Las Vegas

I guess New Years has to be good for something.  I’m glad that I’ve been to the Strip so I can fathom how idiotic and cool these stunts are.

While I managed to make it home to Southern California before the airline system got majorly screwed up, my journey  was not without complications.  Before getting on my bus to the Philadelphia Airport, I received an automated call notifying me that my flight on Delta from PHL to ATL would be 30 minutes late.  “No problem,” I thought, “On the scale of things, that’s nothing, and I’ll still have plenty of time to make my connection to Orange County.”  Of course, once I arrived at the airport for my 4:55 scheduled departure, they announced it would be delayed 30 minutes further.  As I started to investigate alternate flights to Southern California, since I would now likely miss my connection, they moved my flight’s gate.

Our old gate was to be occupied by the 5:55 scheduled Delta departure to Atlanta.  I figured that flight would be delayed too, but no.  The flight that was scheduled to leave for Atlanta an hour after ours started boarding before ours.  I found this bearable only because of the mild irony.  The major irony came in the fact that the concourse only had one tow bar for MD-88s, so the other flight’s earlier push-back meant that we had to sit and wait even longer as it pushed back and taxied behind us, on its way to a much earlier takeoff.

With such shenanigans in Philadelphia, I was sure I would miss my connecting flight in Atlanta.  I really didn’t want to spend the night in the Atlanta hotel, so when we pulled into gate B3 at 9:00 PM, I was determined to make it to a flight to Southern California.  The monitors at the gate showed a 9:15 PM flight to LAX at gate A26 and a 9:15 PM flight to San Diego at gate B32.  I figured that these flights had already boarded, but I sprinted the length of the B concourse to get to the San Diego flight (I didn’t want to have run people over on the underground moving walkways to concourse A).  The gate agent somehow interpreted my breathless rants about missing my connection, and I got on the plane to San Diego.  Altogether, the evening was an appropriately hectic end to a very hectic semester.

Saturday was my last airline flight of 2008.  I ended up making 21 takeoffs and landings this year, including my first trips through San Diego, Chicago Midway, Salt Lake City, Raleigh-Durham, and Managua.  I used to love flying and airports, but the airlines and, to an even greater extent, the TSA, have destroyed every last bit of enjoyment I used to derive from them.  Maybe some carbon offsets will make me feel better about all the flying.

Route 101 Trolley at 69th St

Earlier this week, two suspects robbed a bank in Media and tried to escape on public transportation.  They boarded Route 101, the trolley I often take from the Springfield Mall near Swarthmore to either Media or 69th Street.  From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Yesterday, after the Sovereign Bank branch at Providence Road and Baltimore Pike in Media was robbed, the two suspects were spotted climbing on board the Route 101 trolley…

News of the robbery went out on the police radio and officers were stationed at every stop along the trolley route, said SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams.

The Santa Ana Freeway - Will LaHood work for mass transit alternatives or expansion and induced demand?

I was well aware that President-elect Obama wouldn’t be able to live up to the high expectations that many people, including myself, had of him.  This week, however, has been a particularly rough one.  Monday’s announcement of his “Green Team” was lacking a Transportation Secretary.  As Streetsblog reports,

“Obama still hasn’t made the transportation - land use - climate connection,” Petra Todorovich, director of Regional Plan Association’s America 2050 program said. “It’s clear he’s thinking about these things in separate categories.”

When he did fill the spot, public transportation and livable streets advocates were not particularly pleased.  Most sources report LaHood to be pretty cozy with the highway lobby.  It’s disappointing to have such a valuable spot in the cabinet go to a politician who is not very progressive.  Again, from the Streetsblog report:

“This sends the message that the transportation secretary is a throw-away political appointment who doesn’t matter,’ said a city transportation official who, like others, asked to remain anonymous to preserve their relationship with the U.S. DOT. “This is the slot for the token Republican. It’s the bottom of the barrel. A bone you can throw.”

And to top it all off, it comes out that Rick Warren will be given the honor of giving the inauguration’s invocation.  I apologize on behalf of Orange County, but at least the conversations behind the decision have been made public.