Always go with your gut

Well, it is only 9:42 and I've had some life affirming lessons all before 930. On a Monday!

My fave taxi driver dropped me off in good stead. I had over 1 hr before we started boarding. I do my normal quick way through ATL security, zoomie zoomy, and I'm at the T gates. There are boards immediately after to check your flight before you get on the train. Well, I almost always check that but there was such a crowd I couldn't be bothered. I had checked the board before security just 20 mins-ish ago.

My gut told me "you'll regret that".

Well, I got on the escalator and down to the train and checked the board there. My flight was not on the board. I thought that odd but proceeded to B anyway. I got off at the B terminal and check the board again. Of course. My gut now says told ya! It says that my flight is now going out of T-3.
For those of you who don't know ATL, I was approx at T-9 when I started.

So, back down the escalator to the train. Oh and now I'm surrounded by the Florida Gator track team. I'm thinking: you wankers--you could beat the freaking train, probably at a slow sprint for you--stop crowding me!
Anyway, T is a very civilized terminal. Not as crowded. Better shops, definitely more peaceful so I'm thinking this isn't so bad. Not as good as the international terminal of E but definitely better than A-D.
But now I have only 25 mins before we board and still need breakfast and coffee. I know T well enough to know that I can get Starbucks but may have to eat at Starbucks too because there is not a lot of food choices.

Well, I find a too good to be true looking place: only 1 person in front of me, big selection of fresh and mostly healthy looking options, etc. Long story short on this one; got the egg and bacon croissant. Took one bite while waiting for my cappuccino and could tell that something was not quite right. But like a hungry dummy kept eating. By the 3rd mouthful I knew it was the bacon. Since then I've been telling myself, it was just a few bites--toughen up you wussy stomach. So far it has held. Which is good because I'm in a middle seat.



BTW: middle seats are not so bad if you have good neighbors. My guys today are alright. I may actually be better off in the middle seat as my back has been in a much straighter position. So, while I like the end for the sense of space and getting up whenever I want, I now realize it is worse for my back.
Why does this belong in a blog about going with your gut? I was thinking of trying to change my seat. If I had gotten here earlier I would have, but something in me just said, whatev, don't bother.

The final lesson was in the delta in seat trivia games: as long as I go with my gut and my finger can actually touch the right damn button I always win or come in the top 3. I eventually had to turn off the game because I was frustrated with the pushing of the game thinking I chose a different answer than I did. These screens are odd. But I do enjoy it when others around me are playing and they don't know I am watching them. I like watching their faces contort and how they have to fight to click the right button too. I know that means there could be someone watching me too but I try to ignore that. ;-)

Frontier--bunch of luddites

So, in a couple of weeks I am taking a Frontier flight from Denver to Durango just for the day for work.
Which is kinda cool in that it makes me feel like a real jet-setter but the bad thing is I'd like to spend a while in Durango and have to leave within the day. :( Murphy's law.

Anyway, Frontier, as readers will know, has always been good to me prior to this. In person that is.

I made resv on their website. They offer 3 tiered pricing. For that short of a flight I should have bought the economy but the mid-level only cost like 40 more and I thought, what the hell, I'll get to pick my own seat, get tv, etc. But when I finished buying the ticket and it was time to choose the seat, the website kept crashing and would not let me pick my seat no matter what I did.

So, I wrote to customer service immediately about it saying that if I couldn't book my seat I wanted my money back and would fly the economy tier.

6 DAYS LATER, I get an email response. I'll post it here:
Dear Lauren Drabble,

Thank you for contacting Frontier Airlines Online Customer Service.

Please note: New or existing reservations, ticket or schedule changes, flight information or general travel questions must be handled by telephone: 800-432-1359 (24 hours a day / 7 days a week). We do not provide Reservations support via e-mail at this time.

We look forward to welcoming you aboard your future Frontier Airlines flights.

Sincerely,

Customer Service
Frontier Airlines

Well, I promptly wrote back and said "I wish I knew that 6 days ago!"

Everyday since that email came in I've called the number listed and everyday "call volume exceeded normal call levels" and my wait time was a minimum of 9 minutes all the way up to 29 mins.

DUH--your website crashes and your email customer service doesn't do anything so of course your call volume is high.

Since I travel so much I thought I'd just see if the ticket agent could help me. Time in line: 2 mins
Time for her to get me my seat, less than 2 mins

So, in person Frontier rocks but don't expect anything more than cavemen in customer service and the decision makers/ "visionaries" of the company.

Sweaty sardine--Delta flight 2016 5/14/10 --and what fun you can have in air with your laptop.

So, I'm stuck in coach as I always am, especially in Delta as you are lucky to be #62 on the upgrade list for the measly 2 open seats in Business nowadays.

The crew is actually nice but everyone is so packed in that the gentleman next to me (and I don't use that term loosely, he really is a gentleman) can't help but sometimes having his leg touch my leg and I don't realize it till my leg feels all clammy.

EWWW.

And this is only May. It is going to get a lot worse with the heat/humidity in ATL. Denver is luckily still anywhere from 50-70 degrees most days.
And we had snow this week. Snow in May! wow.

Well, this plane pretty much stinks as in the seats are too close, you can hardly use your laptop because there is almost not enough room (if the guy in front of me reclines I'll have to put away laptop) and they have the old fashioned tvs that fall from the overhead. As far as amenities go, it is pretty lame but I actually prefer it that way. As I can ignore it better and get some things done.

Going back to the gentleman: he offered to sit in the middle because my kind of rude neighbor who was in the middle seat sort of bullied him into switching with her so she could work. Now she's sitting there cackling watching the New Adventures of Old Christine and not working at all.

Makes me realize that I bet I act like her a lot and it is ugly, nasty and negative. :( I am going to try to remember her and not act like that, to anyone, ever.

A bit later in the journey, the gentleman next to me wanted to get up to go to the bathroom. I am working on this computer so I just grab the computer while open and grab my ipod and headphones and pull them to my sizable chest, stand up, and let him by.

Well, unbeknownst to me, and no idea how I did it, I somehow turned the screen sideways.

You know how you can rotate the screen on your phone and then rotate it back just by turning it (and I guess the new IPad too??) Well, this is NOT an IPad and it did not rotate back no matter what I did.
Mr. Gentleman tried to help but to no avail.
I had a couple of co-workers on the flight so took my laptop to the nearest. Well, this certainly was a new puzzle to him too. Luckily for me, the man behind him could see my screen, hear the story and knew how to fix it. It was hidden in the advanced settings of the display of the computer. Again, I have no idea how anyone could have done this by accident, but if it can happen, it can happen to me. It is ironic really as I'm supposed to work with computers and all I can really do is freak them out, always unintentionally.

If anyone ever needs a computer or whole network to act like a monstrous solar flare just zapped it from less than 10 feet away, give me a call. I am definitely for rent!

Connections

I've seen or at least talked to far too many people who don't know enough to schedule a lot of time when making connections. Let me make this perfectly clear: unless you are going to a podunk airport with only 4 gates, you need to schedule a LOT of time between flights. In ATL the bare minimum is 2 hrs.

I know it is sad but it is the way of this world.

All things are designed to make you give up your time and money at the airport. If I could think of another way around this I promise to share it. In the meantime, it is what it is.

Another thing you can do to help make your connections is to look at the airport map and study it. If you aren't scrambling around in your connecting airport you'll save yourself a lot of frustrations.
Most airports have a train or shuttle of some sort go get between terminals and usually that really is the easiest way to connect.

Another idea is to talk to your seat neighbors and make it clear that you are late for a connection and be so bold as to tell them you need to get out of the plane pronto. You can also switch seats with people upfront too.

Another idea is this, but I warn you it only works if you get a nice and helpful employee: ask them if they can call ahead to your gate and tell them you are coming and to hold the plane. This most often will not work, but it is worth a shot.

In case you are wondering why it is a minimum of 2 hrs in ATL it is this: flights are often very delayed to get in and often change gates. If even one of these happen and you are sure to be at least running through the airport like a bad movie and be super stressed or miss your flight. Flights in ATL are never on schedule. ;-)