Seattle from the Plane

So you may have heard the story from my Facebook page. On Friday, March 12, I missed a connection flight and had to stay in the Denver Airport for the night. I made the best of it and created a little video. Although it worked itself out, I still have to wonder if this could have been avoided?

Here is the story:

Flight itinerary was 3:50 PM take off from San Fransisco Airport to Denver. Arrive at 7:15, then board the next flight at 8:17 to Madison. Arrive in Madison, WI at 11:30 P.M.

The first plane was arriving from Reno. The weather in San Fransisco was rain, so there were slight delays – which pushed back the first flight to 4:17. United Airlines didn’t push back the new take off time until 4:15. We finally boarded the plane and took off around 4:40 P.M.

The switch was going to be close, but it was expected a 8:05 landing, which was true. However, we then sat on the Tarmac because United Airlines decided to give our assigned gate to another plane. 15 minutes later, we pulled into gate E35 (If I remember correctly).

Before landing, the flight attendants talked about other flights and their gates. They did not seem to know that I was connecting to the Madison flight and did not have that information. When I talked to the attendant, she was quick and said – well just consult the board.

I deplaned at 8:20. There was nobody at the end directing anyone. I went to a kiosk and found my flight was at 85 – a run to the other side of the terminal. However, the status was “Closed”. I found and asked an attendant what that meant. She looked it up and said “Oh. That flight left already.”

Therefore I proceeded to Customer Service to figure out how I was going to get home. As I got in line I heard over the speaker – “Madison Flight – You have one minute to board or the doors will close”. I was floored at that point, and still way too far away to make a run for it.

The customer service line was way too long. 50 people in front of me that missed a connection? A lot of angry people and a Manager that looked like he was ready to give the same answer – That scripted paragraph that comes from the United Airlines manual. I have to admit: He didn’t sway from that script at all.

Customer Service Line

As we were standing in line, another man apparently swore at a woman. 3 big words came from his mouth. She called a guard over and that is when it got interesting. He basically was belligerent as he talked to the officer. He walked out of the terminal in Handcuffs. So this is a lesson to all: An Airport is kinda like an Embassy building. It’s not really a place to practice freedom of speech. Freedoms are pretty limited; and I completely agree with it – That is why he was hauled away.

I finally got to the front of the line. I was told that the next few flights to Madison were booked and I wouldn’t get out of Denver until Sunday morning. Not liking that answer, we started to look for alternatives. She finally found a flight to Chicago that would leave at 6 AM the next morning, with a connecting flight at 3 PM, although I would be put on the list to get bumped up. There were no other flights out of Denver to the East coast, so I was basically staying at the Airport. Of course, they offered a hotel discount coupon, but otherwise I would have to stay in the Airport Terminal overnight.

At this point it was 9:30 P.M. I was hungry and getting a little frustrated. To top it off, all the establishments were closing or closed. By 10 P.M, all I could do in Terminal B was walk around or sleep.

Luckily, a passing employee suggested I go to Terminal A – for there was a McDonalds that was open until 2 AM. I also found the bar next door to McDonalds was also open, so I was able to get a more substantial meal.

The idea to do the video came shortly after that. I decided that if I was going to be stuck here (in which I also assumed there have been and will be others that had that same issue), I would make the best of it and take video of the experience.

After a couple hours of footage and first round of post-production, I sat in one of the chairs and got a couple hours of sleep. Woke up to get to the 6 AM Chicago flight.

So with all that said and done, here are my issues with this flight:

• Yes, inclement weather pushed our flight back, but that was known before we left San Fransisco. They could have made appropriate plans for connecting flights – especially since most of them were the last flights of the day. Holding a plane for 10 minutes is not the end of the world.
• When we landed, the flight attendants did not direct or ask passengers for help  in letting those who needed to run to a connecting flight get off first. It just became a regular push to get off, which added about 5 minutes to the wait.
• There was nobody at the terminal to give us direction to our flights. If someone would have said “85″ as I got off the plane, I would have been running to the gate without asking someone who really didn’t have the right answer. I might have been home by 11:30 P.M.
• The Customer Service line pretty much said it all. We waited over an hour to talk with someone. If you have 50 people waiting for Customer Service, it’s too long.

I would like to add a couple more for the Airport itself. I don’t have any qualms with the Denver Airport – I really appreciate the place that I could sleep and the wifi connection, but it would have been better if:

• Some of the stores stayed open just a bit longer. It would have really sucked if I would have waited for 10 hours without any food or drink.
• Maybe an after hours vending machine so I could get a soda or candy bar.

Even though United Airlines stuck with the “Inclement weather” excuse, I believe my issues and rebuttle are valid ones. Waiting 15 minutes for a gate and holding the connecting planes 10-15 minutes would have gotten us all home without issue. Not having someone do Quality Control when we walked off the plane is poor organization. Simple changes and there might not have been 50 people standing in a Customer Service line.

By the way – The flight to Chicago – The flight attendants did everything I mentioned above to get those off the plane who had connecting flights leaving shortly. There WAS someone at the door to guide us. I made it to my next plane with 2 minutes to spare.

So with that said, here is the video of my stay. Enjoy!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (115.2MB)

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1985 – 25 years ago, Symbolics.com became the first domain registered on the World Wide Web.  In fact, if you go to their website, they have a countdown clock to the historic event. The company made Lisp machines (workstations), most notably, the 3600 series. Since then, the site was purchased by XF.com Investments (now, XF.com) – Aron Meystedt. No purchase price was disclosed for the domain.

Note – the first domain ever created was Nordu.net, but was never registered.

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• IBM 1050 Data Communications System
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The FCC is offering a broadband speed test as part of its efforts to encourage better broadband service.

United States broadband users can participate in the test by going to Broadband dot gov.

From the website:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th, 2009. The FCC is currently working in coordination with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to perform the FCC’s role under the Recovery Act. Specifically, in conjunction with the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program established by the Act, the FCC has been tasked with creating a National Broadband Plan by February 17, 2010. The Recovery Act states that the National Broadband Plan shall seek to ensure all people of the United States have access to broadband capability and shall establish benchmarks for meeting that goal.

I think we should help them gather the data they need.

My ISP tested out at about 15,000 kbps down and about 4,000 kbps megs up at the FCC; in contrast, Speedtest dot net, a site that Jeffrey introduced to me, reported 7.91 mbps down and 3.35 mbps up (the FCC reports in kbps, Speedtest in mbp/s). The “down” speeds differ significantly and I cannot account for that. The two sites might be using different testing methods: The FCC says that

Users are randomly assigned the Ookla or M-Lab application.

Once you complete one of the tests, you are given the option of trying the other.

The disparity of results between the FCC tests and Speedtest was similar in Firefox and Opera, though the reported download speeds were faster in Firefox (I have Firefox v. 3.0.17 and Opera v. 10.10 on my Ubuntu v. 8.x netbook here).

I don’t know what my ISP advertises; it was them or Verizon; the very few times I’ve had to call Verizon’s 800-number regarding my landline, the convoluted menu system there has made me reluctant to avail myself of their services when an alternative is available to me. (The real live human beings, once I got to them, were wonderful, but getting to them was an unnecessarily difficult adventure, he said tactfully.)

I learned about this at Balloon Juice.

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1988 – It’s the song that found it’s rebirth and the term “Rick Rolled” became a urban saying. Of course, we are talking about Rick Astley and the song: Never Gonna Give You Up. It hit #1 on the charts. Of course, it’s internet fame has turned this into a whole new beast.

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Other Historical Events in Technology

• Microsoft releases XBox in Europe
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• Apple releases the Power Macintosh computer

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1986 -$21.00 a share was the first price for stock in Microsoft. 2.5 million shares were sold, raising the price to 27.75 and netting the company 61 million initially. Since then, the highest it has gone was 57.91 on Dec 24th, 1999. Yet with about 10 stock splits and several dividends in the 24 years, people definitely got their money’s worth. If you would have purchased 100 shares in 1986 and let those shares ride until today, you would have 102,400 shares of stock at appx. $29 a share.

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• Apple and Bandai demonstrate the Pippin Atmark Multimedia computer
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:22 — 2.9MB)

We come from a hotel in Palo Alto CA. We just got done with the HP Road Show – Converged Infrastructure. This week on the 5 Tech Things:

• Large File Programs. Josh Lowensen looks at your options.
• OnLive puts gaming in the cloud
• William Shatner creates MyOuterSpace.com
• University of Wyoming studys in Video Games
• The Intel i7 – Why you should think about getting a 6 core processor

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1986 – It’s full name is Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik (Centre of Office and Information technology). CeBit actually was started in the 70’s with the Hanover fair. However, the two separated in 1986 when it was decided that together, the two were not doing too well. Since then, CeBit has grown to be a very important conference for all IT.

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Other Day in Tech History items:

• V-Chip technology becomes mandatory in televisions
• AOL buys Bebo
• Hulu launches in the US

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1997 – Although the MP3 player was technically been around since the 80’s, the first Digital Music Player was first introduced. Eiger Labs shows off the MPMan at CeBit. For $250, you get a 32 MB model to hold 8 of your favorite songs. The 1998 release was only shadowed by the Rio PMP300, which overshadowed Eiger Labs.

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Other Historical Events in Technology

• Apple Macintosh discontinues the Mac IIcx
• HP acquires TrueLogica
• iTunes 8.1 is released

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This is the live feed of the HP Converged Infrastructure Road Show in Palo Alto, CA. Andy McCaskey from SDR News and myself will be spending all day Thursday, March 11th, interviewing and recording video.

Show has concluded. Videos from event will be up shortly.

1988 – Ignatius T. Foobar launches one of the more interesting and long-lasting Bulletin board systems in the Uncensored BBS. Of course, his name was really Art Cancro, but Ignatius used an Altos 586 running Citadel/UX software. This BBS is still running to this day, even though dial-up access has been discontinued since 2001.

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Other Day in Tech History items:

• Richard D Kenadek is sentenced in the Davy Jones Locker BBS case
• Gene Roddenberry’s ashes are launched into space
• Google releases Android 1.1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:28 — 3.0MB)

Welcome to Googlazine! Bring Fiber to Madison, WI

Heading to California to cover an event – Videos will be made. SXSW might be out of the question, unless I get a Sugar Mama. I also had a small run-in with a person at a Bar who didn’t think too much of my profession.

Winner of this weeks’ Diskeeper 2010: cgcreality

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I – S.U.N. (Straight Up News)
Betty White to Host SNL
Toyota Recall to Prius
EFF on iPhone Developers Agreement
Cisco Drop IPEX Over Counterfeit Processors
Windows 7 Good to go for IT
Mashable Google Wave Challenge
The New Hard Drive Revolution

QOTW – What is your take on the Cisco Router?
Video – The New Dork Video

II
Battery Trojan in the DUO
Cisco 322 Terrabyte Router
Facebook Foursquare Killer App
Leo Makes Lisa Tickled Pink: Social Experiment
iPad Commercial
Web Access a Fundamental Right

CES 2010 Video Feed – Geekazine
Check out the other podcast: Day in Tech History

Contacts: Twitter – Plurk – Myspace – Facebook Group – FriendFeed or Digg the Podcast. The Geekazine Podcast is under a Creative Commons no-deriv license

Music for Podcast by the John Masino Band

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