100 Ways to Slightly Improve Your Travel Experience: #2 Check a Bag When Flying

Carry on only saves you a few minutes at baggage claim, but costs you schlepping bags through security, onto the plane, stuffing them in an overhead bin, if there is space, often being force to gate check the bag, and limits what you can take with you. 

Checking a bag frees you from acting as porter and baggage loader/unloader and allows you to take a full size tube of toothpaste with you without fear of being selected for secondary screening and having it confiscated at the airport.  With a checked bag, I can move up a size on the bag, and toss in a second pair of shoes, and an extra shirt or two. I always have space to bring home something special that I find when I am traveling.   

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have traveled without checking a bag.  It happens on a very rare one night trip, maybe when time was tight on the other end to get to where I needed to be after the plane arrived, or the time I went to office and learned that I needed to be in Florida the next morning at 9:00 AM to sign paperwork selling Dad's house, bought a plane ticket, booked a rental car and hotel, and went to the airport without returning home (I was carrying a change of underwear and a fresh shirt in my messenger bag because travel was unpredictable at that time.) 

I get free checked bags on the two airlines I fly most often as an airline credit card perk.  I pay an annual fee on those cards of about $100 a year, if I fly three or four times a year, I save that back in checked baggage fees what the cards cost me. I get earlier boarding zones as a perk, making it more likely that there is room in the overhead for my messenger bag (that I never leave home without.) And the airline miles add up from using those cards to pay day to day expenses.  Again this spring we will be flying transAtlantic on seats paid for with airline miles that were mostly earned buying groceries.  

Unburden your travel, check a bag.  

Thursday Ramble: Changing a light bulb

A true tale.  I moved to the Space Coast of Florida a few years after black-Friday. When the Apollo project finished NASA terminated 10,000 employees one Friday - locally known as black-Friday.  The surrounding communities of 20,000- 30,000 residents took years to recover.  There were Phd physicists teaching in the public schools so they didn't have to move away from a place they had grown to call home.  

I went to work in a local real estate office, and one of my office mates was an electrician, who had worked on the launch systems for the moon rockets.  He was selling real estate, doing a little electrical work on the side, and hoping he could return to full time electrical work.  There were only a handful of full time industrial electrician positions on the Space Coast.  

He had done some thrilling things like connect the power to the external ignitors under the Saturn V that assure that those main engines fire when the fuel starts flowing.  He got to talking one day, and said, "How many people does it take to change a light bulb on launch pad 39B?" 

First someone fills out a form reporting a light out of service. 

Then an electrician verifies that the light bulb is burned out, and it is not an electrical supply or switch problem.  

Then the access crew is dispatched to set up a ladder. 

Then the electrician returns to disassemble the light fixture, laying the parts out on a soft pad on the a flat surface. 

Then a supervisor sends out janitorial, to clean
the fixture. 

Then the electrician is sent out to replace the burned out bulb and reinstall the fixture. 

Then the access crew goes back and removes the ladder, 

Then janitorial goes back and cleans the area. 

And a supervisor inspects and verifies that the work has been completed properly. 

So three workmen, plus supervisors, at least 9 steps, more if there are any questions or concerns along the way, such as a crack in the glass on the fixture, and he said, "you don't want to know how many pages of paperwork!" 

My World of Wonders aka The Wednesday W's Tax Week Edition

Who have I seen this week?  Emily, the adult daughter of one of my best friends from high school.  She and her boyfriend were here in DC for a few days and we met them for lunch. 

Where am I at with tax returns this year? Done a month ago. (Tax returns were due Monday in the USA.) 

Where have I been this week? Out for daily walks, Old Town Alexandria, Huntley Meadows, National Harbor, Mt. Vernon; the weather has been nice for walking outside. The Farmers Market on Saturday morning, Whole Foods, into DC one day. 

What have I been reading?  I finished a Hemingway novel, I am working on two other books. My Kindle is loaded and ready for an adventure. 

What am I listening to? 70s soft rock at the moment.

What made me think, I remember when?  O.J. Simpson died. I was working in a department store when the verdict came in, the store came to a quiet halt, and the broadcast was played over the store public address system.  I was not surprised, the prosecution had way over tried their case, and the defense was brilliant.  If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. I started law school a few months later.  If you can't explain your case to the jury in a week, you don't understand the core of your case or you don't have one.

Who deserves a big THANK YOU this week?  The service manager, who came up with a 10% discount on a rather expensive service and car repair. I have bought cars for less. 

What was I thinking the other day? All of the cars I have owned, 3 Oldsmobiles, 2 VWs (decades apart,) 2 Toyotas (at the same time), 4 Hondas (three new Accords in a four year period,) 2 Mazadas (years apart,) 1 Renault (fun but I couldn't get it repaired,) 1 Saturn, (a cheap reliable car until law school was paid for,) 1 Cadillac - by far the nicest car I have owned.  Several of these put smiles on my face, only one real lemon in the bunch, 5 of them bought new.  The two Toyotas I got more for when I sold them than I had paid for them.   

What made me laugh this week? Two things at lunch with Emily the other day.  She is a hair stylist, I told her what I had been paying for a haircut and she said, "to cut what? you don't have much left to cut!" True.  Her mother died a couple of years ago, and her father, who is about my age is starting to date, using dating apps. She was warning him about the dangers of meeting strangers, and I said will at least Aileen Wuornos is not still on the loose in central Florida. Aileen was a serial killer of men.  Not listed in her bio, is the man she bonked in the head with an orr and pushed overboard in alligator infested waters about a mile from the office I was working in at the time, he lived. Dark humor, but humor.  

 

 

Travel Tuesday : Artomatic

I mentioned Artomatic a couple of weeks ago. This is the third one that I have toured.  It is run by a non-profit group. Every few years they fill an empty building, often a vacant office building that is slated to be torn down, with Art.  This year is in an office building, slated to be converted to residential space. It is partially gutted. 

Artomatic welcomes a full spectrum of artists, professional or amateur, in a wide array of media.  It is very grassroots.  Much of the art is very good, some of it excellent, some of it very personal - a kind way of saying not very good.  

I am back painting again, maybe the next time Artomatic is held, I should toss my hat in the ring.  

 

Moody Monday: Ten Things To Be Grateful For This Week

1.  I continue to have great walks, about an hour a day, with the spring weather most often outside in a variety of surroundings. 
2. My sweet bear, 30-odd years and we still find new things to talk about and laugh about. (Some of the years are odder than others.) 
3. A reasonable degree of security in life. 
4. Each day, there are no guarantees, another one of my high school classmates died, his family posted photos on Facebook, I haven't aged all that bad 
5. Easy access to great public transit, we went into the city for lunch the other day, and it was so nice to sit back and ride. 
6. My blogging friends, you are my daily wake-up ritual. 
7. Good health insurance, I had prescriptions renewed the other day and my out of pocket cost was $12 for a three month supply. (The first time since my insurance coverage changed this year.) 
8. Time, my time is my own.  
9. Being free of the bureaucracy, it is budgeting season at my former employer - I am so glad I never face that process again. 
10. Being me.  I am who I am, shaped by my life experiences, flawed, a work in progress, moving forward everyday.

So how is my mood?  Good, very good.  And still adjusting to my new normal.  

The Sunday Five: Would You?

 1: Would you live in this cabin in the woods? 

2: Would you spend a quiet afternoon here reading or writing? 

3: Have you read the book Walden, by Henry David Thoreau? 

4: Do you live a simple life? 

5: Would you hike 30 minutes to get to this cabin? 

My answers:

1: Would you live in this cabin in the woods? No. my idea of roughing it is staying at a three star hotel. 

2: Would you spend a quiet afternoon here reading or writing? Yes, I may go back next summer. 

3: Have you read the book Walden, by Henry David Thoreau? Multiple times, this cabin reminded me of Walden. 

4: Do you live a simple life? In a modern sort of a way, yes. 

5: Would you hike 30 minutes to get to this cabin? Apparently I would, it is around on the back side of a lake.  

Please share your answers in the comments. 

The Saturday Morning Post: Touching the Third Rail

Oh I know I am going to frighten and piss off some people with this post.  I generally stay away from politics, religion, and guns.  People are frightened and angered by all three (pissed off = angered in American English.) 

Bob posted about a politician who keeps lying about how he was shot.  Was it in a war zone, or the tale he told to the police when he was being investigated for discharging a firearm in a national park.  He told the police that the handgun discharged when he dropped it while loading it. That is possible, though unlikely. A single action revolver would be most likely to have that happen if he was being careless in handling it while loading or unloading it.  Pistols are much safer, and it is nearly impossible for them to accidentally fire, throw them around all you want, drive over them with a car, and they are unlikely to fire.  

I seldom talk about this, I am a gun owner.  My grandparents gave me a semi-automatic rifle when I was a teenager, I still have it.  I spent many hours as a teenager shooting target practice.  

When I was in my 40's my father gave me his colt-revolver.  I had grown up with it in a locked box in the hall closet. A few times a year it would come out for target practice, a cleaning, then be locked away again.  I think I fired it once, before he gave it to me.  

When he gave it to me, I went to a professional indoor range owned and operated by a couple of retired police officers, and hired a professional instructor to show me how to handle it safely.  The Colt was an old design, single action revolver, a design that has been around since the 1850's.  You have to be very-very careful if it is loaded and "half cocked" and you wish to not have it fire, if you carelessly drop it at that point, it could fire accidently if it landed just the wrong way.  The instructor meticulously showed me, and had me practice how to safely do that with the gun unloaded, and was explicit in how to only do that under controlled circumstances so that if an accident happened no one and nothing would be hurt. Then we spent a couple hours on the range firing line practicing what I had learned.  

I went back to that instructor when I bought my first pistol.  He was pleased that I was moving to something modern, and spent time showing me how to handle it safely, and how to safely unload and clear the chamber.  You never pick up a firearm without verifying that the chamber is clear - NEVER. You NEVER point a gun at anything you are not prepared to make a big hole in.    

No one should handle firearms without that kind of training, and without the instructor signing off that the person has the skills and judgement to safely handle the firearm.  It was not required, I did it because I knew I didn't know what I was doing and wanted to do it safely. I live in a state that does not license or register guns.  I never have lived in a state that does.  

I enjoy target shooting, though it has been several years since I last went to a range.  Why do I own them? Because I do.  I have enjoyed them over the years. There is no real need or justification other than I do because I can.  Kind of like why do I own cameras. 

The Colt is a family heirloom, it has been passed onto a family member, with the instruction to go hire an instructor before putting ammunition into it for the first time. 

A friend of mine lives alone in a rural part of appalachia.  His father gave him a loaded revolver to keep next to his bed.  He has no idea how it works, he has never fired one, never loaded or unloaded one, that is how people die. I have urged him to hire an instructor, or contact the local police and say, "would you please come take this thing away."  

No one should handle guns, without careful instruction and good judgement.  People who lack good judgement, should never be allowed near guns.  

The idiot politician is either a liar, or careless, or more likely both. His actions and words show that he lacks the character needed to handle firearms and shouldn't be allowed near them.