Tuesday, June 22, 2021
Notes on a public announcement at the McNamara Terminal of the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport
“Will Mu Wang please report to gate A-48. Mu Wang, please report to gate A-48. You left your ID there. Mu Wang, please report to gate A-48. Or, you know, Wang Mu. You left your ID at gate A-48.”
Travelling 1,200 miles, only to get stuck at the gate
The differences between the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport are night and day. The Ft. Lauderdale airport is U-shaped; the Detroit airport is two linear terminals, each nearly a mile in length. Hopping through Security Theater was trivial in Ft. Lauderale; it was a nightmare at Detroit. I mean, if you don't want people to use the plastic bins for the contents of pockets, then why are they even there? Stop berating people who use them! The gates at Ft. Lauderdale were loud and crowded; in Detroit—blissful silence. And no Starbucks at the gate.
At least Detroit provides an elevated tramway to traverse the nearly mile-long terminal. That was fun to ride.
The flight back was uneventful the entire way, until we got to the gate at Ft. Lauderdale. The jetway malfunctioned, and we were stuck on the airplane. Everybody was getting up to retrieve overhead luggage and then it was announced that we all had to sit back down because they were planning on taxing the plane to a different gate. So everybody sat down, several minutes of non-movement passed, then suddenly, the jetway moved into place (or someone, or someones shoved it into place) and we could disembark.
And that was really the only issue we encountered. At least it happened on the ground and did not involve the airplane.
Also, it appears the line at the Starbucks had finally cleared. That's nice—took only a week.
Why did I not get the memo?
Okay, who forgot to tell Bunny and me about the underground tunnel with a color-changing LED light show synchronized to music at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport? We had over an hour to kill!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!
A few last observations about our trip to Detroit
When Bunny and I arrived in Detroit we had our choice of two mid-sized cars to rent—one a Kia, and one a Chevy. Given that we'd be driving in and around Detroit the only safe choice was the Chevy.
It wasn't a bad car. I already drive a Chevy Impala, so the controls were more or less the same. But unlike my car, our rental car had WiFi! I never tried it out, but it was odd to thing that a car could also be a WiFi hotsopt.
Weird.
Also, this is the first car I've driven that had a push-button start. There was no key—or rather, the only thing we had was a fob, and I never had to take it out of my pocket to unlock the car. Just having the fob near the car, and hitting a button on the door handle was enough to do that. The only times I had to remove the fob from m pocket was to lock the car, and to unlock the trunk.
The only issue I had with the car was the steering wheel—it was a bit too low for me, and I had issues with getting into and out of the car. I had to scrunch up my right leg every time.
The only “computer” I took with me was my iPad and an iPad-specific keyboard. I can do everything I want to with it, even if he keyboard really isn't much of a keyboard. The iPad is an older model, and as such, it's not receiving any updates anymore, but again, that's okay because the majority of sites I visit still work. In fact, Facebook reports that the browser on the iPad is too old to suppprt (what? Really? Come on! It worked … um … two years ago just fine! What eldritch horrors hath JavaScript released upon us now?) but even so, Facebook wants my attention so bad it still provided a cut-down Facebook experience.
And you know what?
It was much faster, lighter, and easier to use than the normal C'thulian JavaScript version they normally serve up. How about that? Score one for obsolete browsers!
