Sunday, November 1, 2009

For you Procrastinators...

There's something to be said for just barely making your plane sometimes. Running like you're training for the Senior Olympics. Running like OJ's late for his plane and he's behind you waving a knife. I, on the other hand, got to the Trudeau Airport in Montreal with three hours to spare, since I've previously dealt with Canadian Customs (our motto: "If we can't make your day worse, then we're just not doing our job").

Today though, I breezed through Customs and Security behind maybe two other people and had time to have lunch and a leisurely walk to my gate, where.............Nothing happened! No announcement when the departure time of 4:10 arrived and departed. I looked outside; no plane. No problem. I've got a two and a half hour layover in New York on my way to Burlington, Vermont.

At 4:40 the gate display read 4:45. Still no announcement. Still no plane. At 4:50 a plane rolled in. I moved out of the way to avoid the crush of de-planing passengers. For about 10 minutes, when I realized there were no passengers on the plane. Or pilot. Or crew. Then we get an announcement: "There will be a short delay while a mechanic checks out a tire that has too much air in it." Ok, when was the last time you had to remove air from a tire on your car that you just backed out of the garage? And why didn't they know this when they were still in the hanger or wherever this bird came from?

So now it's 5:50 and the reader board says we will be boarding at 5:35. Evidently the airport clock has been broken by the excess air in the starboard tire of our aircraft. It also seems to have taken out the paging system. Still no announcement. 6:00 - "We'll be boarding the airplane in 5 minutes". Oh yay!

So I'm off on another "Adventure"...

Smee

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Indy to Jersey - The Hard Way!

What started out as a promising trip has gone a bit awry. I finished up my job at Indiana University with plenty of time to make it 50 miles back to Indianapolis to my plane to New Jersey, connecting in Philadelphia. After setting my trusty GPS to Indy International and setting the cruise to "no cops" I had a relaxing ride until Darlene announced we had arrived and the airport was on my left, which seemed strange since I was the only car in the area. I went past the road to the terminal and turned around to give Darlene another shot at it, when I saw the sign by the barricade: "Airport Closed". Are you KIDDING? I just flew into Indy yesterday! Then I saw the second sign: "Airport has moved", with an arrow pointing to an onramp that split into three roads immediately after I got on it. I flipped my three-sided coin, somehow chose the correct road and was at the new airport in seven or eight miles. Crisis averted! Still had an hour and a half, time to get a BLD (breakfast lunch dinner), leaving me a half hour to get through Security with 20 other folks. Of course Security, since I fit the profile of an old fat bald guy, had me go through the body scanner, I'm sure just to amuse themselves, which takes an extra ten minutes while you take everything left in your pockets after already removing all metal objects and hold the stuff over your head. Then the guy gets a call from the scanner monitor dude "Pat down his right rear" which I'm sure had the monitor guys rolling on the floor as he rubs my butt. "Nothing there - OK you're good to go." So I got dressed and got to my dreaded USAir flight - Our Motto: "We may not be able to do anything else right, but we can land 'em in the river!" So off we go towards Philly on an hour and 15 minute cruise. Two hours later our captain announces that the airport has had a huge storm blow in that had closed Philly and we had been circling and were now going to land in Harrisburg to gas up (since apparently the airlines (did I mention USAir) had no clue we might run into this situation. So we landed, whereupon I learned why sitting next to the door to the only restroom is a BAD thing. While we're on the ground one of the passengers called his father in law who works for FAA or somebody in the know and found out the Philly airport was not closed, but outgoing flights were delayed 45 minutes and incoming ones (that's me) were delayed 15 MINUTES! You mean the plane didn't have enough fuel to allow for a 15 minute delay?! (That was USAir, people.) At any rate we somehow made it back in the air with a "full" tank and made it to Philadelphia just in time for everyone to miss their connections.So after the usual "we can't give you your bags 'cause they're checked through to someplace you are no longer going" I found a baggage professional who located my bag and went and got it! And I got a Hilton room for a $99 "distress" rate.Now I just have to lower customer expectations in NYC since I won't be there until afternoon.Whew! That was a long rant. Sorry.Smee

Friday, July 10, 2009

Pillow Talk

Hi Y'all,
I am perplexed! I am confused! But y'all already knew that.
I'm at The Inn at Penn. Ooooh! Sounds impressive, but it's just another hotel with overpriced rooms and parking because it's on the edge of a college campus and everybody knows if you can afford to send your kid to college you must have more money lying around somewhere that they can get their hands on.
At any rate, my question is: What the heck do I need with thirteen pillows on my bed? I am not exaggerating here. Three brown print pillows. Three flannel plain brown pillows. Five plain white "sleeping" pillows. One narrow brown pillow to make the other pillows look cool on the bed. At least I think there is a bed under there. Who does this?
Wait a minute. 3+3+5+1 =12.
OK, I was exaggerating.
Never mind.
Smee

Thursday, July 2, 2009

I need a brain and a gun.

Hi All,

All excited to get done in Bethesda MD early and head to the airport - Ron Reagan National. Dropped off my car and made it to the Northwest ticket counter in record time, hoping to get on any earlier flight. Yeah sure. My flight wouldn't come up on the computer and so with the help of a ticket agent I determined I was really early for a flight out of..........wait for it............

BALTIMORE.

Who flies you into one airport and out of another? OK, it was my fault. What a dope! Maybe I should have read the itinerary a little closer. Of course there is nothing so bad that it can't be made worse (with a little help). The ticket agents were clueless how to get from one airport to the other, because no one has ever done this before . A baggage guy sent me to the Super Shuttle, which would get me to BWI for $45.

I checked with the driver to make sure I could pay with a credit card since I have no cash. He said he needed cash to get gas before driving that far. He gets out of the car and proceeds to have a loud argument with the coordinator behind the shuttle. While he's doing this I notice he has over half a tank of gas. He finally gets back in and says he'll take me to the next terminal where something indeterminant will take place.

We go into the terminal to the scheduling desk where another argument ensues, which the driver apparently loses and he storms out and gets in his van to drive me, I guess. I follow him since my bag is still in his van, open the back door and pull out my suitcase, telling him (yelling, actually) that I'd find my own way to the airport. I pulled my bags back inside and tell the scheduler that I wasn't riding with that idiot. She tells me she's sending him home. She's having a great day too. Seems another driver tried to make customer pay cash 'cause he needed to pay his rent! She sent him home also. So now I'm in a van with a driver that was threatened with being sent home because he was supposed to pick up a fare and just disappeared. There's no telling where I might end up, so check your milk cartons.

At least I was early!

Monday, June 29, 2009

MSP Car Chase

Hi All,
I'm Minneapolis, waiting for a tire to be changed on my connecting flight to Philadelphia. They entertained us in the boarding area with a highspeed police chase on TV from Dallas, with over 11 cars chasing some idiot in a Camry-sized vehicle doing a hundred plus. Unfortunately it was decided to board us before both the tire change and car chase were over. Check it out on the internet.
Looks like we're ready to go. Just felt the thunk of the jack going down.
Everybody have a great week
Smee

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

My aching back!

Here I am in Atlanta, to work at Morehouse College, Emory University and Georgia State. Staying at the downtown Hilton Garden Inn. Just recovering from last night's attempt to sleep. Went to bed at 11ish and slept soundly until 12:23 when I discovered that while sleeping on the left side, I would occassionally get too warm/uncomforfable and attempt to roll to the other side of the bed. That's when I discovered there was kind of a wall and hill in the center of the bed. This may sound like a small inconvenience, but if Wilbur and Orville used a similar slope to launch their first airplane the aircraft industry would be years ahead of its present point and we could conceivably be living on Mars. I watched the digital clock until 3AM when I finally couldn't take it any longer and turned on the light and found a card with the title "In Room Comfort Guide". Lo and Behold I was on a Garden Sleep System bed that was providing me with a "Restorative Night's Sleep"! Yay! So I pumped up the right side and softened the left side. WooHoo! The results were similar to the bunny hill at [insert your favorite ski resort here]. I could get to the other side, but a rope tow would have helped.

Tonight I sleep on the other bed. I'll let you know................

Smee

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Exercising in Philly

Made it!
When i got to the airport I stupidly went to NWA since I had a NWA ticket. "No", the machine said. "You have to check in with Delta, which is at the other end of the airport. That would be about a mile from here." So I hoof it for a half hour, happy that I have enough time to make it anyway. At the Delta end I stand in line for a while until they have a few kiosks available on the other side of the crowd, so another guy and I wander over there only to discover that the machines won't check us in because we have NWA tickets. So we get back in line behind the people who got in during our absence. After an hour wait the agents are frantically looking for Salt Lake passengers and bring us to the front and get us on our way. Once through Security I find myself with enough time to get some food to take on the plane, since the agent said I missed 1st class by a row. I wolf down a piece of pizza and a Coke just in time to board - in 1st class, where I'll probably get something to eat. Oh well better to be 1st and full than last and empty. CU soon.

Smee

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Goin' to Kansas City - They got some crazy little women there and most of them work at the airport.

So I got done working at Stowers Institute in KC after a day of everything going wrong and just enough time to make it to one of the worst laid out airports in the country. Got off the rental car shuttle but when the driver announced "Terminal B". He didn't mention that Delta is not at the beginning of the concourse but 3/4's of a mile away at the other end.

Signage isn't particularly descriptive either. Consequently I barely made it to my gate in time toooooooooo............wait for 2 hours while mechanics tried usuccessfully to repair the wing flaps. When it was officially a 'mechanical' problem, the Gate Fairies began to work their magic. We all stood in line once more for 45 minutes to see what they could do for us.

"Well Mr. Papp, since you are Double Platinum Purple Gold and Diamond we are going to switch that nasty 1st Class seat on your old plane and get you into Row 38 on this plane and get you out right now. You've got plenty of time in Atlanta to make your connection to Roanoke tonight!"

Well, maybe. Assuming the plane doesn't leave a half hour late and the plane you're trying to catch isn't leaving from C47 and you land at A15 and the damn thing left 10 minutes early anyway. So now I'm in line again, eagerly anticipating the next part of my adventure. No, actually I'm getting pissed at this point. "So how do I get my luggage?"

"You can't Sir. It goes to a secured area and will be put on your plane to Roanoke tomorrow morning, where you will have no access to a hotel room since you are now staying in a flophouse on us in Atlanta tonight. No really, you CAN get your bag, it will just take 6 hours for us to find it assuming it made it onto this plane in the first place, which is unlikely since, in a cost-saving move, Delta is hiring baggage handlers directly from Mrs. Fergusson's 4th grade class in Sussex County Mediocre Minds Elementary. But cheer up. Here is a bag of essentials to cover up the fact that you're one step away from living under a bridge, and it contains a dandy SkyTeam tee shirt so you can advertise to your friends how we took care of you tonight. Have a nice evening."

So I get in another line - this one to wait for a bus to the Courtyard Inn North, only there isn't a bus to Courtyard Inn North, so I ask the driver of the Courtyard Inn South if there is another bus. He says "Yeah, but I'll drop you off myself". So the nice man drops me off in front of the hotel, I give him a couple bucks for going out of his way and walk in waving my airline chit. The clerk looks at it and says "Sir, this is the Country Inn. The Courtyard is across the street". She points to another building. So I walk across the street, but being smarter now, I look at the sign this time. "Wellesley Inn". She pointed across the wrong street!

I give up. So I dumped my laptop and new tee in my room and went down to the "Mexican" restaurant. You don't wanna know..........Hoping to be back someday.

The Other One Was Beautiful!

So I'm in the airport and as I'm walking down the concourse I see two women in passing, walking together holding hands, one dressed like a guy. As I am waiting in my seat on the plane who should appear, but the two of them, standing by my seat kissing about 10 times and who stays with me while the other heads for the back of the plane???? Of course, I get the 'guy'! It keeps looking over its shoulder longingly toward the back. Ick! Gotta run.
Smee

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Don't Fly Southwest

So I'm finally on a plane from Baltimore to Tampa. It was supposed to leave at 7:50. I left Johns Hopkins at 4:56 and was worried I wouldn't make it, but it only took about an hour. When I got to the airport the plane was already delayed until 8:00, so I had time to get some food. When I got to the gate they announced a mechanical which delayed it another 25 minutes. Now that we're on the plane they decided to wait another 20 minutes for another plane to land. We've already been on the plane 20 minutes and they just announced the other plane just landed. Now we'll have to wait for not only passengers, but luggage to be transferred.

To keep us occupied they had a contest to guess how much fuel will be burned on the flight. The answer was 1689 gals. I guessed 1829, so I don't feel too bad.OK, I've had enough fun now.

Let's get this plane a- rollin'.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Nyaah Nyaah Doubletree!

So I ended up staying in Bethesda an extra night due to the extreme stupidity of my jobular circumstances. Last night I stayed at the Doubletree about a third of a mile down the street from the National Institute of Health where I worked yesterday and today, for a rate of $167.

I checked with the front desk when I left this morning to see if they would have a room should I return tonight and was assured they would. When I got back at 8PM they said, "Sure we've got a room, but for $269. We've only got 8 rooms left". That's my definition of gouging.

They did call the Hilton down the same street 5 miles and found a room for $149, so I moved my butt 5 miles down the road and told the Hilton desk clerk my tale of woe. She said "I have a special rate for you." I thought that meant the $149 quoted by the Doubletree clerk, but no. Now, instead of the small single king room for $249 I am in a two room king suite with two TV's for.....................................................wait for it....................

$109!!!!I'll bet that Doubletree room is still empty. Sometimes justice prevails.That's my story and I'm stuck with it.

Smee

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

????

Well here's a new one:I was supposed to take a flight out of Houston Hobby airport at 6PM. Of course the Microscope Gods have too much time on their hands and made me miss my flight, so I had to fly out of George Bush Intergalectic Airport at 9PM. Not so bad. At least it's a non-stop. So I'm looking for my gate, which is listed as B84H. I found the B84 area which is not labeled A through H, but rather 1 through 5. I had to ask the stupid question: "Where is Gate H?", to which the answer was of course "Gate 1". Which led me to the subject line of ????? If gate 1 is A thru H, a third of the alphabet, what the heck is gate 5 for, # thru *?

Thursday, January 29, 2009

It's a laidback world they live in...

Up North - where the snow blows, the temps drop and the people act French. Oh, wait a minute, they are French, maybe that explains it. I stand at the baggage belt with 125 other suckers, thinking that the fact that it's running means something. After ten minutes a bag appears. Eyes light up and the mood brightens. For a second, until we all realize it belongs to no one in the crowd, followed a hundred yards of belt later by two more bags about 20 feet apart, also unclaimed.

Murmering in the crowd. The belt continues to run for another five minutes then stops. After 10 more minutes, murmering turns to muttering. People are now sitting on the belt - perhaps in hopes it will accidentally start and carry them to the scene of the crime. Just another wearying end of another wearying day in a long tiring week.

Good news! "Je lai tout la plue esque vous une "short delay" pour le deliverage du les baggage". We've already had two or three short delays. At what point does it constitute une "long delay"? At least the belt has started again. Spoke too soon. It stopped once more with alerts blaring. Now we're back to moving belt but no new bags. Could it be? I think I see my bag on the horizon. More news at 11!

Ok, it's 11:00. That wasn't my bag. Either that or the guy who picked it up now has the tools to go into the microscope repair business. Ah, here we go again. The hour plus wait is bound to pay off this time. Yea! Here it comes! Only an hour and 20 minutes! The bag looks like it's been to Iraq, but it's here.

It's a Laidback World They Live In

Up North - where the snow blows, the temps drop and the people act French. Oh, wait a minute, they are French, maybe that explains it. I stand at the baggage belt with 125 other suckers, thinking that the fact that it's running means something. After ten minutes a bag appears. Eyes light up and the mood brightens. For a second, until we all realize it belongs to no one in the crowd, followed a hundred yards of belt later by two more bags about 20 feet apart, also unclaimed. Murmering in the crowd. The belt continues to run for another five minutes then stops. After 10 more minutes murmering turns to muttering. People are now sitting on the belt - perhaps in hopes it will accidentally start and carry them to the scene of the crime.Just another wearying end of another wearying day in a long tiring week.Good news! "Je lai tout la plue esque vous une "short delay" pour le deliverage du les baggage". We've already had two or three short delays. At what point does it constitute une "long delay"? At least the belt has started again. Spoke too soon. It stopped once more with alerts blaring. Now we're back to moving belt but no new bags. Could it be? I think I see my bag on the horizon. More news at 11!Ok, it's 11:00. That wasn't my bag. Either that or the guy who picked it up now has the tools to go into the microscope repair business.Ah, here we go again. The hour plus wait is bound to pay off this time. Yea! Here it comes! Only an hour and 20 minutes! The bag looks like it's been to Iraq, but it's here.
Smee