Back to the Reality

Ahhhh yes I'm back in NY, I landed yesterday around 5:30am and it's that "horrible" feeling of coming back from a nice "vacation."  Going to Cali wasn't a vacation when I go during Holy Week, it's time spent with the other BNP people from all over the world and it's definitely a great way to jump start that spiritual part of your life and is always a great experience. 

The day started out with us landing in JFK and the rain welcoming us back to NY.  One of the worst parts of being at the airport is waiting for checked-in luggage!  I don't check luggage in but I had to wait for everyone else that had their bags checked.  That's the worst when you're sitting there just waiting for the belt to start spinning ... and it's even worse when your luggage just happens to be one of the last ones to come out of that chute.  Here it is about 6am now and the belt starts, people are crowded around it shoulder to shoulder waiting for their bags to come.  I find it funny how some people stand about 10 feet away from the belt and hope to snag their bag up when it comes out.  There was one guy who had that hope ... as his bag came out of the chute he seems it and instantly bounces up from sitting against the wall.  Now his bag is on the belt and as he's slowly walking parallel to it there is a wall of people in his way until he finally finds that small opening, just big enough to get his hand through.  It was with his skills that he was able to grab one of the straps on his duffle bag ... but now comes another problem!  He has to pull the bag out of that small opening ... while other bags are still coming and about to push his bag further down.  Sounds like a video game huh???  Now the success of this plan lies in how heavy his bag is and how strong he is.  If he's not that strong and his bag is too heavy for him to pull with three or four fingers on the strap, then he loses.  His bag will get swept away with the other bags and he'll have to wait for it to come back around.  But fortunately for him the combination of his strength and weight of his bag was perfect and he was able to snag his bag and pull it out of that small opening from the wall of people.

We all know that feeling of taking a "nap" because we're so tired but then when we wake up from that short sleep we feel so much worse!  It was about 6:30am when we got home and I changed real fast into house clothes in hopes of getting some sleep in my bed for an hour or two ... but saw what became of my room for the past week.  A bad part of "vacationing" for me is that when I leave Shadow (my dog) alone, I think he gets mad at me ... either that or he just has some problems with his butt.  He greeted me as happily as he could when I came in the door, but when I looked into my room, I saw what he had been doing for the past week.  He was virtually alone except when my brother was there feeding him, so there was no one to take him out to do his business when nature called.  I won't go into detail but if you want to know what it was like, it's similar to the movie Dumb and Dumberer.  That scene when younger Lloyd was in the bathroom with a Hersey bar in his back pocket and it melted on the radiator.  The chocolate went everywhere and when the father (Bob Sagat) later went into the bathroom he saw the chocolate everywhere but thought it was something else and all you could hear him yelling was that "he sh*t everywhere!  ... Look what he did he sh*t all over the wall!"

I ended up sleeping on the rug in the living room and couldn't fall asleep for a while, I wish I just got up and started cleaning up instead of trying to knock out.  But I did end up falling asleep and woke up around 10am and had to be at work by 9:30am.  Woke up with that feeling of "damn I wish I didn't sleep" but somehow made my way to work.  I don't even remember what happened at work ... the day went by and I had volleyball that night but wasn't sure if I was going to make it.

Going home on the train, you know you're tired when you knock out immediately after sitting down.  Also, when you wake up because your face is cold from the drool dripping down your chin and down your neck.  Yes I was drooling ... again.  Ended up missing my stop and the only reason I woke up was because I had one big snore and it made me jump to see that I passed my stop. 

At home I cleaned up the mess in my room and ended up weighing myself ... it wasn't surprising to see the results.  I knew that I had gained some weight during the trip and it was about eight or nine pounds, you'll find out why later with all the food that we ate while there.  So I had to go to volleyball to try and work some of this new poundage off! 

Back to the daily grind ... wishing I was in Cali or going back soon.  Now I have more time to blog, blogon!

+ mon

Hyatt Discounts

There I was in my room at 1am trying to find a nicer or cheaper hotel for my Holy Week trip in April to Cali.  I was checking around and found the HYatt at Ontario Mills which seemed like a really nice place to stay.  The prices were pretty high at abotu $130 a night, but then I saw this little "guaranteed lowest rate" link on their site saying that hyatt.com will have the lowest rate online, and if it doesn't, then they will match whatever lower rate you did find and discount it another 20%.

That actually wasn't hard to find and found it using expedia.com where it was cheaper.  Called the number to get the low rate guarantee and spoke to Tori.  Gave her the details of my trip and told her where I found the lower price ... she put me on hold.  And there I sat on hold ... for about 15 minutes.  I was here wondering if this was their technique, that when you call you tell them that you found a lower rate and you want them to match it and 20% off, that they will just put you on hold for x number of minutes until you hang up or your battery dies.  Well ... my battery started to die and I had to find my charger to make sure that it didn't.  She finally came back on the line telling me that she was doing paperwork for the discount and I was correct with the 20% ... then she put me back on hold for another 10-15 minutes again!  Here I was twidling my thumbs and just waiting, at this point I thought they were changing their site to get the same price and get out of the ad they put up.  She finally comes back and takes my reservation for about $85 a night (not including taxes and fees), well that was a huge drop from the $130 a night that I originally was quoted at!  

So the lesson for this is ... do some research when booking online at hotels, cars or anything.  You can find coupons, and deals, and you can also find low rate guarantees like this!

I think part of the reason they put these guarantees up is because a lot of people are reluctant to call.  At first I didn't want to call them and ask for the discount because I thought I might be wrong, or that it might label me as a cheapskate.  But really who am I to care what they think?  And it's saving me money!

The hotel looks nice and looking forward to the trip in April.  Good to get a discount on it too ... I might actually call my car rental place to ask for a discount or a deal :)

+ mon

Working for the Weekend

This has been on my mind for a while now, and well it's not that I'm ungrateful for having a job in these "hard economic times" but it's just the anatomy of the job and what it entails and takes you away from.

We'll take the typical office job into consideration, say from 9am till 5pm. 

So here we are at 7am in the morning waking up and getting ready for work, because we also have to factor in the travel time so that we can make it into work ontimat 9am.  The day ticks away and we're here pounding on the keys of this board, going to meetings, meeting clients, reading emails, etc etc.  As the clock ticks, 5pm finally comes around and we're ready to get outta here and head on home.  Given that this is the rush hour and everyone rushes to get home, we get to our front door at about 6:30pm.  Now just because we're at home means that work is behind us, we have to get out of that work mentality and change and get comfortable for our life at home.

7pm is when we're in our house clothes and finally comfortable.  Now it's time to cook, watch tv, spend time with the family.  The clock hits 10pm or 11pm ... uh oh it's time to go to sleep now because we have to wake up at 7am to start the work cycle again.

Now taking a look at that, we spend about 12 hours a day either getting ready for or from work, being at work and traveling to and from work.  That's 12 hours, 7am to 7pm.  Then we have 3 or 4 hours to "relax," watch tv, spend time with the family, or whatever we have in mind before we have to hit the sack to get enough rest for us to make it through the next day.

What is that?  We only have a quarter of the time to spend at home during the week to be with our families, to relax and get away from work???  That's ridiculous, seriously it is. 

My boss always talks to us about quality of life is what's important, and what kind of quality of life is that when you come home at 7pm and spend the smallest amount of time with your kids and family.  I've always said that it's so much better to be working at a job that doesn't pay a lot, but does give you the time to be with your family and friends. 

The ideal job is to work on the beach and sell drinks.  The money probably isn't that great, but you're relaxed and you have time to be with the ones you love. 

Whomever invented the "work week" is an idiot!  Yes I said it!  Why couldn't they come up wtih a more balanced approach, 4 days of work and a 3 day weekend, or vica versa. 

Gotta love working for the weekend, us being behaved little robots for those 5 days gives us the reward of having 2 days to ourselves, awwww isn't that great!  This doesn't even take into account overtime, and those who are tied to their jobs with their ever so wonderful Blackberry's. 

Ahh well, back to work for me, another 9 minutes of regular time and probably some more overtime here.

+ mon