The FAA

As a frequent business traveler, I encounter many injustices brought upon our kind in a given week. The greatest of these I experienced first hand this Friday on my commute home from Washington DC.

My typical 4:45pm flight pushed away from the gate on time and we began our taxi out to the runway for our departure. As we did so, I noticed about 15 planes parked on the run-up facing each other. As an experienced traveler, I said to myself "this can't be good". Just then the pilot turned off the taxiway and cut the engines. All flights to the north and east were on ground stop due to weather along the route. I thought to myself "ok. I'll hit up the drink cart for a few cold beverages and take a nap." I find that if you have access to cold beer, any situation can be tolerated.

We sat for over 3 hours and then returned to the gate to refuel. I saw many other planes doing the same as they began to run out of gas. I was listening to the tower communications and in addition to the dozen or so planes that were running out of fuel, 2 planes had to return to the gate for unruly passengers and 2 more had to return due to passengers passing out. It was 96 degrees out, and very hot on the plane.


I was unable to sleep and had finished my book. I got to thinking about the passneger bill of rights and the federal government bailing out many bankrupt airlines. This was not at any fault of the airline (United) and the pilot and crew was very professional and as frustrated as we all were at the situation. What genius decided that having 30-40 parked planes is anything other than a complete waste of time and money?

It turned out that the weather had cleared and our pilot, being dilligent in his harrasment of the crew in the tower, somehow got us out at 9:00. As we accellerated and took off, everyone cheered and clapped as if we had just won the Super Bowl. During the flight, I could tell he had the throttle wide open. We made it to Boston in just over 40 minutes.


I'm sure United lost a lot of money on this flight. Fuel, having to give credits to the poor folks in Boston waiting for our plane, overtime for the crew etc.... In an economy that is collapsing further by the day, it appears the FAA it not willing to be flexible in it's policy about ground delays and rerouting aircraft and I'm sure the airlines pay dearly for these types of delays.

High Gas Prices = Good news for me.

I like to think of myself as the atypical American. I don't watch TV (unless it's the Yanks, Jets, UCONN or the Devils are in the playoffs), I don't have a lot of unessential "stuff", I hate Budweiser, chain restaurants and fast food, and I don't get caught up in hype surrounding current events (rotten tomatoes).

However, where I do struggle is with public transportation. I hate it. I should clarify this. I love to drive. I love my car, I love going places on my schedule, at my pace (which is usually much faster than everyone else) and in the company of friends and family. I will not give up driving my car, even if gas gets to be $10 a gallon. I can't. It's a cost benefit thing for me. My car is my sanctuary. It's where I collect my thoughts, sing along to Guns and Roses, and decompress.

I travel to Northern Virginia every week for work. I used to live in the area back in the late 1990's during the days of the dot com boom, $1.19 gas and cars the size of school buses. In those days you couldn't go anywhere in suburban DC between the hours of 6:00 am and 9:00 pm. You would sit in gridlock on the beltway, 66, 95, 7 or the Fairfax County Parkway. Everyone drove everywhere, and I hated it.

Now it's 2008, gas prices in NOVA (the cute little acronym the locals use) are near $4.75 a gallon, and a lot has changed. I went into DC last night to visit friends, and I drove (of course). I left around 5:00 for my expected 90 minute journey of approximately 25 miles. I did my due dilligence and swung through a Metro station on the way, becuase I did want a few cocktails while in the city. To my surprise, there was nowhere to park. Huge SUV's that were once common on roadways throughout DC were parallel parked between trees and on traffic islands. Has the life of the SUV has come full circle? Parking on an embankment at a Metro station certainly is off road.

So I continued on to DC, conceding that I would have to limit my cocktail intake for the sake of not having to find a place to dock my rental Dodge Grand Caravan (rental car agencies basically give away anything that gets less than 20mpg's). To my surprise, there was no traffic at all on my way into DC. I made it in 20 minutes.

So selfishly I'm thinking "hey-this is great! Bring on $10 a gallon. I'll be the only one out here."

FYI- I'm not too much of a carbon-consuming jerk. My everyday car gets 30mpg's. My wife's - about 28.

Go Celtics

Big news here in Massachusetts! The Celtics won the NBA title late last night. Of the Boston sports teams, the Celtics are the one I can tolerate the most. In fact, I found myself rooting for them. Paul Pierce has been here for years, has survived being stabbed, and having to play with the likes of NBA has-been's like Gary Payton, Walter McCarty and Antwan "Chuck it from Anywhere" Walker. Additionally, as a UCONN alum, I root for guys like Rip Hamilton, Ben Gordon and Ray Allen.

The team Danny Ainge assembeled this season represents the old NBA that I used to like watching. They are all team players who play defense and can shoot free-throws. When one has a bad night, the rest of the team picks it up. It's been about winning for the C's this year, and I'm glad they won. I currently don't root for any NBA team (the Nets are a disaster, and the Knicks are even worse). The Celtics have won me over this year. I may even let my son watch NESN next fall.

This is my first blog.

Although I'm 32, married, have a 9 month old son, and don't get out much anymore, I've always felt that I'm current with the times. I have a Myspace profile (although I know that Myspace is vintage 2006) I have a Facebook profile (more like 2007) and am "LinkedIn". I have an iPod, noise cancelling headphones and a Blackberry Curve (the new one). However, this is my first crack at blogging - and my 63 year old father beat me to it. I got beat by the person who bought an LCD Hi-def tv 2 years ago and to this day has not subscribed to recieve the Hi-Def signal. Maybe I'm losing a step.

I plan to use this as a freeform of my ramblings about life as a New Englander, being a "young" father, a road weary business traveler and a blatant and unafraid New York sports fan trapped in "Red Sox Nation" - whatever the hell that is?