Prairie Landing
Monday, October 31, 2005
The problem with cabs
I went to New York on Thursday for some meetings. East Coast meetings are brutal. With the time difference, you have to leave the house by 6:30 to make it to a 12:30 meeting, and God help you if you actually have a morning meeting.
Despite my general manager's cheapness, I was allowed to take a cab to Midway. Naturally, I get some guy who's 10 minutes early. I call the dispatcher, yell about how I'm not coming out there till the appointed time, think I've made myself clear, only to have the phone ring 5 minutes later. More phone calls, more yelling, I miss the cab twice, they call him back twice. By now Colliculus and Darling Angel are both wide awake in the dark, full of alarm that I'm going to miss my flight, but I'm so full of righteous anger I'm ready to stomp out and catch the train.
But the driver eventually came back. You'd think he'd be thoroughly sick of me by now, but noooo, he's chipper as can be. I guess there's only one way to be at that time of day, which is completely saturated with caffeine. So he tries to talk to me. A sampling of conversational openers:
-Reasons why people miss cabs
-Where I'm going
-What I'm doing there
-The pros and cons of ATA
-Ditto for other airlines
-United's pension plan
-Which airlines go to Las Vegas
-Why it is that some airlines have a longer flight time than others, when going to Las Vegas
-Reasonableness of fares to Las Vegas
-The Sox won the World Series last night
This actually woke me up, since I hadn't been paying any attention. "I don't follow sports," I said. Long silence. Hooray! But it turned out the silence was merely stunned.
"You don't follow ANY sports?"
"Nope," I said triumphantly.
More silence. Then:
"So, the clocks are going back this weekend."
And that was when it officially became the longest trip to Midway, ever.
Despite my general manager's cheapness, I was allowed to take a cab to Midway. Naturally, I get some guy who's 10 minutes early. I call the dispatcher, yell about how I'm not coming out there till the appointed time, think I've made myself clear, only to have the phone ring 5 minutes later. More phone calls, more yelling, I miss the cab twice, they call him back twice. By now Colliculus and Darling Angel are both wide awake in the dark, full of alarm that I'm going to miss my flight, but I'm so full of righteous anger I'm ready to stomp out and catch the train.
But the driver eventually came back. You'd think he'd be thoroughly sick of me by now, but noooo, he's chipper as can be. I guess there's only one way to be at that time of day, which is completely saturated with caffeine. So he tries to talk to me. A sampling of conversational openers:
-Reasons why people miss cabs
-Where I'm going
-What I'm doing there
-The pros and cons of ATA
-Ditto for other airlines
-United's pension plan
-Which airlines go to Las Vegas
-Why it is that some airlines have a longer flight time than others, when going to Las Vegas
-Reasonableness of fares to Las Vegas
-The Sox won the World Series last night
This actually woke me up, since I hadn't been paying any attention. "I don't follow sports," I said. Long silence. Hooray! But it turned out the silence was merely stunned.
"You don't follow ANY sports?"
"Nope," I said triumphantly.
More silence. Then:
"So, the clocks are going back this weekend."
And that was when it officially became the longest trip to Midway, ever.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
So I'm still at work ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. I got through 3 horrific announcements, covered a medical meeting on the West Coast, and came back to find that a client publication that was slated to hit next spring, hits Sunday.
But going to the medical meeting wasn't all bad, not by any stretch. In the first place, I learned the reasons why San Francisco is really great (the weather) and really awful (filthy dirty, overpriced, full of insane people). Here is something interesting I saw when I was walking from my hotel to the train to Berkeley:
I also got to see my long-lost friends from B-more, then Seattle, now Berkeley, whom I will call by their professional titles, Dr. Ding-Dong and Bird Brain. Equally exciting, I got to meet their kids, who did not exist the last time I saw them. (Well, I guess one was about half-baked the last time.) I'll call them Horn (age 3 3/4) and Sushi Monster (15 months). These kids are hilarious. Also exhausting. I got there Saturday and BB and DD were completely beat by 10 o'clock, even more than me with my jet lag. By Sunday at 2 I understood. Horn and Sushi Monster get up at dawn and then run, run, run, run all day. They alternate between squealing with joy and screaming with annoyance. They get into everything, which is a cliche, but the part that isn't is that you the grown-up caretaker have to spend every waking minute getting them out of everything.
Horn is so named because he ran around the house with a cardboard rhino horn on his head shouting, "Daddy! I got a horn! I never got a horn before!" His parents were just about crying they were laughing so hard.
All in all an enjoyable weekend. And I haven't even mentioned the many fascinating talks I got to hear (and utterly revolting pictures I got to see) about fungal infections and MRSA!
But going to the medical meeting wasn't all bad, not by any stretch. In the first place, I learned the reasons why San Francisco is really great (the weather) and really awful (filthy dirty, overpriced, full of insane people). Here is something interesting I saw when I was walking from my hotel to the train to Berkeley:
I also got to see my long-lost friends from B-more, then Seattle, now Berkeley, whom I will call by their professional titles, Dr. Ding-Dong and Bird Brain. Equally exciting, I got to meet their kids, who did not exist the last time I saw them. (Well, I guess one was about half-baked the last time.) I'll call them Horn (age 3 3/4) and Sushi Monster (15 months). These kids are hilarious. Also exhausting. I got there Saturday and BB and DD were completely beat by 10 o'clock, even more than me with my jet lag. By Sunday at 2 I understood. Horn and Sushi Monster get up at dawn and then run, run, run, run all day. They alternate between squealing with joy and screaming with annoyance. They get into everything, which is a cliche, but the part that isn't is that you the grown-up caretaker have to spend every waking minute getting them out of everything.
Horn is so named because he ran around the house with a cardboard rhino horn on his head shouting, "Daddy! I got a horn! I never got a horn before!" His parents were just about crying they were laughing so hard.
All in all an enjoyable weekend. And I haven't even mentioned the many fascinating talks I got to hear (and utterly revolting pictures I got to see) about fungal infections and MRSA!
Monday, October 17, 2005
At long last, my theories about Chicago’s crappy cloudy winter are proved:
http://www.wunderground.com/tripplanner/index.asp
It is twice as likely to be cloudy here in January than it is in Philly. Or in Wilmington, at least, since the site seemed to have some problems with Philly.
On the other hand, it looks like I might've been wrong about Chicago not being windy -- compared to the East Coast cities I checked, it is definitely windier. Also windier than Omaha or Denver, which I figured were shoo-ins for windiness. Nope.
I have been in Work Hell for the last month-plus. It seems to be subsiding, though not as much or as rapidly as I'd like.
Colliculus and I are on a new quest to identify and research Mystery Bars. These are bars that have a beer sign (usually an Old Style sign) but nothing else, i.e. they don't appear to be called anything. Nor do they ever advertise any specials or attractions such as a pool table. The most intriguing of these has a Duvel sign.
I'm also on a Capital Letters Jag.
http://www.wunderground.com/tripplanner/index.asp
It is twice as likely to be cloudy here in January than it is in Philly. Or in Wilmington, at least, since the site seemed to have some problems with Philly.
On the other hand, it looks like I might've been wrong about Chicago not being windy -- compared to the East Coast cities I checked, it is definitely windier. Also windier than Omaha or Denver, which I figured were shoo-ins for windiness. Nope.
I have been in Work Hell for the last month-plus. It seems to be subsiding, though not as much or as rapidly as I'd like.
Colliculus and I are on a new quest to identify and research Mystery Bars. These are bars that have a beer sign (usually an Old Style sign) but nothing else, i.e. they don't appear to be called anything. Nor do they ever advertise any specials or attractions such as a pool table. The most intriguing of these has a Duvel sign.
I'm also on a Capital Letters Jag.
