Joseph Zitt

I’m blogging this from the elite WiFi lounge in the US Airways terminal at Newark’s Liberty International Airport — by which I mean that I’m one of a half-dozen or so people sitting on the floor. The wireless signal reaches one wall of the long corridor from the Sentinels of Indignity to the gates. This short stretch also has power outlets — though I had to keep an eye on one and dive for it the moment that the person next to me unplugged.

Even in this spartan state, the WiFi isn’t free. I had to shell out $7.95 for a one-day Boingo pass to use it. And this is after I spent $9.95 on a t-mobile daypass, in the mistaken belief that, since there was a Seattle’s Best coffee stand in sight, the t-mobile connection that I saw wasn’t a stray ghost. It worked well enough until I paid for it — then died and disappeared when I tried to connect. I’m hoping that, since it died at that point, it didn’t start the meter running, and the daypass will remain good for any day in the next 120. I’ll double check when I get home.

As I did on the way here, I have to transfer at Pittsburgh. The flight has been delayed for at least an hour due to lousy weather here and rotten weather there. If we’re going to be on the same kind of plane heading back that we were coming in, I don’t mind their being careful: the flight was relatively full with 39 passengers, some of whom had to move from the front of the plane to the back to balance it. It was like flying in a tin can with wings. (I can just hear some senator going off on the airline industry: “It’s just a bunch of tubes!”)

And I’ve had to unplug and walk halfway down the hall several times to check the status of my flight, since there are no monitors within view and the announcements are a bare murmur. Hmm… looks like we’ll have another half hour relaxation time now…

More later, I hope… but this crosslegged blogging is annoying my back. I look forward to some gentle, relaxing turbulence…

Later: well, it’s about 6:30 here. They’ve given up on trying to route me through Pittsburgh. I’m now scheduled for a flight that stops in Las Vegas on its way to San Francisco. It was scheduled to leave at about 8:30, but is now scheduled at 10:30. Had I known about this sooner, I could have hopped an Amtrak to NYC, wandered about, maybe gotten together with folks, and been back in plenty of time for the flight. But the time would be too tight now. Grr.

And the US Airways terminal is devoid of anything interesting, contrasting greatly with the Continental terminal in Newark where I’ve been before. There’s a coffee stand, a bar with burgers, a magazine shop, and that’s about it. The other terminal had a Borders Express, a wide-ranging food court, and other stuff to make for better time-killing.

I’m hoping that I actually get back to San Francisco before the BART stops running. *sigh*