I'll Be Quirky
Well here I am at The Big "I", the intersection of I-25 and I-40, in New Mexico's famed historic Albuwhatrwhat, to take the Nuclear Weapons Orientation Course at the Defense Nuclear Weapons School on Kirtland AFB. Two of my DTRA mates are with me, in a class of 25 or so. The first day was a lot like High School chemistry and physics, talking about neutrinos and gamma rays and ions and mass and Uranium 235 depletion and this formula and that, though we also looked at the history of weapon design, the physical and medical effects of a nuclear blast, and tons of short clips of test explosions from the 1940s and 50s.
I also ran into someone at the Food Court who was a 2Lt with me in my first space training course 14 years ago. So it's a leetle world.
Getting to this part of it was a bear, though, as my flight out of DC was delayed 45 minutes, so when I arrived in Denver, I had 7 minutes to make my next flight. And naturally I was in the second-to-last row, needing to wait for everyone to lazily take their sweet mile high time to pull their bags out of the overheads, futz with the handles, argue over who would be more polite and let who down the aisle first, etc. I walked briskly down the three hundred yards to my gate, where I saw the plane sitting at the end of the jetway.
"Are you going to Albuquerque?" said the United bitty.
"Yes."
She called down to the plane. "I have one more....really?...okay....*click*...They're closed."
"...."
"Sorry."
"...my other United plane from Washington just landed."
"I know, we've been calling down there."
"....so you knew it was delayed, knew it was here, and didn't hold the plane?"
"Sorry. We've booked you on the next flight."
*sigh*
The next flight was in thirty-five minutes, so I had no need to raise the roof.
Of course, that next flight turned out to be delayed an hour.
*sigh*
By the time I got the rental car and into my hotel room, it was quarter to one my time, after nearly twelve hours of traveling.
I better get to initiate a test thermonuclear blast of several megatonnage this week.
I also ran into someone at the Food Court who was a 2Lt with me in my first space training course 14 years ago. So it's a leetle world.
Getting to this part of it was a bear, though, as my flight out of DC was delayed 45 minutes, so when I arrived in Denver, I had 7 minutes to make my next flight. And naturally I was in the second-to-last row, needing to wait for everyone to lazily take their sweet mile high time to pull their bags out of the overheads, futz with the handles, argue over who would be more polite and let who down the aisle first, etc. I walked briskly down the three hundred yards to my gate, where I saw the plane sitting at the end of the jetway.
"Are you going to Albuquerque?" said the United bitty.
"Yes."
She called down to the plane. "I have one more....really?...okay....*click*...They're closed."
"...."
"Sorry."
"...my other United plane from Washington just landed."
"I know, we've been calling down there."
"....so you knew it was delayed, knew it was here, and didn't hold the plane?"
"Sorry. We've booked you on the next flight."
*sigh*
The next flight was in thirty-five minutes, so I had no need to raise the roof.
Of course, that next flight turned out to be delayed an hour.
*sigh*
By the time I got the rental car and into my hotel room, it was quarter to one my time, after nearly twelve hours of traveling.
I better get to initiate a test thermonuclear blast of several megatonnage this week.
posted by Dan at 12:37 AM
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