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As I posted briefly, I was in SoCal for most of the last week. Some observations from that trip follow.
While I was at Dulles waiting for my flight to board, I got to watch a guy bitch, moan, and whine about how IAD was the Worst Airport EVAR to whomever was on the other end of his phone. Let's start at the beginning. Guy was 600lbs at the minimum. He wanted to upgrade to first class, but there were five people in front of him on the list, and he was pissed that he had to walk all the way to the end of the terminal (I damn near told him to shut the fuck up and look at the map, we were only half way, but IAD isn't exactly small, and I was tired of his fucking whining, and really, he needs to do that shit somewhere else since I had no interest in listening to it). The people on the upgrade list in front of him hadn't physically checked in at the gate yet, and he was trying to coerce the chick working the gate to move him up. Of course, there's no way he'd FIT in even a first class airline seat. Hey asshole, heads up: being a dick won't get other people in a mood to help you out, and bitching about it loudly on your cell phone in between attempts will further preclude them from helping you out. The flight was only ~60% full, which I'm both glad about, since I had an entire row to myself, and also a little bummed as I would have taken perverse joy in seeing that asshole trying to squeeze into a single cattle class chair. Oh the hilarity. Unless of course he'd have been assigned a seat next to me, at which point I would have stopped laughing and told him to get his fucking rolls off my god damned lap. Smiling the whole time of course. Because hey, I'm an asshole too.
I've still never seen the Mississippi. It's ALWAYS cloudy over it when I fly during daylight. Every cross country flight since 1999 that I've made during the day, it's been too damn cloudy to see the ground.
One of my favorite features for flying on United is listening to Air Traffic Control's Greatest Hits (aka Cockpit radio).
While in Cleveland's ATC space, I heard a controller give a plane permission for a direct to O'Hare ATC space using the Funky Groove approach (I don't remember what exactly this apparently routine flight path is actually called, but that's what popped in to my head and I just about burst out laughing. I swear, they make shit up because they KNOW some of us are listening).
Somewhere in flyover country, while in Kansas City's ATC space, I heard our flight number alerted to traffic. You think of a thousand feet of separation as a lot, if you're remotely normal. When that thousand feet is all that separates you from another plane intersecting your flight path at a ~115o angle? And you're moving at mach .81? And it's moving somewhere between .70 and .85 too? With two 7x7s, getting that close at those speeds if feels like the pilots could give each other high fives in passing with only a meager thousand feet of space between you.
When we got out of Albuquerque's ATC space and into LA's, it became readily apparent that LAX was a VERY busy place for a Wednesday. The controller was moving planes all over the sky due to traffic in the air. Eventually, we got to land. Unfortunately, they didn't have a terminal for us. We eventually taxied to a hangar, and were unloaded via one of those ladders that can drive around the tarmac, and bussed to a terminal. Forty minutes later, they finally found a luggage crew that could detach from a terminal and unload our luggage. Twenty minutes after that, our luggage finally appeared on the carousel. We landed ten minutes early, at 2130 PDT. I didn't finally leave the airport to pick up my rental until after 2300 PDT.
The next days were spent in the Mojave, doing things I shouldn't talk about here. The desert? Beautiful. The snow capped Sierra-Nevada peaks in the background were just gorgeous. Everyone tells me I'm thinking this because it's spring, the temps are only in the high 70s and low 80s, and the winds haven't started yet. This is probably true, but my god, the desert is eye gougingly gorgeous in the spring.
Driving back to LAX from the high desert, I drove across what was obviously a fault line. Rock strata are normally parallel to the horizon. Where tectonic plates collide? I wish I had a camera. The amount of cool in that view requires more talent than I have to put in to words. Geological impacts take eons. Mountains collide in slow motion, but seeing strata up heaved at sixty degrees off the horizontal makes apparent just how violent that collision is, even when it takes millions of years. Entire mountains; broken, wounded, and bleeding in the gorge.
The flight home was uneventful. I got off a plane at 0640 EDT, went home, and went to sleep.
Of course, my sleep schedule is totally broken right now.
While I was at Dulles waiting for my flight to board, I got to watch a guy bitch, moan, and whine about how IAD was the Worst Airport EVAR to whomever was on the other end of his phone. Let's start at the beginning. Guy was 600lbs at the minimum. He wanted to upgrade to first class, but there were five people in front of him on the list, and he was pissed that he had to walk all the way to the end of the terminal (I damn near told him to shut the fuck up and look at the map, we were only half way, but IAD isn't exactly small, and I was tired of his fucking whining, and really, he needs to do that shit somewhere else since I had no interest in listening to it). The people on the upgrade list in front of him hadn't physically checked in at the gate yet, and he was trying to coerce the chick working the gate to move him up. Of course, there's no way he'd FIT in even a first class airline seat. Hey asshole, heads up: being a dick won't get other people in a mood to help you out, and bitching about it loudly on your cell phone in between attempts will further preclude them from helping you out. The flight was only ~60% full, which I'm both glad about, since I had an entire row to myself, and also a little bummed as I would have taken perverse joy in seeing that asshole trying to squeeze into a single cattle class chair. Oh the hilarity. Unless of course he'd have been assigned a seat next to me, at which point I would have stopped laughing and told him to get his fucking rolls off my god damned lap. Smiling the whole time of course. Because hey, I'm an asshole too.
I've still never seen the Mississippi. It's ALWAYS cloudy over it when I fly during daylight. Every cross country flight since 1999 that I've made during the day, it's been too damn cloudy to see the ground.
One of my favorite features for flying on United is listening to Air Traffic Control's Greatest Hits (aka Cockpit radio).
While in Cleveland's ATC space, I heard a controller give a plane permission for a direct to O'Hare ATC space using the Funky Groove approach (I don't remember what exactly this apparently routine flight path is actually called, but that's what popped in to my head and I just about burst out laughing. I swear, they make shit up because they KNOW some of us are listening).
Somewhere in flyover country, while in Kansas City's ATC space, I heard our flight number alerted to traffic. You think of a thousand feet of separation as a lot, if you're remotely normal. When that thousand feet is all that separates you from another plane intersecting your flight path at a ~115o angle? And you're moving at mach .81? And it's moving somewhere between .70 and .85 too? With two 7x7s, getting that close at those speeds if feels like the pilots could give each other high fives in passing with only a meager thousand feet of space between you.
When we got out of Albuquerque's ATC space and into LA's, it became readily apparent that LAX was a VERY busy place for a Wednesday. The controller was moving planes all over the sky due to traffic in the air. Eventually, we got to land. Unfortunately, they didn't have a terminal for us. We eventually taxied to a hangar, and were unloaded via one of those ladders that can drive around the tarmac, and bussed to a terminal. Forty minutes later, they finally found a luggage crew that could detach from a terminal and unload our luggage. Twenty minutes after that, our luggage finally appeared on the carousel. We landed ten minutes early, at 2130 PDT. I didn't finally leave the airport to pick up my rental until after 2300 PDT.
The next days were spent in the Mojave, doing things I shouldn't talk about here. The desert? Beautiful. The snow capped Sierra-Nevada peaks in the background were just gorgeous. Everyone tells me I'm thinking this because it's spring, the temps are only in the high 70s and low 80s, and the winds haven't started yet. This is probably true, but my god, the desert is eye gougingly gorgeous in the spring.
Driving back to LAX from the high desert, I drove across what was obviously a fault line. Rock strata are normally parallel to the horizon. Where tectonic plates collide? I wish I had a camera. The amount of cool in that view requires more talent than I have to put in to words. Geological impacts take eons. Mountains collide in slow motion, but seeing strata up heaved at sixty degrees off the horizontal makes apparent just how violent that collision is, even when it takes millions of years. Entire mountains; broken, wounded, and bleeding in the gorge.
The flight home was uneventful. I got off a plane at 0640 EDT, went home, and went to sleep.
Of course, my sleep schedule is totally broken right now.
