kevin_standlee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kevin_standlee) wrote2008-11-14 04:59 pm
kevin_standlee) wrote2008-11-14 04:59 pm
Home to a Heat Wave
I guess it must have been the Dangerous Terrorist Handkerchief of Doom that SFO's security scanners ate that was the problem after all, for I had no difficulty at O'Hare this morning. Everything went very smoothly all the way. We were in no hurry to get breakfast in the hotel's included buffet. We had plenty of time to stop and refuel and then return the car. Having arrived at a relatively low period, there were no significant likes at check-in or Terrorization. Before checking my bag, I shed my jacket and sweater -- certainly needed in Chicago's chilly drizzle -- and stowed it in my checked luggage. I worried about the bag being overweight as I checked it. The scale stabilized: 50.0 pounds. Boy I'm good.
After clearing Terrorization, we headed through the Magical Mystery Tunnel and took a walk around the C concourse for the exercise, then settled in and read until the flight was called. The only minor fly in the ointment was that this flight was completely full, unlike the trip out, so I could not spread out and get any work done, particularly as the person in front of my reclined her seat to maximum, and even in Economy Plus that makes it challenging for me to get the screen open far enough to see it.
The United pilot elected not to put "From the Cockpit" on channel 9, and I ended up watching maybe the last half or so of Mamma Mia on the in-flight movie instead. The plot is paper-thin, of course, being just merely an excuse to string a bunch of ABBA musical numbers together, but I found myself enjoying it in spite of myself. (Besides, I happen to like ABBA's music.) But Pierce Brosnan cannot sing and shouldn't have been encouraged to do so.
I wonder if people more than about ten years younger than me -- I was born in 1965 -- enjoyed Mamma Mia. I mean, I guess a bunch of people liked it -- it was a very successful movie musical, according to its Wikipedia entry. Me, I was highly amused at people older than me self-consciously dressing in flashy 1970-80s rock-star costumes for musical numbers, more or less laughing at themselves. But how well does that sort of thing play to people who didn't grow up in that period?
I turned back to my book after the movie was over, and in a case of wonderfully good timing, reached the last page just as we were rolling up to the gate as SFO. Cheryl and I spent so much time looking through the exhibit on science fiction in popular culture along the concourse that by the time we'd made it to baggage claim, the flight had completely cleared and I had to get an attendant to free my back from the secured area.
It was bright, sunny, and warm in San Francisco, with high temperature records falling throughout the area, we later heard on the radio. I certainly had no need for the jacket I'd previously stowed in my bag. We hopped on the shuttle bus to the parking garage. Every time we take that shuttle, I look at where the people-mover ends at the Rental Car Center and wonder why they don't extend it another few hundred meters to Long Term Parking and get all of those shuttle buses off the road. (I note that it's almost the exact opposite of O'Hare, where the people mover takes people to long term parking, but passes right over the rental cars, for which you need to take a shuttle even though all they'd need to do is build a station on the existing track to connect to the airport system.)
Aside from having to grind through ten miles of stop-and-go traffic along US-101, the drive home was blessedly uneventful.
It may be only 5:20 local time, but I've been up since 4 AM local time and was in bed none too early last night, and I can't sleep in tomorrow on account of the SFSFC Board meeting. (To repeat for those of you who have missed it every other time I've mentioned it: The SFSFC meeting and an SF in SF reading in San Francisco tomorrow are the main reasons why we did not take advantage of my company sending me to Chicago to attend Windycon. Thanks for the various suggestions and offers, everyone, but I can't disrupt SFSFC's business on short notice, as we have directors who must make their plans many months in advance.) Early to bed tonight, I think.
Update, 20:30: Rewrote pieces to include enough material to explain the title. I'd left out the part about the warm weather in the Bay Area in the original.
After clearing Terrorization, we headed through the Magical Mystery Tunnel and took a walk around the C concourse for the exercise, then settled in and read until the flight was called. The only minor fly in the ointment was that this flight was completely full, unlike the trip out, so I could not spread out and get any work done, particularly as the person in front of my reclined her seat to maximum, and even in Economy Plus that makes it challenging for me to get the screen open far enough to see it.
The United pilot elected not to put "From the Cockpit" on channel 9, and I ended up watching maybe the last half or so of Mamma Mia on the in-flight movie instead. The plot is paper-thin, of course, being just merely an excuse to string a bunch of ABBA musical numbers together, but I found myself enjoying it in spite of myself. (Besides, I happen to like ABBA's music.) But Pierce Brosnan cannot sing and shouldn't have been encouraged to do so.
I wonder if people more than about ten years younger than me -- I was born in 1965 -- enjoyed Mamma Mia. I mean, I guess a bunch of people liked it -- it was a very successful movie musical, according to its Wikipedia entry. Me, I was highly amused at people older than me self-consciously dressing in flashy 1970-80s rock-star costumes for musical numbers, more or less laughing at themselves. But how well does that sort of thing play to people who didn't grow up in that period?
I turned back to my book after the movie was over, and in a case of wonderfully good timing, reached the last page just as we were rolling up to the gate as SFO. Cheryl and I spent so much time looking through the exhibit on science fiction in popular culture along the concourse that by the time we'd made it to baggage claim, the flight had completely cleared and I had to get an attendant to free my back from the secured area.
It was bright, sunny, and warm in San Francisco, with high temperature records falling throughout the area, we later heard on the radio. I certainly had no need for the jacket I'd previously stowed in my bag. We hopped on the shuttle bus to the parking garage. Every time we take that shuttle, I look at where the people-mover ends at the Rental Car Center and wonder why they don't extend it another few hundred meters to Long Term Parking and get all of those shuttle buses off the road. (I note that it's almost the exact opposite of O'Hare, where the people mover takes people to long term parking, but passes right over the rental cars, for which you need to take a shuttle even though all they'd need to do is build a station on the existing track to connect to the airport system.)
Aside from having to grind through ten miles of stop-and-go traffic along US-101, the drive home was blessedly uneventful.
It may be only 5:20 local time, but I've been up since 4 AM local time and was in bed none too early last night, and I can't sleep in tomorrow on account of the SFSFC Board meeting. (To repeat for those of you who have missed it every other time I've mentioned it: The SFSFC meeting and an SF in SF reading in San Francisco tomorrow are the main reasons why we did not take advantage of my company sending me to Chicago to attend Windycon. Thanks for the various suggestions and offers, everyone, but I can't disrupt SFSFC's business on short notice, as we have directors who must make their plans many months in advance.) Early to bed tonight, I think.
Update, 20:30: Rewrote pieces to include enough material to explain the title. I'd left out the part about the warm weather in the Bay Area in the original.
no subject
Not too surprising to me; as I recalled, but they didn't, when they visited me back in 2000 both were hooked on ABBA music, in particular Dancing Queen.