I'm concerned about human society.  I mean, let's be honest....you can't be alive in 2023 and not wonder about our longevity.  I don't even know where to start on the list of Holy Shit events in the last few years.  Covid, anti-vaxxers, refusal to mask, an ex president indicted in 2 different jurisdictions (SO FAR) for a variety of serious crimes, including violations of the Espionage Act.  Governments are ignoring the will of the people (Florida, allowing felons to vote.  Ohio, refusing to draw fair districts despite a constitutional amendment.  The US Supreme Court stacked with hyper conservative offspring of oligarchs, and deciding in favor of the scary christian right)

You can't be alive in 2023 US, and not see it...the consistent erosion of empathy.  No one cares anymore.  We hear religious nuts screaming about god's love, in the same breath that they say ti's fine to force a 10 year old to carry and give birth to her rapist's baby.  We have so-called conservatives representing the accomplishments of a wildly successful administration as irresponsible and squandering, despite ALL FACTS clearly showing the opposite.  We see a republican party that is hell bent on stripping the few social safety nets left to us, in what i can only assume is an attempt to control the electorate by keeping us poor, uneducated and exhausted.  

In the last week I have had a half dozen incidents where a service i had paid for failed to provide me with the promised service.  In each case...every single one....i was told there was no recourse.  I was stuck.  So, I paid $270 to get a fedex package there by 10:30am the next day? oops.  we didn't make it. oh well.  I paid $600 for 3 UPS packages to be shipped Overnight Red...and only  2 made it?  oh.  <shrug>  it'll get there eventually.  The fact that I had a crew sitting on site, burning money, waiting on that last package...oh.  sorry.  

Bought an airline ticket.  Need to be there by Sunday afternoon to get the job started.  Flight delayed.  multiple times.  Got there too late to start the job.  Airline's response?  oh well. these things happen.

Bought an airline ticket home.  Flight delays, again.  Realized there was no way my husband would make his connection, so I rescheduled the connection....but that meant he would get on the ground after midnight, a 90 minute drive away from home.  So. we got him a hotel near the airport.  He's had an amazingly long week and is completely exhausted.  

More flight delays.  flight finally pushes back from the gate 90 minutes late...then sits on the tarmac for Two. More. Hours.  in Florida.  in July.  In case anyone was unaware, airplane a/c just cannot keep up with several hundred people in an enclosed tube, sitting in the blistering sun, on black tarmac.  they roasted.  And, did i mention that my husband has a blood clot, and is required to get up and move every 1 to 2 hours, to prevent further clots from forming.  to move "vigorously"?  he was stuck on that plane for almost 4 hours, between sitting on the tarmac, flight time, then another delay getting to the gate when they landed.  

And remember that connection i changed?  cancelled. he was put on a 0630 flight the next morning.  it is now after 11:00 pm, he has no luggage, he hasn't had dinner, he has to find a hotel, the line to get a voucher for a hotel is, no lie, all the way past 3 gates.  hundreds of people.  He knows, if he waits, not only will he be exhausted, but it's unlikely there will be any rooms left nearby.  So he calls me, i help him find a hotel, and he gets the shuttle there.

I call customer service at the airline, try to get him on a later flight.  0630 when he doesn't even get to a hotel until almost midnight, and still needs to find something to eat?  no.  he needs to sleep.  he'd have to be up at 5am, on the shuttle back to the airport by 0530. he has no clean clothes, or his c-pap.  

Customer service is backed up.  no surprise.  Wait time for a call back is 1 to 2 hours.  it's currently 11:20pm.  i'm also exhausted, because we've been dealing with this garbage for days.  But...i stay up and wait for the call.  How bad can it be?  the latest should be around 1:30am, and hopefully will be sooner.  

I went to bed at 2:00am.  just could not keep my eyes open any longer.  told my husband to go to sleep, set an alarm for 0500, and i'd leave him a message on whether he can go back to sleep.  

Remember my internet was out? yeah. still out.  it's been 10 hours by now.  no explanation. no estimate of repair,  no idea of cause.  nothing.  I call again, asking for an update.  i can't even get a yes or no that they have an issue, or it's on my site. nothing.  someone will call you when they get to it.  can i talk to tech support? no.  they will call you.  Can i talk to your supervisor? no. Can I talk to SOMEONE?  no.  

Phone rings at 2:09am.  It's the airline, finally.  dude asks for my husband's record locator number. I don't have it.  ok, how about his ticket number.  don't have that either.  What is his flight number?  I have no idea.  he says, "well, you're welcome to call back when you have the information necessary..."  i say WAIT DON'T YOU DARE HANG UP ON ME!!!" 

The next 20 minutes are excrutiatingly unpleasant.  no, he cannot look up my husband by his name and birthday.  No, he cannot find the ticket without  this info.  I said, i've been waiting for 3 hours for a call that was supposed to take 1 to 2 hours...an already stupidly long time for a so-called "customer service" line.  I'm in bed, because it's 2 in the goddamn morning.  I said, if i pay for a service, i expect to be able to receive that service, and not have repeated delays resulting in horrendous inconvenience and costing me thousands of dollars in work delays.  he said, "well, when i call in to a business i know to have my information available."

omg.

I know he was doing his job.  i know being a CSR sucks.  but jesus.....if i felt, even for one minute, like these companies actually cared about supplying decent customer support, i would be kinder, i swear. But it's just call after call, long hold times, then a CSR who does not give 2 shits about anything.  they have scripts they have to repeat. 

His snark is astonishing.  

The ONLY flight available leaves at 4:44pm.  My husband will get in at 6:15pm to 6:30pn.  ugh.  another wasted day...but his day will be wasted either way - if he flies at 0630, he'll be so exhausted he'll sleep all day.  

next day....it's a Sunday.  In the middle of the airline saga, our home and office internet went out.  Tried troubleshooting.  called our ISP.  submitted a ticket.  they can't tell me if there's a problem with the circuit.  nope. just have to submit a ticket. someone will get back with me.  

We pay $460 a  MONTH for unlimited data, high speed LOS internet, guaranteed 100% uptime. 

My husband, waiting on the flight, washing his only clothes in the bathroom sink, using a hair dryer to try to dry it.... he starts getting calls from one of our customers.  They're down.  It's the unit we just finished a massive shut-down job on.  it might be our fault.  he's stuck in a hotel, in Charlotte, NC.  

It's approximately 10:00am.

Try to reach our employee who managed that job. he's out of state.  Because my husband was supposed to be back, he decided to leave for vacation a day early.  Normally no harm in that, hut he should have informed us....but he left his work phone at home.  i had to track him down on his personal cell.  so he can't go to site.  and is clearly hesitant to take calls for work where he is (i did not ask).  But..it's a 24=7 emergency service company. that's why we provide a company phone.  it's in the paperwork when he was hired that he MUST have it on him, and charged, at ALL times.  we don't expect him to drop everything and run to site if he's out of town, but he MUST be reachable if there is a question.  

My husband asks me to head to site.  be his eyes and ears while he tries to figure out what's wrong.  I get showered, dressed, and am about to head out when the ISP called - can i troubleshoot with them?  ugh.  fine.  the access point where the internet comes onto the property is in one of the outbuildings.  10' in the air.  you need a small ladder to access the locked enclosure.  even with the ladder, it's really hard to see the tiny 1" x 1" screen on the hardware firewall.  I've been using my phone with both bluetooth headset, and hot spot.....and i'm using the camera to enlarge the tiny screen so i can see it.  

phone died mid conversation.  

Went to my car (parked nearby cuz i was literally on my way out the driveway when they called) and plug it in.  wait for it to get 1% charge, and call them back. they can't connect me.  i have to wait for another call.  no idea how long it will be.  

<grinding teeth>

wait 10 minute.  give up, and head out, going to site. Meanwhile, my husband has been on the phone with the down plant, helping them troubleshoot the problems.    I manage to get ahold of him, and i ask if i'm going to site or not. No.  it's clearly not our fault, something weird is going on, and there's nothing i could do.  he will have to head there when he  lands.  

ISP calls back.  There's nothing wrong as far as they can see.  but, says i, the access point clearly says "NO INTERNET.  CALL YOUR ISP".  um....um.....I will continue to troubleshoot.  we'll get back with you.  

around 6:30pm.  an hour away from site.  oh goody.

guess what?? FLIGHT DELAYS!!!

he lands at 8:30pm instead of 6:30pm.  a full 24 hours after he was originally supposed to be on the ground.  

we paid for three hotels for saturday night.  1 in florida (he thought he'd be there until sunday...) 1 in Charlotte (stranded), and 1 in Pittsburgh (he though he'd land too late to drive home).  three. hotels.  

He finally gets to site about 10:00pm.  He was there until 4:30am Monday (today).  still in the same clothes he put on Saturday afternoon.  

I still don't have internet.  I still don't have any answer as to what is wrong.  I have a local tech coming to check my hardware side sometime in the next couple of hours.  

FedEx and UPS just billed us for the failed packages from last week.  full price.  we have to contest the charges, even tho' they KNOW they screwed up and failed to get the packages delivered on time, because we already talked to them.  nope.  we have to do it, now that the charges have been sent. 

Airline hasn't responded to a request for help, to pay for the hotel, the meal, while stuck in Charlotte. 

Haven't heard back from Hilton yet.  hopefully they'll comp us at least 1 of the 3 rooms my husband supposedly stayed in Saturday night. Kind of hard to be in 3 cities in 3 states at the same time.

and, none of these companies will make me feel like my money was well spent, that i paid for a service and will get what i paid for.  No one cares.  No one tries.  punch a clock, take your pay...corporate bosses tell you to punch a clock, take your pay, and do what we say. don't ever promise to be helpful.  

don't ever admit that we don't care what the customer wants, or that no one is every going to call them back.  Just read these lines, dump the problem into someone else's queue, and go on to the next call. 

and for that, you will make $15/ hour, if you're lucky, with no benefits, no vacation, and no sick time.  welcome to america.

we are all fucking doomed. 

How Crochet Taught Me to Value my T1D Daughter's Doctors Even More

In addition to being a parent to a T1D daughter, I'm an avid crocheter.  One of the many recent innovations to come about from the storm of social media crafting groups is something called a Temperature Blanket - the basic concept is you assign colors to a range of temperatures, then you crochet, or knit, or weave 1 row for the average temperature each day for a period of a year.  This has been used to document things like the year of a marriage, or someone's birth year, or just the current year as it occurs.

Recently while working on my own temperature blanket, I had a brain-storm....this system can be applied to almost anything that can have a number assigned to it.  Well, what number do all Type 1 Diabetics have constantly on our  minds?  Blood Glucose, of course!

So I came up with the brilliant idea of doing a Blood Glucose Blanket - in my mind's eye, I'd assign shades of green for the "ideal" range (say, 70 to 150), reds for the "lows" (X to 69), and purples for the "highs."  I was so excited about my idea, and I thought maybe I could work on it and give it to my daughter next year for her birthday.  I was PSYCHED!

Because I wasn't sure how to set it all up, I decided to post about it in one of the many online groups I'm in that focuses are crafting - this particular groups is just for "snarky" or "offensive" crafters, because I am by nature a pretty earthy sort of person, and that's where I felt most at home.

I was rather startled by the reaction.

I got a LOT of "wow what a great idea!" reactions, and, "what a loving and original way of showing how much you care!".  Those were gratifying, to be sure!  However, I also got a few responses from adult Type 1 Diabetics which were overwhelmingly negative - here are a couple of examples:

     " Honestly, I would hate this. I’m also Type 1. I just had a conversation a few weeks ago with a bunch of my Diabetes Camp friends from almost 20 years ago about how much guilt and shame we already feel about not taking care of ourselves better"

     "I know for sure I'd not want to see a year of my failures and struggles to stay even mapped out on such a visual scale.   It's hard enough getting my book reviewed with the nurses every few months. "

I realized something that I hadn't really understood before - my daughter's doctors had told me more than once that scaring her into taking better care of herself is proven not to work.  I was so frustrated with her tendency to pretend she wasn't diabetic, and ignore her BG, and fail to bolus for meals.....I was terrified for her, and wanted to try to get her to understand what a dangerous game she was playing.  And here, I suddenly had a real world demonstration of what those doctors were trying to tell me.  These adult Type 1 Diabetics in my crafting group were mostly young - i.e., between the ages of 25 and 45.  They were products of the medical system in place between the 80s through the early 2000's, during a time period when it was common practice to try to shame patients into being healthy.  I remember those days, and I had noticed more than once that there had been a shift in attitude in recent years. I particularly noticed it at the dentist, where I no longer felt like I had to be ashamed when I knew I hadn't taken adequate care of my teeth, and I had to face my dentist and hygienist with that knowledge.  I know I avoided dental appointments for years because of it.  But....they no longer reacted that way.  They stayed positive, suggested ways I could improve, warned me about possible damage, but I never once felt ashamed.  

THIS is what my daughter's doctors were trying to tell me - if I stress the dangers, and the fears, and try to shame her into doing things right, the long term results are a shame in the illness itself.  I have always, from the very beginning, treated my daughter's diabetes as "The New Normal".  I never, ever, wanted her to feel damaged, or broken, or somehow LESS than her peers.  I wanted her to be realistic about what it meant, but I also wanted her to know that it didn't mean she was any less in any way.  

And the idea for a blanket is what demonstrated to me what her doctors had tried to communicate so many times.  There is an entire generation of Type 1 Diabetics out there who overwhelmingly feel that they are inherently not good enough because they don't always perfectly maintain their illness.  That is heart-breaking.

So, with all of that in mind, I decided 2 things:  1. I would talk to my daughter first, obviously.  I would explain the idea to her, and see what she thought of it.  I would make sure to ask her how she would feel about having a visual, hands-on representation of her daily struggle right in front her her.  I would then let her decide if she liked the idea.  and 2. I would not assign colors based on value judgments.  Instead, we would pick colors she liked, in a configuration that would allow us to do ranges from low to high.  That way, looking at the blanket it wouldn't be immediately obvious which were "good" days and which were "bad."

And I did so.  I talked to my daughter, and before I had even finished explaining my idea, her eyes LIT UP!  She was so excited by the concept!  I asked her if it would bother her knowing it would show good AND bad days.  she said no!  I even had her read some of the comments from my post, and she seemed honestly baffled by them - why would you feel shame?   She didn't do anything to deserve this disease; yes, she fails to take the best care of herself sometimes, but it's still her doing the best she can with an illness she can't get rid of.  

So.....what is my point?  I guess....thank you to the medical professionals who figured this out.  Thank you to all of the doctors and psychologists who did all of the studies and surveys which taught them that there was a problem with the way medicine was practiced, and actually caused a change in the way patients are treated.  It may seem silly that this all came from something as unimportant as a crochet project....but I really mean it.  Thank you.  Because of all you do, my daughter not only can look forward to a long and healthy life, but she won't do so hating herself the whole time.  There is no price I can put on that.

I always knew crafting was cathartic....

Blood Glucose Blanket - A Crochet Visual of Type 1 Diabetes

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, How Crochet Taught Me To Value My T1D Daughter's  Doctors Even More, in the process of coming up with the idea for this blanket, I learned a lot about how perception affects mental health.  However, this post isn't about that, but  I hope those who have found themselves here reading about a crochet project will also go read about what I learned while brainstorming this project.

With the proliferation of Temperature Blankets, Temperature Scarves, and even Temperature Amigurumi, I recently came up with the idea of using the same concept to document my daughter's blood sugars.

But, I am getting ahead of myself.

What is a Temperature Blanket?  To paraphrase what others have said, the basic concept is that you assign colors to ranges of temperatures - for example, cooler colors for colder temps, warmer colors for the warmer temps.  Then during the course of a set period of time, usually a year, you record the temperature of your choice each day; some people choose to use the daily average...other use the high, the low, or just pick a time of day and use that temp.  Then, you translate that temp into a color, and crochet (or knit) one row in that color.

The result is a lovely, sometimes garish, project which is unique - no one else will ever be able to duplicate it.  Many people used the temps during a year significant to themselves or someone in their lives - the year of a parent's birth, or a child's, or a marriage.  Some people added a color for snow, or rain, or sun....the options are endless.

One day I was working on my own temperature blanket - I had decided to do one this year, since the affects of climate change were resulting in very unsettled weather where I live, and temperatures were all OVER the place this winter - when  i was thinking about how this concept could be applied to almost anything that could be reduced to numbers - your height as you grown, your body weight, even shoe size!  Imagine recording your child's height once a month for 18 years!  then crocheting that into a blanket..and gift it on his/her 18th birthday!!

Then it struck me.....Blood Sugar!  My 12 year old daughter is a Type 1 Diabetic, and she lives her entire life governed by that 2- to 3-digit number read off of her glucometer.  Every minute of every day that number dictates what she eats, does, how she feels.....and in some cases whether or not she goes to school, goes to bed, or goes to the emergency room.  We have 2 years of data already from the downloads from her Continuous Glucose Monitor....why can't I translate that into a range of colors and crochet her a blanket that will be  uniquely hers?!

To read about the debate over whether or not to do it, please see my previous blog post about this.

Working with my daughter and selecting yarns which would work for this particular project (i.e., the right gauge, affordable, and available in a range of shades of the necessary colors), we picked out colors and I set up my key.  I chose to record her blood glucose readings at noon every day.  I chose that time because it will allow us to have a great variation - during school days, every other day that's after gym;  during the summers that's probably going to be when she's swimming.

These are the ranges I used:

0 to 69
70 to 109
110 to 149
150 to 199
200 to 249
250 to 299
300 to 349
350 to 399
400 to +++

You will no doubt notice that they aren't evenly distributed, at least at the bottom.  That was because I was trying to accurately represent the ranges typical for my kid on a routine basis.  If one of my readers is interested in setting up their own, my advice is to record the numbers you intend to use first, then see how the numbers break down - if you rarely see anything above, say, 250, then make 250 and above your top number.  If you see a lot of lows, break your lower ranges into more divisions...and so on.

My daughter chose purples as her favorite color, but in order to get enough colors to give interest, I suggested combining purples with Teals, which is how we ended up with the colors we used.

I chose a very compact stitch called Moss Stitch - it allows you to do a lot of rows in a small area, because in order to do an entire year, 365 rows in many stitches would be ridiculously large.  I then found a pattern online for a ripple using moss stitch, because I wanted something with a little more interest than just straight rows.

Here we have the results of January and February.

I'm very very pleased so far!  I figure once we get to summer, and all of the activity my daughter will be engages in, the colors will shift more towards those assigned to the lower ranges.  On the other hand, I am very pleased that those sorts of changes are not obvious.  I know what colors represent dangerous lows, or dangerous highs, but no one else does...and they aren't obvious - there's isn't one color that is the "ideal", and everything else is wrong...so my daughter won't have a constant reminder when she looks at it that she didn't have perfect BG all the time.

I will continue to post updates on my progress as I work on it through the coming year.  I can't wait to see how it all turns out in the end!

jaz

Welcome to the Stanley Hotel....maybe!

Welcome to the Stanley Hotel

Do your best to enjoy your stay…..it’s up to you, because we won’t be helping.

Monday, August 20, 2018

An Open Letter to the Current Owners of the Stanley Hotel:

My family and I recently stayed at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado.  We planned this trip months in advance, coordinating a family vacation, a concert we wanted to see, and a visit to the notorious inspiration for a work by one of my husband’s favorite authors.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the location, it is in Estes Park, Colorado, a popular tourist destination just on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, approximately 90 minutes north-west of Denver.  It is famous primarily for being the literary inspiration for Stephen King’s, The Shining.  Although the Stanley Kubrick adaptation was not, in fact, filmed on location, the later tv miniseries was.  It is rumored to be haunted, and there are hundreds of reports of paranormal experiences, including some decidedly odd ones revolving around celebrities who have stayed there.  The hotel is actually part of a larger historical district, with multiple buildings, an amphitheatre, a sculpture garden, and several modern structures adding to the available rooms to let.

Imagine my chagrin when, almost immediately upon arriving at the hotel, everything was disorganized, confusing, inconvenient, and frustrating.  Below is a rough timeline of our first night at the hotel, as well as a laundry list (ha…) of other problems.

I.     Arrival at the hotel

a.       We could not figure out where to pull up to offload our luggage and check in.  There were no signs explaining where we were supposed to go.

b.      There was no valet.

c.       We ended up parking in front of the Lodge, a separate structure, and going in there trying to find out where to go. We were directed to another entrance (the awning on the side of the main Hotel)

d.      Once going in this entrance, we were again directed to another location – down the hall, up the steps, turn left, turn right, there’s the registration desk.  I got hopelessly lost.

e.       Once we finally arrived at the registration desk, we had to wait between 15 and 20 minutes just to get someone to talk to us.  Because of the confusion on where to park, where to put our luggage, and so on, I didn’t have my ID on me, so I had to send one of my children back out to the car to get my bag.  I had no idea how to get back to the car at this point.  That led to a further delay, while we waited for her to return.

f.        Once we got our registration taken care of, I asked for a bellman to assist with luggage.  The people at the desk seemed baffled by this idea…and sort of fumbled around.  The young lady who checked us in then made a call to get us assistance.  There was a gentleman behind the desk as well, Kyle, who ended up taking us to our room and helping us figure out how to get our luggage from the car to our room.  Kyle was awesome.  He also seemed a little befuddled, and inefficient, but he was willing and capable and did his best to help us.

g.       At first Kyle was going to lead us to the room just so we could find it.  There were NO SIGNS to direct us where to go.  The young lady behind the registration desk popped out the side-door from registration to interrupt us as we were walking away, to rather snarkily say, “um, someone is coming to help you get your bags,” clearly annoyed that we were walking away.  I had to stand by registration for another 10 to 15 minutes until the bellman arrived…then the bellman didn’t know what to do.  Kyle ended up helping us with our luggage.  The bellman didn’t understand where our car was, or how to get our luggage from the car to our room.

h.      When we arrive at our room, the conditions of it were disappointing. However, I will cover that in a later section dealing with the conditions of the hotel.                 

i.         Upon checking in, I was given 2 photocopied sheets – 1 was a short description of the hotel and what times various things occurred.  The second was a map of the main floor.  Both were on cheap quality paper, and had obviously been photocopied from copies so many times they were nearly illegible.  I felt like I was being handed a mimeograph spelling list circa 1979. 

j.         Bedding – we had booked the Heritage Suite, room 104, because there were 4 of us – 2 adults, 1 - 18 year old, 1 - 11 year old.  When we tried to set up the pull-out, there was no bedding on it.  We searched the room, and found a single pillow, only.  No sheets or blankets. 

                                                               i.      My stepdaughter called down to the front desk to request bedding. The desk staff appear confused, again, and said they were out of blankets (?????) but would see what they could do.  This was around 11:00pm.

                                                             ii.      Around 12:15am, I called down again, saying we still hadn’t received our bedding.  My kids were exhausted and wanted to go to bed.  The person on the desk said she had just come on duty a short while before and was unaware of a request for bedding.  She said she would call them and try to get it for us.

                                                           iii.      Around 12:50am, I walked down to the desk personally, and spoke with the young woman on staff.  She was the same one I had spoken with on the phone at 12:15am, and she again said she wasn’t there when the first call came, and she had already called housekeeping asking for the bedding, and she implied there was nothing more she could do.  I insisted that I needed to know who else to call to get us some bedding. She made another call and said someone was coming.

                                                           iv.      Around 1:10am, someone from maintenance arrived and brought us a stack of 5 or so king size sheets, and a single pillow.  No blanket, no fitted sheet.  The gentleman said he couldn’t find any blankets so he gave us multiple sheets instead. 

                                                             v.      We ended up taking the bed spread off the king size bed and giving it to the girls on the pull-out.  They got to bed around 1:45am.   We lost nearly 3 hours they could have been sleeping.

      II.  Conditions at the Hotel.  Below I will list all of the items in the Stanley Hotel which were sub-par, frightening, dangerous, or just embarrassing.

a.       Heritage Suite, room 104:

                                                               i.      Shower curtain – the bathtub was tiny, and there was a single, cheap vinyl shower curtain on a straight rod.  Whenever you showered, the curtain stuck to your body.

                                                             ii.      Water – in the shower, the water would go hot, then cold, then hot, then cold.

                                                           iii.      Toilet – the toilet would not flush unless you held the handle down.  Then it would run constantly until you manually lifted the handle.

                                                           iv.      Window in the bathroom – there was a small window in the bathroom, with twin shutters to provide privacy. Inside those shutters, the window frame was grimy, and looked as if it had not been scrubbed or painted in years.  It was also the ONLY place in the entire bathroom to set anything down, such as a toothbrush, toothpaste, etc.

                                                             v.      There were enough towels for 2 people only.   I called down for additional towels our first night, and they never arrived.

                                                           vi.      The large “sitting-room” area of the room contained only a small desk, a single chair, a small coffee table, and the pull-out couch.  There is a dark, dead-end hallway leading to a closet.  There was nowhere to sit if you had the couch pulled out into a bed except the single chair at the desk.  There was nowhere to sit down together to eat a meal, despite having a full kitchen with stove, microwave, fridge.

                                                          vii.      The kitchen floor and counters are all horribly off-plumb.  Anything round set down on the counter immediately and violently rolls off and onto the floor, and if running away in terror.

                                                        viii.      The cupboards were filled with an unpredictable variety of glassware, dinnerware, and cutlery.  There was 1 spoon – a serving spoon.  There were no paper towels.  There was NO TRASH CAN anywhere in the kitchen or sitting area.  The closest trash can was a small one right next to the entrance to the suite, and then one other small one in the bathroom, at the opposite end of the suite.  We requested a trash can (and those missing towels) because we had a leak in one or our coolers on the way to Estes Park and had a bunch of spoiled food.  Housekeeping brought us a black trash bag.  I hung it from the washing machine, held up by tucking it under the top lid.

                                                           ix.      The coffee service offered only pre-packaged kits of of powdered creamer, an anemic sugar packet, a thin plastic stirrer straw, and a paper napkin roughly the consistency of gift-bag tissue paper.

                                                             x.      Washer and Dryer in the kitchen area were sitting in open view.  This is minor, but it would be nice to be able to close some louvers or something to hide these away.

                                                           xi.      Windows – all of the very large windows in the suite opened easily.  There were no screens.  We were on the ground floor.  Tours passed just outside our windows through the gazebo – people could easily climb right into our room.  In fact, at one point while we were out walking around, my 11 year old daughter climbed INTO the room from the outside through the window we had left open, in order to scare my husband, who was still in the room.  Later my stepdaughter climbed OUT the window in order to knock on the bathroom window from outside to scare her sister. 

                                                          xii.      Pull-out couch – I don’t even know where to start.  It was old.  It was worn.  It had an approximately 3” vertical cut in the back cushions, clearly made with a knife of some sort.  The edges were frayed, as if it had been there a long time.  The mattress had no mattress pad on it.  The mattress was thin and worn.  The couch was pink. 

                                                        xiii.      Air conditioner –The entire main hotel has no air conditioning.  This is in large part why having no screens is so disturbing.  We were aware of the lack of AC prior to making the reservation.  However, our room (and at least 1 other in our area) had a stand-alone air conditioner, connected to the window through a vent pipe.   The one we had malfunctioned on our 3^rd day in the room, and had to be repaired, and then replaced the following day.  It worked well…but frankly looked very jury-rigged and unprofessional.  In addition, the window the vent went out could not be locked – the vent went through a wooden vent-plate that blocked out the rest of the open window, but there was no block in place to prevent the window from being opened the rest of the way allowing someone access to the room from outside.

b.      The rest of the hotel:

                                                               i.      Fire Escapes:  While wandering the hotel late the first night, my husband and I discovered the door to the front of the hotel on the 3^rd floor open to what appeared to be a balcony.  I was excited to check it out, so went outside.  It wasn’t a balcony, but a fire escape, with no railing around the opening for the ladder/stairs down.  My foot encountered open air, and I caught myself from falling by grabbing the nearby railing.  I almost fell 3 stories through a metal fire escape. 

                                                             ii.      Screens – there appear to be no screens anywhere in the hotel.  I remember looking up while eating on the patio and noticing windows opening on the 4^th floor, and I could clearly see the person inside wave to someone near me on the ground.  Someone could easily fall out those windows and get seriously injured.

                                                           iii.      Housekeeping – Due to our very late night upon check-in when we didn’t have bedding until after 1:00am, we were not up for housekeeping to clean our room the next morning.  They never returned later to do it.  They never come the next day at all.  The third day they came when we were in the room, and we asked them just for towels and washcloths.  They left us 3 towels, 2 washcloths, and a half dozen hand towels.  There were CLEARLY 4 OF US!

1.       No one on the housekeeping staff spoke ANY English. Not any at all.  They were completely unable to communicate with us, and at one point one of the housekeeping staff left to find someone who could translate for them. 

2.       On the other hand, housekeeping appear to be the only people who worked at the hotel who enjoyed their job.

                                                           iv.      Staff –Most of those who worked at the hotel, with the exception of housekeeping and possibly some of the spirit tour guides, appeared to hate their jobs.  They never seemed happy, they never wanted to help you, they always gave you the impression that you were putting them out if you asked for anything.  This included front desk help, wait staff, bartenders.

1.       Added thought – the staff of the café on the lower level were quite friendly.  Of course, for $6 for a 20oz Mocha with an extra shot of espresso, they BETTER act happy.

                                                             v.      The steps that led from the heritage suite corridor to the back of the hotel are rotting.  You can flake the wood off with a fingernail.  They visibly bow when you step on them.

                                                           vi.      Hedge Maze – the hedge maze was an embarrassment.  I understand from speaking with someone on staff that there was a former groundskeeper who planted items which the elk love to eat, and that the new groundskeeper is working to repair it.  I find it amazing that a hotel of this callibre would allow such a disaster to take place, especially after the amount of money that went into creating the maze to begin with.

1.       The initial design for the hedge maze is so tiny.  I felt claustrophobic when I walked through it.  Why on earth did you invest that much money, and block off the front of the hotel, for something so undersized?  It very much feels like someone said “build a hedge maze, but don’t spend too much.”

                                                          vii.      Signage – There are not nearly enough signs around the property directing people where they need to go for particular things.  You just have to wander around to find things, and being a historical structure/site, it is not at all intuitive.

                                                        viii.      Ice Machine – there is one ice machine in the entire hotel, on the 3^rd floor in the one wing.  It’s a long walk, especially with the altitude.

1.       There are NO SIGNS to help you find it.

                                                           ix.      Room number plaques – at least 3 room number plaques were missing, and the room number was written on the torn wallpaper in pencil: 217, 401, and some room on the 3^rd floor. 

                                                             x.      Veranda – the iconic main veranda at the front of the Stanley is obviously a main gathering place.  However, there were a lot of problems with it:

1.       The wicker-esque furniture was often missing cushions.

2.       The “bar” outside was never staffed.

3.       The area was never bussed (There were always empty glasses and cups sitting around).

4.       The ice-water decanter was usually empty.  In 5 days I found it containing water once.

5.       The area was often overrun with spirit tour clients, making it impossible for guests staying at the hotel to enjoy the scenery or just sit and relax.

6.       One of the 2 carriage lights bracketing the front entrance was broken – Again, by talking to some of the staff I discovered that a contractor broke it during the off season, and there was a delay in getting it replaced.  This also appears to be a case of someone not caring to spend the money to expedite the repair.  I know due to the historical nature of the structure there are limitations of materials allowed, manufacturing process allowed, and so on.  However, I would think such a prominent fixture would be a high priority. 

7.       There were clearly openings in the ceiling for 2 smaller chandeliers to hang on the veranda.  The chandeliers are gone, and the holes are sitting there open, with visible wires.

8.       There are hooks to hang planters between the pillars, and no planters hanging there.  I understand not wanting to obstruct the incredible view, but a couple of plants would really make the veranda more welcoming.  Since it’s almost impossible to truly enjoy the view with all of the kerfuffle of spirit tour participants coming and going and taking photos and being generally loud, a few plants can’t hurt the view much.

                                                           xi.      No Coffee Service – there is nowhere in the hotel to just grab a cup of coffee.  I have never been in a high-end hotel before and not had access to coffee service at all times on the main floor near registration.  Usually it includes infused water as well.  There is neither.  I seriously annoyed a waiter in the bar by taking up a table in order to get a cup of coffee.  I tried standing at the bar and got ignored.  I tried standing in the open bar area and flag down a waiter, and they ignored me.  I finally had to take a table in order to be served, and he was clearly annoyed that he wasn’t going to get a solid tip out of the transaction. 

                                                          xii.      No room service – there is no room service at all.  Not even coffee.  I have never, ever, been in a high end hotel, including more than one historical structure, where you couldn’t arrange for coffee to be delivered to the room during normal business hours or at least during routine breakfast hours.

                                                        xiii.      Shuttle into town – when we were offloading our luggage, we saw a white van with lettering on it saying it was some sort of shuttle.  After we spent time in Estes Park the following day, I realized that it made a lot of sense to have a routine shuttle that allows hotel guests to go into Estes Park without taking their cars. However, I never saw that shuttle again, no one mentioned it being available, and I never saw any signs or alerts showing how one could catch it. 

III.    Local Opinions:  While visiting Estes Park, I took the time to talk to some of the locals about the hotel and its operating conditions.  A few facts became clear.  The opinions of the local residents are that:

a.       The current owners are the hotel are extremely wealthy, have no interest in the historical or aesthetic value of the property, and are using it to generate as much revenue as possible as quickly as possible.

b.      It is only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured on the property due to the poor maintenance, unsafe conditions, and general lack of concern for employees’ and guests’ safety.

c.       The owners do not pay a living wage; the cost of living near Estes Park is very high, and those who work at the hotel cannot afford to live nearby.

d.      There are dormitories on-site, but they are unpleasant in some vague way.  No one would say more than, well, there ARE dorms….” In a very uncomfortable tone of voice.  I read this as, they are unpleasant to live in, possibly crowded or dirty?  No air conditioning?  I don’t know.  However, the local opinion is clearly that they are not a nice place to live.

e.       They have a very high turn-over of staff.  Other than spirit tour guides, of those I asked, I didn’t meet a single person who had worked there for more than 3 months. 

f.        It is only a matter of time before the place has a significant fire.  I didn’t find out from this one person I spoke with why she felt that way…but she clearly felt that the place was a firetrap.  I sensed that was one reason she no longer worked there. 

g.       The different departments within the hotel do not get along.  I had instances where hospitality/management had difficulty dealing with housekeeping, the restaurant refused to talk to management, reservations does not communicate with hospitality. 

h.      Cascades, the restaurant, is overpriced, and the food is just bad.  I met 1 particular local who said she’d eaten there on 2 separate occasions, and both were terrible. 

i.         The owners would rather hire immigrants at sub-par wages than shell out the money to allow people to afford to live nearby, or provide adequate housing for nearby residents.

                                                               i.      n.b., the vast majority of the hotel staff I interacted with were non-native English speakers.  This includes hospitality, wait staff, bellmen, and housekeeping. 

What is the point of this long, obnoxious letter, do you ask?  I wish to ask, nay BEG, the current owners:  Sell the place to someone who cares for it.  Stop raping a beautiful, interesting, historical structure for cash.  Shut down one wing of the hotel for an entire season, and upgrade it.  Drop around $20Million to get the entire property upgraded, build decent housing for your staff, hire a crack hotel manager who has ultimate hiring power over all branches of the hotel complex.  Hire a new chef for the restaurant.  Buy only local produce, meat, toiletries, etc, and advertise that.  

Instead of doing constant, disruptive, spirit tours, offer classes in spirituality.  Install a day spa and offer massages, meditation rooms, and a Himalayan salt room.  Build a laundry facility on-site, so that you aren’t farming it out to an outside contractor who may or may not return bedding in a timely manner. 

Go back to the old skeleton keys.  Get rid of the digital ones.    Or, if you must use digital keys, use a skeleton key design.  It will add to the hotel’s cachet.  You WILL lose keys…but include in the reservation a deposit on the key, to be returned only upon the return of the key itself.  

Buy enough bedding to clothe every bed 3 times.  Have spare bedding in every room. 

Install a DVD player in every room and leave a copy of The Shining (both versions) in each room.  Talk to King or Kubrick about getting a version you can put the hotel name on, and leave a note on the box saying it is $20 to keep the movie.  Alternatively, upgrade your digital entertainment system to include streaming video, and have The Shining available to view at all times. 

Provide monogramed robes.  Put a tag on them saying they are Egyptian cotton, locally embroidered, and the guest is welcome to keep it for a charge of $150 per robe.  They will disappear.

Install a falconry.  Have classes. 

Teach archery.  Have hiking guides on-staff, with regular hiking tours.

Offer maps of local areas and local events.  Not ONCE did someone explain to me what was going on in Estes Park the weekend we were there.  I found out later it was a wine festival.

Fire.  Anyone.  Who. Isn’t. Helpful.    Make it EASY to order a drink, not a chore.

Give a good manager the hotel for 2 years, and a budget of $20 – 40 Million, and they will give you a gem that will be the envy of every big resort hotel for generations, and which will make you millions in profits.

On the off chance that he might actually have read this, I ask Mr. King to use whatever influence he might have to urge someone with a solid reputation in the real estate / hospitality industry to rip this property away from its current owners, before it is lost to us forever.   Go read the reviews on Google or Facebook.  The staff hate their jobs, the owners don't care, and a piece of history is being systematically raped to line someone's pockets.