Danny's Wedding Weekend part 1 -- the FLIGHT FROM HELL
So, this weekend was kind of long. It was ultimately fun and meaningful. Just... long. (Ok, I'm going to break this post up in several parts because it's longer than I thought.)
My weekend started on Friday. So, my cousin, Danny, was getting married on Saturday. Since... you know..., it was Saturday, I had a ticket on Friday; at 2:50 pm, specifically. However, since my bosses were both going on vacation on Friday, there was some work that needed to get done on Friday as well. So I went into work at about 9:30 in the morning with my duffel bag. I did some set-up for the Google lunch on Friday. In the process, however, I managed to put my finger under the steam wand on the espresso machine. So, I managed to give myself second-degree burns (ok, seriously, I'm not sure if it's actually 2nd degree burns. My cousin, who's had first-aid training, says it is but it doesn't hurt or anything. It looks like it's going to scar but I'm fine). I put on some burn cream (thank God Google has a very complete first aid kit) and a couple of bandages so I actually kept working after that.
Anyway, at noon, I left and went to Logan Airport via taxi. I got to Logan at like 12:15 and checked in for my 2:50 flight. So, I was uber-early. Sitting in the terminal, I returned some phone calls, including the Kresge (UCSC) CPC (College Program Coordinator) who I've been playing phone tag with for the last 2 weeks. I managed to get to her and she told me that I was in their top 5 picks for the job of ACPC (Assistant CPC) but they didn't have a travel budget to fly me out for an interview. Since my flight back to Boston was Monday night out of San Jose, I told her that I was actually going to be in town on Monday. So we arranged an interview for Monday at noon.
At 2:30, we started boarding JetBlue flight 1101 from Boston to New York (lay over). Getting on the plane at about... I dunno, 2:40?, I sat down and waited for the flight while watching JetBlue's signature complimentary DirecTV (TV!! Whee~!) At... 3:00? we had a PA announcement about delays in New York's JFK airport. We sat on the tarmac for another 2 hours waiting for "our turn" to take off. Yep. TWO HOURS on the tarmac because apparently we're not allowed to get off the plane once we've boarded the plane. It was everything you could hope it would be. Asses started cramping, people started getting restless, incessant updates from the captain that consisted of basically the words "Still no update from JFK..."
So, at maybe... 5-ish, we finally took off (travel time so far? 3.5 hours). I was a little worried about missing my connecting flight but for some reason I thought "well, the captain said that the delays were at JFK so it's not like the connecting flight took off or anything." 2 errors of thought here: 1. WE had taken off so obviously some traffic was leaving or coming into JFK and 2. if the connecting flight's truly delayed, there's no guarantee it'd be leaving anytime soon anyway, with or without us.
Anyway, an hour later, we arrived at JFK (that sounds wrong but a flight from Boston to NYC actually does 1 hour. I have no earthly idea why it takes an hour but it does). So, we arrive in JFK and the captain gets on the PA and announces "We have 6 passengers transferring to Burbank [including me. My cousin's wedding was in Pasadena] and 11 passengers transferring to San Diego. Please stay seated until they deboard so that they can catch their connections." Of course, once the plane stops, EVERYBODY starts deboarding, including one guy who literally shoved me out of the way. HEY~!!! I WAS ONE OF THOSE THAT NEEDED TO GET ON MY CONNECTING FLIGHT, FUCKER~!!! Regardless, I got off the plane only to discover that the connecting flights weren't being held for us. They had taken off AN HOUR AGO!! We needed to stand IN LINE to try and get tickets for the next available flight. Fantastic.
So, back into an unmoving line. Literally, it took an hour and a half just to get through the line (travel time so far? 6 hours). I met a nice woman who was on the Boston flight and was trying to get to Burbank and another not-as-nice woman who was in the same predicament (she wasn't mean. Just not as nice). We waited in this ridiculous line while I got to experience standing in line in a NEW YORK airport wearing a RED SOX t-shirt. I got some pretty nasty stares from people. FUCK-OFF!! I'm IN AN AIRPORT!!! It's not like I'm AT YANKEE STADIUM!! Anyway, managed to get through the line to get exactly the answer I expected.
-- "We only have stand-by room left on the flight."
-- "But..."
-- "No, there's no other flights for today going to Burbank. If you miss the 7:50 flight, the next flight is tomorrow morning at 6:30 am."
-- "What time will--"
-- "9:30 in the morning, Pacific Time."
So, I get to stand at Gate 12 with my stand-by ticket, like a dork with my new friend next to me, also with a stand-by ticket and also looking like a dork. In front of us, the not-as-nice woman was trying to plead with the ticket counter lady for a seat number because her 12 year old daughter's birthday was on Saturday and she needed to get home because her daughter was freaking out and they had a party all planned with invites and she needed to get home and prepare so the morning ticket wouldn't be in time and she... Anyway, she was crying her eyes out while me and the nice lady were standing about 5 feet behind her, whispering "If she gets on this plane, we should too."
Anyway, we get to about 10 min. before boarding time before nice lady tells me "that's it, I'm asking not-as-nice lady what the counter person told her." So she walks up to the other woman and the other woman basically said that she was told "you probably won't get on this plane." So, nice lady tells me that she's going to go wait in the hour and a half line again (because we need to switch our stand-by tickets to 6:30 am tickets if we miss this flight). She asks me if I would be kind enough to wait by the gate and signal her if we get to board in exchange for letting me cut in line with her if we don't get on the plane. Deal! So, I wait at Gate 12 while she makes her way to the JetBlue Customer Service desk.
So, it's boarding time on JetBlue flight 359 from JFK to Burbank (travel time so far? 7 hours). We wait until all the passengers board, anxiously clutching stand-by tickets. Finally, the counter person gets on the PA and announces 3 names for stand-by boarding. MY NAME's called!! YES! The not-as-nice lady respond extremely positively as well so I assume that her name was called too. Nobody else responds positively, however, so I figure that nice lady's name was the third name (Yes, it was stupid not to get her name before letting her go. Sue me, it was a hellish travel experience). I waved my arms frantically toward the direction of the JetBlue Customer Service desk. Counter Person takes my ID for verification and asks me if I know the other person. I say "Yes, she's waiting at the Customer Service desk. Let me go get her." Counter person says "Don't worry about it" and she repeats the announcement on the airport PA system so that the entire airport can hear it. She asks me if I'm traveling with the woman and I say "Sure" so counter person figures I wasn't just kidding around and she waits around. Sure enough, nice lady comes running from the distance at full-speed. "There she is!!" I tell counter person excitedly. Nice lady thanks us profusely and we get on the plane.
Of course, disaster strikes. We end up... wait for it.... SITTING ON THE TARMAC again. YES! Same rules applied. Once you board the plane, you can't de-board the plane. Seriously exhausting. Seriously. The guys who sat to my left and right (yeah, stand-by seating put me in the center seat. EVEN BETTER!) were friends and they were kinda stereotypical talkative middle-aged white men. It's alright tho because they were entertaining for the most part. They did have a strange obsession with Genesis (the music group) and were way jazzed when two (yes, TWO) Genesis concerts played on the plane on VH1 Classic (yay DirecTV!). Anyway, we were sitting on the tarmac for probably another 3 hours. Yes, it went from DAYLIGHT (well, dusk) to NIGHTTIME while I was sitting in an airplane seat looking at a RUNWAY.
More of the same followed. Cramping asses. Restless passengers. Complaining. Unruly pacing. Plus, constant phone call updates with my parents ("No, we haven't taken off yet. The captain said another 30 min. at least"). They were lucky enough to have made the drive from San Jose to Pasadena ok and were, as I was sitting in an airplane seat ("With more leg room than any other airline!* *Comparisons made based on coach tickets"), at Danny's rehearsal dinner. I really wished I could've been there. Seriously would've paid money to be there. I like my family and I like the bride and have never met her family. Would've given anything to be sitting there in a Chinese restaurant with family eating a big dinner. Instead? Watching stupid History Channel documentaries (because ESPN had the same news from 4 hours ago when I was sitting on Boston's tarmac and CNN was playing the Paris Hilton watch 24/7 on Friday).
Finally, at midnight (give or take), we finally take off (travel time so far? 10.5 hours). Everybody lets out a collective sigh of relief as we see NYC get really small out the window. I sit through another several hours of TV (including a Genesis concert on VH1 Classic and Godfather 2 on Bravo) as well as a free movie (JetBlue charges for movies because... well, they already offer free DirecTV. What are you? Greedy?). I watched The Namesake which was really really good (starring Kal Penn. You know, the Harold and Kumar dude. Go watch the movie. Really good). The other movies were free too but I had no interest in them. We arrive in Burbank airport at 3:08 am Pacific time (total travel time? 15.5 hours from boarding time!! Could've made it to Taiwan in that time).
This is the only story I could find with reference to the Friday delays so far.
*UPDATE: ok, Judy says that the link doesn't work so I'll just copy-paste the first two paragraphs here:
"Flight Snags Are Arriving on Schedule
By Joe Sharkey
My weekend started on Friday. So, my cousin, Danny, was getting married on Saturday. Since... you know..., it was Saturday, I had a ticket on Friday; at 2:50 pm, specifically. However, since my bosses were both going on vacation on Friday, there was some work that needed to get done on Friday as well. So I went into work at about 9:30 in the morning with my duffel bag. I did some set-up for the Google lunch on Friday. In the process, however, I managed to put my finger under the steam wand on the espresso machine. So, I managed to give myself second-degree burns (ok, seriously, I'm not sure if it's actually 2nd degree burns. My cousin, who's had first-aid training, says it is but it doesn't hurt or anything. It looks like it's going to scar but I'm fine). I put on some burn cream (thank God Google has a very complete first aid kit) and a couple of bandages so I actually kept working after that.
Anyway, at noon, I left and went to Logan Airport via taxi. I got to Logan at like 12:15 and checked in for my 2:50 flight. So, I was uber-early. Sitting in the terminal, I returned some phone calls, including the Kresge (UCSC) CPC (College Program Coordinator) who I've been playing phone tag with for the last 2 weeks. I managed to get to her and she told me that I was in their top 5 picks for the job of ACPC (Assistant CPC) but they didn't have a travel budget to fly me out for an interview. Since my flight back to Boston was Monday night out of San Jose, I told her that I was actually going to be in town on Monday. So we arranged an interview for Monday at noon.
At 2:30, we started boarding JetBlue flight 1101 from Boston to New York (lay over). Getting on the plane at about... I dunno, 2:40?, I sat down and waited for the flight while watching JetBlue's signature complimentary DirecTV (TV!! Whee~!) At... 3:00? we had a PA announcement about delays in New York's JFK airport. We sat on the tarmac for another 2 hours waiting for "our turn" to take off. Yep. TWO HOURS on the tarmac because apparently we're not allowed to get off the plane once we've boarded the plane. It was everything you could hope it would be. Asses started cramping, people started getting restless, incessant updates from the captain that consisted of basically the words "Still no update from JFK..."
So, at maybe... 5-ish, we finally took off (travel time so far? 3.5 hours). I was a little worried about missing my connecting flight but for some reason I thought "well, the captain said that the delays were at JFK so it's not like the connecting flight took off or anything." 2 errors of thought here: 1. WE had taken off so obviously some traffic was leaving or coming into JFK and 2. if the connecting flight's truly delayed, there's no guarantee it'd be leaving anytime soon anyway, with or without us.
Anyway, an hour later, we arrived at JFK (that sounds wrong but a flight from Boston to NYC actually does 1 hour. I have no earthly idea why it takes an hour but it does). So, we arrive in JFK and the captain gets on the PA and announces "We have 6 passengers transferring to Burbank [including me. My cousin's wedding was in Pasadena] and 11 passengers transferring to San Diego. Please stay seated until they deboard so that they can catch their connections." Of course, once the plane stops, EVERYBODY starts deboarding, including one guy who literally shoved me out of the way. HEY~!!! I WAS ONE OF THOSE THAT NEEDED TO GET ON MY CONNECTING FLIGHT, FUCKER~!!! Regardless, I got off the plane only to discover that the connecting flights weren't being held for us. They had taken off AN HOUR AGO!! We needed to stand IN LINE to try and get tickets for the next available flight. Fantastic.
So, back into an unmoving line. Literally, it took an hour and a half just to get through the line (travel time so far? 6 hours). I met a nice woman who was on the Boston flight and was trying to get to Burbank and another not-as-nice woman who was in the same predicament (she wasn't mean. Just not as nice). We waited in this ridiculous line while I got to experience standing in line in a NEW YORK airport wearing a RED SOX t-shirt. I got some pretty nasty stares from people. FUCK-OFF!! I'm IN AN AIRPORT!!! It's not like I'm AT YANKEE STADIUM!! Anyway, managed to get through the line to get exactly the answer I expected.
-- "We only have stand-by room left on the flight."
-- "But..."
-- "No, there's no other flights for today going to Burbank. If you miss the 7:50 flight, the next flight is tomorrow morning at 6:30 am."
-- "What time will--"
-- "9:30 in the morning, Pacific Time."
So, I get to stand at Gate 12 with my stand-by ticket, like a dork with my new friend next to me, also with a stand-by ticket and also looking like a dork. In front of us, the not-as-nice woman was trying to plead with the ticket counter lady for a seat number because her 12 year old daughter's birthday was on Saturday and she needed to get home because her daughter was freaking out and they had a party all planned with invites and she needed to get home and prepare so the morning ticket wouldn't be in time and she... Anyway, she was crying her eyes out while me and the nice lady were standing about 5 feet behind her, whispering "If she gets on this plane, we should too."
Anyway, we get to about 10 min. before boarding time before nice lady tells me "that's it, I'm asking not-as-nice lady what the counter person told her." So she walks up to the other woman and the other woman basically said that she was told "you probably won't get on this plane." So, nice lady tells me that she's going to go wait in the hour and a half line again (because we need to switch our stand-by tickets to 6:30 am tickets if we miss this flight). She asks me if I would be kind enough to wait by the gate and signal her if we get to board in exchange for letting me cut in line with her if we don't get on the plane. Deal! So, I wait at Gate 12 while she makes her way to the JetBlue Customer Service desk.
So, it's boarding time on JetBlue flight 359 from JFK to Burbank (travel time so far? 7 hours). We wait until all the passengers board, anxiously clutching stand-by tickets. Finally, the counter person gets on the PA and announces 3 names for stand-by boarding. MY NAME's called!! YES! The not-as-nice lady respond extremely positively as well so I assume that her name was called too. Nobody else responds positively, however, so I figure that nice lady's name was the third name (Yes, it was stupid not to get her name before letting her go. Sue me, it was a hellish travel experience). I waved my arms frantically toward the direction of the JetBlue Customer Service desk. Counter Person takes my ID for verification and asks me if I know the other person. I say "Yes, she's waiting at the Customer Service desk. Let me go get her." Counter person says "Don't worry about it" and she repeats the announcement on the airport PA system so that the entire airport can hear it. She asks me if I'm traveling with the woman and I say "Sure" so counter person figures I wasn't just kidding around and she waits around. Sure enough, nice lady comes running from the distance at full-speed. "There she is!!" I tell counter person excitedly. Nice lady thanks us profusely and we get on the plane.
Of course, disaster strikes. We end up... wait for it.... SITTING ON THE TARMAC again. YES! Same rules applied. Once you board the plane, you can't de-board the plane. Seriously exhausting. Seriously. The guys who sat to my left and right (yeah, stand-by seating put me in the center seat. EVEN BETTER!) were friends and they were kinda stereotypical talkative middle-aged white men. It's alright tho because they were entertaining for the most part. They did have a strange obsession with Genesis (the music group) and were way jazzed when two (yes, TWO) Genesis concerts played on the plane on VH1 Classic (yay DirecTV!). Anyway, we were sitting on the tarmac for probably another 3 hours. Yes, it went from DAYLIGHT (well, dusk) to NIGHTTIME while I was sitting in an airplane seat looking at a RUNWAY.
More of the same followed. Cramping asses. Restless passengers. Complaining. Unruly pacing. Plus, constant phone call updates with my parents ("No, we haven't taken off yet. The captain said another 30 min. at least"). They were lucky enough to have made the drive from San Jose to Pasadena ok and were, as I was sitting in an airplane seat ("With more leg room than any other airline!* *Comparisons made based on coach tickets"), at Danny's rehearsal dinner. I really wished I could've been there. Seriously would've paid money to be there. I like my family and I like the bride and have never met her family. Would've given anything to be sitting there in a Chinese restaurant with family eating a big dinner. Instead? Watching stupid History Channel documentaries (because ESPN had the same news from 4 hours ago when I was sitting on Boston's tarmac and CNN was playing the Paris Hilton watch 24/7 on Friday).
Finally, at midnight (give or take), we finally take off (travel time so far? 10.5 hours). Everybody lets out a collective sigh of relief as we see NYC get really small out the window. I sit through another several hours of TV (including a Genesis concert on VH1 Classic and Godfather 2 on Bravo) as well as a free movie (JetBlue charges for movies because... well, they already offer free DirecTV. What are you? Greedy?). I watched The Namesake which was really really good (starring Kal Penn. You know, the Harold and Kumar dude. Go watch the movie. Really good). The other movies were free too but I had no interest in them. We arrive in Burbank airport at 3:08 am Pacific time (total travel time? 15.5 hours from boarding time!! Could've made it to Taiwan in that time).
This is the only story I could find with reference to the Friday delays so far.
*UPDATE: ok, Judy says that the link doesn't work so I'll just copy-paste the first two paragraphs here:
"Flight Snags Are Arriving on Schedule
By Joe Sharkey
The nation’s air-travel system fell apart again last Friday night, when the space shuttle Atlantis was just about the only flight that was on time on the East Coast.
It is a bit of an exaggeration, but consider the actual numbers of flight delays that began choking the system on the East Coast Friday morning after an air traffic control computer failed in Atlanta. By early afternoon, delays began piling up, especially in the New York area, where flights were arriving two to three hours late by early evening at Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark, and at Boston and Philadelphia."
Part two in next post.posted by Chris "Krang" Yang | 11:46 PM
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