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I went to the international mart near the airport for lunch. I picked up some chicken teriyaki and Hagan Dazs and some post cards. unfortunately, I forgot the addresses at the office so I couldn't mail them out. Hopefully I'll do that at the airport.
Holy thunderstorm Batman! I went out for lunch at the international plaza which is basically a large shopping mall like Yorkdale or Scarborough Town Square. When I was told about it, I had expected it to be a bit more majestic. I had unfortunately parked outside of the enclosed parking lot so I had to walk out into the rain to make it to the car. I'd say that it was a good fifty feet. In the time it took me to run from cover and make it to the car, I was soaked to the bone. It took a long time for me to dry off, but at least I didn't get the computers wet.
I was still working on an enhancement when I decided to test out one of our systems (twenty minutes before I wanted to leave) funny enough, I found out that it didn't work. Argh! I spent the next twenty minutes trying to figure out what the heck went wrong and fix it before I left or it would've been rather embarassing to hear from them asking why I didn't check if it worked. *blushes*
Anyhoo, I was able to fix the problem and put together another build before I took off just a few minutes later than scheduled. I made it to the airport (after a little detour and some rush hour traffic) and was able to return my rental car with ten minutes to spare. Hee hee.
On the flight from Tampa to Atlanta, the LCD screens on the 767 had a map of the local area with a picture of the plane in the middle. It was quite cool actually, and a bit more interesting to watch than the strange puppet show that they had on the flight from Atlanta. At least I could keep track of where we were and have an idea as to when we'd arrive.
While I was getting into the entrance for the shuttle to the gates, I noticed a sign posted on the floor which mentioned that only one carry on bag was allowed on the flights effective immediately. *looks at two bags* Oh boy. Fortunately, nobody asked me about the two bags, and furthermore, just about all of the other business looking kind of people were toting around two bags, albiet usually attached to a stroller of some sort (does that count as on carryon?) Getting in wasn't a problem, although they had to put my laptop through the X-ray machine twice. They needed to take the laptop out and examine it a second time. At least I didn't lose anything. (I think.)
Hrumph, they took off the overhead map, but they did start showing some "Just for Laughs" gags. They're quite entertaining I must admit.
During the stopover at Atlanta, I had over an hour before my next flight so I decided to look around for a post office to mail out my post cards (which is silly if you think about it since I'll be arriving in TO way before those post cards do). So after looking at the airport map, I noticed that there was a post office inside the terminal somewhere but it was to vague to pinpoint it's location. After starting at the map for a little while, this lady came by and asked if we (there was another guy looking at the map) needed any help. Seeing as the other guy didn't pay and heed, I asked for assistance. She then told me to go down a hallway and it would be on my right hand side. Hmm, easy enough methinks. So I started walking down the hallway. After a while, I came across a couple of security guards and thought for a moment: Why would there be security guards here?
So I looked up and behind me. That's when I saw the big sign:
Do Not Enter
Doh! Seeing as the sign was already behind me, I think I was screwed, but I decided to walk back to ask if they'd let me in. As I walked up to the entrance (well, exit I guess), the guards told me to stop and one of them started walking up to me. I decided to take a stop forward so that I could meet up with him earlier but then a siren went off, and some lights started flashing. A recorded message began to drone:
"Please step away from the entrance.."
Yada yada yada. It kept going on and on and started talking in different languages. If there was anything I noticed about American airports is that there's a lot of recorded messages that keep going on and on and on, and they're all in English. While waiting on the shuttle, to walking through the gates, there's always some form of long winded recording. Instead of a chime or a terse "Step away from the doors", the message would be "The train is now ready to depart for the next stop. Please do not board this train. Please wait for the next train to arrive". By then I was already on the shuttle and was waiting impatiently for the doors to close. A foreigner would probably be freaked out if one of those recorded messages. They might think that it was important or something.
Anyhoo, I was able to mail out the postcards and got back in relatively easilly. You'd think that I would've learned to take my laptop out before throwing my back into the X-ray machine, but no. I have to put it in and wait around while they tell me to take my computer out (or they take it out themselves) for another scan.
I changed seats in the waiting area so that I could plug my laptop into the power outlet. It was running a little low on power and I wanted to make sure that it would last the rest of the trip back. There was this girl, I'd say no more than five or so. Who kept talking sort of at me while I was writing this entry. But I didn't pay too much attention to her.
The flight back was fairly uneventful, as was the drive. I got back home later than I had expected but it was all good. The trip went well, and I was already for the weekend..
Wait, it's only Wednesday?!?
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