2 posts tagged “travel”
I'm in the San Jose airport, browsing the Internets on an overpriced, unsecure network. I'm situated just next to the Starbucks, which is at the entrance of a sad little nook they've christened 'Bits and Bytes Internet Cafe". This location affords me the unique opportunity of seeing the disillusioned face of each and every person who peers inside hoping to find an empty seat. It's one of those nights where there isn't one to be had in the entire airport.
My flight, as per usual, has been delayed two hours. Reason: we don't have a pilot. You know, not to be a whiner, but if you only have to worry about one thing -- getting people safely to and from places, on-time -- could you try to be somewhat competent at it? Build in some back-ups and error recovery? A pilot gets sick and my entire terminal breaks? It just makes no sense. Don't even get me started on the last incident, where a few clouds brought San Francisco International to its knees.
This delay means several things, all of them unpleasant:
- I have lots of nasty time to kill in this suicidally boring airport (hence the overpriced Wifi.)
- I have to listen to the loud-obnoxious-thinks-he's-funny guy make not-all-that-witty jokes about the Dallas Cowboys. I can't see him, but I'm willing to bet that he hasn't seen his toes in years and is therefore in no position to judge any athletes of any kind. His amp definitely goes all the way up to 11, and he hasn't moved off it once in the past hour.
- I'm getting into Seattle @ 11pm.
- I'm getting to sleep @ 1am.
- I'm going to be overtired and grumpy through my 8 hours of meetings tomorrow, which conveniently start at 8am. Who starts at 8am anymore? This is friggin' tech, people.
I can say without any reservations that I haven't had a single pleasant travel experience this year. In 2008, I'm not leaving the state.
#4360 I tried to change my name on my one of frequent flier accounts today. Except, of course, no one wants to call it "frequent flier" anymore. It, like everything, has to be all sexy and branded now (iFly?), so you get to refer to it by some awful, bovine program name instead.
#4361 The "iFly which shall not be named" insists that I send a photocopy of my marriage certificate in order to change my name on my frequent flier account. Now... at least they don't want an "official" copy (like everyone else seems to), but WTF? Is a faxed photo of, I dunno, my state-issued driver's license not good enough? I mean... how many MariaElainas can there be? What are the odds that this is some kind of fraud? And what, pray tell, might the less-than-honorable intentions be that they feel they need to nip in the bud? In what highly destructive flight-related mischief might I indulge? Book some tickets and/or earn some miles using my very clever new secret identity? Or perhaps sneak into the first class restroom posing as someone else? I'm sure there's some perfectly craptastic compliance reason for this requirement, but I still hate their faces.
*hisses*
