UA 557 1906 1917 733 9C Ch9
was 576 IND ORD 1954 2005 733 2D
Having several extra hours to watch football and swill beer,
I hied me to Dick Clark's American Bandstand, which bills
itself as "the great American food experience." Whatever.
I asked for the pulled beef with the sauce on the side (I
abhor oversaucing with sweet sticky BBQ sauces as much as I
adore a surplus of savory gravy) and got the answer that
the stuff comes premixed (probably in huge boil-in-bags).
I asked for a burger rare, to which the reply was "they
will only make them well-done. Strike two." There wasn't
any meanness in this, it was just matter-of-fact. I
envisioned precooked frozen burgers. I said I'd huddle over
a Sam and think things over. Decided on the appetizer
sampler, which I knew would come out of a frozen box but
which I also knew would be deep fried.
Buffalo wings, four pieces, came crisp-fried and drowned in
your standard grease plus vinegar hot sauce; they were
fine. Almond-crusted chicken tenders (2 giants) tasted
as though they were crusted in old cornmeal (I did detect a
crumb of almond in one bite, though). These were cooked in
such a way as to be hard crusted on the outside and with raw
spots in the middle.
Onion rings were soggy but not bad.
The surprise winner was Southwestern egg rolls, somewhat
overfried and dryish tubes stuffed with a small amount of
cheese, some cubes of pressed and formed chicken, black
beans, corn, and salsa. Strangely, they tasted pretty
decent. Think Old El Paso taquitos only slightly bigger.
More Sam while I watched the Texans eke out a victory over
the Dolphins.
I saw a number of burgers go by in the time I sat there:
they all looked completely incinerated.
Off to do some work, which involved walking the length of
the concourse only to find all the seats near the electric
outlets filled with people not using them, while the seats
not near the outlets went begging. Why do people sit next to
the precious resource when they have no intention of using
them? I scootched down on the floor (boy, did my leg hurt)
and plugged in and started tapping away. After half an hour,
the girl in the nearest chair wordlessly moved over a couple
seats, whereupon I appropriated the spot and thanked her.
She nodded. The work (indexing a book about the solar
system) went twice as fast now. When it was time to go, I
thanked her again, and she actually smiled.
Okay, I just knew that if the Colts won those F seats would
get sold, and as they routed Baltimore, the seats were in
fact gone: I was offered the exit aisle, which is not bad.
Got on and asked a friendly FA to suggest that Ch9 be turned
on. It wasn't. There was that nasty music instead.
The plane was pretty crowded if jolly. I faded in and out
of slumber.
UA1588 ORD PVD 2100 0016 32S 11A was 2A Ch9 ^^
Friendly and efficient cabin crew. I asked for Courvoisier,
which resulted in one of the FAs saying something
deprecatory about Ted. Ended up with Jim Beam, which is
black but comely.
E+ was somewhat undersubscribed, with row 10 3 of 6 and row
11 1 of 6. E- was completely full, and the announcement was
made that people could move up ... if they paid a premium.
I think a few incipient moves were thus thwarted, and row
11 remained mine. Why don't the armrests go up in the exit
row? Is it merely owing to the vanishingly small possibility
that an evacuation will be called when the tray tables are
in use?
I've been thinking about Theodore. 11 exit + 54 E+ doesn't
compare to 12 F + 6 bulkhead + 11 exit + 18 regular E+, but
it completely beats United Express about the head and ears.
We got in just after midnight. I decided to plug in and do
an all-nighter instead of attempting to sleep: the PA
plays some nice oldies, and that was fine for a couple
hours, but then these extremely loud announcements,
irrelevant to anything happening at this hour, got put on
shortly after 2 am - loud enough not only to wake the dead
but also to cause my ears to hurt. And they repeated every
five or ten minutes through until morning. Shame on you,
Rhode Island.
US4583 PVD LGA 0615 0717 DH8 4F
Loaded up at 6-odd, and it was the usual down the stairs
up the stairs routine, which was annoying as I had the exit
row and wanted to hide my limp (I am perfectly good to toss
a 30-to-40-lb object out a window if need be, but the limp
has been known to serve as a good excuse to inconvenience
me). Took off a tad late I think, but the flight was way
under an hour, and we got to NYC well in time.
US3815 LGA BWI 0830 0939 CRJ 3F
This flight featured a very cute very young blonde FA with
a baby-girl voice and a very cute very young blonde left
seater with a baby-girl voice and an old guy (probably 30)
in the right seat. It took 30 minutes, and I dozed through
most of it. We landed in warmth and sunshine and on time.
As it was a semi-holiday, the trains were running a semi-
schedule, so I decided to take the lovely Greenbelt bus.
Thing was totally packed, and I stood, swaying on my one
good leg (the other one hurt like heck when I put any
pressure on it) with none of the passengers, mostly a third
to half my age, offering up anything but a look of pity or
annoyance. I guess I have to get a bit grayer and practice
looking more hangdog.
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