Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2008-06-24 09:50 am
azurelunatic) wrote2008-06-24 09:50 am
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Our flight to Vegas! Now with bonus groping by the TSA! Virgin love! Dinner!
It just occurred to me (yesterday) that I didn't give many details on our flight to Vegas!
So back on 6/1/2008, I packed up and Guide Dog Aunt dropped me off at SFO. Turns out that Virgin Air is in the International terminal. We did a little bit of driving around and panicking before we figured that out. I sent![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lacey a text message and checked my bag. By the time I got out of the ladies' room, lacey had arrived. We oriented ourselves and made our way through security.
The TSA waved me over into a plexiglass booth and called for a female agent. Yay. I waited. The waiting probably seemed longer than it actually was.lacey was waiting for me, and looked somewhat unsettled. The female agent patted me down. Yay, getting groped (professionally) by the TSA -- though as a professional note, I could probably have been carrying more than three ounces of liquids in my cleavage, which bit of me went unmolested. I think I really would have rather undergone something a little more high-tech -- or we could have saved time waiting for the female agent and I could have taken off my outer clothing.
More cranky than insulted or fearful, I watched the TSA next search for someone who spoke French, as the next person to get picked for additional screening didn't speak English. I didn't speak French (they asked me if I was in his party, or if I happened to speak French) so I collected my things and we headed on down towards the gate, as we'd decided it was more practical to locate gate first, lunch second.
The sandwiches were good. We had lunch and chattered, then collected at the gate our flight was leaving from, on the lower level.
I really like Virgin Air. They seem to have a sense of humor. They called people wearing red for early boarding, because that's their color. (I plan on wearing my red sweater when flying with them again, because I have one and because I might as well humor them if they'll give advantages for that.) The flight was not at all crowded. We each picked up a pair of the red earbuds -- I had neglected to bring any headphones with me!
The plane was lit with purple lights. It was weird. The screens on the backs of the seats were awesome, although we were not having a good time getting the chat to work, and the controller was awkward. It was a very quiet flight, because everyone was watching their own TV channel. I was able to find "my" song on their music player, so I was well-pleased. I wrote a little. I watched the progress of the plane on Google Maps. They seem to be still developing their in-flight computer system, as lots of the options were stubbed out but not actually available.
I really can't get away from support even when I'm on vacation. Seems the Virgin Air flight attendants have to double as tech support for theirusers passengers, as we were instructed to ring for assistance if we needed help with the seatback computers. I managed to crash mine somehow, and saw that they're using Linux under there, as I recognize that rough grey background and X-shaped black cursor. I had to get a reboot. My crash didn't affect my neighbors. I wonder how they're doing it under there. I saw the fellow sitting in front of lacey was having a hard time with his. It had just told him that it couldn't do that. When it tells you that, it gives you a button you have to push to acknowledge that. He was trying to go on to do whatever it was that he wanted to do now that he knew he couldn't do that, and was pushing a menu button, and as it was waiting for him to acknowledge that he couldn't do that, it wasn't cooperating. I saw steam start to come out his ears. I told him what to push, and everything was suddenly OK.
We touched down in Vegas. Hooray, Vegas. I got in touch with everyone -- in fact, I pulled out my cellphone and realized to my great dismay that I had forgotten to turn it off. Happily, the plane didn't crash! It found service just as I pulled it out.
The Las Vegas airport intimidates me. We took a tram to the baggage pickup. I was tired enough at this point that the tram failed to fill me with happiness and instead filled me with agoraphobia. We got my bag. I had to locate money for the shuttle to the hotel. We got that squared away, and waited for the shuttle to fill up. At length, it did. There was much busy texting.
We arrived and got settled in the room. There had been an issue with plans as they were -- we'd thought that one room would be sufficient for all of us. Not so! Somyrrhianna had booked a second room. In addition to myrrhianna and hcolleen, who we had been expecting to see, there was also demonuntildeath, who we had not.
We promptly went out for dinner. There was a bit of fun getting to Bahama Breeze, which was intensified by going several wrong directions, talking about male/male audio couplers, and generalized hilarity. Once we arrived, we settled in for a nice dinner. I got crab legs as an appetizer, and they were oh so tasty. Unfortunately, my limit on seafood is very small, so I shared. Their citrus butter sauce was delicious.
Dinner was full of cracked-out conversation. We told the tale of AK-47 Guy, who is going to be a staple in all of our "You can't top this" stories for a lifetime. Happiness was had. I had some sort of very tasty drink involving cactus something.myrrhianna would like me to remind her that if she is to be drinking, it will not be at any time near when she has to take her meds, for these two things do not go together well.
With much hilarity, we repaired back to the hotel, where we sank into a deep and well-deserved sleep, after making plans for the morning, taking pictures, and discovering that the ice machine on the 22nd floor was not functioning.
So back on 6/1/2008, I packed up and Guide Dog Aunt dropped me off at SFO. Turns out that Virgin Air is in the International terminal. We did a little bit of driving around and panicking before we figured that out. I sent
lacey a text message and checked my bag. By the time I got out of the ladies' room, lacey had arrived. We oriented ourselves and made our way through security. The TSA waved me over into a plexiglass booth and called for a female agent. Yay. I waited. The waiting probably seemed longer than it actually was.
lacey was waiting for me, and looked somewhat unsettled. The female agent patted me down. Yay, getting groped (professionally) by the TSA -- though as a professional note, I could probably have been carrying more than three ounces of liquids in my cleavage, which bit of me went unmolested. I think I really would have rather undergone something a little more high-tech -- or we could have saved time waiting for the female agent and I could have taken off my outer clothing. More cranky than insulted or fearful, I watched the TSA next search for someone who spoke French, as the next person to get picked for additional screening didn't speak English. I didn't speak French (they asked me if I was in his party, or if I happened to speak French) so I collected my things and we headed on down towards the gate, as we'd decided it was more practical to locate gate first, lunch second.
The sandwiches were good. We had lunch and chattered, then collected at the gate our flight was leaving from, on the lower level.
I really like Virgin Air. They seem to have a sense of humor. They called people wearing red for early boarding, because that's their color. (I plan on wearing my red sweater when flying with them again, because I have one and because I might as well humor them if they'll give advantages for that.) The flight was not at all crowded. We each picked up a pair of the red earbuds -- I had neglected to bring any headphones with me!
The plane was lit with purple lights. It was weird. The screens on the backs of the seats were awesome, although we were not having a good time getting the chat to work, and the controller was awkward. It was a very quiet flight, because everyone was watching their own TV channel. I was able to find "my" song on their music player, so I was well-pleased. I wrote a little. I watched the progress of the plane on Google Maps. They seem to be still developing their in-flight computer system, as lots of the options were stubbed out but not actually available.
I really can't get away from support even when I'm on vacation. Seems the Virgin Air flight attendants have to double as tech support for their
lacey was having a hard time with his. It had just told him that it couldn't do that. When it tells you that, it gives you a button you have to push to acknowledge that. He was trying to go on to do whatever it was that he wanted to do now that he knew he couldn't do that, and was pushing a menu button, and as it was waiting for him to acknowledge that he couldn't do that, it wasn't cooperating. I saw steam start to come out his ears. I told him what to push, and everything was suddenly OK. We touched down in Vegas. Hooray, Vegas. I got in touch with everyone -- in fact, I pulled out my cellphone and realized to my great dismay that I had forgotten to turn it off. Happily, the plane didn't crash! It found service just as I pulled it out.
The Las Vegas airport intimidates me. We took a tram to the baggage pickup. I was tired enough at this point that the tram failed to fill me with happiness and instead filled me with agoraphobia. We got my bag. I had to locate money for the shuttle to the hotel. We got that squared away, and waited for the shuttle to fill up. At length, it did. There was much busy texting.
We arrived and got settled in the room. There had been an issue with plans as they were -- we'd thought that one room would be sufficient for all of us. Not so! So
myrrhianna had booked a second room. In addition to myrrhianna and hcolleen, who we had been expecting to see, there was also demonuntildeath, who we had not. We promptly went out for dinner. There was a bit of fun getting to Bahama Breeze, which was intensified by going several wrong directions, talking about male/male audio couplers, and generalized hilarity. Once we arrived, we settled in for a nice dinner. I got crab legs as an appetizer, and they were oh so tasty. Unfortunately, my limit on seafood is very small, so I shared. Their citrus butter sauce was delicious.
Dinner was full of cracked-out conversation. We told the tale of AK-47 Guy, who is going to be a staple in all of our "You can't top this" stories for a lifetime. Happiness was had. I had some sort of very tasty drink involving cactus something.
myrrhianna would like me to remind her that if she is to be drinking, it will not be at any time near when she has to take her meds, for these two things do not go together well. With much hilarity, we repaired back to the hotel, where we sank into a deep and well-deserved sleep, after making plans for the morning, taking pictures, and discovering that the ice machine on the 22nd floor was not functioning.
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I was unsettled because I wasn't sure if I grabbed all your stuff, or if what I grabbed was yours at all. I was kicking myself for not paying more attention >.>
I really loved their in-flight computer system. If they develop and start to utilize all the stuff they had to choose from, they'll really have something. I do know I'll be flying with them from now on, just on principle. (I still have my earbuds, too :D)
I got my pictures yesterday! The first round, anyway. Haven't looked through all of them yet. I have to figure out some sort of photo album/memorabilia storage solution, I saved almost literally every scrap of paper from vacation >.> What I really need to do is get to some place with really fast internet so I can upload all the pictures and write the whole shebang up!
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There's talk of allowing mobile phone use on planes in the UK recently.
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As soon as I built a radio in electronics shop and realized that there was a transmitter in what I thought was just a simple pickup, everything became clear to me. (Intermim frequencies or something like that?) But airplanes have got to be built to better standards these days.
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I don't think there ever was a real issue, and certainly there's never been a plane crash proven to be due to someone using their mobile phone.
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I think that's the only reason anyone in the UK is not in favor of having mobiles on now. There are cries that flights should be 'text-only'. :)
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At that point, I'll be hoping for the reintroduction of Zepplins. If it were an option, I would definitely use an airship to cross the Atlantic over a plane. Don't care that it takes days and days.
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Really, what we need is just a catch-all 'being bloody stupid' law...
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To be honest, after hearing our sysadmin ('choobs' on Twitter) talk about his (short) experiences of moving his family to Australia, I'd want a lot more than a green laser pointer. Half the wildlife seems to be filled to the brim with insane poisons.
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They're the Virgin Galactic outfit, too, right?
(I probably have more familiarity with the name than the average US non-geek, because they come up in The Register every now and then.)
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