Cat Post 3: Bedless in Atlanta Airport Overnight.

On Friday there was a big ole storm in Atlanta (think Chicago too). Know I wasn’t alone that Friday. Poor Kim too (as Bary says you got the short end coming and going).

At 11:40 am I boarded a flight from San Jose to Atlanta. When we reached Atlanta, they were covered with a storm. We ended up flying in circles a lot, and once landed in Huntsville for several hours to get fuel and to wait out Atlanta. Over 12 hours later we we delivered lots of Hot Pizza from Dominoes right on the plane on the runway. It was actually pretty amazing…..it was amazing in that overall no one killed each other…or bitched to the flight attendents. The pilot kept us updated one every situation which made us all understand that ya can’t control mother nature….so might as well make the best of it…..We actually finally got off the plane in Atlanta around 1:00 am (think over 13 hours after departure)…..can you believe I didn’t even get up to go to the bathroom a single time….man, the human ass just isn’t designed for long term sitting on seats made in the 1970’s with over 1 million previously served ass squasing people sitting in them nearly 24 hours a day every day…sorry to ramble…..oh, and not to mention I was in the very back seat….those seats often have 2 major disadvantages.

The first is the every now and then you’d get a wiff of the toilet deodorizer stuff, which often can make one more nausated than the smell of staight shit. The second is that you can’t recline your seat since the airline feel they’ve got to squeeze as many seats in as possible, and those in the back row as stuck in the straight up position for the whole trip….which makes your space even less since the guy in front of you reclines back…making you in a straight up position with someone big bald head you feel as if your breathing down…ahhh!

Speaking of airplane seats…I can’t figure for the life of me why they don’t let you “recline” on take off and landing….To me it seriously feels as if the “straight up” is really “pitched forward”….even at the fanciest of restaurants I don’t sit that straight up…..and the recline…welll that’s a joke……what do you get….maybe 3 degrees?….like that’s really a recline…that’s just “closer” to my normal recline than than normal pitched forward “staight up” seat…….but in any case….there I was…over 13 hours……I didn’t socialize as much, but I was able to survive in a fine mood through all of that.

At the Airport:
I looked for my luggage for over an hour before I was able to find out that “It’ll get to albany somehow….prob won’t be “with you” though.

By that time 2:30 am I realized that the next flight I had been able to book via phone on plane was leaving at 7:00 am, which would mean it wouldn’t even make sense to go to the hotel I had booked.

So I worked for a few hours via wireless, then layed on the hard floor, and used my uncomfortably hard computer bag as a pillow. I kinda layed there for an hour in a half semi-sleeping.

At 5:00 am my flight at 7:00 got changed from the original (Atlanta to Dallas Texas, then Dallas to Washington DC, then DC to albany (flying 3000 miles to get somewhere 1000 miles away), was changed to another flight leaving at 9:55 that went to new yourk city, and then to albany new york.

At 9:50 I found that that flight was running 1 hour late. Any my layover in NYC was only 40 minutes. I got on the phone and was told that even if I got to New York City on that one delayed flight, that that wasn’t another plane going to Albany from New York City until the next day….but, there was another plane going nonstop from atlanta to albany that had 2 seats left….leaving in 5 minutes at another gate (subway trip). I asked her her advice on if she thought I could make it, and she said “try”. So I ran to the 9:55 direct flight….when I got to that gate the lady showed me a standby list with about 20 names on it. And no, the previous lady didn’t book it….F#@*, I should have told her that…wasn’t thinking clear since I was in panic (do I RUN or not).

I can’t even remember how now….somehow I managed to get a flight for later that night going to Cincinnati…that flight was delayed by about 2 hours, but luckily I still had layover time….and the next plane was also delayed by over an hour anyways…..but I made it as you can guess.

Flying Sucks! I guess it’s just an occupational hazzard. At least at airports they’ve got food and water….maybe not beds (wouldn’t that be nice..even army cots…should be a “law”).  At least I’m able to do what I gotta do to “get out”.

The next day my wife was kind enough to let me sleep for 14 hours even though she’d been with the kids all week. I’m working on getting my time clock back on NY Time (I so easily slip into Pacific time though).

Seems like nowerdays you’ve got a 1 in 4 chance of having “bad luck” with flying plans which can really try the basic human instincts of “surviving”. Ya gotta do what you can with what you’re handed….you’ll be lucky at somepoint, and yes, you’ll make it home eventually…and you’ll realize just how comfortable your pillow is tonight.

**I won’t mention the airline name because I had a love/hate relationship with them …some I loved, and some I didn’t understand. **