Weekend trip report
On Friday night, captainparanoid and I were headed up to Reno for a weekend of gambling, the Nugget rib cookoff, and playing board games etc. with friends. Around 9:15pm, about half an hour after leaving the In N' Out Burger next to the Sacramento IKEA, we were following moderately heavy but swiftly moving traffic doing about 70 MPH in the fast lane near Loomis when my car struck a wheel/tire in the roadway. The car immediately started losing power, but I was able to make it over to the shoulder pretty close to the point indicated here (Google Maps puts up two icons, take your pick; the actual event occurred maybe 100 yards earlier).
Once I'd called AAA Emergency Road Service for a tow, and had an initial conversation with the AAA car insurance arm, I amused Schwa by immediately updating my Facebook status and then posting the travel bad beat story here. The car is now sitting outside Bertini's German Motors in Roseville (not open over the weekend, so I won't find out until tomorrow what's going on; left VM to augment the note on the drop-off envelope and also gave them the AAA claims adjuster's contact info). In an amusing sign-of-the-times sort of thing, the tow truck driver told me where he recommended taking the car, and as we were headed there I pulled it up on Google Maps on my Treo so I could give directions to Roger, who was coming to pick us up, and reading the reviews :-) By the time we got there, then got dropped off at Denny's and had a late night snack, it was probably after 1 AM before we finally got back on the road to Reno, and we rolled into the Nugget at 2:45 AM.
Last year, our first time going to the rib cookoff, we didn't stay at the Nugget (for a variety of reasons I've only stayed there for Scrabble tournaments). Parking had naturally been extremely crowded, so for this year, my game plan was to stay at the Nugget, arriving 11P-midnightish, when hopefully people had gone home and it would be easier to park, so that we would already be on-property when rib time rolled around on Saturday, and then go somewhere else on Sunday.
Because we got there so ridiculously late, the only room left was one bed, smoking, and there were no rollaways available. So Schwa slept on the couch (he has a hangup about sharing beds with pretty much anybody). Woke up around 11 and had a very light breakfast, anticipating a rib-filled evening. Went by front desk, room/rollaway situation unchanged, so I put in a call to the Peppermill -- if your Peppermill player tier is Diamond or Chairman, you're guaranteed a room if they have any available, and they had one available, so I guess someone else with a Saturday check-in got bumped because of me. Woohoo, status!
However the host I talked to (my regular host didn't come on until 2 pm) strongly recommended I show up ASAP, or they'd give the room away anyway being Labor Day weekend and all. So I cheap-assed my way from the Nugget to the Peppermill via their respective free airport shuttles and checked in. On my way back I stopped in at the Hertz counter at the airport, because we needed a car -- Roger, who'd picked us up wouldn't have room, because on the way back he'd have his SO and their luggage in the car (a Mini Cooper), and Schwa has to go to work on Tuesday (he can't work remotely like I can). AAA had told me that one of my insurance benefits is 30 days of replacement car rental, and that they have a billing arrangement with Hertz where Hertz puts me in the same class of car and bills AAA directly.
Unfortunately, it seems that the only Hertz location in Reno that can do the insurance billing is one of the off-airport locations, and they were closed, not open on Sunday, and presumably wouldn't be open on Labor Day either. They'd be happy to rent me a car but I'd have to pay for it on my own. AAA told me I was welcome to make my own arrangements with Hertz or any other company but that they would only reimburse me up to $25/day for the rental. The daily rate for Hertz turned out to be more like $70 day, and then only if I returned the car in Reno -- if I did a one-way dropoff the fee would be prohibitively expensive. I certainly didn't mind being obligated to return to Reno at some future date, but $50 out-of-pocket per day was not something that appealed to me. And no one else at the airport had cars available -- they were all reserved (there's a reason Hertz was available; their prices always seem to suck when I look them up online).
So I went by the Southwest desk. Any frequent flyer seats available on Monday? Of course not. What's the latest flight on Sunday? Ridiculously early (like 3 PM), meaning we miss all the hanging out time with friends. There might not have been seats either, once I heard the time I said don't bother. After some phone calls with Roger, we worked out a plan where they would take Schwa, leaving his larger luggage bag with me if necessary, and I'd fly home on a free ticket on Tuesday. This made the most sense, since it's better for me to do the rental locally at home anyway.
What ended up happening was there was someone else up from the Bay Area that was in on the games weekend, and I ended up going home with him. It wasn't quite that simple, because he was going to the East Bay and had to be up early on Monday so he didn't really want to take the hour detour to drop me off, but a co-worker who lives in the East Bay and owes me some favors got me the rest of the way home. So that part all worked out in the end.
The ribs were fantastic; Schwa and I stuffed ourselves, consuming 18 ribs each (although 16-17-18 probably didn't eaten as cleanly/thoroughly as 1-15). I liked pretty much every one I tried, although it's hard to keep track of which was which. This year (and last year) we had comped tickets to the VIP Village, where the various competitors' ribs are set out in trays and you serve yourself buffet-style. You can try to keep them in order, but if you've loaded up your plate, by the time you get back to your table I could no longer remember which was which. Some old-timers said the way to do it seems to be to have a larger group of people all at one table; each person loads up a plate of one or two varieties, and then you pass them around, and that way each person only has to remember one or two competitor names.
Surprisingly small amount of gambling on this trip. Exactly even at the Nugget (didn't play much due to all the running around on Saturday); had $500 free play at the Pepp and hit a $2K set of deuces but it all went back in. Net $30 profit for the weekend (less my $500 deductible, future expenses stemming from this incident, and having to call in some favors).
Once I'd called AAA Emergency Road Service for a tow, and had an initial conversation with the AAA car insurance arm, I amused Schwa by immediately updating my Facebook status and then posting the travel bad beat story here. The car is now sitting outside Bertini's German Motors in Roseville (not open over the weekend, so I won't find out until tomorrow what's going on; left VM to augment the note on the drop-off envelope and also gave them the AAA claims adjuster's contact info). In an amusing sign-of-the-times sort of thing, the tow truck driver told me where he recommended taking the car, and as we were headed there I pulled it up on Google Maps on my Treo so I could give directions to Roger, who was coming to pick us up, and reading the reviews :-) By the time we got there, then got dropped off at Denny's and had a late night snack, it was probably after 1 AM before we finally got back on the road to Reno, and we rolled into the Nugget at 2:45 AM.
Last year, our first time going to the rib cookoff, we didn't stay at the Nugget (for a variety of reasons I've only stayed there for Scrabble tournaments). Parking had naturally been extremely crowded, so for this year, my game plan was to stay at the Nugget, arriving 11P-midnightish, when hopefully people had gone home and it would be easier to park, so that we would already be on-property when rib time rolled around on Saturday, and then go somewhere else on Sunday.
Because we got there so ridiculously late, the only room left was one bed, smoking, and there were no rollaways available. So Schwa slept on the couch (he has a hangup about sharing beds with pretty much anybody). Woke up around 11 and had a very light breakfast, anticipating a rib-filled evening. Went by front desk, room/rollaway situation unchanged, so I put in a call to the Peppermill -- if your Peppermill player tier is Diamond or Chairman, you're guaranteed a room if they have any available, and they had one available, so I guess someone else with a Saturday check-in got bumped because of me. Woohoo, status!
However the host I talked to (my regular host didn't come on until 2 pm) strongly recommended I show up ASAP, or they'd give the room away anyway being Labor Day weekend and all. So I cheap-assed my way from the Nugget to the Peppermill via their respective free airport shuttles and checked in. On my way back I stopped in at the Hertz counter at the airport, because we needed a car -- Roger, who'd picked us up wouldn't have room, because on the way back he'd have his SO and their luggage in the car (a Mini Cooper), and Schwa has to go to work on Tuesday (he can't work remotely like I can). AAA had told me that one of my insurance benefits is 30 days of replacement car rental, and that they have a billing arrangement with Hertz where Hertz puts me in the same class of car and bills AAA directly.
Unfortunately, it seems that the only Hertz location in Reno that can do the insurance billing is one of the off-airport locations, and they were closed, not open on Sunday, and presumably wouldn't be open on Labor Day either. They'd be happy to rent me a car but I'd have to pay for it on my own. AAA told me I was welcome to make my own arrangements with Hertz or any other company but that they would only reimburse me up to $25/day for the rental. The daily rate for Hertz turned out to be more like $70 day, and then only if I returned the car in Reno -- if I did a one-way dropoff the fee would be prohibitively expensive. I certainly didn't mind being obligated to return to Reno at some future date, but $50 out-of-pocket per day was not something that appealed to me. And no one else at the airport had cars available -- they were all reserved (there's a reason Hertz was available; their prices always seem to suck when I look them up online).
So I went by the Southwest desk. Any frequent flyer seats available on Monday? Of course not. What's the latest flight on Sunday? Ridiculously early (like 3 PM), meaning we miss all the hanging out time with friends. There might not have been seats either, once I heard the time I said don't bother. After some phone calls with Roger, we worked out a plan where they would take Schwa, leaving his larger luggage bag with me if necessary, and I'd fly home on a free ticket on Tuesday. This made the most sense, since it's better for me to do the rental locally at home anyway.
What ended up happening was there was someone else up from the Bay Area that was in on the games weekend, and I ended up going home with him. It wasn't quite that simple, because he was going to the East Bay and had to be up early on Monday so he didn't really want to take the hour detour to drop me off, but a co-worker who lives in the East Bay and owes me some favors got me the rest of the way home. So that part all worked out in the end.
The ribs were fantastic; Schwa and I stuffed ourselves, consuming 18 ribs each (although 16-17-18 probably didn't eaten as cleanly/thoroughly as 1-15). I liked pretty much every one I tried, although it's hard to keep track of which was which. This year (and last year) we had comped tickets to the VIP Village, where the various competitors' ribs are set out in trays and you serve yourself buffet-style. You can try to keep them in order, but if you've loaded up your plate, by the time you get back to your table I could no longer remember which was which. Some old-timers said the way to do it seems to be to have a larger group of people all at one table; each person loads up a plate of one or two varieties, and then you pass them around, and that way each person only has to remember one or two competitor names.
Surprisingly small amount of gambling on this trip. Exactly even at the Nugget (didn't play much due to all the running around on Saturday); had $500 free play at the Pepp and hit a $2K set of deuces but it all went back in. Net $30 profit for the weekend (less my $500 deductible, future expenses stemming from this incident, and having to call in some favors).