Leaving, On a Jet Plane
So, how do I follow up a month-long road trip? Why, a big load of air travel, two weeks later! (okay, that's a self-inflicted itinerary, but anyway..)
I spent most of Wednesday morning fighting with airline web pages to book a set of flights; it was incredibly frustrating, and reminded me of that piece of net dreck floating out there--"What if the airlines sold paint?":
Customer: But what are all these "Paint on sale from $10 a litre" signs?
Clerk: Well, that's for our budget paint. It only comes in half-litres. One $5 half-litre will do half a room. The second half-litre to complete the room is $20. None of the cans have labels, some are empty and there are no refunds, even on the empty cans.
I always concluded that the algorithm used to price airline tickets must have been written either by geniuses or the feeble-minded, given how opaque it is. Given the financial state of the airlines, it seems to be the latter.
Anyway, here's the quick summary, for all your calendars:
July 13-16: Chicago for work
July 26-29: Denver for work, plus seeing Beemer and the boys
July 30-August 3: Former company's "Summer Camp" (seminar/big party)
August 3-10: Hang out in Boston
August 10-15: Hang out in San Francisco Bay Area
August 16-17: Present at a conference, fly home
If you want to be sure to see me, book time now! I'm thinking that either a coffee hour or dim sum event in Boston will happen on August 6.
BUF-MDW/MDW-BUF Chicago Trip
I need to travel to Chicago to do work on my thesis project, a test basement in the suburbs. I originally looked at a $300 ticket out of YYZ. The next day, the price went up by $300+. My response: "Fuck you, major carriers, I'm going with Southwest." The only catch is that to get this ticket is that I need to drive to Buffalo. Out of the 65 domestic airports that I have travelled through, BUF is not on that list--I wanted to check out how the logistics worked for flying out of it. It's a difference between driving around 2 hours each way to BUF, vs. 1+ hours to YYZ. I'm especially interested, because JetBlue flies direct from Buffalo to Boston, as well as New York.
I'm hoping to have enough free time to catch an evening of blues at Kingston Mines, or maybe Buddy Guy's blues club.
Help help Jen! I need your assistance with some HTML magic! I copied and pasted code, and it gives me this big white space that I can't figure out. I'm guessing its because I've gone from a full browser width to the narrow column of my blog.
| Buffalo to Chicago Midway | ||||||
| Date | Day | Stops | Routing | Flight | Routing Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 13 | Thu | N/S | BUF-MDW | 368 | Depart Buffalo(BUF) at 4:05PM Arrive in Chicago Midway(MDW) at 4:40PM | |
| Chicago Midway to Buffalo | ||||||
| Date | Day | Stops | Routing | Flight | Routing Details | |
| Jul 16 | Sun | N/S | MDW-BUF | 2768 | Depart Chicago Midway(MDW) at 1:50PM Arrive in Buffalo(BUF) at 4:15PM | |
YYZ-DEN-BOS-SFO-YYZ Denver-Boston-San Francisco Trip
For work, I need to go to a meeting in Denver, and then I give a presentation in mid-August near Monterey; they are covering travel costs. Given that my former company's big "Summer Camp" party/seminar is right after the Denver meeting, and that two round trips from Toronto = four flight legs, it worked out to do it as a big three-week trip, with about a week of downtime each in Boston and San Francisco.
Unfortunately, I had to choose some stupid flights (e.g., redeye back from Denver to Boston on Saturday night) to keep the total package cost around $1000, instead of jumping up to $1500.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing all of you folks!
| Toronto, Canada (YYZ) to Denver, CO (DEN) | Wednesday, Jul 26 | |||
(Operated by Air Canada)
Jul 26
5:05 pm
Jul 26
6:37 pm
| Denver, CO (DEN) to Boston, MA (BOS) | Saturday, Jul 29 | |||
Jul 29
11:55 pm
Jul 30
5:37 am (Next day)
| Boston, MA (BOS) to San Francisco, CA (SFO) | Thursday, Aug 10 | |||
Aug 10
7:55 am
Aug 10
10:26 am
Aug 10
11:16 am
Aug 10
12:41 pm
| San Francisco, CA (SFO) to Toronto, Canada (YYZ) | Thursday, Aug 17 | |||
Aug 17
11:07 am
Aug 17
4:36 pm
(Operated by Air Canada)
Aug 17
5:20 pm
Aug 17
9:25 pm
posted by Bats @ 11:48 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Holy cats Bats, do you ever unpack? When do you do laundry?
I'm currently freaking out about my upcoming jaunt. I have found some small things to try to make too many hours on a plane somewhat reasonable. Any suggestions from a frequent traveller?
When do you do laundry?
Well, doing laundry on the road is part of my travel strategy, especially on trips over a week. Most hotels (domestic) have pretty decent laundry setups, including dispensing overpriced but small packages of laundry detergent.
I have found some small things to try to make too many hours on a plane somewhat reasonable. Any suggestions from a frequent traveller?
Hmmm... things on my list would include:
MP3 player, and good headphones. I justified Bose QuietComfort headphones when I was travelling all around the country, but they're about $300--not an easy purchase to rationalize.
A way to kill a chunk of time is books on CD--the public library has a lot of them. Rip them to MP3 and put them on the MP3 player (delete them afterwards if you feel intellectual-property-guilty). However, it does require a little bit of concentration to continue listening for extended periods--but less than reading a book. I use them for road trips all the time.
I use melotonin pills to try to get sleep when I'm on a long flight--I've found they are the only thing that really work for me. Don't know if you have your own solutions. Incidentally, various travel advisors have warned against using alcohol for this effect, due to dehydration, which is exacerbated by low airplane humidity.
Earplugs, as you have mentioned in other places. I've found they work great for both cutting out the airplane background white noise, which is actually pretty tiring, and reducing crying child noise. It's kinda like anesthetic--you can still hear the kids crying, but it is really not bothersome any more.
I take my shoes off on long flights.
I'm assuming you're taking AJ-safe snacks with you for the flight--although there might be issues getting them through customs.
Well, that's about all I can think of right now--hope it helps. Any comments from my readers?
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