On the road again.
It’s 6:30 a.m. Eastern Time (Grand Rapids) and I’m sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to Memphis. A short layover layover and a 3-hour time zone adjustment puts me home just after noon, Phoenix time. Steve will pick me up at the airport because Pam’s working today.
For my time here I rented the smallest car they have, but Hertz was out of those and gave me a free upgrade - a Chevy Cobalt. That’s a small 2-door that promises more than it delivers. The spoiler on the back served to do nothing more than obstruct what I could see through the rear view mirror. But if a spoiler makes people feel sporty I’m fine with that. The interior was nothing to comment on except for a couple of odd features. The emergency brake lever was under the flip-down center armrest. Odd. And the cup holder wouldn’t hold a large cup. Even a medium cup obstructed access to all the ventilation controls.
Does any design engineer ever actually drive these things?
The free upgrade included “Hertz Never-Lost,” their Magellan-based navigation system. Save your money. Lame.
Punching in your destination takes longer than driving there, thanks to a series of directional buttons used to pick out individual letters in a "keyboard" up on the screen. If you “Don’t Know City,” plan on a list of potential options longer than the freeway between here and Traverse City.
But I used it a couple of times, just for the fun of it. It uses two voices, one that tells you about upcoming turns and another that announces street names. The latter obviously uses computer generated voice technology because “Ivanrest” got pronounced with an artificial and silly enunciation of the individual syllables. If I hadn’t known Kenowa Ave. (KEN-o-wa) was coming up I’d never have guessed that’s what the thing was saying.
But there’s something uplifting about hearing a woman’s voice say, “You have arrived!”
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Score!
I arrived here in Memphis after an uneventful flight from Grand Rapids and hustled from my arrival gate to my assigned departure gate because, once again, I had a short layover. I also had a boarding pass that said “Seat Assignment Selection” where it should have said something like, “12C.” So when I got to the gate for the Phoenix flight I went up to the desk to ask what the deal was. The guy held the palm of his hand up to me in that gesture that says, “Whatever you have to say is going to wait while I do something more important than listen to your dumb questions.” He proceeded to pick up the microphone and announce that the flight was oversold and they needed people to volunteer for a later flight.
OK, I just changed from a question to volunteerism.
Which is why, three hours later, I’m still sitting here in Memphis waiting for a flight home on a different airline in a different terminal. But for my magnanimity I got $400 in coupons for future flights on Delta and a $12 food voucher good at any restaurant in the airport. I’ve had a decent meal and a nap. I’ve got everything ready for tomorrow save for printing it out at home. And I’ve started the next book in my reading queue.
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I’m home! And busy getting bulletins and service orders printed, laundry done, Al walked and fed and stuff put back in its place.
It’s nice to get a happy-feet greeting from your dog.
Pam will be home from work in an hour. Will she give me happy feet?
The plane on which I flew the Memphis/Phoenix leg was made the year after the Wright brothers had their success at Kitty Hawk. I looked on the safety card in the seat back to find out who made it and got no information. So, in an abundance of curiosity, I asked the flight attendant. She said, “It’s on the back of the safety card,” at which point she pulled mine out to show me. Oops. She was surprised to see nothing there and had no other suggestions. In small print it did say, “Final Assembly in Canada” which leads me to suspect it was made in China. That might explain the water dripping down the inside of the wall around our window. Should that bother me?
Well, no worries now, because I’m home.
Feels good.
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