I traveled to WashingtonD.C. this week. It was a quick in and out -- at least that's how it was scheduled. I flew out of Greenville-SpartanburgAirport on Sunday morning with a return on Monday evening. My total flight time each way? Twenty-five minutes from G-S to Atlanta and one hour from Atlanta to D.C.
Sounds simple, right? On Sunday my flight from Greenville to Atlanta was delayed 25 minutes. Why? Well, we didn't know for the first 20 min. The flight attendants claimed not to know. I was sitting in the four-row first-class cabin, so I had a front-row seat to the discussions.
Both pilots got off the plane and walked up to the gate to participate in the hold up. Still, we knew nothing. Finally, one of the flight attendants called the gate and asked them to send one of the pilots back to tell the passengers what was going on.
When we finally received the official update, the reason for the delay was that there was a Delta mechanic who had been flown over from Atlanta to fix a plane, and they were waiting to put him on our flight to get him back to Atlanta. Yes, indeed. I fly a lot and have been for years, I have never had Delta hold a flight for me for so much as 30 seconds. In fact, if I'm not on the plane 10 minutes prior to the scheduled closing of the hatch, I lose my seat.
But then I'm not a Delta employee.
Here was Delta inconveniencing 50 or so paying passengers to try to get one of its employees on the plane. The kicker is that after waiting nearly half an hour for this clown, he never did board the plane.
The gate clerk came on the plane just before takeoff. When a passenger with a super-close connection wanted some assurance that he would be booked on a later connecting flight, the clerk told him not to worry about it; he would make his connection without a problem. Yeah, right.
Upon landing, we sat just off our gate for more than 10 minutes. Our flight was supposed to use gate B36 (the very last gate in the B concourse). A plane that was taxing out had been stopped just short of the taxi way, which put it directly across the access to our gate. Tick Tock.
The the gate clerk couldn't operate the gangway and we sat another 10 minutes at the gate waiting for someone to show up who could pull the gangway up to the plane door. Tick Tock.
This poor schlub didn't make his flight.
Now I am sitting in Washington Reagan and my flight to Atlanta is delayed 35 minutes -- exactly the amount of time I had to make my connection to G-S. I had to call Delta's reservations and get backed up on the next flight. Instead of arriving in Greenville at , I will arrive at .
I typically drive to Atlanta and fly in and out of that airport because the flights between Atlanta and G-S are so unreliable. I have a problem every other flight between those cities. So I am fully prepared that my backup flight will be canceled or at least delayed.
Granted, this topic would have been a bit more appropriate had I posted it on Saturday, but too much to do and too little time. I had to mow the dirt for the love of God.
I was invited to a Derby party yesterday. I am always surprised by people living beyond the borders of Kentucky and with no ties to the place who throw such shindigs. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, but just surprised.
The party was held at the home of an acquaintance who is the neighbor and friend of friends of mine. Had it not been for my friends, I would never have been included. I know that's hard to believe: Who wouldn't want me at their party? Yet, there are people who don't find me as amusing as I find myself. Such folks are typically categorized as having taste.
In any event, I went to this party. Attending were 35 people I had never laid eyes on before, the hostess acquaintance, my friends and three other people they had invited, who are friends of mine. If you are doing the math, I knew a total of six people out of 40 or so.
There was the obligatory betting board -- more work had been put in on its creation than that at any Derby party I was ever at in Louisville. Louisville folks tend to just copy the page of entries from the Courier-Journal. The chart at yesterday's party was the result of some serious effort.
The home we were in is large, and quite lovely. The attendees were pretty much split with the 35 or so people I didn't know crowded around a 17-inch TV monitor on the back screened-in porch and the half-dozen or so people I did know lounging around the living room in front of the 42-inch flat screen. We got the better part of the bargain.
The way the guests were divided reminded me of a party I attended 20 years ago or more. It was thrown by two roommates. One was a wild partier whom I worked with at the Boca Raton News, and the other was a rather more subdued young lady who worked at a book store. Each invited their respective work friends.
It was like oil and water. Much to the frustration of the roomies, the two groups just didn't mix. Such was pretty much the case at this Derby party.
People who know me are well aware that I am not a mixer. If I don't know you, I'm probably not going to as a result of meeting you at a party. I hate small talk and really can't muster much charm or humor for people I am probably never going to see again.
When I was younger, I might make exception for a good looking woman, but at this stage of my life, I realize such nonsense is a waste of my time.
So, there we were, two clicks of folks. It worked out fine and I had a good time. But I'm sure the hostess was less than happy.
I must admit, I had no clue about which horses were even running in the race -- a sad commentary for someone who lived in Louisville for 16 years and attended many a Derby. I don't even think I saw the race last year. I'm over it.
The only aspect of the Derby I really enjoy is the singing of "My Old Kentucky Home." It still gives me goose bumps. It's a Louisville thing.
Most of my Derbys were experienced rather than seen. I was one of those "infield people."
We would trudge in with our coolers and blankets around 10 AM. With 3 hours looming between us and the first race of the day and roughly 7 hours before the Derby, we were already stepping over passed out drunks.
Here's what Derby Day in the infield is like: Drinking and….well, that's about it. Maybe one out of every 10 people in the infield actually catches a glimpse of the race. Perhaps one out of every five people manages to hear hoof beats racing by. Most of the people in the infield have no idea what's going on.
Infielders weren't supposed to bring in alcohol. Coolers and bags were searched. We would fill baggies with vodka or gin, drop them in the bottom of a cooler and cover them with ice and mixers. Surprisingly, you can get quite wound up on several baggies of booze.
Rain is a mortal enemy of infielders. I only had to deal with that once. Being ankle deep in mud puts a damper on the day.
Biological imperatives also presented a problem. By 2 or , the men's rooms floors were awash in umm, wash.
I have no clue what the women did. I suspect a couple of them drowned.
As a Derby veteran, I was happy to be in a nice house yesterday with no bugs in my drink. That there were 35 people I didn't know was much better than being amidst 20,000 drunks I didn't know.
Oh, and I actually saw the race. All in all a pretty good day.
I am going to break my vow to stay in this week. I had been successful at keeping it thus far. I skipped my usual trip to Smoke on the Water on Tuesday evening and my Wednesday outing to The Peddler.
See, I do have some will power. Not much, but some.
I drove through downtown on my way home for the gym today, and things are popping down there.
Tonight is the first Republican debate. It will be at the Peace Center, which is a block down the street from my favorite downtown joint, Soby's.
I worked in West Palm Beach during the William Kennedy Smith trial and also during the 2000 presidential-election-recount circus; downtown Greenville has the same feel about it today. There are news vans from all over the place scattered here and there around the city. Main Street's side walks are packed.
There is also a downtown concert series on Thursdays for which they block off a couple of blocks at the other end of Main Street from the Peace Center. There is live music and beer. I like beer.
Too much going on to stay home.
I'm going down and soak up some of the excitement, as well as stop in the Nose Dive for a beer and to chat up my favorite school-teaching bartender, Natalie.
I wasn't overcome with the same euphoria as many others upon hearing that Osama bin Laden was dead.
Had someone else been in the room when I heard the news, I would have high-fived him or her. As it was, I watched the announcement alone and settled for a silent, jubilant shake of my fist.
I'm glad we got him. He needed to die. His killing sends the proper message around the globe that if you screw with America, neither time nor distance will protect you from retribution. It is the sort of truth I want our enemies to acknowledge, understand and believe.
All too often Americans have been butchered around the world and our government's impotent response has been to wag a finger at the perpetrators and move on. From the original World Trade Center bombing in 1993, to the U.S.-embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, to the U.S. Cole bombing in 2000, al Qaeda basically got a free pass and its appetite to rain death on America grew.
The successful bombing of the World Trade Center on 9/11 made obvious what many of us suspected for years: Sticking our collective head in the sand and hoping our enemies would go away was the wrong response to acts of terrorism.
So, yes I'm glad that the mastermind of 9/11 and earlier atrocities against Americans has paid for his murdering; and that his death serves as a warning to those who would do harm to America in the name of Islam or any other cause: You will not go unpunished.
But the reality is, OBL had become more growl than bite. Since the U.S. declared war on terror nearly a decade ago, we and our allies in that war have been pretty effective in stripping away layer after layer of al Qaeda's leadership and operating capital.
More dangerous than corporate al Qaeda that OBL ran, are some of its independently operated franchises such as the one in Yemin. These go on as if nothing of significance has happened.
As a symbol, OBL's death is a big plus; but his loss means very little in terms of the ongoing threat against America.
As the smoke settles from the events leading to the successful termination of OBL last Sunday, here are a few thoughts:
The reality that al Qaeda is alive and well will probably be driven home to all of us in the next weeks or months with a terrorist attack of sufficient magnitude to grab our attention.
After watching a White House briefing yesterday on OBL's killing I won't be surprised if members of the Seal team participating in Sunday's operation aren't investigated and/or court martialed for using excessive force. We have learned that OBL was unarmed when he was shot twice and killed. Based on the tenor and tone of questions from some of the journalists at the briefing, and the efforts of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to put distance between Obama and the decision to actually pull the trigger, expect operatives of the Left, the ACLU, the mainstream media, and some extremists in the administration -- Eric Holder, et al -- to call for those special forces members who did the shooting to be punished. It would be the politically-correct thing to do, after all.
Pakistani leaders must own up to what they knew about OBL's living in a million-dollar compound just down the street. If that knowledge didn't go all the way to the top, those who did know, and protected OBL, should be brought to justice. If the knowledge did go all the way to the top, we need to recognize Pakistan as a terrorist government and withdraw all aid.
The war on terror rages on; with OBL's death, there is just one less player.
Today is a great day for our military and intelligence professionals specifically, and for all Americans in general. That baby-murdering Islamist POS is dead. It was long overdue.
Osama bin Laden's death is more symbolic than anything at this point, but it is still a big victory in the ongoing war on terrorism -- yes, I believe it is a war and it is a war on terrorism. And just so there is no misunderstanding: It is a war with Muslim extremists. OBL wasn't a Methodist. Neither were the 9/11 terrorists. Neither are any of the animals cooling their heels in Gitmo. Neither was the Shoe Bomber nor the Underwear Bomber.
Here are a couple of thoughts based on what has been reported so far about today's events:
Is there even the slightest possibility that important people and/or entities in Pakistan weren't helping and shielding OBL? He was hold up in a huge walled compound just miles from the Pakistan capital, not in some mountain cave as we had been led to believe. Either the Pakistani army and Pakistani intelligence agencies are that inept, or they were in on the cover up. In either case, America is not getting the return it should on the millions of dollars in aid we are giving Pakistan. Let's turn off that flow of money.
Some one made the right decision dumping this joker's body into the sea, eliminating any opportunities for followers to make some sort of memorial out of his grave. As far as I'm concerned, they should have just stuffed him in a burlap sack and tossed him over the side. According to reports, he got whatever the appropriate Muslim send off is. Good to know that even with our No. 1 enemy, we go out of our way to be politically correct.
Although I am pleased we got him, you won't find me in the street, cheering, dancing and holding up my index finger chanting, "U.S.A.!" I don't think it's appropriate. The Packers didn't just win the Super Bowl. A stinking SOB is dead, but he's just one out of thousands we need to kill. Instead of dancing around, we should be remembering the 9/11 victims, and all our killed and wounded military in this war.
Any time I rant about something in this space, I feel it my civic duty to follow up as conditions change.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I had broken down and had the ceremonial first mowing of the dirt. In that blog, I also complained about Sir Barks-a-lot, the mongrel belonging to the fools renting the house behind me.
During the first two weeks my new neighbors lived there, I grew to hate this dog that barked like they passed out Milk Bones for nonstop howling.
It wasn't that he barked all night long; but he would launch into a barking fit three or four times during the night, waking me up. Anything and everything seemed to set his barking into high gear: a passing motor scooter, a kid on a bicycle, a pedestrian walking down the street, a bumble bee buzzing just out of his reach.
He also used one of the many holes in the fence around his yard to facilitate his escape during the day and roamed around the neighborhood, barking at people when they came out of their homes.
I lamented that I would be happy for him to disappear by any means from a dog catcher to a motorist with acute aim.
The day after I wrote that blog, Sir Barks-a-lot mysteriously disappeared. If I owe this to one of my readers, thank-you. However, I think that scenario is the least likely.
I suspect his disappearance is no mystery to the family. The most likely reason for his sudden departure is that they gave him away or returned him to doggie purgatory at the pound.
It is also possible that they sold him to the Chinese restaurant down the street. There don't seem to be many stray dogs or cats in the two or three blocks surrounding the joint.
I put off celebrating his disappearance until I was sure he is indeed gone for good. Now that we are closing in on 3 glorious weeks, I think I can confidently refer to him in the past tense.
Here's to a good night's sleep! May he never find his way home.
