Pro tip: Keep the teenager engaged at the museum...

... by asking if they'd be interested in seeing Rodin's "Balzac".  #dadjoke

Pro tip: when leaving on a 2+ week business trip to France...

... don't bring a phone that bricks within 12 hours of your arrival, especially if they can't send a replacement to a non-U.S. address.  #bootloop

Historical higher fares for overweight passengers

I've seen some of the articles about overweight passengers having to pay higher fares to fly, but the ones I'd read had given me the impression that this was some sort of new idea. Imagine my surprise while reading Anita Loos' excellent Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which mentions at the beginning of Chapter Six that Mr. Eisman "decided not to bring them [his starving relatives in Berlin] to America because there was not one of his starving relatives who could travel on a railroad ticket without paying excess fare for overweight."

Notes on Disney World, part 1

We recently spent a week at the Contemporary (arriving the day of the monorail accident) and visiting the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and the Animal Kingdom. I haven't been to a Disney theme park since 1988 (Disney World; I remember going to Epcot and the Journey into Imagination and eating at the Biergarten, but while there's video footage of us at the Magic Kingdom, I have no memory of it. Besides, most of my experience was with Disneyland), and so there was a lot of "new" stuff to experience, especially with a 2- and 5-year-old in tow.

The Contemporary has held up well, and I was impressed with the Contempo Cafe as a place to get a quick breakfast and be off to the theme parks. It's still cool that the monorail goes through the building, though less cool that only one monorail track stops at the Contemporary. To get to the Magic Kingdom, you have to wait for the next car and take it through stops at the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC), Polynesian, and Grand Floridian before you get to the Magic Kingdom. Leaving the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary is the first stop, but in order to get to the monorail, you have to walk back out through the baggage check station at the entrance and through all the people coming in. By contrast, the monorail that now simply shuttles from the TTC to the Magic Kingdom (essentially it's for daytrippers to the park or people staying at off-site hotels) is easily accessible upon exiting from the Magic Kingdom. Moreover, that monorail has quicker access to the Epcot monorail at the TTC -- you simply get off and walk directly to the Epcot monorail while the people on the "resort" monorail need to go down an exit ramp, around the the structure, and up the entrance ramp to the Epcot monorail. This doesn't seem to me to be the best way to take care of the resort guests.

That was a longer gripe than I intended. We really did have a great time! Hopefully more on the "good stuff" tomorrow.

the worst travel experience ever... (part 2)

...was capped off by our triumphant return to home at 3am this morning. After leaving brother Stu's place shortly before 1pm (giving us more than ample time to make our 5pm flight), we quickly found that there was a 6-mile backup going into the I-64 tunnel, so we turned around and went through the I-664 tunnel. Just outside of Williamsburg, traffic ground to a halt and we were left wondering for 20 minutes whether this was the "usual" northbound traffic of northern Virginians going home after a weekend at VA Beach, until we passed the accident scene. We made it to the terminal at about 3:15pm and promptly found out our flight to JFK had been cancelled due to thunderstorms around JFK, and there wouldn't be another until 6am the following morning. Even better, there were only 3 seats on that flight, so Finn would get
to sit on our laps. We were all set to be booked on that flight when I noticed that the 3pm to Boston had been delayed until 5:15, and there was room on the flight, so we decided to fly into Boston and then rent a car 1-way so we'd get home that night. Using Richmond's incredibly slow wireless connection, we got a confirmation with Hertz (Enterprise and Alamo having failed us first -- Alamo more dramatically, since Enterprise said "Oh, we don't do 1-ways more than
N miles; the guy from Alamo had me on the line for 10 minutes before figuring out that he had no cars at that location). The Boston flight was delayed until 6pm, and then we finally boarded at 7pm, as rain starting pouring down and lightning flashed. At 8:45pm we finally took off (we were "first in line" on the runway according to our captain; of course, we were the only people at the airport!!), and we had a quick flight and nice touchdown at Logan, and were on the road shortly before 11pm. From there, we only had to stay awake (and hope the kids would sleep) until we got home. Yay.

So both ways it would have been faster to drive, and now we're seriously thinking about driving the next time, even though we hate driving long distances. Gah.

VCU students and their funnel cake

I was in Virginia Beach with the in-laws, and as I walked down to the beach this evening, decked out in my tevas, khaki shorts, patterned green short-sleeved oxford shirt, and pilot sunglasses (which fit over my prescription glasses), a young gentleman stopped me and said, "Excuse me, sir. Do you know where we could get some funnel cake?" I answered, "Funnel cake?" And he replied, "That's right. We're a group of students from VCU just looking for a fun place to get some funnel cake." I thought about it for a moment, and then said, "I think there's a place down by the mini-golf."

Now, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think he was really looking for funnel cake, so he might have been disappointed by the place by the mini-golf. Ah, it was good to feel like I was really in the South again.

just got into my hotel room...

...at 11:30pm. That's right, my US Air flight from PHL was delayed from 6:00 to 6:30, so we boarded around 6 and found the air wouldn't work until the plane was under power and it would be a few minutes before we got our flightplan; around 7pm we taxied to the runway, were told that there was "weather" between PHL and ORD so we had to taxi to the back of the line and that it would take about 30 minutes to get new orders; shortly before 8pm we were given a new flightplan and taxied out to the runway, were told that there was more "weather" on our new path and taxied to the back of the line and that it would take about 30 minutes to get new orders; at 9pm we finally taxied to the runway and took off, and the flight still went through "weather" between PHL and ORD. Had the "weather" gotten better and that's why it was now "safe" to go? We'll never know.