The September Crazy Travel Roundup - Travel Stories, Episode 177

Recorded in the beautiful home office of Chateau Relaxo, FL.One trip since the last episode. From O-Town to John Wayne airport for a three-day visit to Irvine, CA. The trip out was uneventful as was the Hampton Inn Irvine East. Three things of note… First, 78 degrees with zero humidity is amazing. Second, the landscape is beautiful. Irvine is nestled inside these beautiful mountains, none of which had been developed.Third, My daily drive took me along Alton Parkway. Most of the homes along Alton are located up on a hill, nothing odd there. But, all of the homes had clear plexiglass fences. Think COVID-era riot shields. I asked a co-worker about the clear fences and he let me know that these were $1,000,000 plus homes and they didn’t want a solid wood fence spoiling that $1,000,000 view of the mountains. Side note $1,000,000 in Irvine California is much different than 1 $1,000,000 home in O-Town.My return flight home included a 3-hour delay in Austin, TX placing me back at Chateau’ Relaxo right around 2:00 AM. This allowed me plenty of time for a 7:00 AM drive to Atlanta, GA.I was on four planes that week, and maybe 20 people were wearing a mask between those four flights.A bit of a break in the Chateau’ Relaxo monotony last week as hurricane Ian came to town. We truly dodged a bullet as we only experienced high winds and a lot of rain. Nothing near the damage that Southwest Florida experienced. That being said the local O-Town news organizations were firmly convinced and trying to convenience us that we were all going to die. In case you didn’t know there is typically a weatherman progression when it comes to hurricanes. First, the jacket gets removed, then the shirt sleeves get rolled up, and finally right before the “S” hits the fan the necktie gets loosened or removed. Wednesday morning at 6:00 AM we turned on the local news and our local weatherman was already jacketless, tieless, not only were his sleeves rolled up it looked like he had slept in his dress shirt. This was a solid 18 hours before O-town was in the midst of hurricane Ian.Now as I’m putting show notes together Hurricane Ian has made landfall near Georgetown, South Carolina, as a Category 1 hurricane.The devastation in Southwest Florida is unimaginable. There are links in the show notes for* Red Cross* Salvation Army* Don’t forget the pets American HumaneNo matter where you live there are always weather challenges. Out west it’s fires and earthquakes. The midwest has its share of flooding and tornados. The north is known for snowstorms and in the south, it's hurricanes. Like they say, “You can’t fool Mother Nature”.We open this month's crazy travel roundup with this Titillating tale from Live and Lets Fly - WOMAN FORCED TO SIT IN FLIGHT ATTENDANT JUMP SEAT DUE TO HER OSTENTATIOUS BREASTSLeia Parker is a 26-year-old glamour model and exotic dancer. On a recent flight, she was busted for her breast size. Now Leia is petite but my opinion is that she has some aftermarket bolt-on parts. Due to those modifications, Leia claims she was forced to sit in the rear galley in a flight attendant jump seat all the way to London from Las Vegas.Leia explained that she couldn’t help touching other passengers while squashed into her small economy seat. She claims fellow passengers complained about this and asked the cabin crew to move her.“The seats being small is not good for my boobs – I struggle to not be in other passengers’ way,” she said.Don’t feel too bad for Leia as he IG bio does indeed have her as a glamour model and exotic dancer so I guess she’s used to being the center of attention.I put a Google on the word ostentatious hoping to see a picture of Leia, aka @JodieJuggs with two G’s, but I didn’t so I put a link in the show notes. I wonder if Leia was seated originally in row 46 DD?In keeping with the last story's theme, 8NewsNow sent this our way.Las Vegas police: Woman tells officers she was under arrest due to good looksDateline Las Vegas Nevada. Hend Bustami was arrested for reportedly skipping out on a restaurant tab as well as violating airport rules. The icing on the cake was that Hend Bustami told officers she was under arrest because she was so good-looking.Police said they were called to a Chili’s restaurant, a solid airport food choice,  in Harry Reid International Airport for a report of a woman who had left without paying her bill.Police searched for Bustami, but could not find her.Why couldn’t they find her?  It seems that the police were notified by TSA that [a] female matching Bustami’s description was observed sleeping near the security checkpoint, hindering their operations,” the report said.Officers later found Bustami in the baggage claim area where she was “belligerent with officers, saying she was being harassed because the cops had never seen anyone as pretty as her,” While officers were arresting Bustami threatened to spit on the officers and that officers were perverts and were trying to rape her because they had never seen anyone as good-looking.Here’s the tip-in, police later learned Bustami had a warrant out of Las Vegas Municipal Court.Typically when women complain about being singled out or picked on at the airport or on the plane they typically complain that it’s because they are an Uggo or Fattie and not because they are too voluptuous or too good-looking.Here’s a quick life lesson. In case you didn’t know much of life is subjective.For Example - * Yelp, everything posted is someone's opinion* Same with beauty contests* Are you fairly compensated at your jobNow some things are cut and dry - * Hitting a sales quota* Winning a powerlifting contestSubjectiveness sets the stage for this story from Southwest Airlines.In early September, Carrie was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight. Nothing new there.Carrie’s side story is she wanted to make a crying child in the gate area feel better, so she did some cartwheels while also having a glass of wine. Not sure if the wine led to the cartwheels or vice versa.The Southwest crew found her behavior unusual, assuming Carrie was intoxicated, and denied her boarding.The Southwest side of the story is as follows. The flight crew noticed Carrie having a glass of wine while being loud while doing gymnastics. This combination got Carrie denied boarding as she was told that she was intoxicated. This part is not subjective, there is a video, and there’s always a video and of course, it was filmed in portrait mode - LINKIn the video, subjectively, Carrie’s speech is slurred. However, stone-cold sober I have terrible balance and could never walk a straight line at a DUI stop. P{ossibly what i heard was Carrie’s normal speech pattern.Subjectively, the Southwest flight attendant sounded very condescending, that's when you talk down to people, when speaking with CarrieThis next story will give you step-by-step instructions on how to appear as a mallethead, then prove it, and then get fired.An unnamed passenger flying from Philly to Dallas started his flight and downward spiral by allegedly being inappropriate toward the woman seated next to him.This was followed by him exclaiming he's racist because he's a white male with a black bag which he states is, "a better bag than most of y'all can afford." Then he admitted that he was a little intoxicated.Next, he proved that he was not only racist but also homophobic with an obscenity-laced rant for the whole plane to hear. This led to him being escorted off of the American Airlines flight, but not before he let everyone know that he was a chemical engineer with GlaxoSmithKline. At the time he was working for GlaxoSmithKline, currently, he was working for GlaxoSmithKline because once GlaxoSmithKline got wind of this behavior they fired him. Here’s a quick life tip, don’t flex your job if you plan on going on an embarrassing rant.I spoke about this next topic in episode 175, The August Crazy Travel Roundup. This month The Points Guy tackled this topic as well - Mobile tipping comes to hotels: Will housekeepers really benefit?The post opens up with this.No cash on hand to leave as a tip for a housekeeper during your next hotel stay? No problem.One major hotel company rolled out a mobile tipping platform this month to keep things cashless, and there are signs more could be in the works.The major hotel chain in the post is Wyndham. The hotel that I stayed at was Homewood Suites.The customer engagement follows the same process, scan a Quick Response (QR) code with your phone and follow the prompts.Wyndham's adoption of mobile tipping came as a result of hotel owners and housekeepers asking for it during the pandemic.Typically with hotel chains and airlines is, once one of them breaks the seal with any sort of a new plan or policy, no matter how bad it is, the others will soon follow.Without getting into unions and franchised properties this is a terrible idea. Here’s my personal take on this. In Miami, many restaurants automatically impose a 20% tip on your meal. If you don’t notice you could very quickly end up leaving a 40% tip. The reason is that Miami has an endless supply of European travelers and apparently they don’t tip.While mobile tipping isn’t the same I don’t need someone deciding that this is how they now want others to tip. Yes, I can still drop a five-dollar bill on the dresser as I leave but it’s not the same. Possibly hurricane Ian and the barometric pressure have me in a funk.Here’s the question of the episode. Is it OK to have fun a work? And of course, the answer is……. Subjective. From the Daily Mail.TikToker slams Air Canada crew for fooling around on tarmac and posing for snaps on engine while her flight was three hours late.TikTok user @sugywitdahoodie filmed the staff through a window overlooking the runway, as they were taking photos around the plane.'Everyone on our flight wondering why we're 3+ hours delayed,' and. 'The flight attendants are having a literal photoshoot outside, ON THE PLANE.'. “On the plane”  is in all CAPS, so this had to have been very important to @sugywitdahoodie .The Tik Tok comments were divided, from - * 'My Air Canada flight was delayed for 2 hours because the crew left their hotel late and were stuck in traffic. * Another suggested that the staff were 'quiet quitting' To this point - Which might, or might not be true.* Not so fun fact: flight attendants are not paid on the ground, boarding, during delays, at the airport, etc so might as well do a photoshoot,'*  Another added: 'To be fair they’re probably waiting and trying to pass the time just like you.'Like it or not, the three-hour delay had nothing to do with the pop-up photo shoot. Maybe the Air Canada flight was delayed as they stocked up on Ginger Ale & Bacon.Finishing up with this. We’ve all heard about the exclusive mile-high club if you haven’t put a Google on it. After 20+ years of business travel, I’d much rather have admittance in the Admirals Club than the mile-high club.This was an American Airlines flight from L.A. to Dallas, and the passengers had no idea what was in store for them.Passengers heard what one passenger described as "somewhere between an orgasm and vomiting." Here’s a link to the video LINKThe noise is coming from inside the plane, no it’s coming from inside the PA system. It was a source of confusion to the flight crew ... apparently, one flight attendant thought someone was pulling a prank, but it turned out to be a weird malfunction in the P.A. that sounded like a man's moans.Some poor American Airlines representative had to deliver this message -  "Our maintenance team thoroughly inspected the aircraft and the PA system and determined the sounds were caused by a mechanical issue with the PA amplifier, which raises the volume of the PA system when the engines are running."Which was followed up with - You're now free to moan about the cabin..There you have it, the September crazy travel roundup.If you want detailed show notes, links and pictures head over to podpage.com/travel-stories/Leave a message on Anchor, or shoot me an email at [email protected] I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening. 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