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Archive of entries posted on October 2008

seattle conference part I

so it’s tuesday, the 14th of october, and decided to drive down to the conference to which i’m also presenting at. furthermore, decided to stay at the hotel where the conference is being held. good choice, in hind sight, really ‘good’ choice. i guess it will save me traveling time in the morning. the hotel itself is the hilton at seatac. overall the drive was great, fast and to some extent short. less than 2 hours once we passed the us/canada boarder. besides the ‘drivers’ on the road, with their american cars and high beams, all went quite well. overall, i do like the american roads, wide and open.

we get to the hotel, the usual customer service. i was informed that the requested room was available, a smoking king size bed. get the key, park the car for which one must pay a few per day. what happened to complimentary parking? guess they somehow forgot that part of customer service. almost every hotel has no-pay parking for their guests. you can only get into it with the room key, so why pay an extra fee. i guess they’ll charge for whatever they can get, given you can’t park anywhere on the street. i get to the room, a smoking room that is. the first thing i see is a sign saying ‘please do not smoke’. is this a commercial? or are they serious. i guess i didn’t quite get the ‘smoking’ room statement. there’s a phone in the room, so i used it. well, problem solved within 2 minutes. get a different room, a smoking one this time. it has two beds? i guess that shouldn’t be a problem, i only have to flip a coin about which one i’m gonna sleep in tonight.

the internet, the other complimentary thing most hotels offer, at least in the lobby. keep in mind, this hotel has conference centers which are rented on a regular basis. most people at conferences need internet. i guess i’m missing the point again, why offer it free when you can charge. i guess tomorrow i’m looking for a starbucks, at least they decided to offer free wireless again.

i stand corrected…

well, only half-corrected. i admit it, i was expecting france to win the qualifier in romania. however, shockingly a draw was played out. i can’t say i’m disappointed with the result, more or less i’m disappointed with the approach taken by the romanian squad throughout the game. leading 2-0 at one point only to sit back and allow the other team to play. overall, i think the team has a lot of growing up to do. they need to be better, they need to leave their fears in the locker room. they want to be seen as a strong squad, yet every time they’re faced with a tough opponent they somehow manage to lose their cool and destroy everyone’s hope. shame on the squad, shame on its leaders and shame on the coach. the team needs to be tougher mentally and requires more poise when playing with teams like france, italy, etc. yet all we hear is excuses stated to various reporters. excuses lacking substance and looking for pity. then, they’re surprised why the fans no longer cheer at games. how and why are they expecting the fans to buy the overpriced tickets only to witness a team more afraid of itself than its opponent. i guess talking is in many ways a lot easier, but what are we left with after the last few displays of mindless football?

customer service

friday night in vancouver and it’s not raining. best thing to do is hit up the patio, grab some beer and enjoy. well, sounds like a mighty fine plan, too bad our politicians decided to ban smoking from the patios, which limits one’s options. nevertheless, sammy j peppers is always a good option. get there around 8ish, ask for a table on the patio to the amazement of the girl at the entrance, given there’s nobody on the patio, lights are off and it’s rather cold. however, a table was ready within minutes.

a young lad shows up as we sit down and tells us he will turn on one of the heaters for us. there’s four heaters on the patio and we’re sitting close to the first one. he tries lighting the first one to no avail. apologizes to us, tries the second one. tries the third one, tries the fourth one. still quite apologetic, he starts the sequence again with the first one. by the time he gets to the fourth heater for the second time he manages to turn that one on. too bad it’s on the other side of the patio. now that he’s figured out the trick he returns to try again to the heater closest to us. at this point, one of the waitresses comes out for a smoke and completely oblivious to what the guy is doing asks him “can you turn on a heater?”. keep in mind, the guy was on a chair fiddling with the heater. the coldness combined with the lack of clothing must have given her a brain freeze. regardless, the guy doesn’t give up and about 15 minutes after he showed up outside he manages to get the heater closest to our table to work. great to get some good customer service.