The flight from New York to Chicago takes two hours in the air, and is on-time if it takes three hours from gate to gate. Yesterday my flight was not on time:
- Late crew arrival: boarding starts at the scheduled departure time.
- APU inoperative: mechanic inspection and sign off takes 40 minutes.
- JFK on a Friday evening: 55 minutes from push-back to take-off.
- ILS inoperative on one of O'Hare's runways: take a 10-minute holding loop over Michigan.
- Landing runway 9L: spend 17 minutes taxiing to the gate.
- Friday night at O'Hare: 35 minutes from gate arrival to bag delivery.
- Friday night at O'Hare: taxi line takes 20 minutes.
- Cabbie forgets the biggest traffic news in Chicago: miss two available exits because the Ohio ramp is closed.
Total time from leaving my hotel in New York to arriving at dinner an hour late: 8 hours, 28 minutes. (On average, my door-to-door time from New York is just over 5 hours.)
And none of it was American's fault, except for the bit about being one of 40 airlines to schedule a 5pm departure from Kennedy.
I chose the departure from JFK because, using miles, my options were limited, and spending 20 hours in my third-favorite city in the world seemed like a good end to the week. It wasn't until I tried to leave that random events started conspiring against me.
Still, it was a fun trip. I read four books entirely, got most of the way through one and started a sixth. And I had two new beers at Southampton Arms: Jones the Brewer's Abigail's Party Ale and a special pale whose name I forgot to write down, apparently.
When I get home I'll post a screen-shot from my phone showing how, at exactly the time I arrived in Manhattan tonight, the only rain cloud within the tri-state area was dumping its contents on Midtown. It felt like being at a Cubs game.
However, the little cloud either dissipated or moved out over the Atlantic in short order, so I discovered that Hotwire had put me in a hotel only two blocks from the airport express bus stop, and within one block of hot, greasy, New York pizza. If I only have one night in New York, that's dinner. Always.
And now, getting up at 3:30 New York time this morning is backing up on me a bit, and the hotel apparently has a 300-baud modem handling its internet[1], so I think I'll crash now.
*plotz*
[1] Seriously, it took several attempts and 25 minutes to post this entry. Google is slow, too, so it's not the Daily Parker—though I am checking the VM right now.
...but it's really tasty. I ate tonight at Estaminet Chez la Vielle, in Lille, France. The name translates literally to "Little Flemish restaurant at the old woman's house." (An estaminet is like a restaurant, but Flemish. Lille borders Belgium and was, at one point, the biggest city in Flanders. QED.)
It's cute:
And the vol a vent with chicken and mushrooms in a béchamel sauce made my arteries freeze on sight:
Tomorrow I'll have one or two more photos of Lille, as well as an explanation why I get to spend three hours at De Gaulle tomorrow. (Hint: it has nothing to do with aviation.)
As of yesterday around 4:15pm, I'm no longer with 10th Magnitude. I start a new role as an architect with West Monroe Partners' technology practice a week from Monday.
So, I'm technically unemployed for nine days. Which means I have lots of free time, right?
Well, later this morning I have a three-hour rehearsal for tomorrow's performance of Verdi's Requiem in Evanston. Tonight I'm going to see Dar Williams Honesty Room tour. And Monday I'm going to Europe for four days.
Maybe I should have scheduled a little down-time...
I was losing by 118 points to a really good Scrabble player. Then this happened:
That was fun.
A whole list of interesting articles crossed my inbox overnight, but with only two days left in my job, I really haven't had time to read them all:
I can't wait to see what happens in the Virginia 7th this fall...
Via the Atlantic, how far could the Proclaimers actually walk?
[W]hile "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" does a great job of laying out the folk-rockers' intentions to complete the full thou', it is lousy about providing the specifics of their journey. What direction are they walking, for instance – south toward London, or north to the frigid, rocky shores of the far Highlands? Then there's the problem that if they walked 500 x 2 miles in a straight line from any point in the U.K., they'd hit water. Would they stop and reconsider their travel plans (buy a jet-ski, perhaps)? Or would they keep on walking straight into the briny waves, plodding along the ocean floor to some remote island where their seagull poo-splattered lover is waiting?
It's a catchy song, but it leaves so many questions! Fortunately, there's a guy hard on the case to unravel its mysteries. Kenneth Field is a 40-something cartographic product engineer in Southern California who's made a fun map showing all the places the band could walk to in a 360 degree field if they began in Leith, the birthplace of twin-brother singers Craig and Charlie Reid.
And apparently, if you like that, there's a subreddit of map porn. I'll be back...
Parker and I walked up to Ribfest yesterday (11 km round-trip). I had four 3-bone samplers:
- Mrs. Murphy's Irish Bistro, of course. Fall-off-the-bone, tasty meat with a tangy, spicy whiskey-Guinness sauce. Yum. 3½ stars.
- Wrigley BBQ, my favorite from last year, was a little less impressive this time. Tug-off-the-bone, well-smoked meat, not a lot of sauce. Still yum, but only 3 stars this year.
- Smokin' Woody's: tug-off-the-bone, lean, smoked meat, with a good sweet/smoky sauce. 3 stars.
- BBQ King Smokehouse from Woodstock, Ill.: the meatiest ribs I've had at Ribfest, with really good smoke and a good amount of sweet/smoky sauce. 3½ stars.
I still have a few tickets left, so I may go back for dinner.
Today is the annual Ribfest in the North Center neighborhood of Chicago. Parker and I will be heading out there for the 6th time, and enjoying the amazing weather (sunny and 22°C).
Here's our history so far:
2013:
2012:
2011:
2010: We didn't go to Ribfest because of
my sister's wedding. A fair trade, I think.
2009:
2008:
Reviews and photos later today or tomorrow.
Long-time readers know I rarely post directly about my personal life, but this one is kind of big.
After nearly three years, I'm moving from 10th Magnitude to take a new position as a .NET Architect with West Monroe Partners. I've learned a lot working with 10th, and I wish everyone there the best in the future.
I'll have more to say about this in the coming weeks. I'm excited about the change, and looking forward to some totally new challenges with WMP.