Travis Vocino Experiments in Art, Science & Technology.

I love hotelling — that is to say, staying in hotels.

“Hotelling”, by definition, is actually a method of supporting unassigned seating in an office environment — sometimes confused with “hot desking”, which is another method of supporting unassigned seating. Hotelling (or hoteling) is reservation based unassigned seating, whereas, hot desking is reservationless unassigned seating.

But I digress…

In the past few weeks I’ve been to The Standard in Los Angeles and Grove Isle in Miami. I also have reservations at Hotel Metro in Milwaukee tomorrow.

The Standard

The Standard on Sunset is great. There’s a fish tank type of thing over the front desk in the lobby — but instead of water and boring orthodox fish, there’s random girls in skimpy clothing chatting on AIM with MacBooks and texting on cell phones.

Down the hall from my room (on the first floor) is a hipster salon which compliments all the nice minimalist and modern surroundings in the lobby. I seriously considered getting my hair cut there — or at least a little refresh.

I got into TMZ at The Standard, Hollywood. Can you believe that?

Yes, I’ve been to LA plenty of times before. This isn’t all new to me like some wave of celebrity that has washed over my being. The problem was simply that TMZ was on TV, in the room at The Standard… on Sunset. …in Hollywood.

That is a lethal combination. Who wouldn’t succumb to the bullshit celebrity nonsense? It was an unavoidable risk, especially when you’re so close to the spots we love — we did run into some friends at Les Deux that night.

The fact that The Standard in Hollywood is so great comes at somewhat of a surprise considering Rich Cavanaugh can’t say enough bad things about the Miami location.

Grove Isle

Last week my girlfriend and I stayed at Grove Isle in Miami — specifically, in the Coconut Grove area.

While the room had a decent view of the water (we were on the 4th floor, on a corner), a good sized balcony and comfortable interior, the hotel overall really wasn’t that amazing. The best part might have been the Bling water.

We were invited there to try out the restaurant and spa services. I can’t comment on the spa, since I was busy sleeping (I hear it was decent). The restaurant, however, wasn’t much to get excited about. It was nice, the view was beautiful, don’t get me wrong. It’s just the experience as a whole was somewhat underwhelming.

Our hostess told us that there are about 5 engagements per week at that restaurant (probably a bit exaggerated) because of the ambiance and due to the fact that there is a Tiffany & Co. there. I suppose that works for some people. Coconut Grove, Miami wouldn’t be at the top of my list though.