Text 5384, 113 rader
Skriven 2006-09-10 22:29:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: end o trip 219
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The boarding passes said Gate 3B on them. I didn't notice
a Gate 3B. Are you sure it's 3B? 3B or not 3B, that is the
question. It was 3B, and we got there right at boarding.

UA 326 SJC ORD 1326 1930 320 2BA Empower Y Ch9 Y

You deplane and emplane via air stairs, most retrograde.

A rather sober and strait-laced crew - ended up doing okay
with the service, but to have a wannabe-military flight
attendant looking piercingly at you on boarding can be a
bit disquieting.

There's this custom where people who belong to a certain
flying BBS sign the inflight magazine, and I thought that
maybe the flight attendants were thinking nasty thoughts
as they saw me do so - maybe giving seditious instructions
to the next businessman flying first class? What happens
is you sign, and if another member sights the signature,
that's reported on the BBS, and everyone congratulates
everyone else, as though they'd found Waldo. Today my
friend Dave from San Fran sent me an e-mail - he found my
signature when he was on the Oakland - Washington flight.
Planes don't do fixed routes, usually - they get mixed up
for reasons beyond me, maybe something having to do with
minimizing unused capacity.

The flight was pretty tranquil, largely, as Channel 9
showed, because of the success of the pilots in picking our
way around various storm cells.

Catering: warmed nuts, lots of walnuts, no refill offered.
Choice of Italian sausage sandwich or Asian chicken salad.
On being asked for my first choice (not "order"), I said
that I didn't care, which pleased the flight attendant. I
ended up getting the sandwich, an okay roll with a sliced
pretty decent sausage, some cooked onions and red and green
peppers, and blobs of soft melted cheese that was I think
Jack. I scraped the cheese off and gave it to my sweetie.
The fruit appetizer was pretty acceptable, with very sweet
grapes, good pineapple, and sweet if crunchy honeydew and
cantaloupe. A chocolate-chip cookie came on the same tray -
it was hot and gooey. Carol didn't want hers, so I got two.

She had asked for and got the salad, which was okay greens
with okay Conway's Asian sesame dressing and topped with a
pretty poor excuse for a piece of chicken - it tasted like
grilled cardboard.

They ran out of salads - we saw the people in row 1 being
told that and being handed sandwiches. Carol flies very
little on United, and apportionment of meal choices is
based on how much you fly on United. I think some finagling
was done on our behalf in the front room.

The movie was an animated cartoon, announcement's words,
called The Wild. It looked like every other animated cute
animal movie since day one, and whatever charm it had was
invisible to me. Of course, I had Channel 9 on and was
listening to our course as we dodged thunderstorms.

Landed a few early, and we checked the board for earlier
flights. There was one, heavily delayed, and we decided not
to bother with it (it would have saved us only 30 minutes,
and there's no guarantee we would get first class if we
stood by for it). Went to the club, where there was a
veritable cornucopia of snacks - Snackwells, granola bars,
Twix, cheese and crackers, apples, oranges, and plums.

UA 766 ORD BWI 2120 0006 320 2AB Empower N Ch 9 Y

Our cabin had 3 employees flying, one in flight attendant
uniform, one in gate agent garb, plus one in civvies but
reading a United operations manual.

Also 5 people who had been bumped up to first class
because the back was full: I was particularly amused by a
party of 3 who looked at their boarding passes, then looked
at row 1, and started heading down to steerage; then they
came back and parked in row 1, with one of them showing me
her boarding pass in a dazed, querying sort of way - it
indeed said row 1, and I told her that she and her friends
had lucked out; she then said, I'm used to going to the
wayback of the plane, whereupon 3D said, "me too."

Then there were we two and a couple empty seats.

We taxied out and then were caught in a traffic jam as they
closed the eastbound departures for weather; this lasted
10 or 15 minutes, and then luckily we were off.

Fairly attentive service.

There were laptop power ports but - the lead flight
attendant looked - no transformer.

Supreme snack mix. I fail to see the charm.

Carol and I both had Courvoisier; she had also wisely
brought a pocketful of snacks from the Club.

After a few bumps going out, a smooth flight, then a few
more bumps descending. We landed close to schedule, having
just missed another rainstorm (fairly sizable, judging
from the glistening aspect of the tarmac).

We hustled downstairs to the courtesy bus pickup and found the
Preflight bus waiting. Whence to the car and, as Carol says,
homey home home. Thus ended a truly wonderful weekend.

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