Theresa · Mather

I have teh Internets! Yay!

When I fly to cons, I like traveling a day early in case of delays.
The first leg of the trip went smoothly- I can get to the local small airport 5 minutes from my house 20 minutes before my flight and still have time to sit around. I'm enjoying the last of that, though 'cause the loony locals blackballed the current airline in favor of the "locally owned" (guess the true meaning of that phrase in Utah, heh heh) SkyWest which feeds exclusively into Delta in Salt Lake City- meaning insane 6 stop connections to get anywhere. Cedar City to Boston via Delta in 2004 was Cedar to Salt Lake to San Fransisco or Los Angeles (or both on one "flight choice") to Chicago (add Philadelphia on some "choices") to Boston. So when SkyWest takes over again and stops the flights to the nearest large city- Vegas, we'll probably be driving to Vegas to get the cheaper direct flights. I'm gonna miss the Vegas flights and being able to check in at our tiny podunk airport so I savored this last time. Of course if the government subsidies end, no airline will be flying out of Cedar anymore. Red staters love to gorge like fat pigs at the tax trough as much as anyone- don't ever let them tell ya otherwise! :P
At any rate, the Cedar to Vegas prop plane flight is amazing, with views of Zion, parts of the Grand Canyon, the Virgin River Gorge and the stark Nevada desert. You get great views of the Vegas strip as well. They send flights out of Las Vegas like they're loaded on a slingshot- one after the other with hardly any space between.

The fallout from all the storms and the fact that it's a holiday weekend was causing all sorts of mayhem for all sorts of people yesterday. My flight from Las Vegas to San Fransisco was delayed several hours, but compared to the epic tales of woe some could tell, I got off easy and was thankful. Take the couple on my plane that had set out to take a direct flight from the east coast on Tuesday night and was waiting on the (delayed) fifth improvised leg of the journey on the third airline on Thursday at noon. They had been "stuck on the tarmac" for lengthy periods during two of those flights, been stuck in ticket lines for 4 hours at a time and were sans sleep for 36 hours. So when a perky stewardess bounced off the late plane we were waiting for and quipped "gee, why is everyone so grouchy today?" all she got were exhausted glares. A man at the hotel where I'm at now had spent 10 hours in a ticket line and had finally been told to come back in several days and they'd get him home eventually.
As I waited I bought a book at the Las Vegas airport "It's Not News, It's FARK-How Mass Media Tries To Pass Off CRAP as News" by Drew Curtis. It's pretty good so far- with chapter titles like "Media Fear Mongering" and "Equal Time For Nutjobs" it has to be! I had a leisurely lunch, and finally got into San Francisco. There was construction going on so no one knew how to find out what luggage was going to be on what carousel, plus there were mountains and mountains of piled luggage from people who had not made it with the flights it corresponded to. There were marker-on-notepaper signs which said what airport the piles were from but not which flights. So...it was mayhem.
I painted dayglo happy faces on our luggage awhile back, forgoing the dignity and coolness of black for ease of finding my stuff. "Oh, the shocking pink happy face with three eyes...that's mine!" I must say I have endured sneers and questioning from sheeple before, but all I can say is I'm not the one still standing at the carousel looking at the tags of every identical black bag that circles around. :P
The airlines need to kick the shareholders out of the process and get back to serving customers, not investors. I'm sick of being treated like cattle in a process where corporations are focusing on providing as little service for as much money as possible to give my money to a third party that benefits me in no way. I can hear the pitches in my imagination.."but if we anestethize the units...er...passengers, we could stack them six high and increase profits x%- we can call it RelaxFly(tm) or DreamVoyage(tm)"



So, the hotel for Westercon is very nice- I'm in a nice suite with a feathery poofy bed that I sank into and slept nearly 12 hours. I faded off watching an awesome History International show about the construction of Chartres Cathedral. Amazing stained glass and wild flying butresses...didn't dream though. Wait, now that I think of it I did...there was a plumbing related flood going on..it was an expansive rural property with trees and buildings, it wasn't mine but the person who owned it was gone so I was trying to stop the flood. The owner was disorganized so I couldn't find the valve in the main building that would shut it off behind all their junk. Someone was stopping me asking for art lessons while I was moving plastic chairs trying to find the source of the flood. Now where the hell did THAT come from?

So I'm all recharged and ready for the con! :) I'll be sure to keep you updated.