that was the way to go..
that was the way to go..
We just got back from a trip to Salt Lake City (well, mostly a place called Murray, which i couldn’t help saying “Murray” like it was a middle-aged New York housewife. we flew this time because the cost of a plane flight was comparable (within $50) to driving, except that time is shorter. One is inclined to say “much shorter”, because we compare two hours, or an hour of plane flying time to 7-9 (or more in the winter) hours of driving. To be closer to the facts, it’s worthwhile to ponder the cost in time of getting to the airport, waiting for luggage, waiting for a shuttle to the car rental place (if relevant), etc. This time we took the skyride on the denver side (so there was some more driving time to almost near the airport, park the car and…) get on the skyride (which is going up a doller in a 2 weeks), but were picked up and shuttled home by a friend who works at the airport. The difference is $280 or so for the plane tix for both of us (a screamin deal; i’m not sure whether that is usual) or about $250 or so for the car rental, 4 tanks of gas plus we get the extra insurance. As it was once put to me, for an extra $10 a day, you’re alloed to wreck the car. I’m sure that the insurance industry is very thankful for many other reasons for Richard Bandler, but I’ve gotten to walk away from minor damage without any hassles at all (ding in one case, a cross the windshield crack) because i’ve paid for the extra insurance. YMMV. But back to the difference between flying and driving, it’s not so much that you get that much time back, but the quality of the time is considerably better. i am much more relaxed than i would normally be after a drive home. It’s anout the same time by the time I’d It all started on Friday when i had a rather stressful day of managing a release of a new patch of our software for Lowes to fix a long-standing problem. Meanwhile, I had a plane fligh to catch that had me leaving early. Oh yeah, and I had to do some IT-related stuff like get some visiting BC folks hooked up for a printer. I had to be rather peremptory. I didn’t serve anyone very well on Friday, but I got stuff done. We got out the door at 4:30 (after intending to do that at 4:00), got to the airport and ran onto the plane after we got through the gauntlet (in ahich i had a liquid - some supplement drink - that I’d spaced in my backpack. After what happened on the way back (had to have my leatherman mailed to myself) gotta make a big point: completely repack the purse before going on a plane to be sure you know exactly what is in there. There are a lot of reasons why this could be important nowadays. It’s not your mom’s airplane ride any more. I’m just glad they’re only looking for explosives with that swab of theirs. It won’t always be that way. I wonder what you have to do to really thoroughly clean your purse or whatever of any sniffable aromatics… But I keep wanting to veer off on tangents tonite Maybe I’ll just post the tangents and be done with them.
short flight - not much time to listen to anything. Why Can’t I listen to my ipod from gate to gate? I’ll bet it has something to do with that little pantomime provided by the flight crew of basic seat beltsmanship in case we’ve never seen a seat belt before.
friend who took us away from airport works there. We took the employee shuttle. As long as we come in late, we might be able to have this service again. I think I like this. Let’s hear it for brotherhood.
little grandkids are pretty cool to hang out with. What a difference 7 months make, Carissa is what i would consider “fully human” and something I can deal with already.. I used to not really think that was possible until about 7. Parents, stop laughing at me.
watched both Santa Clause movies in succession with the grandkids. Had never seen them before, was amusing to see Hank from Corner Gas as one of the airmen in the first scene of the second movie.
bowling can be fun, even if you gutter about half the time. beer and french fries and good company helps.
continued a tradition of a few years in which we give Kelsea something scientific for her birthday. two years ago we gave her some kind of “csi forensic kit”. Last year I gave her a triple beam balance that i snagged off an independent distributor who only used electronic scales now (i had her weighing all kinds of things by the end of the day). This year we gave her a 28 year old heavy duty microscope that I got from the pack rat mentiond in craig’s LJ a while back. She loved it, was examining fingerprints taken with her CSI kit. I think i’m on the hook for a telescope for next year :)
it was nice to get away from all that crap (for those of you who know what all that crap was)
air mattresses suck. air mattresses suck. Air Mattress SUCK!!!
it’s freakin late and i gotta get up in the morning