hotel

The Things You Find in Hotel Beds

Do not read this if you are in a hotel bed. If you are in a hotel bed please tell me you removed the bedspread. Please tell me you didn’t eat something with your bare hands after touching the remote control, alarm clock or light switch. You aren’t walking around barefoot, are you? You’re using the coffee pot?! I spend half the year in hotel beds. I’m not an escort. I get paid less. Having spent half the year in hotel beds for a decade and a half I’ve witnessed some things. You could say, “I’ve been around the block.” Again, not an escort. Some things will change you forever. Some just add to the growing list of phobias and fears that grow exponentially with time. Like cuneiform bacteria in the hotel sink. One of my worst hotel nights was the evening I watched a Dateline special on hotel cleanliness while lying in a hotel bed. As they shined the black light around the room illuminating bodily fluids on every exposed surface it wasn’t hard to imagine it was my […]

Eat, Sleep, Fly

Sometimes people ask me what it’s like to be a pilot. “Wow, that must be so cool! I bet you’re really smart. You must have been good at math in school. Are all pilots as handsome as you?”I’ve never gotten that last one. I made that up. When asked about how thrilling it must be I agree that it is both fun and exciting. I like to perpetuate the myth. That’s what we do. Spin yarn. Tell tall tales. Back in the day it was called “hangar flying” or something like that. But the truth is it’s never as adventurous as it sounds. Below is a sample day. Actually, this isn’t just a sample. This is every day. EVERY DAY. The job is standardized and consistent for safety. Every flight begins and ends with the gear going up and then back down again. In that order. Very important. Take note. On today’s sample day, I’m on day two of a four-day trip. I fly out early and if all goes as planned I will be done by 4:00 pm in

But They Do Have Free Breakfast

When I was a young airline pilot and new to ‘the road’ I ranked hotels by their proximity to good food and entertainment. Now, I judge hotels on two things: internet speed and shower pressure. Oh, and free breakfast. I’m not even a breakfast guy. But when it’s free – I’m a kid in a carb-filled candy store. I pirouette around the kids begging their parents for another ‘home-made’ waffle with my tray of stale bagels, English muffins and knock-off Cheerios (Crunchy O’s, for the record). I feel like a malnourished Fred Astaire with a bowl of generic biscuits and gravy dancing to CNN Headline News. Some hotel meals are better than others. Some are simply offering something so they can entice the road warriors. This way they can add another checkmark on Hotels.com along with “In-room safe” and “Fitness Room”. I stayed at a hotel once that had a bagged loaf of bread next to a toaster with a tub of butter and a communal jar of jelly by its side. Jelly is so much more filling when a

Scroll to Top