Vegas Trip Hitch #2

The reason I couldn't get the online check-in to work is because I was on some kind of security watch list and my confirmation number was blocked. The way you get off of such a security watch list appears to be simply showing up to the ticket counter and giving the clerk your I.D. She'll walk off and do something and then come back 10 seconds later and smile and give you your boarding pass and send you on your way. That's it. No special checks. No cotton swabbing of the carry-on bags. No probing with the little electric paddle thing. Nada. If you're not going to let me check in online, at least DO SOMETHING to me for putting me through the hassle of having to get all the way up to the ticket counter.

Ok, now for Hitch #2: I have this piece of crap, green cotton jacket that I absolutely love. Got it in SoCal for like $30 a couple of years ago and I've tried to wear it almost everyday since then. I decided to bring it along on the trip so I could wear short sleeve shirts in the casinos where it would be pretty warm and then wear a jacket as we walked outside in the cold (upper 30s- lower 40s) from casino to casino.

So I'm wearing my favorite jacket in the airport and I get on the plane and I think, "Man, it's going to get hot on this flight. I'm going to put my jacket in the overhead compartment." I get up to throw it in the bin, but the one above my head is full of oxygen bottles and the music and movie system stuff for the plane, so I have to put it in one a couple of rows back.

Fight to Vegas goes off no problem and as I'm gathering up my stuff to get off the plane, I rememeber my jacket in the bin. I walk back to get it and it's gone. Shit! One of the other passengers notices the look on my face and asks if I'm looking for something. So, I tell him, and he looks and it's not there. Shit! Then he says, "Wait a minute, here's a green jacket" and hands me a jacket he picks up off the floor in the row right below the bin. I'm thinking "Sweet! My jacket!"

No. The piece of crap, green cotton jacket he hands me is a youth small. Buddy, do I look like a "youth small" kind of guy?

So, before even getting off the plane, I've already started losing the clothes off my back. Not a good sign.

-dma

What? That's it? You spent a long weekend in Vegas with He Who Boogied With Lamar and all you've got is "I lost my coat on the plane"? I want some goddam scandal!

-Tyler

Vegas Trip Hitch #1

You knew these were coming.

The airline allowed my wife to check in online. As for me: "invalid confirmation number." This is somewhat disconcerting since I bought both tickets with the same credit card at the same time and we have the same confirmation number. Worked for her no problem. Does not work for me at all.

Calls to Customer Service have resulted in a useless string of numbers and letters which were too long to fit in the confirmation number box. Despite my explanation that I already had a working confirmation number, that it was 12 characters long, and that the box on the web page only held 12 characters, the customer service girl insisted that my confirmation number was really another number entirely, that it was 15 characters long, and if I just entered it that it would work. So I did--and it did not.

I was then transferred to "Tech Support" and their solution was that it would be best if I just speak to someone at the airport ticket counter about this issue when I check in. A crack team of troubleshooters those tech support guys.

Stay tuned.

VEGAS: The Pitch

In just about a day or so, SRL and I will be leaving for Vegas. Right from the start, I want everybody to know that I have learned my lesson from the "Lamar Gets His Man" incident. Yes, I will have my digital camera with me at all possible times.

I will be escaping the ice and snow and rain and sleet and whatever else is cold and wet and can fall out of the sky from the midwest for the sun of the Vegas desert. SRL will be escaping that "conference" he's been drying out at in Salt Lake City (a paradoxical land where men have multiple wives with strict morals) for some long-overdue debauchery and "naked boobies." This should be interesting.

Oh, and the wives will be going as well, so that should add some kind of something to the mix. Or as Podd so elegantly put it to me on the phone this afternoon, "Maybe you can have a four way! (long uncomfortable pause) Um, I mean with you and the wives and a hooker."

Nice save Podd.