• Tag Archives airlines

  • Caution: Rant About Air Travel

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                           Waxing Moon of  the Cold Month

    The grumpy traveler has arrived in the mile-high city, which I discovered at the Denver Airport is actually 5,280 feet above sea level.  How about that?  I say grumpy because air travel wears at me with the death of a thousand cuts.

    First, when I went online yesterday to print out boarding passes, I was met with the opportunity to pay a checked baggage fee.  Kate wanted to check a bag because, being the raving terrorist lunatic that she is, she wanted to bring a good pair of scissors for sewing.  $23 to transport those damned scissors.  As long we’re on it, where did a word like scissors come from anyhow?  That spelling.

    Second, parking at the airport.  In  this case you get to choose between an intolerably long ride on Airport Shuttle, a tour of the Twin Cities, or trying to park a large pick-up, our Tundra, in a slot made for a compact car.  Our Celica.

    So we’re at the airport.  I don’t have to tell you the small insults visited on us under the auspices of national security.  Good news?  No body scanners yet.

    The plane itself.  The logistics of the human body and the number of seats you can cram in–the maximum–create a very cosy, one could even call it crammed ride.  And I had the four  year old behind me who spent most of the flight taking the tray table down and putting it back in place.  Often.  Not news, but a nuisance anyway.

    Don’t ask me about getting the bag.  Remember Denver’s airport?  It was the one that opened two years late because they couldn’t get the luggage system working.

    Finally, getting to your rental car.  Ah, the third lane out at ground transportation.  Finding or waiting for the express bus, ha, that takes you to your car.  At a site far enough away from the airport itself to be in Wyoming.  Afterward, the always entertaining sales pitches by the rental car clerk.  No.  I don’t want an SUV with snow tires.  No.  I don’t want to pay $20 a day to supplement (unnecessarily) my already too expensive car insurance.

    But.  The woman who took the yellow sheet about the car’s condition was very nice and helpful.

    And thus endeth this complaint about travel by air.


    📂This entry was posted in Travel 📎and tagged

  • “If it’s not at Brookshires or Walmart, we can get it in Tyler.”

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    68  bar rises 29.75  0mpn ENE dew-point 63  Sunrise 5:53  Sunset 8:45pm  Summer

    Last Quarter of the Thunder Moon

    As you can tell by the lawn mower postings, I’m back from Texas.  No handy computer down there.

    Confession:  We had no problems with the airline.  I loved the plane, a small Embraer with a single aisle and two rows, 2 seats to a row and plenty of legroom.  Left and landed on time.  Since we didn’t check anything, no extra fees.  Carrying no electronics and all the liquid stuff in the handy quart bag so security was as painless as possible.  The rental car was cheaper than advertised and we got a PT Cruiser which was at least an interesting compact.  This experience was enough, given my basically positive experience on the flights to Hawai’i, to make me rethink my “never fly unless absolutely necessary” pledge.

    With two of us along things always go smoother because we can divide traveling chores, so that’s part of it, but, in the end, it was ok.  Not pleasant.  Barely worth the cash.  But OK.

    We spent the weekend encased in East Texas heat and humidity.  97-99 during the day, cooling down to around 80 at night.  Since we were not hiking or picking peaches, it was ok, but both Kate and I find the heat enervating, unpleasant at best.  The Bakers, Carol and Charyn, have a huge home on considerable acreage outside Mineola, Texas.  A former executive for Bell Helicopter, Carol exudes a charming, Texas style hospitality.

    Once, long ago, I took a train through east Texas on my way to visit Uncle Charles, Aunt Berta and their daughter, Charyn.  This was at least 50 years ago, but my memory of it is fresh because the pine trees and the hills surprised me then, just as they did this trip.  When you leave Dallas and head out toward Mineola, the road takes you through flat, reddish tan countryside.  Somewhere around Grand Saline (yes, a big salt deposit there.  I asked.  Morton has a big mine.) the flat begins to roll and the reddish tan countryside has forests of pine and oak.

    The drive on Highway 80 runs through Forney, Terrell, Willis Point, Grand Saline, Elmo, Fruitvale and Mineola.  On beyond Mineola 80 hits Big Sandy.  I love the names of these towns.  There are fruit orchards along the way, peaches, apricots and others I could not identify.  Even with the salt and the fruit and truck farming, these towns all look worn and tired, as if the promise of the past had not quite come to life.

    Mineola is different.   It has antique stores and quaint restaurants, Mineola Mercantile, for example, which is a restaurant and stuff store.  This is a small town like Long Lake, Stillwater, even Anoka surrounded in the countryside by large properties protected with iron gates protected by keyed locks.  Horses are everywhere which helps explain the iron gates.  This is the good life far enough from what they call the metroplex, Dallas/Ft. Worth, that the people who live here can feel rural with many of the comforts of upper class life.  This includes a Brookshire grocery which is equivalent to a Minnesota Bylery’s.

    Carol and Charyn said, “Anything that’s not at Bylery’s or Walmart we can get in Tyler.”

    I’ll report some more on the reunion tomorrow.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Memories Travel 📎and tagged

  • Compounding Pharmacies

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    44  bar rises 30.06  2mph N dewpoint 31 Spring

                  Waxing Gibbous Moon of Growing

    A gray, cool start after a shirt sleeve day yesterday.  We’re still in the hurry up and wait phase of gardening.  It’s a bit too early for clean up, certainly too early for planting anything but cold weather crops.  We don’t tend to do those, at least not so far, so the hydroponics are our primary entry in this years vegetable garden.  The lettuce seedlings and tomato plant I put under the light first have grown rapidly.  Not ready for harvest anytime soon, but on the way.

    Kate made me aware of compounding pharmacies, a vestigial remnant of that which all pharmacies used to be, independent pharmaceutical manufactories.  There are six in Minnesota including one in St. Paul, St. Peter and Wayzata.  The Wayzata pharmacy has a glitzy name, RxArtisans.  I knew a few of those when I was in college.  The growth and reach of pharmaceutical companies has reduced the average pharmacy to nothing more than a retail distributor of already compounded drugs.  This results, of course, in a matching of patients to available drugs and their available dosages, whereas the compounding pharmacy matched drugs to patients both in dosage and delivery vehicle. 

    The Delta buyout of Northwest, not a merger, will not be certain for some time to come.  The pilots association of Northwest and the other unions flight attendants, ground crews and mechanics are about to become part of a larger, non-unionized pool.  This creates probable labor and culture conflicts from day one.  Also, congress and the regulators still have to approve, as does Wall Street.  Both companies share price dropped the day after the announcement, an unusual event.  Also, both airlines have an aging fleet of planes and debt hangover from their respective bankruptcies.  The State of Minnesota wants its incentives back since Northwest, with the merger, violates the remain in Minnesota provision.  All this reflects the turbulent nature of an industry who excels in nothing quite so much as an uncomfortable experience delivered for hundreds of dollars.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Garden Travel Weather +Climate 📎and tagged