Jim Flanigan Looks at the World
Turning the Mundane into Fundane Since 2015
I was really pleased with the name and logo I chose for my winless fantasy football team in my family’s league last week … Supreme Injustices.
For this week, I wanted to feature Paul Manafort, especially after hearing that he made a court appearance sitting in a wheelchair in prison clothes while missing a shoe. When I think of Manafort in a wheelchair, I start wishing for this …
I’m on the road again for business this week, but decided to stop and see my middle daughter at college along the way. It was a good place to stay for the night as it is about halfway to my business destination, and I found a hotel in town that would cost me all of $45, including tax. More importantly, this hotel did not have a number as part of its name. But how could it be a numberless hotel and be so cheap? I pulled into the parking lot with a bit of trepidation, but it was only one night. I was ready for the worst.
I entered the lobby and sniffed. No smell like I would expect from a $45 hotel. It looked neat and clean. I asked the desk clerk why it was so cheap, er economically-priced I quickly corrected before he could assign me to the murder room with a chalk outline on the floor. He had no idea. “Corporate,” he explained without actually explaining anything.
I continued to sniff like Donald Trump at a press conference as I headed down the hallway to my room. Nothing. I opened the room. Sniff, sniff. Nothing. It was a nice, clean, odor-free room. I was tired and fell asleep faster than if I had been at an actuarial seminar.
I had a good night’s sleep and woke up feeling good. I opened the drapes to see how the morning looked. It looked something like this …
I knew it was going to be a rough business trip this week when I awoke on Tuesday morning, threw back the drapes on my hotel room window, and saw this …
I’m not sure if I believe in the Butterfly Effect. If you are unfamiliar with the term, in chaos theory, the Butterfly Effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. Not only am I not sure I believe it, but I also may not understand it. Let’s try that again. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it is a scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever. If you still don’t understand, just watch the 2004 movie with Ashton Kutcher. I grow weary of trying to explain it to anyone who would read this blog.
As I returned from my business trip this week, I got a bit worried when I saw this …
The roll of film I shot in Orlando was developed overnight at the corner drugstore, so now I can share some of my travel pics with you. Thanks for coming back for more after a Part 1 blog post of questionable taste. Without further ado, let’s get right back to the tasteless humor.
I had been dreading my business trip to Orlando. My dread was not unfounded as it got off to an inauspicious start.
I can’t afford to fly first class, and nothing about me would ever be considered first class. But since I have very long legs, I prefer extra legroom on my flights, so I paid a bit extra to guarantee a seat in the emergency exit row. As I flopped down into my seat, I couldn’t help but notice that it was a tad tight around my tush.
I’m about the only person who considers me fat. I’m 6’1” tall and about 190 lbs. If I convert that to metric, I think that’s 18.25 hands high with a weight of 13.5 stones. Anyway, I’d like to be 6’ 2” tall and 180 lbs. I’ve failed miserably recently at both gaining height and reducing weight. A little less weight would have been nice in that airline seat. Kim Kardashian may have struggled to get all her implants situated in the seat. I am sure there would have been offers of assistance. The bottom (pun intended) line is that the seat was tight for me.
This is the part of the blog post where I walk the line between being politically correct and a jerk. Oh, you thought that was the previous paragraph? Read on if you dare. You have been warned.
I’m off to Orlando on a business trip which once again underscores the complete lack of glamour in business travel. There is no place I would like to be less than the land of heat, humidity, and screaming kids at the height of summer. The trade show I am attending used to be held in Miami Beach in the summer. It was a lot easier for me to justify heading to the ocean than staying in the Mouse’s house nowhere near the ocean, but right in the midst of tens of thousands of vacationing kids. I truly dread this trip.
As I prepped for this trip, I realized that I had once again surpassed a couple milestones.
There are lots of reasons to love living in the Chicago area. For example, I loved being able to see the hit Broadway musical called Hamilton this past weekend. We drove. My rule is that if we are headed to Chicago for a big event, we take the train. If no big event is happening that will draw tens or hundreds of thousands of people to Chicago at the same time we are going, we drive. Or if our 10 year old daughter is coming with us, she overrules all and insists on a train ride.
On the day we headed into Chicago to see Hamilton, I knew of a march happening on the actual busiest expressway in the USA outside of California. That would be the Dan Ryan Expressway that often looks like this …
Yikes! My oldest son drives that to get to work. The march was to protest gun violence, but I knew it was taking place far south of downtown where we were headed. Here’s a quick look at the march …
As a follow-up to my Pulitzer Prize nominatable blog post about my most recent hotel stay, I may have found a great reason to stay at that hotel again next time, completely unrelated to the leftover free cheese. It’s the view …
No, not that view from the window. This view …
Every month I visit the same company in St. Louis, and have never stayed in the hotel just down the street from the company, until this trip. I think the reason I have avoided this hotel is because it has no pool and I wasn’t aware that this hotel chain was part of my travel rewards program. It still has no pool, but it turns out that it has been part of my travel rewards program only for the last 13 years. Huh. Oh, and no free breakfast is offered. Free breakfasts are an important part of my hotel stays since I tend to take enough food to stretch it well past breakfast in order to cover snacks throughout the day and even lunch.
At check-in, I was pleased to have been offered bonus travel program points, and then settled into my room. Imagine my delight upon seeing this …
My dad bod was on full display at the hotel pool while on vacation last week. Fortunately, every time I hit the hotel pool, there was nobody else there. Maybe the reason the pool was empty was because I hit the hotel pool with my dad bod. Regardless, nobody got to see my dad bod except for my wife, my daughter and my niece, although I swear I caught them averting their eyes.
The dad bod discussion was back on the radio recently as the radio personalities reminded me that 2/3 of women are supposed to prefer the dad bod to a rock hard man bod. This survey was offered as proof …
Many years ago when we had just two kids, my wife and I wanted to take them to Disney World. One of the biggest problems was lack of cash. My wife rejected my idea of hitchhiking down to Florida, and suggested we stay at a modest hotel that offered a free breakfast as a way to save money. Wow, that sounded boring and full of common sense, but that’s what we did. At that free hotel breakfast, we not only ate our morning meal, but we squirreled away food in every pocket and bag we could bring to the breakfast area without arousing suspicion.
Those muffins, boxes of cereal, and fruit became our snacks at Disney throughout the day. After one day of walking a Disney theme park with my pants pocket soaked in grease, I stopped taking bacon.
With that history, I was surprised to see this yesterday morning after breakfast …
Continue reading “My Wife Has Forgotten the Concept of the Free Hotel Breakfast”
I’m not sure how I would feel about our hotel pool if I was a bit older. I noticed this sign at the pool …
As we hit our hotel late Tuesday night, I was encouraged to see this in the hotel bathroom shower …
That’s some quality cleansers available for showering. In addition, I see my wife brought this …
Continue reading “My Wife Does Not Understand the Concept of Hotel Soap”
This will be a spotty week for this blog, although that sounds like an accurate description of every week for this blog. We said good-bye today to our beloved family member of the canine variety after 14 & 1/2 years. We’ll miss you Gus.
Yeah, those lumps on his chest were tumors that were possibly cancerous and perhaps did him in. That, and being old. RIP little buddy.
I also am transitioning from one computer to another, so that is a royal pain. On top of that, we are headed to Michigan for a short vacation visiting relatives for a few days. They’re nice relatives, relatively speaking. Did you know that Michigan beaches are some of the best in the world? Of course, the relatives we are visiting live smack dab in the middle of Michigan, nowhere close to those beaches.
Based on what is going on in the USA these days with imprisoning children, I am tempted to drive right through Michigan to Canada and never look back. Gus has gone on to a better place. These days Canada is better than the USA, so why not the rest of us?
I am hoping some things catch my eye as we make our journey, and I get inspired to post a wacky pic or observation. But even if I don’t, you can be sure I’ll be back this weekend with a new Sunday Mite Be Funny.
It appears that I may be making the rounds of some local breweries on a regular basis, so why not share my review? Maybe because my readers are all over the world and unlikely to visit a local Chicago area brewery? That’s never stopped me before from writing about stuff that nobody wants to read.
We visited 3 Floyds Brewery in Munster, Indiana, just a few miles southeast of Chicago.
Is that all full of beer? My friends that I went with certainly hoped so. Me? Not so much. I was the designated driver. Sigh!
As I traveled through central America on business this past week, I encountered a strange food choice. No, not roasted tarantula.
I wasn’t in Central America, but central America. Yes, St Louis again. Sigh! I was at the counter of a Jack in the Box fast food restaurant. Although that is a misnomer as I have found that fast food outside of greater Chicagoland is not really fast. In Chicago, we expect someone to be holding our bag of food next to the counter person BEFORE we even place our order. Once I get outside the greater Chicago area, life slows down a bit and I have gotten used to waiting for my “fast” food.
And wait I did at this Jack in the Box. All hell was breaking loose as I waited for my fish sandwich with about 15 other people waiting for their food. At one point, the counter dude yelled out “Who’s angry and wants a refund?” While I waited bemusedly, my eagle eyes spotted this sign about 10 feet directly in front of me at the counter …
No, that’s not a typo in the title. We all know what a spork is, right?
No, no, no, not a Spock, but a spork.
After a wonderful first night on the road for business travel, I reluctantly checked out. I was ready for a letdown. Disappointment was oozing from my pores, but not because I was pondering my substandard business career or failures as a father, husband and friend like I usually do, but because my next hotel was not an Inn & Suites, but just an Inn. There is no way that just an Inn could be as good as an Inn with Suites. I was right. It was not just as good.
After my first night’s decadent stay on the road, I unfortunately found myself checking out in the morning. When I opened my room’s door in the morning, I found this surprising item on the floor outside my room …
It was certainly not a used condom like I am used to seeing in most of the places I normally stay. What could it possibly be?
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 