And Now, the Obligatory Picture Out the Hotel Window
Posted on July 24, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 51 Comments
I know you’ve been waiting for it.
No, a view of Bob Evans is not exactly inspiring. But aside from that, I have to say I’m very pleased with this hotel. The Internet’s free, the room service costs are not rapacious and the food (from the built-in restaurant) is good — the burger I had was one of the better hotel burgers I’ve had, and the shrimp-chorizo chowder is something I’ll be recommending to folks — and the rooms are fine and I was able to sleep for 10 hours last night. Plus they gave me a cookie when I showed up. In short: Well done, Doubletree Pittsburgh Airport. The only thing I can kvetch about is that they stock Pepsi products, so no Coke Zero for me at the moment. But I’m about to take a walk to fix that.
And you? How are you this fine Friday?
How am I? Ohhhhhh, you had to ask! I’m getting ready to file a formal complaint on one of my college instructors – this woman has no professionalism, and when I questioned a grade given versus her comments (excellent work! here’s your low C! – huh?), she took it as an excuse for a personal attack. Sooooooo not going to tolerate that!
Drooling at the thought of shrimp-chorizo chowder. Darn you!
Gah! It’s Friday already? Where did my week go?
Glad you’re settled in, John. And thanks for the reminder that it’s time for my annual book-splurging extravaganza at Confluence.
That guy parked in the SUV is watching you . . . He’s a spy.
Bob: Poor guy. I’m not that interesting.
Hehe watching trailers for SG:U, and elevating the surgeried foot. Its been a good day all hour of it :)
I feel like a bruise would feel if it could get up and go walkabout.
Hey, I’ve stayed in that hotel! Twice! I agree, the cookies are nice.
Well, that’s the thing. As a person, he’s less interesting.
I dont know hi think Bob might be on to somethign that SUV is looking a bit spy like. i would know i watch a LOT of Burn Notice and spy vs spy. not to mention Get Smart.
Walking for Coke Zero?
John, that’s my day everyday at BigHugeCo. Our admin refuses to stock Coke Zero in the vending machine at the end of our row. I have to walk all the way over to the other side of the building and back (about a city block) to use the mainframe crew’s vending machine.
Why?
Because one very whiny coworker is the only remaining person in our department who still drinks Diet Coke Decaff.
I mean WTF? As soon as we got Barq’s Red Cream Soda, we had a rash of low-carb fanatics and diabetes diagnoses that pretty much ran that concoction outta here. But Diet Coke Decaf? I know I used to drink it, but that was BEFORE Coke Zero, so WTF?
Anyway, yes, I walk a lot for my Coke Zero.
In summation, wah!
“Anyway, yes, I walk a lot for my Coke Zero.”
That’s the reason. Stealth wellness program targeted on you.
Couldn’t Diet Coke Decaf just be called water? (I suppose you could add some brown food coloring)
My Friday’s looking good- Moon has finally come to a theatre near me, so I;m off to the 1 pm showing.
Welcome to the Burgh! (Well, sorta – to Moon Township, anyway. Does the name “Moon Township” make you giggle?)
There’s a convention at a Pittsburgh airport hotel?
I don’t remember the exact distance, but the place is miles and miles and miles from downtown, across mountains and rivers.
I guess there’s enough bizniz grown up around there by now that there would be a sufficiency of places to eat. And there’s an Ikea!
Waging war on the intertrons against people who think raising the minimum wage is communism.
As politely as I can.
But you should really be drinking more Pepsi, anyway. Like it, or not.
How I’m doing is fine, after just relishing “Old Man’s War”. Good work. Now if I can just track down and vanquish a memory leak in this software…
Bill Weinberger:
“But you should really be drinking more Pepsi, anyway.”
Those words seem to make a sentence, but they don’t actually make any sense at all.
However, I will admit that if I can’t get Coke Zero, I prefer Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke. And PepsiCo gets enough of my money via Diet Mountain Dew as it is.
Not too bad. Fairly normal Friday, at the moment. Of course, tonight I will probably have to deal with a horde of rabid little monkeys at work, but that’s par for the course.
Workday started out great, till a meeting w/a my boss & a co-worker. The co-worker complained about an email of mine from yesterday. Turns out I’m too pro-active. (WTF!)
So, later I had a private meeting w/boss, & will now work on being less pro-active. (!)
Intersting that today’s WYSO broadcast of Filmically Perfect http://www.perfectmovie.net/ covered the film ‘Office Space’. (i’m just saying…)
All my con memories are dominated by (usually) late night meals at places like Bob Evans, Dennys and IHOP so seeing that from my window would be a sign at was at a convention.
@BeVibe
Sounds like you should fire your boss.
The economy is bad, but I’m sure he’ll be able to find work somewhere.
You got to actually leave the airport? Wow. I was at a meeting in Pittsburgh last year and didn’t have to step outside between entering the B’ham airport to leaving it again 5 days later. I did go outside one evening to go a bar with some colleagues.
@BeVibe – Too pro-active? That’s right up there with drinking Pepsi. I understand the words but it doesn’t make sense.
Back in my pre-digital camera travelling days I used to make a habit of this. I took a picture out of the window or every hotel I stayed at. Well over a thousand pictures from countries around the world. Now, if I could only remember where I stored the negatives I could have a great coffee-table book proposal there…
Looks like you’re on the same side of the hotel as I am.
/Signed
Your Stalker ;-)
Diet Vernors. All the battery acid, none of the carbs. Good luck finding it in a machine.
What? No Hilton or Omni Hotel accomodations? They offer Coke Zero at their establishments.
21. Ben – Hand-to-God, I was told I wasn’t being a team player.
I’m on my way to the dentist, ick. I don’t suppose you could worm that chowder recipe out of the hotel kitchen and post it? Sounds yum!
I’m bummed- this is the first year in a long, long time that I haven’t gone to Comic-Con… My friends are all texting me today to find out how I am dealing with having missed Johnny Depp. Aaaauuuggghhh!
Stalker, you’re in the same room, duh! He’s asleep in the top bunk.
It’s been a sucky Friday. The Harrisburg, PA area got a huge downpour last night. My office had some water. Computers on the floor. Not a good mix. Yeah.
One of these days, when I have so many Hugos piled up they’re pouring out of my frickin’ garage, I’ll trick you into some gig where we’re on some tourist trap island without supermarkets or gas stations…and fill all the minifridges and soda machines at the hotel with sweet, delicious Pepsi One.
Three weeks of nothing but, and your conversion will be complete.
(Unless you still have that annoying “endless supply of Coke Zero” clause in your contracts, of course.)
A black curse on all who would have me do software deployments on Friday. Its always a bad idea and they never freakin work. Now I get to go into the weekend in crisis mode. Bleah. I’m getting ‘no friday deployments, no exceptions’ written into my next contract.
Also, bring me back a bowl of that shrimp-chorizo chowder. That sounds like a bowl-full of win.
Pittsburgh’s a nice place. I was there for a convention a few weeks ago. :>
I’ve had a pretty good Friday, thanks for asking. Finished up the 4th week of Clarion–and the last workshop class with KSR. :( And tomorrow is Comic-con! :)
So all in all, a nice day.
I must ad: mmmmm … Bob Evans pancakes … mmmmm
Re Chris@24:
Scalzi, get out! HE’S IN THE HOTEL!
(Also: My day’s been good. Among other things, I found out Bob Evans’ custard-stuffed French Toast is only half as fattening as I thought it was! Two, please.)
Working. Tired. Recovering from wounds. On the other side, Mom is visiting town and I have Coke Zero.
I haven’t seen a Bob Evan’s in years! Guess they’re a bit hard to come by on the left coast. My day? Learned my new student is amazing at injections, and my ancient co-worker doesn’t understand why you have to *shut down* the computer before you turn it off.
Wild coincidences all day (in the real world and while blogsurfing). Freaky.
That chorizo chowder…will find recipe and try my hand at it…yes
Too pro-active? Solution: Drop down a gear to plain old Reactive :>
Seriously, that kind of hive-mind let’s all adopt 1 performance level gets me miffed.
Oh, I do love the Doubletree…alas, I am not there. Enjoy it for me!
john you’re right across the street from primanti’s :-) i think that’s a required pittsburgh visitation activity… have you been yet?
I think you missed out. We have a lovely view of the air cooling system out our window, on the other side from you.
Pepsi products. Feh.
What is wrong with a view of a Bob Evans? True, my side of the family has not spoken to that side of the family for over 300 years, but it is still a family business. We depend on you non-Evans folks to support it, so go eat.
deep-fried coke zero, yum . . .
Oh Brett L @ 33: I feel your pain, years ago used to work in an IT dept that would do rollouts over the weekend. The following Monday was full of joy for the help desk.
And then more recently, I was the designated depositor to the bank a couple Monday’s ago. Arrived just as the doors opened. And waited in line for nearly 20 minutes while tech support actually stood there scratching their collective heads trying to figure out why none of the shiney new workstations at each and every teller’s window…
wait for it, you know it’s coming…
REFUSED to boot up to the server. Tellers couldn’t even log onto their systems.
Branch manager is more old school, when she was advised of the delays, simply had everyone do manual transactions to get the lines moving. Our office manager did notice the deposit did not show up until the next day.
I would like to see a gallery of “obligatory picture out the hotel window” pictures.
Is this possible?
Does Scalzi ever get a room on the top floor?
Why don’t we get to see a picture of the actual room?
Does he get bacon on his pillow every night?
HA! That’s Moon alright. If you can, eat at Primanti Bros. Good sandwiches! :) My boyfriend lives in Moon and went out to see you earlier today (Sat). Hope you enjoy the rest of your visit! Wish I could have been there.
I’ve been completely ruined for Diet Mt. Dew. My local Target had some limited release ‘Throwback’ Mt. Dew made with real cane sugar, not corn syrup. After splitting a 12 pack of that with my room mate, I can’t touch the diet anymore. To make matters worse, no one seems to have any more of it.
Funny though about your picture, even though I moved out of the area in 2001, the scene was instantly familiar looking.
I also agree with the recommendation of hitting Primanti Bros. Also good is Unique Pizza and Subs. Good pizza and sandwiches, but their Factory and Unique Fries are killer. Unique being cheddar and bacon steak fries. Factory being cheddar, onions and sliced ribeye steak over steak fries.
I find a view with a Bob Evans *quite* inspiring. Perhaps that’s why I’ll never wear smaller than a size ten in pants.