Various Stuff

At last! Globus has finally come out with their 2006 Europe tours. Me and my friend Harvey hope to go on one of their Scandanavia tours during the summer. I found out the price will be $3,278 with single supplement. That's about what I figured. That doesn't include airfare but I'm planning on using all those British Airways airmiles I've been collecting for years. If I can't get a free ticket with BA for the tour, I'm going to be furious. I'm still not thrilled with BA when they went and cut the value of my airmiles by half back in the summer of 2004. They said they were just getting the US program in line with everyone else. Up yours! I busted my butt to collect those airmiles and then you devalue them by half. I don't give a damn what your stinking excuse is, you're in the dog house with me after you do that. Not surprisingly, I haven't been working real hard to get airmiles with BA since.

On a different subject, I continue to wipe myself out on the elliptical machine. I burned another 993 calories on it today. I was shooting for a 1,000. I keep hitting a wall about the 22 or 23 minute (I do 47 minutes on it) mark. It's infuriating. Hopefully, it is just a matter of time to where I can keep on going and break the 1,000 calorie mark.

Also, I heard from the General Manager of the Baltimore Medieval Times. For those of you who don't know what a Medieval Times is, it is a very small indoor renaissance festival. It was actually created by folks who came up with the great idea of having a place where you could watch jousting, displays of falconry, fancy horseback riding, enjoy a finger food feast, and be able to buy various medieval type souvenirs all indoors. The Baltimore Medieval Times is a pretty nice place plus it's convenient. It's located at the Arundel Mills Mall where they have tons of parking and is right next to Interstate 295 which runs between Baltimore and Washington D.C. The reason I heard from the General Manager of the place is because of their loyalty program. What the loyalty program is is a program that rewards you for going to Medieval Times multiple times in the same year. You start getting rewards on your fourth and following visits. On your fourth visit, you get a free Royalty package upgrade which will save you between $8 and $10 per person. The Royalty upgrade in my opinion is worth it as you get to sit right on the edge of the arena. You get a much better view of the action then you would with the standard seat. You also get a DVD that tells you more about the show and some of the things that go on behind the scenes. It's an interesting DVD. You also get a little banner you can use to cheer your knight on. The Royalty package upgrade can also be bought for either $8 or $10 depending how you book your reservations.

For your fifth visit, you get a Medieval Times pewter coaster. The coaster is very sturdy (it is pewter) and can be useful at home. For the sixth visit, it apparently depends on the General Manager of the particular Medieval Times (there are eight of them currently according to their website www.medievaltimes.com). For the Baltimore one, their offering a free metallic hurricane glass or beer stein. The hurricane glasses look pretty cool. They look fairly close to goblets and they come in six different colors: red, silver, blue, green, gold, and black. I've collected all six. I plan to invite some friends to go in November. While I know the show storyline by heart (I've gone 7 times within the last year and a half), it is still fun, and a great place to take friends, family, and classmates.

Just FYI, I don't work at Medieval Times and I don't get jack tiddly for writing nicely about them. I like the place and they've treated me and my friends very kindly there. I've even bought the knighting package once. I have a picture of me bowing before King Alfonso the Magnificent wearing the knighting cloak and looking sufficiently stupid. It was a lot of fun and I'd recommend it to anyone who has a special occasion coming up. If you're really rolling in the dosh (British for money), get the sword and scabbard included. The sword is pretty cool and the scabbard which has nice green leather will keep the neighbors from getting nervous when you carry the sword outside your apartment or house. You wouldn't want them thinking you've gone psycho would you.