home?
Thursday, October 27th, 2005I am in Jacksonville. I am at St. Louis Bread Co. because I can’t steal Internet from my neighbors. I can’t pick up any of my belongings until tomorrow, but my bed was delivered this afternoon. It is heavenly.
Archive for October, 2005
cowboy businessmen
Monday, October 24th, 2005Here is a question: Why is the airport a race?
Seriously. Oh my god, let’s flip out if our check-in line is a little slow. Let’s unbuckle earlier than we’re supposed to and rush into the aisle and get off the plane ASAP. Let’s trample others to get to the just-opened register at Starbucks. Let’s be as ridiculously competitive as we can!
Boston Logan and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airports, certainly among others, have fancy LCD monitors hanging on the walls. These monitors display flight information, standby passengers and — most importantly — the upgrade list. For whatever reason, some people who want to travel first class do not simply purchase a first-class ticket. No, they buy coach and then pay for an upgrade. But with limited seating, the list is prioritized by frequent-flyer membership, check-in time, general awesomeness, etc. I have seen grown men cry and beg after being bumped down a notch.
The worst, though, is the milling. On most any flight, everyone has an assigned seat. The plane is boarded in an orderly fashion: preboard, first class, gold and silver frequent flyers, the back third, the middle third, the front third. This is to keep everything running smoothly. But as soon as the arriving flight is, as they say, “deplaned,” everyone gets out of their seats and stands in a crowd near the door. Why? To be first! Even though they have assigned seats!
Southwest Airlines is a little different. Based on check-in time (and you can check in online), the tickets are divided into A, B and C groups (depending on the number of passengers), each group containing 45 tickets or so. A goes first, so everyone gets a coveted window or aisle seat; the folks in C are stuck sitting in the middle. And yet it is always the people in group A who line up first. In Houston, this practice is taken to the extreme, with passengers lining up more than an hour before the arrival of the plane — for a flight that ends up being more than half empty. I mean, Jesus.
These people are WINNERS! Hooray!
end of the season
Friday, October 21st, 2005
Despite the Cardinals losing — and hardly putting up a fight — Josie and I had an awesome time at the baseball game Wednesday. That’s just one thing off a long, long do-before-I-leave-forever list.
date w/ pier 1
Thursday, October 20th, 2005If you are a landlord in Jacksonville, I have some helpful tips to ensure that people interested in your properties might actually rent them:
Despite what you might be thinking, I did find an apartment. I expected to have a lease signed Monday evening, but a series of debacles prevented that. However, I woke up Tuesday with an afternoon flight looming and managed to find an acceptable, if slightly expensive, place to live. It looks something like this:
More photos are available, if you aren’t already bored to death. I am still working on memorizing the address, so I will have to save that for another day. Oh! I also found a cat! Unfortunately, he was on a porch several miles away from where I will be living.
oh god, where are you now? (in westwego? slidell? harahan? mandeville?)
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005