Hereee We Go Again…
Posted by jtbourne on May 26, 2009 · 7 Comments
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Alright Blogosphere, it’s just you and me.
Anybody who knows me well knows I’m prone to bouts of tangled air travel. This is my first one since I’ve had a blog. Hurray!
Join me, won’t you?
***
The situation, frankly, is a clusterf***. To summarize a long story that involves flight times, rental cars, and an interest in spending an extra eight seconds with Bri, I’m officially at a different terminal from her and about to sleep in baggage claim, while waiting for my 6:15 a.m. flight (it’s 9:49 p.m.).
In conclusion, I make poor decisions.
I’ll spare you the piss-poor logic that puts me in these situations, and set you up for a “what would I do?” type of game.
You’ve just housed your only Hershey’s bar w/almonds. You have a full bottle of water, a 90 calorie Chewy Granola Bar, a laptop with wi-fi, and your bag to be checked – that means a bunch of great toiletries. Fully equipped in a sense. How do I make this un-suck?
Despite Bri’s “the bar is open on this side!” text, and your hatred of everyone through security in terminal three, you can still make this a not-awful night, right? Here’s what I’ve come up with:
-There’s still a few hours of people-watching, aka people-judging, before the terminal is as desolate as an Alaskan beauty pageant. I could wear my DiCaprio-in-The-Departed black-fitted real low and make up everyones life story while they bustle around… but that gets dull quick.
-I have a few T3′s related to jaw pain. I could take one of those, and welcome the loopy/sleepy onslaught and risk missing my alarm. Probably not the safe play.
-I have Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road”, a fitting book for my travels, but one that’s about as appealing to read as getting my junk caught in the luggage belt so far. There’s gotta be something better.
-I have a Time magazine with Michelle Obama on the cover. Look at pictures and get bicep envy?? That can’t be healthy.
You know what you’d do?.. You’d write a blog – that’s what you’d do (look how alike we are.)
It seemed like a great idea, until I realized that 87.8% of my readers are hockey fans, and the last game I saw involved a Hurricanes team that wasn’t suffering from humiliation/reality-check-itis/much-needed-kick-in-the-stones-syndrome.
I’ve always considered myself a master of making terminal time disappear… but tonight I can’t decide. A little help from my readers? What would you do?
I'm a hockey player turned writer. After playing for Alaska Anchorage in the WCHA (NCAA), I carried on with an NHL tryout (New York Islanders in 2007) before spending a couple seasons in the AHL/ECHL (last year was 2008-09). My father, Bob Bourne, won four Stanley Cups with the Islanders in the '80's, as did my fiancee's dad, Clark Gillies. I'm now the web editor for theScore's hockey blog "Backhand Shelf."
Dude, on the Road is profoundly awesome. It’s a little wacky at first but it will be one of the best books you ever read.
Otherwise, I would catch up on some Hulu and play some free popcap games until slumber takes over.
Maybe you could take a survey of your fellow travelers and ask them who the better goalie is TT or CW lol….I would have taken the T3 (I assume that s a drug that wipes you out) I think thats what Carolina did against Pitts!!!
Hey Justin,
Sorry to hear about the really crappy treatement you’re still getting for airports.
Congrats to Bri on the job offer. That’s a pretty quick turnaround and a testament to the work she’s put in.
Hope you land in Phoenix and not Hamilton (for good) before the Draft.
Keep up the great work!
Doug
On-line crossword puzzles, then mahjohng (sp)! As long as you have wi-fi, it can’t be *that* bad.
No wi-fi and being stuck for the night at O’Hare due to a cancelled flight SUCKS (worst airport waiting area seats anywhere)! After a few restless minutes of sleep, and many hours of tossing turning while hanging on to the blanket you smuggled off the plane (when, after 90+ minutes of waiting, they told you the plane wasn’t going really going to taxi to the runway), you get to play the run to gates and see if they can squeeze you onto the plane. Can’t get on the 6:15 am flight, try for the 6:45 am flight, which is now boarding in the other terminal.
Come on man, this is easy – beg, plead, steal your way over to the terminal that contains your girlfriend and an open bar.
I opted for a pillow made of sweatpants and the carpet-covered cement floor bed. In retrospect, your idea was much better.
This is coming too late I’m sure… but last January on our way home from snowboarding in Whistler we had a lay over; over night in Denver, Co.
Instead of taking a 2 hour bus ride to a hotel to sleep for 1 hour to take a 2 hour bus ride back to the terminal we decided to hit up a local bar and hang out in the terminal.
We took our $25 food voucher’s, hit up the in-house Taco Bell and got about $125 in taco’s between the 5 of us…
Next we went to a bar that didn’t serve food (and would thus allow our Taco Bell into their establishment.
We played poker and drank in excess from 7pm to 2 am when the bar closed… then we went through security etc.
While hanging out in the terminal we decided it would be fun to “surf” on the arm rests of horizontal moving platforms… Not the best move for people who’ve been drinking for 7ish hours?
Well after several reprimands from airport security we were forced to stop our escapades. But it was only 4 AM and 0ur flight didn’t leave until 6:45!
So, deep in the Denver airport there was a bi-plane suspended from the ceiling… and in our drunken stupor we decided to climb local direction and advertisement signs to board said plane…
Thats when airport security got really upset with us… After being threatened to be forced from the premises we started chasing a lady who was
mounted on a John Dear like vacuum cleaner…
Needless to say we didn’t make our flight the next morning… but I post this hopefully as inspiration for your next prolonged lay-over… Because there’s always something to do in an airport!