Back to it again

After 3 weeks at home without an assignment, I am finally back at it again, slinging luggage around, hassling  over rental cars, flights and hotels as well as the general airport check in confusion.

At New Orleans airport I arrived to see over a hundred flyers being serviced by 3 or 4 gate agents rendering a lot of people angry over the fear they would miss a flight.

Most were tourists who rarely flew and a couple still drunk and probably had not slept.  Many were confused over the check in process and became somewhat vocal about it. A couple of the gate agents took the bait and got caught up in the exchange.

Once through the bag check, I sauntered through the pre-check lane garnering a couple of curious glances from those who perhaps wondering how I managed to get through the lines so quickly. 

Anyway, I enjoyed my time at home but it's time to get back to work.

Hello Enumclaw  (Seattle ).

Michigan....once again

I Received a call Friday morning from the home office, beckoning me too Ludington, Michigan. Of course, they wanted me there now. There were no flights out of Baton Rouge so I booked a 5:20 pm out of NOLA and enlisted the aid and truck of my brother-in-law for the trip to the airport.

It never entered my mind to check road conditions and 10 miles south, we found the interstate shut down due to flooding from Sorrento to LaPlace. I called DOTD asking about closures and the nice lady told me that I-10 and even I-55 was closed so we hooked back to Baton Rouge then took I-12 toward Covington & the Causeway. I found out too late that 55 from Hammond to LaPlace was not closed.

After rerouting back on I-12, we ran into congestion such as you could not imagine on an interstate. Realizing I would not make my flight, I called in and changed it to a 6 a.m. Saturday morning out of New Orleans.

Four hours later, we arrived at the airport

To shorten this tale, lights were still out near the airport rendering all the hotels nearby out of business, so I elected to camp out in the world's most uncomfortable seating currently available in US airports to wait for the sun to rise and an airport coffee shop to open.  The stores and shops close early at MSY so I managed to grab an overpriced shrimp poboy before everything shut down.

It seemed like every 10 minutes some maintenance guy would roll a cart through making lots of noise or one of the cops would sail through on a 3 wheeled scooter and key his little Micky-Mouse siren, so there wasn't much sleeping going on. 

I may be getting too old for this nonsense.

Shirtless

The TSA agent, in  a boring monotone voice, announced loudly, "Removeallcomptuters,liquids,gels,fromyourbags ....everythingfromyourpockets  ....removeshoesbelt .....anythingfromyourpockets...."

I was in line awaiting my turn in the Baton Rouge airport for my usual partial pat-down.   I stood patiently behind a group of New Orleans Jazzfest band members who had, for some reason, chosen Baton Rouge as their airport.  After removing everything from my pockets, the computer from my bag and my boots placed in the bin, I noticed one of the band members had started removing clothing.  There was a miniature huddle with a couple of his buddies, so he stopped with removing only  the shirt.

Standing at the entrance of the complicated scanning booth, he waited until a supervisor, the agent had called, arrived and told him gruffly, "You can't go through here without a shirt!"  With a little hesitation and having his point foiled, the guy slowly put his shirt back on while I and a dozen others in line waited.  The agent motioned him through the scanning device.  He managed to not do it right a couple of time before getting the OK from the scanner.

Once the line was moving again, I proceeded to have my junk scanned and got a partial pat-down probably because I was laughing so hard at how one guy pawned the TSA.

Curmudgeon

Main Entry: cur·mud·geon
(click the speaker button)
Function: noun
Pronunciation: (")k&r-'m&-j&n
: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man
- cur·mud·geon·li·ness /-le-n&s/ noun
- cur·mud·geon·ly /-le/ adjective

I'm blaming it on the airline industry this week. Yep, I'm becoming a curmudgeon of sorts. Now there are those of which I have a familiar relationship would beg to contest the word "becoming" but let's not be nit-picky.

In the middle of last week I found it necessary to leave Huntsville, Alabammer and head for the sunny beaches of Saint Augustine, Florida. After scrambling out of bed very early Wednesday morning, I did my last minute packing, loaded up the bags and headed out just a short distance to the airport. Realizing I needed to turn the rental car in with a full tank, I stopped off at an all night gas station where the pumps refused pump more than 15 cents worth in a minute. Realizing it would be noon before it would fill, I blasted off in search for another. After a quick fill up at the Chevron station I hit the road in a light rain and after missing my turn I realized my timing might be in jeopardy. After a 5 minute detour I got back to the right road and made it into the rental car lane, turned the car in and dragged my two bags to the check-in counter.

The man at the counter eased my fears about being late by good naturedly telling me that the 7 AM flight now would be the 9:15 AM flight and that since my Delta Connection in Jacksonville would be very long gone by the time I got there, I would have the opportunity of enjoying the ambiance of Atlanta's accommodations complete with airline employees who would be coming to work that day with a very nasty attitude that would surpass the one I was quickly gaining. Hmmmph!

Mr. Friendly at the counter had already used the word "weather" a lot and so other people in the airport were calling loudly on the cell phones and using "weather" in their conversations as well. It seems the crew was late arriving the night before and they would need rack time to fulfill layover requirements. With expectations already hardening in my head, I entertained myself on the internet by informing several people (who could probably have cared less) that I would not be arriving in Jacksonville at 11:30 AM but would be arriving at 1:50 PM instead....due to "weather". Oh well, not so bad, I kept telling myself. I could be in St Augustine by 3:30. Oh, I had forgotten I was flying on Delta. My bad.

The 9:15 flight became the 9:30 flight and as we sat in the cabin waiting to move, then the WWA-Waitress With Attitude (flight attendant) informed us that it was federal holy law that we must abide by airline employee's instructions and that we should not disable the smoke detector in the privy. She also used the word "weather" several times. Many were not impressed.

Eventually arriving in ATL, I grabbed some lunch at a Chinese place run by a bunch of Russians, sat on a stool facing a wall and listened to lots of folk talk loudly on their phones about the "weather". "Weather" had caught on pretty well and "weather" was now the blame of everything small and great from a bad hair day to splinters in chop-sticks.

The waiting area for my flight was overcrowded because of the "weather" and Delta was almost giddy for having "weather' to blame for all their maladies. The scapegoat for being late every other delay is up for speculation. I sat for quite a while afraid to give up the seat I had waited several minutes for but eventually got up when they announced new departure times twice. I went to the shops and looked at overpriced things I would never really buy and took my chances in the aisles nearly being run over by those carts hustling pre-teens and old(er) people with walkers to different gates.

Eventually Jacksonville became a reality but by then, due to "weather", I now found myself in traffic headed for St Augustine that would rival any day on the I-10 in Baton Rouge. At 6 PM, I checked myself into the hotel, ate at the IHOP and awaited more adventures in travel.