Monday March 25, 2002

Today is the day; it’s time for another trip to Las Vegas. My last trip was back in December of last year and the last 3 months has gone by so fast I feel like I just got home. It’s quite all right with me though that it went quick since it means it’s time for another trip!

Today I’m flying out of Newark instead of my local Stewart/Newburgh. I’ll be flying on America West on a frequent flyer ticket. This ticket was rebooked from a flight I cancelled last summer.

I left my house at about 10am and headed to Newark, NJ. My flight wasn’t until 2:20pm but this will leave me plenty of time in case of traffic along the way which is common down on the NJ Turnpike.

I got to the Avis rental car return lot at about 11:30. I rented this car from the local airport and drove it down to Newark. It’s cheaper to rent a car each way than it is to park in Newark for 2 weeks and I don’t have to leave my own car in the car theft capital of the world. The rate was just under $40 for this one way rental. I had a 2001 Dodge Intrepid. The car was nice but had over 25,000 miles on it, which is a lot for a rental car. It ran well though other than a shake in the steering wheel when you went over 50 mph. I mentioned this to the guy that handled my return and he apologized for the inconvenience. What inconvenience? Of course he won’t tell anyone else and the next renter will get stuck with a shaky steering wheel.

I had about 3 hours before my flight left so I took my time getting from the rental lot to terminal. The monorail is up and running again here and America West is in terminal A. When I got to the counter there was no one in line. I liked this. No waiting at all to check in. Of course this only happens when I have all the time to wait. If I was in a hurry there would have been a line about 3 miles long. When I got to the counter I was expecting everything to go smooth but it didn’t. First my reservation was messed up somehow. Not really a surprise since when I booked this flight last month the first guy never entered my information. When I called back the next day to confirm I found this out. Good thing I did call back or I wouldn’t have had a reservation at all. The guy finally found my reservation but couldn’t get the computer to ticket it. He called someone and they worked it out but the tickets were wrong so there was more waiting and playing of games. Another agent came to the counter to help out and they told me I had to pay a $75 change fee. I said no way. This is a frequent flyer reward and I can make changes as long as the departing airports and arriving airports remained the same, which they did. She called someone and they waived the fee. “Waived it”? I asked. It shouldn’t have been on there to begin with. I was finally ticketed and had my boarding passes and headed on my way to security.

One note about while I was standing at the check in counter. An old lady and her husband came to the counter. She was the nastiest rudest lady I’ve seen in a while. As soon as she got to the counter she starts yelling in a gravel-like voice. “We or-did 2 wheel chays. Wheya ah they?” Then continues “We have faw bags to check. Theya ova here on da floor.” You get the point. The only thing I wanted to know was why the hell they needed wheel chairs. They seemed to be walking quite well to me. Probably just a ploy so they can board first. Her attitude was really shitty and she was the type of person I wanted to punch in the mouth for being an obnoxious bitch. Of course I didn’t and, never would do such a thing.

Things went quickly at security. They had 3 lines open and each line only had 3-4 people in it. After opening up my laptop and going through the x-ray and walking through the metal detector I was on my way to the gate. I still had about 2 hours to kill and there isn’t a thing to do in this wing of the terminal. I just watched the planes come and go. Then to kill time I looked at the monitors with departing and arriving flights. This is when I noticed something odd. My flight was listed as on time at 2:20pm. Nothing strange here as it was correct. The odd thing was the arriving plane was listed as on time at 2:12pm. So, explain to me how a plane can come in on time at 2:12pm but yet they still have my flight listed to depart on time. Is it possible to have all the passengers get off that plane, luggage and cargo removed, then re-board the plane and put all of the new luggage on it as well as other cargo? I’ll tell you the answer. Hell no it isn’t possible.

We finally boarded and that process went quick. We were on our way in no time. I am on flight 6451 heading to Columbus. This is a small plane operated by Mesa Airlines on behalf of America West. This plane is on a Bombardier CRJ-200. It only has 13 rows with 2 seats on each side with a capacity of 50. There is no meal on this flight. We did get the standard soda and microscopic bag of pretzels. This plane was also filthy. There were crumbs, pretzels, peanuts and other assorted items scattered all over the floor and in every crevice you could see, including all over the tray table.

We landed a few minutes late but I still had plenty of time to make my connection. I connected to flight 195. This flight took off right on time and right now we are flying at about 35,000 feet. Our flying time is over 4 hours but yet there is no meal served on this flight either. We again got the standard soda and a snack. This time everyone was getting a small bag of Gourmet Snack Mix. Of course with my luck they ran out with the guy sitting next to me. I was given 2 tiny bags of honey roasted peanuts.

Right now we are probably only about 1/3 of the way through our flight. There’s not much else going on right now that’s worth mentioning so I think it’s nap time!

We landed and as usual taxied for what seems like forever. Then, as always as soon as I got off the plane you know where my first stop was. Yes, that is correct. The bathroom. Hey, after 4 hours of sitting in a metal tube drinking sodas you just gotta go!

From the can it was on to baggage claim. Things went pretty normal here. I grabbed my bag and headed out to the Alamo bus stop. I have a full-sized car reserved here for 1 week. This may sound odd since I am going to be here for 2 weeks but the weekly rate this week was high. When you rent a car you pay the rate of the first day/week for the whole rental. This trip I have split up the rental car into 2 separate car rentals. The rental this week is $192.84. That’s with a discount code but before a coupon for 1 free day. That’s a coupon worth $27.55. I sure do miss the Entertainment book coupons that offered 15% off the rental. When I got to the Alamo office I knew this wasn’t going to be a good day. The line was really long and they only had 3 agents to handle this. I’m really pissed they discontinued the quick-rent option and from everything I have seen they aren’t taking new customers for Quicksilver. I liked these options as the last 2 times I rented this way I was in and out of the office in less than 5 minutes.

I finally got to the counter and everything was in order. The agent didn’t even try to hard sell me or use scare tactics to get me to buy insurance. I think this is because she might have pulled up my history there and saw I never take it. She only said to me “you don’t take coverage right?” I agreed and I was on my way to the parking lot. I have a bronze Chevy Malibu. This car has over 30,000 miles on it. This is the most mileage I’ve ever had on a rental car and it topped the Dodge I got from Avis yesterday. This car doesn’t have the power the Intrepid had either.

From Alamo I was on my way to Silverton where I will be staying for the next 3 nights on a mailed offer. These nights are of course comped! The mailer also came with a coupon for a $20 credit in the coffee shop and another for $10 in free play.

There was no line at registration and I was on my way to room 1048 in just a few minutes. As soon s I entered the room I could hear trucks zooming by on I-15. This reminded me of the rooms at Main Street Station. I went back to the check in desk and asked to be moved. I was moved to room 3031. This room was identical but without the freeway outside my window. The rooms here are pretty basic. The room is fairly large with a decent sized entrance area. The room has 2 queen beds and a nightstand in the middle. There is also a table and 2 chairs in the corner. It has a 19-inch TV in a TV cabinet/dresser combo. There’s not really much of a view other than the parking lot from this room. The bathroom is very small with little room to move around. There are no extras here. They only offer 1 bar of soap and everything else is in dispensers. There is a lotion dispenser on the wall by the sink and in the shower there is a dispenser with bath gel and shampoo. This is pretty tacky to me right along with the $3 bottles of water they have on the counter.

A look at the clock showed it was now 9:00pm. This was followed by a look at the TV listings. YES! They have TNN and it’s time for RAW. For those don’t know, I’m a fan of the WWF and while I got myself settled into the room I was able to watch the action.

After getting myself settled in and watching RAW it was time to eat. I went downstairs to the Fireside Café for a quick meal. I chose the Bonfire late night special. It’s a chicken fried steak, 2 eggs, hash browns and toast for $4.25. They have a comp system here that you can use your points right at the register to pay for your food. If I’m correct it’s 500 points is $1 dollar in comps.

After eating it was after midnight. 3am according to my body so I decided to skip the gambling for the day go up to the room to wind down and go to bed.

Total win/loss or the day 0
Total comps for the day $40