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Remember our road trip? Remember our caption contest from the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Of course you do. What you probably don't remember is the announcement of who won the contest.
Without 3 more monthsfurther adu, here are our fabulous winners!
Option 2:
He who smelt it, dealt it!!
The good folks at Kaspersky Lab will be sending the goodies to you faster than what it took us to announce your awesomeness!
P>That's as far as I got before we got a flat tire. Nothing like leaving our dream hotel, where we treated like royalty(and a prince was staying there, so we know they must do that a lot) to cruising down the road, hooked up to theMiFi all set to write about our adventure in Cleveland, and then hearing, Sarah say, "Dude. I think something's wrong with the car. I think we have a flat tire." Sure enough, that's what we got. Exit off the highway and straight into the closest filling staion. Which by the way, my use of the term "filling station, just resulted in a 3 mile discussion as to the use filling station versus gas station. To sum it up in fewer than 3 miles, we decided it's regional. Sarah uses gas station, I use filling station. Which is ironic since wee only live about 10 miles from each other. But back to our adventure...
Given our rental car status, it came with "Avis 24 Hour Road Side Assistance" and the quotation marks around those words is no accident my friends. I phoned "Avis 24 Hour Road Side Assistance" and explained our situation. "Yes, we are in a safe place," I answered when he asked with the same level of empathy and concern if one is asked, 'Would you like fries with that?" At the same time, two men approached and offered to change the tire. We waved them off as we knew "Avis 24 Hour Roadside Assisance" would be helping us any moment. The reality? We would be helping ourselves any moment because "Avis 24 Hour Roadside Assistance" told us, "We will have someone out there in about 30 minutes and they will put the spare tire on the car, then you will drive the car to the nearest Avis location and pick up a different car." So I ask, "Can you please tell me where is the nearest location?" Turns out it's a a whopping 6 miles from our present location. I make the suggestion that a car be brought to us and we switch them out and be on our way as it is only 6 milies way. The gentleman, and I am being kind here, tells me to hold and he will see if that is "even possible." He returns after I age about 3 years a few minutes to inform me, "We can't do it. We contract with an outside company. They will have to change your tire and then you will have to drive it to the Cleveland Airport." I thank him. Why? I dunno, he's done nothing for me at all. Because I know I can change a tire in under 20 minutes and we will be on our way. So I change the tire as Sarah gets on the phone to call Customer Sevice and explain what is going on and why this isn't making us feel all warm and fuzzy. At this point, we're not angry, just annoyed. We are 6 milies away! It's not rocket science and how did we ask to be caiught in an eddy of bureaucracy?
Andrea from Avis Customer service gives it a try, she connects Sarah with the folks at the Airport Avis and listens in as Sarah is told "We will have to have a tow truck tow the car back to the airport." And Sarah again suggested, very nicely, if we could just have someone bring us a car to swap out since it was only 6 milies away, Sarah was told, "No. You have to wait." Sarah asked to speak to Andrea again and the resonse Sarah received made her just say "Wow." into the phone because it was just that rude. Andrea sadly had been disconnected from the call. We can only imagine the "Avis 24 Hour Roadside Assistance" folks wanted to keep their rude behavior a secret from Avis Customer service. Maybe they have a reputation to protect. Sarah missed Andrea very much. She was nice, this was hell. And while Winston Churchill said "When you're going through hell, keep going," but he probably never had to deal with "Avis 24 Hour Roadside Assistance."
I was happy I had decided to wear something casual for our drive, because I don''tchangie tires when I am dressed up. In under 20 minutes tire was changed, donut in place and we were on our way to the airport to change out the car. We are now cruising down the turnpike in another car without sattelite radio and it smells like someoen must have shaken up a carbonated canistor of Febreeze and let it go.
It''s definitley someting we're both going to have to get used to. The other car smelled like weed.
If you've never been to Pittsburgh, then don't go. Not because it's a bad place, just the opposite, we want to keep it all to ourselves. We're not going to share Pittsburgh with you. If you even think about going there, even if you need to change planes in the airport, you're going to find yourself in big trouble, mister (or ma'am). Realistically speaking, we cannot hoard an entire city. Particularly if it doesn't belong to us. But that doesn't stop us from wanting to own it. First of all, a big shout out to our host ClumberKim who not only arranged our meet-up, she found fablous sponsors (Hello iTwixie! andIsidore Foods!),an incredible space (Hello AlphaLab!) and she fed us. I am running out of adjectives to describe the dinner and desserts made by Clumberkim, KDiddy and Rebecca.
After last night, I can now say I know, not one, but two guys named "Spike." And neither one of them happen to be a football player, a biker or in a punk band. And considering the plethora of "Paul's" who attended my highschool, it was down right refreshing to meet a Paul living outside of Hamden, Connecticut and he wasn't even from Hamden, Connecticut. Together Paul and Spike gave Sarah and me the capability of Live Streaming! So look for some action from us later. Not that kind of action, we signed a strict "No Porn on Vivo" agreement, but we may sneak in some Shoe Porn. Sarah has some nice wedges. Wedges, not wedgies. Crack kills and we''re fairly certain we can't post that on Vivo anyway. Nick Pinkston showed us what can only be called the Rubiks cube of business cards. It folds in many different ways and we easily could have spent hours folding it, but it didn't belong to us and we had to give it back to him. KDiddy, I had hoped for a farting contest, but I didn't get enough roasted garlic to make myself a viable contender. Besides, I think the folks from Abby? Left To Right? Are you reading? I hope so because I don't have your URL and want to give you a shout out too!
Looks like we may have a trip back to Pittsburgh in our future for Pod Camp, so please have the salad fixings, broccoli slaw, and homemade Ho-Hos ready!
Thank you again to our wonderful host and sponsors for Phabulous meet up in Pittsburgh!
Dear Pittsburgh Bloggers,
You are our first stop. Devra and I will be leaving in the morning and arriving in your fair city tomorrow evening.
We would love to see you while we are there. So please join us along with ClumberKim and kdiddy as we will be rocking the party at alphalab on the South Side.
The meet up is at 6:00 pm, so be there or be square.
We cannot wait to stop in Pittsburgh, even if you guys do hog all of the good sports trophies.
Please rsvp to [email protected] or if you are on twitter @clumberkim if you can make it.
___
GoonSquadSarah is also bitter that her teams haven't won anything good lately on Sarah and the Goon Squad, Draft Day Suit, DC Metro Moms Blog, MamaPop, BlogHer, and Loser Moms
Now that Catherine and Katie are safely home with their families Devra Renner and I are getting ready to head back out on the road.
That is right. We are driving to BlogHer again.
(By the way - feel free to call me or leave a comment below if you want to give us a car to drive.)
Ahem.
So, yes. We are thrilled to be going back on the road. (What? Why are you looking at me like that. Last year was fun, and Chicago is a lot closer than San Francisco.)
This year will include blogger meet ups in Pittsburgh and Cleveland (details forthcoming) and trips to the Pro Football and Rock N Roll Halls of Fame.
Hall of fames? Halls of fame has to be right, like attorneys general, right?
Anyway, lock up your daughters or what have you, but we leave Sunday morning. If all goes well we will be having giveaways and contests and probably a good deal of silliness.
CHICAGO OR BUST!
Love,
Sarah
GoonSquadSarah also blogs and Sarah and the Goon Squad, Draft Day Suit, DC Metro Moms Blog, MamaPop, BlogHer, Loser Moms... look, she blogs everywhere, okay?
Option 1: {sarah thinks} He's cute and all, but he's so quite. Maybe he's just not that into me. *sigh*