tour

We have completed the first half of our NA tour. Started from the East Coast we are moving West.

Today we woke up at 3:15am, at the airport by 4:30am, through security by 4:55am without body scanning. I have enough of a dose, thank you. 4:56am, triple-shot skim milk latte at SB. That was the best one I had from SB anywhere. Hot, foamy and strong vs the usual watery brown liquid. At the airline check-in counter, I finally realized my membership has been moved up to Silver. Wow, so exciting. NOT. I had to fly that airline in the States. Lesser of the evils out there.

Couldn't complain as we are now both a Platinum & Silver members with upgrade vouchers and all. We got auto-upgraded to Biz class for this East Coast to West Coast trip. Nice, in a sense we were not in coach cramped for hours with peanuts and filthy seats.

We did a station stop at MSP, the central hub of our American airline. Pretty much spent the day w/ iron-wife's sister family. 3 young ones. Energetic. We did brunch, a basketball game, tunnel digging in the snow, iPad demo, Xmas gift exchange, playing with kids. A full day. By 3:45pm we were on the road to the airport. 4:40pm we were on the flight to the West Coast. One Scotch, 3 glass of nice red wine and a chicken dinner and yes, free Wi-Fi on board (thanks G 00g le!), I dozed off most of the flight. The liquid intact was my "sleeping pill". I was gone....... Woke up just in time for landing. A short taxing we were at the Terminal.

Took the BART downtown. What a run-down piece of crap. I was spoiled in China, clean efficient subway and cars. Scary thought! Guess things here were a bit complacent. A $uper p0w er is becoming a 3rd world c0untry, and not knowing it!

Off the train after 45 min or so, 3 blocks of hauling bags and harassed by a bagger we arrived at our hotel. A "Green" hotel that won awards. Orchard Garden (it was such a memorable name I had to look up from my iCal). Walked into our room... Small... Smelly too. As if the guest before us forgot to change socks. The bathroom was about 1/2 the size of the room. The actual room, if my A$$ was any bigger, I could have problem walking between the bed and the desk. The free Wi-Fi... This is SF man, the free meant restricting the speed to 512K. How backward was that? I had to purchase the 1.5M speed! The provider was not the hotel. It was directly charged to my credit card from the provider. The silly part, the programmer didn't even have a drop-down box for country. A 2-alpha box for countries. "CA" or "CH" for China? I am going to cancel my reservation for our return trip next week in SF. Not worth the money. O yes, the gym. Big sign, small room. 2 bikes and 2 treadmills. That was it.

Head spinning... East Coast time, 2:25am Sunday. West Coast 11:25pm Saturday.