Saturday, November 18, 2006
Tonight I’m in Phoenix, AZ at the Scottsdale Marriott at McDowell Mountains. My dad is here for a business convention and I am quite happy to be his golf partner for the weekend. (Apparently the UCLA Bruins football team is staying at this hotel as well, which is odd because we’re not very close to ASU.)
Almost as soon as I arrived on the West coast I started racking up time in the air.
I would never really have considered myself a frequent flyer until about 2000. I was born in Rhode Island and went to elementary school and high school in Daytona Beach, Florida. In the summer I would usually fly — with my little sister — to see my dad in New England. Then I went to the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Aside from one major adventure to London (and Dublin) during my junior year, and frequent travel in the Southeast for crew (rowing) competitions, I wasn’t much of a traveler. I’d been to New Orleans and Colorado. I had been just about everywhere in the state of Florida, and once I got to college I started driving to New England instead of flying, so I got to see most of the East coast of the U.S. But then in late 2000 I moved to Los Angeles …
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Friday, December 22, 2000
My boss was concerned that my flight might be cancelled because of an airline pilot strike in Atlanta (or something like that). I used the handy Delta Air Lines flight-lookup thingamajiggy and was told that flight 1886 is a-ok. And I learned that I’ll be on a Lockheed TriStar L1011-1. My boss, who is also a pilot, tells me that this is a huge plane. A monstrous plane. A great, big plane. Plus, I get dinner and a movie! (I hope it’s not Bounce.)
Friday, December 22, 2000
Thursday, April 13, 2000
Now here’s when the vacation really started. I got up at 6:30 am and finished packing my stuff. Drank some coffee. Read the paper. I was showered, dressed to fly, refreshed, and on I-75 North to I-10 East by 8:30 am. Ack! What an unbearably boring drive. Hung over. Anticipating burning wreckage.
The stewardesses were all swearing like sailors.
A n y w a y … I was at the Jacksonville airport by 10:30 am, drove lost around the construction of new parking lots until I figured out where the place you’re supposed to leave your car was, and was on the plane by 11 am. I used priceline.com and got an eTicket from Delta. Now, I am a sucker for most eThings, but I have to tell you that this eTicket idea is really the best way to fly. If you’re not checking any bags onto the flight, you don’t have to stand in any lines or do any snookering. You just get to the airport and get on the plane. If I had remembered to bring my SkyMiles plastic card I even would have been able to use the little ATM-type terminal to get my boarding pass! Very cool.
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Wednesday, April 12, 2000
Officially this was the first day of my vacation. I was at work all day, so I don’t know if you can consider it a vacation day; but I had that peculiar sort of flick it attitude that one gets the day before one leaves for a vacation. It was about the best day at work I’ve had in months. When I got home I spent an inordinate amount of time reading blogs and drinking beer and not packing. See, I hate to fly. No, I mean I really hate to fly. I don’t actually mind the whole airborne thing. It’s just that whenever there is any turbulence I am scared to death that the pilot is getting as drunk as I am and has the same vague notion of how to fly a plane that I do. Whatever. So I was avoiding getting all my stuff packed and drinking so that, hopefully, I would be too tired on the plane to be worried and just get to sleep all the way to Hollywood. Oof. Bad idea. I managed to get done and in bed by 2:30 am on Thursday so at least I would be really tired as I fell from the sky to a fiery death.
Wednesday, April 12, 2000
Just so everyone remembers:
I’ll be flying from JAX at 1140 EST on 2000.04.13 and landing at LAX at 1545 PST. The other way is leaving LAX at 1152 PST on 2000.04.17 and landing in JAX at 1605 EST, with a one-hour layover in Dallas.
Jenny and I will be at the Less Than Jake concert at the Brick City Music Hall on 2000.04.22
I have two extra tickets if anyone wants to go see the best performers ever. They put on such a great show that I would go see them once a weekend if I could.
I finally got the two LTJ posters I ordered from Speed a few weeks ago.
ps: listening to Sheryl Crow and the Eagles and Blink 182 and Alanis and Less Than Jake on the changer to try and get Kurt out of my brain.
