Flying

I finished up the installation in the Kansas office.

Diagram of setup in KS office.

Everything was working fine. I set Shane's cell phone alarm for 3:20 AM. Except I didn't. I set the alarm's time and I thought I enabled the alarm but apparently I didn't. Fortunately I went to sleep feeling tense. This was fortunate and unfortunate. I had a very weird dream and Shane said that I was screeching and hollering and banging about during the course of the dream. Fortunate because I sat bolt upright in bed at 12 AM, 1 AM, 2 AM, and 3:55 AM. I was slightly more than slightly rushed in getting ready, but I managed and Grandpa got me to the airport in record time where I went standby (turns out that I was confirmed on the 7 something flight) on the 6:05 AM flight to Chicago. In Chicago I hopped on the flight to Washington Dulles. At Dulles I called Dad on his cell phone and he told me to call Myron right away cause their system was down. I called him and talked to him for 1.5-2 hours trying to get it working. In the meantime Dad had picked me up and he drove to a suitcase repair place to.. you guessed it, get a suitcase repaired. By the time we were getting ready to leave the area, it was apparent that the problem was not going to be able to be fixed via the phone. So Dad suggested that I fly right back out. So I did.

In Dulles airport as I was waiting to board my fight to Atlanta, I was sitting next to a guy who suddenly got up and gave a lady a hug and a kiss. Turns out from their conversation that they were old high school buddies who hadn't seen each other in 5 years. The guy, since he had seen her last, had married and had two kids. (He also wasn't wearing a ring because he was allergic to gold. He gets a rash.) They were comparing seat numbers and the guy had a seat right next to mine so I offered to trade with the lady so they could sit together and catch up.

As we were just about to land in Atlanta, the Captain all of a sudden applied full power and took off again. After we were back in the air, the Flight Attendant (FA) said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have successfully completed our takeoff! Since we are touring Atlanta any way, off to your left you will see downtown Atlanta and the Georgia Dome." She later informed us that another plane that had just landed had failed to exit the runway quickly enough, and so as to avoid anything spectacular and to keep us firmly out of the evening news, we needed to do the go-around.

When I got to my departure gate for Wichita I sat down. They soon asked for volunteers to be bumped for the flight to NW Arkansas. After repeated entreaties and enticements ("the vouchers will be handy with the holiday season coming") they got one volunteer. Soon they had all but one passenger boarded and he wasn't in the gate area. At this point it was still about 15 minutes before flight time. The plane just went ahead and left. Five minutes later I hear a loud, "S***!! That's a bunch of b***s***!!!" I looked over and saw a very perturbed individual furiously waving his ticket at the 5 agents behind the counter. "I was here 10 minutes before Flight time! I came from my other flight as fast as I could! I have to get on that plane! I am going to see my terminally ill brother! Who's the d*** boss around here?!?" I think Delta pretty much took advantage of him, but I would have had a bit more sympathy for him if he would have responded in a slightly more ideal fashion.

At this point everyone in the gate area was listening and grinning at the cussing man. I was sitting next to 2 guys and one said to the other, "That's how we're going to be in a couple of hours." We exchanged our stories. They worked for La-z-boy Their first flight to Atlanta was delayed for four hours and their flight to NW Arkansas had already been delayed for an hour; "And all this for a two hour meeting!!" They were, however, quite good humored about it, and seemed eager to get yet more good humored once they reached their destination and found a bar.

In Atlanta they were renovating; the ceiling tiles were out and the duct work and wiring snake around in plain view. One energetic young man (approx. 3 yrs.) was convinced that there were dead people up there, because the duct work wrapped in shiny insulation looked like mummies. He defeated them and saved the airport with a few skillful karate kicks and punches. He then held up his arms, flexed his muscles and kissed his biceps. Later he was told by his mommy that if he was good, he would get a quarter. He said, “Do I have to sit still again for a long time?” She said, “Yes, Honey....” He waved his hand and said, “Bye, bye.... bye, bye.... bye, bye quarter.” Pretty witty for a little guy like that!

I finally boarded my flight for Wichita after a three hour layover. When I got to my seat, 3A, there was a lady sitting in it. She seemed to be sitting with a friend, so I asked what her seat was so that I could sit in it and she could stay in her seat. She responded with a stream of Holland Dutch to the guy across the aisle from me. I assumed they were traveling together and he knew English and she didn't. So I turned to receive something more intelligible from him. No luck. He started jabbering at me in Dutch. I said something about seeing his ticket and he knew right what I meant. He pulled out a handful of seat assignment stubs (which were all in rows 16 & 17), including his last flight from Holland. At that point I decided that I wasn't the person to figure this thing out. I went up to the FA and explained the situation. She asked for my seat assignment stub. I rummaged around in my pockets for about 2-3 minutes pulling out all sorts of junk old receipts, seat assignments, scribbled notes, and a comb. I finally found it and handed it to the amused FA. She straightened things out and I got my seat.

The FA's were giggling away up in the galley about something. One started to do the safety demonstration while the other narrated. The narrator suddenly gasped and stopped talking. I looked up and she was shaking uncontrollably with silent giggles. The demo FA must have heard her cause she put her head down behind her safety instruction card and started to shake with silent laughter as well. A couple of times the narrator FA put the phone to her mouth to try to talk, and each time she put it down again. By this time the whole plane was roaring which didn't help matters any. After about 30-50 seconds, the demo FA took the phone and said, "There will be a slight delay in safety announcements... it's been a long day."