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howeirdWoke up at about 7:30 this morning in the hotel in San Diego, looked out the window at the drab cloudy day and the evidence of showers overnight. Did my morning stuff then went downstairs and next door to the continental breakfast, and was rained on for that short trip. Had a toasted bagel (margarine, there was no cream cheese), a couple of boxes of fruit drinks, and an apple "pastry". There were a few pretty women in and out, and a litle girl whose daddy thought she was amazingly cute when all she was was an annoying attention whore.
It was still raining when I was done, so I parked myself on the comfortable sofa in the lobby and watched the rain, and the occasional passer-by, and the occasional checker-outer which included a couple in their late 20s where the woman trailed behind the man carrying a comforter and two pillows. And I played on the smartphone. Downloaded the SW Airlines app, and changed my reservation from 8 pm to 1pm. And took the upgrade, which was only $7. This moved my boarding to 4th in line.
Back to the room, packed up, back to the other building and checked out. Got change for a quarter from the front desk for the bus and at about 10 was at a bus stop waiting for the #3, which had just passed by when I walked out the hotel door. One lovely thing about SAN buses, each stop has a number, and if you text the number to the bus service, immediately it replies with the next 5 buses due at that stop. There were two 120 buses due before the next 3, and those went right where I wanted to go too. So in about 15 minutes I was on a 120, this time "only" paid $1.10, then waited about 10 minutes for the bus to the airport (another $1.10). I should have had lunch downtown first, I suppose, but wasn't very hungry.
At the Southwest terminal, the line for security check-in was a block and a half long. It was moving, but it was long - and kept getting longer after I joined it. When I got to the front 20 minutes later it seems my upgrade meant I did not have to get in that line after all, but there were no signs about that until you got around the corner and saw the second line. So it only saved me about 5 people's worth of a wait, which was all negated when the woman in front of me tripped the alarm, and they had to send for a manager to un-trip it.
The reason for the delay is the isiots at TSA had set up shop at the very narrow hallway at the bottom of the escalators, a natural bottleneck only wide enough for two walk-through machines. There are four conveyor belts, but the lack of scanners slowed everything down.
Up the escalator to the gates, most of the seats were taken. The gates are in a circle, I finally found a seat in the second to last gate. The next plane was going to Baltimore, which was funny because it was facing the bar which had the Ravens game on TV, and the Ravens were getting clobbered.
Turns out SAN is an excellent place to see eye candy, so I got a mocha from Starbucks, and mostly sat enjoying the view.
They told me at the gate when I checked to confirm my upgrade that they would start boarding at 1, but when I got there at 12:45 they were already lined up. I was 3rd on the plane (#2 did not show up early) and grabbed the first seat by the window. #1 and #3 for some strange reason went to the middle of the plane. I was all set at 1:05 with a very tall man in the aisle seat and no one in the middle, for them to shut the door and get us in the air on time, but latecomers kept showing up. A young woman (high school age) with her dad grabbed the middle seat while Dad went to the back where Mom was already seated. We did not get out of there till 1:19. About 20 people boarded late. I'm blaming the TSA backlog.
Very easy flight, no annoying children nearby, no turbulance, and this time I was on the ocean side, and the cloud cover was broken enough to see the islands, Moro Bay, Monterey and Half Moon Bay. I got some nice shots.
First row meant almost first off the plane, which was very nice. Especially after being almost last off on the way down. Still had the camera out, so was able to grab this shot as a couple of blackbirds decided to take advantage of the water fountains near the restrooms:
Waited 10 minutes for the parking lot shuttle, grumbling all the time about the a-holes who decided to put the smoking section right by the shuttle stop. Drove home on Central, dropped off my pack, picked up my mail, which had three things for previous tenants and the refund check from my last apartment. Looked it over at home, and will have to call them, they charged me instead of credited me for the amount of time I vacated early. Otherwise it was a more than fair sert of charges for cleaning and painting.
Sat in the recliner and watched football, with Domino sometimes on the arm, or walking across my lap, or parked on the sheepskin rug. Fired up the PC and took care of some things on FB which their phone app/mobile browser pages couldn't handle. Started up the VCR and the USB adapter, and set up to record my 2000 Sunnyvale Man of La Mancha. My all-time favorite theater experience. Uploaded the photos to the PC, processed them and uploaded them to Flickr. Wrote a short review of Allegiance on their web site. Watched more football. Dinner was dolmathes, followed by a small Turkey frozen dinner, then a bag of sweet corn, dessert was a Klondike bar and some chocolate booze-filled confections. Started a load of laundry which I entirely forgot about until now. Will run the dryer in the morning, and start another load too.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work. Team meeting at 10
Maybe BASFA, maybe MNF
It was still raining when I was done, so I parked myself on the comfortable sofa in the lobby and watched the rain, and the occasional passer-by, and the occasional checker-outer which included a couple in their late 20s where the woman trailed behind the man carrying a comforter and two pillows. And I played on the smartphone. Downloaded the SW Airlines app, and changed my reservation from 8 pm to 1pm. And took the upgrade, which was only $7. This moved my boarding to 4th in line.
Back to the room, packed up, back to the other building and checked out. Got change for a quarter from the front desk for the bus and at about 10 was at a bus stop waiting for the #3, which had just passed by when I walked out the hotel door. One lovely thing about SAN buses, each stop has a number, and if you text the number to the bus service, immediately it replies with the next 5 buses due at that stop. There were two 120 buses due before the next 3, and those went right where I wanted to go too. So in about 15 minutes I was on a 120, this time "only" paid $1.10, then waited about 10 minutes for the bus to the airport (another $1.10). I should have had lunch downtown first, I suppose, but wasn't very hungry.
At the Southwest terminal, the line for security check-in was a block and a half long. It was moving, but it was long - and kept getting longer after I joined it. When I got to the front 20 minutes later it seems my upgrade meant I did not have to get in that line after all, but there were no signs about that until you got around the corner and saw the second line. So it only saved me about 5 people's worth of a wait, which was all negated when the woman in front of me tripped the alarm, and they had to send for a manager to un-trip it.
The reason for the delay is the isiots at TSA had set up shop at the very narrow hallway at the bottom of the escalators, a natural bottleneck only wide enough for two walk-through machines. There are four conveyor belts, but the lack of scanners slowed everything down.
Up the escalator to the gates, most of the seats were taken. The gates are in a circle, I finally found a seat in the second to last gate. The next plane was going to Baltimore, which was funny because it was facing the bar which had the Ravens game on TV, and the Ravens were getting clobbered.
Turns out SAN is an excellent place to see eye candy, so I got a mocha from Starbucks, and mostly sat enjoying the view.
They told me at the gate when I checked to confirm my upgrade that they would start boarding at 1, but when I got there at 12:45 they were already lined up. I was 3rd on the plane (#2 did not show up early) and grabbed the first seat by the window. #1 and #3 for some strange reason went to the middle of the plane. I was all set at 1:05 with a very tall man in the aisle seat and no one in the middle, for them to shut the door and get us in the air on time, but latecomers kept showing up. A young woman (high school age) with her dad grabbed the middle seat while Dad went to the back where Mom was already seated. We did not get out of there till 1:19. About 20 people boarded late. I'm blaming the TSA backlog.
Very easy flight, no annoying children nearby, no turbulance, and this time I was on the ocean side, and the cloud cover was broken enough to see the islands, Moro Bay, Monterey and Half Moon Bay. I got some nice shots.
First row meant almost first off the plane, which was very nice. Especially after being almost last off on the way down. Still had the camera out, so was able to grab this shot as a couple of blackbirds decided to take advantage of the water fountains near the restrooms:
Waited 10 minutes for the parking lot shuttle, grumbling all the time about the a-holes who decided to put the smoking section right by the shuttle stop. Drove home on Central, dropped off my pack, picked up my mail, which had three things for previous tenants and the refund check from my last apartment. Looked it over at home, and will have to call them, they charged me instead of credited me for the amount of time I vacated early. Otherwise it was a more than fair sert of charges for cleaning and painting.
Sat in the recliner and watched football, with Domino sometimes on the arm, or walking across my lap, or parked on the sheepskin rug. Fired up the PC and took care of some things on FB which their phone app/mobile browser pages couldn't handle. Started up the VCR and the USB adapter, and set up to record my 2000 Sunnyvale Man of La Mancha. My all-time favorite theater experience. Uploaded the photos to the PC, processed them and uploaded them to Flickr. Wrote a short review of Allegiance on their web site. Watched more football. Dinner was dolmathes, followed by a small Turkey frozen dinner, then a bag of sweet corn, dessert was a Klondike bar and some chocolate booze-filled confections. Started a load of laundry which I entirely forgot about until now. Will run the dryer in the morning, and start another load too.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work. Team meeting at 10
Maybe BASFA, maybe MNF
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