Shuttle Happens

This trip to Vegas had twofold purpose: to cover NetWorld for my Meme Update newsletter and to see Dave Rottweiller, the Zip-Code Man ( www.zipcodeman.com ) perform at one of the booths. I reluctantly paid $105 for a round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on the United Shuttle. I say “reluctantly” because everybody else was only charging $68 but I figured I could justify the 50% more because United would upgrade me to First Class, such as it is on Shuttle, and make it easy for me to switch flights should I desire. When my upgrade on the return flight showed up as waitlisted 100 hours before the flight I fired up United Connection and saw there were only two First-Class seats left. The following flight, however, had five open seats so I called the 1K desk and asked to switch. But I got an agent who quoted some rule I’d never heard of that they can’t switch Shuttle flights even for 1Ks without reissuing the ticket for an extra $72. I told her I thought that was outrageous and asked if she was sure because I’d never come across that restriction before. She was sure. So I posted a frustrated flame to FlyerTalk. Everybody else said they had never heard of that. Auh20 reminded me to just call back and get someone else. I did and they switched the flight with no problem but by that time there were only four seats remaining and I remained on the waitlist.

Hunnybear and I woke up early for a morning run. There’s a bird sanctuary between Admiralty Way and Washington St. and a running/cycling path through it. Apparently people, over the years, have released unwanted pet birds there so we see and hear many unusual birds and their songs, including a full-grown chicken. The birds spread out over the man trees in the neighborhood all the way to our apartment building about a half-mile away. There was one songbird living in a tree right outside our window of the variety that copies songs from other birds. Apparently it also copies other sounds because every morning we wake up to that bird perfectly duplicating the sound of a car alarm—one of those alarms that switches noises every five seconds between ambulance, fire truck, French police car—it’s unmistakable.

Hunnybear drove me to LAX in the white Nissan Altima and got me there about an hour before the flight. There was one person in line at the 1K checkin and since I was not checking bags I decided to go up to the 1K room and check in. I did, saw that my return flight had still not cleared, and said hi to the nice agents there before retiring to the Red Carpet Club for a decaf and surfing. I tried out the MyPoints Connection free Internet software. It worked OK but had a banner taking up about 10% of the screen space. I got to gate 85 about 15 minutes before flight time and asked the humorless agent if this door led to the front of the plane. After a moment she said, “yes,” and I ran by boarding pass through the machine. She had been standing there running a whole stack of boarding passes through the machine, I guess from the other door.

I settled into seat 1C after a nice stewardess rearranged some luggage for me so there was room for my two bags. She took a bible and the demo oxygen mask out of the left front compartment so I could stick my laptop bag in there—it just fits. My other bag squished so it wasn’t as much of a problem. As I settled in I noticed my seat opponent was Robert, a coworker of Hunnybear’s! This was not an uncommon occurrence when she used to work at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Afirmwith160,000employees, but now that she was with a small start-up it was unusual. He was going down to the same show and we had a great time talking about how the government was doing its best to destroy the industry. “When they came for Microsoft, I said nothing because I didn’t like Microsoft… when they came for me, there was no one left to say anything.” We got shushed by the flight attendant during the safety demonstration.

I was sick of the lack of service on Shuttle flights so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I ordered a half-dozen jars of caviar from Homegrocer.com and brought one with me. When the plane reached altitude I whipped it out of my bag, along with a hand-carved wooden caviar spoon from Thailand, and began enjoying some true first-class food along with my LaCroix in a plastic cup. Near the end of the jar I went up in search of more water but the stewardess was in back picking up trash. I looked in a couple drawers to see if I could help myself when the captain came out of the cockpit and glared at me. “Do you need something?” he asked. “I’m looking for some more sparking water.” “She’ll help you in a minute.” He then went on to explain that since people didn’t want to pay high prices for these flights they were forced to cut back on First-Class service. I didn’t argue but I was left feeling once again like United just doesn’t care about service on the Shuttle. I will probably switch my Vegas business to National.

It was a short flight but the winds in Las Vegas were gusting up to 55 mph so we had quite a challenging landing. It was the first time in years I’d been nervous about the flight. We docked at gate D33 and I proceeded to the Alamo lot to pick up the convertible I’d reserved through Priceline for $39/day (normally $42.50). They gave me a dirty white Chevy Cavalier. I gave Robert a ride to the convention center and while I was there I checked in and went to the booth where Dave Rottweiller was to perform. I found the booth but they told me he wasn’t performing any more. He was kind of sketchy on the details, though, so I called Dave’s room at Bally’s and left a message before I went to check in at Mandalay Bay, where I had taken advantage of “player’s package” at $99/night including a bunch of coupons.

I had requested a high floor with an airport view but settled for the 20th floor. The room was very nice, with a marble bathroom, separate tub and shower, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the fleet of decommissioned United DC-10s and 747s parked in the desert. I could also see a couple of the red-striped white planes with no other markings that I knew to be the secret Area 51 government shuttle. My room wasn’t cleaned yet so I dropped off my luggage and headed down to Wolfgang Puck’s Trattoria del Lupo for lunch. I used a coupon for complimentary appetizer, a delicious beef carpaccio presented with shaved onions and chunks of parmesan cheese. The entrée was a superb grilled fontina sandwich with a side skillet of homemade sausage in a tomato-pepper sauce. I paid only $10 plus tip for the whole thing.

I played only three hands of Pai Gow Poker when Dave Rottweiller showed up. He wanted something cool so we went to Rock Lobster for a smoothie. The bathrooms in Rock Lobster were extremely funky. There was a long curtain of small metal beads to pass through. On the other side was a single enclosure of translucent green glass. There was a small LCD television mounted over the toilet-paper roll. Our waiter, Tom, was excellent and made one of the fancy drinks for Dave without the alcohol. I had a large bottle of San Pellegrino ($4.50).

Dave and I wanted to try out the fabled pool at Mandalay Bay but we both forgot our bathing suits so we shelled out $50 each for a pair at the Pearl Moon Boutique in the hotel. The pool was so popular they instituted very stringent policies on entry: each guest must have a separate room key. So we had to go back up to the desk to get Dave a key and then back up to the room to get my ID so I could get him a key. The whole process took about 15 minutes. But when we saw the pool it was all worth it. They had a sandy beach with thousands of lounge chairs surrounding an enormous wave pool. A couple times a minute this pool would generate a huge crashing wave! People were body-surfing and just enjoying the action. We played in the wave pool for a while then decided to try the Lazy River. The gusty winds felt freezing cold upon leaving the pool despite the 90-degree weather.

I was looking forward to floating around the Lazy River in an inner tube but they wanted $10 to rent them, again a concession to overcrowding I think. Fortunately I’d been eating enough dessert lately that I was extremely buoyant. I impressed the lifeguards and Dave by floating around under my own power. This pool is great and would be terrific for children but I suspect the price keeps families away. They charge $35 for each additional guest regardless of age, making the hotel far more expensive than most in Vegas for families.

After swimming we went up to the room and I happened to see the “manifest” on the maid’s cart. I looked to see what my status was but my room was not listed. It apparently only listed room that were occupied overnight. One entry, though, said “VIP.” I was curious that they would put a VIP on the 20th floor, less than halfway up the hotel. Maybe it was his lucky floor.

We decided to go for a drive in the desert and ended up at the Hoover dam, which I had previously visited with Hunnybear. I took some pictures this time with my new digital camera so that there’d be a record of the dam in case terrorists ever blow it up. The drive through the desert was beautiful with the sun low in the sky and the top down. The winds were still up, gusting wildly. We could see dust storms in the distance, coloring the air orange.

Dinner was at the Charlie Palmer steakhouse in the Four Seasons part of Mandalay Bay. We had planned to dine at House of Blues with the two-for-one coupon provided but they were closed for a private party. We started with the best calamari I’ve ever had. It was hot, served lightly dusted with flour and sautéed perfectly in olive oil. I followed that up with an 11-ounce filet mignon, seared rare to perfection and well aged. Spinach and roasted potatoes, a la carte side orders, were superb. After the Lazy River Incident I passed on dessert. Dave had salmon, which looked great. Service was aggressive but not polished—they replenished our bread but not the butter and the steak knife was dull—and for a bottle of water they charged a beyond-outrageous $8. I let the manager know that the water charge marred an otherwise excellent meal.

I cut Dave loose and called it an early night.


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[This message has been edited by QuietLion (edited 05-13-2000).]

[This message has been edited by QuietLion (edited 05-13-2000).]