1/30 9am PST?: Up at 3:30am make the coffee eat a banana out the door right at 4. Somewhere over the Rockies now. The trip already seems like it's taken forever, and it's only been a few hours. After San Francisco, it'll be 18 more. I'm awake now. Pity.
1/30 10:30am PST. It's always something. The flight arrived SFO precisely on time — but something's going on: there are countless planes sitting on the runway. They're not going into the gates, and they're not departing. Turns out the airport had a "security breach" (like that idiot in Atlanta that ran through a checkpoint because he was afraid he'd miss a football game...). After 45 minutes they're letting some flights leave and ostensibly others can take their places at the gates. Eventually I'll find out what happens to my connecting flight to Tokyo: the good news is there are a lot of east-coast flights that will be connecting here to international destinations — and they're all the same boat, err, plane.
1/30 12:50pm PST. I've missed the Tokyo flight I was supposed to be on, and the one after it. Had the "Uniformed Gate Agent" actually been around, I might have made the 2nd flight. Instead, I rush to Gate 95, which is at the end of the earth, SFO-wise, and I have to go through security again, which is a lot more hassle (and time) than it used to be. True to form (but always for a different reason) I'm soaked when I get to the gate. Equally normal, the 1:10 boarding sign is still up when I arrive at 1:30 — and the flight hasn't started to board.
The "Security breach" was some fool who tested positive for explosives on his shoes, then (depending on whether you take the nefarious view or the paranoid view) either ran into the crowd to escape detection, or didn't realize that there was a problem at all, and continued on his way. The Perp (perpetrator; that's Security talk) was a "white mail in his mid-40s". Wait a minute! *I* resemble that remark!
Not unlike eaters of poppy seed bagels, coming up positive for heroin use, any number of things could cause a false-positive on these sniffers. They don't test for bombs,they test for things that go into bombs. As I understand it. A newspaper article said that walking across a yard with fresh fertilizer applied could do it.
I've got a seat on the upper deck (747-400). I don't really like upper deck seats; the overhead lockers are really small and the ones on the side are as well. They're great for a laptop or books or the like, but forget putting luggage in them. I think I've got a bulkhead seat, and until an adorable young doting Taiwanese couple with their adorable INFANT (not "baby", not "Toddler" — nothing you'd expect to sleep for more than six and a half minutes between cries. It doesn't disappoint). I'm advised that I'm in the next row back. Second prize? The seat next to the little... darling. I relocate, then realize that being one seat behind the little terror isn't much better than next to it.
Did I mention — I'm not headed for Tokyo as originally planned? I'm on a flight to Taipai.At least it's on the way to Bangkok, sorta kinda. I'll have a close connection to the Bangkok flight on Thai Airways. If all goes well I'll only arrive nine hours late, or a net of about 34 hours door to door, arriving around 1am instead of at 4pm. And If I don't make the connecting flight — overnight in Taipei. Thrills.
Am I just an insufferable whiner? The case could be made for it. But I've made my plans, carefully and deliberately: certain flights, certain seats; particular meals and drinks will be available. I've used skills developed from plying these routes for over a decade to what are now leisure trips. Should I not be disappointed when nothing goes as plans? Do I have to repeatedly-recite the Serenity Prayer as a precondition to air travel these days
The little shit is crying again, seems like he's good for about 6 1/2 minutes between episodes.
The Asian guy in the seat up and to my left crawls over the aisle passenger. A shiny badge is clipped to the back of his belt. Dollars to donuts says he's a Sky Marshall. Mystery! Intrigue!
I arrived, and got a couple hours of sleep: 2 until 5. I'd slept fairly well on the plain. While I arrived, my luggage did not. Thai Airways authorized 3,000 baht for "sundries". This is an enormous amount of money for this economy. I've spent about 1000 and already feel profligate. I hope they didn't mean 300.