(And I’m back from my extended laptop vacation. New laptop has been acquired, name still to be determined. You have to figure out the personality of a new machine before it can be properly named. Right now I am leaning towards Farrah.)
If it is Thanksgiving that means that it is travel time and more and more people will be crowding the airports and making my life a living hell. As someone who flies enough that he has become a frequent flier on two separate airlines this time of year is just brutal for me because my usual routines get completely screwed up by people who have no idea what they are doing. So, as a public service, here is my advice if you are going to the airport this week.
1) Print out your boarding pass at home: Saves you a few minutes, especially if you aren’t checking bags. This way if all you have are carryons you can go straight to security. Plus, depending on the airline the sooner you check in the sooner you will be able to get on the plane, which I will talk about later.
2) Be prepared for the security process: I have a routine that I go through every time I fly. Right before I step in the security line I go through everything in my pockets and place them in my backpack. I have my boarding pass and ID in hand. In my backpack in clear plastic bags are a) any liquids I am carrying (in small bottles), b) my Kindle and any laptop cords and c) my portable DVD player (which Kim got me for my birthday and has been a wonderful present). Once I get to the X ray machine shoes are off, bags are in the bin and I quickly move through. It really isn’t that difficult a process if you spend thirty seconds getting yourself prepared beforehand.
3) But what about the new fangled scanners?: Ok, I must admit that I haven’t had to deal with these yet. However, due to the fact that I have worked in places where I have required some pretty significant security clearances (strange but true) I have gone through my share of scanners in my day. I personally am not too worried about the new scanners: random person who can’t see me or my face sees a strange computer image of me where I look vaguely naked. It’s just not an issue for me though I understand how others might feel that way. The radiation doesn’t worry me either or at least no more than my worry that I will be sitting in a metal box 30,000 feet in the air being supported only by the laws of physics. As for pat downs, yeah, they can get up in your grill depending on how they do it. Still, as someone who was scheduled to be on a flight from London a few years back that was targeted I am happy to see any advanced security tactics.
4) Don’t stand on moving walkways: Seriously. This freaking kills me. You’ve been sitting in a plane for hours only to get on the walkway and stand perfectly still because you are too tired to walk while thirty people behind you run into each other. If you are perfectly fine with walking then use the walkway for what it was intended for: walking.
5) The Chic-Fil-A at the airport is closed on Sundays: Even for Thanksgiving weekend. The one time I was forced to fly out of Philly on that Sunday I discovered this horrible fact. Given that one of the few pleasures of flying out of Philly is Chic-Fil-A this was heart wrenching.
6) Understand your airlines boarding procedure: Some have assigned seats and board by zones. Some have open seating and board in numerical order. Understand that ahead of time or ask the nice person next to you how it works. I can’t stand people who don’t know the process or try to board with Zone 2 when they are Zone 8. I understand the need to game the system and lord knows I’ve done it (luckily my frequent flier status helps me here) but at least follow the rules.
7) Live by the laws of carry on baggage: You get two bags. One goes under your seat. One goes overhead. Putting your coat in the overhead bin just pisses people off. Rollerbags go in wheels first. And I hate to say this but if you are one of the last people to board odds are your bag is going to be gate checked. It’s happened to me and it will happen to you, especially if you are on one of the airlines that charges to check bags. Over the past two years you have seen a huge increase in the amount of carry on luggage because of people not wanting to check bags. That means that the bins fill up quickly and if you are not one of the people who board early it means that you can end up spending 45 minutes waiting for your carry on bag with the rest of the luggage (which happened to me at midnight a few weeks ago.) If everyone packs accordingly this is less of an issue but if you are worried about it you need to find a way to board early or just check your bags to begin with.
8) Don’t bother the guy wearing headphones: You really don’t want to hear about my day.
Showing posts with label Holiday travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holiday travel. Show all posts
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Flying off into the wild blue yonder
Another year, another Word document for my writer’s journal. This marks thirteen years of my keeping a writer’s journal and five plus years of using it as the source of my blog material. I’ve now kept a written record of over one third of my life. Pretty amazing when you think about it that way.
I will post my New Year’s Resolutions tomorrow as today marked the last day in which I was allowed to not follow them (come on, it’s the weekend. I’ll start on Monday.) Instead I will tell three of the travel nightmare stories that I have had to suffer through over the past month.
Story # 1: I was able to avoid the Northeast blizzard by secluding myself in lovely Florida. Got out before the storm and laughed heartily as Philadelphia was hit with two feet of snow that ended a few hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I was wondering, ok worrying to the point of obsession, that the flight would be delayed or cancelled and that I would have to struggle to get on another flight. But after all my checking I saw that my flight was on time and went to the airport.
Kim dropped me off at the airport and we said our goodbyes. Checked the airport monitors and the flight showed on time. Walked over and bought a donut at Dunkin Donuts because I freaking deserve a donut every once in a while. After finishing the donut and walking toward security my phone rings and it is the airline letting me know that my 6 PM flight had been delayed to 12:15 AM. I had been in the airport maybe ten minutes. I go back to the front desk to find out that they have a plane and a crew but no clearance from air traffic control in the northeast to take off so I was told to hang around the airport for six hours, then fly for three and then drive home through two feet of snow in the middle of the night.
Instead I called Kim, changed flights, and spent the night in a much more agreeable manner. Which would have been better if I had listened to Kim in the first place and changed my flight before we even left for the airport. That is what I get for trusting the internet.
Story # 2: Flying home from Chicago the day after Christmas. My flight was a little delayed, which made sense given the fact that it was slightly snowing and that this was the day after the underwear bomber incident. But we all get on the plane fine and pull away from the terminal. But then we stop. I’ve flown out of Chicago a bunch of times and never had this happen. Then we are told that we must return to the terminal to let a passenger off the plane.
So we do that and after the passenger leaves we discover that he had fallen asleep on the previous flight and forgot to get off the plane in Chicago. It was nice that they told us this after he got off because if he did that beforehand we may have pummeled him with our carry on luggage. Then, since we were at the terminal, we had to deal with a maintenance issue. Plus, because we had been on the ground so long they had to deice the place. So we were an hour plus late leaving the airport when we had originally left the terminal on time. And to make matters worse, the baggage carousel in Philly broke and we had to go to another terminal to get our bags.
Story # 3: Arriving in Philly once again, different flight this time. Actually had landed on time for what seemed to be the first time in months. The thrill was short lived as we sat on the runway for half an hour for a gate to clear out so we could pull in. There is nothing more annoying than just sitting on a runway knowing that you are home but you still can’t get off the plane. It was just abysmal.
All of this just makes me want to work out the last few bugs in my teleporter.
14th Best Album of the Decade: Jon Dee Graham “Full” (2006): I have probably seen Jon Dee in concert (either by himself or playing guitar in someone’s band) more than any other performer this decade. I have enjoyed every single show. His music is Texas singer songwriter but I like to think of him as a more noble Tom Waits. The lyrics are dark and there is the growl in his voice but at the end of the day there is light. To quote the man himself, “False hope is still hope.”
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Freedy Johnston “Blue Days Black Nights”
2) Soundtrack “The Slaughter Rule”
3) U2 “October”
4) Neko Case “Middle Cyclone”
5) Lyle Lovett “Step Inside This House”
I will post my New Year’s Resolutions tomorrow as today marked the last day in which I was allowed to not follow them (come on, it’s the weekend. I’ll start on Monday.) Instead I will tell three of the travel nightmare stories that I have had to suffer through over the past month.
Story # 1: I was able to avoid the Northeast blizzard by secluding myself in lovely Florida. Got out before the storm and laughed heartily as Philadelphia was hit with two feet of snow that ended a few hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I was wondering, ok worrying to the point of obsession, that the flight would be delayed or cancelled and that I would have to struggle to get on another flight. But after all my checking I saw that my flight was on time and went to the airport.
Kim dropped me off at the airport and we said our goodbyes. Checked the airport monitors and the flight showed on time. Walked over and bought a donut at Dunkin Donuts because I freaking deserve a donut every once in a while. After finishing the donut and walking toward security my phone rings and it is the airline letting me know that my 6 PM flight had been delayed to 12:15 AM. I had been in the airport maybe ten minutes. I go back to the front desk to find out that they have a plane and a crew but no clearance from air traffic control in the northeast to take off so I was told to hang around the airport for six hours, then fly for three and then drive home through two feet of snow in the middle of the night.
Instead I called Kim, changed flights, and spent the night in a much more agreeable manner. Which would have been better if I had listened to Kim in the first place and changed my flight before we even left for the airport. That is what I get for trusting the internet.
Story # 2: Flying home from Chicago the day after Christmas. My flight was a little delayed, which made sense given the fact that it was slightly snowing and that this was the day after the underwear bomber incident. But we all get on the plane fine and pull away from the terminal. But then we stop. I’ve flown out of Chicago a bunch of times and never had this happen. Then we are told that we must return to the terminal to let a passenger off the plane.
So we do that and after the passenger leaves we discover that he had fallen asleep on the previous flight and forgot to get off the plane in Chicago. It was nice that they told us this after he got off because if he did that beforehand we may have pummeled him with our carry on luggage. Then, since we were at the terminal, we had to deal with a maintenance issue. Plus, because we had been on the ground so long they had to deice the place. So we were an hour plus late leaving the airport when we had originally left the terminal on time. And to make matters worse, the baggage carousel in Philly broke and we had to go to another terminal to get our bags.
Story # 3: Arriving in Philly once again, different flight this time. Actually had landed on time for what seemed to be the first time in months. The thrill was short lived as we sat on the runway for half an hour for a gate to clear out so we could pull in. There is nothing more annoying than just sitting on a runway knowing that you are home but you still can’t get off the plane. It was just abysmal.
All of this just makes me want to work out the last few bugs in my teleporter.
14th Best Album of the Decade: Jon Dee Graham “Full” (2006): I have probably seen Jon Dee in concert (either by himself or playing guitar in someone’s band) more than any other performer this decade. I have enjoyed every single show. His music is Texas singer songwriter but I like to think of him as a more noble Tom Waits. The lyrics are dark and there is the growl in his voice but at the end of the day there is light. To quote the man himself, “False hope is still hope.”
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Freedy Johnston “Blue Days Black Nights”
2) Soundtrack “The Slaughter Rule”
3) U2 “October”
4) Neko Case “Middle Cyclone”
5) Lyle Lovett “Step Inside This House”
Sunday, December 28, 2008
You can't get there from here
Like many people, my holidays were spent in a nerve racking attempt to actually get to where I was meant to be followed by the stressful gift giving experience. Now that I am safe and sound (and tremendously bored) in Delaware, I guess I can provide the full story.
I originally had an evening flight on Tuesday from Philadelphia to Chicago. However, thanks to the fact that in my new job I have a meteorologist on staff I was able to get the latest forecast and switched to a morning flight. Yes, I now have a meteorologist on call as opposed to the astrologer on call that I had at Sprint. While the accuracy level has increased I no longer get to have conversations where I answer questions with “Well, you’re the astrologer. Aren’t you supposed to know these things in advance?”
So I head to the airport on Tuesday morning and can I just say that the construction at the Philly airport around the Southwest check in is the most inane imaginable. It will be awesome when it is done but right now you have no clue where you are going other than you will be stuck in a long line to get your bags checked. Once I checked in and got passed security I did something that indicates that I travel way too much. I went from Terminal D (where my flight was) to Terminal B just because I like the Dunkin Donuts in Terminal B more than the Dunkin Donuts in Terminal D. There is logic in that statement but damn if I can find it.
But my flight takes off on time and I am relaxing on my way home. It even looks like we’ll be in ten minutes early as we start our descent. Slight problem though as I know how long the descent should take and we were in the air much longer. This is finally explained as the snow has hit Chicago and no one can land and we were now circling South Bend. We circle for a while as I remember that planes do not have infinite fuel and finally we are all told that our flight is being diverted to Omaha.
Now I wasn’t really planning on spending my holidays in Omaha. Like a good engineer I immediately start working on contingency plans. I figure that if I ended up stuck in Omaha I could probably get a flight to KC and then make my way to Chicago from there and if not, well, I at least know people (and more importantly, bartenders) in town. However, given that I didn’t want to spend Christmas in Kansas City when I lived there I was pleased when we just refueled on the tarmac, flew back to Chicago, and I was able to get home even if it was much later than I had hoped.
The holidays themselves went fine. Spent a lot of time with my family and played the favorite uncle, which is my role in all family functions. I did not receive either of the gifts that I was hoping for this year. I did not find the Tila Tequila tome under the tree. Yes, Tila Tequila has written a book. Ok, she has dictated a book. Or more accurately someone wrote a book, she looked at it and went, “what do all of those squiggly lines mean?” and they went ahead and published it with her name on it. I also did not receive a Lexus with a large red bow on it and if watching television this month has taught me anything it is that without a Lexus with a large red bow on it my life is completely meaningless.
(Though on those commercials remind me to never date any woman who received a pony for Christmas as a kid. Seriously, no matter what you do, no matter what you spend, all you will ever hear is “my daddy got me a pony for Christmas one year.” How are you supposed to top that? You don’t need to buy a car; you need to buy a Transformer.)
However, I have no complaints about my gifts as what I did receive was even better than what I had hoped for. Yes, I received a copy of The Bro Code written by Barney Stinson himself. I am not making this up at all. I am immensely proud of having this piece of literature on my shelf.
So after spending days with my family I made my way to the airport on Friday to fly back out. This was a bit of an issue as an ice storm overnight made the roads impassable for a time and put all of the flights way out of whack. It is never good when you look at the departures board and you don’t even see times; just the word Delayed repeated over and over again. I picked up my customary lunch of an Italian Beef sandwich (I can only get those in Chicago) and made myself a spot on the floor. Luckily, my plane was coming in from Oakland and was actually vaguely on time. I boarded my plane all ready to make it back to the east coast.
Except that they were making a crew change and the other pilots weren’t here yet. Then they started to disturbingly remove bags from the plane. Then there was a sudden rush of new passengers as the later flight was cancelled and they tried to get everyone on my flight. All of this while the fog kept on getting worse and worse. Finally we were able to get up in the air and after a later check realized that I had one of the last flights out of the airport before they had to close because of the weather, which means that I shouldn’t complain too much about the whole situation given that there are other people still stuck at the airport.
So I was lucky in that I was able to get into and out of Chicago ok but it was more than a bit harrowing. But still, this is the holidays and I will gladly suffer the hours spent on cramped planes and unexpected road trips to Nebraska just so I could spend a few days with my family. It makes it all worthwhile.
Best of 120 Minutes: Ah, Sleater-Kinney. Proof that you do not need to be in tune or even know how to play your instruments to make up a kick ass rock band. Somehow going to the University of Delaware campus to see bands like this just doesn’t carry the same panache as going to Lawrence. Anyway, if you are like me and have to work tomorrow here is pretty much what I’ll be doing all day.
I originally had an evening flight on Tuesday from Philadelphia to Chicago. However, thanks to the fact that in my new job I have a meteorologist on staff I was able to get the latest forecast and switched to a morning flight. Yes, I now have a meteorologist on call as opposed to the astrologer on call that I had at Sprint. While the accuracy level has increased I no longer get to have conversations where I answer questions with “Well, you’re the astrologer. Aren’t you supposed to know these things in advance?”
So I head to the airport on Tuesday morning and can I just say that the construction at the Philly airport around the Southwest check in is the most inane imaginable. It will be awesome when it is done but right now you have no clue where you are going other than you will be stuck in a long line to get your bags checked. Once I checked in and got passed security I did something that indicates that I travel way too much. I went from Terminal D (where my flight was) to Terminal B just because I like the Dunkin Donuts in Terminal B more than the Dunkin Donuts in Terminal D. There is logic in that statement but damn if I can find it.
But my flight takes off on time and I am relaxing on my way home. It even looks like we’ll be in ten minutes early as we start our descent. Slight problem though as I know how long the descent should take and we were in the air much longer. This is finally explained as the snow has hit Chicago and no one can land and we were now circling South Bend. We circle for a while as I remember that planes do not have infinite fuel and finally we are all told that our flight is being diverted to Omaha.
Now I wasn’t really planning on spending my holidays in Omaha. Like a good engineer I immediately start working on contingency plans. I figure that if I ended up stuck in Omaha I could probably get a flight to KC and then make my way to Chicago from there and if not, well, I at least know people (and more importantly, bartenders) in town. However, given that I didn’t want to spend Christmas in Kansas City when I lived there I was pleased when we just refueled on the tarmac, flew back to Chicago, and I was able to get home even if it was much later than I had hoped.
The holidays themselves went fine. Spent a lot of time with my family and played the favorite uncle, which is my role in all family functions. I did not receive either of the gifts that I was hoping for this year. I did not find the Tila Tequila tome under the tree. Yes, Tila Tequila has written a book. Ok, she has dictated a book. Or more accurately someone wrote a book, she looked at it and went, “what do all of those squiggly lines mean?” and they went ahead and published it with her name on it. I also did not receive a Lexus with a large red bow on it and if watching television this month has taught me anything it is that without a Lexus with a large red bow on it my life is completely meaningless.
(Though on those commercials remind me to never date any woman who received a pony for Christmas as a kid. Seriously, no matter what you do, no matter what you spend, all you will ever hear is “my daddy got me a pony for Christmas one year.” How are you supposed to top that? You don’t need to buy a car; you need to buy a Transformer.)
However, I have no complaints about my gifts as what I did receive was even better than what I had hoped for. Yes, I received a copy of The Bro Code written by Barney Stinson himself. I am not making this up at all. I am immensely proud of having this piece of literature on my shelf.
So after spending days with my family I made my way to the airport on Friday to fly back out. This was a bit of an issue as an ice storm overnight made the roads impassable for a time and put all of the flights way out of whack. It is never good when you look at the departures board and you don’t even see times; just the word Delayed repeated over and over again. I picked up my customary lunch of an Italian Beef sandwich (I can only get those in Chicago) and made myself a spot on the floor. Luckily, my plane was coming in from Oakland and was actually vaguely on time. I boarded my plane all ready to make it back to the east coast.
Except that they were making a crew change and the other pilots weren’t here yet. Then they started to disturbingly remove bags from the plane. Then there was a sudden rush of new passengers as the later flight was cancelled and they tried to get everyone on my flight. All of this while the fog kept on getting worse and worse. Finally we were able to get up in the air and after a later check realized that I had one of the last flights out of the airport before they had to close because of the weather, which means that I shouldn’t complain too much about the whole situation given that there are other people still stuck at the airport.
So I was lucky in that I was able to get into and out of Chicago ok but it was more than a bit harrowing. But still, this is the holidays and I will gladly suffer the hours spent on cramped planes and unexpected road trips to Nebraska just so I could spend a few days with my family. It makes it all worthwhile.
Best of 120 Minutes: Ah, Sleater-Kinney. Proof that you do not need to be in tune or even know how to play your instruments to make up a kick ass rock band. Somehow going to the University of Delaware campus to see bands like this just doesn’t carry the same panache as going to Lawrence. Anyway, if you are like me and have to work tomorrow here is pretty much what I’ll be doing all day.
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