blackoak,
Over the weekend I would think about your post and chuckle thinking about your BIL up with his snooty buds in their rolling motels...I don't have such luxury myself, and camp in a tent when I do so...
Reminds me when I was working at Oracle, as a consultant. I love to sail and once sent Larry Ellison an email congratulating him on his line honors for the Sydney->Hobart race about 13-14 years ago...his reply to me was a very flippant, "she's the fastest boat ever built", in reference to Sayonara...but somehow it always bothered me that guys like me would go out sailing on SF Bay, eating salt, getting knocked on our ear every once in a while, and other folks like Ellison who could afford to hire the best of crew sat in their comfy bunks while the crew did all the work...
A couple years later (1998), the Sydney->Hobart race got hit by a huge storm a few hours after the boats left, quite a few boats lost their masts (five boats sank and six people died. Only 44 of the 115 boats that started, made it to Hobrart). Larry Ellison was tossed around as Chris Dikson (mispelled on purpose as the AS software thinks it's a bad word), one of the greatest skippers of our time, safely got Larry and his rich buddy to Hobart. Someone go tossed out their bunk and broke a rib, and most of the race he would scream every time the boat went over a large swell...when they got to shore, Larry Ellison swore he would never sail again...(eventually he did sail again, but not for a number of years).
I was always tempted to send Larry another email asking, "how's that f#@$in' salt taste now?", but figured I might want to work at Oracle at some point again, so never did...*lol*
Your BIL should have got some iron on his corn flakes over the weekend...after all, is that was irony is comprised of?
