SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23RD – MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2TH – GARY SINISE FOUNDATION TOUR TO SWA WITH CHINGY AND ASHLEY GUTERMUTH:

Off to SWA with Chingy and Ashley Gutermuth (comedian) today.  I can’t include exact locations until the tour is over.  Not sure why not since the people on the bases have already posted about the visit!

James (our production manager with Gary Sinise Foundation), Scott (Chingy’s manager) and I depart from Nashville to Chicago.  Chingy departs from St. Louis and we all meet in Chicago for the flight to Doha and ultimately on to our final destination.  Ashley is departing JFK and has a direct flight to Doha.  We are all supposed to land within a few hours of each other.

Not sure where to begin with today’s “adventures”.   When we checked in at the airport, no one was given TSA pre-check (same problem I had on the flight to DCA a couple of weeks ago!  We traced mine to the fact that my Global Entry number had expired in January.  Never received a notice and my travel agent had no way of knowing.  It doesn’t pop up in any of my airline accounts either.  Plus, it should not make a difference because I also have a Redress Number that I am supposed to use.  That was given to me when I was accidentally placed on the “terrorist watch list” back in the early 2000’s.  Didn’t work either.  James and Scott were denied because the way their tickets are issued, the “II” and “JR” after their last name was listed after their first name and AA wouldn’t give them TSA Pre-Check.  We all waited in a very long line to go through the security scan.

The flight from Nashville departed on time and Chingy landed early.  We had to take a bus from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5.  Terminal 5 is the International Terminal and I was shocked by the fact that there are only a couple of Airline Lounges.  Delta has a beautiful one but we are flying on American and Qatar Airlines and I couldn’t believe neither airline has a lounge in the International terminal in an airport the size of Chicago’s.  Scott and I walked around trying to find a solution since we have a 6 hour layover.  Qatar Airline “partner” with Swissport but they would not allow us to come in their lounge until the ticket counter opened and we had our “boarding pass” verified.  Huh?  It’s a boarding pass.  Not sure what that meant.  But, it did mean we would not be able to enter their lounge until about 1 ½ hours before our flight when the ticket counter opened.  Also, when we looked in the Lounge, there were a few tables and chairs, a small refrigerator with bottled water and some pre-packaged snacks on a table.  Definitely not worth the wait.

We finally went into the Polish Airways Lot Lounge.  It was a little bit nicer and had the electrical outlets we needed to work.  But I had to pay $70 per person to use it.  Remind me to never fly Qatar Airlines into and out of Chicago again.

About an hour prior to when we were supposed to board, I received a phone call from Qatar Airlines…never a good sign.  They said we needed to go to the gate immediately to have our documents “verified”. As we were walking from the Lounge to the gate, I heard them paging me to come to the gate. They looked at our passports and boarding passes and handed them back to us.  I should have paid more attention because when we got on the plane, it was a totally different aircraft and none of us had the seats were had selected.  It was an incredibly old airplane…unlike any I’ve seen in service in decades. Totally different from the one we flew out of JFK last October.  I finally convinced the crew to “find” an aisle seat for me.  It was a miserable 13 hour flight.  I had a really strange lady sitting next to me who obviously had never flown before.  She kept demanding that the flight attendant bring her food items that weren’t on the menu.  Then she called the flight attendant and told her to “make her bed” for her.  The flight attendant had to explain to her that she had to use the seat controls to recline the seat.  I won’t bore you with all the other strange things I witnessed other than the fact that as we were landing, she got up and tried to go to the restroom.  Of course, it was locked and the pilot came on and told her to return to her seat or he would have to stop the aircraft.

We landed about 30 minutes late which meant Ashley was only about 10 minutes behind us.  We have to go through a security scanner again even though we were just transferring to another flight.  We went to the gate and Ashley got there before us.  When she got off her flight, Qatar Airlines met her and took her directly to the gate – no security scan.  We decided to try to go to the lounge for a few minutes.  The first one we stopped at told us we should go to a different one because that lounge would take us directly to the aircraft when it was time to board. We hiked around the huge terminal until we found the Lounge.  But once inside, no one knew anything at all about taking us to the plane!  We gave up and went back to the gate to wait.  It was a “bus” gate so all the passengers had to ride buses to the aircraft.  Once we boarded, the pilot told us it was a short 25 minute flight to our final destination and there was going to be turbulence the entire way.

We took off and exactly 6 minutes later, we were told to prepare for landing. There was no turbulence and after announcing we were landing, it took another 20 minutes to actually touch down.  We applied for and secured our Visas online but the line was still very long and slow.  All our checked pieces made it.  Exiting through Customs was confusing because the agent told me that all “checked pieces” had to go through a scanner – which is what we have always done here.  But he let everyone else go through without scanning.

Our hosts were waiting for us with a van and it was about a 30 minute drive to our hotel.  Khalid is one of our POC’s and I’ve worked with him many times.  He’s awesome.  A new guy named “Ya-Ya” is also working with us.  There used to be a female here named “Mo-Mo” at his base but she moved to Singapore in a similar position.

This is the first time we have stayed at this hotel.  I had problems booking it so was apprehensive about staying here.  I called them before we left the airport and asked them to have our room keys ready for us because everyone was tired and just wanted to grab something to eat and go to bed.  Of course, when we arrived, the desk clerk had not pulled the room keys.  We only have 5 people and booked the rooms months ago.  Even so, she gave one person a room that did not have a balcony and put one person in a handicapped room.  She said they could move tomorrow afternoon if they wanted.  Of course, no one is going to unpack for one night and then move to another room.   Booking as far in advance as we did, she should have had the correct rooms ready.  When I got to my room, I immediately walked back out.  It was a SMOKING ROOM!  I had no idea this hotel has smoking floors.

They managed to find another room for me and then I had to check all the other rooms to make sure they hadn’t put anyone else I smoking rooms.  Chingy and Ashley were in smoking rooms.  Ashley said hers wasn’t so bad and she would stay there.  Chingy was in the restaurant and had not been to his room but said he did not want to stay in a smoking room.

I went back to the desk again and asked to talk to the manager.  He took me to a couple of rooms that Chingy could move too.  One also reeked of smoke but the other one was okay.  When I got back to my room, a hotel employee was waiting for me.  He was supposed to “unlock” my balcony but instead he started locking the door to one of the bedrooms.  (All the rooms are two bedroom suites because this is the hotel where lots of military families stay while they are trying to find housing.)  I sent him away and again called the front desk.  All that took 1 ½ hours!

I worked until 3 am and then could not get the lights to turn off in my hallway and could not find a hair dryer.  Someone from the front desk had to come up and show me how to turn off the hall lights and found a hair dryer in a drawer in one of the bedrooms (where I had looked previously but missed a drawer!).  Finally made it to bed at 3:30 am.  Convinced tomorrow will be a better day because we’ll be entertaining the men and women serving.  Will make all these travel challenges worthwhile! Didn’t get to spend a lot of time getting to know Ashley but she is going to be great both on and off stage.

 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25TH – FIRST SHOW IN SWA:

I started receiving text messages at 7:30 am but did not get up until 8:30 am.  Was going to try to either jog or workout but decided I did not have enough time based on needing to get some work done.  I’m going to meet Geoff at 12:30 pm.  Have worked with him for several years and love his family.  He worked at the base we will be performing at today but transferred to the larger base where we will be performing tomorrow.

I worked until 12:30 and then met Geoff in the lobby.  We walked right outside the hotel to “American Alley”. Lots of bases have a place like this. It is filled with “American” restaurants…Five Guys, Starbucks, Papa John’s Pizza, McDonalds, and on and on.  Plus there are some “local” restaurants which is where we went.  I definitely don’t want “American” fast food when overseas.  We had a great lunch and enough left over for me to take back to my room and eat tonight after the show for dinner!

We departed the hotel today at 2 pm with our POC Kevin.  We made one quick stop at the “Tree of Life” (which I’m sure has now given away my location).  There was a new attraction there today for the tourists….a camel that you could ride.  Unfortunately it was so cold and windy that we just jumped out of the van, took a couple of photos, touched the tree and left.  On the drive there, we had to go through a small dust storm but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the ones I’ve been trapped in when in Iraq!   Legend has it if you touch the tree, you will return to Bahrain.  Has worked for me over the years!

Everyone says this is the coldest it’s ever been in this area and I believe them.  It gets up to 130 degrees here during the Summer months but today it is in the low 50’s and seems even colder because of the wind.  We had to go through several security checks because to enter the U.S. base, we had to drive through the locally owned base.  Turned in our drivers licenses in exchange for a “day pass” and went to the venue.  Really glad they decided to hold the show indoors.

The venue has a nice setup and it didn’t take James long to get everything dialed in so that Chingy could sound check.  Took longer than usual since Chingy performs to tracks and James needed to run through the entire show so he would know when to pause the tracks.  But, Ashley’s sound check only took a couple of minutes so it all balanced out.

We had a larger crowd than I anticipated.  We had approximately 110 people in attendance and for a base that only has 200 service men and women, that’s a great turn out.  Also, they have to work either a 12 hour shift or a 24 hour shift so getting that many people to attend was awesome.  The venue set up chairs in front of the stage and then way over to Stage right, there were more tables and chairs.  It took a while for the attendees to fill in the chairs in front (sort of like church…everyone wants to sit in the back for some reason!) but eventually it was full with lots of people still on the “sidelines”.  Ashley’s show was awesome and so “geared” to military humor.  We kicked off the show with the Gary Sinise Foundation info video followed by a personal message from Gary. Then Ashley performed for 45 minutes.  The chairs had to be removed after Ashley’s set and we used that time to show the informational slide about Gary’s son.  Then, Chingy took the stage and did a great show.  Again, no one would go out on the dance floor in front of the stage.  But, everyone was standing on the sidelines dancing!  I went over and encouraged them to go out front and dance but could not budge them.

At the end of Chingy’s set, he has a dance contest and he was able to get some of the “dancers” to come up on the stage.  They had a very lively contest and of course, then everyone was ready to party as the show ended.

Chingy and Ashley took photos with everyone after the performance and we loaded up the van and drove back to the hotel.  It was around 10:20 when we arrived back at the hotel.  I worked until 2:30 am and then slept for 4 hours.