Weekend travel scoreboard: Indiana '08

As always, by popular demand…

• 24-hour Claritin D 1, Josh’s sleep 0
• Alarm clock 0400, us 0
• TSA CHO opening 0445, waiting travelers 15
• Decent bookstores at CLT 0, wallet 1
• Vaguely worrisome emergency climbs CLT-LEX 1, mid-air collisions 0 (phew)
• Hertz: Ford Fusion C-pillar ~15 inches, blind-spot vision 0
• Free day coupon 2 (woohoo!), NeverLost GPS 1, old busted iQue 0
• Philip 1, calendar 0
• Sketchy guy trying to rip off the Circle K for $112 of gas 1, cops called 1
• US Airways delay LEX-CLT 55, information to passengers 0, angry passengers 40
• Open food/news vendors at LEX 0, money spent by said angry delayed passengers also 0
• Tailwinds CLT-CHO 1, advance arrival 22 (woohoo x2!)

Scoreboard: Yankee Stadium

No, my blog isn’t limited strictly to customer service rants these days.

On Thursday, I made the run up to Yankee Stadium for the Yankees’ day game against the White Sox, making it my 11th major league stadium. I’m no Yankees fan, but the place is an integral part of baseball history, and it’ll be gone at the end of 2008. This is the time to see it, and so I caught jetBlue up and Amtrak back.

• Alarm 0400, Josh 0
• Dunkin Donuts IAD $4, Josh 2 (donuts? OK.  $1.69 for a half-pint of orange juice, not so much)
• jetBlue 1300, airlines that don’t provide DirecTV and respectable legroom 0
• Port Authority $5, Long Island Rail Road $7, subway $7, Josh’s transit pass collection 2 (AirTrain and LIRR sell a combined ticket)
• Bottled waters 5, high temperature 94, Josh 0
• Central Park chillout 45, Josh ++
• Josh 4, NYC subway confusion 2 (only a couple of missteps, neither costing more than 5 minutes)
• Stan’s Sports World $7, travel bags safely checked 1
• Stadium collections: MLB 11, NHL 8, college football 10 (regularly-scheduled)
• Tradition 5, modern accommodations 2 (Hammond organ++)
• White Sox 8, Yankees 0 (middle 2nd)
• White Sox 8, Yankees 8 (end 2nd)
• White Sox 13, Yankees 9 (final)
• Penn Station KMart $16, non-foul shirt and deodorant for the ride home priceless
• New Jersey 40, Amtrak schedule 0 (darn you)
• bedtime 0000, Josh’s day 20 hours
  

San Diego Scorecard

And now it’s time for everyone’s favorite feature here at BTN, now illustrated for your enjoyment… the latest travel scorecard! Follow along at my San Diego Flickr photoset; not all are illustrated, but enough to make it exciting.

So, without further ado…

Friday

• Starbucks/home/Dulles 1, work 0
• Metrobus 5A 1, published schedule 0
• O’Hare weather 1, initial plans 0
• AAdvantage Gold status 1, oversold plane 0 (woohoo!)
• New DFW Skylink several million, old TrAAin -27
• DFW delays 1, re-scheduled early arrival time 0

Seattle/Vancouver Scorecard

Actual content (like a football preview) coming very soon. Meanwhile…

• United standby rules 1, originally-scheduled 12:18 AM PDT (3:18 AM EDT) arrivals SEA 0
• Evergreen-flanked highways 405, concrete jungles 5
• Canadian Olympic coverage 99, US coverage 5
• Canadian Olympic medals 7, US medals 76 (at last count)
• Canadian border at White Rock, BC 60, US border at Blaine, WA 10 (low score wins here)
• Pacific Northwest/Lower Mainland rain 2, Vancouver touring plans 1
• Modern technology 1, freshman BT bus schedule confusion 0 (press one button and say my name in Blacksburg, and within seconds I’m talking to you from a fish-and-chips shop in west Vancouver, British Columbia)
• Josh’s Canadian coin collection 7, circulation 1 (still couldn’t find the St. Croix quarter…)
• Garmin iQue several million, geographic confusion 0
• Seattle high 68°, Richmond high 85° (again, low score wins)
• Josh’s Denver-mint state quarter collection 2, circulation 20 (yeah, that didn’t work so well)
• New states on the return trip 1, delays :45
• Said state’s sales tax at SFO about 9%, Josh’s wallet 0
• Hotwiring a Dulles hotel $83, 1:20 AM IAD-Richmond drives 0

Thoughts from 20,000 Feet

I neglected to mention in my last entry that I was wireless-blogging via the free 802.11 network thoughtfully provided by Richmond International Airport. (Hey, at least the slight price premium over other nearby airports has some tangible value now.) So let me say now that I am typing (the start of) this article from seat 9F on a US Airways Embraer Regional Jet from Pittsburgh to RIC. It won’t be posted until I get home, though: first, I probably won’t finish it in the air, and second, I’m definitely more dedicated to the idea of getting home than I am to the idea of sitting in a near-empty airport blogging.

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