Category Archives: Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey 7 Comments

Cleveland

Note to the manager who was working at Zocaro Mexican Grill on the evening of March 15: When I complain about a disappointing entree which was very misleadingly described on the menu and your response is a lame shrug and a feeble, “sorry, ” please understand that you are losing me as a customer.

I ordered the Carne Guisada, which was described as a “Mexican pot roast cooked with root vegetables.” What I got was a big bowl of stew that was mostly rice, potatoes and a few chunks of tasteless beef.

I try to find Mexican food wherever I travel. I don't always manage to find good Mexican food.

To be completely fair, I looked up “carne guisada” and it does seem to be known as a stew, but the menu never said stew and never said rice. I’m on a low carb diet and so all I could do was pick at the tiny pieces of meat, which meant I was done with my dinner in less than five minutes. Honestly, rice AND potatoes in the same dish? A dish that’s called “carne” anything?

It’s a shame, Mr. Manager, because I’m here in Cleveland for three weeks, I love Mexican food and I’m my hotel is right around the corner from your restaurant. You made absolutely no effort to have me leave your restaurant happy.

Well, at least I have the Mexican Food requirement taken care of for Cleveland. Bleh.

///

Maybe I was just in a grumpy mood yesterday. Not sure why. Physically I have been feeling less than 100% since I got to Cleveland. I hope it’s just standard jet lag. I’m always paranoid that my anemia would come back, and I never want to feel like that again, particularly when I am traveling.

I also had much trouble sleeping last night, finding that I was feeling quite anxious. Not sure why. Things are going swimmingly.

I think I’m probably just a little galled by the prospect of this huge 12 week trip, including the recent addition of the exciting but not a little scary destination of Moscow. There are some hoops we have to jump through to get me there (you actually have to have a visa to go to Russia), and maybe I’m just a little scared. That’s okay.

///

More good news today: I don’t have to hotel-hop like I was afraid I’d have to this weekend. When I was booking my hotel for the three week Cleveland stay, the hotel I wanted to be in couldn’t accommodate me for the entire three weeks. Something silly about March Madness or something. So, since I am a maniac and I really wanted to restore my Gold Elite status with my hotel brand, I set up a musical-chairs parade of hopping back and forth from one hotel to another one which is not my brand.

Then a curious thing happened. When I checked in on Sunday, the cheery front desk clerk welcomed me as a Gold Elite member. I almost corrected her but checked myself. Sure, if she thinks I’m Gold Elite, I’ll take it.

As soon as I got to my room I checked out my membership information on the hotel chain’s website and saw to my delight that I was indeed now a Gold Elite member. This was mysterious, because not two weeks before when I checked I still lacked about 30 days to get back to Gold level.

I noticed something curious on the record. There was a notation of “18 bonus nights.” Bonus nights? Further investigation revealed that these mystery bonus nights had been granted by the hotel I stayed in while in Atlanta last October when I was there for the Client.

This hotel happened to be the worst hotel in the chain I’d ever stayed in. The staff was clueless and incompetent, and a couple of nights before I left, a maid stole money from my room. I threw a fit, and was not at all happy about how the general manager handled the situation.

So . . . .it appears the manager bestowed these 18 bonus nights on me to make up for the incident. Well, that’s nice. I’ll take it. But 18 is not 30. I’m still a bit confused as to how I made it back to Gold Elite status. But it’s a Quality Problem. Now I’m working hard on keeping Gold for this year with my sights on achieving Platinum!

Gold Membership Benefits that you Don’t Get With Merely Silver Level

25% bonus on rewards points per night of stay
Free internet
Free breakfast
Free local phone, fax
Free room upgrade if possible

The free internet perk is a valuable one, because not all hotels in the chain offer it for free. Ditto breakfast. But by far the sweetest benefit is the free room upgrade. This can have tremendous results if you get lucky with it. When I went to BlizzCon in 2008 I had a huge two floor, two-bathroom suite in Anaheim for $87.

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 287 user reviews.

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Spring Forward, Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey 7 Comments

March 15, 2011

Cleveland

Listomania!

I’ve never been a very acquisitive person. By that I mean I’ve never really trusted “stuff.” Like any Westerner, I certainly own too many physical objects, but I think I’m less attached to them than most Americans are to theirs.

Many years ago, when it was briefly hip, my mother owned a Krugerrand. Remember those? They were one-ounce gold coins from South Africa that people used like jewelry. Hers was worn pendant-style around her neck. She had owed it less than a year or two when it was stolen at a local festival. It was one of the worst days of her life (and with my mother, that’s really saying something). You would have thought she’d just had to make Sophie’s choice. I watched her sit on a lawn chair in her front yard and cry for an entire day over it. As I sat and watched her, dumbfounded, I made a silent vow to never be so attached to any physical object. And I’ve done a pretty good job of it.

If you don’t believe me, just come look at my apartment. Any stuff that’s there has accumulated carelessly through the march of time. I regularly cull my belongings, getting rid of books, knickknacks, and anything else I can eliminate from my life. I look forward to these regular purges. The give me a sense of relief and detoxification. You know, like a coffee enema.

Because of my position on stuff, I’ve never been a collector. As a kid I sort of collected model ships, but that was mostly because my Dad got into the habit of bringing me home a new ship occasionally from his travels. Also, this was before the instructive Krugerrand Incident. By the time I was an adult I had successfully eschewed the whole concept of collecting.

I’ve always considered collecting things expensive, time-consuming and without satisfying rewards. I understand that collecting comes out of obsession, and I have no problem with that aspect of it (I think obsession is wildly underrated in our culture). It just seems dumb to me. I remember seeing a wall of unopened Star Wars action figures that took up an entire wall in a friend’s room.

“Why don’t you open them?”

“Oh, you can’t open them!”

“Why not?”

“If you open one it dramatically devalues it.”

“Devalues it.”

“Yeah.”

“For when you sell it.”

“Yeah.”

“On eBay or something.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think you’ll ever sell your collection?”

“Oh, god, no, I love it too much.”

Like that. I couldn’t figure it out. I mean, what’s the point of having a Princess Leia and a Luke Skywalker doll if you can’t have fun taping them into offensive incestuous juxtapositions?

At least coins and stamps are interesting, have history and educational value. Plus they don’t take up a whole wall of your house.

Even more unfortunate, in my view, are the Accidental Collectors. You know what I mean. Another friend of mine made the mistake of telling people she liked owls. Like when she was twelve or something. So a couple of people give her owls as gifts. Then people see her room, see the owls, and it becomes a thing. It snowballs. So now she’s 45 and has 734 owls in her house. By now she’s long forgotten why she ever even said she liked the damn things. But she’s stuck with them, like necklace of 734 lead beads dragging her neck down.

///

So I am not down with the collecting thing.

With one gigantic exception:

Lists. love lists with a passion. As a kid I actually bought with my own money several editions of The Book of Lists. I adored it.

At an early age I began making lists of my own. I’d just sit down and idly write down all of the houses I’d lived in. Or all the different schools I’d attended. It was like a form of doodling for someone who had no artistic talent.

Eventually some of these lists became logs. The logs began developing a life of their own. I have logs of every book I’ve ever read. Every role I’ve ever played. Every movie I’ve ever seen. Every video game I’ve ever completed. Every board game I’ve ever played.

After a decade or two of being a hardcore list maker I finally realized what should have been obvious from the beginning: List making is my form of collecting. So it turns out I’m a collector after all. But I think my style is superior to collecting tangible stuff. It’s cheap and takes up virtually no space. Plus it’s information, which can have value. At least to me.

Favorite Casual Doodle Lists

Books I’ve read by a favorite author
Cities I’ve been to
Cities I’ve taught in
Games I’ve played of a particular type
Movies I’ve seen by a favorite director

Naturally, a trip of this scope gets my list making impulse kicked into hyperdrive!

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 183 user reviews.

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Pronouncements, Spring Forward, Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey 3 Comments

March 14, 2011

Cleveland

Scary Soy Spread!

One quick word about what you can inspect in this diary: I plan on this being a self-indulgent stream of consciousness sort of thing. So I will talk about what’s happening on my trip and anything and everything else that’s on my mind. So I’ll talk about the books I’m reading. The movies I’m seeing. The games I’m playing. The cities I’m visiting. Current events. Politics. You name it. I’ll try to keep it lively. I really hope you’ll go on this journey with me. And please make any and all comments! I want to hear from you.

///

Okay so here’s my question for the TSA: Why is something that’s considered unsafe to take with me on the airplane perfectly safe to stuff into my luggage?

As I made my way through the odious security checkpoint at LAX, they pulled a jar out of my backpack.

I admit it. This isn't as sexy as the bodybuilder from yesterday. But trust me, I couldn't have lost the 80 pounds I've lost without this wonderful product.

“You can’t take this on the plane with you.”

What was the scary, offending item? A jar of Carb Not Beanit Butter, which despite its atrocious name, is a product that has been a mainstay of my low carb regimen. It is a soybean switch-out for peanut butter that is so high in fiber that its net carbs is zero. And it also takes pretty darned good. I devour it at a rate of about a jar a week.

The jar being held in the imperious hand of the TSA drone was the only one I had with me. I have to special order this product and it would take days to get a replacement. “I really need that.”

“You cannot take this on the plane.”

I took a breath, feeling myself instinctively switching into Annoyed Customer Mode:

“Why not.”

“It’s a paste.”

“Yeah. It’s like peanut butter. Scary stuff.”

“You can’t take more than three ounces of any paste on the plane.”

Really?

“I need this.”

“Well, run back to the gate and see if it’s not too late to stuff it in your checked baggage.”

Which, believe it or not, is exactly what I did. It was too late to catch my luggage, but a somewhat exasperated yet still helpful manager type at the check-in counter wrapped the damn thing up in a bag and taped it inside a box. I was half expecting him to charge me for a third checked bag, but he didn’t. Score one for We Don’t Care, We Don’t Have to Airlines.

Of course I assumed I’d never see my beloved jar of soy nut butter again. But to my delighted surprise it was waiting for me at the luggage carrel, even ahead of my bags.

As my soybean-butter-inspired relief washed through me like a Double Gulp Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, I was struck by the question above. If three ounces of a foodstuff that happens to be filed under the category “paste” is verboten in the passenger section plane, why would they agree to take it anywhere on the plane? If it’s suspicious in the one place, why isn’t it suspicious in the other?

I realize there’s a legitimate distinction between, say, a sharp object like a box cutter or a machete that might be considered peachy keen packed away in a check bag but highly hazardous on the plane itself, but a paste? How would I commandeer the cockpit of the plane with peanut butter? “Stop! Or I’ll spread‼”

It follows that the reason they didn’t want it on the plane was that somewhere there exists some type of explosive that, presumably, looks a lot like peanut butter. As giggly as this sounds to a like me, who’s mind is blissfully unpolluted by any real knowledge of terrorism, if this is true then I don’t want something so suspect anywhere on the plane. Right?

The conclusion I reached was that this was just another indication of the meaninglessness of the “enhanced” security measures that we allow ourselves to be tortured with in this post-911 world. Yeah, it’s just bureaucratic security fussiness. They forbid peanut butter not because it could hide real threats but because they can and if I don’t like it I can just shut my hole. The TSA doesn’t make our travel safer, but it DOES manage to create some more job opportunities for government contractors who get paid to inconvenience us. Our tax dollars at work. Whoop.

///

Very good news today. The client confirmed my travel to Brussels, Munich and Moscow. Moscow, holy shit!

The only challenge will be the fact that I have to front the money for all of the flights, yikes. This will take some careful planning.

///

Lifted weights after work. Well, I lifted weights a little bit. It’s been a year since I’ve done that so I took it easy. It felt good to start.

Separate Bags Taken on Trip

Large suitcase (checked)
Large garment bag (checked)
C-PAP bag
Laptop case
Very full backpack

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 174 user reviews.

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Spring Forward, Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey 4 Comments

March 13, 2011

Los Angeles – Chicago – Cleveland

Distance traveled today: 2075

Total distance traveled: 2075

Today I leave home for an eleven week work trip. This is the longest I have ever been away from home base in the twenty-plus years I have lived in Los Angeles. It surpasses the last such record which was made last year, when I was on the road for seven weeks for this same client.

Spent a very short night sort-of-sleeping before getting up at 3:00 a.m. to catch a 6:00 flight to Cleveland. The night was made even shorter by the fact that, as luck would have it, this was the weekend we lost an hour of sleep as we resume Daylight Savings Time. I didn’t care, though, for three interrelated reasons:

I have a rule that I only get up this early to Go on a Trip or to Star in a Major Motion Picture. (The fact that this rule has been heretofore employed excusively in service of the first circumstance minimizes its legitimacy not one bit.)
I’m particularly excited about this unusual trip. More on that later.
Finally, when you’re flying East for work, it’s always worth the extra trouble of taking as early a flight as possible. You get to your destination hotel earlier and have plenty of time to relax, unwind and prepare for Entry into the new office bright and early Monday morning.

After hauling my five bags into the cab at 3:30 a.m. I immediately noticed that the cabbie had a thick Russian accent. I told him the last stop of my trip was Moscow. He grunted and said nothing more. Not particularly encouraging, I thought, considering I was at least as nervous about visiting this notorious city as I was excited at the opportunity. Perhaps I should have asked his advice for Best Practices When Kidnapped.

I don’t love flying even though I love to travel. However, I used to really enjoy The Travel Day. Choosing what book and what video game to spend time with, splurging on overpriced tacky airport food, the friendly flight attendants, the excitement of going somewhere.

It’s much more difficult now. Since 2001 almost every aspect of The Travel Day has gotten worse. Actually, it began to happen several years before 2001. Everyone blames 9/11 for how awful flying is now, but many people have forgotten that much of the unpleasant routine we have grudgingly gotten used to was in place well before that awful day in September.

Today was even more challenging than usual, as I had made the perhaps foolish decision to bring all of my fancy photo equipment with me. What this meant was that this would be the first time I have traveled with three things that I must take on the plane with me: photo bag, laptop and C-PAP[1]. There was a tense moment when the We Don’t Care, We Don’t Have To gate attendant growled at me that if I didn’t check one of my three bags, and if I got inside the plane and couldn’t find a place for one of the bags, it would be my tough luck. I “wouldn’t be able to check the bag at that point.” Her unspoken threat hung in the air. Yeah. I imagined the tantrum I would throw if they tried to “dispose” of one of my three bags at the last minute, and realized that, while I can throw a pretty good tantrum, these days the airlines always win. I saw myself getting thrown off the plane. Great start to the trip. I imagined the awkward call to the Client.

Luck was with me, though, and I sprinted down the aisle and found space for everything.

///

It has occurred to me that I should not enter into such an impressively long trip without giving it some thought. Without having a goal or two. I should have something to show for the trip when I’m done beyond money and some snapshots.

Goals For My Eleven Week Globetrotting Work Trip

Endeavor to not merely look, but to See.
Write as much as possible.
Take as many good photographs as possible.
Try to find Mexican food in every city I’m in.
Try to go to the movies in every city I’m in.
Try to return from the trip thinner than when I left.

: Do you look anything like this? Then the correct answer when I approach you and tell you I want to photograph you for a magazine is “Yes.”

On the short hop from Chicago to Cleveland, there was a pretty impressive hunk sitting right in front of me who I managed to catch up with after the flight and give him my “I’m a photographer for Exercise For Men mag” spiel. If I believed in omens I’d take it as a good omen. It’s a good start, anyway.

He probably will not call me, which is a shame, because he’s perfect for the magazine. Screw him; his loss.

[1] Continuous Positive Air Pressure machine. It treats my sleep apnea.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 259 user reviews.

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Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

When the fun finally relents

after broiling the seas of civil servants

And the heat finally slips off of the streets and streets

of sandy granite shrines

spilling into the drains and on to the river

And our cadence finally slows down

as we stroll through twilight air that’s as thick as pudding

but somehow no longer uncomfortable

And we start to think about easier things

like dinner or a stranger’s dog:

Washington finally begins to feel

a bit like what it really is:

a Southern town.

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 223 user reviews.

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Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey 3 Comments

Admit it. The terrorists have won. At least when it comes to travel. The anxieties and realities of this post-9/11 world have sucked almost all of the joy out of a day of commercial air travel.

But I recently discovered, to my surprise and delight, that there seems to be one domestic airline that’s making a valiant attempt to breathe some life into the air travel experience.

For years, my big three airlines have been Continental, United, and Northwestern. Since my economic station in life condemns me to flying coach, I’ve grown used to crappy movies, pathetic or nonexistent available food, and seats best suited for The Lollipop Guild.

Imagine my shock when I showed up at the airport to board my LAX to JFK flight. It was to be my first time on Virgin America. And as I went through the various paces of my travel day, Virgin surprised me over and over.

The very first sign I saw at the check-in counter game me a hint as to what was to come. These days every airline has a little placard warning you that if your carry-on bag is too large, you’ll have to check it. Virgin executes this necessary disclaimer with a bit of humor. Their version of this sign reads: “While impressive, if your bag is over the size limit, you’ll have to check it.” Granted, this is a small thing, but making me smile just a tiny bit while receiving this otherwise bland information was something I noticed. I realized that someone at Virgin was actually thinking about the flight day from the customer’s point of view.

Next was my seat assignment. I got to the airport early, I was able to score an aisle on an exit row. For a big guy like me, the extra space this change brings is practically like getting an upgrade to business class. And here’s the kicker: it didn’t cost me any extra. For years now, Continental and United have required you to pay extra for these very desired rows.

The good news continued as I went to the gate. In addition to the traditional gate counters, I noticed that Virgin had an unexpected bonus attraction: Several customer service kiosks, featuring live humans . . . in the gate area! Just in case I needed any help! It turns out that I DID need help, as I’d cleverly lost my boarding pass with my shiny new seat assignment.

Even boarding the plane was easier. Unlike most airlines, who announce the various boarding groups through their garbled PA systems, Virgin’s announcements were complimented by a large, clear video display reminding you which groups could currently board. Just got back from the long line at Starbucks? You don’t have to bother a dazed fellow passenger for an update about which groups are boarding. Just check out the handy video screen. Again, a small thing, but I noticed it.

Once on the plane, it just got better.

Food: Instead of the choices being either “Nothing” or “This vague chicken thing we’ve just warmed up for everybody, ” there was an actual menu. With, uh, what do they call those things? Oh, yeah, choices.

And instead of waiting until the flight attendants felt like doing the ancient ritual of serving the entire plane (sorry, the entire coach section) in one glacially-paced pass through the cabin, they respond to you when you make one of those afore-mentioned “choices” from the menu! It was fantastic!

And of course there was the personal video screen with a million choices for entertainment, free and otherwise, including, thank you, games.

It really feels like the honchos at Virgin really sat down and deconstructed the modern middle-class airport/airplane experience and asked themselves the question: How can we take every step of this experience and make it better? Make it more elegant, or fun, or responsive, or whatever? It couldn’t have been an easy project. But the results are telling. And that’s why I’m telling you.

And that’s why I am now a Virgin American Frequent Flyer member.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 244 user reviews.

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Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

1) When you’re traveling somewhere like Buffalo in February, and you rent a car . . . make sure the morons have put an ice scraper in the car before you leave.

2) An ice scraper is too sharp to be used as a back scratcher.

That is all.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 279 user reviews.

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Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

Two of my favorite qualities in an airport:

1. Be a small, older, in-town airport. Examples: Love Field in Dallas; Hobby in Houston; Long Beach, Burbank and John Wayne in Southern California.

2. Have the rental cars at the terminal, rather than some desperate, annoying shuttle trip to the far edges of the known universe. Examples: Orlando, Buffalo, Madison.

When I get off the plane, I don’t feel like waiting for boarding and riding some stupid shuttle. I want my car and I want it now.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 186 user reviews.

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Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

Okay, I get that all airlines on the planet are now charging me to check my bag. I understand that you’re still paying the prices for gas based on the deals you made before gas tanked last year.*

However, it’s adding insult to injury when your magical check-in kiosk refers to my ONE bag as EXCESS baggage.

One bag is NOT “excess.” It’s just one bag.

Calling it “excess” is not only stupid and cheesy, but it sounds like it’s trying to make the $15 fee for checking my bag my fault. And it’s not.

I mentioned this to the human attendant (I’m a giver) and her terse reply was, “There’s no way to change how the computer program refers to the bag.”

“Wrong!” I said, helpfully. “SOMEone knows how to change it, obviously.”

Maybe, perhaps, the person who changed it in the FIRST PLACE to make it charge me for ONE BAG!!!

*GET IT? “Gas tanked“!!! How do I do it?

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 290 user reviews.

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Travel

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

Strike that. It’s not “cold.”

It’s Oh My Fucking God For the Love of Sweet Tapdancing Jesus Cold.

How do these people endure it?

On the other hand, the heavy snowfall (almost all day pretty much every day I was there) was beautiful. East Aurora (where Fisher Price is located) is a beautiful little town and the job was a pleasure.

All week I was hoping to get to see Niagara Falls in its wintertime splendor. I’ve been there before, but in warm weather.

Today it was snowing so fiercely I didn’t think I’d want to be on the road any extra; just get to the airport and count myself lucky that my clueless California driving skills didn’t get me killed on snowy/icy roads.

HOWEVER I am happy to report that not only did I make it to the Falls, but I got to see BOTH of them.

Both of them? Yup, “Niagara Falls” actually consists of two completely separate falls. The set on the American side (imaginatively named “American Falls”) are not the famous ones you see in the movies and on postcards. That would be “Horseshoe Falls” on the Canadian side.

I had no passport so I knew I couldn’t cross over to Canada to get the proper view of Horseshoe. However, from the north end of Goat Island (yes, it’s really called that) I got a perfectly acceptable view of the famous flow.

The falls were not frozen, but they were amidst tons of ice and snow and were visually quite impressive.

Next: On to American Girl!!

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 256 user reviews.

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