Are You Ever Stupid Stubborn?

No Sun & No Wi-fi

I tried to write last week, truly I did, but a sense of crankiness overrode any creativity and after struggling for a little while I chose the path of least resistance.  Saturday morning, I woke at 6 a.m. in the Hyatt in Phoenix, a sun and warmth starved Albertan, wondering what happened to the desert sunshine.  Alas, throwing open the curtains was truly disappointing.  There we were surrounded by the only tall buildings in the downtown core, shaded from the sunshine and with a view high-rises.  This disappointment came fast on the heels of a mildly disastrous evening that both of us could take some responsibility for; an evening that found us at the wrong Hyatt without a reservation and the ensuing black cloud that followed us until that situation was resolved.


The right hotel was eventually located, reservations confirmed, and life seemed back on track again until the desk clerk said you have to pay extra for Internet in your room.  We haven't paid extra for Internet for years at a hotel.  Sometimes I think I might have a serious combination of Dutch and Scottish genes in my body as my stubbornness can override pretty much any possibility even when it fails to make much sense.  Wi-fi was available in the hotel lobby by the coffee shop, the front desk, and the pub.  My thought on Friday night as I staunchly refused to pay for Internet, was that I would write in the room and then take the iPad down to the lobby and send the blog.

Stuck on Stubborn

My thought seemed simple but it didn't work.  I had spent a fabulous three days at a conference for the International Mentoring Association with an incredible group of people from around the world.  Bar none it was the best conference I have attended in my career for content.  It would have been easy to concentrate on that.  I could have written about the hotel fiasco and believe me there was more to it and you would have been entertained but we would have been embarrassed because it wasn't our finest hour.  I wanted to write about the friends we visited with that we haven't seen for a long time, or the way this blog seems to reach people across the world.  But mostly I was stuck on mad mode because of not having wi-fi in the room, which I had the power to change if I was willing to set my stubbornness aside.  The cost of the wi-fi wasn't the issue; in my mind there was a principle involved.

We went down to the lobby in search of the elusive wi-fi connection, only to discover that you needed a different password depending on whether you sat by the coffee shop, the front desk, or the pub.  All of these areas were within spitting distance of one another and had access from the lobby.  Literally I had to change the password if I sat down by the coffee shop entrance and logged in, then moved forty feet through the lobby to some softer chairs by the front desk.  When I figured all that out the stubborn factor kicked into overdrive and the idea of getting the blog done became irrelevant because I was on a mission to not connect to their wi-fi, free or not.

We left the hotel on a mission to find Starbucks and sunshine.  It took us a while because when you are stuck on stubborn you miss things that are right across the street, like Starbucks and you end up in sketchy neighbourhoods desperate for a coffee.  Eventually we found coffee and sunshine, and broke the stubborn curse enjoying our last two days in Phoenix immensely.  To Brian, whose wife reads him the blog on a weekly basis, last week's short blog was for you!    

  


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