I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set and I think I need a lear jet.

(First off - three posts in one day! Holy Shit! I've had some weeks of three posts, so this must be my creative pinnacle. It's all downhill from here!)

$1,963.15. That is the total cost of everything for my trip to the U.K. Now, some people might think that this is nothing, but this was supposed to be my cheap trip for the year. If only because I wasn’t going to paying for lodging for the most part, only one night in Edinburgh. All other lodging was either at Gary’s apartment or the hotel in downtown London where Gary was using his Hilton points.

To give you an example, I stayed in Amsterdam, flight & hotel were just about $1,250, and I spent another about $450 while there. About $1,700 - very reasonable. And that includes all food, all transportation, all tourist attractions, all alcohol, as well as the hotel.

So I went to the most expensive city in the world (according to one article I read on Monday) and it cost me $250+ more – what is the big deal you ask? The big deal is that this was going to be the cheap trip this year – a quick jaunt over to England to visit Gary, see a few things, stay at his place, yada yada.

I have been on 4 big trips this year, and I am estimating that it cost me a total of about $8,500 total. I know I’ve seen some wonderful things and all, but it is now time to pay the piper.

So next year, I will be going to Thailand with my nephew, and that might be it, to be honest. I have to pay off the credit cards and then the $5,000+ that I charged with Home Depot for the Heat Pump that has to be paid off within 12 months for the interest free option.

Maybe I will just see the good old USA next year instead of traversing around the world.

I'm stumbling blind with no destination, at an unholy speed. I must keep on moving

On Sunday night, Lynne & I had a hotel room at the Conrad International in the Chelsea Harbor area of London. It was actually a suite – thank you Gary and the Hilton Points. We didn’t pay anything for the room and it was great for us.

Gary had gone back to his apartment in Basingstoke, about 40 miles outside of London, and Lynne & I spent the day at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and shopping at Harrod’s (where we shopped next to Simon Cowell.) After dinner we headed back to the hotel. I didn’t want to spend the night doing nothing, and we did have the ride-all-day pass on the Tube, so I mentioned we should do some site seeing at Parliament and Big Ben.

We get on the Tube and change to go to the Westminster Station. When you leave this station towards Parliament, you come out right under the Tower of Big Ben: it is quite impressive to be standing underneath it as you come out of the exit to street level. And it was about 10:30 pm, so it was lit up to make it look quite grandiose.

I decided I wanted to try and get some more pictures from across the Thames, so we started walking across the Westminster Bridge. What we didn’t notice at first is that about half way up the bridge they are doing some construction work on the side, and 2 or 3 of the lamps are out, so the bridge gets pitch black.

As we approached the dark area, I was putting my camera away, as I had taken many photos of the buildings. We looked up and saw that there were 4 men standing there talking. Lynne again is sure that it was Russian they were speaking, I just know it wasn’t English.

As we approached them, two broke off and walked ahead of us. As we passed, one of them, the taller one, held his hands up about eye level with fist of one hand in the palm the other and cracked his knuckles while staring me straight in the eye.

This is when our sixth sense came into play. Lynne & I started walking a bit faster, and I knew that we were being followed. Just as we were coming to the end of the bridge, up from the street level came 2 couples, and that is the first time I looked back and there were 3 men behind us. When the two couples came up the stairs the men stopped walking as fast. We made a left to walk on the sidewalk next to the river, as I remembered that the London Eye, the large observation wheel overlooking London on the south bank of the Thames, has security all the time. We tried to keep in the light, but it was tough in that area. The 3 men paced us the whole way.

Once we got to the London Eye, we kept to one side near a security guard, pretending to read a plaque and looking across the river at the buildings. The 3 men walked just past us and started taking pictures upwards of the London Eye. I noticed one of them sneak a look our way. Then they just starting walking the way we had come here, and we watched them walk up to Westminster Bridge, the same spot they were at when we first saw them.

Had we kept walking towards Hungerford Bridge along the Thames we would have been in darkness again. Had we made a made the left at the end of the building next to the London Eye to get to Waterloo Station, which was our destination, we would have been plunged back into darkness for a part of the walk. And I am sure that these guys meant us harm, at the least a grab and run of our two bags.

This was the first time in all of my travels that I have come across something like that. I have long wondered if this was because I was always such a bigger guy, and now, 50 pounds lighter, maybe I’m not as intimidating looking. Not that I was before, as I’ve never been a good fighter, but a guy who is like 6’3” 260+ pounds is a bit more threatening than a guy who is 220 lbs.

Or maybe this is because I was walking like such a tourist, camera out, young lady next to me. I might be less likely to fight if what they think of as “my lady” could get hurt. I don’t know why, but I am glad I didn’t have to find out, and I’ve learned something for the future in travel.

There's consequences I'm scared to taste, cold hard truths I can't face: these days are different than the past

Now I know why people don’t just pick up running. Last night, got back on the treadmill and my legs felt like they were made of lead. As I started it wasn’t bad, but 4-5 minutes into the run it started burning, more than it usually does, and then the legs felt like they were thumping onto the tread harder and harder.

I finished my 3 miles in 30 minutes, an only got a small cramp near the end, but the legs were dragging the rest of the night. I never remember feeling this in my legs. I assume this is just my legs rebuilding back up the endurance after 11 days not running.

Also, I mentioned that I wasn’t that hungry yesterday morning. A coworker had gone to a local deli and had a sandwich and got a side of macaroni salad with it that he didn’t want, so I ate it. Then I checked the calorie content of macaroni salad and it is bad. I am assuming the small ½ cup that I had probably contained 275 calories and 19 g of fat! Cripes, that ruined the whole day.

I was also starving by the time I finished running, and though I did good, my day total was 1,751.5 calories. A bit higher than I would have liked, but not as bad as I wanted it to be. I am still kind of hungry this morning, even after I had a bowl of cereal with blueberries and raisins (and soy milk.) I have to do this for a few days to get back on track.

But this morning, I was down to 222 lbs. I don’t know if I will get under 220 lbs by the end of the week, if only I don’t see myself being able to keep under 1,600 calories through this weekend, but I will be there by the end of next week.

One day they will have to understand, there's more to love than boy meets girl

Lynne & I were on the Tube, going from one place to another in London. Where isn’t important, I can’t even remember now.

In our time in London, we had been seeing a lot of public displays of affection. I mean a lot of it.

One was a long goodbye by a Metro station, where guy & girl were making out and crying, and he had a small suitcase. They kept kissing, crying and there were a lot of “I’m going to miss you so much!” Once, he tried to walk down the steps, made it about 4 steps down, turned around and came back to kiss her again. And then, as we had to walk down the same steps, he kept looking back and blowing her kisses. It was all overly dramatic.

We got onto the metro going somewhere on Sunday evening. Standing in front of us are this dreadlocked white girl and her equally dirty looking boyfriend. (I know it is bad of me not to have an open mind, but I think all white people with dreadlocks look awful, just terrible.) He looked like he had been blonde at one time, but his hair was dingy, matted and brown now. And they are sucking face like there is no tomorrow. Going to town like they are alone. I even said aloud “Get a room,” but they are either too into each other or ignore me. A little old woman who was sitting nodded agreement to me after my comment.

At each stop, when the train would push them closer into each other, they would giggle with the different ways their bodies could touch. Several other passengers were looking at them, mostly of them clearly with disdain. They were at the back of the train near one of the door entrances, but off to one side. I was standing next to them, so I got the full experience, including sound effects.

Trying to avoid this show, I looked right behind me, and there were two men, both looked mid to late 20’s, tall and fair, one taller than the other (both taller than me, and I’m over 6’2”.) They looked very sleepy, and had a lot of luggage with them, so they were visiting the city (I do believe we were on a line from the Victoria Station, which connects directly to the airports, coming into the city instead of away from it.) We heard them speak, and Lynne was sure they were Russian (she has a good friend who is Russian and has heard it spoken more than I.)

If you aren’t familiar with the London Underground, most of the cars have two little cushions on either side of the emergency door that you can rest your bum on when you are in the back of the car; you’re not really sitting down, just leaning your bum on it. These guys were each taking one of the cushions, both facing forward, about 2 feet separates them.

I saw the taller one say something to the other, who just shook his head. Then the taller one slyly smiled, said something else and put his right arm out, just in the middle of the emergency door. After a pause, the other guy put his left arm down, and after a few seconds, they intertwined their last two fingers together. They held that for a stop or two. The taller one looked quite pleased, but the shorter one looked a bit worried and kept looking around. The taller one said something else, and his boyfriend shrugged his shoulder and finally smiled.

As I looked around the car, the old lady was now looking at the two guys, and this time she was smiling. Obviously I have no way of knowing, but she seemed to be smiling in approval. Maybe juxtaposed next to the hetero couple trying to remove each others spleens with their tongues, these two guys were the picture of normality (and maybe even the English idea of proper public displays of affection) and this old lady approved. Maybe it’s the fact that we live in the 21st century, and if hetero couples can orally molest each other in public regularly, then two men simply holding hands is fine. Maybe the old lady had cataracts, and she couldn’t see that it was two men holding hands. Whatever it was, it made me all warm and fuzzy on the inside, and made me smile.

I hope to do that one day, in Pittsburgh, on public transportation, or going into a restaurant, or, like those young guys a few months ago, just walking around a mall. I want to be able to do it one day. Maybe first I should find someone to do it with, and then worry about actually doing it.

Look at your hands ache

It wasn’t too bad, to be honest. I ran for the usual 3 miles in 30 minutes. My legs are a bit sluggish today, but no real cramping up while running yesterday. I also ate just under 1500 calories yesterday, and I wasn’t really hungry for more. That surprises me as I have been pigging out for the past 2 weeks. I was a bit hungry this morning, but I had my cereal and fruit and I am now good.

This morning I was down to 223 lbs. Not bad, though I will say I am a bit surprised it is coming off quickly. If I can get back down under 220 lbs by the end of the week, that would be good, but unexpected. And it may create a problem with my psyche.

Now, deep down, when I think of eating that one 1,800 calorie meal (burger & fries), I will think that I can just work a few days and it will be off. Instead, I need to be steady for 5-6 weeks with regular diet and exercise, see where it gets me around the new year. I still feel like I've got to get down under 210 lbs to be healthy for the long haul.

I just don’t know what I will do over the next few weeks. Rather wish I had that same drive that I had earlier this year, but I seem to get satisfied at around 216 lbs, and I shouldn't be.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

Well, I guess I didn’t get around to updating at all whilst in London. Big shock there, eh? I wanted to, but was so busy that the times I was near the internet, I didn’t want to type at all. And I might have been drunk. Maybe. Can’t remember.

So, the bad news up front. As of this morning, 226 lbs. That is actually better than when I landed on Saturday afternoon, but still it isn’t good. Also, I didn’t make the time to run at all. I did walk a lot, and Lynne & I did go up 535 steps to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral on Monday, and that is no easy feat, but still, no running.

I can so feel the extra 8-10 pounds. It has slowed me down considerably, and I feel bloated the past few days. So today, back to the 1600 calories/day and I will run tonight for the firs time in 12 days. Yikes, that is my longest break in running since I started last October.

As for the trip…too much to post on here. We went, in order, to Stonehenge, Bath, Leeds Castle, Canterbury, St. Martin’s, The National Gallery of England, Harrod’s, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Edinburgh Castle, St. Giles Cathedral, The Palace at Holyroodplace, The National Gallery of Scotland, The Tower of London & Parliament. Lynne & I saw 6 different airports in our travels, and I still think Pittsburgh is the best airport I’ve ever been. We took several trains, subways, buses and once a London Cab. We watched Gary drive on the other side of the road and not kill us. Somehow. And we almost got mugged on the Westminster Bridge at 10:30 pm on a Sunday night.

All in all, a fantastic journey, if a very expensive one. I learned only after I got back that London has recently been named the world’s most expensive city. And I proved it ($48 for 2 matinee tickets to Casino Royale with 2 large drinks and 2 large popcorns. Very expensive.)

Now it is back to the grind of eating better and running a lot. I have to start getting into shape for softball again. Gary did talk about getting me a few sessions with a personal trainer for Christmas, and if he comes through with that, I think I can make a great deal of progress to getting in better shape and getting healthier.

I will tell some stories later this week of things I saw in the United Kingdom that made me happy.

London calling, yes, I was there, too. An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!

Toothbrush, check.

Exra undies, check.

Running shoes, check.

Sleep..oh, whoops, I forgot that.

For some ungodly reason, I did not go to sleep last night until 3 am. I woke up at 6:15 am, and it is now 20 minutes before my mother picks me up to take me to the airport. I can always sleep when I'm dead, eh? Cause I won't on this trip.

Itinerary is to get off plane, Gary picks us up at Heathrow, and we "swing by" his place to freshen up, then off to Stonehenge, then Bath (my mom asked me why we were taking a bath after Stonehenge. I told her it was the name of a city in UK. We giggled. We're like that.) Then Saturday, off to Canterbury, then London for Saturday night (clubs in London), Sunday & Monday, Lynne & I fly to Edinburgh Tuesday in the wee morning, flight back to London at night on Wednesday, cook Gary Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, then London for our final day on Friday, jump back to Heathrow for flying home on Saturday.

Either Lynne & I are going to be better friends at the end of the trip, or she will hate my guts. I'm hoping for the former.

I will try to update when I get the chance. I want to use this to document the trip. I should have regular access to internet.

And I hope to run at least 3 times. Low calories is out the window (it was out the window a week ago) but if I can at least run a few times, I will feel better.

This paint by numbers life is fucking with my head once again

I have a lot to do before I get the airport at 8:30 Thursday morning, both at work and at home. So in that vein, I was washing clothes, washing dishes, recording some travel shows from my ReplayTV to DVD to have them converted to my video iPod so I can watch them with Lynne on the plane ride over to London.

John called me while I was doing all of this, and when I picked up the phone I was kind of rushing around. He asked about my day and I told him all the rushed things I was doing at work and at home getting ready for the trip, how I had to come home and run 3.1 miles, cooked some yummy stir fry, all the while doing these other things. After I was done, I ask the next natural question:

“How was your day?”

John: “It was good every time I thought of you.”

Long pause. I don’t know how to respond to this.

Pause goes on longer than I intended as I don’t know what else to say.

After a good 20-25 seconds of silence (do it right now. Go up to someone and say something, let them respond and then just stand there for 25 seconds – it is a very long, awkward time to say nothing) John says: “I caught you off guard, didn’t I?”

Then, being the smooth, suave and sophisticated operator, I said “How about that Steeler’s game?”

It worked. He laughed and then we were off the subject. We talked for a while, and I did later tell him that I am very uncomfortable with the talk of missing me and thinking of me, especially with us knowing each other only a few days. I told him that it was too soon to be anything, and I was looking for Mr. Right, and I then actually told him I wasn’t sure if he was it. He seemed slightly bummed, but said that he would hold out hope.

so many men, so many men no-one needs

I went on a date on Saturday. Not sure how I feel about it all, as it is something strange to me, but I fear that John is more into me than I am into him.

Fuck, that makes me sound so like high school.

Start from the beginning. Not sure if I had mentioned this before here, but I put up a “profile” on match.com (I do find it interesting that they don’t call it a dating “ad” but a “profile.)” And this guy, we’ll call him John, responded about 2 weeks ago. He seemed nice and I liked his profile, so we e-mailed a few times and then progressed to phone conversation last Thursday. So we set up to meet on Saturday evening for dinner.

I guess first off I haven’t been on a date in a long time. Years, in fact. So it was all a little strange for me. Met at a mall, went to dinner, walked around the mall after dinner shopping (I did get a great price on some new Reebok running shoes, and am such a geek I ran for 15 minutes yesterday just to try them out. They are quite comfortable!) and then left. He seemed like a nice person and was attractive.

Then Sunday morning just before noon, I get a text message:

“hey there goodlookin. Miss u. call me when u can.”

I got no problem with being called good looking. And I planned on calling him later on in the afternoon before the Steelers game. But I was promptly freaked out by the whole “Miss u” statement. I will say that there were a few “red flag” indicators that maybe he was a little on the clingy side. I am not on the clingy side.

I called Gary in London, and he said flat out “You’re not attracted to him.” I disagreed with him, saying that John is an attractive guy. But I felt that there were undue pressures (there is more to it. He called me Friday and left a voice mail message that was kind of jokey/whiney about me not answering, saying something about that I need to answer when he called. He removed his profile on match.com – some things that seem to send the message of finality, like we are more than one date removed from not even knowing each other.) I like to take things slow and easy. I once jumped into something with a cute guy who turned out to be a heroin addict. Let’s just say I’ve been burned before by rushing into things. I was going on the idea that I wanted to take things slowly.

Then I was out shopping for a rain jacket for my trip to London. I went to Macy’s, and one of the salesman was very cute and a bit flirtatious with me, and I smiled a bit and it got my heart racing a little bit. And I realized that John doesn’t do this to me, and he probably never will. But I think, from his reaction, that I do it for him. And I feel sad about that.

Maybe I should just accept life as a single gay man with 3 cats in my house. Oh man, do I sound like a loser now!

I walk the line...

I think I have lost some of my direction. Or maybe it is my desire. Whatever it is, I have been having a tough time over the past month really being able to control my eating.

Last night I went shopping to stock up on some Diet Pepsi products at a local grocery store. And instead of just leaving the shopping center with some Diet Mountain Dew, I picked up a large Italian hoagie. I went home and ate the whole thing. Wasn’t even hungry after I ate the half I expected to eat, but shoved it in.

So yeah, blah blah blah, same thing again and again. The only real problem is that my weight is staying down still, only at 221 this morning. I realize that this is different than what I want to be, but it isn’t bad at all.

I hope after London I can be better. But I am tired of having to think of it all. I just want to go to London and then I will work it out afterwards.

I need more love every day of my life

Sometime during the evening, after running my 3.1 miles, I decided either through nerves or through celebration, I needed to eat more food. I didn’t binge so much, and it came out to be about 2,500 calories, but it was more than I originally planned on eating.

As you see, I did write that part of my mini-binge may have been through celebration last night. Santorum is gone. Although I will spend the rest of my days wondering not only how he won in the past but how even in this election, where the choice to me was glaringly clear, Santorum got over 1.6 million votes. But I won’t dwell on that today. I am happy that Santorum is out. No more “Man-on-Dog” comments from him, comparing homosexuals to deviants.

On a more personal note, my nephew, the one who broke his leg and had to take a semester off school in February and then flipped his step-father’s car 2 months ago, was held up at gun point last night delivering pizzas. He has a bump on his head, lost his phone and a handful of money, and probably will have a lot of anger (I know I did for a while when I was assaulted) for a while, but he is fine. His career delivering pizzas is over, though. And I can only hope that his luck changes next year when I take him to Thailand.

Again, this is another reason I couldn’t have children. I just would not be able to stop worrying about them. I worry too much about my nieces & nephews as it is. And if they were my kids, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep half the night worrying if they were alright if they weren't home, or worrying if someone would break into the house and harm them.

And I wouldn’t be able to travel like I do now. Not because of the money, that isn’t a problem (you don’t have to make that much money to be able to travel, I’ve proven that.) But I probably would not want to put myself in any type of dangerous situation if I was a responsible for children. And as much as I like to feel comfortable flying, there is an element of it that can be dangerous traveling around the world.

Even driving to places close enough to Pittsburgh can be dangerous. I remember driving to Toronto with a friend a few years ago, and there was a gaggle of pigeons on the highway that didn’t start flying off the road until it was too late. I hit two of them, one with the grill of my SUV and one with the windshield. If I’d decided to swerve to get out of the way, I was doing about 65 mph, I would have easily tipped over and probably killed all of in the car.

My job has proven to me that you don’t even have to do anything wrong to die in a car accident. Other people are stupid enough for everyone.

And I’d also get the urge to wrap the children in bubble wrap anytime they leave the house. Just in case.

Probably a good thing that I don’t have, and don’t want, children. And that it isn’t expected of me. You know, being a fag and all. Not saying we can’t be fathers, but it isn’t expected so there isn’t any pressure to go out and procreate.

Although if I did have kids, I could feel really good that today, in my opinion, we have made our country and hopefully the world a better place by getting rid of Santorum. Yeah, I hate him that much. But only cause he hates me more.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” – John Quincy Adams

Today I do something that I first did on November 8, 1994. And something I did exactly 6 years ago today. I am voting against Rick Santorum.

I know should vote for something in the other candidate, whatever his name is. I know that what should count is a candidate’s principles. I actually liked Al Gore and John Kerry. I think both of them are better human beings than the person who won those elections. I think both had some good ideas and some great ideas, and they extolled virtues I believe in.

But that is what I am voting against today. Rick Santorum has been against me and my fellow homosexuals since that day he first got to congress. He has been against me and my fellow atheists. He has been against me and my fellow conservationists. He has been against me in every way that he has ever voted.

In defense of his anti-homosexual stance for equality in marriage, he said “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever, to my knowledge, included homosexuality…It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever may be the case.” I can’t believe that he is able to compare to adults who want to commit to each other to man on dog, but that is how he thinks. And that is against me.

He is completely inflexible. He is stuck in this time frame where reality doesn’t exist. In his book he stated “The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong.” Then he explains this by basically saying that women should be there to help their family, not out working. He doesn’t live in a world where a household needs two incomes.

But he was alright with taking money from the school district in a suburb of Pittsburgh to pay for his children to go to a cyber school in Virginia.

And finally, even though he talks about his catholic “faith” as if he has wraps himself in it to protect him and his family, wrote a book that encapsulated his faiths dogma, and has regularly quoted scripture, he finally admitted “I’ve never read the Bible cover to cover; maybe I should have.” Admitting that he really doesn’t know what he is talking about.

So I will cast my vote against this man who is against me and my beliefs. He has shown himself to be against not just my beliefs, but also against me personally. And so I have done this twice before, and I it didn’t work out the way I wanted. He won anyway. But I will vote my conscious. And I won’t get all wound up if the results tomorrow are the same as they were on November 9, 1994 & November 8, 2000. I should be used to it by now.

I’ll just come back from voting, run for 3 miles and eat some healthy food to bring my daily calorie intake to somewhere around 1600, and go to bed. And do it again tomorrow, no matter who is the junior senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good." – H. L. Mencken

I chew up and I choke down the scraps you choose to leave around

Let me tell you a story of last evening, and it will explain the entire weekend for the most part.

While watching my poor Steelers give away another game (6 turnovers? And none from the Jake-the-Snake led Broncos? How is that even possible?) there was a commercial for this new “Brooklyn Pizza” from Domino’s Pizza. Big chunks of pepperoni or sausage on large, foldable slices of pizza. As the game continued to spiral out of control (I think it is worse when the Steelers pretend that they are almost in the game, only to fumble another one away) I thought this would be a great idea to get one of these pizzas for Sunday evening drowning my football team sorrows while watching The Simpsons. I even thought how I’d have a piece or two and then bring the rest to work the next day in case a co-worker didn’t bring lunch and could heat this up.

With this need to drown my sorrow I called Domino’s and ordered the pizza. I was told it would be 15-20 minutes. So I was at Domino’s 20 minutes later, and the guy behind the counter took my $10.69 after I gave him my name. No pizza.

He checked each of the pizzas on the outgoing shelves. No pizza. There was a woman waiting when I came in, she got her 2 pizzas and left. No pizza for me after almost 10 minutes being in Domino’s.

I see the young guy who took my money talk to the only other person in the place, and she said “Well, make it now!” He went to the pizza making station where I could see him and started making a pizza. A few minutes later I see him put the pizza in the oven, and it isn’t a pepperoni pizza. I give a strange look and the woman, who identified herself as the manager, said “He forgot to make your pizza.”

5 minutes AFTER she tells me that, I see him spread dough out and put sauce on it. Then he says “He wanted pepperoni” and put his hand in the pepperonis.

I say “STOP!” I have now been in the Domino’s for over 20 minutes with no freakin’ pizza! The manager comes to me and I ask “Is he making it now?” and she looks at me incredulously and says “I told you he forgot to make it.” To which I replied “Five minutes ago.”

I decide to be one of those people who is willing to walk away. Assuming that she will do some type of good customer service action once I threaten to walk away, I say “Please give me my money back.”

And do you know what the manager did? She gave me my money back and then told me “The next time you order, ask for me and I will make sure you get a coupon for a free pizza.”

WHAT? This is what constitutes customer service? At the least, I expected something like “I will refund your money, and if you wait 10 minutes we will get your pizza to you.” Instead, they think I will not only order again, but that it is acceptable that AFTER I order my next pizza is when I will get a free pizza for wasting so much of my time.

Instead of being defeated, I went up the road to Pizza Hut (where I told the story and the manager gave me a large for the price of a medium) and got the pepperoni lover’s pizza, went home and gobbled up 7 f’in pieces.

That seemed to typify my weekend eating. If there was anything in front of me, I gobbled it up. Wings, salsa, French fries, chocolate covered fruit, beef vegetable stew, ice cream, Klondike bars. I don’t know why I am in such a mood to gorge on an almost daily basis, but that is what I am doing. But I ran 5 times alst week, 30 mintutes each day, 3.1 miles each time. That has got to be worth something, don't ya think?

And that damn Pepperoni Lover’s Pizza was terrific!

If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere

I hate airlines.

I don’t say that because of true costs, flights, airplane conditions, flight times, number of connections or turbulence. I don’t care about what food I eat or the fact that I have to pay for alcohol on international flights now. I don’t have a problem with them charging $5 for headphones for the in-flight entertainment if they want to make a few extra bucks.

What has got me up in arms is the complete and random nature of pricing for flights. And don’t get me wrong: I have benefited from some low prices and been victimized by higher prices, so I’ve seen both sides of the equation. But the pricing just seems to be completely illogical.

Here is an example. My friend Gary knew that he was probably flying to London months ago. Some time in August, he found that, if all the contracts were completed, he’d be flying over on 09/16/06.

When I returned from my trip to Edmonton on 08/16/06, I started looking into ticket prices for a specific time frame, 11/16-11/25/06. When I first started looking, there was a flight from Pittsburgh to London Gatwick through Dulles that left early in the morning and arrived in London on the same day, 9:45 pm Thursday, for $415 total. There were several flights that left Thursday evening and arrived early Friday morning, 11/17/06, all for $415.

Gary, however, was unsure if all the contracts were going to be signed or if he was even going to go, so I made a decision not to buy my ticket to London until he was actually there, but I kept paying attention to the prices. 2 weeks before Gary left, prices suddenly spiked up to $501, and the same-day flight was no longer available. That was fine with me, and still not too much of a price problem.

The day Gary was leaving, I was at his house to drive him to the airport. He was frantically packing, so I sat down at his computer and checked flights. The cheapest flight I could get for the same time frame was $640! How is that possible? We were still talking 2 months prior to departure, and the flights spiked up another $139, and were $225 more than they were 3 months prior to my planned trip.

So I started looking for other flights, and checking all these different websites that supposedly offer cheap airline fares. Lynne had talked about going, but she was out of the office for the first 2 days back after I dropped Gary off. On 09/19/06, I saw a ticket price of $540. On the very next day, the best price I could get was through NYC for $566. I booked this flight, and when Lynne was back in town the next day, the same flight was available for same price so she booked it.

One of our co-workers and good friend of Lynne worked for the airline we are going on, so Lynne asked her “What is LaGuardia Airport like?” I looked at Lynne and said “No, we need to know what JFK Airport is like.” Lynne & I started arguing, confused which airport we are going through. Turns out we were both correct.

We fly from Pittsburgh into LaGuardia. Then we have to get our bags, leave LaGuardia, take either a bus or a taxi to JFK Airport to get our flight to London, check our bags back in, go through security again and get to our gate. I will say, we have just a bit over 6 hours to do this as long as there isn’t any delay in our flight from Pittsburgh to NYC. With no problems, I think that this is doable. Completely doable. Annoying as all fuck, but doable. As long as there are no unusual traffic problems.

However, we fly back the same way, and have to go from JFK to LaGuardia, but this time we have only about 4 hours to do this. And we have to go through US Customs. And let me just say, I have a sad problem where TSA seems to think I am someone on some list and I keep getting searched at airports, so I would say we have a good chance of being delayed at JFK on the flight back. Unless the city that never sleeps takes an afternoon siesta on 11/25/06, I think we have a chance of missing our flight from NYC to Pittsburgh!

So, I have kind of accepted the inevitability that I will not be home in Pittsburgh on Saturday, 11/25. I think I will be stuck in NYC for the night, and I have a brother who lives there, so I can handle that, though not happy about that prospect.

This running across the Big Apple to different airports is what bothers the snot out of me. I have had more anxiety over the exchange from one airport to another in NYC than anything else about this trip. And it was all due to fear of the price of a flight.

What drives me completely batshit is the prices and the fact that since I have bought the ticket, I have been able to find tickets cheaper and with the layover being in one airport, not having to run from one to the other. And I don’t have a choice now that I bought it: can’t exchange tickets without incurring $200 fee.

I don’t know how I could have looked and looked and seen the tickets skyrocket up just when I was ready to buy, and how afterwards, I have found most tickets cheaper since I bought my ticket, and only going through one airport to get from Pittsburgh to London.

This morning I checked and USAirways has a flight from Pittsburgh to London through Charlotte, NC, coming back through Philadelphia, all for $488 total. So it is $88 cheaper, but what is really getting me is the fact that I wouldn’t have the stress of crossing the biggest city in USA to get from one airport to another. If I had been offered the same flight for $566, but only going through one airport, I would have taken it.

Due to the constant, insane price fluctuation that is airfares, I took what I thought would be the best price, and it was the only time that the price spiked upwards, so I look like an idiot now. If there was some type of consistency in flight prices, some of us wouldn’t have to go through shit like this regularly (be lucky I didn’t describe for you the one flight I took to Edmonton a few years ago where I went to 4 total airports and 19 hours in one day, just to save myself $40, which I promptly spent on a taxi ride to get to my friends house earlier!)

Fucking airlines!