Airport Geometry
Well, First Class isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm sure it's something special on a transoceanic flight with fold-down seats and eight course meals and geisha girls picking the sock lint out from between your toes, but the hour and forty minutes between Albuquerque and Los Angeles was nothing to write a blog about. A plastic cup filled with free chardonnay does not make up for the fact that I was headed in the opposite direction of home.
I had a three and a half layover at LAX, and wandered around aimfully, trying to find a decent place to eat, though the cool sports bar didn't show itself (did anyone ever think of putting up SIGNS maybe? A little fork and knife next to the arrow by "Terminals 68-82") until after I'd already had a lame sandwich in some diner for $14.
With epochs of time to kill, I plugged my computer into the nearest out-of-the-way outlet I could find, down some stairs and around the loop from my departure gate (no free wireless here, no thank you, just some doingo boingo crap you can buy for $7.95 for the day). We were supposed to board around 10, but I heard an announcement shortly before that stating the plane in from Dulles was late, and then they'd have to do some routine maintenance, so those traveling on the flight back to Dulles wouldn't be boarding until around 10:45 at the earliest. So I kept Richarding around on my laptop until around 10:40, zipped everything up, and headed to Gate 69A at the end of the terminal in a little cul de sac.
Only 69A was nowhere to be found.
There was the ticket counter, right between 68 A & B and 69B, and a line of people to the right heading out gate 68B for Chicago, and on the other side just the 68s. Just then I heard a "final boarding call announcement" that requested my presence along with a few other names. !? I hurriedly looked back and forth, then finally asked someone in a United shirt helping out some pilots where the hell Gate 69A was. He barely looked at me, waved over his shoulder, and said, "Down at the end."
I looked in that general direction, then returned to him with what I thought was pretty good logic:
"We're in a CIRCLE. The end of WHAT.?"
"The end! The end! Down there!" Waving, shooing, being a dick.
I finally got on my tiptoes and looked over the Chicago-bounders and saw the tip of a gate down a ramp, then quickly darted down there with shorter guy behind me, obviously taking advantage of my height, standing on the shoulders of giants, the old saying goes. "You going to Dulles?" the ticket-ripper (how do you get that job? Graduate School?) asked.
You think?
We walked down the gangplank, and another Uniteder looked at us and said, dramatically, "Oh." before turning back to the plane, the door of which was already closed. She tapped at the little window and put up two fingers. The door hissed back open, and I got to my seat.
Which was occupied by someone who thought I'd missed the flight.
Thanks to LAX's PA system sucking rocks (I deduced the one announcement I did hear was for a later Dulles flight), outlet plugs being too spread out, and magical hidden gates in a circle with ends, I very nearly did.
I tried to sleep. I really did. Had there been a better movie on, I would have just watched it and stayed up. But I'd never heard of "Neverwas" starring Ian MacKellan as a fruit loop who thinks he's a king in a children's story, so I tried my Dan-dest to get as horizontally sideways as I could. Bright movie lights, soda carts being pushed, overhead compartment noise, and an aching back conspired against me. The taxi pulled into my driveway around 7:30am local, when I'd been up for 23 hours Mountain Daylight Time. Dogs greeted me with squeeks, wife greeted me with soft hug up a step, and I pulled off my clothes and fell into bed, though I was so painfully tired, sleep didn't come for another hour and a half. I slept until noon in order to try to retain some semblance of a normal day, though there's nothing ordinary about putting up Christmas Lights for the first time in two years.
I had a three and a half layover at LAX, and wandered around aimfully, trying to find a decent place to eat, though the cool sports bar didn't show itself (did anyone ever think of putting up SIGNS maybe? A little fork and knife next to the arrow by "Terminals 68-82") until after I'd already had a lame sandwich in some diner for $14.
With epochs of time to kill, I plugged my computer into the nearest out-of-the-way outlet I could find, down some stairs and around the loop from my departure gate (no free wireless here, no thank you, just some doingo boingo crap you can buy for $7.95 for the day). We were supposed to board around 10, but I heard an announcement shortly before that stating the plane in from Dulles was late, and then they'd have to do some routine maintenance, so those traveling on the flight back to Dulles wouldn't be boarding until around 10:45 at the earliest. So I kept Richarding around on my laptop until around 10:40, zipped everything up, and headed to Gate 69A at the end of the terminal in a little cul de sac.
Only 69A was nowhere to be found.
There was the ticket counter, right between 68 A & B and 69B, and a line of people to the right heading out gate 68B for Chicago, and on the other side just the 68s. Just then I heard a "final boarding call announcement" that requested my presence along with a few other names. !? I hurriedly looked back and forth, then finally asked someone in a United shirt helping out some pilots where the hell Gate 69A was. He barely looked at me, waved over his shoulder, and said, "Down at the end."
I looked in that general direction, then returned to him with what I thought was pretty good logic:
"We're in a CIRCLE. The end of WHAT.?"
"The end! The end! Down there!" Waving, shooing, being a dick.
I finally got on my tiptoes and looked over the Chicago-bounders and saw the tip of a gate down a ramp, then quickly darted down there with shorter guy behind me, obviously taking advantage of my height, standing on the shoulders of giants, the old saying goes. "You going to Dulles?" the ticket-ripper (how do you get that job? Graduate School?) asked.
You think?
We walked down the gangplank, and another Uniteder looked at us and said, dramatically, "Oh." before turning back to the plane, the door of which was already closed. She tapped at the little window and put up two fingers. The door hissed back open, and I got to my seat.
Which was occupied by someone who thought I'd missed the flight.
Thanks to LAX's PA system sucking rocks (I deduced the one announcement I did hear was for a later Dulles flight), outlet plugs being too spread out, and magical hidden gates in a circle with ends, I very nearly did.
I tried to sleep. I really did. Had there been a better movie on, I would have just watched it and stayed up. But I'd never heard of "Neverwas" starring Ian MacKellan as a fruit loop who thinks he's a king in a children's story, so I tried my Dan-dest to get as horizontally sideways as I could. Bright movie lights, soda carts being pushed, overhead compartment noise, and an aching back conspired against me. The taxi pulled into my driveway around 7:30am local, when I'd been up for 23 hours Mountain Daylight Time. Dogs greeted me with squeeks, wife greeted me with soft hug up a step, and I pulled off my clothes and fell into bed, though I was so painfully tired, sleep didn't come for another hour and a half. I slept until noon in order to try to retain some semblance of a normal day, though there's nothing ordinary about putting up Christmas Lights for the first time in two years.
posted by Dan at 10:03 PM
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