Thursday, September 04, 2003
Chicago
I am currently in Chicago on a last-minute business trip. The rest of this entry was actually written his morning at the airport in Atlanta.
I have really got to stop listening to people who tell me to "get to the airport 2 hours before your flight". Every time I do this, I end up sitting around at the gate for over an hour with nothing to do.
In the company-issued carrying case for this company-issued laptop, I found two floppies labeled:
Netware v3.11 Help-1
Netware Print Services and Utilities-2
Both say "(c) 1983-1992 Novell Inc". They are recongnizably the same shade of red/orange as the big red books that used to grace every Novell shop. I have no idea what is on them, as this laptop lacks a floppy drive!
This laptop also has a joystick-in-the-middle-of-the-keyboard type mouse, which is very hard to adjust to after getting used to the touchpad on my own laptop.
The boarding pass that I printed out from the airlines website doesn't say which gate the flight departs from. And now that I am here at the airport, my flight number is actually posted up on signs at two different gates. Which is it? I asked an employee at a completely different gate (neither of "my" gates is manned this far ahead of departure time), and after fumbling around in the computer and battling with poor eyesight, they gave me a definate number.
Since this is just a two-day trip and I wanted to have no checked baggage and only one carry-on item to fool with, I have packed my clothes and other belongings in with the laptop. I will be going straight to work when I get to Chicago, with no chance to go the hotel and unpack until later. Boy am I going to look like a dork when people see me pull this laptop out of a bag also containing underwear.
The restaurants at Hartsfield, or at least the ones in this particular concourse, serve only breakfast at this hour. Airports, of all places, seem like they should operate on their own time where all food items are available 24 hours a day. I mean, they have people coming off of flights from timezones where it is *is* dinner time right now, and these folks have to be content with breakfast?
At least the airline (AirTran) provides free coffee.
Speaking of "Hartsfield", by the next time I use this airport it might well have been renamed "Maynard Jackson Memorial Airport" or something. Atlanta is crazy for renaming pretty important things after the recently deceased. So many of the major downtown streets have been renamed in the last decade that its probably doing a lot to drive sales of new maps. (Although I'm sure the great interstate-exit renumbering of 2001 didn't hurt.)
I agree that Atlanta, of all places, has to have a Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. And it was good that they renamed "Boulevard Drive" (yes, non-Atlantans, that's really what it was called) after Hosea Williams, because that was a really dumb name to begin with. Just plain Boulevard (yes, its a completely different road from the former Boulevard Drive) could use a renaming too. They could rename Boulevard, Monroe Drive, Piedmont Circle, Cheshire Bridge Road, and the northern part of Lenox Road to all the same name, since they are all continuous with each other in a loopy kind of way. (It would ruin the point of Lenox Square Mall, though. And also mess up that art-frame store on Monroe that has a giant Warhol Marilyn Monroe in the front window. And several Cheshire Bridge establishments use the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland as a mascot.) As far as I know, they haven't renamed any street with "Peachtree" in its name to anything not containing "Peachtree".
The muzak is playing a continuous medley which so far has included, among other things:
Can You Feel the Love Tonight?
The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music
Don't Cry for Me, Argentina
I can't Help Falling in Love with You
Hey Jude
I have really got to stop listening to people who tell me to "get to the airport 2 hours before your flight". Every time I do this, I end up sitting around at the gate for over an hour with nothing to do.
In the company-issued carrying case for this company-issued laptop, I found two floppies labeled:
Netware v3.11 Help-1
Netware Print Services and Utilities-2
Both say "(c) 1983-1992 Novell Inc". They are recongnizably the same shade of red/orange as the big red books that used to grace every Novell shop. I have no idea what is on them, as this laptop lacks a floppy drive!
This laptop also has a joystick-in-the-middle-of-the-keyboard type mouse, which is very hard to adjust to after getting used to the touchpad on my own laptop.
The boarding pass that I printed out from the airlines website doesn't say which gate the flight departs from. And now that I am here at the airport, my flight number is actually posted up on signs at two different gates. Which is it? I asked an employee at a completely different gate (neither of "my" gates is manned this far ahead of departure time), and after fumbling around in the computer and battling with poor eyesight, they gave me a definate number.
Since this is just a two-day trip and I wanted to have no checked baggage and only one carry-on item to fool with, I have packed my clothes and other belongings in with the laptop. I will be going straight to work when I get to Chicago, with no chance to go the hotel and unpack until later. Boy am I going to look like a dork when people see me pull this laptop out of a bag also containing underwear.
The restaurants at Hartsfield, or at least the ones in this particular concourse, serve only breakfast at this hour. Airports, of all places, seem like they should operate on their own time where all food items are available 24 hours a day. I mean, they have people coming off of flights from timezones where it is *is* dinner time right now, and these folks have to be content with breakfast?
At least the airline (AirTran) provides free coffee.
Speaking of "Hartsfield", by the next time I use this airport it might well have been renamed "Maynard Jackson Memorial Airport" or something. Atlanta is crazy for renaming pretty important things after the recently deceased. So many of the major downtown streets have been renamed in the last decade that its probably doing a lot to drive sales of new maps. (Although I'm sure the great interstate-exit renumbering of 2001 didn't hurt.)
I agree that Atlanta, of all places, has to have a Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. And it was good that they renamed "Boulevard Drive" (yes, non-Atlantans, that's really what it was called) after Hosea Williams, because that was a really dumb name to begin with. Just plain Boulevard (yes, its a completely different road from the former Boulevard Drive) could use a renaming too. They could rename Boulevard, Monroe Drive, Piedmont Circle, Cheshire Bridge Road, and the northern part of Lenox Road to all the same name, since they are all continuous with each other in a loopy kind of way. (It would ruin the point of Lenox Square Mall, though. And also mess up that art-frame store on Monroe that has a giant Warhol Marilyn Monroe in the front window. And several Cheshire Bridge establishments use the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland as a mascot.) As far as I know, they haven't renamed any street with "Peachtree" in its name to anything not containing "Peachtree".
The muzak is playing a continuous medley which so far has included, among other things:
Can You Feel the Love Tonight?
The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music
Don't Cry for Me, Argentina
I can't Help Falling in Love with You
Hey Jude
