Friday, 17:00 at RDU
Got here too early expecting the Christmas rush. Kind of crowded but not too bad. My flight doesn't leave till 18:30 so I've got plenty of time to kill.
Sitting in the Pinehurst Brewery. Cingular has a strong wireless signal but as I'm not a Cingular customer, I don't have access.
I would suggest that RDU airport install wireless gateways throughout the terminals. They could install a commercial grade phone or cable internet connection with gateways scattered about the terminals. Yes, there would be a cost, but I would expect that it would be relatively small in comparison to overall airport operations costs and it would be a real benefit to passengers waiting for their flights.
I used to work with an engineer who later went to work for the RDU Airport Authority. I think I’ll give him a call and see what he thinks about installing internet connectivity.
Ordered the Nachos and Salsa and a diet coke. The appetizer is only 3 dollars and they just brought me a huge plate of Nachos and a big bowl of Salsa. I just wanted something to snack on while waiting. The amount they gave me is almost a full meal. As a general rule, we Americans eat, and are served, way too much. It’s as though we’d complain if the servings weren’t piled high. And when it’s put in front of you, there’s the guilt thing if you don’t eat it all. I still remember the admonishment growing up to ‘clean your plate. There are starving children that wish they could have your food’. It feels wasteful to not eat everything even though you don’t want too. I guess that’s kind of a statement on American culture / society where we can have anxious moments and reflection about having too much food given to us. Man, there are places in much, if not most of, the world where that would be a great problem to have.
Quiet day at the house today (holiday today and Monday). JN has leave for the weekend as well and he left around 08:00 to go to his folks in Southport. I did some house cleaning and laundry, then spent the afternoon trying to print some photo quality prints to frame and bring with me to NoVa for my niece and newphew. Couldn’t get the printer to print color photos. It will print in black and white but gives me an error message when I tried to print the photo prints.
The printer is wireless and was originally installed with my old Motorola gateway. I’ve had to replace the gateway with a Linksys and I suspect that may be the problem as the HP controller recognizes the old wireless network name but not the new one. Although it will print out plain text documents. I think I’ll uninstall the printer Monday and reinstall it. If that doesn’t work, next step is a call to the genius nephew, AH.
Spoke to my sister just a while ago. The ‘kids’, AH, MIH, EIH had just arrived. They and their dad are going to a hockey game tonight so MH will pick me up at Dulles and we’ll have the house to ourselves. As my sister joked, “quiet, interrupted only by the sound of snoring!” Right on.
DB called while I was on the way to RDU. He says the stores have been extremely busy. When in Wilmington, Jacksonville or Myrtle Beach – stop by the New Balance store and buy some shoes. DB’s Mercedes-Benz is dirty so he needs to trade it in on a new one.
Wireless?
Just got back to this entry. I took a few minutes to check out the Cingular wireless access. What a rip off. $10 for 24 hours of access. That’s a 24 hour time period, not hours of use that you can carry with you. Plus, you can’t find out how much without going through the whole frickin sign up procedure. Click on the service plans button or the FAQ button on the front page – a new window opens up with the exact same initial connection screen. They can’t even get the web page right!
The web page itself is the “RDU Terminal Connection” through Cingular. I wonder if that means somebody (RDU Airport Authority) allowed a single service provider agreement which has set up this non-competitive internet connectivity. In fact, with internet service being so cheap nowadays – RDU should consider offering it as a service to their airport customers. Or, they could add a user charge to tickets which they already do to help cover airport costs. My wild arse guess – it would add about a nickel to each ticket, if that much.
If it is indeed a case of a single source agreement, whoever came up with, or agreed to, this crappy and grossly overpriced agreement made a bad deal. Ten dollars to have connectivity for what, in the real world, amounts to about an hour or so connectivity.
I hope the Cingular salesman made a ton 'o money. He should because he really stuck it to the end users.
Making money in a free market capitalist society is great. Setting up a monopoly franchise where the consumer gets royally screwed is not.
Sorry about the harsh language – but this RDU set up / arrangement is just plain wrong on a whole bunch of levels.
Basically non-connectivity in the airport in the middle of the RTP. That’s just great.
Note, I’m writing this entry in a document that I’ll import later to this Journal.
It’s 18:00 so I’d better get to the gate.
Saturday 05:30 Reston VA
MH had some veggie lasagna and fruit salad waiting for me at the house. She’s always doing very thoughtful things for people. This morning we go to Niece and Nephews at 08:00 for breakfast and to do some gift exchanges as my brother and sister-in-law will then head to West VA for the rest of the weekend. Sunday will be Christmas dinner around noon or so and the kids opening presents. Monday morning, early flight back to Raleigh.
Plus there will be trips out to do whatever. Maybe watch the skaters at Reston Towne Center. Possibly a movie. Or head into town just to see the lights and decorations.
Ahhh, I hear my sister in the kitchen making coffee.
Have a happy and safe holiday readers.
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