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I was in Philly last week for work. Long days (generally ten or more), but Wednesday and Thursday I actually went out and did stuff after. Wednesday was listening to electronic music at a club close to South Street (Fluid). Fun, but no dancing as I require more than just one guy as cover for my inexperienced flailing. But the music was awesome. Thursday, I went to the Eulogy Belgian Bar to have a snack and some yummy beer. I chatted with some guys (I talked to people! That I didn't know! For well over an hour!) The french fries there (twice fried) are OMG good. Tasty endive soup as well. The beers were good too (one 12% and one 6%) but of course now I can't remember the names.
Friday night was me getting incredibly drunk with yankeehack. Interesting events of the evening:
I woke up the next morning and was just a touch nauseous. I did not vomit, but moving was somewhat disturbing and I felt constantly on edge. I decided I was not going to go to the Franklin Institute before leaving on my flight, but rather "eat, drink lots of water and hope to make it to the airport without vomiting." Weirdly I never really got a headache. I ate some mediocre Indian buffet (after very slowly drinking a very plain iced coffee at starbucks). Then, drove to the airport. Question: why is it that there are no gas stations close by to the airport so that I don't have to drive a couple miles away before returning the rental car? At the airport, I was still nauseous (standing in the security line was a trial -- vomiting in front of all the families with kids seemed like a really bad idea) and everything took me a long time. I then found a place to sit and read Unspeak. This book is actually pretty good, although I think the author's choice of the label "unspeak" for what is essentially just the use of language to miscommunicate is kind of lame. But the analyses of various propaganda phrases (or just the choices of words for certain things) were very good.
And now the flight story. Worse flying experience I've ever had -- but note it's hardly anything compared to some I've read. My flight plans were PHL -> ORD -> SJC (that's philadelphia, chicago, san jose). Normally I would not do a transfer in Chicago because that airport always seems to have problems with congestion and weather but when I booked it was significantly cheaper that way. At PHL, there were several flights to ORD in sequence (with hour or so gaps). All of them appeared to be very overbooked (as in huge lines waiting to talk to gate agent). I did not want to stay over, so I risked being bumped if not enough people volunteered. Thankfully I did not get bumped. When I got to ORD though, after I got some yummy Wolfgang Puck pizza (finally I had a real appetite!) I found that my SJC flight was also overbooked ... but they would take volunteers to re-book onto the SFO flight that landed a whole fifteen minutes later. I decided that Jared (who was going to be picking me up) would not mind having to drive to SFO (which is closer / easier IMO). So, I was rebooked onto that flight. Also, score: I got a better seat assignment (I had already unfruitfully asked about changing seats on the SJC flight). And here is one reason I hate the Chicago airport: Concourses B & C in Terminal 1 are separated by this long underground walkway (with some nifty lighting). But inevitably my flights always arrive at a gate in one concourse and then leave in the other. This is problematic if you have all of an hour or so to change planes and Chicago has endless problems with planes landing on time. For this trip, it turns out my landing gate was in Concourse C, the SJC flight was in B, then the rebooked SFO was in C. Grrr. Anyway, so I practically run over to Concourse C because I had 15 minutes before they start boarding. About 15 minutes after they should have started boarding, they announce there is some problem with the plane and the captain is hunting up a mechanic to have a look. Eventually we are told that our 8:15 flight will have a decision made on it by ten (actually hopefully we'll leave at ten). So, I decide to go back to Concourse C to go to the only remotely good bookstore and buy a book as I was about to finish mine (and my ipod & laptop batteries were both dead). I come back to the gate area, find a spot on the ground and lay myself out. And then we wait. Ten rolls around and no announcement. It is clear they are working on the engine of the 767. Almost at eleven we get told that we are now scheduled for departure at midnight. Not a decision will be made then, but that we are actually scheduled. Yes! However, around 11:30 or so, they announce that they found another plane and we are using that and that it is sitting at another gate. Okay, that's okay, but why did you make us think they were fixing this one? We all truck over there .. to find out this is a smaller plane. They start asking for volunteers and also start calling people up to re-issue boarding passes (767s have A-J seats in like 40+ rows ... 757s only A-F and I less than 40 rows). I am freaking out because my seat assignment was 37J. I had to get another boarding pass. They didn't end up calling my name until they were already boarding. They asked if I was willing to volunteer. NO! But, this is an example of how the airlines really fuck up -- they often don't communicate sufficiently with the passengers. In this case, many people didn't understood why one person was being called up and not another. If they had explained that the plane was smaller (which they had) and they would be going thru everyone whose seat assignments were no longer valid, people would not have been confused (they should have at least told people up front if their seat assignment was valid). As it was, people who weren't called assumed they still had valid passes. This poor Danish girl I was talking to I had thought had a valid one -- thirty-something A seemed a valid seat for a 757 to me. But as I was getting on, one lady in front of me turned out to have to be pulled out of the line because she didn't have a valid assignment. And then I noticed the Danish girl (she had been travelling 24 hours at that point) had been pulled aside too. :( But I couldn't feel too bad because (a) I had a seat, and (b) they were hustling us on board because the pilots were within ten minutes of being illegal (which would have delayed us all till the next flight in the morning). So that's pretty much it. Your flight leaving after 1AM means there is almost no problem with runway congestion at either end. The pilots hauled ass. The normal estimate for this flight should have put us in well after 3:30, but instead we got in at 3:15. I watched the movie and slept. So, I guess the rule is: don't change your flight to what you think is a less full one because it will have mechanical trouble and be delayed five hours. Or really, it was just unlucky. :)
Rest of weekend: eat stuff, watch movies, etc.
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