Cat Delivery

[kevin_standlee]

I was up excessively early this morning so that I could drive Cheryl to SFO to catch her early-morning flight to New Orleans, where she's attending a professional conference. But I don't mind, because I need to be up even earlier tomorrow to catch my own early-morning flight to Columbus for SMOFCon, and I should be time-shifted two three hours forward anyway.

Thanks to our overlapping travel plans, we came up with a way of minimizing parking costs. (Both our flights are too early for us to consider taking BART. For people starting from Fremont, it's impractical to fly out of SFO earlier than about 9 AM because you can't get to the airport early enough, even when catching the first train of the morning out of Fremont.) I'll drive to SFO tomorrow and text my parking location to Cheryl. When she comes back on Saturday, she'll collect the van. When I get back on Monday, she'll come and collect me unless we decide it's easier for me to ride around on BART, in which case she'll only have to go to the Fremont BART station.

I just got a text message from her a few minutes ago saying she was on board and ready to go. It was foggy this morning, but as I recall, planes can take off in near-zero visibility. Landing is more of a problem, so flights can get scrambled on account of equipment not being where it belongs, but it sounds like she's okay.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

So you'll leave the parking ticket (the time-stamped one picked up on entrance) in the van? I so reflexively always take mine with me that I wondered for a moment how Cheryl would get it from you.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Even better -- no ticket required. SFO's parking garage accepts FasTrak transponders, which I have to pay my bridge tolls. The system reads the transponder when you enter, and then when you exit, it reads the transponder, bills your credit card (not your toll balance), issues a receipt, and lets you out. I've done this before, so I know it works.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

and those take-offs and landings are only a problem at SFO, because we won't approve them digging up more of the bay and causing environmental problems so they can put the runways farther apart (wingtip to wingtip) to be safe for full instrument landings.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not just SFO. The first time I ever flew in my life (I was about ten years old), out of Sacramento, we were delayed for hours due to that awful tule fog making it impossible for our inbound equipment to land at SMF. They diverted the plane to Reno, where it refueled and waited for the fog to clear. We eventually got the flight, but of course we'd missed our connection at Denver for Kansas City. (We were traveling to visit my grandmother's relatives in mid-Missouri.) They eventually found us standby seats on a Frontier (the old version) Airlines flight, and we got there, but many hours late.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

To your time shifting note, It is three hours difference between Columbus, OH and California. They are in the Eastern Time Zone like MD is.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Right, three. I've fixed it. I had two on the brain because Cheryl is going to New Orleans, which is only two hours ahead.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

Yeah. SFO's just the worst in the B.A.

OAK and SJ don't have the same delay records.