Wow, I have three readers! And one of them is my cat. I knew Q*Bert was smart, but I didn't know he was turning on the computer while we're at work and reading my blog.

And a reader who quotes Star Wars!

And the famous Paul Davidson, author of Consumer Joe.

I am feeling pretty overwhelmed by it all. Pretty soon, people will recognize me in the streets and be harassing me for autographs. I'll have to wear sunglasses and a baseball cap all the time. I'll be invited to speak at Presidential inagurations. I'll have my own reality TV show.

Regarding Q*Bert's comment on not being consulted on the Garfield movie...you should thank your lucky stars. If you had been, you'd have to change your name and dye yourself another color to hide from the shame.

Well, I'm messing around with the template, as you may have noticed. Also I've enabled comments, though I'm not sure why, since I only have one reader!

I've been doing a lot of traveling recently. Two weeks ago I went to New York for a wedding; last week I went to Seattle; and this week I was just in Vancouver. That makes seven trips so far this year. More traveling than I like.

It's given me the opportunity to stay in a lot of hotels though. In New York, we stayed one night at the Days Inn in Hicksville. My recommendation to you is: do not stay here. The walls are paper-thin. I could hear the 6 AM phone conversations of the guy in the room above us. At 7 AM, the maids stood outside our door and chatted about how they couldn't clean any of the rooms because everyon was still asleep. You have to sign-out the iron from the front desk. In the hotel information in the room was a list of the price of all the furniture in case you damaged it. The couch with holes in it was $1500 to replace.

Next we moved to the Skyline Hotel in Manhattan. The location was great; the room was clean; they had pretty sound-proof windows that when shut dampened most of the traffic noise. But again: paper-thin walls. We were right outside the elevator and could hear every noise. That wasn't too bad, but we heard every conversation on the two rooms on either side of us. The little girls in the room next to the bed (there were between 2 and 15 of them, I couldn't be sure) got up at 6:30 AM and watched Elmo, followed by Dragon Tales.

In Seattle, I stayed at the Doubletree by the airport. Sort of an average hotel. Relatively quiet, except for the people wandering the halls late at night talking on cell phones.

This week, I stayed at the Westin Bayshore in downtown Vancouver. Now that's a nice hotel. We get a discount rate through the customer we're doing business with. The location is awesome--my room overlooked the harbor, and it was right next to beautiful Stanley Park. They have very comfortable beds, with real blankets.

But the best hotel I've stayed at this year (or maybe ever) was the Westin Grand, also in downtown Vancouver. The location is not quite as nice, but the rooms are exceptional. The room I had was a suite, with a living room and a separate bedroom. There were floor to ceiling windows, which filled the room with lots of light every morning. They bed was extremely comfortable. The shower had TWO shower heads. It wasn't the largest room I've ever stayed in, but it was cleverly laid out. Westin also lets you decide whether or not they wash the towels every day, or the sheets. I think that's great--like I need my sheets or towels changed when I'm there for two nights.

Staying at these nice hotels spoils you when you're staying at the cheap places on vacation.