Travel Trivia

US Airways Airbus A319 "NFL/Arizona Cardinals", originally uploaded by rob-the-org.

I was traveling over the Christmas holiday - and picked up a couple of mostly useless trivia;

• The US Airways "Arizona Cardinals" plane (pictured above), has not had it interior updated since America West and US Airways merged in 2005. It still has an America West interior.
  
• The airport code of YYC is Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
  
• A bowling ball - is considered by the TSA as a possible dangerous item and must be checked (not allowed as a carry-on item).
  
• And finally - even though for the last 5 years - the TSA has been hitting us over the head w/ the '3-1-1' rule for liquids apparently some people still don't get it. A man behind me was trying to bring a full size bottle of wine in his backpack.
  

Priority handling - NOT

Slow baggage, originally uploaded by rob-the-org.

It seems whenever I am traveling to Dulles (Washington Dulles - IAD) and I get an upgrade ahead of time - it means that my bags will be handled extra slowly.

(the orange 'Priority' tag on the bag is supposed to mean that the bag is one of the first ones off the plane and delivered to baggage claim).

Our plane landed at 4:05pm ET, and we were at the gate by 4:15pm. The gate was on the 'Z' concourse - right up against the main terminal so we didn't have to take a shuttle bus from the gate to the terminal. But the first bags didn't start showing up until 4:40pm and our last bag (pictured) didn't show up until 5pm (and we were the next to last passengers to get their bags).

I had the same thing happen to me 5 years ago - when I was flying back to Dulles from a business trip to India. I flew back on Christmas Eve and got upgraded to First Class for the flight from Frankfurt and so my bag was Priority tagged. And it was one the last ones off the plane (so I was slow getting through Customs).

I am beginning to think that ground crew at Dulles must just work differently or really don't care about those tags - and it is there just to make me the customer feel like I am getting something special.

787 flies!

dreamliner_take-off, originally uploaded by rob-the-org.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner finally got into the air today for its very first flight after 2 years of delays.

Now all that remains is to see if any problems crop up during flight testing - and that Boeing can now ramp up production to meet the existing customer orders.

A Classic?

I was walking through the bookstore the other day - and noticed that the staff had displayed several of Douglas Adams' books as "Sci Fi Classics" and it got me thinking. What makes a book or a movie a classic?

For those of you who don't recognize the name - Douglas Adams' created the off-beat/cult science fiction series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". "Hitchhiker's" has appeared as a BBC radio show, a television series, a Hollywood motion picture and recently was resurrected by a different author who has released the 6th book of trilogy.

I discovered "Hitchhikers" in the early 80's and quickly became one of my favorite reads. I think I liked the quirky feel of it - like Monty Python in outer space (w/ an actual plot).

But when you think of Science Fiction "Classics" what comes to mind are the giants of Science Fiction. Arthur C Clarke. Issac Asimov. Frank Herbert. Robert Heinlein. Groundbreaking authors who defined Science Fiction as a literary genre. But Douglas Adams?

2009 marked the 30th anniversary since "Hitchhikers" was first published, but unfortunately Douglas did not live to see this milestone. He died of a heart attack in 2001.

He has left each of us to determine if "Hitchhikers" deserves to be called a Classic of Science Fiction.

Most viewed pictures for November 2009

Most viewed pictures for November 2009, originally uploaded by rob-the-org.

Only a couple of repeats from last month (and this maybe the last month that the '9' movie poster shows up).

Space bytes

Notable space-related items I have seen on-line over the last couple of weeks;

• Assorted video footage of what appears to be a meteor disintegrating over South Africa


• Soviet Star Wars programs, in this month's issue of Air&Space/Smithsonian (article provides more detail on a Soviet orbital laser, that I touched on in a post a couple of years ago).


• Two articles about the 'Shuttle Jr' (X-37) that appears to be finally heading into orbit as a technology demonstrator. One article on SpaceFlightNow, and the 2nd article is also in this month's Air&Space/Smithsonian.