CB’s House of Porn and Pancakes

So I had booked my trip to Florida weeks ago. I got cleared to go Thursday as the server recovery was wrapping up. I fly Delta down Monday afternoon, great flight, on time, made my connection in Atlanta and get into Ft. Meyers on time. The Parental Units pick me up and take me to their place in Naples which is about 45 min away. Next day I head with the Parentals to Hammond Stadium to see the Twins vs Cardinals. Pitching for the Cards was Kip Wells and for the Twins was Santana. I got a last minute ticket online, ended up 2 rows behind home plate………. Dad wanted to trade tickets, I respectfully declined….. Cardinal Nation descended on Hammond Stadium in Fort Meyers! It was ridiculous, it was a sea of Red all over the place. The attendance record was shattered thanks to the Cardinals visiting……… Wells and Santana both pitched a good game, Ankiel looked good and Kennedy had a great RBI double. All in all a good day, it was the first day in 8 days I didn’t have to be at work, think about work or look at a server……… Post game I flop out by the pool at the condo, I’m a bit crispy, it’s the good Irish genes in me, I don’t tan, I burn……..

Rest of the week was relaxing until my flight out Friday. I get to the airport 2 hours early, flying US Airways home, part of my “I’m still protesting American Airlines.” Standing in line to check in because the Self Check in is for carry on/no baggage. The line is huge and I notice there are 2 agents and about 200 people ahead of me. The only time the line moved was when someone got out of line. Someone infront of me informs me the Northeast is getting hammered by snow. I see there’s a line outside for curb side check in, so I say F’ it and go out and wait in that line. There’s a girl ahead of me that’s heading to Ohio to get back to school, she was visiting her grandparents for Spring Break. Chatted with her to pass the time, out of the corner of my eye I see a guy walk up, at first I thought he was trying to cut, next thing I know he does a loud and obvious cough and starts to talk to her, hit on her. He shoots me a look like “back off.” I was like WTF? Apparently he and his mom were behind me in line and that wasn’t impressive to the Buckeye……. She gets to the counter, gets checked in and leaves, I’m next, I get checked in and leave the Momma’s Boy behind. I walk by the massive line at US Airways and see it hasn’t moved much. It took me almost 2 hrs to check in, I high tail it to the gate to hear the announcement that our flight was canceled because the plane was coming from Philly and it was socked in by snow. They said it wasn’t updated in the system and they would officially cancel it when it was in the system. Next thing I know they have us move to anohter gate and the supposedly canceled rolls up to the gate….. I hear the announcement at the other gate saying “If you are ticketed for Buffalo or want to go to buffalo and you have A ticket, you can board now, we will sort it out later.” That really wasn’t encouraging to me……. Sitting at the new gate, I pop in Clerks II, a funny, funny movie, not as good as the first, but still worthy of watching. This group of high school girls take the seats across from me and one sits next to me. Because I don’t want to end up on Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” I don’t make eye contact. I have my movie playing, listening with head phones on at a low volume so I can hear any announcements, but that is becoming difficult as the high school girls are chatting up a storm, a couple are sitting on the floor right near me, the one girl says “O-h m-y God, I’m sooooooooooo horny!” That’s when I decided damn the hearing, I turned the volume up and pretended that I didn’t hear that, I really didn’t want to go to jail……. Plus I know the one girl’s mother was floating around and that was said to get a reaction……… The gate agent tell us we will take off around 7:25pm, instead of the 6:50pm time. Finally pull back from the gate around 7:45pm, then we sit. Finally around 8pm we start to taxi. They tell us it’s an hour and seven minute flight. I do the math and think “Ok, I’ll make my connecting flight in Charolette, it leaves at 9:30″ Well by hour and seven minute flight, they forgot to include about 20 minutes…….. I get to Charolette around 9:25pm, most of the flight is getting connections to elsewhere. We land, get to the gate, everyone jumps up ready to run off the plane, find the agent that can tell us what gate to go to, it was all going to fall into place…… but then we wait and wait and wait…….. The pilot comes on after 10 minutes and says “Sorry folks, the jetway driver isn’t there, so no one can bring the ramp over to the plane so you can deplane……” Finally the guy shows up, we deplane, no agent, flights are gone, HUGE line at the US Airways Special Services desk to reschedule. A guy tells me they are going to close that desk in about an hour and it’s the shortest line it’s been all day, it’s still over 100 people deep, the guy recommends I go out to the terminal. I walk out to the terminal at A Concourse, I walked to the end of the line, at C councourse. The Starbuck’s stand was the half way point. The girl ahead of me was from Canada, she said things like “a-boot” which I find strangely attractive for some reason, but I digress……. She tells me that the Starbucks stand to the counter is about a 3-4 hour wait. I’m thinking ok, it’s 10pm now, this is going to suck….. I get on the phone and call one of my friends to have him look up one way flights any airline Charolette to St Louis. The cheapest he could find was $738, if I took a stop over, I would save $20. American Airlines was $1100…… ouch, well I’m staying in line it looks like. BTW all the hotels were gone and so were the rental cars. Apparently there were 10,000 people stranded there. Some poor lady from England was asking where she was because her flight was diverted to Charolette. Not only did she not know where she was, she couldn’t work the pay phone, a nice lady helped her out. Around 1am we’ve moved up to almost the Starbucks. I talk to the guy behind me that’s from Pittsburgh and 2 girls that are trying to get back to Boston, they were in Paris for Spring Break and have been up for over 24 hrs straight……. They make an announcement in the terminal, they are shutting down the counter for the night at 2am, they will re-open at 5am and have 15-20 agents to help us get to where we need to go. The whole time I tried to call the US Airways 1-800 number to no avail, it was busy, I was on hold once for over an hour, someone picked up and hung up. F’ers! Starbucks stayed open, fully staffed all night, the prices weren’t bad and they said they made in 12 hrs what would take 6 months…. so we all settle on the floor in line to grab some sleep. The airport sent in extra cops and security. They set up cots in the D concourse, but going there means you lose your spot in line, I had been there about 6 hrs by this point, I’m not moving. Try to sleep, but I was in shorts and a short sleeved shirt, on a marble floor, at least I was in between the Canuck that said such things at “a-boot” and a spring break girl, so life could be a lot worse right now…….. After an hour I just watch Pirates of the Caribean on my PSP, around 4am I notice all other airlines have their counters staffed helping travelers, look at US Airways, nothing……. It’s ok, they have an hour to get us the 15-20 agents they promised…… 5 am rolls around, everyone in line is up and ready, we see activity behind the counter, wow, 2, count them, 2 agents! The other 18 will rush out at any minute……. half an hour later another emerges, 15 minutes later 2 more come out. Ok, 5 agents, handling international and that day’s flights only……. No agents for us….. The mood deteriorates quickly as no one knows which line they need to be in, lines are merging, people trying to cut lines, finally since US Airways can’t keep their house in order, the cops step in. Seperate the lines and threaten the arrest any line cutters. That is met by cheers. 6am, an agent emerges for us! 1 agent for 1000 people, this won’t take more than a day to get to the counter, awesome! Everyone cheers. Now I know why they are bankrupt……. by 7am we finally have 6 agents, the departing flights that day lost 3 agents to us. A sad commentary on the whole situation, Starbucks had more people behind their counter than US Airways……. US Airways could have helped themselves out by having a rep walking up and down, answering questions, directing people and calming people down, instead of the cops. A few fights almost broke out, but then everyone calmed down. One girl tried to cut, everyone yelled at her, she dropped the f bomb a few times and stormed away angry……. The line starts to move, but US Airways shot themselves in the foot, because people didn’t know what lines to get in, and lines were slow to move, they essentially shut down the self check in kioskes, tons missed their flights, so more people joined the line to get rescheduled…… What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a diff result…….. US Airways is an old airline, odds are this has happened before and they should have been better prepared……… When you cancel over 2000 flights, you should know to staff your counters to get people rerouted, not let them sit in limbo…… Just before we get up there, 3 agents go on break, in their defense they had been there about 3 hrs and needed one, we’d been there about 14 hrs, we are just whiners……. The Canuck gets to the counter, then an agent opens up for me, I get the guy that has been riffling through people, getting them tickets and on their way quickly. St Patrick was definately looking out for me, the guy says “I got nothing for St Louis at all, I may be able to do stand by……” I said “Can you get me to KC or Chicago, I’ll rent a car if need be…….” He hits refresh and says “you are very lucky, a St Louis flight was just added. I can’t believe how lucky you are…….” I ask when it is leaving, he said 10:55, I said “Tonight?” because well that’s how my luck has been going. “No he said, in about an hour……” I almost cried tears of joy….. I get my boarding pass, check it, yes it says St Louis and I have an assigned seat. True to US Airways, the flight leaves an hour late, but I get back to St Louis. They said my bag will be on the first flight. I stand at the baggage claim caroulsel, no bag. Go to the US Airways office, expect the worst, but see my bag there, how the f’ it beat me, I don’t know….. I guess there was an earlier flight to St Louis and I was in line when it left…….. Hope the Canuck, the guy from Pittsburgh and the spring break girls got home, I left them in the dust at the counter as I sprinted to security checkpoint to get out of the God Forsaken airport……….

Check out the pics at http://stumblingirishman.com/album you can see the pics of the airport under the Naples album. I snapped a couple of the lines and people snoozing

So I get a call on my cell phone, one of the developers tells me that the production websites seem to be down and a server outside the pix is down. I was on my way out to Innsbrook to help open it up, I turn and head to the office thinking that it’s just the internet line down, maybe it was cut outside because they are doing a lot of diggin in the middle of the street or I have to reboot the router, nohting of which was even close to correct or what I was expecting……… I arrive at work, walk up to the double glass doors, about to open them when I hear water trickling down and see a big wet spot in the middle of the hallway. My first thought was “OH MY GOD!” Race to the server room door, it sounds like a hose running in there, open the doors, blasted with humidity and water is literally cascading down from the celing, right over our projector we use to show images on the glass and of course right over our production server rack……. I first call the building manager and tell him we have water cascading down from the ceiling and then call the developer that had called me originally and simply said, “Found the problem” and held the phone up so he could hear the water, I put the phone back to my ear and hear him screaming “Oh my God, is that water I hear?!?” He races down and helps me push the production rack out of the way of the water. It was tough moving it, as power cords were preventing the wheels from rolling, finally he pulled while I threw myself against the cage and we moved it out of harm’s way. We then inspected the damage, water still coming through the ceiling, the projector showed a red light meaning bulb was bad, I think that was the least of it’s problems seeing it was full of water and dumped about a galloon onto the guy that took it down from the ceiling. We noticed water under our raised flooring was about halfway up the boxes the circuits are in, we realize this is bad, water gets to the top of those circuit boxes, it will arc and we are standing on steel flooring that happens to conduct electric very well……. So we race to pull the servers out of the racks and get them to dry areas, meanwhile an emergency all hands on deck call goes out as others come into the office to help get all the equipment out. The building manager gets the water off and comes down to cut the power to the server room. Once all the equipment was out we could formulate a recovery plan. Thanks to some hard work by Xiolink, we were able to transfer our production websites over to there and have it up by 9am. (We moved the servers over there around 1am) Needless to say 26 hrs later they sent the 5 of us that had worked over 24 hrs home. Around 5am, I hit the wall, I was standing up, almost fell over twice, why you ask? Because I had fallen asleep standing up…. I got home, fell asleep for 4 hrs, woke up, it was dark and the Daily Show was on. I was confused on what day it was, where I was and what time it was….. It took me a minute to get my bearings….. The week was filled with long hours, stress and lots of cursing….. I picked the wrong Lent to give up drinking……….

So this Lent I’ve decided my sacrafice will be giving up alcohol. Much to my friend’s heckling and disbelief, I will go the 44 days without drinking. How do I know this? Well I did this a couple years ago, I went the full distance and I could drink on my birthday. I love when people asked “Why do you do this??” I don’t know, let’s see he died on the cross for us, it will make me a better person, etc.
Last weekend brought my old roommate in town, TBFKAP and his wife. His wife was going to take the bar on Tuesday, while he worked from the St Louis office. TBFKAP was staying at the WS, most of you don’t know or remember, we were supposed to live there when it opened about 6 years ago, but the developer screwed us over and we moved to the Parc Frontenac. Fast Forward to today, that developer is in jail for fraud and the WS is in bankruptacy. It was once cool, but now is a shell of what is used to be. It’s clean, that’s about it. He was on the top floor, lots of ceiling tiles missing and leaks in the hallway during the rain storms……..

So Saturday night I meet up with TBFKAP and Mrs. TBFKAP and A&A for dinner at PF Chang’s. I was talking to A and he asked if I wanted a drink from the bar. I look him in the eyes and tell him I can’t drink for awhile, I got a DWI………. The look on his face was priceless……. I then started to laugh and said I had given up drinking for Lent…….. Post dinner Mr and Mrs TBFKAP head to Mandarin with me. Waiting in line, the group ahead of us were getting antsy, trying to get the bouncer’s attention, name dropping, etc. Me, I text Cosmo Boy, he comes down, jumps us ahead of the line and into the elevator to Mandarin. It was packed there, MTV was fliming for their “Hot Clubs in the US show”, Cosmo Boy was already 5 drinks deep, said he was going for 10, big night for him! We were standing in the back bar area, the camera crew came through filming, some girl showing off for the camera starts to break it down for the camera, she harpoons my ankle with her spiked heel and then when she steps down the heel goes into my shoe, not poking a hole, it went into the gap between my sock and the shoe wall……. Her bf or guy wisihing he was her bf said “Do you want to throw down??” Whatever happened to hanging out, drinking and oggling at girl’s enhanced chests?? Kids today……

Mr and Mrs TBFKAP left, Sabasten shows up, Cosmo Boy tells us we are going to Pepper because “We are going to be rock stars tonight” he hoists his drink, it spills a little, I know I’m in for a blog worthy night……… He says “Meet at the DJ booth in 20 mins” He comes by in about 3 mins and says “Meet at the DJ booth in 5 mins, no, 3 mins, I going to invite some stunners for Pepper, we are going to be Rock Stars.” I’m the auto DD as I’m just drinking Red Bull that night. On to Pepper, we end up at the Tikki Bar out back, which the girl behind the bar is nortorious for not paying attention to the customers, even Cosmo Boy experiences that……. We get our drinks, turn around, Cosmo Boy is gone, 2 girls near us talk to us for a little bit before they head back to the dance area. I look up in the VIP and see Cosmo Boy dancing up a drunken storm near the DJ booth, I text him, he gets us up there. Hanging up there I realize that I’m the only sober person up there. One girl in particular, I guess it was her bday, she was wearing a crown, was dancing around. Her dress had a V cut and her lovely lady lumps kept flopping out, oh to be 21 again……. and that is one classy broad! The people watching that night was outstanding! Post Pepper we go to Nectar briefly, by this time Cosmo Boy was 9 drinks deep and was telling everyone that fact……. Post Nectar, I take the drunken idiots to Steak ‘n Shake in Maplewood, because you can sit down inside, on Hampton it’s drive thru only…… Sitting there Cosmo Boy was going on and on about some girl named E, that he was trying to set up with another friend, but that guy didn’t like her, so he went on and on to me about her. How I should call her, etc. One problem, never met the girl, from what I gathered, she’s cute and lives in Soulard, that’s all Cosmo Boy would emphasize, it was actually comical. Then he started with Sabastin about some girl named A, he had at least met this girl……. Ah Cosmo Boy, the drunken Match Maker…….. Had some food, dropped them off and was home around 4am, even when booze isn’t involved it’s still late nights……