PatrickDiCaprio.com

I stumbled upon this and I thought it was worth sharing…

So a few hours after my last post, after watching the news of the hurricane in the bar while I was eating lunch, I ventured over to the terminal of the airline I was supposed to fly to Cuba on. They informed me that as of 6:00 PM, the base was shutting down and no planes would be allowed to land. The canceled flight was music to my ears, as I wasn’t really looking forward to flying to a place that was about to get hit by the outskirts of a hurricane.

Since there was no telling when the base might reopen, there was no point in hanging around. After waiting on hold for well over an hour with the travel company, I got fed up and went to the Delta counter to manually change my reservation. I luckily got the 2nd to last seat on the next direct flight back to Hartford the next morning. At this point I began calling for a hotel room. The 14th hotel I called finally had an available room. I took a cab over, found the one restaurant within walking and wandered the attached Outdoor World. If I was a redneck fisherman/hunter that is where I would spend my weekends hanging out. I got back to the hotel and passed out around 8 sleeping right through to 8 AM the next morning. I was up for almost 24 hours and totally spent at that point. After an uncomfortable flight home, I made in back safe and sound to Derby around 4 PM on Sunday.

Talk about a wasted weekend. I think I have learned my lesson about saying yes to field work.

So for those of you that didn’t know, work decided to send me to the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay Cuba to install some equipment. Many of my friends and family have asked me to keep them updated on the trip so I figure this would be the easiest way. I’m not actually in Cuba yet, but I am stuck in the Fort Lauderdale Airport for another 5 hours, so I figured it would be a good time to start.

I left for the airport around 5 this morning, making good time and getting there right after 6. This was a good thing as it took me over an hour to get through security. I then realized the airport really is an odd place. If I went into detail about all the strange things I have seen so far today, I probably could fill most of my layover, but I do need to eat something I guess.

I sat down for a quick bite at McDonald’s (which was actually cheaper at the airport than at home, go figure). Sitting at the table across from me was a man who looked identical to Kevin Youkilis of the Boston Red Sox. If I didn’t know better I would have sworn it was him, but I highly doubt that he would be at an airport between yesterday’s double header and tonight’s game. The resemblance was amazing. He had a shaved head, the goatee fro and even similar sunglasses. To top it off, when he got up he put on a Sox hat.

When I got to the gate, the girl at the counter made an announcement that they were looking for people to fill the emergency isles. I thought this was odd as those are usually the first seats to go. What was even odder was that the girl at the counter laughed at my joke when I walked up and said “Yes, I’d like more leg room.”

The flight went well from there, although I couldn’t fall asleep like I wanted too. Hopefully I will do better on the next one. I did make a few realizations in my travels so far today:

1.) Wearing a shirt with a logo is a great way to strike up random conversation. I have a Red Sox shirt on and as a result I have had 3 pretty good baseball conversations as a result. It’s a great way to meet people and kill time while traveling.

2.) I have decide I want to be an airline pilot. Not to fly planes, but to automatically move to the front of the line everywhere I go. I mean it works in the airport, so if should work in amusement parks right?

That’s all for now, lunch is calling my name. More once I’m on the other side.

So last night, I didn’t wake up til around 9 (yes PM). I wasn’t feeling like cooking a meal, mainly because that would have required going food shopping first for just about anything I was willing to make. I decided to hit up the good old BK Lounge drive through for a quick bite.

I pulled in and there was a car in front of me. He placed his order and drove up and I followed to place mine. Shortly after I pulled up behind the person waiting at the window, the girl at the window had him pull around to the front of the building to wait for his food. So much for fast huh? I payed for my meal and was handed my beverage. The girl then asked me to do the same. I simply replied, “No, I’m good waiting right here.” The girl was dumb founded and did not know what to say, so she retreated to her inner sanctum near the food counter and the french fry bin.

About 30 seconds later, the night manager came to the window and asked me politely to do the same. Once again I protested. I feel I was justified to protest at this point for several reasons:

1.) All I ordered was a Whopper. For those of you that didn’t know, that is menu item number 1 at Burger King. You would think item number 1 would be their top seller. That would leave me to believe that the employees that make them would have lots of practice doing so. How long could it really take?

2.) I looked in my rearview mirror and THERE WAS NO ONE IN LINE BEHIND ME. If I was in line and there were 3 cars behind me with my overly complicated order (see point 1 to get an idea of the sarcasm you would have heard if I spoke these words) was holding up the line, I would gladly move around to the front. But of course this was more so I could not sit there and watch them do nothing when they should be making my burger. I hope they realize that by making their incompetent employee bring out my food to my car, they are both wasting time and risking that she may get lost while searching for my car in the empty parking lot.

I finally agreed to move around after the manager insisted it was going to take a few minutes, a few being 7 apparently. I was so frustrated I actually timed their response time. What added to my rage was the counter girl waited until both orders were ready to bring them out to save herself a walk. I would not have really protested this but the other guys order looked like he was eating for 8 based on how big the 2 bags were. I can only assume that my Whopper was done quicker than that and was sitting there getting cold when it could be doing so already in my stomach.

When the girl handed me my food, she apologized for the wait claiming that the reason was it was close to closing time. How would this in any way, shape or form effect your ability to put a piece of meat, cheese and some vegetables between 2 slices of bread? Does time magically slow down in the kitchen after 9 PM? Is that the point after which you have to kill a cow out back for each burger ordered?

I decided to leave well enough alone at this point as I feared my logic might kill the remaining brain cells that she had acquired up to this point of her life. I simply drove home to eat my unsatisfying meal more dumbfounded than when I left the house.

Man I suck at updating this. At least it wasn’t a full month this time. Just when I think I have some free time, it all magically fills up yet again. Here’s a quick rundown for those of you at home still following along.

- I threw what I consider a very successful slip and slide party a few weeks ago. I made it a point to take more photos at this party and failed miserably. Minus the strip of dead grass down the hill of my yard, everything went well. Not sure when the next bash will be as I have a few other things I would like to accomplish first, but I’ll make sure to let everyone know when it’s coming.

- Saw a few concerts over the last few weeks. I traveled down to Jones Beach with some of the guys for our yearly 311 trek. It was a good time as always, but that is what that company usually brings. The set list was pretty good, they played alot of older stuff and not a single song off the last album (that may have been a blessing in disguise). I was a little disappointed at the length of their set and even more so when I found out they had to cut 4 songs due to the venue curfew and the crappy opening bands taking too long. I also saw Dave Matthews in Hartford last weekend. It was my first time, maybe not my last. Not a huge Dave fan, but the pregaming in the parking lot may make it worth it to go again.

- I survived 24 hours of swim championships with a voice for once. The kids swam well and we had a few very close to the end races. It’s the offseason until October. I’m looking forward to the time off. Now my evenings are free to get in a little more kayaking.

- Right after the swim championships I had my first family picnic/reunion in 5 years. It was crazy to see all the little kids running around. It was even crazier when a massive thunderstorm hit and power went out. It was interesting to see how many cousins didn’t recognize me at all. I guess people change alot in 5 years.

- I managed to totally revamp my home entertainment system over the last 3 weeks. I finally got the tree next to my driveway taken down last month so that allowed me to get Dish Network finally as the line of sight path was now clear. I figured if I was going to get the dish put on, I might as well have them put up the HD dish while they were there. This, a discount coupon and a sale at Best Buy prompted me to spring for the 40″ Samsung LCD HDTV I’ve had my eye on for a while. When I was putting the new TV in place, I managed to knock over and break my center channel speaker, so I had to replace that. And lastly just by dumb luck, my receiver randomly decided to start raising it’s volume to the maximum at will the week before the dish got put on. All in all, since I moved in back in October, the only piece of equipment I haven’t had to change was the front channel speakers. At least I am out of things to buy. I hope.

- I switched to the midnight to 8:00 AM shift for work 2 weeks ago. The thought of it had been in my head all summer, but then at a staff meeting it was suggested that an L2 move up for a while and I immediately volunteered. So far I am quite happy with it. All I really did was flip my work and sleep schedules. I picked up an hour of my day not spent in rush hour traffic and I no longer have to work during the day on Sundays. At first this was going to be a temporary thing while the guys that were on the night shift got some daytime exposure, but now I’m thinking I am going to stick with it. The peaceful quiet of the night shift is very appealing to me.
I also miss out on all of the office politics that happen during the day. I don’t think I will ever miss that.

That’s all for now I guess. I fly out for Cuba Saturday morning so I’m not sure if I will post before then. Hopefully I will have easy internet access when I’m there, but I’m not real sure as it is a Navy base and all that I am staying on.