Please Stop...

We had a great vacation last week.

Pennsylvania is lovely and the countryside surrounding the city of Lancaster particularly so. Over the course of seven days, we managed to visit historic Philadelphia, HersheyPark, the Julius Sturgiss Pretzel Factory, Luray Caverns, and we even found time one morning for breakfast at IHOP. Incidentally, blueberry cannoli pancakes should be permanently emblazoned on every IHOP menu from now through the end of eternity. If you haven’t tried them yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

For some reason, the soundtrack to our family “Road” movie included quite a bit of Journey. 

Turn on the radio and there’s “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” Pull into a gas station and get greeted by “Wheel in the Sky” from overhead speakers. Sit down in a restaurant booth and you’re tapping along to “Any Way You Want It” before you consciously acknowledge the song is even playing.

Now, if Journey had never formed as a rock band and later devolved into a lightweight video power ballad band my life wouldn’t be any the lesser for it, but I am not a Journey hater. I don’t hold a grudge against Carlos Santana for suggesting to Neal Schon that he start his own group, and I don’t harbor ill will toward MTV for the thousands of times it replayed the horrifically horrible video for “Separate Ways.” 

I freely admit to enjoying the group’s music. Show me any person in his or her forties who claims to never have attempted to match Steve Perry’s wailing voice in “Faithfully” while sitting alone in a car and I’ll show you a big fat liar.

Regardless of my enjoyment of the bands numerous hits, there was one Journey song that kept popping up round every corner during our trip, most especially during our two days at HersheyPark. You couldn’t hide from it, shut your ears to it, or put it out of your mind because the song, continuing its rise up from the ashes of clichéd eighties pop culture, refuses to die.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” -- apart from being one of several song titles that suggest Journey had a passionate distrust of the letter “G” -- is one of the more commercially successful covers by the cast of Glee, a show single-handedly responsible for convincing teens around the globe that all high schools have the budgets and technical ability to stage professionally choreographed karaoke competitions. This has led to all cover bands everywhere, even Death Metal cover bands, adding the song to their portfolios of musical butchery.

There was the Dueling Pianos show at HersheyPark that featured the song. Three talented pianists in bright suits who worked it into their 30-minute performance of piano-based pop tunes. Passable.

Fifty feet away was the all-girl cover band, Patty and the Peppermints, that featured the song. Six or seven young women in dire need of a properly functioning sound board and at least one band member with the ability to tune an instrument. Mildly annoying.

Then there was the roaming street trio that attempted the song. Three aspiringly disengaging waifs with instruments on loan from the Toys ‘R Us throwback collection. Intolerable.

At this point, I’m just happy to be home where I have more direct control over the soundtrack of my life. Until, of course, Our Daughter hops in the shower and cranks up the teenage tunage. What are the chances that’s actually Journey singing "Don't Stop Believin'?"

© 2014 Mark Feggeler

A Blowout, 3 Tow Trucks, and Grease Monkey Fairies

Ryan from AAA probably didn't expect a long conversation when he called Friday at midnight to ask if we were completely satisfied with the service we had received that evening. He surely must have been expecting something along the lines of:

    Ryan: "Are you completely satisfied with your AAA experience?"

    Me: "Yes."

    Ryan: "Great. Thanks. Goodbye."

To be fair, Ryan might be a great guy. Probably a good family man, or a clean-cut college kid, with a good moral compass fixed deep inside him. And his only involvement with our situation the other night was to perform a simple follow up survey. In no way did poor Ryan deserve the verbal thumping he was about to receive, but things don't always go the way they should.

THE SET UP

At 9:00am Friday morning, we loaded up our Honda Odyssey and left the sweltering clamminess of Long Island for the slightly less clammy sweltering of North Carolina. Our vacation was over and it was time to head home. The trip went well until we got south of Washington, DC, and joined all the traffic heading down I-95 to the Virginia beaches. We lost almost two hours in stand-still stop-and-go before breaking free of it in Richmond. The rest of the way should have been smooth sailing.

Then, about 10 miles east of Raleigh, as I was reaching 80 mph in the passing lane, a boom like a cannon blast shook the van and it felt like we'd hit a major pothole. Our speed dropped rapidly and steering got a little dodgy. Within seconds we were at a standstill on the left shoulder with a blown rear driver-side tire. That was 7:35pm Friday night.

THE RESPONSE

The first indication of our impending drama was, initially, merely laughable.

When My Lovely Wife called AAA to report our blown tire, the dispatcher taking the call was unreasonably fixated on whether or not we had already traveled through, or were in, or were anywhere in the vicinity of, Spring Hope. Having never heard of Spring Hope, we instead focused on the facts we did know, which were that we had broken down on 64 bypass heading west and could see exit 427 through our windshield.

Unimpressed by our specifics, the dispatcher continued to ask about Spring Hope. Why? I don't know. Maybe Spring Hope has a really nice old-fashioned soda fountain somewhere along its main drag the dispatcher thought our kids would enjoy while we waited for service, or maybe the town has grease monkey fairies that pop out of cocoons in the roadside shrubberies to assist AAA Plus members with blown tires.

Whatever the reason, the dispatcher's inability to plot our location on the map was cause for concern. If there is any organization in this best of all possible worlds I expect should be able to pinpoint my location when I tell them what road I'm on and what exit I'm next to, it's the Automobile Association of America. A five-year-old with an iPod could've Googled our location based on the details we offered, but apparently this AAA dispatcher didn't have internet access, a functioning computer, a printed map, or any measure of innate common sense.

After five minutes on the phone, all we were able to establish was she didn't know where we were, we didn't know where Spring Hope was, and our hope of speedy service was flushing noisily down the drain.

THE LUG NUT

Not to drag out an otherwise lengthy tale, but let's speak briefly about Honda's infamous locking lug nut.

It's a special lug nut that requires a key. The idea behind the locking lug nut is it deters thieves interested in stealing generic tires off unsexy vehicles like the Honda Odyssey. Honda gives you the key when you buy the vehicle, so in a case like ours we can unlock the locking lug nut, remove the remaining standard lug nuts, and remove and replace the damaged tire.

But what happens when that key breaks and simply spins without unlocking anything?

That's right, the tire becomes irremovable, irreplaceable, and Honda's brilliant anti-theft device becomes inconveniently irritating. What should have been a twenty-minute stop to swap out the blown tire for the donut in the trunk became a tow job, but not just any old regular tow job. No, sir.

Because the tire in question was a rear tire, traditional towing was no longer an option and we required a flat bed truck to carry our van home.

THE TAILSPIN

In addition to now requiring one of the larger vehicles in the towing service's fleet, the fact there were five of us to be transported home along with our van complicated matters. We quickly learned from the driver of the first tow truck that showed up about AAA's policy of transportating the vehicle, the driver, and maybe one other person. Anyone else traveling with us would need to take a shuttle service or taxi. I'm not exactly certain how much an 82-mile taxi ride from Knightdale to Pinehurst might cost, but I'm willing to guess it ain't cheap, so I asked to speak with the supervisor of Spring Hope's number one fan to express my dissatisfaction.

To the supervisor's credit, she spent much of the next two-and-a-half hours trying to work out a resolution to our problem. To her discredit, she left us stranded for two-and-a-half hours on the left shoulder of a major highway with no confidence she knew what she was doing, a tow truck driver just as baffled as we were, and three kids who needed to go to the bathroom.

We had developed a deep and profound relationship with the supervisor by the time we received word of AAA's final solution to our situation . Over the course of at least six conversations we had laughed, cried, struggled through conflict, and argued passionately.

GETTING HOME

Short after 10:00pm, we were told a flatbed truck with a cab large enough to carry all five of us had been sent for. In the meantime, a smaller flatbed was coming to move us off the highway and bring us to the relative safety of the Knightdale Walmart parking lot. Split between the two tow trucks, we rode to Walmart and waited for the big flatbed to arrive.

We pulled out of Knightdale with our van and entire family spot on 11:00pm. Along the way, Ryan from AAA called to ask if we were satisfied with the service we had received. As you might imagine, I had quite a few recommendations on how they could have handled our case better.

After getting dropped off at our service station of choice, and thanks to Senior Awesome's parents who met us there, we made it home with all of our belongings at half past twelve -- a mere fifteen-and-a-half hours after leaving New York. We were exhausted, angry, grimy, and ready to fall into bed. All we wanted was a good night's sleep, but AAA must have had other ideas because Ryan called us again at 1:30am to do a follow up survey.

Apparently AAA missed its calling. It would have made a lovely wake-up service.



© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Cup o' Joe

I'm pretty sure we were heading up to New York for cousin Betsy's wedding when the coffee drama unfolded.

I don't drink coffee. Having never acquired a taste for brown water that tastes like bitter, burnt beans, the whole coffee craze that overtakes most people when they graduate from adolescence to adulthood passed me by without a second glance.

And then there's the problem with it being hot. I'm already finagling with the thermostat to maintain a domestic climate as cold as humanly tolerable, so the last thing I need is to gulp down a mug of 110-degree toilet water that'll raise my core temperature and make me break out in a full-body flop sweat. Iced vanilla lattes are the closest I'll ever get, and that's only because they're 70 degrees colder than coffee and taste like super-sweetened vanilla. When I need a jolt of caffeine, I reach for a Diet Coke.

But on that day when we started our 10-hour drive to New York, I thought it would be a great idea to try and behave like other adults and carry along a mug of strong coffee. I had stopped at Breugger's Bagels a few days earlier and purchased their refillable travel mug, which seemed like a great deal at the time. As we passed through Raleigh, I declared it necessary to stop at Breugger's to pick up bagels to nosh and top off my fancy new Breugger's travel mug.

Breugger's idea of
a travel mug.

Two problems: (1) Regardless of how much I try to convince myself it is the drink of choice for discerning adults, and no matter how many packets of Equal and spoonfuls of flavored creamer I mix into it, I don't like coffee; and (2) Breugger's Bagels' idea of a travel mug was something only slightly smaller than a whiskey barrel with a handle. I knew the mug would pose a problem from the moment I bought it, but I had already paid for it and was stuck with the prospect of making it work, whether or not I believed it could.

With a full barrel of coffee and a couple bagels to go, we walked back to the car to head off on our trip. My Lovely Wife, for whatever reason, was holding the travel mug when she dropped herself into the front passenger seat. As she landed, coffee sloshed and splattered out of the small hole in the lid and sprayed all over her white jeans shorts. Vociferous disgruntlement ensued in the form of clearly stated declarations decrying the poor design of the travel mug and the nonsensical behavior of a coffee-hating person suddenly requiring a vat of hot coffee.

A good half hour was lost trying to figure out whether or not the shorts could be saved before we finally found ourselves toodling north along US1 in a very quiet -- some might say seething -- state. Because the gargantuan Breugger's travel mug did not fit in any of the cup holders, I decided to hide it out of site of My Lovely Wife on the floor between my feet, which was a great place for it when the car was not in a state of motion, but wasn't so great once my right foot had to wander off to work the pedals.

Less than a mile up the road, at one of the first stoplights to which we came, the stupidity of the situation hit me full force as the mug tipped over, leaned like a fallen tree against my left leg, and swiftly poured a torrent of hot coffee into my shoe. I quickly pulled into the nearest gas station, threw the car into park, bolted out of my seat, and unceremoniously chucked the mug in the nearest trash can.

Ever since then, I've stuck to Diet Coke. Not only doesn't it splatter willy nilly on white shorts, or turn my socks brown, or make My Lovely Wife cranky, I actually like it.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Dear New York

Long Island, to be more specific.

It's where I grew up. A place full of fond memories, familiar smells, delicious foods, and ghosts of friends past. The friends aren't deceased, but the versions of them that exist in my mind are long gone. We are all older, balder, fatter, except for the ones with bad toupes and those who can't blink anymore because of one too many plastic surgeries. Judging by their Facebook profiles, many of them, like me, have moved off the island to settle elsewhere. Others didn't wander too many miles from home.

As the plane flew low today under the canopy of clouds covering Brooklyn, I watched the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island pass by. The skyline of Manhattan presented itself, the new Freedom Towers standing tall in the Financial District not far from Battery Park where I once attended an Earth Day celebration in the early 90s with college friends.

It's amazing to me how many baseball diamonds you spot from a few hundred feet up as you pass over Queens. In some places you can see six or seven fields all squeezed in next to each other with shallow outfields and barely any room for bleachers. Baseball was the sport I followed most closely during my formative years. The pastoral simplicity of the game, bursts of excitement punctuating a two-hour pitchers' duel, the crescendo of the crowd as the count runs to 3-2 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the tying run on second. It's a shame our nation is losing its patience for the game.

What strikes me hardest each time I return for a visit with family, or in this case for work, is the overwhelming sense of claustrophobia.

Maybe it all relates back to that same feeling you get when you return to your old elementary school. You'd swear someone came in and lowered all the water fountains and miniaturized the toilets. The cavernous hallways have narrowed and the ceilings hang far too low. Even the people seem smaller.

That's how every block looks to me as I drive through once familiar neighborhoods. Smaller, less familiar, less significant. The landmarks have all changed, empty lots now have two or three houses crammed onto them, and I unkowingly speed right by the house in which I spent the first two decades of my life. I can't even be sure I could walk the path from the old house to McVey Elementary School, something I did hundreds of times as a kid, without the help of my GPS.

A short time on Long Island is all it takes to remind me how much I enjoy the openness of my semi-rural North Carolina community. Much like my time in college at Plattsburgh, NY, I am smitten by the relaxed nature of the people and the elbow room we have between us.

I can't help feeling a little sorry for the people who never left Long Island, but I'm sure many of them would feel sorry for me for leaving, if they ever had cause to think about me. Long Island was a wonderful place to grow up, and there is nothing about my childhood I would change. I suppose, if we're fortunate enough, we all just naturally gravitate to the place we feel most comfortable.

If we're really lucky, there might even be a few baseball fields nearby.



© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Canadian Burn

My Lovely Wife has, on many occasions over the past twenty years, roasted my pasty pale hide in the equatorial sun for her own sick enjoyment.

Vacationing for her means escaping to a steaming, sun-washed tropical location. We've cruised the Caribbean, meandered through Myrtle Beach, adventured around Atlanta, and repeatedly returned to the flamingly fiery funparks of Florida. Our vacations typically require me to squeeze or spray SPF6000 into every last pore of my body until every possibility of ultraviolet rays sneaking their way to my pigment-challenged skin has been entirely eradicated.

And if the difficulty of avoiding sun-poisoining weren't enough, there's the heat. I might live in North Carolina now, and I have acclimated in recent years to my adopted climate, but it doesn't change the fact I'm a Yankee born and bred. If the thermometer tops eighty-five degrees and I move more than one muscle at a time, I'm going to sweat. Profusely. From my scalp.

Yes, I'm a head sweater and it isn't pretty.

So, when work brought me northward during this year's spring break, it seemed a perfect opportunity to bring the family along for a non-traditional vacation in the Great White North. Can you imagine my delight at the prospect of a vacation with no sun screen, no hat head, no fear of dining alfresco, no veering off from the pack to walk in the slim slivers of shade cast by random trees and buildings? I would be at home with my own kind, thanking the heavens for the remaining winterly tilt of the Earth.

When we arrived, it was almost too much of a good thing. Ohio was frigidly, bitingly cold, but we toughed it out for several hours at the zoo and left the next day for Niagara Falls once my work in Columbus was complete. We scanned the weather forecasts that promised temperatures in the fifties and sunny skies for our two days across the Canadian border. Perfect for a pale New England boy.

We began our second day at the Butterfly Conservatory and exited an hour later into lovely spring weather. From our hotel we sauntered sans jackets to the skywheel, then down through Queen Victoria Park, and along Niagara Parkway to catch glimpses of double rainbows at the Horseshoe Falls.

As we walked, the all too familiar signs began to appear. Twice I caught myself trying to adjust the brim of a hat I knew wasn't on my head. At one point I found myself sinking into shadows cast by a wall. The skin on my expansive forehead was beginning to grow taut, and when I pressed my hand to it I could feel the transfer of heat to my cool palm.

Good Lord... Could this really be happening? This was Canada.

Freaking Canada!

I ask you, what kind of genetically mutated cave dweller manages to contract a sunburn in Canada in fifty-degree weather with the chilly mists of Niagara Falls swirling through the air around him?




© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Pee in a Cup?

That last hour of a long drive can be the greatest test of one's stamina. Take today, for example.

Two-hundred-eighty miles from Pinehurst to DC -- roughly six hours total if you allow for a little traffic. Stop in Roanoke Rapids for a quick chicken sandwich, waffle fries, and a Diet Coke. Upon realizing the Diet Coke was decaffienated, walk across the parking lot to Starbucks for a grande skinny iced vanilla latte.

Now I'm five hours into a six-hour trip, sipping at the watery remnants of vanilla-flavored coffee, and I'm starting to get that feeling. You know what I'm talking about. That feeling.

That feeling like my stomach is floating up into my lungs.

That feeling like one poorly timed pothole and my car will immediately smell like a reststop urinal.

That feeling like I really need a hollow leg, or a catheter, or an adult diaper.

Does it help that it's been raining the entire freakin' trip? No, it doesn't.

But I don't want to pull off for a pit stop, and not just because I'm now only 45 minutes from my destination and the prospect of a proper bathroom. Do you know how many cars and trucks I've passed? After all the work I've done to dodge and weave around the mixture of maniacs and fogies traveling Interstate 95, the thought of dropping back behind even one of them is profoundly depressing.

Only thirty minutes to go and the pressure is building. I'm reminded of a time when the boys were young, maybe three or four, and we were traveling home from a family vacation. We were halfway along one of those rural stretches of road devoid of any public facilities when the boys declared their need to pee.

In case you are unaware, the bladder of a young child is an undpredictable creature that is easily underestimated. It holds significantly more quantities of liquid than seems physically possible given the diminutive size of its owner, and when it reaches maximum capacity there is little-to-no warning before the emergency release valve opens.

Being the kind of parents who believe children urinating on the shoulder of a rural highway is neither cute nor appropriate, we employed the only decent option available to us -- Snapple bottles. Hey, Snapple always promotes all-natural ingredients, right? What could be more natural than toddler pee?

Only five minutes remaining on my trip to DC. I'm so close to the hotel, but the pressure is almost unbearable. You know, that empty Starbucks cup is looking mighty convenient...



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Glamu the Pajama Man

First things first: Our trip to Atlanta was awesome!

We had visited the city fourteen years ago and really hadn't been all that impressed. Mind you, My Lovely Wife was raucously nauseated that entire trip due to morning sickness that mistakenly thought morning lasted from dawn to dusk, with a few extra hours thrown in just for good measure. Much of that trip was spent with her violently ill at the hotel while I scoured the area for baked potatoes with cheese sauce.

When your pregnant wife tells you that melted, processed, cheese-flavored plastic is the only thing she can eat without vomiting, then that's what you bring her.

This latest trip to ATL got off to a rocky start when we checked into our first hotel around 10:00pm on Friday. We weren't supposed to have a "first" hotel. The plan was to have "a" hotel, but quality and poor service sometimes have a way of changing your plans.

Entering our suite was reminiscent of opening an oven door. Apparently, keeping the air-conditioning unit off when rooms are unoccupied is a great way to save a few pennies. Any potential savings were surely lost after we cranked the unit into power-sucking overdrive. By morning, we had created distinct temperate zones in which some of us were simply freezing and others (meaning the kids who were closer to the window) were chipping ice off their toes.

The beds were an issue, as well.

Although the king bed mattress was comfortable, our feet came to rest sightly higher than our heads, which might explain my many bizarre dreams about falling off ladders and skydiving. But the kids really had it much worse. The rollaway on which Our Daughter slept looked like an animal had torn through the bottom to nest in the box spring, and the main support bar of the boys' sleeper sofa was so bent it nearly touched the floor.

After canceling the remainder of our stay and booking family suite at the lovely Hilton Suites in the Perimeter neighborhood, we spent the weekend visiting the Atlanta Zoo, the World of Coca Cola, and the Georgia Aquarium. The latter is home to the most amazing single tank I've ever seen. At 6.3 million gallons, with a viewing window taller and wider than most upscale homes, the tank holds an impressive variety of sea life, including several giants of the sea such as whale sharks and giant manta rays.

As memorable as the big wall was, however, it paled in comparison to the unforgettable distinctness of the Georgia Aquarium's dolphin show.

Here's a hint for any future writers out there: When you need a narrator to spend the first five minutes of the show explaining what the show is going to be about, it's exceedlingly likely your story is too contrived.

In this case, the narrator prattled on about a mythical figure who creates stars (that don't really factor into the story of the show), who is attacked by monstrous sea creatures (that never make an appearance in the show), who leads the audience in a trippy song to raise his sunken ship (that you only see in cartoon form on a giant screen), and who wears what look like silk pajamas and a robe stolen from the wardrobe department of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat."

Occasionally, there are dolphins.

The Italian jokingly referred to the show's protagonist as "Glamu," which I thought was a pretty clever spin on Shamu, so we spent the rest of the day laughing about Glamu the Pajama Man.

Of course, no trip to any city would be complete without a food-driven purpose. In this case, we made a special side trip to Flip Burger, a gourmet burger joint affiliated with recent Top Chef winner Richard Blais. The burgers were amazing, but the even bigger hit was the milk shakes topped with liquid nitrogen.

I can live without the coolness factor of the nitrogen, but you can bet I'll spend way too much time this summer trying to replicate the Cap'n Crunch milkshake with peanut butter foam.




© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Letting Go or Giving Up?

Recent events in our community gave me pause to wonder if I should take on a certain, specific role of responsibility. I won't say what it is, only that it would involve attending many meetings and events throughout the next school year.

The reason for the consideration is that My Lovely Wife and I have definite opinions about what should happen, how it should happen, and who should be doing it. We've recently spent way too much time thinking and talking about all the different things that, in our version of a perfect world, need to be accomplished.

So, I've been toying with the idea of stepping up to put my money where my mouth is. After all, there are few things more irritating than a gutless loudmouth, and I know there have been times in my life when I have been one.

Over the past few days, as my leanings have shifted to and fro, I've had to take as full an account as possible of my existing responsibilities.

Work.
Certainly not more important than family, but I address it first because without my paycheck, I'm not much of a provider. Work requires attention to clients and projects. It requires analysis of trends and predictions of usage. It requires trips to Ohio, DC, Virginia and Maryland, in addition to other states as necessary. I frequently am able to control my schedule, but there are times of inflexibility.

Kids.
We have three. One will enter high school next year and two will be in fourth grade. Every weekend in the fall will be filled with high school marching band activities, and every weekday will be filled with dance class, Boy Scouts, band, school play practice, Girl Scouts, yoga, and playdates. Add band concerts, play performances, and dance recitals and you have a pretty full schedule.

Wife.
I have one. I enjoy spending time with her. I often don't have the ability in the course of a normal day to spend as much time with her as I would like.

Family & Friends.
We have those, too. As opportunities arise to spend time with friends and family, we appreciate being able to take advantage of them. In the past year or two, we have made a concerted effort to participate in more activities with people who, in the past, we might not have made time for. As a result, our social life has improved dramatically, and we feel for the first time in a long time that we have an honest to goodness social network of friends.

Interests.
This is, perhaps, the most selfish part of my argument, but in case you hadn't noticed, I enjoy writing. I've finally arrived at a place in my life that affords me the luxury of time to write. In addition to this blog, which serves as a wonderfully therapeutic means for me to vent the errant thoughts that cloud my mind, I also am 90% complete with the first draft of a novel. In the past two weeks since this recent community event erupted into our lives, I have not completed any writing.

I fully realize that others who choose to lead often sacrifice some, if not all, of these things. For better or for worse, I am not the kind of person who can so readily do the same. Time is fleeting. I have no interest in mourning a lost minute with my family for a transient cause du jour. Trust me, I'm the kind who would.

My conclusion? If I'm not willing to jump in and help lead things down the path I believe they should be taking, then I need to shut my mouth and support the best efforts of those who are. Not so much giving up, I see it more as letting go.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

HB Oh Forget It

I am old enough to remember when there was only one HBO.

Who am I kidding?

I'm old enough to remember when "remote control" meant my brothers telling me to get up and change the channel for them. I'm old enough to remember not having a color television. I'm old enough to remember the Brady Bunch going off the air, the introduction of the Big Wheel, banana seat bikes, Romper Room, and one-foot tall GI Joe action figures who always stole Barbie's heart away from that pretty boy Ken.

Back to the point, we got our first taste of HBO when our family joined the great Cable-TV Nation in the early 1980s. Almost immediately, I was disappointed. I took the name Home Box Office literally.

When did you ever go to the movie theater to see a boxing match? When did you go to the movie theater to see original made-for-TV movies? When did you go to the movie theater to watch back-to-back episodes of Fraggle Rock?

When they finally did clear their programming of all their homemade piffle, the movies they did show were mostly crap. And, Lord help us if they actually got the rights to a decent film, it would be featured every other night for the entire month in which it premiered, sandwiched between the 400th showings of "Beastmaster" and "Zapped!"

But that was thirty years ago. Surely HBO has changed for the better since then. Right? There are, like, one-hundred-eighty-seven different HBO channels now. I find myself thinking, every now and then, that maybe I should break down and give it another try. Then I stay in a hotel.

Doesn't matter what hotel, either, since most of them offer the same limited selection of channels that always seems to include HBO1 and HBO2. You'd think these channels would vary their programming a little to offer some variety and get people interested in purchasing HBO for their home systems. You'd be wrong.

Every time I travel, no matter what city I find myself in, HBO1 and HBO2 are broadcasting the same shows, usually an hour apart from each other. First HBO1 shows Real Time With Bill Maher, then HBO2. First HBO1 shows a sports talk show about boxing, then HBO2. First HBO1 shows Deadwood, or Big Love, or True Blood, or any of its other simplistically awful soap operas that everybody but me seems to go crazy over, then HBO2.

I'm wondering how many more decades it will take before HBO decides to show a movie during primetime.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Dear Travel: Going

Dear Delta Airlines Email Flight Alert Message:
Thank you for letting me know my flight was delayed two hours. Next time, please don't wait until I have driven 80 miles to the airport to tell me. Please tell me before I leave the house.

Dear Transportation Security Administration:
Thank you for keeping me safe. Thank you for checking my shoes for explosive materials that didn't work even when that schmuck actually was able to sneak them onto the plane in his shoes. Thank you for making me remove my belt, cell phone, laptop, jacket, coin, keys, watch, and dignity in order to travel like a sheep on a cramped plane that will end up being three-and-a-half hours late.

Dear Woman Who Sat Two Seats Away From Me In a Nearly Empty Airport Terminal:
Please don't take out your cell phone and speak at the top of your lungs while I'm trying to ignore you. I don't want to break out my iPod to drown out your obnoxious blather, but I will if I have to. Not that you'll notice...

Dear LaGuardia Airport Service Truck Driver:
Thank you for driving your vehicle into the side of my airplane, thereby putting it out of service and requiring it to be replaced with the soda pop can that eventually took us to Columbus, OH. I had to allow the TSA security team get to second base with me just to be allowed to sit inside the plane, yet you were paid good money to do more damage than any terrorist has managed in almost ten years.

Dear Self-Flushing Toilet at RDU Airport:
I'm not getting up, so please don't flush simply because I lean forward a little to wipe my butt. It is a predictably necessary step in the whole "going to the bathroom" process and shouldn't come as a surprise to you. Dropping my trousers and sitting in the sink with the faucet running could not possibly dampen my derriere more than your swirling mist did just now.

Dear Man Who Sat In The Seat Vacated By The Woman Who Sat Two Seats Away From Me And Spoke Loudly Into Her Cell Phone:
Please don't speak so loudly into your cell phone.

Dear Transportation Security Administration:
When will the current safety advisory level no longer be orange? Aside from the fact orange holds no value to me as an indicator of degree of threat, its constant use is rendering it meaningless. An occasional dip to yellow might make us stop and take notice the next time we hear the man with the rod up his butt tell us the current threat advisory level is orange.

Dear Chautauqua Airlines, Regional Operator for Delta:
Thank you for keeping my ticket price low by eliminating the costly padding that might otherwise separate my tailbone from the hard plastic directly beneath the faux leather upholstery of your seats.

Dear Chautauqua Airlines:
Should I be concerned that you had to move two passengers from their front-of-the-plane seats to the very back rows in order to achieve the proper weight distribution for a safe flight? And what was that high-pitched whirring noise just before that deafening alarm sounded?

Dear Chautauqua Airlines:
Instead of removing the safety instructions from the seatback pocket in front of me to review with the flight attendant, can I instead remove my Diet Coke and chocolate malted milk balls from the seatback pocket in front of me and pretend to pay attention to the flight attendant while I drink and eat them?

Dear Man In the Seat Across the Aisle From Me:
Please stop being you. Every single thing you've done since I sat down has annoyed me.

Dear Chautaqua Airlines:
Is the seatback pocket in front of me water-tight? Because I'm starting to think mixing Diet Coke with chocolate malted milk balls on a plane this small was a bad idea, and those little paper bags are nowhere near big enough to hold everything I've just consumed.

Dear Mousy Granola-Head Woman Who Sat Behind Me On The Plane:
In case you weren't aware, there is such a thing as air travel etiquette. You should not have reached your undeodorized armpit over my head to get your bag down and then pushed ahead three rows closer to the door before anyone else had started moving. I saw you collect your bag and head for the parking garage, so don't even tell me you were late for a connecting flight.

Dear Non-English-Speaking Taxi Driver:
Yes, your cab is very clean and you seem like a nice person. I'm just wondering why your meter seems to be in its own plane of existence in which time runs slower, thereby costing me significantly more than any other cab has ever cost me to get from the airport to my downtown hotel. You were doing eighty on the highway and you had to stop at only one light, so why do I owe you $20?

© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Backpack Revolution!

I'd seen it a few times during recent travels.

I'm lugging my 37-pound, black leather, businessman computer bag through the airport terminal, one shoulder hanging a good four inches closer to the ground than the other, when I'm overtaken by some idiot in a business suit and long coat with a college book bag strapped to his back.

Sure, I might be struggling with curvature of the spine while he skips along at a jaunty pace, but I look more professional. People will see me and say to themselves: "What a professional businessman." They'll see him and say: "Class was over twenty years ago, Skippy. Sell the book bag and get a briefcase."

Secretly, however, I envied Skippy.

He made it to his connecting flight free of pain. He carried his evenly distributed load on his back, freeing his hands for more important tasks like carrying a vanilla latte or a pretzel. And if he needed to relieve himself, he didn't have to worry about finding a urine-free spot on the men's room floor to place his bag. All he'd have to do is unzip and let it fly!

Meanwhile, the retractable strap from my bag cut into my shoulder. The bag bounced awkwardly around my waist and nearly decapitated a small child who got too close. In the plane, the puffed up monster barely fit into the overhead compartment.

During my last trip to Ohio, as more and more backpacks passed me by, I reached for my computer bag and felt an uncomfortable tugging sensation in my left forearm. It hurt for the remainder of the trip and several weeks afterward. During a routine physical, my doctor suggested I likely pulled something lifting the computer bag. That was all the excuse I needed.

Just a week or so later we were in Target and I purchased a Swiss Army travel backpack with a laptop pocket, and a media pocket, and a pocket for my pens, and a pocket for notebooks, and a pocket for miscellanous items, and two side mesh pockets for drinks.

All pocketed out, I transferred my business travel items from the computer bag to the backpack. Walking this morning through RDU Airport, then Charlotte Douglas International Airport, and then Columbus International Airport, I felt liberated. I breezed by stodgy old travelers with their antiquated brief cases and computer bags like a dart.

At RDU, I carried a bagel in one hand and an orange juice in the other. At Charlotte, I carried my notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. And at Columbus, I entered the men's room and relieved myself without having to put my bag down in a puddle of pee.

Change can be good.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

72 O'Clock?

I woke up several times the other night in my Richmond, VA, hotel room. This is not an uncommon occurrence when I'm on a business trip.

For starters, I am a homebody and don't really like traveling without my Lovely Wife and kids. Okay, maybe sometimes I do enjoy traveling without the kids, but not without the wife. Even on those few occasions when she is the one traveling and I have our comfortable king bed all to myself, I tend to lay awake for hours in the flickering glow of the television. After almost sixteen years of marriage, there is something unnatural about trying to fall asleep alone.

So, this past week in Richmond, as I closed the notebook in which I scribble passages for the book I'm writing and turned off the lights in the hotel room, it came as no surprise that sleep initially eluded me. My mind reviewed the day's events and I realized, among other things, that I had forgotten to pack deodorant. I don't know about you but I need deodorant. Without it, my armpits become incubators for unnaturally potent odors, even on the coolest of days. Since mental notes to myself never seem to take hold, I turned on the light and wrote "buy Dry Idea" in the notebook, then switched the light off and tried again to fall asleep.

Sooner than is customary, I found myself in dreamland. Even as I began to dream, I recall thinking how strange it was for me to be asleep so quickly. Before long, though, I was awake and looking around the room trying to figure out what city I was in and what time it was.

The trouble with working for a hotel chain that has only one product is the tremendous consistency of the room decor. This is a great selling point for our frequent clients because it means they know what to expect from each of our inns. For me, however, a founding father of attention deficit disorder and a strong candidate for early onset Alzheimer's, waking up in essentially the same room whenever and wherever I travel is a disorienting experience.

Am I in Ohio? Maybe Maryland? This couldn't be the April training in Tampa, could it? No, that was months ago. The October meeting in Columbus? No, no. It isn't October yet. I'm going to Annapolis for a military travel fair. That's in September. This is September, right?

And if not knowing where you are isn't bad enough, figuring out the time is another troublesome task. When I'm traveling, I live in constant fear of oversleeping. Think about it. You've just driven two-hundred miles to meet with an important client. Do you really want to screw it up now just because you didn't hear the alarm clock?

Wiping sleep out of my eyes, I struggle to find the bedside clock. There it is, facing the other way because the light had been shining in my eyes when I was trying to fall asleep and I turned it away from me. Unfortunately, I am comfortably positioned in the very middle of the king bed. If I move around too much to reach the clock, only to find out I still have hours to go before it's time to get up, I might not be able to get back to sleep.

So I look around to find the microwave clock. There it is, clear as day. It says "72."

I rest my head back down on the pillow and prepare to slip away, until my brain finally catches up with my eyes. I could almost hear the conversation between them. My brain questioning my eyes, doubting them, asking for confirmation. Begrudgingly, my eyes open again and, sure enough, there are the big yellow numbers. For what seems like long enough for a minute to pass, I watch and wait, wondering if I will witness the change from 72 to 73. Guess what? It never happens.

Eventually, I'm awake enough to realize what I am looking at is the thermostat on the air-conditioning unit next to the bed and not the microwave clock, so I sit up to search for the real thing. This pattern repeats itself two more times before it's finally close enough to morning to just go ahead and get out of bed.

When I'm finally showered and dressed, wearing a watch whose battery died at 11:26 the night before and gathering a ream of printed directions because my GPS had been recalled the previous week (seems people don't like their GPS bursting into flames due to an overheated battery) I head out for my first call of the day -- Target, to buy deodorant.


© 2010 Mark Feggeler

A Lesson In Poor Service

Earlier this month, during a trip to Washington DC, I received a lesson in the importance of good service. Not that I felt I needed it, mind you. It's just so easy to forget how big an impression poor service can make that it's healthy to experience it once in a while. It started straight away upon reaching a full-service hotel in downtown DC just two blocks south of the Smithsonian Castle at the National Mall.

No Trash Cans!

Here we travel five to six hours through heavy traffic and fast food drive-throughs and when we get to the hotel there are no trash cans outside the building. Do they think we're just going to let all the garbage from our trip sit in the van for the next three days? Eventually this crap is making it into their waste disposal program, so the least they could do is position some heavy-duty, deluxe-size, aesthetically pleasing trash cans under the porte cochere to keep us from having to schlep it up to the room with our luggage.

As we checked in, my lovely wife handed across a half-empty soda cup and a Wendy's bag full of sandwich wrappers to the front desk clerk who stared at it like we had bare-handed her a pile of dog poop. Instead of pitching it in the trash can under the front desk, she placed it on the counter next to her. A few seconds later she was muttering angrily because she knocked over the cup and spilled the remains of the soda all over her keyboard. Do you know what would have helped her avoid this problem? Trash cans outside the building, that's what.

Then our room wasn't ready for us to check in, so we had to stick all our belongings in the bellman's closet while our vehicle remained outside because the valet attendants were too busy to park it in the garage. Our van stayed in front of the hotel well into the evening. However, this did offer the advantage of easy retrieval of forgotten items, so I really shouldn't complain.

Also, complaining about the condition of the facilities isn't really necessary. A busy, downtown hotel is entitled to show a few bumps, bruises and scrapes. Of course, it would be nice if the carpets were cleaned once in a while. My home carpets might not always be the cleanest but at least the soles of my feet don't turn black when I walk around barefoot on them.

On our first evening in DC, we decided not to brave the Metro and opted instead for the lobby restaurant. The food may have been over-priced but thank goodness its utter mediocrity made it easy for us to justify avoiding future dining in the hotel. The lackluster food paled, however, in comparison to the complete disregard of the wait staff to whether or not we enjoyed our dining experience.

All these issues aside, one person stands above them all. One person sealed the deal and helped put me over the edge -- the pool lifeguard.

This particular hotel boasts a year-round, rooftop pool, and our children were very excited at the idea of swimming in a pool so many stories up. Our first night at the hotel, immediately following our under-impressive dinner, we headed up to the pool. First problem? No towels. How did we find out? The lifeguard sat in his plastic chair next to his plastic table and said "No towels." I went down to the front desk and complained and, within fifteen minutes, a housekeeper entered with a stack of towels. I suspect, at this point, the lifeguard started disliking me.

The next night, same thing: no towels. This time, the front desk proved unhelpful and we made due without them.

On the third evening, I took the children to the pool following a quick dinner at Subway. With two half-filled paper cups in my hands, I entered the pool deck and the lifeguard immediately motioned to me. When I reached him, he pointed over my shoulder and asked "Do you see that sign?"

I knew which sign he meant. "You mean the pool rules sign?" I asked without turning around.

"Did you read it?" he asked. "Read the sign."

"Does it say 'No Drinks,'" I asked, still looking directly at him.

"Yes," he said.

"Well all you had to say was 'no drinks.' You don't have to be an ass about it."

I walked away, threw the cups in the trash and sat near my children who were playing in the water. Once settled into my seat, I took out the camera and snapped the shot included here, showing the lifeguard at his table with a glass bottle of Arizona Tea.

Some people might have complained to the manager but that's not typically my way. It's much too confrontational. No, instead I chose to silently seethe, vowing never to return.

When completing the e-survey that arrived the following week, I detailed my experiences and highlighted the poor service we received. From the front desk, to the lifeguard, to the bellman who couldn't be bothered to move aside when my family and I exited the elevator, the entire experience could not have been less satisfactory. The general manager apparently cares so much that I have not received a response.

Where will I stay next time I go to DC? At the Red Roof Inn in Chinatown. I've never had a problem there, the front desk always seems happy to see me, and the Irish Channel Pub off the lobby has really good food and friendly service -- even live music some evenings. The best thing about the Red Roof? No pool.

Welcome Home

This week I traveled to Tampa for a mandatory training. The travel schedule required my departure from the house early on Tuesday but with just enough time to wake our three children and kiss them good morning before leaving.

The Italian, having recently started coming out of his room after being tucked in to bed at night, caused me the most concern. Knowing that I was heading out of town must have been weighing on his mind, for each time he came out he was whimpering about missing me when I travel. The last thing we needed the morning of my trip was for him to break down in tears.

Fortunately, no tears flowed and the kids barely noticed I had gone. During my trip, we spoke a couple times a day by phone. The first day they provided interesting details and were willing conversational participants. The second day, the interest waned slightly. By this morning I could barely get them to pay attention to me.

Arriving at the Tampa airport this afternoon to check in, I was pleasantly surprised to find I could make an earlier flight and land in Charlotte ten minutes before my original flight would even be taking off. Though the drive home from the Charlotte Douglas International Airport took slightly longer than the normal two hours, I managed to arrive home short before 10:00pm.

When I entered the house, it took all of a few seconds to survey the situation. My lovely wife was surely sleeping because she would have called "hello" had she been awake. Our daughter was lying in bed with her, having fallen asleep waiting there for me to come home. And the Italian and the German were no doubt deep asleep in their room. Walking quietly into the house from the garage, trying to make as little noise as possible, suddenly the "chickety-chick-chick" noise of toenails on hardwood rushed toward me and before I knew it I was being lovingly attacked by Lily, our small white poodle. For a solid five minutes she jumped, bumped, licked and nibbled, occasionally backing away excitedly only to come back for more.

Eventually, I kissed everyone on the cheek and kicked our daughter from our bed to her own. It's wonderful being home, sleeping in my own bed, surrounded by the family I love. It's soothing to return to a calm and quiet house. It's comforting to know that life continues as it should when I'm away. But it's also nice to know that, no matter how sleepy and calm the homefront may be, there's always one member of the family who's never too tired to jump for joy at my return.

Trains: Turning Travel from Mundane to Meaningful

I recently had the pleasure to substitute Amtrak for my routine six-hour drive to Washington, DC. Despite adding two hours to the trip and repeated questioning of my sanity by my train-phobic wife, my initial enthusiasm for the journey built to genuine excitement as the date drew near.

As a child, trains never interested me. I grew up too far away from functioning tracks to ever hear a distant whistle. Traffic, blaring radios with booming bass, random sirens, ice cream truck music, rattling bicycle chains, jet airplanes coming or going from the two major airports just 20 miles away -- these were the sounds of my childhood. Literary and pop-culture references to the allure of the "train in the distance" were lost on me. I understood them but I couldn't fully appreciate them. The episode of the Andy Griffith Show in which Opie planned to run off with the hobo confused me. What was the attraction? It didn't help that the town in which I lived from birth to college offered everything an active mind could want. There was no need or desire to flee.

Transplanted to semi-rural North Carolina 20 years ago, I often have watched the passenger and freight trains grind noisily through the continually rejuvenating Broad Street shopping district in the small town near my home. Walking the dog at night I hear the whistle wafting through the pine trees as it calls to passing neighbors. Traveling down local rural highways, delivering the kids to school or heading off on a business trip, I catch glimpses of train cars bumping and dodging their way in and out of sight behind roadside groves of pines, scrub oaks and dogwoods. Lumbering beasts, starting from nothing and gradually building momentum until thundering along with unstoppable force, the trains called to my inner child and demanded his attention.

My lovely wife tried five or six years ago to satisfy my new-found fascination. Some local folk had started a dinner train that would run from one end of the county to the other, serve a nice meal, and return to the starting point after two hours. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience but riding on a train did not satisfy my desire to travel by train. The novelty of the two-hour dinner ride -- much the same as the novelty of the two-hour Polar Express round-trip train ride in the mountains of North Carolina a few years back -- served only as a tease. I decided, at the first feasible opportunity, I would commute for business or pleasure by train.

Several obstacles stood in the way.

First: train routes are not flexible. New lines of track will not be laid out simply because I need to get to Elkridge instead of Union Station. Second: train schedules require flexibility. An eight-hour train ride to DC, with set departure and arrival times and the distinct possibility of running late, means an entire day dedicated only to travel. Third: you can't pack your car in your luggage. Once you get where you're going, you will need to rent a car to get around.

After several years of toying with the idea, the opportunity finally presented itself last fall. A business trip made it necessary for me to make sales calls in and around downtown Washington, DC. The day of travel arrived and the train was almost two solid hours late. Eventually settled into an exceptionally wide and comfortable coach seat, I plugged in and got to work. While the day was productive, it also was filled with little pleasures that I kept wishing I could share with my family. The freedom to move around the train was liberating. The passing scenery at times captivating.

In the dining car -- on the trip north assigned to sit with a young couple traveling home from their Florida honeymoon and a woman with her two grandsons on the trip south -- I discovered the highlight of my trip. I wasn't sure about it at first. After all, like most people in our spoiled society, I am accustomed to staying safely in my little bubble, keeping my head down and avoiding eye contact until getting to my destination. While the food may have been merely passable the company was pure entertainment. What a wonderful level of connection we Americans would have with each other if we were forced on a regular basis to sit across a table from complete strangers for an hour and make small talk over an otherwise unremarkable meal!

In the end, the entire experience left me longing for more. Rest assured, the next chance I get to ride Amtrak again I will. Look for me in the dining car. I'll ask the hostess to sit you at my table.

It's remarkable how little one has to say about anything after a day spent driving an eight-hour round trip, six of those hours with a relative stranger trying to make small talk in a very loud car. While my driving companion was pleasant and did his fair share to keep conversation interesting, the lags started appearing around hour four. Being a business trip, all work-related topics were exhausted within the first hour. Family, parenting, vacations, food, travel -- all of the safe topics -- followed in order, both of us consciously drawing them out to avoid the inevitable.

Hour 4. This is the point at which, if traveling with a familiar friend or family member, a long and happy silence would kick in. Music volume increases; minds shut down; scenery passes. The conversation has an opportunity to recharge, possibly restarting with an off-the-wall statement or question related to some shared experience.

With a stranger, no matter how skilled at conversation, this typically does not happen. Firstly, a pause in the conversation becomes awkward, as though we are telling each other: "I have entirely lost interest in speaking with you." To avoid a potential breach of etiquette, we both draw up meaningless topics not worthy of discussion just to avoid the pause, or we rehash bits of conversation from previous hours. Secondly, we have no shared experiences to discuss, not really anyway. Despite both being parents, I don't know his kids and he doesn't know mine. I don't want to hear more than a handful of stories about his kids and he doesn't want to hear more than a handful about mine. We both eat food. We both have favorite foods. But beyond knowing he likes an ethnically diverse menu and I prefer Italian cuisine, we really don't care too much about each other's dietary preferences. Besides, for a guy that says he enjoys foods from all continents, so far he's eaten only chicken caesar salad two days running for lunch.

By the time I leave him at his front door I am spent. I have nothing left mentally for the wife and kids and it shows.