If I ever release an album, this Johnny Cash-a-riffic photo that Morgan Johnston took of me in Austin will have to figure into the album art somehow:
Photo by Morgan Johnston.
Click on the photo to see it on its original Flickr page.
Category: It Happened to Me
On the Austin-Cleveland leg of my flight back home, Continental served me the snack shown below:
- Beef salami slices
- Peppercorn parmesan cheese spread
- Crackers
- Trail mix (some peanuts and raisins, mostly white chocolate chips)
- M&Ms
An odd combo, but the snack was appreciated.
Categories
I Still Own the Phrase!
Now imagine doing “jazz hands” in latex gloves.
Today’s encounter with U.S. Customs (chronicled in this entry) reminded me of a couple of old posts of mine — The Star-Spangled Banner and Anal Sovereignty and A Bag of Squishy Cows is a Bag of Trouble. I did some quick Googling and discovered that the first entry is still the number one Google result for the phrase “anal sovereignty”, with or without the quotes.
I’m not sure what my parents would think of this.
(By the bye, I did not come up with the phrase “anal sovereignty”. Jon Rosenberg of the webcomic Goats did, using it in this strip:
Click the comic to see it on its original page.
…just so you know.)
I’m chilling out during a four-hour stopover in Cleveland Hopkins Airport, drawing power from an outlet clearly meant for the custodial staff, handling some correspondence on $2/hour wifi. Some quick notes:
- The flight was on an Embraer ERJ, which meant gate-checking the accordion. Some minor damage ensued — the keyboard now slopes from the left side to the right — but it’s still playable. I see a repair bill in my future. I’m buying a copy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer to pad my accordion case.
- 7-year old boy on plane to 9-year-old girl: “Hillary said some mean things about Obama, and I hear some of them weren’t even true.”
- Resiting the urge to ask people here if they’ve heard of any of the many unsavoury terms in the Urban Dictionary that begin with “Cleveland”. (Start at this definition and work forward alphabetically — be advised that the text is not safe for work.)
- You know you’re in the American midwest when: the portions at Manchu Wok are way bigger. Good thing I only got the single-item-plus-rice meal; I can only image what the two- or three-item meals look like.
Check-in Woes
For my 7:00 a.m. flight to Austin (I’m flying there for South by Southwest Interactive), I arrived at the airport at 5:00 a.m., with my boarding passes already printed at home thanks to the modern miracle of web check-in. However, as soon as I arrived, I saw the word “retard” on the screen and knew that I was in trouble.
“Retard” is part of “En retard“, which then was replaced by its English equivalent: “Delayed”. To 9:30. Which meant that I’d miss my connecting flight in Cleveland.
To make matters worse, the line-up for Continental — which in Toronto is generally underserved and overcrowded at the best of times — was incredibly long.
Here’s a shot of the line in front of me:
Line-up in front of me for Continental Airlines check-in at Pearson Terminal 3, today at 5:00 a.m..
and if you think that’s bad, here’s what the line behind me looked like after 20 minutes.
Line-up behind me for Continental Airlines check-in, today at 5:20 a.m.
With only four ticketing agents and everyone’s schedules bunged up by yesterday’s snowstorm, it took a while to make it to the ticket counter. One hour and twenty-two minutes, to be precise.
The woman at the ticket counter had to work pretty hard to get me into Austin before Saturday. The only way to get me there was to fly me to Austin by first sending me to Cleveland, then Houston, then Austin, effectively turning a 6-hour trip into something approaching 14 hours. Good thing I have a whole unwatched season of Battlestar Galactica on the laptop.
U.S. Customs Knows Everything
“So,” said the customs agent as he read my file, “who do you work for now?”
“b5media,” I replied. “It’s my first day.”
He typed “b5media” on his keyboard and raised his eyebrows when he saw the resulting page.
“Have you…”, he said, with a little pause, “ever been refused entry to the United States?”
“Never, sir,” I replied.
“Not like some of your cohort.”
“Sir?”
“You get what I mean, right?” He said that with a nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more glance.
“I think so…”
“You know the person in question?”
“You mean my boss, Jeremy Wright?”
Jeremy had a run-in with the long finger of Homeland Security in what is now a now-infamous (at least in the blogosphere) incident with U.S. customs.
“That’s the one,” said the customs agent. “You don’t want that kind of trouble, especially since your wife is a U.S. citizen. He went for quite a spin.”
Yeah, I thought. On the end of some ignorant power-tripping Homeland Security goon’s finger.
He gave me another look, stamped my passport and said “That’ll be all. Enjoy your visit to the United States, sir.”
Man, those guys have a lot of info on me. I wouldn’t be surprised if they know what’s on my iPod and how I like my steaks done.
How Long It Took
Total time from arrival at airport to getting to my gate: 2 hours. Urgh.
Categories
The Final Countdown, Again
Once again, it’s my last day at the job, which means I’m cranking that classic of 80’s hair metal: The Final Countdown by Sweden’s gift to rock, Europe.
It’s become a bit of an end-of-job tradition for me that started back at OpenCola, the dot-com that Cory Doctorow co-founded and for which I worked for during those heady last days of The Bubble. In the summer of 2001 when all but seven people (I was one of the seven) were laid off, some wag played The Final Countdown over the office intercom system. Since then, I’ve associated it with departures from a company.
As is now the tradition on this blog, I now present a couple of versions of this song.
First, there’s the video for Europe’s studio version. (I’d post it on this page, but the copyright holders don’t allow that.)
Next, there’s the live version:
Can’t see the video? Click here.
Then, the most painful cover version of The Final Countdown, performed by Deep Sunshine:
Can’t see the video? Click here.
And finally, a Bollywood number that borrows from The Final Countdown’s opening riff. (Once again, the copyright holders won’t let me post it here, in spite of their having no compunctions about ripping off Europe.)
I figured I’d start off the working week with a big announcement: I’ve landed a new gig. As of this Thursday, March 6th, I’m going to be working at b5media, a network of 320 blogs that gets a total of over 10 million unique visits every month.
Depending on whom you ask, my new job title will be “Nerd Wrangler” or “Technical Project Manager”. I’ll coordinate b5’s development team and their projects, as well contribute my own experience and expertise in both blogging and accordion-playing.
I’m going to have a rather interesting first day on the job. Rather than heading to the office, I’m heading to the airport and boarding one of these…
…because along with a good chunk of b5, I’ll be attending the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas…
…as well as attending BarCamp Austin…
…where I plan to catch up with old friends and business associates and meet some new ones!
I’ll be staying at the ranch that b5 rented and attending the conference, taking copious notes and photos (and posting them here) as well as meeting up with the b5 bloggers and development team, who come from all over.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll say it again:
Watch this space for my posts from Austin!