Nobrainer’s Think Tank

This is the most recent clip of him I could find.

I put this book on my wish list on a whim after I heard an appearance by Larry Miller on the Mike O’Meara radio show. I was listening to the show with atypical attention because, at the time, I was stuck in a mile-long string of cars waiting for, what I later found out to be, a very slow train to clear a crossing. While listening, Larry’s voice sounded very familiar but I just could not place it. I knew I knew it, but I didn’t know why or from where. Regardless of who he was, he seemed funny and he plugged his book. Later it came to my attention that I best knew Larry as Dean Phillip Elias, the dean of the Texas State University Armadillos in the movie Necessary Roughness. Someone (I already forget who) bought the book for me. So that’s how I got it. (Larry may also be recognized as the author of the 5 Stages of Drinking )

Anyway, Larry is a funny guy and it comes through in his writing. The books is basically a collection of humorous essays, which combine to give you the perspective of a conservative Hollywood actor. The book is largely enjoyable and funny. And good. It gets better as you get deeper into the book, a trait that many books wish they had. However, I don’t recommend it very highly. It’s a good book but not a great one. I suspect that you can get plenty of Larry’s material, which is probably easier to digest, for free on the internet. Overall, 3 stars out of 5.

[Amazon.com - Spoiled Rotten America]

Well, I’m back in Virginia after a late flight seemed on the verge of turning into a red-eye.

So my first Boo is for Southwest. I’m not at all mad that the trip to Portland involved 5 flights and 6 airports; the weather couldn’t be helped. I’m not even so much mad that the 2nd leg of my flight yesterday, which departed from Vegas, was delayed by over two hours (safety first, you know). But I am mad that when we landed in Chicago we were informed, contrary to the prior plan, that we had to switch planes, and that there was of course no reason to worry about our luggage. You can see where this is going. None of the people who flew from Vegas to Midway to Dulles got their bags. And I’m still waiting. I should also add that we had to wait 2 full days in Portland to get our bags. [Update: got the bags around 5PM, my bags anyway. Rachel's are yet to be found.]

My 2nd Boo is for FedEx. I was expecting a package in Portland. It arrived somewhere in Portland on Monday the 23rd. It apparently sat motionless for 7 full days.

My 3rd Boo is for UPS. UPS was also have shipping problems. I guess this is not unexpected given the horrible, horrible road conditions in Portland. However, by the end of the week at least the mail was running. Plus just about every yahoo with chains was about to locomote. On the upside, UPS gets some credit over FedEx for providing more timely updates on the status of the package’s delivery process. On the downside, the updates frequently consisted of “today’s not looking too good, either” (maybe that’s not exactly how they said it).

Some dumbass showed up at an auction for gas and oil leases. He then bid up prices on many parcels and won auctions for many others. Says the dumbass:

“One of the parcels I took was for $2.25 an acre,” he said. “That’s shocking — that we can sacrifice our public lands for as little as $2.25 an acre.”

What’s shocking to me is that the environmentalists are unwilling to spend $2.25 an acre to preserve public lands from evil oil and gas developers.

The original plan: DC to Vegas to Portland on Sunday.

Fortunately the weather and everything in DC/Dulles was good. We landed in Vegas in high spirits and our flight was shown as on time. Well eventually that flight got cancelled because the reported runway traction in Portland was approximately zero. We went and stood in the “you’ll be helped at gate C19″ line. After about a half hour, I hopped out of that line in search of any Southwest gate without a line. I found one and in no time we were scheduled to fly to Reno Sunday and Reno to Portland first thing Monday morning.

We stayed in the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa, which is about 2 miles from the airport in a 2-room suite for $32. It’s a tough life, I know. I’m kinda sad I didn’t get to take advantage of all the resort had to offer and I do want to go back.

Monday we discovered that it had snowed overnight. We made it to the airport. We waited. The flight was delayed. We waited. The flight was cancelled. We freaked out a bit. While waiting standby for a noonish flight we researched options but couldn’t book anything that worked (Boo to Orbitz for listing flights then saying later that they’re unavailable). As part of the research, I was told by some Southwest people that waiting was my only real choice and that even thought I thought it made sense to fly to Spokane, it was definitely a bad idea. The noonish flight was of course delayed and eventually cancelled.

At that point we felt pretty screwed. We decided that going to Spokane, if we could make it, wasn’t too bad since there’s some chance of driving from there to Portland. I inquired with an agent about available seats going to Spokane. There was a soon-departing flight to Boise-to-Spokane and one a little later to Oakland-to-Spokane. Boise-to-Spokane he said wouldn’t work. He could get us from Reno to Oakland but that we’d be standby from Oakland to Spokane. I gave the options to Rachel and her dad had just advised that if we got to California we would also be able to drive. Oakland to Spokane it was!

I ran back to the gate where I got the information, was helped by a different person who managed to get us actual tickets for both legs of the flight.

Soon we were on our ~30 minute flight to Oakland.

Oakland’s airport was much bigger and nicer than I expected. And actually the aerial views of Northern California made me want to just stay there.

When we found our gate at Oakland, we discovered there was a flight to Portland leaving 30 minutes before us from the same gate. Unfortunately there was no chance to switch to that flight, and it didn’t matter anyway because that flight got cancelled. There was speculation that the weather in Spokane would be too bad for us to fly in. However, our plane showed up, loaded, and took off. Hooray!

We landed in a very snow covered Spokane about 2 hours later, around 7:45PM. The reported outdoor temp was 8 degrees. We were excited to be closer to Portland, but we weren’t super excited to be in Spokane, nor were we too excited to possibly drive to Portland, nor were we super optimistic that we’d actually be able to get on a plane to Portland the next day.

The Spokane airport, unlike every other airport we had been in, wasn’t packed with people waiting to fly out, presumably because no one had really been able to fly in. The concourse was pretty empty and we quickly positioned ourselves in front of the departure monitors. Much to our surprise and happiness, there were two flights to Seattle due to leave in short order. So we ran back to Southwest gate and asked about getting on one of the flights. The first flight was beginning the boarding process, and was scheduled to be full with long stand-by list. However only 100 people had checked in, meaning there were about 30 seats available.

In short order my boarding pass to Seattle was being printed. Rachel’s boarding pass didn’t print. Due to some snafu, it wasn’t going to print either. The agent took a blank pass, wrote Rachel’s name on it, and told us not to worry. 10 minutes later we were back on the same plane we had just gotten off of.

I kinda wish we had asked to be on the second flight. We were going to have to wait once we got to Seattle anyway, and I’m pretty sure that the second flight would have been completely empty.

Anyway, it was another short flight, about 40 minutes, and I got a free beer. And then we were in Seattle and it was about 9PM.

Rachel’s dad and brother left Portland in their car around 8 when we informed them of our flight to Seattle. We expected to see them around 11 so we stopped to get dinner and began the waiting process. It turns out that roads were worse than we had been lead to believe. Our drivers showed up after midnight. Even though they had gotten to the airport earlier, the pick-up area had a very long line. The pick-up area also had many idiots doing stupid things that helped clog up traffic. Some people had no problem stopping and waiting in the 3rd lane of traffic.

It then took about 5 more hours to get to Portland. The streets here are completely snow covered. I’m rather amazed that we made it at all. But we did and I couldn’t be happier about it. I don’t know how we made it work, but we did.

Things have changed a lot since the last post. We made it Reno, stayed in the nicest $30 hotel room I’ve ever been in, missed out on the benefits of Reno and spent most of the day at the airport watching flights to Portland get cancelled. We’re now in Oakland and hoping to hop on a plane to Spokane soon.

Spirits are still high, and soon I hope to be high on spirits.

So far everyone has been pretty polite. Except for one lady who got pepperoni on her pizza and proceeded to flip out. I think security took her to an extra special secret room somewhere in the depths of the airport.

Merry Christmas!

UPDATE: Well, 24 hours later, or so, it’s 5:33AM local time. Rachel and I just made it to her parent’s house via a creative Reno-Oakland-Spokane-Seattle-drive-the-rest-of-the-way route. I’m exhausted.