My son, aged 2 or thereabouts, chatting with his father one weekday:
Z: Well, I guess I'm the boss of you today, Daddy!
R: Oh, really. And why is that?
Z: Because Mommy's at work!!
out of the mouths of babes...
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Business travel can be fun!
Nov. 18, 12:07a.m. <-- the time I would have posted this, had I been able to...
I am writing this as a Word doc since I have no connectivity (I paid the fee at check-in, honest!). I also can’t make outbound calls, even to toll-free numbers. The front desk can’t figure out what is going on. I was supposed to have connectivity in the airport, both on laptop and on BB, and didn’t get the former to work at all (ever) and only got the BB working several hours after my first flight. But I digress.
My day so far:
Get up at 6:45am and finish cleaning Z’s room (my promise before Mommy went on her business trip). Make Z breakfast, drink coffee, take medicine. Make sure Z doesn’t miss the schoolbus. Start laundry and alternate with vacuuming Z’s room (final step). Got all 4 loads finished, put away all Z’s clothes and some of mine. Now it’s 8:15; logged into work to check email and spend some time on my queue. Then I need to finish packing (minor panic time). Finally “ready” to go by 11:30a (supposed to be at airport by noon, normally a 1 hour drive). Make it to airport at 12:20 for my 1pm flight. Got checked in and boarded without issue. That was the last thing that went right for the rest of the day.
Arrived in Charlotte at 1:53ish (on time). Found out that gate change for my connecting flight will require me to walk from one end of the concourse (my arrival gate in D terminal) to the far end and B terminal (my departure gate). Arrive at gate out of breath having major asthma attack to find complete mob scene. There are 5 gates and the crowd for “my” flight is blocking foot traffic to all the rest. Sit on floor (no chairs left, SRO) to wait for boarding. Go digging for my asthma inhaler and realize I have grabbed the almost empty one instead of the new refill in my rush to get packed. Sigh.
Am in last group to be called and one of the last dozen or so onto the plane. At least I have my window seat as requested. The other two seats in my row are of course already occupied, so they have to get up in order for me to get into the far seat. All overhead bins already full long before I get onto the plane. Shove laptop under seat in front of me (thereby eliminating what little legroom exists) and hold purse on my lap. Both passengers in my row retake their seats. We all wait to leave the gate. Minutes pass.
Finally an announcement is heard over the PA: the flight is over-booked and they need a volunteer to “bump” in exchange for a free R/T coach ticket anywhere in the continental U.S. This means giving up the 2:40p flight to change to the 6:20p flight instead. I want the ticket for my kid who shuttles between his dad and me a few times a year. Several of us jab for the service button and the stewardess says I hit it first. Yay! My seatmates get up again as I wrestle my laptop bag back out from under the seat in front of me, grab the rest of my stuff and deplane.
I step out the door and wait for the stewardess, who gives me a hand signal to stop, while she continues some sort of confusing argument/discussion on the phone in the tunnel. She hangs up and apologizes to me, saying that I have to get back on the plane; apparently there is some problem with the woman that needed the seat I gave up. Her boarding pass actually appears to belong to someone else. I am not weirded out yet; what the hey it was worth a try. I pick up my laptop and prepare to reboard. As I go through the plane door the stewardess on the plane says to the stewardess with me, “Forget it. I’m not making her get back on.” And she tells me never mind, I can bump after all--the other woman is already in my old seat and she (the onboard stewardess) is not going to make us all change around again. So I get back off the plane as she sends me back to the check-in desk to get booked on the next flight.
At the check-in desk it takes the clerk 3 tries to get my new boarding pass and free ticket voucher to verify and print. I have not yet realized that anything unusual is going on. I wait patiently, oblivious to the fate the universe has in store for me. Finally I get my voucher and my new boarding pass, along with the departure and arrival times for my new flight. Great, I’m leaving from the same gate! Maybe I’ll have time to grab some lunch. I realize I forgot to eat breakfast in my rush to get everything finished this morning.
I head over to the waiting area to call my coworker (and ride from the airport) to let him know my flight has changed. My BB (supposedly with full roaming) connects to some weird network recording which informs me I am not registered. I can’t make outbound calls, I can’t send or receive email. Great. I am stranded until the next flight and I’m incommunicado (I don't have a credit card). I come up with the brilliant idea of calling the helpdesk since they are tollfree. I head over to the payphones and hooray, I get through. The nice lady who answers informs me that they normally dont handle BB coverage issues but she will make an exception in my case since I am stuck. She connects me to the Sprint guy who tells me it’s a signal issue and there’s nothing he can do. I tell him I have 5 bars but no roaming “R” so it seems to be my unit. He tells me to try standing by a window. I thank him and let him go back to his video games or whatever. I ask the nice helpdesk lady to transfer me to my coworker so I can let him know a) I cant call and b) I have no email and c) my flight has changed. She can't reach him on any of his numbers, so finally she just transfers me to his vm and I hope for the best.
Well, I have 3+ hours to kill until my new flight, and I’m starving (it’s now 3ish and I still havent had lunch). $15+ for a large chicken Caesar salad and "an" iced tea (they charge you for 2, then the refills beyond that are “free”); seems a little steep even for Charlotte. But the salad was good. This turns out to be a good thing, as it is the last protein I will see until 2am tomorrow. But again, I digress.
I return to the gate. There’s a little open space on the floor (it’s already really crowded) and I doze off for a while. When I wake up it’s still over an hour to departure time so I figure I’ll try and get some more work done. I boot up and my battery registers 51 minutes of charge left. Cool, I can work for half an hour, and that will leave me time to shut down right before boarding. 15 seconds later my battery suddenly reads empty and my system shuts down. I plug into a nearby outlet and boot up again. Meanwhile it occurs to me that I should try to reboot my BB instead of just power-cycling it. I turn off the wireless and turn it back on, and voila! all my bars, my R, my ability to make and receive calls and my email connectivity returns. A delayed email from my coworker assures me that I still have a ride. Phew.
My pc is now booted up again, so I log in and I’m pleased to see that the airport has free WiFi. Great! Built-in wireless registers it and connects. Which avails me nothing, as I cant get anywhere, can’t connect to any of my IM clients, can't even reach the airport URL. Oh well. Shut down and put the laptop away only to hear an announcement that the gate for my “new” flight has now changed. It is back at the D terminal (I am still in B). So now I have just under an hour to make it all the way back to the opposite end of the concourse. I grab my stuff and race to the other end of the concourse. That is the last time I see my (brand-new, unfinished, library) book. I either left it behind or dropped it as I raced to my gate.
I just reach the new gate at the scheduled boarding time and it’s deja vu. A gargantuan crowd that’s blocking traffic to all nearby gates. Surprise! The flight is overbooked and they are looking for "a few" volunteers to bump before we can board. It’s all eerily familiar. This bump would mean giving up the 6:20p flight and taking the 8p flight instead, again in exchange for a free R/T ticket. I decide to pass this time. About 5 people step forward and finally we can board, almost a half hour late for boarding and about 5 minutes before scheduled departure. We all pile in and it's amazing—I have been bumped to business class. Cool! It’s a middle seat and there’s no more room in the overhead bins (of course) but hey, I can actually pull my legs and arms in far enough not to be touching my seatmates for the duration of the flight. Great! It is now 6:35p. We were supposed to leave at 6:20. My original flight would have had me into DFW at 4:30. I’m getting tired.
By 7p we still havent left the gate. No one is sure why. Finally at about 7:30 we start to pull away. We taxi out to the runway only to be told over the PA that we are returning to the gate—the pilot has reportedly broken off the handle for the parking brake. No, I am not joking. Why do we even need a parking brake to fly? And don’t they use wheel chocks anyway? “They are sending us a tech to fix it, we are estimating about 30 minutes folks. Thanks for your patience.” So we head back to the gate and, um, park the plane. I guess they are all up there crossing their fingers since we don’t have a parking brake, at least for now.
OK, it is now 7:40 and over an hour past our scheduled departure time and the folks that volunteered to “bump” are actually going to be in DFW before us since their flight, which leaves an hour and a half after our scheduled departure time, will now be leaving 10 minutes before our repair tech is scheduled to arrive. The “about 30 minutes” turns into about 50. At last the tech arrives, fixes the handle, and leaves to cheers. We are told to retake our seats and turn off cell phones and other electrical devices. It is another 10 minutes before we actually taxi away. We are 9th in line for takeoff. Scheduled arrival time? 10:25p local (11:25p my time). Or, 6 hours later than my original arrival time. Had I started from VA by car at the same time I originally left my house, I could actually have driven to TX faster than I am getting there by plane, at least today. In one of the many “Ok, you can use your cell phones again for a while, we arent leaving yet” breaks, I give my coworker another heads-up and tell him I’ll take a cab.
It is around this time that I realize I’ve lost my library book. Great. Now I have to buy the library a replacement book AND I still don’t know how it ends! I’m also hungry again. In exchange for our “patience” (the fact that we don’t really have a lot of options while sitting on the taxiway with the doors shut doesn’t seem to occur to them), we are given free soda (it’s $2 normally). Nothing much else happens on this flight, I doze most of the way because I’m by now thoroughly exhausted (not sure how much walking/running I got in but it was a LOT) AND I have nothing to read.
We finally arrive in DFW. I get off the plane and head to baggage claim and the locked luggage office, since my bags have been here waiting for me since 4:30p. A surly woman (the first I’ve encountered this trip, thankfully) asks if she can help me (her tone implies that this is a major concession and that she has, apparently, been spending way too much time "helping" people today). I point out my bag, and she compares my ticket with the bag label and grudgingly allows me to take it. Now I need to find a taxi. I walk toward the cab stand and am approached by a nice-looking guy in a suit who asks me if I need a taxi. I reply in the affirmative and although he is taken aback by how far I need to go, he leads me to a town car and loads my luggage for me. We leave the airport and the trip is uneventful; the fare is only $9 over avg DFW-Plano taxi fares and I get to ride alone in a brand-new town car.
I check in at the hotel. There are weird data errors all over the forms, and the desk clerk tells me the systems are acting up and thanks me for my patience (this is sounding so familiar). Finally she gets me checked in. Supposedly. She gives me cardkeys to room 223. Now things start to get decidedly weird.
I take the elevator to the second floor and start to look for my room. I follow the signs to the range of rooms I want (213-229), and walk down a hallway checking every single room number. The last two rooms are 221 and 222. There is only an exit door at the end of the hall. I go out and down the stairs to the first floor. OK, something is strange. I go back to the elevator and back to the 2nd floor and follow the same signs. But THIS time my room is there, only the 3rd room or so in. I’m starting to freak out a little. I think I am so tired I am just not seeing straight.
I get into the room and the AC is blasting. The room is REALLY cold. It is 11:30pm local time, so I have less than half an hour to finish an assignment that I needed to turn in before midnight. Thankfully, I should have wireless internet access. So I set up my laptop. Yep, there’s the “Homestead” network, 54Mps, excellent signal. Great! My system connects immediately. And... I can’t get anywhere. Again. Every site is 404 or page not found. I try auto-proxy, no proxy, manual proxy. I release and renew my IP. I flush my DNS cache. I try connecting to the hotel website, and finally to the assumed gateway given the IP I’m being assigned. Nothing works. Finally I call the front desk. She tells me that I should be seeing a welcome screen asking for a password (I’m not). She gives me the password but with nowhere to enter it I’m out of luck. So she gives me the toll-free number for the tech support folks.
I read the phone card on the phone and follow the directions to dial toll-free numbers. I get as far as 9-1-866 and get a reorder (fast busy, i.e., telecom speak for “f’ off, my friend” from the phone system). I call the front desk again. She tells me the system doesnt seem to have checked me in. She does something and tells me to try again. No luck. She tells me she will redo it and call me back. I thank her and hang up.
Meanwhile, I try to follow the instructions for setting up my hotel vm since there is also a stern warning on the telephone card that no one will be able to call me unless I set up my voicemail. I dial the access number and receive a recording “You have reached an unoccupied room. Please hold.” And then it transfers me back to the front desk. The outbound calls still dont work. I tell the nice lady at the desk never mind—I am going to give up and go to bed and I will deal with it in the morning. She apologizes (again) and I hang up.
I go over to turn off the fan on the AC which is blowing so hard the drapes are extending into the room a good 2 feet. I can’t turn off the fan. The knobs have been removed. The wall controls have 2 settings: “Auto” and ”On”. Since neither of these accomplishes what I want, which is OFF, I am getting ticked. I take several minutes trying various combinations to try fooling it into heating the room instead. No luck. The wall unit has been blocked not to exceed 75F. And apparently that’s not high enough to get the AC to turn off. I call down to the front desk again. I ask how to turn off the fan. She tells me to use the knobs (can't, for obvious reasons) and then to do what I did (turn on the heat). Nothing works. Cold air is still blasting out of the wall unit. I ask for another room. She tells me she will have to physically check rooms to see what’s available. I tell her to forget it, I will deal with it in the morning. She apologizes again.
I don’t want to unpack because I’m not planning to stay in this room if they can’t get the AC turned off, but I decide to take out just my toiletries in order to prep for the morning, since I’m barely functional even with 8 hours of sleep (I am not a morning person). With the airlines’ usual gentle handling of bags, my conditioner bottle has been crushed open—every item in my toiletry pocket is coated in conditioner. I take it all out, clean everything off, and clean out the toiletry pocket of the suitcase.
It is now 1:32am local time. My room is so cold that my fingers are too stiff to type. I realize that I forgot to pack my (nice and warm) jammies. I’m totally exhausted. I just want to go home.
And I’m STILL hungry.
So I go downstairs and ask the nice lady where I can go to grab something to eat. IHOP is 24/7 and close enough to walk to. I head over there. It’s not quite 2am. I figure, I’ve missed dinner and I’m going to miss breakfast (because hopefully I will get to sleep through it) so I kill two birds with one stone and have steak (dinner) and eggs (breakfast). I head back to the hotel.
When I get into the lobby the nice lady tells me she has a different room available, and she’s gone in already and verified that the fan has controls and can be turned off. Do I want to move? What the heck, I’m not going to get any sleep anyway, sure. I go back up, repack the toiletries (sans conditioner) and come back downstairs. I move to the new room.
The new room is a little nicer, with a separate “room” for the bed instead of the standard studio setup. I turn off the fan (YAY!), unpack, and set my laptop up again. I still have no connectivity, and I still can’t make calls. Sigh.
It’s now 3am. My ride will be here to pick me up by 8:30a.
Oh, well.
At least the fan is off.
(addendum: The wireless connectivity issue turned out to be me-- there was a gateway setting in place that I had completely forgotten about. But I credit the universe with the rest of my interesting day.)
I am writing this as a Word doc since I have no connectivity (I paid the fee at check-in, honest!). I also can’t make outbound calls, even to toll-free numbers. The front desk can’t figure out what is going on. I was supposed to have connectivity in the airport, both on laptop and on BB, and didn’t get the former to work at all (ever) and only got the BB working several hours after my first flight. But I digress.
My day so far:
Get up at 6:45am and finish cleaning Z’s room (my promise before Mommy went on her business trip). Make Z breakfast, drink coffee, take medicine. Make sure Z doesn’t miss the schoolbus. Start laundry and alternate with vacuuming Z’s room (final step). Got all 4 loads finished, put away all Z’s clothes and some of mine. Now it’s 8:15; logged into work to check email and spend some time on my queue. Then I need to finish packing (minor panic time). Finally “ready” to go by 11:30a (supposed to be at airport by noon, normally a 1 hour drive). Make it to airport at 12:20 for my 1pm flight. Got checked in and boarded without issue. That was the last thing that went right for the rest of the day.
Arrived in Charlotte at 1:53ish (on time). Found out that gate change for my connecting flight will require me to walk from one end of the concourse (my arrival gate in D terminal) to the far end and B terminal (my departure gate). Arrive at gate out of breath having major asthma attack to find complete mob scene. There are 5 gates and the crowd for “my” flight is blocking foot traffic to all the rest. Sit on floor (no chairs left, SRO) to wait for boarding. Go digging for my asthma inhaler and realize I have grabbed the almost empty one instead of the new refill in my rush to get packed. Sigh.
Am in last group to be called and one of the last dozen or so onto the plane. At least I have my window seat as requested. The other two seats in my row are of course already occupied, so they have to get up in order for me to get into the far seat. All overhead bins already full long before I get onto the plane. Shove laptop under seat in front of me (thereby eliminating what little legroom exists) and hold purse on my lap. Both passengers in my row retake their seats. We all wait to leave the gate. Minutes pass.
Finally an announcement is heard over the PA: the flight is over-booked and they need a volunteer to “bump” in exchange for a free R/T coach ticket anywhere in the continental U.S. This means giving up the 2:40p flight to change to the 6:20p flight instead. I want the ticket for my kid who shuttles between his dad and me a few times a year. Several of us jab for the service button and the stewardess says I hit it first. Yay! My seatmates get up again as I wrestle my laptop bag back out from under the seat in front of me, grab the rest of my stuff and deplane.
I step out the door and wait for the stewardess, who gives me a hand signal to stop, while she continues some sort of confusing argument/discussion on the phone in the tunnel. She hangs up and apologizes to me, saying that I have to get back on the plane; apparently there is some problem with the woman that needed the seat I gave up. Her boarding pass actually appears to belong to someone else. I am not weirded out yet; what the hey it was worth a try. I pick up my laptop and prepare to reboard. As I go through the plane door the stewardess on the plane says to the stewardess with me, “Forget it. I’m not making her get back on.” And she tells me never mind, I can bump after all--the other woman is already in my old seat and she (the onboard stewardess) is not going to make us all change around again. So I get back off the plane as she sends me back to the check-in desk to get booked on the next flight.
At the check-in desk it takes the clerk 3 tries to get my new boarding pass and free ticket voucher to verify and print. I have not yet realized that anything unusual is going on. I wait patiently, oblivious to the fate the universe has in store for me. Finally I get my voucher and my new boarding pass, along with the departure and arrival times for my new flight. Great, I’m leaving from the same gate! Maybe I’ll have time to grab some lunch. I realize I forgot to eat breakfast in my rush to get everything finished this morning.
I head over to the waiting area to call my coworker (and ride from the airport) to let him know my flight has changed. My BB (supposedly with full roaming) connects to some weird network recording which informs me I am not registered. I can’t make outbound calls, I can’t send or receive email. Great. I am stranded until the next flight and I’m incommunicado (I don't have a credit card). I come up with the brilliant idea of calling the helpdesk since they are tollfree. I head over to the payphones and hooray, I get through. The nice lady who answers informs me that they normally dont handle BB coverage issues but she will make an exception in my case since I am stuck. She connects me to the Sprint guy who tells me it’s a signal issue and there’s nothing he can do. I tell him I have 5 bars but no roaming “R” so it seems to be my unit. He tells me to try standing by a window. I thank him and let him go back to his video games or whatever. I ask the nice helpdesk lady to transfer me to my coworker so I can let him know a) I cant call and b) I have no email and c) my flight has changed. She can't reach him on any of his numbers, so finally she just transfers me to his vm and I hope for the best.
Well, I have 3+ hours to kill until my new flight, and I’m starving (it’s now 3ish and I still havent had lunch). $15+ for a large chicken Caesar salad and "an" iced tea (they charge you for 2, then the refills beyond that are “free”); seems a little steep even for Charlotte. But the salad was good. This turns out to be a good thing, as it is the last protein I will see until 2am tomorrow. But again, I digress.
I return to the gate. There’s a little open space on the floor (it’s already really crowded) and I doze off for a while. When I wake up it’s still over an hour to departure time so I figure I’ll try and get some more work done. I boot up and my battery registers 51 minutes of charge left. Cool, I can work for half an hour, and that will leave me time to shut down right before boarding. 15 seconds later my battery suddenly reads empty and my system shuts down. I plug into a nearby outlet and boot up again. Meanwhile it occurs to me that I should try to reboot my BB instead of just power-cycling it. I turn off the wireless and turn it back on, and voila! all my bars, my R, my ability to make and receive calls and my email connectivity returns. A delayed email from my coworker assures me that I still have a ride. Phew.
My pc is now booted up again, so I log in and I’m pleased to see that the airport has free WiFi. Great! Built-in wireless registers it and connects. Which avails me nothing, as I cant get anywhere, can’t connect to any of my IM clients, can't even reach the airport URL. Oh well. Shut down and put the laptop away only to hear an announcement that the gate for my “new” flight has now changed. It is back at the D terminal (I am still in B). So now I have just under an hour to make it all the way back to the opposite end of the concourse. I grab my stuff and race to the other end of the concourse. That is the last time I see my (brand-new, unfinished, library) book. I either left it behind or dropped it as I raced to my gate.
I just reach the new gate at the scheduled boarding time and it’s deja vu. A gargantuan crowd that’s blocking traffic to all nearby gates. Surprise! The flight is overbooked and they are looking for "a few" volunteers to bump before we can board. It’s all eerily familiar. This bump would mean giving up the 6:20p flight and taking the 8p flight instead, again in exchange for a free R/T ticket. I decide to pass this time. About 5 people step forward and finally we can board, almost a half hour late for boarding and about 5 minutes before scheduled departure. We all pile in and it's amazing—I have been bumped to business class. Cool! It’s a middle seat and there’s no more room in the overhead bins (of course) but hey, I can actually pull my legs and arms in far enough not to be touching my seatmates for the duration of the flight. Great! It is now 6:35p. We were supposed to leave at 6:20. My original flight would have had me into DFW at 4:30. I’m getting tired.
By 7p we still havent left the gate. No one is sure why. Finally at about 7:30 we start to pull away. We taxi out to the runway only to be told over the PA that we are returning to the gate—the pilot has reportedly broken off the handle for the parking brake. No, I am not joking. Why do we even need a parking brake to fly? And don’t they use wheel chocks anyway? “They are sending us a tech to fix it, we are estimating about 30 minutes folks. Thanks for your patience.” So we head back to the gate and, um, park the plane. I guess they are all up there crossing their fingers since we don’t have a parking brake, at least for now.
OK, it is now 7:40 and over an hour past our scheduled departure time and the folks that volunteered to “bump” are actually going to be in DFW before us since their flight, which leaves an hour and a half after our scheduled departure time, will now be leaving 10 minutes before our repair tech is scheduled to arrive. The “about 30 minutes” turns into about 50. At last the tech arrives, fixes the handle, and leaves to cheers. We are told to retake our seats and turn off cell phones and other electrical devices. It is another 10 minutes before we actually taxi away. We are 9th in line for takeoff. Scheduled arrival time? 10:25p local (11:25p my time). Or, 6 hours later than my original arrival time. Had I started from VA by car at the same time I originally left my house, I could actually have driven to TX faster than I am getting there by plane, at least today. In one of the many “Ok, you can use your cell phones again for a while, we arent leaving yet” breaks, I give my coworker another heads-up and tell him I’ll take a cab.
It is around this time that I realize I’ve lost my library book. Great. Now I have to buy the library a replacement book AND I still don’t know how it ends! I’m also hungry again. In exchange for our “patience” (the fact that we don’t really have a lot of options while sitting on the taxiway with the doors shut doesn’t seem to occur to them), we are given free soda (it’s $2 normally). Nothing much else happens on this flight, I doze most of the way because I’m by now thoroughly exhausted (not sure how much walking/running I got in but it was a LOT) AND I have nothing to read.
We finally arrive in DFW. I get off the plane and head to baggage claim and the locked luggage office, since my bags have been here waiting for me since 4:30p. A surly woman (the first I’ve encountered this trip, thankfully) asks if she can help me (her tone implies that this is a major concession and that she has, apparently, been spending way too much time "helping" people today). I point out my bag, and she compares my ticket with the bag label and grudgingly allows me to take it. Now I need to find a taxi. I walk toward the cab stand and am approached by a nice-looking guy in a suit who asks me if I need a taxi. I reply in the affirmative and although he is taken aback by how far I need to go, he leads me to a town car and loads my luggage for me. We leave the airport and the trip is uneventful; the fare is only $9 over avg DFW-Plano taxi fares and I get to ride alone in a brand-new town car.
I check in at the hotel. There are weird data errors all over the forms, and the desk clerk tells me the systems are acting up and thanks me for my patience (this is sounding so familiar). Finally she gets me checked in. Supposedly. She gives me cardkeys to room 223. Now things start to get decidedly weird.
I take the elevator to the second floor and start to look for my room. I follow the signs to the range of rooms I want (213-229), and walk down a hallway checking every single room number. The last two rooms are 221 and 222. There is only an exit door at the end of the hall. I go out and down the stairs to the first floor. OK, something is strange. I go back to the elevator and back to the 2nd floor and follow the same signs. But THIS time my room is there, only the 3rd room or so in. I’m starting to freak out a little. I think I am so tired I am just not seeing straight.
I get into the room and the AC is blasting. The room is REALLY cold. It is 11:30pm local time, so I have less than half an hour to finish an assignment that I needed to turn in before midnight. Thankfully, I should have wireless internet access. So I set up my laptop. Yep, there’s the “Homestead” network, 54Mps, excellent signal. Great! My system connects immediately. And... I can’t get anywhere. Again. Every site is 404 or page not found. I try auto-proxy, no proxy, manual proxy. I release and renew my IP. I flush my DNS cache. I try connecting to the hotel website, and finally to the assumed gateway given the IP I’m being assigned. Nothing works. Finally I call the front desk. She tells me that I should be seeing a welcome screen asking for a password (I’m not). She gives me the password but with nowhere to enter it I’m out of luck. So she gives me the toll-free number for the tech support folks.
I read the phone card on the phone and follow the directions to dial toll-free numbers. I get as far as 9-1-866 and get a reorder (fast busy, i.e., telecom speak for “f’ off, my friend” from the phone system). I call the front desk again. She tells me the system doesnt seem to have checked me in. She does something and tells me to try again. No luck. She tells me she will redo it and call me back. I thank her and hang up.
Meanwhile, I try to follow the instructions for setting up my hotel vm since there is also a stern warning on the telephone card that no one will be able to call me unless I set up my voicemail. I dial the access number and receive a recording “You have reached an unoccupied room. Please hold.” And then it transfers me back to the front desk. The outbound calls still dont work. I tell the nice lady at the desk never mind—I am going to give up and go to bed and I will deal with it in the morning. She apologizes (again) and I hang up.
I go over to turn off the fan on the AC which is blowing so hard the drapes are extending into the room a good 2 feet. I can’t turn off the fan. The knobs have been removed. The wall controls have 2 settings: “Auto” and ”On”. Since neither of these accomplishes what I want, which is OFF, I am getting ticked. I take several minutes trying various combinations to try fooling it into heating the room instead. No luck. The wall unit has been blocked not to exceed 75F. And apparently that’s not high enough to get the AC to turn off. I call down to the front desk again. I ask how to turn off the fan. She tells me to use the knobs (can't, for obvious reasons) and then to do what I did (turn on the heat). Nothing works. Cold air is still blasting out of the wall unit. I ask for another room. She tells me she will have to physically check rooms to see what’s available. I tell her to forget it, I will deal with it in the morning. She apologizes again.
I don’t want to unpack because I’m not planning to stay in this room if they can’t get the AC turned off, but I decide to take out just my toiletries in order to prep for the morning, since I’m barely functional even with 8 hours of sleep (I am not a morning person). With the airlines’ usual gentle handling of bags, my conditioner bottle has been crushed open—every item in my toiletry pocket is coated in conditioner. I take it all out, clean everything off, and clean out the toiletry pocket of the suitcase.
It is now 1:32am local time. My room is so cold that my fingers are too stiff to type. I realize that I forgot to pack my (nice and warm) jammies. I’m totally exhausted. I just want to go home.
And I’m STILL hungry.
So I go downstairs and ask the nice lady where I can go to grab something to eat. IHOP is 24/7 and close enough to walk to. I head over there. It’s not quite 2am. I figure, I’ve missed dinner and I’m going to miss breakfast (because hopefully I will get to sleep through it) so I kill two birds with one stone and have steak (dinner) and eggs (breakfast). I head back to the hotel.
When I get into the lobby the nice lady tells me she has a different room available, and she’s gone in already and verified that the fan has controls and can be turned off. Do I want to move? What the heck, I’m not going to get any sleep anyway, sure. I go back up, repack the toiletries (sans conditioner) and come back downstairs. I move to the new room.
The new room is a little nicer, with a separate “room” for the bed instead of the standard studio setup. I turn off the fan (YAY!), unpack, and set my laptop up again. I still have no connectivity, and I still can’t make calls. Sigh.
It’s now 3am. My ride will be here to pick me up by 8:30a.
Oh, well.
At least the fan is off.
(addendum: The wireless connectivity issue turned out to be me-- there was a gateway setting in place that I had completely forgotten about. But I credit the universe with the rest of my interesting day.)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Separation of church and state....
There's been a lot of discussion over same-sex marriages lately. Frankly, it's getting old. The ongoing double-standard that the U.S. government employs in so many different ways is nowhere more evident than this. The argument is so clear that its continued presence in daily conversation is ludicrous. You cannot have it both ways.
These cases are, and must be, by definition, mutually exclusive.
Either:
a) Marriage is religious in nature.
If this is the case, it has no business being supported, controlled, regulated, legislated or overseen by our government IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER. For those bible thumpers out there, stop hopping up and down-- this means that ANY religious definition of marriage can fly-- opposite sex, same-sex, multiple partner-- you don't get to make ANY laws about it.
or
b) Marriage is not religious in nature.
If this is the case, IT CANNOT, BY DEFINITION, BE LEGALLY AVAILABLE TO SOME PEOPLE WHILE BEING DENIED TO OTHERS.
End of argument. Can we take it to the Supreme Court already? I haven't worn nearly enough hideous bridesmaid dresses yet.
These cases are, and must be, by definition, mutually exclusive.
Either:
a) Marriage is religious in nature.
If this is the case, it has no business being supported, controlled, regulated, legislated or overseen by our government IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER. For those bible thumpers out there, stop hopping up and down-- this means that ANY religious definition of marriage can fly-- opposite sex, same-sex, multiple partner-- you don't get to make ANY laws about it.
or
b) Marriage is not religious in nature.
If this is the case, IT CANNOT, BY DEFINITION, BE LEGALLY AVAILABLE TO SOME PEOPLE WHILE BEING DENIED TO OTHERS.
End of argument. Can we take it to the Supreme Court already? I haven't worn nearly enough hideous bridesmaid dresses yet.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Minor logic...
Last week, as I was decapitating the final blades of our not-quite-two-acres of lawn, my son suddenly rushed in front of me, yelling indignantly. "Geez, Mom, what are you trying to do?? Kill me???"
Startled and perplexed, I killed the riding mower. "What are you talking about, honey?"
"You almost ran over me TWICE!"
"??? I wasn't mowing anywhere near you, hon; you were playing by the garden."
"That was BEFORE!!! Just NOW I was hiding behind that bush right by you and I had to run around it and hide behind the tree instead because you almost hit me! TWICE!!"
Startled and perplexed, I killed the riding mower. "What are you talking about, honey?"
"You almost ran over me TWICE!"
"??? I wasn't mowing anywhere near you, hon; you were playing by the garden."
"That was BEFORE!!! Just NOW I was hiding behind that bush right by you and I had to run around it and hide behind the tree instead because you almost hit me! TWICE!!"
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
An open letter to the American People on the morning after the election of Barack Obama:
You’re doing it wrong.
This morning, as I listen to commentator after commentator, and read article after article, I am filled not with the feeling of elation that I anticipated when I went to bed last night, but with a growing frustration and stunned disbelief. The dust has yet to settle, the cheers and celebrations are still going on; it will be hours and days and perhaps weeks before anything else grabs our attention away from this election, from the events that led up to it and the incredible things that may happen as a result of it. And yet, already, we are screwing it up.
Already the lines are being drawn, the division being widened, stupid cultural-centric comments are being made. And all with the very best of intentions. I feel like shouting, “What is WRONG with you people?? You have completely missed the most important point of possibly the most important event in the history of our country!” As columnists, commentators, people in the street all voice the wide range of emotions after such an historic event, again and again the main focus is the same: that with the election of Barack Obama, black Americans now feel enfranchised.
Are we all really this blind?
Let’s get something straight. Barack Obama is not going to be our next President because black people voted for a black man. Just in case you weren't paying attention, let me repeat that: Barack Obama is not going to be our next President because black people voted for a black man.
Barack Obama is going to be our next President because the majority of the American people who voted for a Presidential candidate voted for him. A lot of those voters are black. A lot more of them are a lot of other colors, and the vast majority of them are white. Barack Obama is going to be our next President because for the first time in the history of our country, a black man was nominated, a black man ran, a black man swayed the people, and the majority of the American people voted for a black man. Did they vote for him because he was black? Sure, some of them. And some of the people who voted for Senator McCain did so because he is white. But the majority of people who vote, vote for the candidate that they think will do the best job whether it be for the voter, causes and issues the voter supports, or the country as a whole. And the majority of those people voted for Barack Obama. And that meant voting for a black man.
The most important aspect of this event is not the fact that so many black Americans now feel enfranchised, or that they now have a real voice in our government. It is not the fact that black citizens of America can feel righteously proud of their incredible accomplishments in the face of overwhelming adversity over the course of generations. And it is not even the fact that for the first time ever, black parents across the country can say to their children, “See? You can grow up to be President!” and know that their children may actually believe them.
The hypocrisy of discrimination in a country founded on the belief “that all men are created equal” does not hit those discriminated against in a “surgical strike.” Inequality itself does not discriminate. Inequality damages all of us. When we say to our children that we live in a land of freedom and equal opportunity, and our children then go out into that land to see that the reality is quite different, that child is damaged. When a child observes that so often only lip service is paid to the ideals of the country in which we live; that opportunities are so often offered or withheld based upon discrimination, or when a child observes discrimination in action, whether we are the source or the target or merely the bystander who allows it to happen, that child is damaged. Whether our children learn to discriminate against others, or they learn to expect discrimination as a matter of course, or they learn to stand by and let it happen, our children, and ultimately we ourselves, are damaged. But for generations in this country, dedicated people of both genders, all colors, all races, with experiences and backgrounds that run the gamut, have worked and struggled and sacrificed, sometimes ultimately, to stop the damage, to end discrimination, and to make the words “that all men are created equal” finally ring with truth instead of hypocrisy. At this incredible point in our history as a nation, let us not remake the mistake of once again dividing ourselves into tribes even as we discuss our accomplishment.
The absolutely most important thing to come out of this election is simply this: For the first time in the history of our country, ANY American citizen can say to their child, “You can grow up to be President.” and have a reasonable expectation that their children will believe them.
Just as our children are our future, we are their present. We’ve made a good start on getting it right. Let’s not screw it up now.
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