The streak lives on
I've still never missed a plane flight, but I came fairly close Thursday. Times are approximate.
12:05 Leave Novato for my 13:55 flight at OAK. This is somewhat optimistic timing, but you know how last minute shit piles up. Plus I figured even if it took me an hour to get there it wouldn't be the end of the world, since all I had was carry-on and I'd already printed my boarding passes (group A, baby!).
12:15 Hit stop-and-go from roughly Lucas Valley Rd. to the uphill going into San Rafael. Not a complete surprise given the rain, but I'm mildly concerned that there's this much traffic already at noon.
12:25 Crest the hill in San Rafael, merge onto 580.
12:40 Become lodged in fairly major backup in Berkeley.
12:45 Somewhere past University Ave. Making progress, but this is pretty bad. First inklings that maybe I should have tried to leave the house earlier. But I tell myself that as long as it's clear the rest of the way through I should still be ok.
12:50 Negotiate 580/880 connector, brief bit of clear sailing, and then immediately hit another solid backup. Shit.
13:00 Still inching through downtown Oakland (somewhere around Jackson, IIRC). Fog of self-delusion has mostly evaporated, and I confront the reality that I'm probably not going to make it.
13:22 *Still* in downtown Oakland, possibly around 23rd Ave. I call Southwest and tell them there is basically zero chance I'm going to make this flight (web status showed on-time departure, and OAK does not in general suffer from the rain/fog delays that plague SFO -- SFO has to restrict traffic in inclement conditions because their runways are closer together). Agent says there are a couple later flights that look full but I could try to go standby on. She can confirm me on the first flight Friday AM as a backup -- oops, no wait, she can't, because I'm traveling on an award ticket and the 23rd is a blackout date. So I'm reduced to hoping for standby (or a miracle). 2/3rds of the way through this conversation, we break into the clear -- we've finally passed the accident in the 2nd lane responsible for this latest stretch. I still haven't made it to Fruitvale though.
13:30 Pull into the PCA White lot on 98th (not a race thing, the other two PCA lots servicing OAK are Red and Blue). Parking is plentiful but the shuttle bus is nowhere to be seen.
13:33 Call Mom to tell her I'm missing my flight, film at 11.
13:37 Shuttle pulls in. I'm the only pickup, so we head right back out. I consider telling the driver my situation but have already resigned myself to missing the flight, so say nothing.
13:45 Arrive curbside at OAK, and armed with advance info from the SW web site, head for gate 14 in terminal 1. There's practically zero wait at security! But wait, I am stuck behind a family with two very young children who take forever to get shoes off, fold the stroller, corral the kids, etc. I take this in stoically since I have already resigned myself etc.
13:50 Pass through metal detector, reclaim luggage, stuff shoes back on. *Now* for some reason I decide to run. Sort of. Not OJ Simpson mad dash, but half walk/half run.
13:52 Gate 14 is at the end of the terminal (at least this isn't ORD or ATL) but as I rush up I see they haven't finished boarding yet! Major suckout! Call Mom, say I am going to make my flight after all, re-instate original pickup plan. I start chatting with the guy in front of me and he notices "Oh, you're in group A, they're just finishing up now." So brandishing my group A boarding pass, I make my way to the front and score a middle seat in row 5 or so. The guys on either side of me say the inbound flight arrived on time but took a long time to deplane.
14:00 People are still boarding. An overwhelming number are wearing UC clothing. A couple BYU logos. The guys on either side of me ask if I'm going to the game from which I infer what I need to know (I don't follow college sports).
14:20 We finally push back from the gate.
Periodically Aisle and Window talk over me, sometimes handing interesting magazine articles and/or crap in the SkyMall catalog for each other to look at. Look guys, I know we all try the pathetic middle seat gambit, but once I asked if the seat was available and took it, you *could* have moved to sit next to each other. Wankers.
A short ways out of LAS, Aisle goes into the bathroom and emerges 5 minutes later wearing a BYU t-shirt over his other shirt and having exchanged his original baseball hat for a BYU baseball hat. Window also chooses this moment to put on a BYU hat. I worry whether this coordinated activity presages a hijacking but we land without incident.
15:35 Arrive LAS. Answer call of nature in location/manner consistent with societal norms.
15:40 Stand in line at Pizzeria Uno. There are no immediately available pizzas, but the worker bee soon delivers two onto the heated shelf which are immediately snapped up by the two people in front of me. Two more pizzas soon come out of the oven which she transfers to the cutting board but they just sit there as she engages in content-free conversation with a passing security guard. Twice she makes false starts at cutting up the pizzas, but each time she extends the vapid bantering and retracts her hands as if she is unable to operate them while her big fat lips are flapping.
15:42 They finish malingering and she slides the fresh pizzas onto the display. I say loudly "Oh, you're done talking?" (she doesn't hear me or pretends not to), grab one and head for the cashier.
15:43 Arrive next door at gate C19 for flight to BWI. Consume pizza.
15:50 Commence boarding. Take seat between another Aisle/Window team. At least this time Window sleeps most of the way through the flight. Flight attendant delivers safety instruction spiel studded with lame attempts at humor, draws courtesy laugh for the first one and roaring silence for the remainder. Look, SW attendants, the schtick was mildly amusing years ago but now everyone seems to do it out of a misplaced sense of obligation, and the comedy suffers accordingly. Give it a fucking rest.
17:28 PST/20:28 EST I move my watch 3 hours ahead.
22:30 I finish blowing through the book I started on the OAK-LAS leg (Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, an Xmas gift from captaino -- not bad, certainly more readable than Monstrous Regiment which I abandoned after ~2 chapters, but still not as good as some of his earlier stuff). Crap, now what I am going to read on the flight back? I read some more of System of the World which is the only other reading material I have on me, but I'm almost through with that too, and will probably finish it just reading before bed these next few days.
Near Baltimore the pilot comes on to tell us the current weather info. Someone behind me muses out loud why they bother telling us the wind speed and direction, since the one person on the plane who *really* needs to know is the guy who just told us.
23:25 [as reported to me later by Dad, who is picking me up] BWI arrivals screen indicates our flight is landing.
23:40 Our flight actually touches down. FA delivers normal, unadulterated post-landing spiel, then launches into rendition of some song about someone taking or following someone else home, unfettered by traditional notions of key or rhythm. I am unable to keep from groaning audibly, but (barely) restrain myself from saying "Stick to the flight attendant thing" on my way out.
12:05 Leave Novato for my 13:55 flight at OAK. This is somewhat optimistic timing, but you know how last minute shit piles up. Plus I figured even if it took me an hour to get there it wouldn't be the end of the world, since all I had was carry-on and I'd already printed my boarding passes (group A, baby!).
12:15 Hit stop-and-go from roughly Lucas Valley Rd. to the uphill going into San Rafael. Not a complete surprise given the rain, but I'm mildly concerned that there's this much traffic already at noon.
12:25 Crest the hill in San Rafael, merge onto 580.
12:40 Become lodged in fairly major backup in Berkeley.
12:45 Somewhere past University Ave. Making progress, but this is pretty bad. First inklings that maybe I should have tried to leave the house earlier. But I tell myself that as long as it's clear the rest of the way through I should still be ok.
12:50 Negotiate 580/880 connector, brief bit of clear sailing, and then immediately hit another solid backup. Shit.
13:00 Still inching through downtown Oakland (somewhere around Jackson, IIRC). Fog of self-delusion has mostly evaporated, and I confront the reality that I'm probably not going to make it.
13:22 *Still* in downtown Oakland, possibly around 23rd Ave. I call Southwest and tell them there is basically zero chance I'm going to make this flight (web status showed on-time departure, and OAK does not in general suffer from the rain/fog delays that plague SFO -- SFO has to restrict traffic in inclement conditions because their runways are closer together). Agent says there are a couple later flights that look full but I could try to go standby on. She can confirm me on the first flight Friday AM as a backup -- oops, no wait, she can't, because I'm traveling on an award ticket and the 23rd is a blackout date. So I'm reduced to hoping for standby (or a miracle). 2/3rds of the way through this conversation, we break into the clear -- we've finally passed the accident in the 2nd lane responsible for this latest stretch. I still haven't made it to Fruitvale though.
13:30 Pull into the PCA White lot on 98th (not a race thing, the other two PCA lots servicing OAK are Red and Blue). Parking is plentiful but the shuttle bus is nowhere to be seen.
13:33 Call Mom to tell her I'm missing my flight, film at 11.
13:37 Shuttle pulls in. I'm the only pickup, so we head right back out. I consider telling the driver my situation but have already resigned myself to missing the flight, so say nothing.
13:45 Arrive curbside at OAK, and armed with advance info from the SW web site, head for gate 14 in terminal 1. There's practically zero wait at security! But wait, I am stuck behind a family with two very young children who take forever to get shoes off, fold the stroller, corral the kids, etc. I take this in stoically since I have already resigned myself etc.
13:50 Pass through metal detector, reclaim luggage, stuff shoes back on. *Now* for some reason I decide to run. Sort of. Not OJ Simpson mad dash, but half walk/half run.
13:52 Gate 14 is at the end of the terminal (at least this isn't ORD or ATL) but as I rush up I see they haven't finished boarding yet! Major suckout! Call Mom, say I am going to make my flight after all, re-instate original pickup plan. I start chatting with the guy in front of me and he notices "Oh, you're in group A, they're just finishing up now." So brandishing my group A boarding pass, I make my way to the front and score a middle seat in row 5 or so. The guys on either side of me say the inbound flight arrived on time but took a long time to deplane.
14:00 People are still boarding. An overwhelming number are wearing UC clothing. A couple BYU logos. The guys on either side of me ask if I'm going to the game from which I infer what I need to know (I don't follow college sports).
14:20 We finally push back from the gate.
Periodically Aisle and Window talk over me, sometimes handing interesting magazine articles and/or crap in the SkyMall catalog for each other to look at. Look guys, I know we all try the pathetic middle seat gambit, but once I asked if the seat was available and took it, you *could* have moved to sit next to each other. Wankers.
A short ways out of LAS, Aisle goes into the bathroom and emerges 5 minutes later wearing a BYU t-shirt over his other shirt and having exchanged his original baseball hat for a BYU baseball hat. Window also chooses this moment to put on a BYU hat. I worry whether this coordinated activity presages a hijacking but we land without incident.
15:35 Arrive LAS. Answer call of nature in location/manner consistent with societal norms.
15:40 Stand in line at Pizzeria Uno. There are no immediately available pizzas, but the worker bee soon delivers two onto the heated shelf which are immediately snapped up by the two people in front of me. Two more pizzas soon come out of the oven which she transfers to the cutting board but they just sit there as she engages in content-free conversation with a passing security guard. Twice she makes false starts at cutting up the pizzas, but each time she extends the vapid bantering and retracts her hands as if she is unable to operate them while her big fat lips are flapping.
15:42 They finish malingering and she slides the fresh pizzas onto the display. I say loudly "Oh, you're done talking?" (she doesn't hear me or pretends not to), grab one and head for the cashier.
15:43 Arrive next door at gate C19 for flight to BWI. Consume pizza.
15:50 Commence boarding. Take seat between another Aisle/Window team. At least this time Window sleeps most of the way through the flight. Flight attendant delivers safety instruction spiel studded with lame attempts at humor, draws courtesy laugh for the first one and roaring silence for the remainder. Look, SW attendants, the schtick was mildly amusing years ago but now everyone seems to do it out of a misplaced sense of obligation, and the comedy suffers accordingly. Give it a fucking rest.
17:28 PST/20:28 EST I move my watch 3 hours ahead.
22:30 I finish blowing through the book I started on the OAK-LAS leg (Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, an Xmas gift from captaino -- not bad, certainly more readable than Monstrous Regiment which I abandoned after ~2 chapters, but still not as good as some of his earlier stuff). Crap, now what I am going to read on the flight back? I read some more of System of the World which is the only other reading material I have on me, but I'm almost through with that too, and will probably finish it just reading before bed these next few days.
Near Baltimore the pilot comes on to tell us the current weather info. Someone behind me muses out loud why they bother telling us the wind speed and direction, since the one person on the plane who *really* needs to know is the guy who just told us.
23:25 [as reported to me later by Dad, who is picking me up] BWI arrivals screen indicates our flight is landing.
23:40 Our flight actually touches down. FA delivers normal, unadulterated post-landing spiel, then launches into rendition of some song about someone taking or following someone else home, unfettered by traditional notions of key or rhythm. I am unable to keep from groaning audibly, but (barely) restrain myself from saying "Stick to the flight attendant thing" on my way out.