Text 28209, 100 rader
Skriven 2009-09-03 04:34:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: goodbye YK 115
======================
A few bites of turre and Alberta porterhouse (which, even the
medium part, was butterknife tender) for breakfast, and then off to
the airport.

I offered to buy Jim lunch at the airport restaurant, the Bush
Pilot Pub - well, when we got there, the bar was closed (probably
pending Pierre's takeover), so we bailed and hied ourselves to
the Pizza Hut, which is the closest licensed restaurant to the
airport. It's been decades since I've been to a Pizza Hut, for
obvious reasons.

The girl alerted us to the fact that it would be quicker to do the
buffet than to order, so we did ($10 apiece for the buffet, $6 per
beer). In most US cities I could have gotten us steak dinners for
the price, but this was 100 miles from the Arctic Circle, so I
didn't complain but just downed a bunch of pills and had smallish
slices of olive and ricotta, pepperoni and sausage, and meat-and-green
pepper pizzas. Not too awful, considering it's the representative of a
dubious chain, in a peculiar, incongruous location. Oh, there were
also rotini and cheese, rotini and red sauce, salad, and apple dessert
pizza. Of the first two, the rotini and cheese was heavy and tasted
nourishing; the other just plain heavy. Salad looked a bit wilty,
though it's doubtful I would have tried it anyhow. Jim said the
dessert pizza was okay but deadly sweet.

I had a Sleeman's honey brown, which was almost as bland as the
cream ale had been; Jim had an MGD, which as we statesiders know is
a characterless but wholesome brew.

We backtracked to the airport, where I arrived at boarding time but
spent an astonishing 20 min waiting in line at security. The
screening itself was quick, and I don't know what was going on.

Walked to the plane - no sissy jetbridges here; the only notable
thing being that a WestJet 737 was boarding at the same time, and
some passengers were getting confused by there being two planes
parked next to each other.

AC8220 YZF YEG 1315 1457 CRJ 3F

As usual I slept through this flight. I woke to find a
1/2 oz packet of snacks at my place. These were some kind of
savory herb sticks, and I abandoned them. Landing was a bit
rough - in my mind I ran through the "Captain Crunch" and
"Captain Kangaroo" jokes while we bounced along the tarmac.

The lady at the Maple Leaf Lounge was most disapproving when
I checked in at the lounge. After all, I didn't have a valid
boarding pass. I told her that I'd print my boarding pass at the
business center, and then all would be in order. At length she
let me in. In revenge, I had nine boozies in an hour.

Courvoisier VS was harsh, and Cockburn's 2001 LBV was wimpy, so
I mixed the two to yield a tolerable beverage; there were also
Glenlivet and Crown Royal; and I did some experimentation,
making a Spanish coffee (Kahlua and Courvoisier), a French coffee
(Courvoisier and a sugar pack), and one with Grand Marnier and
Courvoisier, which apparently does an approximation of a Fuzzy
Dick (why the name I don't know, as by convention Fuzzy suggests
peach liqueur, and Dick isn't a usual term at all). Of course I
left out the cream in all of these, plus used decaf.

The lounge dragon had been emphatic about my having to be at
the transborder station an hour before departure, so I was
there at the designated time: it turned out that the customs
agent was extremely mellow, and I probably could have spent
another half hour at the Maple Leaf - but that would have
cost Air Canada another ten bucks in booze. I spent an hour
in the arid transborder area. Luckily there's a workstation
there, with a T-1 connection and 110V power.

UA5930 YEG DEN 1804 2041 CR7 5A

A quite empty flight, and my super-elite credentials didn't
get me anything that nobody else had. Which is fine - I would
prefer a world in which everyone was comfortable. I was happy
with this flight, which, aside from a few bumps, was the usual
uneventful thing.

We landed twenty early, so I had a decent amount of time to
do my e-mail before the club closed; then off to find a bar
to dilute my sorrows, but the beer selections in Denver didn't
look interesting, so I parked at the gate and recharged my
laptop instead. At some point a horde of high-school girl
athletes descended on the area, some of them quite toothsome,
and I was not encouraged by the fact that they essentially
didn't notice that I was there.

UA 590 DEN BOS 2359 0556 320 6A

Again, the best seat in the house if 6B is empty; this time
it was occupied by an attractive brunette in her 40s. I was
going to buy her and me a drink or two, using the coupons that
United gives me to assuage the pain of when I'm not upgraded,
but I fell asleep before the drink service. An insufficient
amount of sleep, as the flight was only about 3 1/4 hours.

___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)