JavaOne, DayZero
Originally posted 2005-06-27 14:37:18
The conference kicked off this morning, but I’m still at cruising altitude. After arriving at the airport Sunday evening about an hour and a half before my flight, I slumped down in a chair, cracked the David Baldacci paperback I’d borrowed from the library (Wish You Well), and read for 3 1/2 hours. Do the math, and you’ll see how long Delta made me wait. Something about bad weather in Atlanta, but that should be no big deal, right? If bad weather in Atlanta would prevent my flight from taking off from Jacksonville, surely it would prevent the connecting flight to San Francisco from taking off for a commensurate duration, right?
Wrong. I steamed off the plane in Atlanta, rushed to a Delta screen, and found my San Fran flight on the Departures screen with the word \”Departed\” next to it. Rushing through the terminal to a Delta desk brought me exercise but little else. I did get to listen to the distress of a middle aged couple who, if truthful, had spent the entire day in the airport. She jabbed around like a peeved hornet, breathing out threatenings and poison to any she could reach. He, on the other hand, sat mute as a flower, accustomed to offering her his pollen and nothing else. Finally, the Delta agent on the other end of the hotline tipped her over the edge, and she yelled, \”I can’t believe this $)(*&@)(# airline!\” She continued in that vein for a time, and I’d quote her if I had more punctuation keys on my keyboard. The last lines I heard from her were stabbed at her meek mate: \”I’m going to kill someone tonight, and unless you want it to be you, get on this phone and get this done!\”
The Delta agent gave me a toiletry kit that I plan to regift to my makeup-loving four-year-old, two hotel coupons for $50, and a booking on the 11:50 AM flight through Salt Lake City. I bide farewell to Jonathan Schwarz’s opening remarks, my 11 AM book signing, and a handful of sessions I was looking forward to. I schlepped my carryon and my laptop out of the terminal to the battalion of hotel shuttles, pacing back and forth to find the Wellesly Inn shuttle. My goings missed its comings, and it left without me. Somewhat daunted, but not yet defeated, I spied the Holiday Inn shuttle–my other coupon. I dashed up its steps, almost into an elderly gentleman’s backside, and stood at the top of its steps, my back to the folding door. The nearest post was at an arm’s length, and I barely kept myself afoot as the shuttle wound its way through traffic until it came to a stop and opened its doors. I popped out, started to walk up to the Holiday Inn . . . and realized that this shuttle also serviced the Crown Plaza, that I was the only one to disembark, and that the shuttle was pulling away. I trudged in, without coupon, accepted the $160 room, dropped off my bags, walked to Arby’s for a bracing Beef -N- Cheddar, then finally collapsed in my room in front of ESPN News. The clock read 1:00 AM by the time I finished eating, so I showered off the day’s travels, washed out my lone pair of underwear (Macon Leary would never be caught thus), and slept much closer to hotel sheets than I ever would have predicted.
The new day brought new spark, though the clock read 7:14 before I finally walked out of my room, and I headed to the airport on a whim. I quickly realized that the room clock had sped ahead an hour somehow, so my thoughts and steps quickened as I raced back to the airport in hopes of a standby. All my foul thoughts toward Delta melted as the ticket agent put me at the top of the standby list for the 8:00 AM direct to San Francisco. I hustled to the security checkpoint, where I learned about random security screenings. I wonder if my fledgling goatee tripped some alarm. I thought my chances for the 8:00 AM flight had vanished, while I worried whether I’d sufficiently scrubbed any crevices the security detail were likely to probe, but soon discovered my serendipity: the random screening shoved me past the long lines, where I was swabbed, scanned, spun around a few times, and disgorged past the sullen lines. Victory!
I endured some tense moments while I waited at the gate, willing those few who hadn’t claimed their reserved seats to stay away, and at 7:47 I received a boarding pass for seat 16E. I hopped on, finished my book, watched Hitch, and did the USA Today crossword puzzle. And now we’re 20 minutes from San Francisco, and I may still make that 11 AM book signing . . . .