Testing Episode IV: A New Lament

[Oxymoron]

I have now gained a better understanding of the bitching on the TSA from personnal experience.

1 hour wait at the US custom. Seriously? The worst part was that there was easily more than 200 people waiting to be processed, and there was only between 3 and 5 (depending on the moment) processing booth open. And let's not even talk of the security checkpoints...

On the bright side, I've rarely experienced such solidarity with complete strangers.

[Oxymoron]

I've had only 3-4 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. And I feel surprisingly fine.

It's probably the adrenaline.


I have a feeling Jet Lag is going to hit me pretty hard.

[evilsoup]

?

[timmy]

I have now gained a better understanding of the bitching on the TSA from personnal experience.

It's funny because I was expecting worse from them. All of my experiences with them have been fairly quick, although it was about fifteen minutes to be processed at LAX last time going home. On the flipside, in line I remembered something in my camera bag and whipped it out to ask 'Can I take this? It's never been loaded.' He looked at my TOMBSTONE, AZ stamped .45 shell and laughed. 'No buddy, just throw it in this trash can.' If I tried the same thing at an Australian airport it'd make the news.

[Oxymoron]

On the flipside, I see my English is more fluent, more natural, when I'm not sleep-deprived.

Yesterday had gotten me kind of worried.

Also you know you're in Miami when the waitress begin the sentence in English and end it in Spanish.

Reflexively answered "Sì" instead of "Yes"

[timmy]

Nice. Nice.

[Oxymoron]

Miami Beach was ballin'.

Went snorkeling in the Keyes today.

Will probably do airboat in the Everglades and/or visit a gator farm tomorrow.



If you're to be a fucking tourist, do it right.

[RogueIce]

Goddamn tourists, get out of my state.

[The Spartan]

By which he means, embrace that you're a tourist and don't try to blend in (which you would inevitably fail at).

[Oxymoron]

Surprisingly, everyone seems really friendly, even random strangers in the streets of a sprawling metropolis.

By French standards, at least.

[The Spartan]

That's actually pretty standard for the South.

It's a weird dichotomy. You'll find the most racist, xenophobic people in the South and the most amazingly friendly, welcoming people to someone from another land.

[RogueIce]

Florida along the coasts isn't really "the South" though. I mean sure there's some bleed over but mostly it's more North-ish than anything.

Well that and touristy areas are of course going to be nicer (generally) to obvious tourists because their economy sort of depends on it.

[Civil War Man]

I have now gained a better understanding of the bitching on the TSA from personnal experience.

1 hour wait at the US custom. Seriously? The worst part was that there was easily more than 200 people waiting to be processed, and there was only between 3 and 5 (depending on the moment) processing booth open. And let's not even talk of the security checkpoints...

On the bright side, I've rarely experienced such solidarity with complete strangers.

Yeah, US Customs is shit.

So, speaking of travel horror stories, here's one from a trip I made to Switzerland with my family last month.

So, the flight over was generally unpleasant for the same reason most flights are unpleasant. The food was bad, the seats were cramped, and the movies they were showing were crap (though my inner Communist was awoken during the boarding process, since a single 3-seat row of first class seats took up about the same amount of space as 2 7-seat coach rows). The return flight was almost comical, though. So it starts out with us boarding the plane, and there's some guy sitting in my dad's seat. After some debate, the guy finally moves over to the seat he's supposed to be in. For the record, the guy was obviously shit-faced and kept bugging the flight attendants to try to get them to get him more booze in the middle of the boarding process. Apparently the crew spent a long time trying to get him to calm down, threatening to kick him off the flight and have him arrested. They never actually kick him off, but take so long debating it that we miss our spot in the takeoff queue and finally lift off about an hour late (even though we boarded on time). To add further aggravation for my father, the guy kept getting up throughout the flight to either go to the bathroom or keep bugging the flight attendants for alcohol. At least the food was slightly more edible and the movie selection was a bit better, though.

Anyway, we finally arrive, and customs is about what Oxy describes. Probably a couple hundred people in both the US citizen and non-citizen lines, with less than half a dozen booths open to handle them all (in retrospect, we figure that the line would probably have been at least somewhat lighter if our flight arrived when it was supposed to, but the drunk guy managed to delay us long enough that we arrived at the same time as several other flights). We eventually get through passport control, at which point we have to wait at the baggage claim. Our bags eventually show up, we grab them, then take them about 20 yards to put them directly on a conveyer belt that takes them back to the baggage processing center, because we were getting a connecting flight. No one so much as glances at our bags during this process. Once that's done, we go through the standard airport security a second time, even though we never left a secure area since going through security in Switzerland. On top of that, there was only one scanner open for all of the people going through at that moment.

When we finally get into the main concourse, we find that our connecting flight had already finished boarding, and had even if it hadn't, it had been moved to a different concourse, so we had about zero chance of getting there before it finished boarding. So we go to the customer service desk to get the next flight out. Even though it's some time in the mid afternoon, the flight we missed was the last direct flight back home that day unless we were willing to take a flight to another airport and try to catch another connecting flight. While debating what we wanted to do, though, we got notice that the plane for our original flight was experiencing mechanical problems, so they had everyone disembark, which means that we had a chance of catching it if we hurried.

Though, remember how I said it had been moved to a different concourse? Turns out it was literally the furthest possible gate from where we were at that moment. Not only that, but the shuttle to that concourse from where we were was no longer running for the day (again, mid afternoon), so we had to take a shuttle to the main concourse, then a monorail to the concourse we needed to get to, then walk the entire length of that concourse to get to the gate. They had started re-boarding during that time, and we arrived mere moments before they closed the gate.

For good measure, the mechanical problem that delayed the flight long enough for us to get there came back after we boarded, so we had to disembark one more time before boarding again, but everything worked out well enough after that point.

For the record, the airline was United and the airport where all this happened was Dulles, in case any of you want to avoid them in the future.

[Straha]

I got royally fucked over from the job I wanted. Which has left me angry and bitter.

On the bright side, I got a different job working for one of the top high schools in the country with more or less complete autonomy inside the program, which is both a huge boon and way ahead of 'where I should be' career wise. It also leaves me open to keep coaching at the University level and odds are pretty good I may be picking up the pieces of a trashed program. Which I am somewhat looking forward to.

After a really rough summer I'm starting to get mildly optimistic.

Oh, I also get to move back to the City. Which is huge.

[Straha]

Btw, Soup. What comic is that from?

[evilsoup]

Scary Go Round, a comic that mostly runs on whimsy. In that particular storyline Shelley Winters (who works for the local newspaper) was mistaken for her American counterpart Shelley Winner (who is an globetrotting travel writer), but then they meet up and go to America for a bit. There is also a sequel webcomic ongoing, called Bad Machinary. They're both pretty ace.

[Oxymoron]

Little known fact:

Contrary to popular belief, the F in John F. Kennedy actually stands for "Fucking".


Anyway, had a blast at Cape Canaveral. Really cool day. Even talked with an old timer space engineer, who worked on the Gemini, Appollo and Space Shuttle programs.

Finished the day with a drink on the beach of Port Canaveral.

I actually prefer the Space Coast to the Miami area.

[Dude]

The Heeler just killed one of our hens.

That's it for her.

[Oxymoron]

Well, shit.

Friends, shelter, or lethal injection?

[Dude]

Friends or shelter. Putting her down would be the last resort.

[Darksi4190]

Will a shelter take a dog that has a history of killing other animals?

[Dude]

I don't know, I've called the one we got her from who said we could bring her back if she didn't work out. I'm waiting for a call back.

[Dude]

So about 5 this morning I was woken up by a single coyote howling close to the house. It's unusual because they usually call between 3-4am and always answer each other. So I went out with the rifle to see what was what. No sign of it but it persisted in calling even after I put two rounds into the ground.

I suspect an injured one but I didn't find any blood where I think it was, just lots of trampled grass and a couple bedding sites.

Gonna poke around a bit tonight and see if I can spot them.

[Darksi4190]

2 rounds with what?

[Dude]

My Tavor, usually the noise is enough to scare them off.