A Circus of Misadventures
Mar. 24th, 2010 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aggienaut Last night, around 2am, I call the cab company to arrange a cab to pick us up at 7am.
Cab Company Phone Answerer: "HELLO?"
Myself: "Hi I'd like t--"
Cab Company: "HELLO?"
Myself: "Hi I'd--"
Cab Company: "HELLO? HELLO?"
Myself: "Hello I'd like to book a cab for 7am?"
Cab Company: "[doot doot doot doot]" (hangup noise)
I try again and have almost the exact same conversation. I try a third time, speaking up rather loudly in case he just can't hear me but again have almost the exact same conversation. I'm not sure but it felt like he wasn't even giving me time to say anything before he broke into his "HELLO? HELLO? HELLO???", I wonder to myself if perhaps their night phone answerer is on some kind of drugs.
I try again ten minutes later and am surprised to actually be able to communicate with him.
This morning we get to JFK airport without incident. I go to check in at the United desk. Nothing comes up on the self service machine. One of the staff informs me they don't fly from there it Portland (Oregon). I'm pretty certain my flight was with United. They scan my credit card... and tell me my flight is out of LGA (LaGuardia, the other airport across town!!).
I am utterly certain I had booked my flight from JFK. Being well aware that there are two airports in NYC I had waited until I could ask Ange which one she was flying out of and then immediately booked specifically a flight from that airport.
Previously Ihave had the flight selection screen change pertinant flight facts on me when I changed an unrelated variable on the search page but I've caught it on time. I guess this time it subtly unticked the JFK box when I messed with the flight time box or something and I somehow didn't notice. I'm truly flummoxed by this, because knowing the kind of trickery such things try to pull I usually make a careful effort to scrutinize the facts before confirming the purchase.
Anyway since Ange's flight was much earlier than mine I still had ample time to get to LGA by taxi -- by mass transit it would probably have been like 5 hours to get there, seriously LGA is impossible to get to.
On my flight from LGA to Chicago:
Stewardess: "... ... ... ..."
Me: [turning off my ipod, upon which I've been listening to the second book in the Patrick O'Brian Master & Commander series] "I'm sorry what was that?"
Stewardess: "I can hear your ipod"
Me: "Oh I'm sorry" though I think this is quite weird as I myself can only hear it over the background noise by putting a finger over at least one ear. I can't turn it down without completely losing the ability to hear it.
Stewardess: "Oh no I was just concerned that there's something wrong with it" I examine it again. The earphones look to be in good order, and are plugged in to the ipod. If I push the plug in further it actually gets quieter for some reason. I was actually truly shocked the other day when the plug fell out completely and it kept playing the book (what madness is this????!). I try turning down the volume but this seems to have absolutely no effect on the volume it's continuing to play at. Truly a confounding machine!
Me dad got me the ipod (nano) for christmas. My computer can't communicate with it. My laptop is an ancient relic now at five or six years of age. I joke that it's steam powered because it is so slow (it takes literally half an hour to boot up or reset) and can't seem to handle anything more complex than browsing the internet. It often crashes just from trying to crop photos. It has an older version of itunes on it but can't seem to handle the latest version and my ipod won't deign to deal with any but the latest. As such the only thing I've gotten around to putting on the ipod is this one audiobook.
Immediately after the stewardess went on down the aisle, this fellow across the aisle and one seat in from me tried to tell me something. I had to politely ask him to repeat himself twice but never could figure out what he was saying. I couldn't tell if he was telling me my ipod was too loud or perhaps giving me advice on how to make it behave better. He seemed to have a relatively unexotic accent from somewhere on the East Coast but it was all but incomprehensible to me.
Arriving here in Chicago's O'Hare Airport for a 13:40-17:40 layover (I swear I'd have gotten a better flight if I hadn't been trying specifically to match Ange's terminal of departure) I find there it has hardly any power sockets. There seem to be two in a column not near any chairs for every 3-5 gates. These all already have two laptop users huddled desperately by them.
Finally I happen to catch sight of a power socket directly underneath a drinking fountain near a chair. The drinking fountain HAD been plugged into it but some previous desperado had already unplugged it to suckle the sweet sweet electrical juices from it's abundant teat.
Next step, internet! This circus of misadventure is already long enough so I'll spare you the details but the "boingo hotspot" internet provider borked on the first three of my attempts to log in and THEN wanted me to download some kind of devilish software it claimed was the optimum way to connect to it's special brand of mcinternet (recall steam powered computer that has trouble with simple .jpgs). While it noted you don't need this software to connect, the only way to confirm the registration was by clicking "download." I simply clicked it and cancelled the download but I thought it was a low down bit of knavery tryign to force people to download their no doubt irritatingly self serving if not downright crappy program.
Which brings us to the present moment. On the up side my friend Alex's boyfriend (whom I've never met!) has enthusiastically volunteered that I can crash at his place in Portland tonight so I finally have a place to stay tonight.
Unrelated Picture of the Day
Ange and I are sorry for subjecting you guys to so much mushy shmaltz as of late. But not so sorry that I'm not going to present you with this picture of some of my favourite things:
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-24 09:27 pm (UTC)I have a 6yo laptop w/Linux on it, works great.
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Date: 2010-03-25 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 06:12 am (UTC)THAT'S FLIGHT ATTENDANT, A-HOLE!!!
Date: 2010-03-25 02:02 am (UTC)/rant
Re: THAT'S FLIGHT ATTENDANT, A-HOLE!!!
Date: 2010-03-25 06:10 am (UTC)Re: THAT'S FLIGHT ATTENDANT, A-HOLE!!!
Date: 2010-03-25 01:42 pm (UTC)Re: THAT'S FLIGHT ATTENDANT, A-HOLE!!!
Date: 2010-03-25 05:24 pm (UTC)Re: THAT'S FLIGHT ATTENDANT, A-HOLE!!!
Date: 2010-03-25 05:32 pm (UTC)Re: THAT'S FLIGHT ATTENDANT, A-HOLE!!!
Date: 2010-03-25 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 06:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 06:29 pm (UTC)Me dad got me the ipod (nano) for christmas.
hahaha putting 'me' instead of 'my' is such an easy typo to make, but anytime I read it I imagine you suddenly speaking like a pirate.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-25 09:02 pm (UTC)