Adventures in Michigan

Are you serious? Are you fucking retarded?

I fly into lovely Traverse City, Michigan into an airport that looks like something you'd see in the show "Coach". Wood, fireplaces, very quaint. "Place looks legit." I'm on the last flight after flying all day and the lady at the Budget desk is relieved to see she can finally go home. "What car do you want? You are cleared for a PT Crusier or a Dodge Caliber."

Wow. It's like asking do you want you arm cut off at the wrist or the elbow. I mutter PT cruiser based off the fact that that was the shitbox I was stuck with in Boston the week prior. Utterly disgusted I work my park through the lot baring the subzero temperatures and drive off to the hotel.

The Hampton Inn is on my left and I pull in and check in. The best thing I can about this place is that it's about 1 mile from the airport and 3 miles from where I have to be. The retard working the desk asks for my information and I rattle it off to him; amazed he hasn't asked for any credit card information. As a matter of fact, they still haven't asked and potentially I can just take off without a trace anytime apparently.

I take the elevator to my room on the second for, taking note of the new furnishing they've done. The hotel can't be more than a few years old and I unlock the door to my cell for the next two week. The first thing i see on the far wall is a desk/closet, fully decked out in a varnished oak veneer. I've never see so much wood in a hotel room since that orgy at Corey Feldman's New Year's coke party. I scan the rest of the room. A 32" LCD television, couch, king bed, chair, adjacent to the bed are nightstands, dresser, bathroom. Talk about bare essentials. Nothing makes you feel more at home than the absolute minimum requirements to live. Luckily, by this time its midnight and I can get a solid 6 hrs of sleep before I have to wake up. As I lay down, and I turn the television on and it's default page is the hotel channel, explaining how I can watch dirty movies discretely at my leisure as a pop cover of Joe Cocker sounds in the background. This was the highlight of my trip. I soon realize I am not tired whatsoever; between sleeping on the flight and the 3 hour time change. I get about 3 hrs of sleep...

Nothing wakes you up more than a nice cup of coffee in the morning and, man, I wish I had one. I love the hotels that skimp so much that they can't even give you coffee you've ever heard of. It the sort of things in a penitentiary cafeteria, or some free coffee they might offer to someone at a low budget convention. The utter disgust for the swill going down my throat woke me up more than the caffeine. I've never had such bad coffee. It was like Maxwell house mixed with bile. Terrible stuff.

I have this thing with hotel rooms and my friends will attest, I wither max out the temperature hot, or cold, I refuse to be "comfortable". This particular case, the max temperature settign is 90 degrees, weak. Nonetheless, 90 it is. I scurry to the shower to see if maybe hot water will wake me up better than the dog-assed liquid in the coffee maker but to no avail. I fumble with the sliding glass door as I think to myself, "I wish I brought WD-40." Then I realize the basic errors in the construction of the sliding doors and lubricants would not aid the ease of this situation. "Fuck these doors" was a common phrase exiting the shower on a daily basis. As I dried myself, I thought "Goddamn its cold, I wish some of that 90 degree heat would trickle into the bathroom" and I remember being impressed abotu the insulation the bathroom had from the rest of the room. I open the door in my towel to get the clothes from my suitcase and nearly shit myself. Godfuckigndamn was it cold! I rushed to the thermostat which was still set at 90, ran to the heating unit and found out that this bastard was prolly pumping out air in its 50's. Are you serious? Are you fucking retarded? I'm not sure how HVAC units work in their entirety but let me tell you about the one in room 229. This thing comes out about 4 times a day for intervals of about an hour. 6 am, noon, 6 pm, and midnight. I should also mention it sporadically shits out air randomly also. This thing starts out by pumping out sub-60 temperatures for about 10 minutes then clicks on to the set point temperature, never fully reaching an ambient air temperature of the set point. Who cares about being warm inside when its 0 outside? I later actually had to change my alarm time earlier so I could dry myself prior to this cold blast at 6AM. So I lost an extra half hour of sleep. This temperature thing worked real well cuz I like sleeping on top my covers, after falling for this temperature thing for a few nights I later had to go under the covers when I slept as to not wake up freezing fucking cold.

This worked out real well, cuz I think they add fucking Comet to their sheets when they wash them cuz I began scratching my legs uncontrollably in the night and woke up with scars all over my legs. This leaves me with 3 options. 1.) Freeze my ass off over the covers. 2.) Bloody legs 3.) No sleep. I chose the latter. I've been getting about 4 hours of sleep a night, if even and its really starting to affect me. I'm not saying I'm spoiled but this is the worst hotel I've ever stayed in, and I've stayed in some dumps in Niagra Falls man. No fridge, no work area, unless you mean that desk that barely houses my laptop, and a channel selection that rivals my parents antenna back home.

Other things to consider is that I recently reformatted my computer and neglected to reload Office on there which I desperately need. They have a community computer that I can work from here, but I have to learn the quirks of Office 2007 and luckily, since its a public computer, they've lot a lot of the functions out in Excel. Apparently, changing the scale on a graph can really fuck with the computers performance. This place is miserable. The town is close to a joke. I've right off of Lake Michigan which would be splendid it it wasn't frozen over, give wind chills in the sub zero temperatures. (Finish Him!)

I also have the the wonderful opportunity to eat all the fast food I can eat, for free, expensed by the company. I've actually chosen to starve, not counting the occasional Arby's trip, delicious.

Rotten trip. Can't wait to get back.

Oh God, here comes another cold blast of air.

Love you guys,
Tatters

Don't forget Tatter's trip to OB Saturday for the Pub Crawl!

Where do I go next???

It seems like I just got back from India yesterday and already im on the move, the next destination, the luxurious Traverse City, Michigan; do not cry, I already know I'll be missed. Ill be gone February 15-28th. Then, during the summer at some point, date to be determined, I'm headed to Switzerland to head up some chocolate watches that apparently are all the rage, and taste like cheese. If all goes as planned, I will be working most of the time, like I did when I was in England. Until next time, everyone keep rockin' and let us not forget the immaculate words of Henry David Thorough, "When life gives you aids, make 'lemonaids'."