I'm a travelin' man.

Like a lot of people, my job requires me to travel from time to time.  Since my company is gracious enough to allow me to stay in hotels and doesn't require me to sleep on park benches, I've learned a lot about hotels and their patrons.  Today, I'll share the good, the bad and the ugly.

The first story is both bad and ugly.

Once upon a time, I checked into a hotel in Chicago.  Or maybe it was Portland.  It could have been St. Louis.  I really can't remember because every hotel front desk and every hotel hallway looks exactly like every other.  At every front desk, there are always three people.  One is checking people in.  Another is talking on the phone.  The third person serves no useful purpose; they are the manager.

Every hotel corridor looks like every other.  As soon as you exit the elevator, you will be greeted by paisley carpeting.  It will be stained.  On the wall, there will be a small sign that indicates that rooms 413 - 429, 435, 6, and 402 - 408 (except for odd numbered rooms) will be to the right.  To the left will be rooms 465 - 432, 589, the exercise room (which will require your keycard but it doesn't matter because you're not going to use it), a broken ice machine and a soda machine capable of maxing out your American Express card.

So, I don't remember where I was.  If it's really that important to you, pretend that I was in Phoenix.

My check in had gone like every other.  I had signed, initialled, showed my ID and my credit card and was given a key to my room.  Or at least, a key to what I thought was my room.  When I inserted the keycard into the lock a second time (they never work on the first try), the green light lit, I pushed on the door handle and instantly became aware of the fact that "my" room was in fact "our" room.

I can't tell you much about my roommate.  I can tell you that he didn't want to share a room as was evidenced by his "GET OUT OF HERE!!"  I can also tell you that he believed that our room was a clothing optional area and that he was exercising the option.  Since he appeared to be busy, I decided that this was not the best time to ask if he wanted the bed by the window or the door.

As I made my way back to the front desk, I pondered the logistics of a hotel reservation system that would allow more than one customer per room.  I have written thousands of computer programs in my lifetime (although none of them hospitality oriented) and I am somewhat familiar with the concept of gathering computer program requirements.  As nearly as I can tell, when this hotel's system was being designed, the following conversation must have occurred.

Computer programmer:  What color should the background be?
Hotel executive:  Beige.
Computer programmer: Password security?
Hotel executive:  At least 6 characters, upper and lowercase, 2 numbers and 1 squirrel sound.
Computer programmer:  Should we limit the number of strangers that can see each other naked?
Hotel executive:  We'll take care of that in the next upgrade.

When I got to the desk, my former roommate had already called and asked that I be reassigned.  When I asked the clerk how two people could have the same room, she just shrugged and said "It happens."  Ponder that for a little while.  And by the way, you know that little metal hook thing that latches over a metal piece so that your door is "really" locked?  It looks like this:

There's a tool that allows hotel management to undo them from the outside.   It looks like this:

But don't worry, I'm sure the bad guys don't have one, just as I'm sure that they're not available on the internet for $29.95.

The good thing about staying in hotels is that you don't have to make your bed, clean your room or wash your towels. Every day, a nice lady with questionable English skills will do everything for you. Her name is "Housekeeping". I know this because whenever I am taking a nap, I will hear a knock on the door and a voice will say "Housekeeping".

Housekeeping is wonderful. She will do all of the things that you would normally have to do and she'll do them with a smile on her face. She will bring you new towels and hang them in the one and only place in the room from whence they must be moved prior to use, the shower. She will rearrange all of the items that you have left on your dresser. She will hide the remote control to your TV. She will give you new hermetically sealed soap that you will have to spend another 15 minutes unwrapping. She does this because you already used the last bar once and just like at home, once you've washed your hands with a bar of soap, you throw it away, right?

She will bring you new bottles of shampoo, conditioner, bath gel and hand lotion. If you're a guy, you'll probably use the bath gel for shampoo (assuming that you brought your Vice Grips with you to remove the Super Glued-on screw tops). If you're a woman, you won't use any of them because you travel with your own personal supply of hair care products. You might take them home with you although you will eventually either throw them away or your husband will use them out of desperation when he runs out of "Great Value Fresh Scent" shampoo.

Your hotel bed will be hard. Not hard as in firm, but hard as in one notch below diamond.

More to come. Right now, it's time for "Big Bang Theory" and it will take me at least half an hour to find where Housekeeping hid the remote.

I'm changing careers - part 1.

After careful consideration, I've decided that it is time for a career change. Although I love my current job (in case my boss reads this), I think that I would make an excellent TV meteorologist.

A meteorologist is what was once known as a weatherman. At some point in weatherman history, it was determined that in order to be more professional sounding, "ologist" would need to be added to the name. "Weatherologist" sounds like someone that can't make up their mind so that name was rejected. Ironically, weathermen are particularly poor at making up their minds. If you were to greet one with "Hey, how's it going?", a typical weatherman would reply "There's a .0000025% chance that I will die today. I'm taking my death precautions."

For those that have never lived in Oklahoma, "precautions" is a word that is always preceded by "tornado", as in "Take your tornado precautions." Weathermen tell us to do this all of the time. No one ever has. In fact, no one has a "tornado precaution" other than going outside to see if the tornado is within visual range.

Weathermen give other peculiar advice in advance of an oncoming tornado. "You need to get as low as possible" is frequently said. In my case, that would mean that I need to get in the crawl space underneath my house. While I'm down there I might as well check my plumbing for leaks. In the event of an actual tornado, I'm fairly certain that the biggest leak would be coming from me.

 People that live in mobile homes are usually told that they need to abandon their homes and get to a "place of safety". Most people think of their home as their "place of safety" but apparently mobile home owners need to eschew that particular line of thought.

The instruction to get to a safe place puts the mobile home owner in a particularly difficult predicament because they are simultaneously told that their vehicles are unsafe and they need to stay off of the roads. Since mobile homes tend to congregate, the only other structures within walking distance are probably other mobile homes whose residents are also supposed to be searching out the mythical place of safety.

So, since walking and driving are out, the only other reasonable transportation alternative is................

helicopters.

Yes, that's right, helicopters.

You might think that a helicopter would be a relatively unsafe to be during a tornado with all the whirling vortexes of death spinning around the atmosphere. You might think that said death vortexes would have an adverse effect upon a device that depends upon consistent air currents as its means of remaining aloft. You might think that a helicopter would be on par with a hot air balloon or a glider as a preferred method of emergency tornado transportation.  You would be wrong.

Whenever a tornado warning is issued, a veritable swarm of helicopter pilots take to the skies in order to locate, chase and televise the potential winds of death, the very same winds that forced you to leave your mobile home or crawl under your house.

So if you don't have immediate access to a cellar, you should get a helicopter. It's the only sure-fire way to reach a place of safety, assuming that it hasn't blown away.

Time to check Craigslist.

In part 2, I'll explain why I'm becoming a meteorologist instead of a System Administrologist.