You may have noticed it’s been a while since my last entry. The reason is that I have been traveling for business. In the last 2.5 months I have been home a total of six days. As a result, I have made some observations, and have some advice to administer. And it’s not the advice you might expect, like how to maximize your awards points and frequent flier miles. The web is full of that kind of advice. No, this advice is so original it’ll make your nose hairs twitch in delight. Let’s get to it

1) After Three Days, Luxury Hotels Are Bad. Try to stay at second tier hotels. Hyatt and Renaissance and Sheraton are totally luxurious, which is good for a vacation or if you have to impress clients or for a business trip that lasts less than three days. At first, you might thinks it’s great.  They have little mints on the beds, and form-fitting mattresses designed by NASA, and trance music playing in the lobby, and elegant looking bartenders with difficult to pronounce names.

That’s all wonderful the first two or three times you stay there, but after a while it gets old. Instead, choose the second tier chains. Sheraton, for example, has Four Courts. True, at the Four Courts, there’s no trance music, so you don’t feel like a VIP at the latest South Beach Club like you would at the lobby of the Downtown Sheraton. But there’s enough light in the lobby that you can actually read your bill.  And you can pronounce the bar tender’s name, which is more important than you might think, depending on how jet lag effects you.

2) Speaking of which, blame everything on jet lag. The great thing about jet lag is that most people have experienced it at least once in their lives, so they believe you when you say it’s effecting your thought process.  But nobody experiences it the same way. People feel really uncomfortable telling you that you’re more full of it when you claim jet lag. It’s so difficult to define, you’ll not even be sure yourself whether your boneheaded moves are jet lag or just your natural boneheaded proclivities.

Are you late for a meeting? Jet Lag. Did you laugh at the client when he told you his golf handicap? Jet Lag. Did you get elected Governor of South Carolina, and then go to Argentina to visit a secret lover while telling your staff were hiking in the Appalachian mountains during the week known to be nude hiking week? Jet lag.

3) Watch documentaries about prison gangs before you travel for exercise tips. You may be planning on hitting the hotel gym when you travel. And if you are staying at the top tier hotels, those gyms tend to be really nice. But eventually you’ll get sick of carting around dirty gym clothes in that little extra pocket on the outside of your suitcase.  There’s also the jet lag factor, which will cause you to rationalize thusly for three weeks in a row: “I’m tired. I’ll just hit the gym twice as hard tomorrow.”

I just happened to catch a couple of documentaries of prisoners while I was on the road. Think about it. These guys are trapped in a small room for weeks, months, or years at a time (sound familiar)?  Personally, if I had stolen a T.V. or beat up a cop, and been stuck into a small room as punishment, I would probably not do a lot of exercising. I would spend a lot of time thinking “what the hell was I thinking? Maybe it was jet leg. I wonder if there’s precedent for a jet lag defense. I better check California case law the next time they let me use the prison library.”

But that’s not how the guys on these prison documentaries think.  They think along these lines: “that guard (or prisoner, or prison library employee) is really pissing me off. I’m going to do 300 fingertip push-ups every day for the next three months until I can puncture an armored truck with my pinky. Then I’m going to beat up that guard (or prisoner, or prison library employee), which in turn will make my life better.”

So, with nothing to do all day except get into fighting shape, they figure out some really good exercises that can keep you in shape despite the fact you are trapped in a small room most of the time. Business travelers can really benefit from this knowledge. So can Aerobics instructors.

4) Don’t chug a pint of beer just before your flight boards unless you are in an aisle seat. I’m just sayin’…

5) Don’t mess with flight attendants. Smile at them a lot, but not enough to creep them out. Make eye contact, but not long enough to challenge their authority.  My mother was a flight attendant. My wife is a flight attendant. I know how flight attendants think (see point number three, above).

People tend to forget how tough flight attendants are. You and I get cranky and short tempered after a few hours on a flight. The seasoned travelers can make it to, perhaps, four hours before they start questioning their sanity. But flight attendants are on your flight, and then – while you are rushing to your hotel, hoping against hope free internet services are provided (the top tiered hotels don’t, by the way, provide free internet), they hop back on the plane and work the return flight.  And then they get up the next day and do it again.

And there’s the little thing about if something goes wrong, they are the ones who are supposed to save everything. So, they have that to worry about.  And they handle it like it’s nothing.

So, flight attendants are tough. And spending all that time dealing with us whiners means they know how to get revenge. For example, the next time you are sitting in the aisle, and the flight attendant starts giving a bunch of free beers to the guys next to you in the middle and aisle seats, you’ll know it’s time to apologize for not smiling enough at the flight crew.