One good deed

Even though the other driver had seemed in an unreasonable rush, I was temporarily blocking her by needing to back up so I could pull into the parking space. As we both approached the hotel's door at the same time, I thought I'd be nice and let her go ahead of me.

Big mistake.

I'd come up here to Cleveland in advance of a full day at the film festival tomorrow. I figured I could use a complete night's rest rather than getting up and leaving before the sun rose. I already had the hotel reservation from when I expected to be here for three nights. Since I'd been in a fog of sorts for much of today, I decided that it might be wise to do the bulk of the travel tonight so that I'd be better rested for driving home tomorrow evening.

Anyway, back to the front desk. I let this middle aged woman go ahead of me, and she proceeded to take forever to check in. First, her reservation had mistakenly been placed for last Thursday, not tonight. So then she was deliberating over whether she wanted to stay here at all. What's the price for the weekend in a regular room? What's the price for a business king? How about the weekly rate, because she's going to be here for ten days? Well, maybe I'll book just for tonight and check the internet to make other plans.

This went on and on. Once it seemed like she had decided to stay here for a weekend in a regular room, she then changed her mind and decided to switch to a business king because those rooms have coffeemakers in them. I should add that there was a person behind me in line who was loudly huffing to express his displeasure with the wait. He eventually left.

Still, the evaluation of options continued. When all was said and done, it took her around fifteen minutes to select a room and the duration of the stay. Look, I was in no big hurry and was passing the time by checking Twitter on my phone, but I was put off by how inconsiderate she was being. People!

The art of the deal

While doing an ordinary task that most people probably don't think twice about--or even dislike--I realized that I get a real charge out of it. The activity: making hotel reservations.

Mostly the appeal is in finding a great rate at the right location. Usually I'm not staying anywhere remotely fancy, but for whatever reason, I have a knack for identifying inexpensive hotels with just enough amenities for my minimal needs that are in good-to-perfect spots.

It helps that I have a couple preferred chains that reward repeated stays, thus thinning the search field. Two spring film festivals are among my usual destinations. For the event in Illinois I've stayed at the same hotel eight out of the ten years I've attended. This year will make it nine out of eleven. Incredibly, I think I'm staying for about half the cost of the room I had at a different place in 2001, the first year I went. Granted, I wasn't as familiar with the area then, and I don't remember pricing information being as readily available online. Anyway, it was a point of pride and a rush of adrenaline to check the online prices this year, call the reservation number, and land a rate lower than what was listed on the website.

I'll be going to the Cleveland event for the seventh consecutive year, but the first place I found is still the best in terms of economical lodging. (The only time I haven't stayed there was when blizzard-like conditions coincided with the festival's start and I switched my first few nights to a hotel much closer.) I'd prefer if my usual hotel were closer, but I can't beat the price, especially for somewhere that I'm lucky to return to for six or seven hours of sleep. Booking it again for slightly less than the usual price felt like another win.

So while I was on a roll, I thought I'd consider getting a hotel in Dayton when I'm there back-to-back days for the NCAA Tournament's First Four basketball games. Sure, it's close enough that a hotel isn't necessary, but if I can get a room for around the price of a tank of gas, I decided I'd go ahead and make it an overnight trip. I'd rather spend the money on a hotel than fuel. Plus, it would give me a full day to spend in Dayton or to run down the road to IKEA.

The website listed some intriguingly low prices but didn't explain the codes attached to them. The telephone representative wasn't sure what they were and then eventually tracked down an answer that they weren't supposed to be posted. I wasn't able to reserve with those prices, but I have an idea as to what the rates may drop to when the listing is corrected. So we'll see.

I guess all this rambling essentially boils down to a tip for reserving hotel rooms. Check prices online, but call to make the reservation. As I found in this set of bookings, lower rates may be available for the taking.

The return

Technically speaking, today has only been 23 hours long for me as I traveled from the Central to Eastern time zone. It's seemed like anything but a short day. In fact, it's felt endless.

In anticipation of the early hour at which we'd be rising for my brothers and I to catch flights out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and my parents to begin making the drive home, I went to bed around 11:15 last night. About a half hour later I hears this horrid sound like a chainsaw. Oh wait, that's my cell phone vibrating because someone is calling. It's my mom wondering if I or the brother sharing the hotel room with me lost a gift card for a gas station in their room. Um, no. And also, what are you doing up, let alone calling at this hour?!

My brother set the room's alarm clock to go off at 5:10 a.m. I set a wake up call for 5:15. Good to go, right? I slept fitfully all night and at one point rolled over to see that the clocked displayed 4:22. I tried to get some more sleep. When I next awoke, I laid in bed just trying to rest and not get up. After awhile I thought that it was unusual that we hadn't been awakened. I looked at the clock to find that it was 5:42. The plan was to leave the hotel at 6:00 for my brothers' 7:30 flight and my 8:00 take-off. I informed my brother of the time and leaped out of bed to get ready in a hurry. Seeing as we were about a half hour from the airport, being deliberate was not an option. That was quite a way to start the day.

We encountered no problems catching our flights, and by 11:20 a.m., my plane had brought me back to Columbus. I hopped into the car of the person picking me up and was promptly taken to...the university's gym to keep stats for four college basketball games. This two-day tournament is long enough without getting up before the sun rises. It was sure to be a bruiser with how the day began.

To top it all, some things were goofed up on the final game, although I'd like to point out that they weren't my fault despite the inclination to suspect they were. (I was more tired in the middle of the day.) So that kept me around even longer. Finally, around 10:30 p.m., I walked through the door of my apartment.

I have four more games to work on Wednesday--that's what day it will be, right?--so hopefully I won't be carrying the wearying effects of travel or an intense amount of time spent with family for nearly a week. After all of this, I look very much to bringing this year to a quiet close at home and doing the same to start 2011.

Checking out

Random thoughts from the road...

-The hotel room alarm clock that does not allow the guest to change the time and date, even when both are wrong, and which the management does not know how to make correct has to say something about modern life.

-The clocks at Red Roof Inn must run ten minutes faster than the rest of the world's. They've been (and are) my hotel of choice during film festivals, and I don't really have any complaints. That said, I've been pushing it regarding how much sleep I can get, so wake up calls that come ten minutes early add insult to injury.

-Note to self: turning on the fan at night helps cover up the sounds of cars on the nearby interstate.

-Maybe it's more the exhaustion that comes from attending the film festival, but I swear I sleep harder in a hotel than I do at home. That is, when I'm not waking up every half hour as morning approaches because I'm afraid I'll sleep in late.

-Getting up early to write festival coverage rather than staying up late to do it makes a lot more sense, at least at the event I just left.

Randomness and follow-ups

Random notes following up on recent topics and visitor comments...

-Why do hotel maids take the soap one used during the first day's stay, especially if there's plenty remaining? Really, I don't mind using the same bar again.

-Number of days needed to recover from the film festival: two (or so I hope). I've had some pretty tired moments these days, but I anticipate bouncing back fully tomorrow.

-Added feature in some of the auditoriums and bathroom at the fest theater: feeling and hearing the rumble of the RTA train underneath.

-I have been posting fest reports at the site where I write under my real name. If you don't know the URL, feel free to e-mail me for it, although I will warn you that most of the films you haven't heard of and likely never will. The full list isn't up yet, but I'm hoping to put a wrap on the reports by the end of the week.

Housekeeping

Since I'm trying to get in bed in time for five hours of sleep before rising for another day of film festing, let's keep this brief.

Hotel housekeeping...why do they go around so early and start knocking on doors? This morning they didn't get to mine while I was still in bed, but I know that the woman had already made it down at least half of the floor when she reached mine around 9:40 a.m. I suspect she started at 8 as I could hear the progress coming down the hall. Being a light sleeper is not advantageous at times like this.

The early housekeeping knock always drives me crazy, especially if I'm sleeping in even a bit. Granted, I realize that hotel guests are likely staying because they have other places to be at the start of the day, but it seems like the hotel is pushing it when they want to have someone clean the room when you're not even up and about for the day.

President's Day

I can't remember the last time I got President's Day off. It is not treated as a holiday at work because Martin Luther King Jr. Day grabs that lone honor for winter quarter. I don't believe we got it off when I was a college student either, so unless my employer in my temp days after college (and before my fulltime job) granted it off, the holiday has gone unobserved in my routine since high school.

Believe it or not, President's Day really was a holiday I looked forward to as a kid. We didn't go on vacations very often, but one trip that we usually made was to Toledo every mid-February. I know, Toledo in the winter (or Toledo at any time) doesn't sound terribly exciting, but it was the chance to get out of the house and spend a couple nights in a hotel.

The purpose of the trip was for my dad to get the business and family's taxes done by his accountant in northwest Ohio. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why there wasn't someone in the Dayton area who could do them. Nevertheless, it made for a fun weekend trip.

The big attraction for us kids was the hotel. I can't remember its name, but I can picture it as it's where we stayed pretty much every time. The building on I-75 south of the city didn't stand out in any way on the inside or outside. It was just the thrill of being in a hotel. Plus, it had a large indoor pool. I guess we were easy to please.

If we weren't swimming , we were probably watching TV. I recall being sprawled on the floor watching an Olympic hockey game from Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. (No, I didn't sleep on the floor.) Hotels also meant HBO, which meant being lured by the siren call of the magnificent theme music and open introducing the next movie. If the timing was right, we could seeFraggle Rock and The Beastmaster. Or maybe it was Dragonslayer...or both. I never saw it, but Super Fuzz always seemed to be on in those days.

President's Day was for going into downtown Toledo. In those days the city had a brand new shopping center called, I think, Lakeside. The first year it was open may have coincided with when we made these trips, but by the time we stopped going, I recall that it was nearly empty save for seniors getting their walking exercising.

It's funny the things that one remembers, but one other memory that sticks out in my mind was hearing a street corner preacher on a downtown corner near the accountant's office building. We didn't spend much time in the accountant's office. Usually we were just there while we waited for my dad to finish up the time he spent with them. I recall being intimidated by the guy yelling hellfire and brimstone in the big city, so you can imagine how shocking it was to go up high in this office and still hear him inside. That guy had a set of lungs on him.

Now President's Day is simply a day without mail delivery, but for those years when it meant a weekend family vacation of sorts, it was something greatly anticipated that I remember fondly.