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10 minutes in security line in RIC

Flying to see the mouse today, Orlando through Richmond. This is a great airport with lots of close cheap parking, free WiFi, and easy TSA lines. Looking forward to DISA show and doing booth duty. More on the show in the week.

( May 05 2008, 09:30:23 AM EDT ) Permalink

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 5 (pics)

Awesome shot of the Arenal Volcano . My pics weren't this good and I couldn't get one at night to prove my sightings of red hot boulders.

I love warning signs with no fence, although this sign of High Volcanic Risk was pretty scary. I hear that a few folks die a year from gases and tumbling rocks.

( Apr 18 2008, 01:09:18 PM EDT ) Permalink

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 4

I want to wrap up from Costa Rican blogging with the possible exception of a few more pictures at some point with this entry.

After two day nights at Finca Rosa Blanca, we went to the Peace Lodge at La Paz Waterfalls and were blown away. The Peace Lodge may be the greatest hotel stay ever. It was a bathroom that happened to come with a bedroom. The bathroom had a waterfall, just flip the switch, a hot tub, a waterfall shower, a regular awesome shower and hundred, yes, hundreds of plants. The bedroom was impressive with a big poster bed with netting and a river rock fireplace. At 6500 feet in elevation, that fireplace was running the whole time we were there. The high temperature during our visit was 65, although nights was only high 50's...

The Peace Lodge had great waterfalls and trails as well as a Zoo/park attached. As guest, we were free to come and go but many tour buses stopped each day for the same attractions. I love the hummingbirds, while my kids liked the birds, monkeys and big cats. MayMay the puma was a favorite and still talked about in my house. The 6 month old Puma chased my kids as they run up and down the steps beside her cage. Can you say "prey"? I was impressed how much the employees cared for the animals as well as how close we could get to those same animals. I had to get a toucan away from my little one's Crocs as the toucan was trying to pull her butterfly gibit off the shoe. You don't see that at the National Zoo in DC.

The final stop on our CR tour with at the Arenal Volcano and Tabacon Hot Spring Resort. I loved the area and the bungee jumping/zipline/adventure theme of the area. I however was very upset with the 5 stars Tabacon Resort. It was at best a "Best Western" with a hot volcanic spring running thru the property. The service at Tabacon was great. The rooms were dark, no overhead lights and five 40 watt bulbs in a double room and the bedspread was that nasty and Motel 6 quality. Not fine thread count like all the other nice places we stayed and Tabacon was the most expensive place on our trip. I will not let a friend of mine stay there if I can help it.

We did see the Volcano erupting on our final night from our balcony. The sky above the volcano would turn orange/pink and then we would see a red ball rolling down our side of the mountain. The lava flow is actually boulders getting blown out every few minutes and not like Hawaii where it is a molten river.

We loved Costa Rica and may start learning spanish in the area so I'm more ready for my next trip.

( Apr 18 2008, 12:54:49 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 3

So the first part of our trip was 4 nights at the beach. We went back to San Jose to drop off my wife's sister and family and then up into the mountains just outside the city to Finca Rosa Blanca, in Santa Barbara de Heredia. The 21 acre organic coffee plantation was awesome and extremely relaxing. The US owners brought the property 25 years ago when it was a motocross track with only 2 giant Ficsus trees and planted, built and planned everything around those two trees. After the car accident, we need to just chill out and not leave the property. I highly recommend this property where we stayed and played for 2 nights.

Pictures to come on this part.

( Apr 15 2008, 10:28:57 AM EDT ) Permalink

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 2

The first entry with pictures...

We arrived via Taca Airline (thru San Salvaldor, El Salvaldor) around 3:30pm from Dulles. It only took a few minutes to get our luggage and to get thru customs coming into the country. We booked transfers for our entire trip with Costa Rica Shuttle and for the most part, had great drivers, although we could have driven ourselves. The road were better than we thought but were still very much 3rd world.

We were shocked that it got dark around 6:15pm and the trip from San Jose airport took about 4 hours to get to Quepos, Costa Rica area. We stayed at Buena Vista Villas and they are GREAT. I couldn't have been more pleased with the resort. We got to meet and know the manager, Andy and his staff and enjoyed the interaction with them.

The room was quite nice and had white faced monkeys on our deck every morning at 6am for about 45 minutes. They were great. The kids loved seeing and interacting with them. We jumpstarted their daily diet with mangoes and banannas each morning.

Our resort had several pools that we enjoyed and our own beach with kayaks, boards, fins/snorkels, etc so no need to feel the need to bring your own toys... The beach was great and the water nice and warm. The workers felt the need to apologize for the cloudiness due to recent rains in the mountains.

We loved the area and enjoyed the Manuel Antonio National Park. We didn't use a guide and saw tons of wildlife. We spotted a toucan in the wild, which was awesome. My son spotted several sloths in the treetops. A group of howler monkeys came thru the beach area in the treetops around noon and made a ton of noise. The park was great.

I will advise that we were in a head on car crash coming to the beach on Sunday, April 6th. The average driver in Costa Rica is a bit aggressive to say the least. A fellow leaving the beach around 4:30pm felt the need to pass a bus uphill on a blind curve and couldn't stop when he saw us. We were in a large SUV taxi and were almost stopped when we hit the passenger door solidly. The other car was NOT lucky and all in the car were in rough shape. I was in the front seat and saw it all. The bus driver stopped and screamed at the crazy driver, who was quite bloody, about his lack of driving skills. We got out of there within 90 seconds of the accident. No need to stay as the taxi driver couldn't leave and others walking the road were there and my niece and little one were injured.

We called a doctor to make a house call to our unit and within 20 minutes had the Dr. He gave the teenager 2 stitches and only charged $125 and my niece got a great story to share with her friends.

My daughter ended up with a broken arm and we spent Monday night in a private hospital in San Jose, Cima that was likely nicer and far more quicker than my local hospital. Emma got a hot pink cast. $385 goes a long ways in CR healthcare in an ER visit, XRays and the cast and supplies. Good news - my insurance plan will cover it.

More on next hotel later.

( Apr 14 2008, 01:41:23 PM EDT ) Permalink

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 1

First of all, WOW. Costa Rica was amazing. We had a blast and gladly I have the pictures to prove it. The "Ticos" that we interacted with were the nicest folks. We had a blast getting to know several of our drivers and one of the hotel porters rode with us to his hometown for a 2.5 hour ride and we got to know who daily live for CR workers goes.

Uploading pics and will start with day to day activites, lodging, etc. soon. Now back to several hundred emails.

( Apr 14 2008, 10:52:39 AM EDT ) Permalink

Vacation review of Costa Rica: part 0...

My kids are so excited that they are about to pop... It wasn't hard to get them up and going today for school. Late this afternoon we head to Dulles Airport hotel (with a full sized indoor pool to blow off steam tonight) to meet up with my wife's sister and kids for the trip. We fly out on Taca in the morning and after arrival will have a driver take us to Manuel Antonio National Park where we are staying 4 nights. Getting a rental car was actually the same price as a driver and after reading some of the descriptions of the roads/bridges where we were traveling, I would prefer someone else to worry about that.

After the 4 nights, we return the extended family to San Jose to return to the US (little Conner is just 2) then we continue on to a coffee plantation for a few nights and then up to the mountains for a few more before coming back home.

As with past spring breaks, I'll blog about where we go, stay, eat and what we do in case you care or want to use this information in the future.

Lots more to come.

( Apr 02 2008, 07:58:46 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

It could have been worse...

Last night was a hotel night in the DC area at my favorite Hilton Garden Inn. In the middle of the night, I woke to find that my hands and feet were really dry... I guess the air was drier than I'm used to and it honestly woke me up. I made it into the bathroom still mostly asleep and got some relief and applied generously to my hands, arms and feet. All was good and back to sleep I went.

In the morning as I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and start another day in paradise, I saw that about half the bottle of CONDITIONER was gone and the lotion was untouched. At least it wasn't the shampoo.

( Mar 25 2008, 09:42:32 PM EDT ) Permalink

Travel hell...

The glamors of business travel. I needed to go to NY City, certainly one of my favorite destinations and did enjoy myself. The trouble started on my return home. I got to the airport like a good person about 2 full hours ahead of time and saw that an earlier flight back to Richmond, VA (RIC) was delayed. I switched my scheduled flight for the earlier now delayed flight. At some point, that earlier flight was canceled and my original flight was then oversold and had a wait, so I moved to the 10pm flight. It turns out sadly, that the original flight was the only flight to leave LaGuardia ontime or close yesterday. After a while, my 10pm flight was canceled so I decided to abandon my car in RIC and switch to Charlottesville flight (my home town and an hour from RIC). That flight went from 7:30pm to 9pm to finally 12:30am which delays in 15 minutes chunks.

It was funny that a small group of travelers ended up being buddies and watching bags, getting waters/drinks for each other. We finally cheered when our inbound aircraft was in the air and at the gate. The flight down was bumpy on the prop plane and the landing was downright scary as the high winds made it tough for the pilot.

One note that did work out great. I called for a taxi from NY knowing that my small local airport that closes up doors around midnight would be taxi less at 2:00am. When I arrived I had a taxi waiting and everyone else was bumming. That said, my driver called for backups but that likely added another 10-15 minutes for the already delayed travelers.

I guess I was overdue for a trip like this...

( Mar 20 2008, 01:07:45 PM EDT ) Permalink

Just made Hilton Gold

In the battle to keep me coming back, I just crossed over from regular customer to Gold with Hilton. I do admit the Hilton Garden Inns are now my favorite hotel for value and features. With the Ritz and Motel 6 on each end of the spectrum, it is in the middle and nicer IMHO than the standard Hiltons...

I get free breakfast out of the deal and more points per stay, so good for me...

( Jan 16 2008, 03:48:26 PM EST ) Permalink

Hotel review: Courtyard by Marriott in Greenbelt, MD

Stayed last night and was massively underwhelmed. For 2 big ones a night, I expected more. When the heater has settings that are off, low and high, that isn't good. Bed was fine, I was safe and clean, but had the family been with me, I would not have been happy.

( Dec 06 2007, 07:37:22 AM EST ) Permalink

Hotel review: Ritz at Tysons

You got that right, me at the Ritz. Over Thanksgiving, my family of four came to DC for a function. I knew that hotel rates over holidays are dirt cheap. My favorite $189 hotel was only $89, and with that in mind we checked out the Ritz. We got a $159 room rate and decided to upgrade to the next room up and it was awesome.

They do it right. The staff knows when to stay away when approriate and help when needed. Not sure for more than double if I would have enjoyed myself. It was also a bother that the pool only had 4 hours per day for kids, although the rules were ignored for my kids.

( Nov 27 2007, 12:45:17 PM EST ) Permalink

Meeting in Park City

I love the mountains and dig the views of the Wasash Mountains. It is clearly the off season here. Too cold to mountain bike ride (sort of) and not yet cold enough for a ton of snow. The hotel, The Canyons, is unreal and it is $80 less per night than my Dulles airport hotel. More later.

( Oct 24 2007, 10:39:39 AM EDT ) Permalink

40 minutes thru Dulles security line on Monday

Tons of business travel including myself and thankfully I allowed plenty of time to catch my flight.

Dont try to cut it to the wire on a Monday morning.

( Oct 24 2007, 10:31:33 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Travel gods smiled on me yesterday...

I have blogged about some of the worst travel days before, but thankfully, yesterday wasn't one of them. I had an 8pm flight from Huntsville thru Charlotte to Richmond getting in around midnight. Then I have an 1:15 ride home. It turned out that my afternoon, we squeezed into the morning and another afternoon person canceled so after a lunch meeting, I was done for the day with my customer. I ended up switching from that 8pm flight to a 3:30 flight to Charlotte. When I arrived in CLT, I saw my flight on the board for 2 hours later, but another RIC flight in 15 minutes. I walked from E8 gate to C8 and the plane was getting ready to board. I POLITELY asked if I could take the flight since I had no checked baggage and was asked to wait for a few minutes. In less than 5 minutes the USAir gate lady looked over and asked, window or aisle. I arrived in RIC 10 minutes before my original flight would have left Alabama... What a deal.

( Oct 18 2007, 02:35:56 PM EDT ) Permalink