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August 24, 2002
My Friends Rental Car Experience
So my friend, the one who cut his finger on braille, had an interesting experience at the SFO Airport Rental Terminal a week or so ago.
After a weekend in Las Vegas, NV, my friend arrives uncharacteristically early for his flight to SFO: an hour and a half early, at the gate no less! Unfortunately he is rewarded with a 3 hour delay (take off at half past midnight!)
After arriving at the San Francisco Airport, he discovers the more temperate climate has made his choice of shorts and a golf shirt uncomfortably cold while he waits more than 20 minutes for the less-frequent-at-night rental shuttle service. Its 3am.
Upon reaching the Rental Terminal, he finds that the building has been temporarily evacuated for a fire alarm, and enjoys the cold for yet another 45 minutes. Its 3:45am.
He checks in with his Rental Car company and is told that he can pick up the car on the 4th floor of the attached garage. He, fortunately, has aquired a Smarte Carte. But, unfortunately, he is faced with having the golf clubs drag on the floor or balancing them by hand. He chooses to balance by hand as he travels to the end of the long hallway to ride the elevator. Its 4am
Imagine his frustration to find the elevator non-operational. After returning to the rental desk, they surmise that the fire alarm must have disabled the elevators, he refuses their offer to "call maintenance".
Instead, my friend choose to ride the escalators. And he proceeds to demonstrate his frustration with some rough treatment of the Smarte Carte on to the escalator. After riding the 2 escalators, precariously balancing his luggage, to the third floor, he is welcomed with a barrier and a disabled escalator up to the fourth floor.
Now the frustration has really kicked in. Cold, tired (Las Vegas is for playing, not for sleeping), he removes the luggage from the Carte, violently throws the barrier aside, sets the Carte on a 300-yard coast to the end of the hallway, and proceeds to walk up the broken escalator.
As he reaches the fourth floor he discovers that it is barren, with plastic covering the floors and sheets covering what must have been old rental counters. Incredulousness does not describe his emotional state, Profranity escapes his lungs at a large volume. In disgust he walks back down the broken escalator with his luggage. Its 4:15am
At the third floor, the carte is long gone down the hallway, and there are no down escalators nearby. My friend chooses his golf clubs and runs down the up-escalator, rides it up and runs down with his suitcase. He repeats this procedure for the next escalator. At the bottom of the escalator, he was winded and hot and angry. He yells at another rental agent. Another Passenger arrives, and was also told to pick up his car on the fourth floor. They decide to try again.
After finally arriving at the fourth floor, a small previously unnoticed sign is found in the corner with hand written note "Pick Up Cars Here."
My friend gets his car and cannot find his hotel. After stopping to ask for directions, he finally finds his hotel... Room 430, a long walk around a spacious atrium and he opens the room... Beer bottles, unmade bed, and a mess a wait him. Back to the front desk.... Its 4:45am
Room 530: long walk around a spacious atrium, clean room, good night.
Next morning. Unfortunately, my friend realizes that he has forgotten his toiletries in the car. So he heads down for the complimentary breakfast first. The line is long, so he decides to retrieve his personals from the car. He finds the golf club bag locked as he left it. He's faced with destroyin the back, roundtrip to his room for the keys or carrying the infernal golf bag up to his room.
So he carries the bag back to his room only to recall that it was locked with a combination lock. Well at least he still has the complimentary breakfast...
When he arrived downstairs, he found the breakfast was over...
Posted by KnipSter at 02:47 PM | Comments (1)
Flying on a Jet Plane
So I travelled on JetBlue Airlines. It was a pretty decent experience overall, but not perfect...
JFK <-> OAK
Good: I was able to make the trip for a reasonable fair within a week of travelling.
Poor: I was booking through my company's travel agency website, and JetBlue seems to have a non-standard "connection," so my fare was wrong (too cheap), and I couldn't select a seat assignment.
Good: The plane has included headsets (or use you own) on a 24-channel DirectTV setup in every seat.
Poor: The 24 channels are (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classics, Discovery, History Channel, CNN Headline News, CNBC, GOLF, BOOM!, Discovery Kids, ...); no Movies, no Network Programming.
Poorer: My Row was not functioning on the return 5.5 hour flight (thank goodness for laptop, extra battery, FreeCell & Quake III)
Good: The pilot on the JFK->OAK flight, came out of the cockpit to welcome everyone and explain that JetBlue tries to be different and better. Nice touch.
Poor: The pilot on the OAK->JFK flight did not.
Good: JFK had electronic Kiosks for checkin (w/o checked baggage)
Poor: OAK did not.
Good: The flights were cheap
Poor: The flights were full
Good: Full soda cans at beverage time (2 times), 2 Snack runs, no bad meal
Not-that-bad: Snacks were simple and small: no meal.
Rating: I would fly them again.
Posted by KnipSter at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Its been a while...
So its been almost 2 weeks and there's nothing left on this page.... So what's been happening here?
Well, I travelled to San Francisco on JetBlue airlines, I'll tell you a little about that.
I've got a good story about my friend, the one who cut his finger on braille.
Maura is cute as ever and there are more pictures.
And I've finally gone public with our news.
Posted by KnipSter at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2002
Gates, Friends, & Naps
We visited friends in Bethel, CT over the weekend. It was suprising the amount of kids. Ranging from 16 months to 5, they all got along pretty well, a couple of disputes over balls and toy lawn mowers aside. But its funny to see gatherings of the same people evolve from Bar Crawls to Cocktail/Dinner Parties to Play Dates and Family BBQ's.
I'm going to go shopping for better gates for the top of the stairs.. Maura getting stronger and we'd like to let her run around without as much worry. Of course, she should be getting better at the stairs anyway...
Brunch with more parents today, should be nice...
Posted by KnipSter at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2002
Useless
So I really don't have anything to say, yet again. So I figure I will take a verbal (should that be written) dump on to this page, and let you read it or not. A couple of things are going on in my (our) lives recently, I'll share a couple. Maura is more and more chatty. She is definitely making talking conversational noises. They are like statements. I'm not sure if she is talking and we don't know the words, or if she is just doing a more sophiscated imitation. Anyway, we talk back and that is a lot of fun.
We visited friends over the weekend. Its cool to talk and chat with friends who are also parents. They've been parents longer so I guess its similar for them. Some of our stories are "old hat."
Work is exciting as always. The internal politics are often fascinating. Its wonderful to see so many different people having different perspectives, different scopes, different exposure and different judgement of whats important. Its such a good learning experience. I'm glad to be where I am in a company at this stage of development. So much to learn...
I'd still like to buy a house. A yard for Maura would be great. More room would be great. Visitors not sleeping on air mattresses or couches in the living room would be great. Reality: Those things might be possible with one or more of the following: long commute, old house, lots of work, more time, big raise. Its horrible that we're so fortunate, and still wanting. It must be a poor reflection. Anyone got a tiny violin?
Posted by KnipSter at 08:06 PM | Comments (2)
August 02, 2002
I'm Fozzie
Take the What Muppet Are You? Quiz!
 | You are Fozzie! |
Posted by KnipSter at 02:12 PM | Comments (2)