Text 5199, 102 rader
Skriven 2006-09-05 09:37:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: west coast 1 - 199
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I'd figured it out - to go to this wedding, Carol would leave
right from work out of BWI, and my brother, my father, and I
would fly from DCA, and we'd meet at San Jose. But my father
is not in fighting trim, with the aches and pains of old age
taking over, and my brother and I agreed that he could not
fly, nor be left alone, so they would not go. Too bad - the
plan was to put them in first and me in the first row of coach
(with the expectation - false, as it turned out - that I
would be upgraded anyway). I promised to take them to San
Jose when TL's back got better, presumably in January or
February when cabin fever was setting in.

By way of consolation prize, Jon and my father wanted to see
me off at the airport (it was Ernesto day), so we cast 
about for a place near the airport to have a goodbye lunch.
I remembered that there was one joint that had some good
buzz about it and was also a Mileage Plus Dining restaurant;
so around 1 we found ourselves at the Stardust Lounge on
Montgomery St. in Alexandria a couple miles south.

It was raining pretty hard when we got there, but there
didn't seem like anything to worry about. The place was not
fully empty, even on Friday before a long weekend and a
forecast of 5 or more inches of rain. A cheery hostess
seated us by the emergency exit, and we chowed pretty
nicely. Jon and I had the hot wings, mine with extra heat.
Decent wings - his much plumper, mine much hotter, so we
were both pretty happy. Nonetheless, I got a side of extra
cayenne. My father got the soup of the day, cream of potato
and asparagus, which he complained about being cold - I
told him that he could have it heated up, but there's severe
I'll sit in the dark syndrome going on here (the same
obtained with his corn and lobster chowder the previous
night at Jean-Michel in Bethesda). Afterward he said that it
tasted really good.

I had a Guinness Pub Draught in a can - it was actually a
reasonable facsimile of the real thing.

My brother ordered the B.J.'s or P.F.'s or something, a
clearly Atkins dish - two giant bacon cheeseburgers, no
bun, and peanut-dressing salad. He got the salad dry.
The burgers were made of great meat and were really tasty.
It was the second most expensive thing on the menu. On
the other hand, my steak frites and salad with ranch
dressing, a buck more, was a great disappointment. The
steak was about the same size as his burgers (12 oz, maybe
10 - both were rather thin for their surface area) and was
gristly and tough although rare as ordered. It was a nice-
looking piece of meat, with pretty grill marks, but it
tasted like warmed over nothing, grilled. Jon noted
that mine looked better than it was, and his was better
than it looked. The fries that came under the steak were
decent although beginning to sog from the meat above and
the salad dressing adjacent. The salad, which came on the
plate, was horridly overdressed to the degree that I was
shaking off each leaf before eating it. I should have taken
it dry, as my brother did, or with the peanut dressing that
he had eschewed. We actually took an hour and half for
lunch, and I got to the airport 2 hrs early. I spent a
bunch of time at the US Air kiosk, imagining idiotically
that the flight numbers and check-in would have merged as
promised. Eventually I figured it out and went to the HP
area, where only my first boarding pass printed out, so I
retreated to the desk, where a genial Indian fellow righted
that situation and told me that I was second on the list for
an upgrade for the first flight, confirmed for the second.

Security didn't take long. There was nobody in the priority
line (for Star Golds, Preferreds, and Shuttle passengers),
which bypassed only a handful of plebs, total savings 5 min.

Security, including the puffer machine, took about five.

I had over an hour at the Club, so I read e-mail and called
friends on the phone, nothing exciting except at one point
when the winds howled impressively and the floor-to-ceiling
windows started flexing a little. At boarding time I went
downstairs and noted with chagrin the preboarding of two
certain individuals ... so much for my upgrade. Did the
long walk down to my seat (actually a good one). 

US8166/HP 35 DCA PHX 1659 1836 320 10A

I had what might be best seat in the coach section - the
window of the second exit row, which has nobody in front
and, despite coach narrowness and the lack of free booze,
provides a comfortable nest for even a longish flight.

After answering "yeh" to the flight attendant's safety
question, I put my eyeshades on and snoozed fitfully for
the flight - my enjoyment slightly diminished by my two
seatmates, military types, who chatted loudly when the
movie wasn't on (yes, there was a movie; no, I don't know
what it was). We took off pretty much on time, had a
somewhat rodeo-like ride in spots, dodging anvil clouds
just east of Phoenix, and landed a couple early.


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