Coffee Shop in Newport News, WOW and espresso

Last night we stopped by the Aromas coffee shop and got a latte. I commented that it was really good. The same barista is their the next day and I order a double espresso. No kidding, I’m sitting here with like 6 ounces of straight espresso. Guess its one of those ‘compliments get you far’ kinda things. I’m just gonna be a bundle of joy to deal with in about an hour  .

Unrelated to this observation, there are 3 guys in here all playing WOW on their laptops. They are sitting near each other and occasionally chat back and forth while playing. Thought it was cool. I’ve seen folks playing WOW but it was always on their own and such. This is the first time I’ve seen so many people together like this. Thought it was neato. Until we started to compete for bandwidth anyway.

New Hotel Annoyance

I’m sitting in my hotel room and the maid is knocking on the door. She wants to come in and turn down the bed, drop a few chocolates off, bother me after I’ve just spent 9 hours talking and talking and talking. Its as if they just hang out in the hallway waiting for guests to return to their room. Maybe this is a new way to try to get a tip out of the patrons. It is so annoying. I just want to be left alone. This is all in the name of service I guess. Do the people that run these places NEVER go on business travel? When you get back to your room, the last thing you want to do is interact with ANYBODY. And every night at this doubletree the maid service comes ‘knock knock knocking’ to spend 15 minutes fiddling about the room. I have phone calls to make, haven’t checked my email all day, and instead I have to deal with this situation. I tell her through the door, ‘thanks, I’m busy’. I said the same thing yesterday and I'll say the same thing every day.

Smelly Breweries in Chapel Hill, NC

Spent the week at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Computer Science Dept. doing recruitment. Went to both of the breweries at different times and experienced the same gross smell at both entrances. Having been a dishwasher for about 5 years I recognized it right away. Its suprising they haven’t done anything about it though because its awful, but everyone acts like there is nothing going on, its that rubber barmat from behind the bar smell. Ugh, its so bad. It doesn’t smell like that in the rest of the restaurant, but just at the doors. Weird. Had some excellent porkchops at Top of the Hill. Absolutely recommended.