My Paranoid Traveler’s Syndrome made me worry that the glass was going to break and I’d be sucked into the turbines like a bird with bad luck. Thankfully, the plane remained in tact, but this also meant that I spent the flight being taunted by ads in the seat pocket advertising free wifi that was not working on my flight.

When questioned, the stewardess just shrugged her shoulders, which is the universal gesture for, “I’m just a stewardess, not a cable repair man.” While I rather hate to use this cliched phrase, major FAIL, Airtran!

When I arrived in Baltimore, I couldn’t stop singing a very old, obscure, Tori Amos song as I wondered around the concourse.

Eventually I did make it to my hotel, which was located in a prime spot near the happening inner harbor area. I cannot describe how beautiful the weather was. It was like gazing at the face of Helen of Troy, if her facial features consisted of sunshine, blue clouds, and a brisk breeze. There were lots of doggies and ducks (and some joggers too) traipsing around the harbor, all filled with the simple joy of a spring day.

On Saturday, FitBloggin’ began, and a good time was had by all. And here is the “all” I’m talking about:

I wondered off the grounds for two hours in the early afternoon on a secret mission unsanctioned by the FitBloggin’ community. I walked half a mile to the Blue Moon Cafe, where I waited 40 minutes in the street with other breakfast crack seekers, until I was finally rewarded with this:

Yes, Captain Crunch French Toast! How could I not? Do you think I could get this in Indianapolis? No! And I walked there, so I’m sure that totally burned off the 8500 bazillion calories I consumed. I would love to go back to the cafe some time and sample their cinnamon rolls and biscuits that were literally as large as a chihuahua’s head. (Probably bigger, actually, depending on the chihuahua.)

I arrived back in time to sit on the publishing panel, and forced myself to self-promote even though I felt like a total tool by name-dropping the magazines and TV shows I’ve been on. The members on the panel had a wide range of experience, and I thought it went rather well. A video of it should be online next month sometime. One correction though: I mentioned that I was in Self magazine, but I really meant to say Women’s Health. Sorry! I don’t want anyone thinking I’m a compulsive liar. Frankly, all those media promotions are a blur.

That night, I went out to dinner with my roommates, Amy and Rebecca. We tried going to a seafood place, but the wait was 90 minutes. So we ended up at a tapas restaurant and sat at the bar with some Flamenco dancers between sets.

Then it was back home to Indianapolis, where I napped and got bedlag to go with my jetlag. Big props to Roni for organizing this great event. People were already talking about FitBloggin’ 2011, but I’m going to need more nap time before I can commit to that.

Here’s where I stand with my 2009 goals:

1) Continue to pursue headache treatments

I first went to the headache clinic in January of 2009. Within a few months, we were managing my headache much better, though not ridding me of it completely. We’re still tweaking meds, but overall this goal was pretty much met.

2) Work to become full-time freelancer

I chucked my job in July of 2009 and haven’t looked back. I don’t know how I ever coped with working in an office in the first place. I still don’t have a long-term health insurance solution, but I’ll deal with that at the end of 2010. Another goal accomplished!

3) Maintain my weight with regular fitness and health eating

I’m going to give myself a C+ on this one. I continued to gain weight at the beginning of the year, but I’ve been maintaining for the past several months. I could do better, but managing the headache comes before weight loss, even in this list.

4) Secret goal I will not reveal because I like driving you crazy

Also, I did absolutely nothing to work on this goal, so major FAIL on my part.

5) Travel outside the country

Done. I saw London, I saw France! I only packed four pairs of underpants! (Travel light, and do laundry in the sink.)

Overall, pretty good job, but there is room for improvement. After some thought, here are my goals for 2010:

1) Secret goal I will not reveal to preserve an air of mystery

2) Lose at least 20 pounds by July.

3) Travel to at least 3 new places.

4) Finish and promote headache memoir

5) Another secret goal, in case I hadn’t driven you mad already.

I’ve printed my goals and taped them to my desk. Now I just have to achieve them!

The second one was next to the Botox on the Beach studio. Tell me, would you get Botox on the beach? How about Botox in the sterile, environmentally controlled doctor’s office?

On my way towards these storefronts, I overheard two people talking about the cost of someone’s nose job. That was when I knew I was in Los Angeles

What wonders lie beyond the snack bar at the Nutrilite blogger event? Find out behind the jump (where there are no ads as mandated by my ad network agreement).

Disclosure: Nutrilite paid for my flight from Indianapolis to LA, two nights in a hotel and transportation to and from the airport and the bloggers event. They also provided some meals and free samples of their products.

So, before my bag took a tour of LA without me, and before my rental car got up close and personal with an armored truck, there was the Nutrilite bloggers event. I found a bag of Nutrilite goodies waiting in my hotel room, which was good because the highly priced and highly tempting snack bar was right next to my computer desk, taunting me with candy bars and wine. I chowed down on vanilla pretzel energy bars instead.

I’ve been lucky enough to have been invited to a few of these blogger junkets before, and there is still a part of me that is suspicious of every invitation, as if I am one email away from being duped and sold into a Russian sex slavery ring. Before I took off for LA, I joked to a few friends that they had permission to kidnap me for deprogramming if I came back trying to sell them vitamins. I was kidding…mostly. I’ve heard of travelers who go on free vacations sponsored by people selling time-shares, who have no intention of making a purchase, only to come back with a really bad real estate deal on their hands. Nutrilite is part of Amway, and while I haven’t had any personal experiences with that company, I am familiar with the stereotype of a pushy, overzealous, Amway salesperson.

What I’ve learned after attending several of these events is that the corporations we often think of as faceless actually have faces. Companies are made up of lots of people who all have their jobs that make the company run, but ultimately it all comes down to people. Blogger events like this let you meet some of the people in a company and learn what that corporation is all about. Of course, like any first date, everyone is on their best behavior with freshly pressed shirts and neatly combed hair, offering up handfuls of endurance gummy chews. (What? Is that weird?) But there is only so much you can fake, and after spending several hours with them, the people I met at Nutrilite seem genuinely focused on promoting a healthy lifestyle by creating the highest quality products possible. See? It’s even written on the wall of the Center for Optimal Health:

Which is right next to the kick ass, rotating, DNA spiral of health! (Would it be wrong to climb it?)

The day started out with a health assessment, the results of which I’ll be getting in a few weeks. After breakfast with the bloggers, we sat through several presentations, except for the presentation we ran, push-upped, and squatted through for 10 minutes of high-intensity exercise. It nearly killed me dead on the floor of the Center for Optimal Health. If I have to die, I would enjoy dying in a location that ironic.

I had never given any thought to where vitamin supplements come from, but a video shot on location at several farms showed what the process is like. Hint: It involves lots of acerola cherries (and not aerola cherries as I originally typed). The company earned my respect when I learned that Nutrilite never made a fen-phen product, even when their competitors were making piles of money off of it, because they believed it wasn’t safe. I asked how they maintain the standard of integrity that they aspire to, and they said a lot of the corporate culture bleeds down from the founder’s son, president and CEO, Dr. Carl “Sam” Rehnborg. After working for several corporations of various sizes during my career, I find it fascinating how corporate culture develops and varies from organization to organization.

Two athletes talked with us, Tom O’Rourke, masters track cyclist, and Jenn Stuczynski, American female record holder in the pole vault. When she is not sprinting towards a mat with a long pole, she looks like she does pictured above. Other times, she looks like this:

She has an actual silver Olympic medal and I spoke to her! Someone should tell Chris Rock that his routine about keeping girls off the pole doesn’t apply in this situation.

One secret I discovered was that you don’t have to talk to a Nutrilite salesperson to buy their products. You can just go online to their store, order what you want, and the salesperson closest to your zip code will automatically get credit for the sale.

The best part of the event was getting to meet other bloggers. They assembled a nice cross-section of people and even had a balanced male/female ratio, which can be unusual in the health blogging world.

I’d already met Roni of Roni ‘s Weigh, and I’d talked before with John from John is Fit.

I had some great conversations with Evita from Evolving Wellness, and I’m looking forward to reading more of her blog which covers holistic health and wellness and balanced living.

It was nice to meet Isreal from Fat Man Unleashed who’s popped by this site before and Mark, a personal trainer from My Fitness Hut.

I also enjoyed talking with Steve and Sarah, a married couple who have his and her blogs at Steve in a Speedo?! Gross! and Rx: Ironman. And yes, they compete in Ironman competitions and there is a 99% chance they are in better shape than you. They’re the type of people who actually win 5K races and don’t just run them in hopes of finishing like I do. And despite all these many reasons to hate them, they were delightful people :)

After the presentations wrapped up, we went back to Long Beach for a group fitness activity. I chose to walk along the pier with a few people, but another part of the group went for a run. An hour later, I hopped a bus four miles to the Queen Mary ship across the water.

This is where I bumped into Steve and Sarah. They greeted me and asked me if I too had found the staircase that led to the freeway bridge that they’d taken over here. I paused. “Uh…no, I took the bus,” I said. I took the bus back too, because I am not an IronMan or an IronWoman. Steve and Sarah ran back and still had time after their 8-mile jaunt to take a shower before dinner. See? I should totally hate them, shouldn’t I? But I swear that they’re really nice people even if they make you feel physically inferior.

Meeting them made me think that it would be rather lovely to have a physically fit husband who’d go for runs with me and keep me accountable for staying in shape. He’d also do the laundry and cook dinner since I’m fantasizing here. After skimming through their blogs, I have a desire to read lots of training blogs. It’s interesting to observe the different attitudes between weight-loss bloggers and athlete bloggers, though that’s probably an entry in itself.

Anyway, that was that! I left with warm fuzzy feelings about Nutrilite, so I guess they succeeded in winning me over. However, I promise I’m not going to sell you any vitamins. No need to kidnap me for deprogramming :)

I visited the Central Perk set from “Friends” on the WB Studio Tour. The service was really slow though. I’m still waiting for my latte.

I sampled the pumpkin ice cream at the Farmer’s Market and, DAMN, I wish this flavor was sold in stores. It was dee-lish!

Update 11-19-09: Okay, y’all, I have been informed over and over again that pumpkin ice cream is available in stores, and even if it wasn’t, you can make it yourself. Thank you for sharing.

Hey, everybody! I am still in Los Angeles on the most anxiety-ridden vacation ever. First my bag got lost, now my leg hurts so much I can barely walk, and yesterday my rental car was damaged. Jetta vs. armored truck: armored truck wins. And no, I was not driving the armored truck. At least the driver didn’t think I was trying to rob him. No one was injured and my insurance will cover it, but I will NEVER go back to the Santa Monica Pier again. Oh, and did I mention that I missed the Mulholland Drive exit on the 405 and drove all the way to the north side of the Valley before I figured it out?

But then, when I checked into my hotel that evening, thirsty, hungry, and stressed out, I found this waiting on my pillow and on my desk:

I nearly broke down and cried. Something small and simple like finding a nice little gift in my room at the end of a crazy-ass day did wonders to cheer me up. (Though I was cheered up even more by the guy at the Visa customer service center who told me they’d cover any damages my insurance wouldn’t.)

Other than all that hoopla, LA seems to be a rather cool city. I’m going to drive around and tour different neighborhoods today. I would love to get out and walk, but my leg will have nothing of it, so I’m going to stay in my car like all the real Angelinos do!

I was one of the last ones to board my flight from Indianapolis to Minneapolis because my seat was towards the front of the plane. When I got to the door of the airplane, there was no room left in the bins, so they told me I’d have to check my bag. The flight attendant attached a tag to it and asked me what my final destination was. “I’m going to Los Angeles!” I said because that is the city I have been reading about in the guidebooks and that I have been arranging an itinerary to see. It was only five minutes later when I was in my seat and had time to look at my ticket that my blood pressure skyrocketed to astonishing heights. The flight attendant had written LAX on the ticket. I wasn’t going to LAX! I was going to Santa Ana! Aaaaaaaah!

I caught the attention of a flight attendant, but by then the bag was gone. She told me to talk to a gate agent in Minneapolis, which I did. The agent requested a reroute of the bag and when I boarded my connecting flight, the agent there said they thought the bag was aboard. Except it wasn’t. I arrived at Santa Ana, stood at the baggage carousel, and finally, the nightmare I’d always had came true. My bag was not there.

My driver was an extremely helpful man who knew where the baggage claim office was and also had the address of the hotel written down. Thank you Mr. Driver Man! He also speaks five languages and has a son studying to be a neurologist and another son studying to be a physicist. I filed a claim and hopefully my bag will turn up. My business card is on the bag label, so unless the staff is completely incompetent (which is still a possibility), someone will get it to the right place. It is probably at LAX or Minneapolis. Hopefully it will get to me before my clothes start to smell.

Luckily, I had the presence of mind to move my pill box out of my lost bag and into my backpack before sending my luggage into the abyss. Which was good because OH SWEET JESUS my head felt like a carved Butterball turkey. Stress = pain. I also have my purse, my cell phone, my laptop, and the items that are most valuable to me. Thankfully the only thing in that bag was my clothing, a book I own, and a library book. I can live with losing the clothes, but, man, the library’s going to be pissed if I don’t return that book.

Update: I wrote this post Friday night, but by Saturday morning, my bag and I were finally reunited! I guess you can never really lose your baggage.

No, I did not set it ablaze, but after my recent experiences I would not blame anyone who did. As with most disaster victims, I had no idea what was going on until it was over. I was confused when the Megabus driver pulled over to the Kankakee rest area on northbound I-65, because there were no scheduled stops between Indianapolis and Chicago. Yes, the construction had forced us into one lane and an accident in that one lane had turned the freeway into a linear parking lot for an hour, but we’d finally gotten past the congestion. Why were we still traveling at 25mph?

When we pulled into the parking lot and the driver dove for the fire extinguisher under the front seat, I began to realize something was wrong. Then he opened the door and white smoke started to billow in, at which time I almost pissed myself and decided I needed that rest stop after all. I grabbed my backpack and hustled down the narrow aisle into a cloud of white smoke.

During the stop and go traffic, our bus had decided it would rather stop and go at the same time. The brakes had locked up and we’d been smokin’ down the highway for I do not know how long. We had to wait almost three hours for a replacement bus to be sent through the mess of construction from Chicago, which according to the maps at the Kankakee rest area was 65 miles away. This is why I had Chex Mix, Junior Mints, and a Fiber One Peanut and Oats bar for dinner Thursday evening. It is also why I finished the book I’d thought would last the whole trip to and from Chi-town. This left me plenty of time to mentally inventory the items in my suitcase and decide whether I would miss anything that might have been charred to a crisp in the luggage compartment.

Thankfully, I did not have to be in Chicago at a certain time, however one of my fellow travelers was supposed to catch a charter bus to New York for the weekend, which I’m pretty sure didn’t happen. The replacement bus finally came, we transferred all our luggage (which thankfully hadn’t been barbecued), and we were off to Chicago with an overall 4 hour delay. I had been planning on taking the Chicago bus to my hotel, but decided not to risk another bus incident, and took a cab instead.

At this point, I was willing to forgive the Megabus corporation for the trouble. Busses break. That can’t be avoided, and they’d sent a replacement within a reasonable amount of time given the traffic circumstances. Also, the bus driver had gotten us to a safe place with water, food, restrooms and shelter. It had been annoying yes, but you can’t control what happens to you in life, only how you react to it, and all in all everyone had reacted well.

Then came Sunday.

I sat on the sidewalk near Chicago’s Union Station for the 11 o’clock Megabus to Chicago. A pair of hairy legs in green shorts stood next to me as I read a magazine, and if this had been an episode of Lost, this is where the camera would have zoomed in on the man attached to these legs in a flashback because he was going to play a large part in the upcoming events.

The bus was about 15 minutes late, but this is the Megabus, and I did not expect it to be on time. We loaded up onto the muggy and somewhat warm bus and the bus driver told us that although it was hot right now, once we got on the road the air would kick in and it would get cooler.

We got on the road, but the air did not kick in and it did not get cooler.

About 10 minutes into the trip, a man from back walked down the aisle and complained to the bus driver that it was still hot. “Get behind the line,” she told him. There is a white line painted on the aisle floor that passengers are not supposed to cross. This line seemed very important to our bus driver of Megabus 64184 from Chicago to Indianapolis departing at 11:00am on Sunday, July 26, 2009. The driver then fiddled with the knobs and got on the line with dispatch who told her to fiddle more knobs, and still the air did not kick in and it did not get cooler.

The driver got through the first toll both of the Chicago skyway and then pulled over to the side of the road, across from a McDonald’s oasis that sat in the middle of the highway. She got up and told us that because the air conditioning wasn’t working, they were going to send another bus for us. This announcement was met with groans, and after 10 minutes of waiting the passengers started to get unruly. People started yelling, “Let’s just go!” and several people started complaining to each other about the man who had whined about the heat. I sat quietly in my seat, trying not to attract attention.

I had to ride a school bus for all of middle school and high school. It did not have air conditioning. You opened the windows and you did not bitch about it. Yes, it was hot. Yes, it was uncomfortable. Yes, your sweaty thighs became glued to the vinyl seats and ripped at your skin when you got up. You lived with it because that was just the way it was. Yes, the Megabus was warm, but it was tolerable, and if they had designed the bus so we could actually open the windows, there wouldn’t have been a problem. I can only imagine that people who ride beat-up busses with their chickens in the seat next to them as they descend narrow mountain roads in Peru would have laughed at what spoiled Americans we were.

The man in green shorts got up to talk to the bus driver, to which she replied, “Get behind the line please.” I’m not sure what else they said, but then Green Shorts not only stepped past the line, he sat on the steps next to the driver. All of this behavior was non-threatening, but he had literally just crossed the line which the driver seemed rather fixated on. After their conversation the bus driver got up and made a speech against us mutineers telling us she was not driving anywhere in a hot bus and no one was going to tell her how to run her bus.

Green Shorts then asked if anyone on the bus wanted drinks from McDonalds. Another guy told Green Shorts he was crazy to go across four lanes of traffic accelerating to 70mph, but I just handed the guy my water bottle and asked for a refill. If he wanted to risk his life, I was happy to get rehydrated at the same time. I was growing increasingly worried that the stuffiness, stress and dehydration were going to escalate my constant tension headache to a full-blown migraine.

Our savior managed to cross the traffic and return with two caddies filled with ice cold water and let us know it was much cooler outside the bus in the fresh air. The bus driver had gotten off the bus at this point and I was surprised no one leaped into the driver’s seat to hijack the bus to Indy. Everyone was rather pissed at this point, particularly me and one other woman who’d been on the doomed bus trip up to Chicago on Thursday. I’m sure sociologists would have been fascinated to study the changing group dynamics and the bond we all felt by hating the bus driver’s attitude.

I got off the bus and cut my arm crawling over a guard rail, after which I had to keep telling myself I would not get tetanus from it. I sat in the grass and my thoughts oscillated back and forth between, “I cannot believe this is happening again,” and “I hope this isn’t the part of the story where a car collides with the back of the bus and I am beheaded by flying shrapnel.” While I was trying to decide whether I would become more quickly dehydrated in the warm, stuffy bus or in the cooler outdoors in direct sunlight, Green Shorts was making a phone call. He snapped his phone closed and then said, “We’ll see what the police have to say about this.”

After about an hour and a half waiting on the side of the road, a replacement bus finally arrived. It wasn’t even a Megabus, just a white coach bus that came from God knows where. The men on the new bus started transferring our luggage, when the bus driver walked up to Green Shorts and told him he could not get on the new bus.

I know!

Again, if this were an episode of Lost, Green Shorts would have been one of the lead players who might be killed by the smoke monster by episode nine. I was playing the part of one of the nameless extras who kept their heads down and their names out of the credits. Green Shorts was not allowed onto the new bus, and although I did not actually see the cop cars, people on the bus said they had arrived. I’m sure the Chicago police had nothing better to do than moderate a power fight between a Megabus driver and a Good Samaritan passenger on their Sunday afternoon.

I know not what happened to Green Shorts, but eventually the driver got onto the new bus and we headed back to Indy. Halfway there…THE BUS BEGAN TO GET HOT. My new seatmate and I mumbled something about it to each other and made a pact to murder the first passenger who said anything about the temperature. I also tweeted the events as they happened on Twitter, and only later did I discover that not only had katydid6, another BlogHer attendee, been doing the same, I had been sitting next to her on the first bus! Yet, because I don’t have a Twitter app on my mobile phone, I was unaware of this until I checked my replies on my home Internet.

I spent the rest of the trip completely dehydrated, despite drinking two bottles of water. Once I got off the bus at Indy, I immediately walked two blocks and bought water from the closest available source, a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant. Before I’d gotten more than a block away, I watched the Megabus roll off for its next destination, Columbus, or hell, I know not which.

So, take this as a warning, DO NOT RIDE THE MEGABUS!!! I have ridden the service roundtrip from Chicago two other times before and did not have problems, but after this trip they’ve scored a 33% failure rate with me. I was willing to blame the brake failure on the first trip to bad luck, but after the air conditioning fiasco it became clear to me that Megabus does not take care of their busses. The first bus driver had been complaining about the brakes for days to dispatch, and the second bus driver was aware the air was broken, yet nothing was done until the situations had escalated too far. In addition, the second driver’s poor communication skills escalated the situation to a place it did not need to go, further delaying and complicating our trip. I do not expect much from the Megabus. Their fares are insanely cheap, so much so that I don’t feel it’s even worth it to demand a refund. I expect them to be late. I expect the bus to be somewhat uncomfortable. However, I do not expect to be stranded on the side of the road for a grand total of 5 hours on a round trip that takes 6 hours.

If you decide not to heed my advice and do ride the Megabus, expect the bus to be 2-3 hours late picking you up and dropping you off. Be sure to bring at least two large bottles of water (or preferably three to engender good will with thirsty passengers), enough food for two meals, and lots of reading materials. Preferably, you should also bring an extra bus.

****

UPDATED at 5:45pm on July 27, 2009 – As is the way of the Internet, someone from Megabus found my entry or my Twitters. I received an email from the Operations Manager today at 2:11pm apologizing for the poor service I experienced. They’ve refunded my ticket and offered a free roundtrip ticket on Megabus to make amends. I’m glad their customer service people are attuned to the Internet and that they’re at least aware of the problems I experienced. I accepted the free ticket because I have friends in Chicago I wouldn’t mind visiting as long as I’m not glued to a strict timetable. Megabus is not the most reliable means of public transit you will find, but I appreciate the fact that they listened and have done their best to make up for the problems I experienced.

When I was walking around my city in the following weeks, I looked at every single statue or fountain or old building and thought, If I were from Britain, I would have to snap a digital photo of that. As a rule, when I was overseas I took a picture of every piece of statuary or art or plain old engraved boulder, just because I was in a foreign country and those things looked like culture.

It is odd to think that my life is exotic to someone else, just as it must seem odd to foreigners that I find their lives exotic too. Everything that is familiar to me is odd to someone else.

“London or Paris (choose one). Which city did you like better? Why” – Mary Jo

Hmmm, this is like asking me which piano-based musician I like better: Ben Folds or Tori Amos. One is a flame-haired, kooky, piano goddess and the other is a charismatic, geek, rocker. I like them both for very different reasons.

I like that they speak English in London, or at least some variation of English. Despite the fact that there are no trash cans downtown, London seemed cleaner than Paris. I found the London tube to be easier to navigate and prettier than the Paris Metro, which was grimier and not as well labeled. I also disliked the little rectangular paper tickets you have to use in Paris, which littered the ground at many stations.

However, London was much more expensive than Paris. By the time I was ordering my first lunch in French, I was relieved by the much lower prices. The French food was better, allowing me to sample tarts, chocolate bread, crepes and other naughty carbohydrates. Paris was also home to the delicious Kit Kat McFlurry, but I never went into a British McDonalds, so it’s possible they have it too. London was home to the most amazing food halls and I probably left some drool on the glass cases there. I fell in love with Parisian coffee. They serve it on a saucer with two cure sugar cubes which I delighted to stir into my coffee. When I took my last sip, it was extra sweet, flavored with the remainder crystals. I also liked the French attitude that you should sit and enjoy a meal. I only found the lack of to-go coffee annoying because I was trying to do a lot, but I think if I lived there I would like the slower pace.

Both cities are beautiful. Big Ben and Westminster Abbey are shiny and beautiful and I wanted to scoop them up to put in my pocket. Paris has quaint, winding streets with narrow sidewalks everywhere, making it very walkable. Standing at the top of the Arc de Triomphe you can see the streets spiral out, which made me appreciate how well planned Paris is. I also love how the city is painted in a consistent white, pastel color. You can walk along the river in both cities, and both have many lovely public parks to people watch in. Both cities have lots of museums, which are free in London but not Paris.

When I departed from Paris, I felt like I’d left more undone than I had in London. I suppose if I had to pick a favorite, I’d go with Paris, but I would probably enjoy it more if I spoke French. A bientot!