When Hotel Amenities are Useless

I have not posted on my blog for almost three months. Without going into all the gory details—at least not now—let me put it this way. Most people have kidneys that make pee pee. Mine make rocks and little stringy tumors. I'm having my third surgery in 12 weeks on Thursday and, man, I am praying that this will be it for me in terms of doctors for a long, long time.

*

In the meantime, I have just attended The Fourth Annual Applied Learning Conference at Missouri Western State University. The conference was lovely, which is not always the case with academic conferences. But enough about that. The important thing is this. I am staying at the Overland Park Marriott in Kansas City. It is the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in.

I travel a lot. I've been to a lot of places. I cross the country a couple of times a year by car, which necessitates hotel stays. I travel internationally often; I've been to 30 or so countries. So I've slept in a lot of unusual places. Hotels are just part of this. I've slept in airports, hostels, jail cells (not what you're thinking—it was a small town in Mexico, and it was the cleanest place in town), on the side of roads, in buses, in trains, in every room and floor of every sort of flat and house imaginable—all kinds of places. And, yes, the Overland Park Marriott in Kansas City is, without a doubt, the nicest place I've every stayed.

Why is this? For me, a hotel during ravel—any sort of travel—is a utility. It's the place I go when I'm not doing something. I use the room primarily for sleep purposes. When I drive across the country, I've usually got a dog and cat with me and I've been driving for 15 plus hours. I'm more interested in a jacuzzi (I always try to stay in places with a jacuzzi) than amenities like, say, coffee makers or high quality towels or concierge service. Or pretty much anything. After 17 hours on the road, I'll take a jacuzzi over a TV and a coffeemaker.

And when I'm out of the country...well, what exactly is the point of staying in a exceptionally nice hotel? I know people disagree with this. But when I hear someone say “When we were in Paris, we stayed in the most fabulous hotel..” I just think...what the hell are you spending time in your hotel room while you're in Paris? I don't get it. When I'm in Paris, I want to spend as little time in my hotel room as possible. I want to hang in ... Paris. I wants to be so dog tired after enjoying myself in the City of Light that when I get to my hotel room, I collapse in joyous exhaustion. And that's exactly what I do.

Don't get me wrong—I don't stay in fleabag places. But it's not hard to find a functional, decent place. I usually rent apartments. Sharing a bathroom with all the people on a floor is not a problem with me. For the record—the last two times I was in Paris, I rented a one room flat in the Le Sentier neighborhood for about $400-450 a week. It's a multi-ethnic neighborhood—lots of activity. Lots of neat little shops. I like to hang with the locals and walk to the metro and bus lines like everyone else. The apartment is small but impressively clean and has its own bathroom. And I have more money and time to spend in the city. Every minute/dollar I spend on the nice toiletries is time away from drinking wine at the Place du Tertre.

Maybe it's that when I travel I like to, you know, travel. I like to live like a local and find out what a place is like for the regular citizens. (Another pet peeve...when people travel to someplace exotic and stay in in an American chain hotel. I heard a woman talking about Chile—a place I've always wanted to visit—and I asked her about it. “I didn't see too much,” she said. “We were staying at this wonderful Holiday Inn Express, and didn't want to leave.” A Holiday Fucking Inn!) I understand that people recoil when I tell them apartment buildings in Ukraine and Russia often have interior corridors that smell like dog pee. Hey, the dogs aren't stupid...the owners want to walk them in zero degree weather, and the dog defeats this plan by urinating in the corridors before they get to the front door. The apartments I've stayed in have always been well kept and tidy—and usually have funny shaped key; another thing I love about staying in apartments. And cheap. In Kiev, I stayed in a beautiful studio apartment—I had a little balcony that overlooked the river, and I was less than 400 meters from the metro station. It was $160. For 12 nights. The TV pretty much only had Ukrainian channels. But—what—am I in Kiev to watch TV?

Anyway, back to the Overland Park Marriott in Kansas City. 40 inch flat screen, marble counters in the bathrooms, huge work desk. Absolutely, positively the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. (So comfortable I actually asked about the mattress—I'm seriously thinking about buying one of these.) And, yes, a fabulous jacuzzi. But I kind of figure I'm enjoying all of this because my University is picking up the tab and Kansas City...well, I live close enough so it's not some sort of exotic destination for me. I'm still looking forward to my next oddly laid out apartment with peculiar looking keys and funny corridor smells in, say, Istanbul.

Shocking News! Your Teen May Be Lying! About Sex!

Right up there with, “Water is wet!”, here's a shocker. Teenagers have sex! Even when they say they won't!

My favorite part of the article is another breathtaking breakthrough statement.

The study also found that, five years after taking a virginity pledge, more than 80 percent of pledgers denied ever making such a promise. "This high rate of disaffiliation may imply that nearly all virginity pledgers view pledges as nonbinding," Rosenbaum said.

As opposed to all those other binding pledges—I'm thinking of ”I did my homework,” “I'll clean my room,” “If you buy me ____, I'll clean the kitchen for a month”—that teenagers make.

This was a heavily funded (I'm sure) National Study over a period of five years. Five years. Honestly, who comes up with these ideas? Were these "scientists" sitting at a round table, coming up with ideas? I guess so, judging from the other brilliant research undertaken recently.

“I bet that when you eat a bunch of magnets, it's bad for you.* Let's do a study of it!”
“No, Bill, that's not general enough...how about 'Smoking is expensive because cigarettes cost a lot of money'**?”
“Too controversial, Donna. Here's one. Teenagers have sex as they get older, even if they don't think they will.” Nodding around the table. “And we're lucky, there may be some ancillary discoveries...like teenagers will shirk duties and responsibilities they have previously said they would be accountable for!”
Shocked murmurs. “Do you think so, Carl? Isn't it too wild?”
“I don't think so, Donna. And we need to get on it now. This will take at least five years to prove, and I want to get moving on the 'Students at Party Schools like to Party' study as soon as we can.***”


*"Multiple magnet ingestion alert," Radiology, Nov. 2004.
**"The wealth effects of smoking," Tobacco Control, Dec. 2004.
***Sorry, Carl. "What We Have Learned From the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption and the Environmental Conditions That Promote It," Henry Wechsler, Toben F. Nelson, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 69(4):481-490, 2008.

O.L. and Miss Velma Celebrate Christmas

Christmas is about love and family and Religion and “Fairytale of New York” and all that stuff. But for me, for years and years, it was also about Dr. O.L. Jaggers and his wife, Miss Velma Jaggers. They ran the Universal World Church in Los Angeles, which featured the Amazing Golden Altar. It was “amazing” in the way that things you've never heard of are supposed to be “amazing.” It looked hopelessly cheesy on TV.

O.L. and Miss Velma were old school evangelists, straight out of the depression/post depression years. I'm not sure what happened, but they develop a crazy streak a mile long and just as wide. O.L. is providing the narration here...“Miss Velma, who is a crack shot...after this she will play the hand organ!” They shot guns on stage. They had “spectacles.” They drove crazily decorated minibus/golf carts around the Golden Altar. They re-enacted various scenes from the Bible and American history. There were animals on stage. It was a like a 1930s circus crossed with a 7th grade American History textbook as read by a Sunday School teacher on acid. I ate it all up.

One year they advertised. “LIVE!...In church next week!...Jesus!” And our TV screens was filled with a few of their parishioners viewed through a lens covered with Vaseline. It was apparently a first person view from Our Lord. “One week only!” O.L. helpfully announced.

This is just a small sample. I miss them so much. Go with God, everyone.

On Your Radio

I just crossed about two thirds of the United States again, by car, with my pets with me. There's nothing quite like 26 hours in a 2006 Chevy Malibu Maxx with a dog and a cat (and a cat box). And that's for the best.

One of favorite things to do on these trips is spend time listening to AM radio. All the fun is on the AM stations in not very populous spots. When you're driving through relatively isolated areas of the United States—which I do—you realize how much a lifeline to the world that radio still is. On this trip, for instance, I heard:

--“Ed, your dog is running around on Wakita Highway. Put him in, for God's sake..he's not used to being out. It's freezing. Damn, you're stupid.”

--“It's time for Swap and Sell.” Mindy on Route W has a washer and dryer she'd like to swap for just about anything. Let's face it, she's not washing clothes now that the kids are gone.”

--“Bob and Shelly were really busy at the council meeting last night, as usual. They took it to Eddie's afterward, and Eddie had to cut them off after a few drinks.”

These things come in bits and pieces and are hard to find. But Interstate 40 is long and, God knows, I've got time. I hunt these things down.

Satellite Radio is the rage now. I don't get it. If I want to listen to music in the car, I'll listen to...music that I brought, as opposed to someone else's choices. I guess the argument is you don't have to put up with DJs or talk or commercials. Personally, I like the human contact of radio. I like the stories and the news ( as opposed to the “talk” of “talk radio,” which is mainly about yelling and telling people you disagree with what they're doing wrong). And I guess that says something about how far technology has come, that small town AM radio is often about “human contact.” In a world filled with Ipods and Wiis and DSL lines, that's still a good thing.

Best. Christmas. Song. Ever.

Well, I’m not saying anything new or original, but it’s that time of year. And there’s only one Christmas song for me. It doesn't matter how often it's played, or how often it's sung. I still love “Fairytale of New York.”

I love that it’s not filled with traditional Christmas images. I need more sleigh bells jingling and reindeer and snowmen right now like I need needles shoved under my fingernails. “Fairytale” is filled with drunk tanks and cold winds and marital strife. It’s filled with redemption and love. It talks about dancing to Sinatra. It could not possibly be cooler.

I love that it tells a story with genuine emotion, from the opening reflection of love, to the meeting in New York, to the drunken brawl. And in the end, when Kirsty MacColl tells Shane, “You took my dreams from me / When I first found you,” you can’t help but think Ouch; he’s not coming back from that one. So when he trumps her with “I kept them with me, babe / I put them with my own / Can’t make it on my own” and that shattering final line

I’ve built my dreams around you

you can’t help but be happy. There’s enough satisfying closure and genuine joy. All stories should end so well.

At least for the time being. I love that you don’t really know what is going to happen after the song ends. Christmas doesn’t last all year. You return to the real world soon enough.

I love that Shane’s dance with Kirsty at the end of song has become iconic. Kirsty MacColl had terrible stage fright, and she was literally unable perform live for seven years. And she was terrified when asked to perform “Fairytale” live with the Pogues, so Shane went in and told her not to worry, that he would be right there with her. And she sang, and it was great. The dance was a valediction of the faith she had in him.

I hate that Kirsty MacColl died. I hate it so much. I was a fan before she recorded with the Pogues. I was a fan afterward. In an industry of people with tissue-thin substance, she dealt with being told she was too skinny, too fat, not pretty enough, too pretty (for the Pogues), and pretty much every irrelevant thing imaginable. She was a woman funny and self aware enough to comment, when asked about the music industry, “Well, it gets to be little less about music each year, doesn’t it?”

She was killed in 2000 when a speedboat piloted by a drunk Mexican multi-millionaire wandered into an area designated only for swimmers. Everyone there agreed that Kirsty McColl’s final act was to push her son out of the way of the oncoming boat. He had minor injuries. She was killed instantly. I hate that she is gone.

I love it that when the Pogues decided to perform the song live in 2005, they recruited Katie Melua to sing with them, and that she was overcome with emotion as the time of the concert drew near. Like Kirsty, she was afraid to go on stage. And, as he done so many years before, Shane went in and told her it would be all right, that he would be there. And she sang with Shane and they danced together at the end.

I love it that, although “Fairytale” did not reach #1 when in England on its original release, that it climbed back into the top 10 in 2005 when it was rereleased, and that a chunk of the money was given to the “Justice for Kirsty” campaign (the millionaire that killed her has never been brought to trial). And, in the next two years, “Fairytale of New York” became the first song in history to go into the top 10 in three consecutive years. For God’s sake, “Fairytale” wasn’t even released as a single in 2007. It reached #4 on the strength of downloads alone. As of today, it is #19 on the BBC singles chart. I hope it makes the top ten again. I hope it makes the top ten every year.

Yes, I am

One of my students brought his mother by yesterday. The student is graduating in a week or so, and had taken a couple of classes from me. He had done well, and we had a nice teacher/student relationship.

I could tell right away it wasn't going to be the same with the parent. I got the kind of visual once over that Heidi Klum gets on a regular basis, except mine was much less appreciative. What can I tell you? I'm rumpled. I don't wear ties. I have a fast-growing beard that makes me look like I forgot to shave once 2:00 p.m. rolls around.

This sort of situation happens to me a lot. It's worse in the spring and early fall, when I'm still wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts. One parent actually said to me, "You look like Mark Harmon in Summer School" in a frosty, Emily Gilmore voice. "Oh, I liked that movie!" I responded, which was--apparently--the wrong answer. Wrong, wrong, wrong. To be honest, he's better looking, but my shirts are much nicer.

I know I often create these startlingly poor first impressions, because I can sometimes win some of the battle back when I open my mouth. Thank God I have learned not to talk to parents like I'm still at the beach in Southern California. "Dude, The Winter's Tale just rocks!" is not really what parents want to hear from a supposedly effective University Professor. I save that for actual classroom time.

I never get all the way back, though. It's always the nice but slightly puzzled smile in parting, and I can hear the beginnings of the conversation as we walk away from each other. "That is your English professor?"

All-One or None

I use Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap--the original liquid, thanks. I used it off and on for years, and was buying it in California and bringing it here to Missouri until I discovered that my local supermarket sold quarts for $9.00. So for the last six years or so, I've been almost exclusively clean as a result of the products of the the Doc. (Or, as some of my friends put it, "The Pope of Soap." I'm serious; they call him that.)

All of us with an interest in chemical engineering or who saw Fight Club know that most soaps are actually pretty gross, ingredient wise. Commercial soaps are commonly made of rendered fat--usually from animals--and alkali salts. Dr. Bronner's is a Castile Soap, which means it is made from oils, which is significantly less disgusting (you don't get images of showering with chorizo, for instance).

The stuff is really concentrated. In practice, you have to dilute. How much you dilute is up to you, but you definitely have to water the stuff down, as the bottle tells you. Actually, the bottle tells you a lot of things. I'm not going to go into details about the original Dr. Bronner--who was certifiable and, at one point, certified--or his son that has taken over the business and apparently inherited a significant chunk of family eccentricities. There's a documentary that covers all of that. Let's just say the bottles have tons of small type that combine Dr. Bronner's rules for life, religious outbursts, infrequent love poetry, and--occasionally--comments about how to best make use of the soap. Good shower reading, if you ask me.

The stuff is a powerhouse. It seems watery at first, but you can really generate lather. And after using it and seeing how effective it is, it makes you wonder about why liquid soaps have a consistency not unlike Jell-O. Dr. Bronner's cleans better than any soap I've ever seen, doesn't dry skin out, and ends up being cheaper than any soap I've ever seen. It's also weird and different, and that works for me. Thought provoking, effective, inexpensive, weird, and different...what's not to love?

I bought my bottles a couple of weeks ago--two quarts a year gets me through a full year quite nicely. Some people dilute at 12:1, and I've heard of other going as low as 3:1. I'm around 6:1, and I get plenty of bang for the buck. I always use the Peppermint, and have one other scent/type to alternate with it. So I smell pleasantly like a large Starlight Mint half the time. Last year, I had the Eucalyptus, which made me smell like a terrific Cough Drop every other day. I've also used the Lavender (which smells like...lavender) too, but the smell is stronger and a little too feminine for me. The Tea Tree is nice, but the scent is a bit too much like Watery Lipton for my taste. So I chose the Almond this year, and have found that smelling like a big Chinese Cookie is quite nice.