The Dodge Retort

What do you do when it’s an hour’s drive to the airport and your flight leaves in an hour? Pray your flight is delayed.

This morning, we set our alarms for 3:35 a.m. thinking we’d leave at 4 and arrive at the airport a solid hour before our 6:05 a.m. departure. Logan Airport in Boston couldn’t be that busy so early on a Sunday morning. An hour seemed like plenty of time to check luggage and drag our sorry butts through security.

But we were prepared for delays as a Northeaster with five inches of rain was pounding New York and New England.

As I dressed, I looked at the FIOS settop box and saw it was 4:59 a.m. The adrenalin hit me in an instant: we had not set our clocks forward an hour to account daylight savings time. The FIOS settop box had automatically sprung forward.

We hurriedly dressed and threw our luggage into the car.

As we drove through the wind and gloom, Ann checked with JetBlue a couple of times to learn if the flight was on time. Of course, it was. No way we would make it. We’d have to rebook and hang in the airport until our new flight left.

That wouldn’t be so hard.

We left the car at off-site parking and sped to the terminal. Whoops…in my haste to leave, I forgot my golf clubs.

Yeah right, Logan was deserted. NOT! Terminal C was jammed with long lines of travelers whose flights the day before were canceled due to the bad weather. I asked a JeBlue agent managing the lines if flight 449 to Fort Launderale had left and she guessed yes. After all, it was 6 a.m. and the door to plane was sure to be shut if it was on time.

The agent said get at the end of the line and rebook. “The line’s around the corner,” she said.

Around the corner! It stretched 200 yards into the narrow hallway leading to Terminal B. That’s after looping around in serpentine fashion in front of the ticket counters. My heart sank. Who knows how long it would be before we left? And we’d incur dumbass fees for rebooking the a flight we’d missed.

Our abilibi should JetBlue have any sympathy on our poor souls was that a flooded street delayed our departure when in truth, it was our addled minds. We’re not above groveling and pleading old age, decrepitude and whatever other nonsense we could trump up.

Actually, we were so absorbed in the Georgetown West Virginia basketball game for The Big East championship last night, we forgot about springing forward an hour. Our team Georgetown (our son goes there) lost by two in a nailbiter. It was an omen. We were coming up two points short on this flight.

Johnnie to the rescue.

“I’m going to go back to the counter to ask if 449 has really left,” I told Ann. I found another line agent. “I’ve been calling out the flight numbers,” she said defensely. I posed the simple question again and she asked if we had just gotten to the airport. I sheepingly answered in the affirmative.

She instructed me to get into a short line. I still had no idea if the plane had left.

First, I got into a line that wasn’t a line. Then, I  got into the correct line with about 4-5 parties ahead of me. Meanwhile, I called Ann who was still at the end of the longest line I have ever seen and said come to the counter. She trudged back with all the luggage.

Meanwhile, I grabbed the first line agent, who called the gate to see if we could still get on. She claimed she never heard us ask about flight 449 when we first entered the terminal. Ann now tells me I asked about the “6:05 a.m. to Fort Lauderdale” and not about 449.

In five minutes, we stood before a smiling counter agent who told us we’d make the original flight. A wave of relief came over us. We flew through security which was empty (the multitudes were getting rebooked at JetBlue), ran to an empty gate C36 and boarded.

All’s well that ends well. The first agent helped make it happen, but had we stood in that endless line, we would have needlessly missed our flight.

The flight didn’t leave for another 30 minutes as more bags and most assuredly ours were put on board.   We’re two hours into the flight now approaching Fort Lauderdale, our destination. Smooth, too, although bumpy on takeoff as the plane ascended to get above the still raging storm in Boston. Luck was with us this day.

Oh, don’t forget set your clocks forward an hour.

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The weather in Washington has dominated the news all weekend, but facing entrapment here until Monday, I now realize snow is a bigger cluster fudge here than I thought it would be.

Ok, Ok, a 20-30 inch snowstorm in the DC area is extremely rare, but drop the word storm. It was a snowfall with little wind and the temperature hovering around freezing. A Nor’easter it wasn’t. Much of what fell made driving slushy, but hardly compared to a real Northeast storm.

Georgetown Villanova game goers brave the storm. credit: John Dodge

When it ended late Saturday afternoon, the sun came out and the skies cleared. But the sun is not shining on the area’s three area airports – Reagan, BWI and Dulles. Airlines cancelled their flights well into Monday. How long does it take to plow a runway? I suspect the airlines got their airplanes and crews out of snow ground zero and now has to get then back.

[update 3:18 ET: Actually, the airlines cancel flights en masse so they don't risk incurring a fine for keeping people inside grounded planes for more than three hours. When this rule when into effect, the airlines promised they'd do this and are making good on their threats. Somehow, they always find a way to annoy their customers.]

So we get home Monday instead of Sunday, but there are problems other than just the airlines (after spending an hour on hold, you still get the pat answer from the Southwest agent in sunny Phoenix…”it’s weather, sir..that’s all I can tell you.”)

The Metro didn’t acquit itself, but not because it closes down when  the snowfall is more than eight inches. The station in Roslyn, Va. has a steep and long up elevator  to get out of the station. It was broken, meaning everyone had to climb 150 steps to get out of the station. 150 steps!  Not a lot compared to the Washington Monument’s 897, but hiking up the latter is optional.

What’s more, the below ground Metro was running in half hour frequencies. My son who we were visiting explained that the problem was employees could not get to work. I think not. The Key Bridge Marriott where we are staying appeared fully staffed throughout the storm.

National Portrait Gallery - closed. credit: John Dodge

Of course, most restaurants and museums were closed today when  the storm was in full force. But the hangover Sunday and Monday is just beginning. Of course, the Georgetown Villanova basketball game at the apex of the storm went off without a hitch and given all the no-shows, our row K/fourth balcony seats turned into eight rows back from courtside.

We do get to watch the SuperBowl tomorrow night with our dear son Chris, his friends and another parental unit whose flight back to Iowa has been pushed out until Monday night.

The news just came on and the verdict is in, it’s the fourth biggest storm ever in Washington and schools are closed indefinitely.

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I keep hearing President Obama’s popularity ratings are plummeting. My question is why?

On a macro scale, he’s done just about everything he promised to in the 2007-08 campaign: push healthcare reform and Wall Street regulation; restore America’s diplomatic standing in the world; take a hard line on security; jump start renewable energy; work to close Gitmo and wind down the Iraq War;  rebuild the electrical grid and get economy back on its feet.

credit: Whitehouse.gov

To one degree or another, all of this is happening. As someone who writes about technology, I see billions of federal dollars flowing to utilities in matching grants to rebuild the nation’s electrical grid. Battery makers and electric auto projects are also being backed. Such funding is critical to national security, weaning ourselves off oil imports (does anyone care anymore?) and making the U.S. more competitive.

If he’s made political miscalculations, why would we sour on him when it’s politics and Belthway insider-ism we complain about? Bottom line: President Obama is not doing a good job. He’s doing a great job in incredibly challenging times. But he’s still learning. Did anyone honestly think the country would turn around in a year under a rookie president? Progress has been made and the country is on the right track.

People have short memories about where we were heading under the last president. Check your 401k statements from where they were a year ago. Why would anyone be for allowing insurance companies to drop sick people from their rolls? We’re still losing jobs every month, but the number is far fewer: 598,000 in January, 2009 versus  11,000 in November and 85,000 in December.

The Jan. 19 issue of  Time takes stock in the Obama Presidency  on the eve of his second State of Union speech and it’s quite favorable. More than anything, it faults him for not giving up sooner on courting most Republicans. Besides healthcare reform bogging down, “he’s done a great many other things very well.” Author Joe Klein’s biggest criticism is saved for Republicans, accusing them of “nihilism.”

They [Republicans]  demagogued nonexistent provisions of the [healthcare reform] bill.” Klein writes.

How is that working for us?

Obama told Klein that when he’d go to meet the Republican caucus to get their ideas on the stimulus package, minority leader John Boehner would release statements that the GOP would vote against such a measure before the exchange took place. The Republican leadership acts like petulant children.

A friend told me Obama’s timing is off. When Wall Street was cratering our 401ks a year ago, Obama should have gone after the banks and brokerage firms instead of pursing healthcare reform. That’s a good point. Wall St. was enemy number one, but we voters have short and selective memories.

The far right preaches morality, harps about taxes and if they don’t say so outright hopes President Obama goes down in flames. The Republican strategy is to say “no” until they are back in power. Certainly, they win on being the loudest and most vitriolic. Washington politics are so nasty that “survival is as good as it gets,” Klein writes.

The rest of us – moderate Republicans , Democrats and Independents – want to see the president succeed. And if you’re unsure about President Obama, remember what it was like under the last president.

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There’s several Youtube videos showing the Boeing 787 taxiing last week under a gray Seattle sky. It’s not flying yet, but at least it’s finally moving. I chose the amatuer video below because it has audio and others don’t There’s some wind noise,  but at about 3:10, the 787 almost looks and sounds like it’ll take off. Wouldn’t that be sneaky!?