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| The Smiling Scallop |
(As always you can see a larger sharper version of an image by clicking on it. For technical info and comments on the image above, check out “Happy as a Scallop???”, my BPN thread here: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=58322)
On to Happiness Is…. Since we spend tons of credit card money at BAA each year buying costly tripod heads, tripods, and tons of the rest of the stuff that we sell, I always use air miles to fly first class to the west coast. For the Hawaii/Midway trip I did not hesistate to cash in for a big, reclining bed American Airlines seat for both legs. Anyway, I had some time to kill in Dallas and the Admiral’s Club at C23 was right next to the gate for my flight to HNL, gate C24. I checked in at the desk and the woman noted my flight and entered it on the computer. My boarding pass noted 10:40 am boarding so I head to the gate at 10:38 anxious to charge my laptop as fully as possible. I was confused as I approached C24 as it said, “Los Angeles.” I asked the gate agent and she said that there had been a gate change to D22. In Dallas that means a ride on the Sky Link. Yikes. I asked her to call the gate and have them hold the flight for me since nobody in the Admiral’s Club had announced anything or paged me. She said, and I quote, “I will call them and let them know that you are coming but they will not hold the flight for you. You’d better hurry. So I did, and was relieved to make it. As I walked throught the door of the plane they slammed it shut it behind me. Yikes! The flight was great. I worked on the laptop on “The Guide to Pleasing Blurs” that I am doing with Denise Ippolito, started reading Michael Chrichton’s “Airframe” (only to realize that I had read it long ago; I think that I remember the ending but it is great reading anyway), and slept and slept. The 8 1/2 hours went by quickly.
As we were deplaning, there was an announcement: “Passenger Arthur Morris, please see the baggage agent opposite bag claim G1”. I knew immediately that they had taken my bag off the flight because I was late boarding. I was right. I slept OK from about 8:30 pm HI time until 3:30 am, dressed quickly, and went to the lobby. I was quite pleased to see that American had delivered my bag to the hotel as promised. Whew. We head to the charter hangar at 1:30 pm today for the flight to Midway.
