Friday, May 14, 2004
Why am I still blogging?
Some of you had asked, and I had responded that I would not be blogging about spending the weekend in Stamford/NYC with Ina. So why am I blogging now? Cause I'm still at the airport. We are delayed. Apparently the crew for our flight is coming in from Sudbury, and that flight was delayed. So we have to wait til they land, clear US customs, and get all the way over to Gate E, which is the satelite terminal, meaning you take a bus on the tarmac from the main Terminal 2, all they way to the far east end of the airport, right next to the 427. Of course, that means we are flying in a dinky little propellor plane that will be extremely noisy, much like my flights to Detroit. Considering the flight to Westchester is only 2 hours long, it's expected that I'd be on a propellor plane. Though I must say, I still get amused that I get to walk up the airplane stairs from the tarmac to get on the plane. I feel almost like a queen.
Had an amusing adventure getting through US customs and security. First off, I can't find a pen that works. I always have a pen on me, in my knapsack or purse. Problem is, the pen that was in my knapsack has prolly been there since I graduated from Loo, and I don't have a purse this time cause I brought along my dad's old Minolta SLR, so the camera bag is doubled as my purse. So no functioning pen for me.
US customs makes you fill out this blue form. I'm used to filling it out by now, but for destination, I usually just list the city and state, and the name of the hotel (aside: for Chickvegas, our flight was to Vegas, even though our real destination on the way down was San Diego. To avoid problems, I just listed destination as Tropicana Hotel, in Vegas. I had no clue what Karen's addy was.) Problem is, I'm not staying at a hotel. I'm staying at Ina's. So whatever, I leave it blank and go see the customs guy. Either he's not having a good day, or he just doesn't like me. He asks me a million things, including occupation and employer, even though I'm not going for business. Asks other things like what's my citizenship (while looking at my passport.. in case I forget, I suppose...), and when I'm coming back. Then he asks me the street address. I tell him I don't know, my friend is picking me up. Is your friend male or female. A girl. Is she American or Canadian. I think she's still Canadian. Do you have a cell phone. Yes. Go over there behind the red line and call your friend for the street address. Come back and tell me the street address. So I go and do as I'm told (Ina now you know why I called). All done, go back to the guy, he asks me if I filled it out, I say no can I borrow your pen =) I must have made his list of most annoying and difficult people who are a far cry from being a threat to US homeland security.
On to security check. Remember I have my dad's camera? I also have high speed film (1250) courtesy of my new camera teacher. Being bored while waiting for the Park N Fly bus to come pick me up, I had loaded the camera and took some shots. I had no idea that cameras are required to be put through the xray machine, even though they are willing to hand check your film. But, since my teacher has incredible foresight, I knew how to rewind the film to take it out of the camera before placing the camera in the xray machine.
They hand checked the film, and then at the other side of the xray machine, the security guy asks to check my camera bag. I don't really care, esp since I'm trying to stuff my laptop back into my knapsack at that point. Then I notice what he's doing. He's checking out my camera! This isn't a security check, this is some guy who works for security and gets a kick out of cameras! He was peering into the camera, playing with the focus, checking out the specs. Then puts it all away, and asks me whether the lens is any good (prolly cause it's a minolta and not a canon or nikon). Me, being the idiot that before yesterday didn't know how to load film, replied, "It's ok".
No, he didn't look at anything else in my camera bag, just the camera. I wonder if he does this to everyone who bring a non-idiot (idiot refering to point-and-shoot) camera.
I get on the bus and arrive at Gate E. I find me a seat, and read the newspaper. I'm bored. But I can't fall asleep, cause there's too many people around, and I want to keep an eye on my baggage (all carry on). Eventually I get hungry, and check out the one "restaurant" in the satelite terminal. It's more like a Second Cup that serves alcohol, and has some food with meat in it, along with the typical array of muffins and brownies. I don't like sandwiches so I check out the chicken salad wrap. $7.25 not including taxes. Insane. And it's tiny!! Hotdogs were $4.05. Soup was the only reasonable thing at $3.00, but of course, they were out of soup. So, no food for me. Go back to my seat and wait for our crew to arrive so we can take off.
Finally get on the plane (I'm on the plane right now). As I suspected, this plane is much like my Detroit plane. Eight rows, seats four across, two on each side of the aisle. Thirty-two passengers. Two pilots as is standard. Cabin crew is one person. One lonely guy who has to take care of the entire plane. Of course, there are only about 10 of us on the plane anyway. He offers all-you-can-eat airplane snacks. I snack a bit, but I'm waiting for my yummy meal that has been promised to me once I land.
I don't intend on blogging again for this weekend, and since I don't have a digicam, no pics either. But who knows, maybe I'll have problems at Westchester on the flight home. I might end up blogging then too, if I'm sufficiently bored.
Time to nap, the flight is already half over.
JCL 9pm EST
Time Warp!: Thank goodness Stamford & NYC are in the same time zone as TO =D
Some of you had asked, and I had responded that I would not be blogging about spending the weekend in Stamford/NYC with Ina. So why am I blogging now? Cause I'm still at the airport. We are delayed. Apparently the crew for our flight is coming in from Sudbury, and that flight was delayed. So we have to wait til they land, clear US customs, and get all the way over to Gate E, which is the satelite terminal, meaning you take a bus on the tarmac from the main Terminal 2, all they way to the far east end of the airport, right next to the 427. Of course, that means we are flying in a dinky little propellor plane that will be extremely noisy, much like my flights to Detroit. Considering the flight to Westchester is only 2 hours long, it's expected that I'd be on a propellor plane. Though I must say, I still get amused that I get to walk up the airplane stairs from the tarmac to get on the plane. I feel almost like a queen.
Had an amusing adventure getting through US customs and security. First off, I can't find a pen that works. I always have a pen on me, in my knapsack or purse. Problem is, the pen that was in my knapsack has prolly been there since I graduated from Loo, and I don't have a purse this time cause I brought along my dad's old Minolta SLR, so the camera bag is doubled as my purse. So no functioning pen for me.
US customs makes you fill out this blue form. I'm used to filling it out by now, but for destination, I usually just list the city and state, and the name of the hotel (aside: for Chickvegas, our flight was to Vegas, even though our real destination on the way down was San Diego. To avoid problems, I just listed destination as Tropicana Hotel, in Vegas. I had no clue what Karen's addy was.) Problem is, I'm not staying at a hotel. I'm staying at Ina's. So whatever, I leave it blank and go see the customs guy. Either he's not having a good day, or he just doesn't like me. He asks me a million things, including occupation and employer, even though I'm not going for business. Asks other things like what's my citizenship (while looking at my passport.. in case I forget, I suppose...), and when I'm coming back. Then he asks me the street address. I tell him I don't know, my friend is picking me up. Is your friend male or female. A girl. Is she American or Canadian. I think she's still Canadian. Do you have a cell phone. Yes. Go over there behind the red line and call your friend for the street address. Come back and tell me the street address. So I go and do as I'm told (Ina now you know why I called). All done, go back to the guy, he asks me if I filled it out, I say no can I borrow your pen =) I must have made his list of most annoying and difficult people who are a far cry from being a threat to US homeland security.
On to security check. Remember I have my dad's camera? I also have high speed film (1250) courtesy of my new camera teacher. Being bored while waiting for the Park N Fly bus to come pick me up, I had loaded the camera and took some shots. I had no idea that cameras are required to be put through the xray machine, even though they are willing to hand check your film. But, since my teacher has incredible foresight, I knew how to rewind the film to take it out of the camera before placing the camera in the xray machine.
They hand checked the film, and then at the other side of the xray machine, the security guy asks to check my camera bag. I don't really care, esp since I'm trying to stuff my laptop back into my knapsack at that point. Then I notice what he's doing. He's checking out my camera! This isn't a security check, this is some guy who works for security and gets a kick out of cameras! He was peering into the camera, playing with the focus, checking out the specs. Then puts it all away, and asks me whether the lens is any good (prolly cause it's a minolta and not a canon or nikon). Me, being the idiot that before yesterday didn't know how to load film, replied, "It's ok".
No, he didn't look at anything else in my camera bag, just the camera. I wonder if he does this to everyone who bring a non-idiot (idiot refering to point-and-shoot) camera.
I get on the bus and arrive at Gate E. I find me a seat, and read the newspaper. I'm bored. But I can't fall asleep, cause there's too many people around, and I want to keep an eye on my baggage (all carry on). Eventually I get hungry, and check out the one "restaurant" in the satelite terminal. It's more like a Second Cup that serves alcohol, and has some food with meat in it, along with the typical array of muffins and brownies. I don't like sandwiches so I check out the chicken salad wrap. $7.25 not including taxes. Insane. And it's tiny!! Hotdogs were $4.05. Soup was the only reasonable thing at $3.00, but of course, they were out of soup. So, no food for me. Go back to my seat and wait for our crew to arrive so we can take off.
Finally get on the plane (I'm on the plane right now). As I suspected, this plane is much like my Detroit plane. Eight rows, seats four across, two on each side of the aisle. Thirty-two passengers. Two pilots as is standard. Cabin crew is one person. One lonely guy who has to take care of the entire plane. Of course, there are only about 10 of us on the plane anyway. He offers all-you-can-eat airplane snacks. I snack a bit, but I'm waiting for my yummy meal that has been promised to me once I land.
I don't intend on blogging again for this weekend, and since I don't have a digicam, no pics either. But who knows, maybe I'll have problems at Westchester on the flight home. I might end up blogging then too, if I'm sufficiently bored.
Time to nap, the flight is already half over.
JCL 9pm EST
Time Warp!: Thank goodness Stamford & NYC are in the same time zone as TO =D
