IND mini-do
 

It would have been a major hardship to get to Indianapolis
in time for the FT gathering at the new airport, so I
decided to do a compromise thing, showing up in time for
dinner and then taking the tour the next day while the rest
of the city was enthralled with the Colts. Sounded like a
plan, so I booked my ticket for a relatively puny amount,
little realizing that the air travel would end up being a
relatively small part of the total.

UA7299 PVD IAD 1006 1139 CR7 2F

There's nothing particularly wrong with ExPlus; it's your
standard domestic F product in miniature. This Mesa product
was unobjectionable, though the male flight attendant was
annoyingly punk. Amusing moment when he made the safety
announcement, which he improvised as "obey all signs,
placards, and whatever we tell you to do." One oddity -
there was no plain water on the flight. The female flight
attendant was appropriately apologetic but didn't offer any
alternative; when I asked if there was any fizzy water, she
said, "like club soda?" and when I responded in the
affirmative went to the galley and got me some. I did not
check to see if there was booze, though I've heard bad
things about availability on Mesa flights.

F was 3 of 6; I had an empty next to me. Somehow the guy in
2A had managed to con the gate people into letting him bring
a very fat carryon that wouldn't fit anyplace ... except
under the 2DF area ... so I let him put it there.

A nothing flight, on schedule.

UA7803 IAD IND 1227 1413 ER4 12A

The throne is a good seat. As it's quite comfy for an RJ
seat, I snoozed through most of the flight. Rachel, the
extremely cute (bottle) blonde flight attendant, seemed a
little surly. A nothing flight, more or less on schedule.

A free shuttle to the Days Hotel (formerly Days Inn), only
you have to call ahead, in contrast to the other hotels,
whose shuttles circulate. Very friendly personnel. Free
wi-fi. Free continental breakfast. A pool.

I got a decent room - sizable, quiet, extremely comfortable
king bed with five fluffy pillows, fresh-smelling - down at
the end of a tidy but somehow declasse, as in completely
tastelessly decorated, corridor.

They didn't bat an eyelash when I requested a shuttle right
back to the airport, whence I took the Green Line express
bus downtown ($7) - could have taken the #8 local (1.50),
but that would have taken 11 more minutes ... actually, the
Green Line was there, and people were waiting on an
obviously way late #8.

I had a couple hours to kill so took a tour of the
neighborhood - an interesting combo of vital rejuvenated
and down-and-out, the characteristics existing side by side
or sometimes in the same place. Lots of beautiful young
people; lots of derelicts. The monument at Monument Square
is kind of cool. I don't know if I like the atmosphere or
not. There's a bit of New Orleansishness about it, but it
doesn't seem so lighthearted somehow.

Saw some people (not derelicts) who recognized me from
somewhere else ... amusing, as I didn't recognize them at
all.

Got to Ruth's Chris a few minutes early and inquired for
the "FlyerTalk table," as instructed; the desk couldn't
find it and asked, uh, is there another name that the
reservation could have been made under, such as Carlson,
and I said, no, not Carlson, but JerseyJoe ... and there
it was. Table wasn't ready, so I got shunted off to the
bar and had a glass of Bourbon; I saw Pat (JerseyJoe's +1)
and hailed the two of them. Turns out the reservation had
been screwed up by the restaurant, and it should have been,
as all reservations should be, cross-referenced under the
FT name. We evened this out by being two short for the
reservation.

When bowdenj arrived, we asked for our table, which wasn't
ready. They offered us an outside table, which would have
been okay except that the rest of the customers out there
were smoking like chimneys, so we opted to continue to wait.
An excruciating little wait, during which bowdenj and I
complained that we were getting really, really hungry.

Our six-top eventually opened up.

Chad, our waiter, didn't arrive for a good while, and then
after our drink orders were put in, didn't return for
another good while - partially our fault, as we were having
trouble negotiating the large menu.

Here's what we ended up with.

Deloach Pinot Noir ?04 - a nice light compromise wine - some
of us get migraines from too much vin rouge, so I chose this
despite there being a couple wines on the grossly overpriced
list for $12 less that I might have liked better with steak.
It's a standard offering, cherries and berries, pleasantly
smooth, easy to quaff. More an aperitive wine than a dinner
one, but we made it serve as both. An annoyance that I find
at restaurants of this level of pretense - we all got poured
a glass, fine; but then at refill time, everyone else's
glass was topped up except mine, after which Chad gave
this crap-eating grin and asked me if I'd like to order
another bottle. No, I said, of course not. As soon as his
now extra-unwelcome presence was remedied, I remarked to the
table that he'd just lost $10 in tip. I ended up getting a
Basil Hayden's for my steak, and it worked just fine, thank
you very much.

bowdenj - shrimp cocktail, some kind of salad, a seared rare
tuna stacked on heaven knows what. The shrimp were gigantic;
I didn't pay attention to the salad; the tuna looked perfect
and made me almost wish I'd ordered it myself.

JerseyJoe+1 - some other kind of salad that was topped with
fried onions, then a smallish steak.

JerseyJoe - a small ribeye medium-rare-on-the-rare-side with
a lobster tail - this looked overcooked to me, the steak
appearing to me to be kind of medium medium.

violist - gumbo followed by a large strip steak extra rare.
The gumbo was poured into a cold plate, so the interior was
nice and hot but the edges were cold. It was a palatable
rendition especially after being doctored with a couple
shakes of Tabasco: but it was nowhere so nice as many I have
had in New Orleans for a third the price. I'd apparently put
the fear of God into the waiter, because the steak came
about at the right level of cookedness, but one surface
was cold. For the first time I thanked Ruth for heating the
plates to a gazillion degrees, so I flipped the thing
over and had an almost seared steak warm on both sides and
appropriately cool raw in the middle. Next time I'll take my
friend Hap's advice and order it cooked 1 minute per side.
The meat was good, not great, certainly not as prime as
prime used to be - very little intramuscular fat. Chad
tried to reingratiate himself by making a little joke about
whether the cow had stopped talking back to me. I said,
yeah, just barely, so he smiled, confident that he would
be getting at least half of his lost tip back. Oh, by the
way, I ordered my steak dry, as I find that a decent piece
of meat doesn't need butter. I want to say at this point
that the only Ruth's Chris I've been to that has gotten
everything absolutely right, both cooking and service, was
the one overlooking National Airport. Others have been
generally good but not top-rate; and one of the ones in
Vegas was positively horrid.

Sides. bowdenj likes sweet sides and ordered the sweet
potato casserole. I turned down the offer of some - it
looked sinfully caloric - and said that I might take a
spoonful for dessert. Sadly, that last spoonful disappeared
when I wasn't looking, whisked away by a suddenly altogether
too efficient waitstaff. JJ ordered asparagus, which was
fine. I ordered spinach, but just to see what was different
asked for it au gratin. What came was the usual creamed
stuff (which I enjoy) covered with a thick coating of cheap
yellow Cheddar. Folks, that is not what au gratin means.

Desserts: chocolate souffle was rich and dark and somewhat
undercooked; chocolate cheesecake was an obscene portion,
rich and much less chocolaty. Both of these came with a
big blob of Schlag.

We rolled out of there somewhat after ten; I could have made
the 10:30 bus if I'd hustled, but in the mistaken impression
that there was a late bus decided to socialize for a while.
bowdenj went off in his direction, and JJ hosted me into
the club at the Sheraton, where I found that the Sox and
Rays were tied at 8 after setting some kind of home run
record.

The last bus doesn't run on Saturday, so I missed my chance
to get back westward cheaply. Right at the right time for
the #8 bus, one rolled up signed "Garage." Some other guys
looking for #8 asked the driver, who informed us all that
there was no late bus. The taxi was 21.50 and took about
10 minutes.

Community Days
 

The lower-tier chains seem to compete with ever more
substantial "continental" breakfasts. The one here features
the usual muffins (2 kinds), breakfast breads, and cereal
but augments this with bacon, scrambled eggs, and sausage
gravy with biscuits. Not so fancy as what I've had at the
Best Western, but way more food than necessary. Sadly, I
was the only one there at 9 am to partake of this bounty.
It was decent food, though as usual with free sausage
gravy, there was very little sausage.

Went back to the room and did some work before taking my
shower and checking out.

Community Days
I discovered to my chagrin that there was no transportation
offered between the old and new terminals and was told by
the uninterested lady at the information booth that I'd
have to rustle up a cab. The taxi was 19 and change, almost
as much as it costs to go downtown. It's several miles to go
clockwise around the airport, and there is no obvious way
to do it counterclockwise. Khalif the driver decided to join
me for the tour, a good thing as there is no provision for
either dropoff or pickup at this point. We parked with
everyone else in the lot and went in to see what's what.

It's a big-city facility, 50 domestic and 3 international
gates, check-in stations that look like the ones in SIN
and HKG, lots of glass and chrome steel, that modern airy
feel. It also will take about 5 times as long to get from
ticketing to the United gates as it used to. Pretty
impressive. At the United gates, speaking of which, they
were giving out Hemispheres magazines and stuff, but on
hearing that I was a 1K, I got a "thank you for being a
United star" tchotchke and a copy of The Age of Flight
(thanks to JerseyJoe for telling me about this); Khalif
got the stuff too, as I introduced him to Bob at the gate
as my driver for the day. American was giving out pens and
fridge magnets. Southwest had a raffle for tickets. The
Frontier and US Air booths were abandoned.

At security, they are really pushing hard for the virtual
frisking machines, handing out propaganda on how effective
but privacy-preserving they are. Sigh. I really don't want
people knowing what color my underwear is. [joke]

We got to go out on the tarmac and look at the fire and
maintenance equipment, a great treat for children of all
ages (cf. the SZG Do and its pictures of numerous FTers
gleefully investigating the interior of the big firefighting
machine there). Then, after looking at the innards of the
baggage handling operation, it was time to go. The suggested
time allowance was 2 hours; I saw everything I wanted to see
in just over an hour. Back to the airport and to try for the
3:56 flight, so I could get a desk at an ORD RCC and do some
work for 4 extra hours. I was 1 on the waitlist, but nobody
got on off this list. There is a 5:26 CRJ, but I didn't want
that, and the next mainline wasn't until 7:06. Ah, well. The
7:06 was showing plenty of availability in F.

Funny thing about the 3:56, TSA had three of its finest
harass random people at the gate, except the people weren't
so random - mostly women with handbags. Saw some guy hand
over his bulging briefcase only to be hastily shooed away.

Oh, and before this, when I arrived, during a slack period,
I laboriously unloaded both laptops each into its own bin,
took off jacket and shoes, blah blah, and the gal pushed my
stuff through, saying, "all set?" as she did so. I saw my
computer bag go in and wailed, "my liquids are still in
there." She wasn't fazed in the slightest, and the x-ray
watcher either didn't see them or let them go through.

fin
 

UA 557 1906 1917 733 9C Ch9 :td:
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.

- 33 -

Here are some photos from the IND tour Community Day on Saturday, October 11, 2008:

http://mypage.iu.edu/~jbowden/october.html