On getting to the airport
I often have nightmares about having trouble getting to my flight in San Francisco. I get on the BART going the wrong way, or miss my stop, or whatever.
But like I posted before, UCSF won't reimburse me for taking the BART anymore. Plus, the BART takes a while. So I've been taking taxis lately.
My day was super busy today (meetings) and I failed to book my taxi ahead of time. I also failed to find a free moment to check in. I summoned a taxi from my iPhone app for 'now' at 3:55. Normally I try to get picked up at 4:15. And went outside to wait. At 4:10 I called to ask what was up. At 4:17, a person finally answered and said it was on it's way. Then I got a message from the app saying the taxi had been dispatched and giving it's ID number. At 4:29, I got a call saying my taxi was arriving. I saw him coming and crossed the street to meet him. We waved at each other and he pointed to the side street back on the other side of the street. Then he pulled around and let some dude over there get in and told me that no, he wasn't the taxi I'd called. As he pulled away, I saw that he was the taxi I called. The ID number was all over the outside of the car.
Right about then, Patrick and Kathleen walked by an I told them the taxi I'd just waited 30 minutes for picked up someone else. Patrick offered to take me to the airport. Only to discover when we got to the parking garage that he'd parked 15 minute's walk away today. We tried calling another cab. And he walked to get his car since he didn't believe a cab would come in a reasonable amount of time. I had lost faith at this point that either would get me to the airport in time and called Alaska. Patrick showed up just as I was about to rebook to the 8:30pm flight, and we drove like mad to the airport. (Actually, we drove like we were in a little 2-seater sports car with the top down; which, as a matter of fact, we were.) At first I was going to just have him drop me at the BART since I wasn't checked in and we were clearly not going to make the 40 minutes before arrival check-in cutoff. But I was able to check in from my iPhone (had the thing less than 2 weeks and I already wonder how I lived without it). I'd tried checking in on it last night, but it had crashed rather than working. They do electronic boarding passes on your smart phone at a lot of airports these days, so I didn't need to stop to print one.
Arrived about 25 minutes before my flight and security took longer than normal at 15 minutes. But Alaska is the best airline ever, and on the other side of security the guy boarding the flight was waiting for me, "Are you Ms. Middendorf? You don't need to run; I'm boarding the flight. I just called you to ask how far away you were." Sure enough, he had. Probably while my phone was in the X-ray machine.
And by the time you read this, I'll be home with my husband for 10 whole days in a row. Or, if not home yet, maybe eating a leisurely dinner at that little Pho place near the Portland airport. But of course, I'll be working.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.