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  • Murv’s Not So Excellent Adventure…

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    Part 1 of 4…

    ohio
    Those of you who follow me on Twitter, etc, know that I went to Ohio recently. I had a book signing and presented workshops at a great store called Violet Flame Gifts. VFG is absolutely wonderful. Heather, the owner, and her entire family always treat me like royalty, they feed me until I am about to burst, and they are just plain fun to be around, as are the folks who come to the store for the seminars and such. I am always glad to return to VFG or the VFG sponsored event, Earth Warriors Festival, because I know I will have a great time while I am there.

    However… (aww c’mon, you knew it was coming)… In the 5 years I have been visiting the Newark, Ohio store, either my trip to or from has been fraught with some kind of issue, such as delays. I don’t blame Heather or VFG for this, so please don’t get that idea. These are things completely out of her control. I’m just starting to believe there is an anti-Murv vortex hanging over the Ohio valley, but only insofar as travel – specifically flying.

    Now, at the risk of waxing nostalgic, something I do all the time as you all well know, I’m old enough that I can clearly recall when air travel was nothing short of glamorous. It was the purview of those with money, and those who could afford to travel in the lap of luxury.
    Airborne Waitresses
    Back then, flight attendants were called Stewardesses, and they were the bomb. Not only were they pretty and wore great uniforms, they smiled and made you feel welcome, important, and appreciated.

    Hell, in 1975 one of them donned a headset, climbed behind the controls, and flew a crippled 747 through the mountains of Colorado after a light aircraft ripped a hole in the side of the Jumbo Jet and killed off the flight crew… Okay, okay, so Airport ’75 was just a movie. It didn’t actually happen. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that back in the day, “Stewardesses” were the “bomb” – little girls wanted to grow up to be them, and little boys wanted to grow up to date them. And who could blame them? These were the elite hostesses of the air. The cream of the crop.

    These days, that just isn’t how it is. Don’t get me wrong, there are still some stellar flight attendants out there, and I’ve even met a few – both female and male – but they seem to be few and far between… on my flights, at least. Usually I end up faced with an angry airborne waitress or waiter with a sour disposition and a superiority complex. I suppose it could be the uniform and the wings that make them feel so powerful. If that’s the case, and the outfit carries with it that kind of influence, perhaps I should start wearing a blazer with elbow patches and chewing on a fancy meerschaum pipe. Then maybe I’d feel more like an author instead of just some guy who accidentally sticks words to paper sometimes.

    flightplan
    But, as usual, I digress…

    To be honest, the flight attendants are only one symptom in a vast array of ailments where air travel is concerned, and thus far they’ve never been my problem on these Ohio odysseys. Well… Except for the guy we’ll call Mr. Chronic Halitosis. He was working coach on the first leg of my trip to Ohio, and I’m not sure what crawled into his mouth and died, but he really needed to pry it out of there and use some strong mouthwash. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the 2 dollar cologne he had bathed in that day really didn’t help either. It just made you gasp, which in turn allowed you to get the full effect of the halitosis. Hmm… Maybe that was his plan all along. Lucky for me it was a short flight.

    But, getting back to the other issues… Truth is, the major pain that has been affecting me quite a bit over the last couple of years is the fact that you can no longer “get there from here.” By that I mean you are pretty much unable to board an airplane in Saint Louis and disembark at your destination without first visiting 1 or more additional cities along the way. This holds true for almost any destination with only a few minor exceptions, but especially for Ohio.

    And furthermore, it’s not like they pull in, fill up the tank while you make a pit stop, then get back on the way. No, absolutely not. They take you to a city where you don’t want to go in the first place, then kick you out of the plane and send you to find another airplane on which to catch a ride. And apparently, when I wasn’t paying attention, a law was passed which states that your connecting flight shall be leaving from a gate that is to be “no less than 1 mile from your arrival gate, and if the airport is made up of multiple terminals, the departure gate must then be located in the terminal farthest from the arrival gate. Furthermore, all passengers should be subjected to a minimum of 1 delay or 2 gate changes per trip.

    It’s a good thing I like walking and don’t mind the exercise. The hurry up and wait thing, however, I could certainly do without.

    So, by now I am sure you have guessed that this is pretty much what happened with my most recent trip to Ohio. And, if you guessed that, give yourself a cigar. If you didn’t, scroll back up and look at the flight plan graphic. Notice how the arrows are aligned to make an infinity symbol? Well, that’s not just a coincidence, because I was the guest of the airline for something on the order of forever.

    And, it all began like this…

    I started out my day like any other Friday. Up at 5:30 AM, taking out the trash, cleaning the litter boxes, grabbing a shower, packing lunch for E K, getting her majesty and the O-spring out to work and school respectively, etc… After all of that, courtesy of a ride provided by my publicist, by 11:55 AM I was finally sitting at my gate at Lambert Saint Louis International Airport. Now, I would like to say that Lambert has become more efficient, but that simply isn’t the case. What has happened is that so many airlines have moved their hubs away from Saint Louis that we no longer have anywhere near the volume we once had. Therefore, even though I pared down the “arrive 2 hours ahead of your flight time” to 1 1/2 hours, I still had better than an hour before my flight because checking in and getting through security was a breeze. Since I had this wait, and was scheduled for only a short layover at my connection, I decided I had better eat something now while I had a chance.

    This seemed like a good idea at the time, however the concourse where my gate happened to be had been undergoing renovations. Now, this will likely be a good thing once finished, but at that particular point in time it meant my choices were limited. I could pick between booze, Star-Make-A-Bucks, some pizza outfit that had a 100 yard long line of people in front of it, or the pre-made sandwich cooler nearby.

    Not wanting booze, a danish, or to stand in line, I was pretty much hamstrung. I stood in front of the open faced refrigerator and perused my options. Ham and cheese on whole wheat, or chicken on ciabatta. Ham, chicken… Whole wheat, ciabatta… The debate inside my head raged on for several minutes. Finally I flipped a mental coin and reached for a sandwich. In the end I had the rubber chicken on sawdust bread with wilted lettuce, and an orange juice. If I could believe the label on my sandwich it had been made fresh that day – somewhere in the state of Maryland. Made fresh or not, it didn’t take long for me to conclude that the trip from Maryland to Missouri didn’t exactly agree with it. But, I choked it down anyway, and then cried just a little. I mean, after all, I had just consumed a really horrid $1.25 chicken sandwich. Personally, I really didn’t feel like it was truly worth $1.25, and that just made it all the more sad since I had paid $7.49 for the privilege of gnawing on it. Don’t even get me started on the OJ. I suppose it might have actually been worth the $4.49 for the 12-ounce bottle, given that it had fermented a bit and now contained alcohol. However, I tend to take my screwdrivers a bit less “ripe” if you know what I mean…

    Looking back, this was one of the better parts of my travel experience that day, because you see, the minute we boarded the airplane this leg of my trip inevitably fell into the bend over and grab your ankles vortex

    More to come…

    Murv

    Next Installment: I Thought 7:11 Was A Convenience Store…

  • I’m Flying North Again…

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    …With thanks to Thomas Dolby for the snippet of song lyric which titles this entry. Actually, this all happened yesterday, but I warned y’all I’d probably be too tired to post my travel-blog until this morning, so there! :wink:

    But, let’s get down to business – Yes, I flew north in order to go south east. I know, doesn’t make sense to me either, but like I said before, there was no way to get to Wayne, NE from St. Louis. It was one of those “can’t get there from here” situations, and that included the reverse trip as well.

    At any rate, the following is a chronicle of my trip home, after Ron (the Wayne State College SF Club Faculty Advisor and one hell of a great guy) dropped me off at the airport.

    @mrsellars – Time to get my FLY SUX t-shirt. [browse…browse] [go to counter with t-shirt in hand]

    @SUX_Cashier – Gonna buy a t-shirt?

    @mrsellars – No, I just figured I’d carry it around the store for a while.

    @SUX_Cashier – o_o

    @mrsellars – It’s a joke. I’ll take two of these FLY SUX pilot’s wings pins too.

    @SUX_Cashier – Really want that stuff, huh?

    @mrsellars – Absolutely. It’s a moral imperative.

    @SUX_Security_Guard – At least you have morals.

    @mrsellars – Oh yeah. But of course, I didn’t say they were good morals.

    @SUX_Security_Guard – O_o

    @SUX_Cashier – O_o


    @Egg_Beater_Express – [Arriving at Gate 2] Pttthpppbtt…  whirrr…. pthbbbhhhtttttt… skreee… whirrr… Spit… Koff… Koff… Sputter… Klunk… Pop!

    @mrsellars – O_o

    @mrsellars – Oh yeah… This should be fun.


    @mrsellars – Wonders how they are going to fit all of the 4000 Asian individuals milling around the terminal onto that single plane.

    [Boarding time]

    @Gate_2 – [half dozen Asian passengers board plane] [remaining 3994 Asian folks wave from other side of TSA security checkpoint.]

    @mrsellars – Now that’s a big family… O_o


    @Egg_Beater_Flight_Attendant – Welcome aboard, don’tchaknow, Yah… We’re all goin to Manny-Sowda dere, all righty. Okey-dokey… Let’s all go ice fishin’ when we get dere… okey-dokey? Yah, don’tchaknow…

    @mrsellars – Shoot me now…


    @Egg_Beater_Flight_Attendant – Somethin’ to drink dere?

    @mrsellars – Coffee?

    @Egg_Beater_Flight_Attendant – Oh yah, I got some Kah-Fee dere. Yah want anything in it dere?

    @mrsellars – Not unless it’s really bad coffee.

    @Egg_Beater_Flight_Attendant – Ohhhh, I heard all about you dere, don’tcha know… You just fasten up your seatbelt dere mister…


    @Egg_Beater_Express – Ptthhbbbppptptt… Pthbbt… Whirr… Whocka… Thumpa… Pthbbbttttt…

    @mrsellars – O_o


    @mrsellars – How in the hell can it be so far from Gate A3 to B1?


    @MN-SP_Airport – Arrive Gate A3… Connection Gate B1… No, B3… Wait… Okay, B8… B8, yah, that’s it dere don’tchaknow… Stay at B8 dere… Yah… All good dere… Yah, go get noms… We’ll be right here when you get back don’tchaknow…

    @mrsellars – [Goes for noms]

    @mrsellars – Same employees at Quiznos. Still moving in slow motion. Caribou coffee again.

    @mrsellars – [returns from getting noms]

    @MN-SP_Airport – PSYCHE! Connection now at B14…

    @mrsellars – O_o


    @mrsellars – Consumed another not so stellar wrap – Honey Mustard chicken this time. Plenty of lettuce ribs from trash included… Mmmm-mmm-mmm, good fiber. More blue green algae. Total cost of $2 wrap and $1 drink, $12.35…

    @mrsellars – Price discrepancy due to purchasing coffee at Caribou Coffee as well. Not in the mood for pencil shavings today. Plus, if tasting E Kay’s stockings would prefer she be present (See: We’re Off To See The Blizzard…)

    @mrsellars – Still not telling…


    @Young_Hottie_Passenger – [Waving at man walking past gate] Hey! Old Guy!!

    @Old_Guy_Passenger – [Stops] Hey… How are you?

    @Old_Guy’s_Wife – Are you flirting with women AGAIN!!!

    @mrsellars – Hmmm… Impending catfight?

    @Young_Hottie_Passenger – But… But… I just sat next to him on the plane…

    @Old_Guy’s_Wife – Oh yeah, Beeyotch!!

    @mrsellars – @other_passenger – Gimme $50 on the old chick.


    @Flight_Attendant – Sir, can I ask you to move so that this family can sit together.

    @mrsellars – Sure.

    @mrsellars – [move move move]

    @Old_Asian_Guy_Across_Aisle – [Looks] [points] [elbows wife] [points] [both proceed to jabber to one another while pointing and staring]

    @mrsellars – Hmmmm… Apparently Asian Minnesotans have never seen a guy in shorts either.


    @STL_Lambert_Airport – Your luggage will be at M6… No wait… M3…. No… M4… PSYCHE! M6…

    @mrsellars – O_o


    Arrive Passenger Pickup Area

    @EK – Dammit, you made the flight… I thought I told you to go for a walk in that blizzard?

    @mrsellars – I did.

    @EK – And you found your way back?

    @mrsellars – Yeah.

    @EK – Dammit.


    @mrsellars – @EK – You’re looking exceptionally pretty today.

    @EK – Of course I am.

    @Offspring – Psshbbbbppttt! Daaahhhhddddyyyy… It’s just because you haven’t seen her for a few days.

    @EK – O_o

    @mrsellars – O_o


    Finally Home

    @EK – I read your blogs.

    @mrsellars – Okay.

    @EK – I know about the other cow.

    @mrsellars – Yeah.

    @EK – Did you get me any steaks?

    @mrsellars – Nope. Locals beat me to it again.

    @EK – Stay right here. I’m going to go get something to beat you with.

    @mrsellars – Yes ma’am.


    And so ends the odyssey… Well, not completely. I have some film to drop off, and I already have a few of the digital pix courtesy of Ron. I’ll be throwing together a retrospective via my newsletter in the next few days.

    Thanks again to everyone at WillyCon and Wayne State College for letting me be a part of their convention. I had a blast. Oh, and now I can say I’ve weathered a minor blizzard too. :grin:

    More to come…

    Murv