Raging Kitsch

Could I please have an alternative-punky-funky band called Raging Kitsch?  Puh-leeese?  No?  Well, fine - I'll just have to settle for three days in the weirdest hotel I have ever encountered.  I'll bet the band would be more fun. 

The problem with the Eisenhower (besides the horrible website), is that it's trying to be too much.  Or perhaps i should say was trying to be too much.  The new half is fine - it's a bland, run-of-the-mill hotel.  But whenever they built the older half, they couldn't decide if they were going to buy into the whole "historic Gettysburg" theme (a la colonial Williamsburg), or if they were going to try to be a sort of tropical resort getaway in the middle of Pennsylvania.  Unfortunately for all of us, they tried to do both.  Witness the results:

At first, I thought things looked pretty normal - even rather nice, what with the nice wooden headboard.  But then I looked a little closer and realized that this room didn't know what it wanted to be.  Did we want to go with antiques, wood, half-timbered and so on?

Or did we want to remember in vivid ways the most horrible era of design this country has ever experienced?

Oh, and if that couch isn't bad enough for you (I didn't even touch it), take a closer look at that carpet:

I feel...a bit queasy.

Now, step outside with me onto the balcony.  "Ooh, a balcony!" you say.  Just wait for it.

That's right.  It's neither the 1800s nor the 80s - it's flipping Tahiti.

Allow me to show you around the plaza below.  If you're a bit tired, just relax in these comfortable wicker chairs:

Try not to feel like a bird in a cage, and do resist the temptation to re-enact the "Sixteen, Going on Seventeen" scene from The Sound of Music - the gazebo is too small.

Now if you've been hankering for a drink, since there's nothing else to do in the evenings in rural Pennsylvania, belly-up to the tiki bar:

But don't drink too much, or you may fall in the pool, or the hot tub, (which in the interest of truth in advertising I have just renamed the "lukewarm tub").  Just step up the red carpet, folks, and mind the trees - they're real, and they shed.

Getting tired of Tahiti?  Then come on back to America, circa the gay '90s (you know, when we forcibly took over Hawaii)! Just remember, "no shirt, no shoes, no service!"  (As if I would ever want to take off my shirt or shoes in this place!)

Don't expect to find any alcohol in this wholesome little shop, though - this is Pennsylvania, remember!  (Lord, I had nearly forgotten, what with all the tropical decor and the shopfronts straight out of Disneyland.) 

On top of it all, the roof above all of this...ensemble...leaks.  So if you were to sit out in one of these wicker chairs, or out on your balcony (as I did), it's entirely possible that you could get some cold water dripped down your neck (as I did).  Just to remind you that this isn't tropical Disneyland, but Pennsylvania in the middle of the winter.  It just might be the case that most of use brought alcohol and shared it with each other on those three long, cold nights...perhaps a bit like the soldiers who spent three hot nights here back in 1863, not knowing what was going to happen to them the next day but sharing drinks nonetheless?

But anyhow, what are your thoughts on this hotel?  Ever stayed in worse?  Or is this not bad, merely "different"?  Let me know in the comments!

Dear "Leadership Guru"...

...Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a "schmo," Sir Isaac Newton did not discover gravity when an apple fell on his head, Saving Private Ryan is not a management instruction tool, and you're not funny.

That is all.

Tuesday Potpourri

Nothing large enough to devote a whole blog post to happened today, but I do have two observations.

First:

I did absolutely nothing productive at work today.  This is because no one had any duties for me, so after attending the morning briefing, I went and sat at my desk.  All day.  Around 10:30 I resorted to pulling together a master list of all the acronyms I had come across in an incomplete list, training, and everyday use, which lasted me until lunch.  Once I finished that (1:30-ish), I read and subsequently finished the book I had brought (around 3) and then tried to figure out what to do with my remaining hour and a half.  To keep my brain from shutting down entirely I went onto the website of the French newspaper Le Monde and occupied myself reading the news from Europe than none of the American media report (nor, apparently, the BBC, whose new format drives me crazy).  I left ten minutes early, figuring no one would miss me.  And I'm getting paid for this (!).  Apparently I'm to be given assignments tomorrow.  I never thought I would say this, but thank God!

Second:

Bagels again.  I went to the grocery store to pick up some more (and some cream cheese, milk, and so on, since they're actually on sale for once) and was promptly undercharged for my bagels.  (I didn't discover this until I returned home, so don't chastise me for not getting it sorted out - my feet hurt.)  Why was I undercharged?  Because the cashier apparently thought they were rolls (39 cents a piece, rather than 59).  I am forced to conclude that people in this city just don't know what bagels are, which is bewildering, since it is a city, after all.  How very strange.

I'm a roll, apparently.

Duly Noted

The charismatic and funny woman who runs the training program I was at today (and will be at tomorrow and Thursday) released us two and a half hours early, so I toddled smugly home and went to get some groceries.

"What are these?" the cashier asked me as she picked up the cloudy plastic bag containing four vaguely round doughy things and appraised it quizzically.

"They're bagels," I said.

Silence.

"Fifty-nine cents a piece," I added.

She scanned them through.

Apparently, bagels are something of an exotic item in these parts.