didn’t stay out too late, though. We went back to the hotel around 10:30 pm and I think I was in bed shortly after that. The last person to come back to the hotel came back at 4:20 am or so. I believe our group broke last year’s record. LOL.
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