Stark Raving Nomad

Catch-up Post #6 Oranjestad, Aruba, Feb 04 – Feb 08, 2010

Went to Aruba for the heck of it. And it snowed in Washington DC so I was “stuck” in Aruba one extra day. Here are some pics from Aruba (the pictures are on my generalgeneral.com site):

Aruba pictures

So I few all the way down to Aruba. Equatorial, so the sun is intense! DO NOT go outside without SPF1000000 slathered all over your body! I took a five minute walk in the sun and I could feel my skin cooking. Oops. Luckily I dived into building shadows.

I went on a sunset cruise and had SPF 50 on and I had to reapply the gook on my face every ten minutes or so.

I saw people who were more red than the brightest red lobster walking on the beaches. Skin cancer candidates! I wanted to scream at them to get in now! They will be in massive massive pain the next day. Hopefully that’s all that will happen to them. And, hopefully their family members will inspect their skin every couple of months for about a year. (Bob Marley, the Reggae artist, died of skin cancer – on his foot. Yep, so watch out for any lumps anywhere on your skin!)

Aruba is a desert island, so there is nothing to see there other than man made structures there. Plus it’s equatorial, so the sun burns you every time you are out. I don’t think I’ll be back there any time soon (except if it’s a cruise ship stop on a cruise I take in the future AND SPF1000000)…

Catch-up Post #5 Key West, FL, US Jan 28 – Jan 31, 2010

Went to Key West, FL, US to go to the First Annual Food and Wine Festival. It was pretty good. Pictures below (the pictures are on my generalgeneral.com site):

Key West, FL, US pictures

Next year’s Second Annual Key West Food and Wine Festival ought to be bigger and better.

If you know the legend of Captain Tony, I met one of his daughters – she was working at the concierge desk at the Key West Marriott. That was cool. I also made friends with the Barefoot Winery reps. After the wine and food tasting event in the tent was over, they gave me a few bottles…

Yet another catch-up post…

Catch-up Post #4 Bermuda Jan 15 – Jan 21, 2010

Went to Bermuda. Great island. Stayed at the Fairmont Southampton for one night, Fairmont Princess two nights, then back to Fairmont Southampton.

Bermuda pictures
Went all over. Most photos are annotated at the bottom of each photo. Click on the pic above to go to my pic site. Have fun! If you decide to visit Bermuda, you’ll need more than a few days to cover all of the cool places to see…

First in a series. Stupid hotels. Hilton Lisle, 3003 Corporate West Drive, Lisle, Illinois, USA, 60532 is a scumbag hotel.

My friend like to stay in suites. No, not an upgrade, he always get the most expensive suite in every hotel he stays at. Here is what happened in his own words:

“Three weeks ago we had three rooms at the Lisle Hilton (you can only get HHonors credit for two), and they gave me credit for the $300 stay instead of the $2500 stay (which was against their own rules since I was IN the room that cost more).

So, we didn’t stay there this last week (costing them about $1500 in business). Hilton has now fixed the problem, and we now have about 50,000 more points.

However, when I was on strike from Hilton, we tried the Lombard Westin, and we like the hotel far far more. So, for future Naperville stays, we will be at the Westin.   Total loss to the Hilton, probably in the 5-6K range.  And it is all because they tried to get cute with 50,000 points…”

So, there you have it.  We need to teach hotels to shape up.  If you are in the Naperville/Lisle area, skip the Hilton Lisle.  They are not worthy of receiving your money.

NOTE:  My friend pointed out that it may not be the hotels fault but it could be the HHonors computer that hosed up the points.  However, if that’s the case, the entire HHonors point system allocation would be in question due to the software program – that of course is worse becuase it can happen at all hotels then…

After going nomad in December 2009, I took a boatload of pictures at all the places I traveled too; however, due to the massive number of photos, I didn’t get around to post them. So, here they are:

Catch-up Post #3 Washington DC Storm Feb 08 – Feb 12, 2010

I was going to fly that weekend to go to LAX but… a snow storm happened, so I was stuck in DC for the weekend. Everything shut down. The only thing that was open was a Starbucks the first day…

Washington DC Storm pictures

First day was great. Second day it rained and got waaay cold. But no problem, I got my pictures on the good day. (The last three in the series are from the rainy day.)

After going nomad in December 2009, I took a boatload of pictures at all the places I traveled too; however, due to the massive number of photos, I didn’t get around to post them. So, here is:

Catch-up Post #2 Key Largo, FL Jan 07 – Jan 10, 2010

Went to the Marriott Key Largo. I got super-uber upgraded (nice to be a Platinum) and got a multi-room hotel. So of course I took a bunch of pictures of the hotel. Windows from the living room and bedroom were facing the private beach.

Key Largo pictures

First day was great. Second day it rained and got waaay cold. But no problem, I got my pictures on the good day. (The last three in the series are from the rainy day.)

After going nomad in December 2009, I took a boatload of pictures at all the places I traveled too; however, due to the massive number of photos, I didn’t get around to post them. So, here is:

Catch-up Post #1 Biscayne Bay, FL Dec 24 – Dec 27, 2009

Went to the Marriott Biscayne Bay. Nice hotel, right on the waterfront. Or Bay front

Biscayne Bay pictures

Walked around the area and at night I went on one of those dinner/drink cruises. Except for the first three pictues (which was taken from my hotel room), the rest are from the boat (as in ‘boat’ not ‘ship’…)

Okay, here is an updated air mileage map with a few more destinations added. Also made it into a pdf format. (Click on map.)

Back from BayCon Science Fiction convention in Santa Clara, CA (May 28, 2010 – May 31, 2010). Here are pics I posted on my pic site:

BayCon Science Fiction convention pictures

Baycon is a science fiction convention held every Memorial Day. Collectively, even though this was a generic scifi and fantasy con, there were more Steampunk outfits than all of the rest of the costumes combined. But, there still was plenty of variety of costumed people walking around. Surprisingly, the con suite was pitifully small. It was two regular hotel rooms with a connecting door and half the room filled with tables. Not conducive for ‘hanging in the con suite’, so everyone went onto the first floor of the hotel. Programming had a lot of glitches, delays and generally it didn’t fall apart because the fans were waaaay patient. One notable thing I did was that I went to the Klingon Charity Slave Auction for Make-a-Wish Foundation and I did win a round of bidding and got Sarah to do my bidding. That was fun. But the overall con was not as good as what a 28th year should have been, so the rating of the con is 7.0 out of 10.

Back from another Steam Punk convention, Steampunk World’s Fair (May 14, 2010 – May 15, 2010) in Piscataway, NJ. Here are pics I posted on my pic site:

Steampunk Worlds Fair 2010 pictures

This was the first “Steampunk World’s Fair”. New cons usually have a couple of hundred attendees. Not huge. Well, they thought planning for 800 would be a good ballpark number to plan activities around. Unbelievably, over 3000 attendees registered selling out the Radisson and the Embassy Suites next door. The event was smashingly good. No complaints from me. The con had over a dozen live bands, shows and more. Again, as with Anacrocon (below), over 80% of the attendees were dressed in Steampunk garb. Absolutely amazing. And there were dozens upon dozens of vendors. A lot geared up (no up intended) for the Steampunk genre, but a lot that were not quite ready (many had ren, horror, pirate-ware)… Anyway, next year would be a much bigger event, held earlier and should be really really good! All in all, the con has a rating of 9.5 out of 10.