Vacation: It’s That Time of Year Again!

The minute we found out that we’d be having a baby in May, we realized that our monster road trip last year would likely be the last of its kind until around 2015.

But just because we have a baby now doesn’t mean that we can’t go on vacation — it just means that we need to scale it back a bit.

Okay… A lot.

So instead of 10 hours in the car on day one, followed by an epic baseball game, we’re only going 4 hours from home.

And just for two nights. Starting tomorrow.

We’re headed for central New Jersey. Exotic, huh?

You’d think that by chosing a destination as unpoplar as central New Jersey, you know, accomodations would be cheap. They are, no question.

Now I know what you financially-minded folks might be thinking… “Hey, at least Brainy’s vacation won’t cost him so much this year…”

But there’s a catch, see…

We’re going to a game worn hockey jersey expo.

I know, I know, it sounds preposterous.

But for me, it’s like being able to go the hall of fame and actually touch the stuff behind the glass.

It’s really just like any other expo or conference though, you know, with a bunch of people with similar interests getting together. They’re not as dorky as a sci-fi or comic book convention and they’re not so glitzy that their held in Caribbean either…

This is my only hobby (photography is work, not a hobby) and this is the Super Bowl for the game worn hockey jersey collecting community.

But seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if I still drop $2500 (around the amount we spent last year on vacation) this weekend.

I’m going to try my best not to — even made a list of things I’m looking for so as to avoid any spontaneous purchases — but I’m not making any promises.

Truth be told, I’ve got 30 twenty dollar bills in my wallet ready for anyone that won’t take a check…

Based on that, I’m already embarrassed by what this month’s spending report is going to look like…

Posted on July 9th, 2009 at 10:11 pm by Brainy Smurf
Hockey Jersey, Vacation | 5 Comments »

Economy Hitting Main Street? I Don’t Think So. And Here’s Why…

While we were down in Florida last weekend, as I mentioned yesterday, we visited Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

I lamented about how much of a rip-off admission was — $75 per person plus tax. I didn’t even bother to mention the cost of food, but it wasn’t cheap either.

Though there were only two of us, the day cost over $200 total. We didn’t come home with any sort of souvenir either. Not even a novelty cup. That’s an expensive day — I don’t care how much money you make.

Now, I say that the economy isn’t affecting Main Street one bit because we weren’t alone at the park. Tens of thousands of people were there with us — at $75 each.

Hardly a crowd of elites either — fact is, regular people out there are still willing and able to drop a few hundred dollars to go to a terrible zoo, slow economy or not.

But it wasn’t only our trip to Disney.

We also attended an NHL and NFL game in Tampa Bay.

Tickets to those events are NOT cheap.

Neither are the concessions.

Or the souvenirs.

Or the parking.

But you know what? Both the St. Pete Times Forum and Raymond James Stadium were filled to capacity. FILLED. A majority of fans were double-fisting a pair of $6.25 beverages too.

Tickets for those two events were also around $75 each — for the cheap seats where we sat. See the photos? That was my vantage point.

So, again, there were tens of thousands of regular Joe’s (not excluding Joe the Plumber or Joe Six-Pack) that were able to drop well over $100 per person purely for entertainment purposes.

Just across town, the Tampa Bay Rays were playing the Boston Red Sox at Tropicana Field.

You guessed it, also sold out.

And I’m pretty certain that those ticket prices were considerably higher than $75/seat.

Just something to think about the next time you hear a politician attempting to connect Wall Street to Main Street.

From my recent experiences, an awful lot of disposable income is still out there… The masses aren’t suffering.

Posted on October 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm by Brainy Smurf
Current Events, Rants, Vacation | 2 Comments »

Photo of the Week: Even the Gorilla was Unimpressed

Last Friday, while in Florida, I visited Disney’s Animal Kingdom. You know, the fourth big attraction on the Disney property after the Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, and MGM Studios.

The admission for me and my wife was $159.76. No matter how you slice it, that’s a lot of money.

And for that kind of money, I expect some top notch entertainment.

I didn’t find it.

In fact, the “adventure” was soured even before we entered the park…

See, the person we purchased the admission from was very pushy with the up-sell.

“Well, a ‘Park Hopper’ pass will allow you to go to a different park within the Disney resort.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. I just want two adult tickets for Animal Kingdom, thanks.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a multi-day pass? They’re valid indefinitely and,” blah, blah, blah…

I said, “No. Just one day, one park, thanks.”

She went on and on and on — holding on to my credit card and passes so I couldn’t just walk away from the pitch.

“Where y’all from,” she said.

Odd that she worded it that way — her name tag said she was from Syosset, New York. I’ve never in my life heard a Long Islander use the term “y’all”.

“Connecticut,” I responded impatiently…

Then, as if Connecticut was local (a mere 1200 miles away), she suggested a year-long pass…

Sigh… “Two adults. One day. One park. Thanks.”

I’ve always found it funny that their tickets are valid for so long, but they’re still just a flimsy piece of cardboard. I actually have 1 day remaining on one of those “passes” from 1997, but the cardboard has all but disintegrated in my wallet since then…

Even up here, a season pass for Six Flags comes on a laminated plastic credit card type of thing — they even put your picture on it. At Disney, it’s cardboard. Go figure.

Anyway, the experience of purchasing tickets was invasive and uncomfortable. She was just prying for an opening to toss another sales pitch my way. What, am I buying a car here? Certainly not very Disney-esque…

Then, as I’m sure many of you know, you get your finger scanned as you enter the park — otherwise the turnstile won’t turn. What is up with that?

Every time I go to Disney, about once every 5 years, I conveniently forget about that, as I’m sure most other visitors do too.

But I’m sorry, they’ve got my credit card number, my address, my signature, and my finger print.

That’s the exact same amount of information I provided to get my green card.

Think about that.

It’s a freakin’ theme park?! Disney has more of my information than the Department of Homeland Security.

What does Disney need all that for? Imagine what they use it for?

Considering how many people claim to be worried about identity theft or big brother watching over you, well, I’m surprised so many people continue to visit the Disney parks.

The TSA doesn’t even take a finger print at the airport?!

Anyway, once inside the park, it screams Disney. Other than the overpriced knick-knacks, that’s a good thing.

Great landscaping, it’s nice and clean, and it looks and feels like you’re guaranteed to have a wonderfully memorable day.

Then you notice that there aren’t any animals. Anywhere.

This is “Animal Kingdom”, right?

I see a big concrete tree. Oh, and a fake concrete mountain off in the distance too…

Oh! There’s the ever elusive Mallard duck. Finally, some wildlife!

But we have those in Connecticut. You don’t even have to pay to see them.

So we immediately head over to the safari ride. Rafiki’s Rover or some such silly name.

They have this thing now where you can get a “Fast Pass” by swiping your ticket in a machine. It’ll spit out a time later in the day when you can come back. The idea is that you won’t have to spend the day standing in line.

So I walk up to a vacant machine and stick my ticket in. It spits it back out.

Nothing.

I tried my wife’s ticket. The machine spits it out too.

Seeing that I’m having trouble, and I’m not alone, a Disney employee tries again for me — like maybe I’m a moron and I’m putting the ticket in upside down or something.

Same problem for her. This is what she says:

“Yeah, did you have this in your wallet? Sometimes that can mess up the mag-strip so the machines can’t read them…”

Are you kidding me?

Where was I supposed to put my cardboard tickets that are apparently valid until the end of time? The woman I purchased it from made it out as if it was one of the most valuable things on earth — I put it in my wallet for safekeeping.

What if I had run through the mist machines a few times on the way here? Or gone on the water ride? I’m pretty certain the ticket wouldn’t have survived anywhere but in my wallet. I couldn’t believe it.

And by the looks of those around me, most people were keeping their tickets in their purse or wallet. Um, Disney? You might want to make a design change…

After three or four tries on each ticket/card, it eventually worked. We were to come back in about 3 hours. Fair enough.

We walked around some more and eventually stumbled across a few tigers (sleeping, of course) and the obviously bored gorilla pictured above.

Okay, those are two pretty impressive animals to have in the collection, but you can see those at nearly every metropolitan zoo in the country — usually for admission of around $20 (or FREE in Chicago!).

For more than three times that amount, I want to see something, well, let’s just say that if I’d gotten to see a polar bear fight a gorilla, I’d say that I got my money’s worth.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen.

They didn’t even have a polar bear.

Somehow three hours pass — mostly just walking around nicely landscaped swamplands looking at birds just like the birds that lined the highway on the way there. Seriously, those stork looking things look pretty much the same when you speed by them at 70 mph.

We head back to the Safari ride and, well, stand in line.

So much for a “fast” pass.

Seems everyone uses the fast pass so the line at 3 o’clock is the exact same line that would have been there at noon. I’m not sure the whole idea is working as planned.

So we drive out into the “wilderness” (I use the term loosely) with an over enthusiastic Disney employee having a pretend conversation with a recording blabbing about poachers in the area or something.

I’m not knocking it, I mean, I realize they’re trying to add a little excitement to a rather boring truck ride, but sometimes I wish they’d tone down the Disney-ness of things.

The concrete ostrich eggs left out in the open didn’t need to be displayed…

Or the showcasing of the “upside down” tree that apparently took 2000 years to grow — again, obviously made of concrete and fiberglass.

And how about those phony termite hills?

On the ride, we saw some alligators (also available on the side of the highway in much of Florida), some giant horned gazelle things, a giraffe, a couple of different kinds of rhinos, and some elephants.

No doubt, some pretty decent stuff. But we waited three hours for that?

At a traditional zoo, again, with an admission 3-times less, we could have seen all of those things in the first hour?!

In the end, I felt ripped off.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando can’t compare to any of the zoo’s I’ve been to in the past few years.

The Bronx Zoo has more gorillas. The Brookfield Zoo has more tigers. The Toronto Zoo has orangutans and gorillas. The Lincoln Park Zoo has FREE admission (and more animals). The Pittsburgh Zoo has more stuff for kids to do.

The only thing Animal Kingdom had was more employees and a HUGE fake tree. Oh, and a pushy sales pitch.

So *NOT* worth a $75 admission fee.

Posted on October 15th, 2008 at 5:31 pm by Brainy Smurf
Photo, Rants, Vacation | 2 Comments »

Enjoy the Silence… on a Plane?

So we flew down to Florida on Friday morning. Not really much to report about the flight, but the one thing that I did notice, likely due to the price of oil (which oddly enough is really low right now), was that the plane was really full.

Better yet, before take off, our plane didn’t need to wait in any sort of line. We even took off on time!

And further, we landed 10 minutes early!

Hmmmm… Maybe the FAA will figure out that taking a bunch of planes out of the sky improves the entire system?

The one other thing I wanted to mention was the background music on the plane. Yes, background music piped in through the plane’s speakers.

I don’t ever recall background music on a plane, though, I must admit that I don’t fly much.

It was only playing when we were on the ground and it was only a loop of two songs.

Both had a very smooth jazzy sound with a female vocalist. Light stuff, really, until you listened to the lyrics…

It was Depeche Mode and New Order…

“Enjoy the Silence” and “Blue Monday”, respectively…

Yeah, two new wave euro-techno synthesizer bands from the 1980′s.

I don’t know, from being covered semi-recently by a band named “Orgy” to being the “elevator” music on an airplane…

Wow… Never saw that coming…

Posted on October 12th, 2008 at 8:37 am by Brainy Smurf
Vacation | 4 Comments »

Nailed with Foreign Transaction Fees

As expected, CitiBank hit me on my latest statement with some Foreign Transaction Fees we unknowingly incurred while we were on vacation earlier this month.

On my last statement, they charged me $5 for one Canadian transaction that I made online to buy some CFL football tickets.

Naturally, though I’d made the initial purchase weeks in advance, they didn’t display that additional fee on my “latest transactions” until after I’d already made 6 more purchases while in Canada. Gee, thanks…

You see, the Metro Toronto Zoo was a pretty good deal and I enjoyed the meerkats, but had I known that it was costing me an additional $5 each time I pulled out my Citi MasterCard, I probably would have kept it in my pocket.

So on this latest statement that came out this morning, I was kind of expecting $30 in foreign transactions fees, you know, $5 multiplied by 6. That would make sense…

But I was incorrect.

The foreign transaction fee listed on my latest statement is $31.33.

No explanation of where that number comes from. It doesn’t even divide evenly?! Just some arbitrary number apparently…

I’m not going to call them on it. I’m just moving on and chalking it up as a learning experience: I won’t be using their card in Canada ever again.

Adding insult to injury, the transaction fee didn’t even get me reward points.

Posted on July 30th, 2008 at 7:54 am by Brainy Smurf
Credit Card, Rants, Vacation | 2 Comments »

Low Utility Bills: Unexpected Vacation Benefit

I like to think that I’d thought about this in the back of my mind before we even left, but I didn’t think the difference would actually be that sizeable.

Last month, we shut the house down and went on vacation for 10 days. While our excursion wasn’t exactly inexpensive, we had planned for it financially and it has already been paid for in full. We’re right back to our regular month-to-month budget.

So it was a pleasant surprise yesterday when the bills came in. All four monthly utility bills arrived yesterday — electricity, natural gas, phone, and cable — and normally I hate when that happens…

With the exception of the cable bill (which actually went up 1 cent), they were all significantly lower. In fact, the electric bill was the lowest it has ever been since 2004 (when we first started using CFL’s exclusively).

Weather-wise, the previous billing cycle was very similar to this most recent billing cycle. I mention the weather because it’s very strongly associated with the gas and electric bills in our neck of the woods. In the winter, the gas bill alone flirts with the $400 mark.

Granted, summer bills are generally lower than winter bills but sometimes running the air conditioners regularly can inflate the electric bill substantially — sometimes over $200 — but not while you’re on vacation.

Here’s the run down, along with some historical numbers:

So, while June 2008′s numbers may have been a little high for a typical summer month (I must have turned the heat on every now and then to get the gas bill that high), comparing my most recent bills to the same billing period last year shows that it still cost us $50 less to keep the house running in 2008.

The fact that the rate on all 4 bills has gone up since that time makes it even a little more impressive.

Bettering that, we’ve got $470/month budgeted towards these 4 bills. July cost us less than half of that.

But really, a $50 savings over an entire month isn’t that much money, I know that, but it’s been a long time since I last spent less than $250 on utilities in any given month…

It was in 2001 to be exact — before I even had a house…

Posted on July 18th, 2008 at 8:02 am by Brainy Smurf
Cutting Costs, Finance, Vacation | 2 Comments »

The Price of Gas didn’t Keep Me from Traveling…

And it shouldn’t keep you from traveling either! It’s not *that* expensive.

This past weekend, we returned from a 10-day/9-night activity filled vacation where we drove 2619.7 miles through 9 states (CT, MA, NY, PA, OH, IN, MI, IL, WI) and 1 province (ON).

With all the doom and gloom reporting of $5/gallon gas by the holiday weekend, we were prepared to spend in excess of $500 on gas alone.

That didn’t happen. Partly because the $5/gallon gas never materialized in the United States and because, well, gas, in reality, isn’t as expensive as people make it out to be.

We overestimated. Big time. And I think a lot of people are doing a lot of “rounding-up” in their heads, like us, making the gas seem a lot more expensive than it really is.

Total spent on gas was $318.77 spread across 8 fill-ups.

Not a small sum but, really, when compared to the cost of a night in a hotel or (gasp!) amusement park admission (and lets not forget the $5+ sodas once inside!), $30/day in travel costs is nothing. Way cheaper than flying and we had room for 5 adults (though that would have been really tight!).

For consistency, we filled up on the cheap stuff on each pit stop — regular 87 octane — and we didn’t “hunt” for the best price or seek out a specific brand. Whatever was closest when we needed gas…

Breaking down the above photo collage into more detail for comparison sake:

1. $39.82 total — $3.999/gallon at a Sheetz in Mill Hall, PA
2. $39.42 total — $3.999/gallon at a Valero in Clyde, OH
3. $40.82 total — $4.119/gallon at a Mobil in Belvidere, IL
4. $30.53 total — $4.199/gallon at a Citgo in Carol Stream, IL
5. $30.59 total — $4.399/gallon at a Mobil in Howe, IN
6. $49.72 total — $1.352/litre at an Esso in Cambridge, ON
7. $47.06 total — $1.339/litre at an Ultramar in Fort Erie, ON
8. $40.91 total — $4.219/gallon at a Hess in Cobleskill, NY

Fill-ups six and seven were in Canada, so a little bit of a calculation is required to “Americanize” them:

6. $48.63 total US — $5.005/gallon
7. $46.26 total US — $4.983/gallon

So you see, south of the International Boundary, gas is still a bargain. It really is. So get out there and travel — the price of gas alone should not be stopping you!

It’s not *that* expensive, hardly prohibitive, and had we made this trip exactly one year ago (when gas was “apparently” a fair price), the difference would have been a mere $80 over 10 days!

That, in my book, is nothing over the span of a planned vacation.

Posted on July 8th, 2008 at 7:42 am by Brainy Smurf
Bargains, Current Events, Vacation | 3 Comments »

My Review of the Garmin Nuvi 260

While I can’t really compare it to other GPS devices since I’ve never had a different one, I do have a few things to say about the Garmin Nuvi 260.

On our recent vacation, we traversed over 2600 miles with the unit “plugged in” and it got us everywhere we wanted to go.

We didn’t even need to look at our old Rand McNally atlas that we brought along, you know, just in case…

That isn’t to say that the Garmin Nuvi 260 is flawless…

The first problem I found with it was in downtown Chicago. While we were on the city streets, it worked just fine. But on the interstates that are 12 lanes wide with jersey barriers dividing it up every 4 lanes or so and city streets running parallel on each side of the highway, well, the Garmin was obviously unsure of which road we were actually on.

Understandable I suppose, it only appears to be accurate to within a few hundred feet and when there are 3 or more road ways all on top of one another within that accuracy zone, well, of course it was going to have some difficulty.

The good news is that even though we missed the turn it asked us to take (which would have been impossible due to the previously mentioned jersey barrier), the Garmin 260 was still able to guide us to our destination after “recalculating” a few times.

The next small issue I had with the unit came in Toronto — a city I’m semi-familiar with driving in. Like most modern cities, the whole downtown area is set-up in a grid style. My destination was north of the city on Yonge Street (a N-S route). At the time, I was on Dundas Street (an E-W route) about 5 blocks east of Yonge Street.

The simple way to get there would have been to to drive west on Dundas until I hit Yonge, turn right (towards the north) and then hit my destination.

But the Garmin instructed us to turn right, turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right, turn left — basically directing us towards the destination diagonally.

I immediately understood what it was doing, connecting our current position and our destination in a straight line and choosing the closest route.

Have you ever tried turning left in the city? On a main road? Where trolleys still run on rails? With tons of pedestrian traffic? And in a country where you need to give pedestrians the right of way?

It’s something that’s best to avoid.

I didn’t obey the Garmin in this case, mostly because I knew where I was going, but had this been in another city, one I’m unfamiliar with, it would have been quite the stressful drive when it didn’t really need to be.

The last little glitch with the Garmin occurred as we were heading home. We crossed the border in Buffalo, New York where the QEW becomes I-90 or the New York State Thruway. I-90 then eventually turns into the Mass Pike which leads right to Boston — which points us towards Connecticut.

We made a quick side trip to Eden, New York — maybe 10 minutes southwest of Buffalo and I-90 — to visit a kazoo factory. The Garmin 260 worked perfectly. Unfortunately the factory was closed. Boo…

Afterwards, we punched in our home address as our next destination and the Garmin took us through mile after mile of desolate farmland on slow two lane roads.

It was slow going and we were a little low on gas — not an ideal situation. I’d say it added nearly an additional 2 hours to our drive when, technically, the Garmin should have just told us to go back the way we’d come and join up with I-90 for some travel at 70+ mph.

On the bright side, taking the scenic route put us up close and personal to one of the wind farms that have started dotting the upstate New York landscape over the past decade. They’re a pretty neat sight.

In the end, I’d give the Garmin Nuvi 260 a big thumbs up. Its limitations, while annoying, are totally within reason. Best of all, it never failed to get us where we were headed.

Posted on July 7th, 2008 at 12:35 pm by Brainy Smurf
Computers, Vacation | 5 Comments »

Vacation: Day 1 Recap

Sigh… I was hoping to be able to write up a recap of each day (and related costs) on the fly, but due to a two hour rain delay last night at the Cleveland Indians/San Francisco Giants game, we got in so late that I just wanted to hit the sack.

Anyway, early morning greetings from Cleveland, Ohio. Shortly, we’ll be departing for Madison, WI — with a short “activity break” in Chicago to break up the drive…

Hopefully I’ll find a few minutes this evening to show that even with gas prices approaching $5/gallon, it’s still not very expensive to travel by auto.

Posted on June 27th, 2008 at 5:32 am by Brainy Smurf
Vacation | No Comments »

Last Minute Pre-Vacation Financial Maneuvers

Just three more days until we go on vacation so it’s time to start tying off all of the loose ends that could be forgotten as we head out the door.

The first thing we did was stop mail delivery for the time we’re away. It’s super simple to do now over the internet. That’s done.

We’ve gotten all of our legal documents, passports, green cards, and birth certificates together and ready for the trip. Sure, we’re only going to Canada, but the border crossing rules seem to change on a daily basis these days.

Never hurts to have everything on hand but even with all of the documentation in the world, it’s probably not enough to prevent an overzealous border patrol agent from handing out a few one way tickets to Guantánamo Bay.

Yes, I think the Patriot Act is stupid. Always have, always will.

The next thing we did was initiate transfers from our ING accounts to our checking accounts. Because this can take 2-3 days to clear, today was the day to do it. We won’t necessarily need the money while on vacation, but it will be nice to have it readily available.

I also made sure that all of the bills are paid and for those that are expected to arrive while we’re away, I’ve set-up an auto-payment. That’s overkill to a certain degree as we’ll be back home long before they’re due anyway. Better safe than sorry, though.

And the last thing I did was make sure that all of my credit cards have a $0 balance. Not only will this make keeping track of our vacation expenses very easy, its just eases the mind.

For the trip, I’ll be carrying two personal credit cards and one business card. Why, you ask?

Well, I’m only planning on using one card for everything, but on a past vacation, while shopping, the one card I had in my wallet was denied by the credit card company’s fraud department.

Apparently I was making suspicious purchases that were out of line for my account, so they locked it up.

Understandable, really, we’d probably covered over 500 miles and two countries in the span of 24 hours with purchases all along the way. I can see how it might look fraudulent.

After the rather embarrassing denial, it was humiliating actually, I called the number on the back my credit card from my wife’s cell phone and sat on hold as the battery power began to fade. Anxious moments, let me tell you…

Anyway, you know how when you get a new credit card they always say that you need to activate it from your home phone number? Well, they mean it.

I spoke to a very helpful and sympathetic customer service rep but because I wasn’t calling from my home phone, they weren’t able to verify that I was indeed the true account holder.

“Sir, can you call back from your home phone?”

“Um, no.  I’m standing in a parking lot 300 miles from home… I’m on vacation…”

Again, it makes sense, I suppose, but I still wasn’t happy about it.

Thankfully we were only a day away from home and my wife’s debit card could cover the rest of the vacation’s expenses, but it taught me a lesson — always have an EXTRA credit card on hand when away from home.

Kinda like American Express’ old tag line — “Don’t leave home without it” — but without the fees… That’s the plan this time… multiplied by three.

Posted on June 23rd, 2008 at 1:05 pm by Brainy Smurf
Credit Card, Finance, Savings, Vacation | No Comments »

Stay-cation? Not this year…

With all of the doom and gloom reporting of $5/gallon gas coast-to-coast arriving by the fourth of July, CNBC has been recycling the following paragraph in their articles for nearly a month now:

Instead of visiting theme parks and ballgames, they’ll be more inclined to find fun things to do at home–”stay-cation” has quickly embedded itself in the American lexicon–and will cook burgers and hotdogs on the grill before heading out to a fancy restaurant.

We’re bucking the trend.

In just over a week from now, we’ll be hitting a few theme parks.

Even a couple of ball games.

I’ll even go out on a limb and say we’ll eat at a fancy restaurant too during our 2k mile trek.

Yep — been there, done that on the “stay-cation” front. That’s what all of my “cheap weekend” posts here, here, here, here, here, and here have been about.

This time, we’re setting sail and taking a real 10-day/9-night vacation.

Day one will be mostly spent in the car — course set for…Cleveland.

I know, who will sit in the car for nine or ten hours straight to go to Cleveland?

We will.

We don’t have any planned stops along the way, but if we leave early enough in the morning, there’s nothing to stop us from making a few unexpected adventures off of the interstate…

Upon arrival, we’ll be taking in our first ever Cleveland Indians game at Jacobs Field. Sorry, I won’t call it “Progressive Field“. Corporate sponsorship has gotten out of control…

Apparently, the field (why don’t they call it a stadium?) was recently ranked as the best ballpark in some Sports Illustrated poll. That’s not the reason we’re going though. We’re not fans of baseball or even the Tribe, though they do have a pretty cool looking logo.

Thinking about it, I don’t think I can name a single player on the Indians…

Sandy Alomar played there. I only know that because his brother Roberto played for the Blue Jays back when they were actually good. Then he spit on an umpire or something. What a jerk.

I’m pretty sure Bob Feller played in Cleveland too. I had no idea who he was, Hall of Famer apparently, when I got his autograph as a kid at a minor league baseball game in the 1980′s… He didn’t seem real happy to be doing the minor league ballpark thing, if I recall correctly…

Anyway, it’s just something to do, outside the car, on the first night of our activity-packed vacation. I just hope it doesn’t rain…

Posted on June 18th, 2008 at 8:51 am by Brainy Smurf
Sports, Vacation | 1 Comment »

Nose Whistling Adventures in the Autoshop Waiting Room…

With our rapidly approaching vacation involving probably over 2k miles of driving, I thought it best to make an appointment to get an oil change and check-up on the car we’ll be taking on the voyage.

That appointment was scheduled for 7:30 am on Saturday this past weekend at the dealership. I arrived early, as I often do, by around 20 minutes. They weren’t open yet, so I parked in the first slot they have designated for service appointments and started to wait.

Not long after, a friendly looking 50 something woman in a Toyota SUV pulled up behind me in slot two, got out and tried to open the door — still locked. She smiled at me as she passed and then went back and sat in her car.

By now, I was getting a little antsy — it was 7:25 or so — I could see activity in the shop, but the doors were still locked. Sales associates were starting to roam the lots.

Then an old Toyota minivan pulled in, nearly sideswiped my car and the SUV behind me. He proceeded past my car and then stared backing up as if he were parallel parking in front of me — you know, where the HUGE no parking sign was.

Whatever. I was pretty sure he was cutting in line, but I’d give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Then a younger woman appeared out of no where — didn’t see her pull in, didn’t even see her car.

The door to the service office opened and what do you know? The two of us that were there first weren’t the first two in line. Figures…

Makes me wonder if people even understand the concept of a line any more.

Related tangent, at the Cow Parade a few weeks ago, we set-out and took our place on the curb a good 45 minutes before the parade to ensure a nice front row seat.

Things were looking great, until 5 minutes before the start and multiple rows of people start setting up in front of us on the road… I guess next time I should show up late and then show up the people that got there before me… Grrrrr…

Anyway, we’re herded into a little office to sit down with a service advisor — you know, the guy you give the keys to and explain your problem. It isn’t a very private setting, so you can basically listen in on everyone else’s car troubles as you wait…

The young woman apparently was bringing in her Camry because the radio didn’t work. Not only rude enough to cut the entire line of people (obviously) waiting, she took it a step further by making a call on her cell phone as she was talking to the service advisor. No joke — she talked as she dialed. The call must’ve been important too — something about someone’s baby’s mama…

The other fellow, the guy from the minivan that nearly sideswiped us early birds had the other service advisor occupied. He spoke very broken English — if I had to guess I’d say he was from Southeast Asia — but I think it was partly an act just to get his way. Apparently his van had been there yesterday for service and he was told to bring it back on Monday.

Well, this was Saturday. Apparently he didn’t understand that.

His problem was that the van, in his words, wasn’t running properly because the “seat belt” light was on. Um, yeah. The advisor asked him if he meant to say “Check Engine” light.

Nope, it was the seat belt light.

The advisor told him that he had an appointment to come back on Monday for them to take a look at it. The man then pretended not to understand and got rather aggressive.

I exchanged a raised eyebrow glance of dismay with the woman in line behind me. She shook her head in silent agreement.

The advisor caved — went out with the man to his minivan to see the light he spoke of. Outside, they exchanged more words — we couldn’t hear them, but the little man with the van was *very* agitated.

I felt bad — what a horrible way for this poor customer service guy to start his workday. He came back in with the man’s keys and started to fill out paperwork.

Crap — now I was, at best, going to be the third car to be worked on. The benefit of getting here early was most certainly lost now.

The advisor then called me up and I let him know not to worry — mine was easy. He told me the minivan was easy too — the seat belt light was on because the guy in the minivan had cut the seatbelt out. Nice.

I handed him my keys and made my way to the waiting room. It was empty. And quiet. A little too quiet. I squeaked my sneakers on the floor.

A few moments later, my fellow early bird set herself up in a chair diagonal from me and started to read a book she had brought.

Did I mention that it was quiet? The only noise in the room was that of my stomach. I hadn’t eaten the night before — the Tim Russert thing the night before stole my appetite so I hadn’t really eaten much of anything for two days. I felt fine, but my stomach was definitely voicing its displeasure.

It was pretty embarrassing. It’s not like I could blame it on some old guy in the room. I’m pretty sure she wanted to laugh. She had to have heard it.

I squeaked my sneakers on the floor some more, adjusting in my seat. The sound was piercing.

I looked at the magazine selection on the table next to me for something to flip through — you know, make a little noise. All golf and women’s interest magazines. That wouldn’t do.

There was a TV in the corner. I considered getting up and turning it on to break the silence (and cover up my stomach issues) but saw that the remote control was larger than a computer keyboard and thought better of it.

I’d tried to turn on this television in this waiting room before in the past, but getting the DirectTV (or whichever service they use) was too complicated to get going for me. I’d tried and failed. I wasn’t about to try again with an audience.

I just tapped my foot and cleared my throat every few minutes whenever I realized that I was nose whistling the Fugazi song appropriately titled “Waiting Room” as I often find myself doing in these situations.

Yes, this was the quietest waiting room ever.

By 8:00 am, thankfully, a father with two young children came in. I’d say the boy accompanying Dad was 6 or so and the girl was a couple of years younger. They were LOUD, but in this setting, that was a good thing.

The dad was obviously embarrassed and asked me, ignoring the woman — I guess I looked really bored or easily agitated in comparison, if cartoons were okay?

I said, “Yeah, sure!”

He corralled the two kids in the seats facing the television in front of me and picked up the oversized remote control. He couldn’t figure it out. Thankfully, the 6 year old boy had no problem — evidently familiar with the satellite service and how to turn it on.

Dad took over and settled on the first cartoon show he found, on channel 700 something, and get this, it was the Smurfs. Yes!

This kept the boy happy and quiet, but the girl was having a hard time sitting still. At the first commercial break, she whined, “Dad, I don’t like this show…”

Blasphemy!

Much to my dismay, Dad then went up a channel to “Pooh and Friends” which kept both children entertained — I mean, their eyes were glued to the set.

Apparently Rabbit lost his the wheel from his wheel barrow and had enlisted Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet to search for it. Fine, I admit it, my eyes were glued to the set too…

The show was 100% computer animated — nothing like the Winnie the Pooh I remembered. Tigger was wearing goggles for some reason that I wasn’t quite sure of either.

The one thing I did notice was his voice — Tigger’s, that is. I swear he sounds just like the singer for the 90′s band Cracker, David Lowery.

By this point, the waiting room was filling up. A few people, including the woman who arrived shortly after me, had even left already. The man with the kids left as well, but the television remained on.

I was the closest to the set, and I could tell that some in the room were annoyed by the Disney music videos that were playing at this point (one by my favorite band, They Might Be Giants).

Just then, the service room door opened and Glen, my assigned advisor, said, “Brainy?”

I gave him the head nod of acknowledgement and he came over like he was about to deliver some very dire news…

“Brainy, your front brakes are really worn down — no damage to the rotor yet, but…”

I cut him off, “Okay, do it. Go for it.” I mean, what choice did I have? Vacation is right around the corner…

He kept talking all soft like it was embarrassing personal information he was disclosing — I dunno, like he was going to inform me that they’d found a dead prostitute in the trunk or something — but instead, he was actually just saying that the bill would be around $250 or so and would take another hour and a half and blah, blah, blah…

“Yeah, sure, that’s not a problem…” and away he scurried before I could amusedly ask about my own seat belt light…

I adjusted in my seat again and then got up making it obvious that I wasn’t genuinely attached to what was on the television, you know, to give someone else a chance to make a move to turn it to another channel or off entirely.

I headed towards the coffee machine. Cool — it was the same one I have at work. I’m not really a big coffee fan, but I had another hour and a half to kill so why not spend it sipping outrageously hot liquid, right?

I grabbed a cup, inserted the k-cup of my favorite flavor, pulled the lever, and pushed the button. Like work, the machine made a wonky noise — likely the water pump — and then started to spew hot coffee into my waiting cup.

Now at work, you can hear it slowing down as it nears the rim of the cup. This one wasn’t slowing down. I hit the button again — which at work is kinda like an abort button.

On this machine, however, it fired up the pump again. Oh crap!

I filled two cups and eventually unplugged the machine from the wall with my foot. That stopped it. Finally.

Turning around, I surveyed the room. Apparently no one had noticed my heroic actions.

I cleaned up the mess I’d made — it wasn’t much — and went back to my seat. The TV was still on. And it was still tuned to the Disney channel. Sigh…

I sat back and sipped my hot coffee doing my best not to get caught looking at anyone in the room. It was an uncomfortable vibe in there — a bunch of grouchy people who weren’t real keen on being up this early on a Saturday.

People came and went. I finished my coffee. I twiddled my thumbs and finally Glen poked his head in again and said, “Brainy, you’re all set — just check out at the cashier…”

Now, according to the receipt, the brakes only cost $80. I’m sure that’s after around a 60% mark-up too. Still, not too bad. That much I can handle.

I’m sure you know where I’m going with this now…

How on earth can they justify charging nearly $200 for labor? How?

My oil change was free — I opted in to pay for service like that up front when I bought the car — so you can take that out of the equation.

The brake issue — the one that would have required the labor — came up maybe 1 hour ago meaning they just charged me $200 for one hour!?

I’m sorry, but you’d think that if the service guys are actually earning that kind of money, they could at least show up to work in a clean shirt, right? They’d probably all drive a Prius instead of junkers too…. C’mon…

One guy is technically pulling in over $1600 per 8-hour day there. I know the actual workers aren’t bringing home even a quarter of that per day, but the dealerships are certainly making a killing in the service department…

In the end, the total bill came to $293.43 which I immediately put on a credit card and chalked up as another vacation expense…

What’s that bring the total to now? Oh, I’ll worry about it later…

Posted on June 16th, 2008 at 1:55 pm by Brainy Smurf
Life, Rants, Television, Vacation | 5 Comments »