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What a trip...
Oct. 27th, 2003 07:33 amMore often than not, I find any kind of travel beyond the usual morning commute to be an adventure. Yesterday was no exception.
California wildfires apparently muddled the air traffic system far beyond the borders of the Left Coast. In Houston, America West was announcing that there would be no West Coast connections leaving Phoenix because of the fire. In the end, some people got up out of their seats and deplaned, preferring, I guess, to stay in Houston for an extra day (with no penalties imposed by the airline) rather than face the unknowns of being stuck in Phoenix (with the airline not responsible for providing food and lodging, apparently).
The tactic is probably a good idea for other reasons, too. I used to never lock my luggage, until I had an expensive leather jacket liberated from my bag in the course of an overnight stay in Denver, said stay being the result of a missed connection. On the theory that your casual thief will skip your bag if it's secured and go on to rob a bag that's not, I've since make it a habit to place a plastic tie on my bag before checking it in.
The TSA, apparently, is now making it a habit to remove said tie, and to not replace it after rummaging through your stuff (though they did pack an informative leaflet inside my bag about why they're doing what they're doing). In any event, this raises some fairly prickly questions about what might happen and who is responsible in case items are removed somewhere along the line by persons unknown, after the TSA basically leaves the barn door open soon after check-in.
Actually, there's no prickliness involved. I seem to recall that federal anti-terrorism legislation relieves just about everyone of liability in pursuit of the illusion of safety at airports.
Interestingly, once we got to Phoenix, most of the trouble in California had cleared up, and connections were moving on out to the coast. I didn't think this affected me, but in the end, it did. The equipment for the connection to Durango was apparently coming from Mexico, and it arrived about an hour late. This gave me time to grab a bite at the Phoenix airport, which will - in about 10 days - be seeing a lot of translators coming through, on their way to the conference.
The one major change I saw at the Phoenix airport was the replacement of the Philly cheese steak place in the B1-B16 concourse with a Burger King. I can well understand why the old place went under: the food sucked and the service made the food look good by comparison. Some small part of it, I think, had to do with a nearly complete lack of correspondence between what the photos displayed and what you got, which is interesting when you consider that the food photos in nearly every fast food joint (for example, Burger King) fail to mesh with the reality of what you are served.
I came to the conclusion that we're so used to eating burgers, that we really don't pay attention to the displayed photos at places like McDs and Burger King, but we do pay attention when what we are buying is something new, like a "Philly cheese steak sandwich."
Since my ticket was a one-way, I fully expected to get the "SSSSpecial" treatment when going through security, and was not disappointed. The crew that did the job this time was not as friendly as the previous bunch (and friendliness matters, I think, in such cases). While I have developed a somewhat philosophical attitude toward this inconvenience, I nonetheless overheard a fellow passenger who had been similarly screened talking on her cell phone and she was not a happy camper, describing to her interlocutor the indignities she suffered and swearing never to fly again unless absolutely necessary. With enough people like this, you can be sure the airline industry will be going to Congress on a regular basis with its hands out, complaining that business is bad, and asking for the big-buck alms that small operators - like owners of packaging and mailing shops - would be institutionalized for if they seriously thought to make similar requests.
The flight into Durango got in about an hour late, in the end. In a pleasant departure from previous experiences, the luggage was out in a reasonable time, and Drew got me home by 10:30 or so. I must admit to having had trouble sleeping last night... it felt like I never really fell into a deep sleep, so I don't know how alert I'm going to be today.
Anyway, alert or no, it's time to get ready for the day.
Cheers...
California wildfires apparently muddled the air traffic system far beyond the borders of the Left Coast. In Houston, America West was announcing that there would be no West Coast connections leaving Phoenix because of the fire. In the end, some people got up out of their seats and deplaned, preferring, I guess, to stay in Houston for an extra day (with no penalties imposed by the airline) rather than face the unknowns of being stuck in Phoenix (with the airline not responsible for providing food and lodging, apparently).
The tactic is probably a good idea for other reasons, too. I used to never lock my luggage, until I had an expensive leather jacket liberated from my bag in the course of an overnight stay in Denver, said stay being the result of a missed connection. On the theory that your casual thief will skip your bag if it's secured and go on to rob a bag that's not, I've since make it a habit to place a plastic tie on my bag before checking it in.
The TSA, apparently, is now making it a habit to remove said tie, and to not replace it after rummaging through your stuff (though they did pack an informative leaflet inside my bag about why they're doing what they're doing). In any event, this raises some fairly prickly questions about what might happen and who is responsible in case items are removed somewhere along the line by persons unknown, after the TSA basically leaves the barn door open soon after check-in.
Actually, there's no prickliness involved. I seem to recall that federal anti-terrorism legislation relieves just about everyone of liability in pursuit of the illusion of safety at airports.
Interestingly, once we got to Phoenix, most of the trouble in California had cleared up, and connections were moving on out to the coast. I didn't think this affected me, but in the end, it did. The equipment for the connection to Durango was apparently coming from Mexico, and it arrived about an hour late. This gave me time to grab a bite at the Phoenix airport, which will - in about 10 days - be seeing a lot of translators coming through, on their way to the conference.
The one major change I saw at the Phoenix airport was the replacement of the Philly cheese steak place in the B1-B16 concourse with a Burger King. I can well understand why the old place went under: the food sucked and the service made the food look good by comparison. Some small part of it, I think, had to do with a nearly complete lack of correspondence between what the photos displayed and what you got, which is interesting when you consider that the food photos in nearly every fast food joint (for example, Burger King) fail to mesh with the reality of what you are served.
I came to the conclusion that we're so used to eating burgers, that we really don't pay attention to the displayed photos at places like McDs and Burger King, but we do pay attention when what we are buying is something new, like a "Philly cheese steak sandwich."
Since my ticket was a one-way, I fully expected to get the "SSSSpecial" treatment when going through security, and was not disappointed. The crew that did the job this time was not as friendly as the previous bunch (and friendliness matters, I think, in such cases). While I have developed a somewhat philosophical attitude toward this inconvenience, I nonetheless overheard a fellow passenger who had been similarly screened talking on her cell phone and she was not a happy camper, describing to her interlocutor the indignities she suffered and swearing never to fly again unless absolutely necessary. With enough people like this, you can be sure the airline industry will be going to Congress on a regular basis with its hands out, complaining that business is bad, and asking for the big-buck alms that small operators - like owners of packaging and mailing shops - would be institutionalized for if they seriously thought to make similar requests.
The flight into Durango got in about an hour late, in the end. In a pleasant departure from previous experiences, the luggage was out in a reasonable time, and Drew got me home by 10:30 or so. I must admit to having had trouble sleeping last night... it felt like I never really fell into a deep sleep, so I don't know how alert I'm going to be today.
Anyway, alert or no, it's time to get ready for the day.
Cheers...
