Vegas Baby, Vegas

I have used this space in the past to talk about my life. And is so often the case, my life has intersected with that of my good friend, The General. I know that I have given him his fair share of grief. The time I was responsible for him doing 1000 push ups in the army. Once at a Dave Matthews concert I pretended not to know him as he was getting thrown out of the reserve seats and met him afterwards. Another time I splashed water in his crotch at a crowded mall and made a spectacle out of him. One of my favorites, on a hot summer day, as we were driving around, I asked him if I could have a sip of his ice cold soda. I took a sip and then poured the rest out the window. For all of these things I have always felt a little bad. Well maybe except for the getting thrown out of the concert, I told him not to move up. Anyway, I have always felt a little bad up until today.
I would like to enter into record the sequence of events that has led up to my disgust with The General. This summer Tree, The General and I came up with the idea to plan a trip to Las Vegas. The 3 of us looked at our schedules and came up with the weekend up January 11-14th 2007. We sent out an email inviting a good share of our friends. (If you didn't get invited, I apologize, let me know if you want to go) But like most of my emails where I invite my friends to go somewhere with me, no one replies. I take that back it was either Nate or Joe replied back and said "No." In early September Tree, The General and I had a 3 way conference call. Tree and I were ready to throw down our credit cards and book the trip. But The General, he didn't want to for a couple of reasons.
#1) The General felt that the 2 weeks waiting to hear back from our friends wasn't long enough for our flaky friends to make the decision. (Bad argument)
#2) The General didn't have a job. (This is actually a good argument, but he did assure that he was 99% certain he would have a job by January, as I see it that is all the more reason to book the trip. Motovation.)
#3) And this is not made up, you can ask Tree. The General believed that their was a chance that one of us would get cancer and back out of the trip. (I can't think of a worse argument)

Last week, I talked to both Tree and The General again. I said let's get another 3 way call together and book our flights Sunday night. So Sunday night we all get on the phone. Tree has clearance from the wife, goes on line and finds a flight that will work for him and books it. I go on line and book a flight and a hotel room. The General is also in on this call and he is making his normal stupid jokes about how great his fantasy football team is. While he is doing this I am under the assumption that he is looking for flights to Las Vegas. Tree gives me his flight information, I give out my flight information and the hotel information. Then I ask The General, what flight he is on. He says "I am still looking." Are you kidding me? How long does it take to find a flight. My experience, it doesn't matter if you use Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, etc., they are all going to be within $10 -$20 of each other. Just pick one and book the flight. I went to two of these websites and found flights for The General. Being the experienced traveler that I am, I found the best, cheapest, non stop flights for him. I even gave him the flight numbers. Then I heard The General say "Maybe I will fly out of Madison." At that point I just hung up the phone. I was under the assumption that he had all the help that he needed and that he was booking his flight after I hung up. I got an email from Tree today, asking me if I knew that The General still had not booked his flight. As I understand it, the longer you wait on flights the more expensive the flights become.
The whole reason Tree and I decided to go to Las Vegas is because The General was coming along on the trip, otherwise we would just go out to Colorado to ski. I am open to any suggestions on how to retaliate on The General if he pulls up short on this trip. Off of the top of my head, as of tonight, I am planning on midnight and 2 a.m. phone calls to both The General's and his wife, Diane's cell phone every night until he books his flight. Do you think that will work? I mean there is no question if I will do it or not. I will and I can keep it up for weeks. But if you come up with something better please let me know.
Oh and if that doesn't work. I will give it about a week and then I am going to start calling The General's mom and asking her why her son hasn't booked his flight. Linda, I know you read my blog from time to time. Sorry, but your son brought it on himself.
To my blog readers, I apologize for venting. But I really have nothing else to talk about. Do you want to know how my day was? Well the most interesting part of my day was that on the way to work, there is 5 stop lights I have to go through. Today is the first day I got stopped at all 5. I know interesting stuff. Oh and I had rice and chicken nuggets for dinner. But it could be worse, I could be in Platteville.