Avoid SFO for the Next 3 Weeks

Monday morning I flew from Salt Lake to San Francisco (SFO) for my weekly commute. As we got ready to board the plane, the captain came out and said we had a 2-hour delay. They unloaded the early boarders and then posted that the flight had been cancelled. My heart sank. Then the gate agent said that we would be heading to Oakland. So in the matter of 2 minutes, the flight went from on-time, to delayed, to cancelled, and then to a new destination. Personally I think the relief of not having the flight cancelled made the new destination much more palatable.

Once we arrived in Oakland, the airline paid for Uber to deliver me to my office. While the distance from Oakland to my office is significantly longer than from SFO, I thought the airline did a great job of taking care of their passengers (it is Alaska for those interested).

San Francisco is repairing one of their runways over the next 3 weeks. Unfortunately the repair cuts through 2 other runways and so they are down to a single runway instead of the usual four. The construction is expected to be completed on the 27th of September and until then air travel in and out of SFO is going to be painful.

Knowing about the construction I have been checking arriving flights from Salt Lake and departing flights in an attempt to guess where my flight this evening would depart. All the flights have left Salt Lake and gone to Oakland so I know that is a constant. Monday night's flight flew out of Oakland. Tuesday's flight made it out of SFO. Then last night's flight departed from San Jose. When I woke up this morning I didn't have a clue where I would be leaving from. I got to the office and got word that my flight was cancelled. I immediately called the airline and was told I could get on a 1pm flight through Portland. While I rebooked the flight, I got an e-mail saying my flight had been changed to San Jose. I got put back on my original flight and then figured out how to get to San Jose. The airline helped significantly and so I can't complain about them at all.

Ultimately the problem is that the runways in San Francisco need to be fixed and they determined now is the best time to make the fix. That has airlines scrambling to accommodate delays and cancellations. So if you can avoid SFO for the next 3 weeks, do yourself a favor and avoid it.

A Man with One Clock

I am at the San Francisco airport waiting to catch my flight back to Salt Lake and thought my flight might actually leave on time. Why? I checked the monitor and it said my flight is on time. Then I logged into my e-mail and it told me my flight is delayed by 2 hours! I have a computer and am too lazy to go back and check the flight monitor again and so I logged onto the airline website and asked for a flight status. It says my flight is only 45 minutes delayed. So what is the correct answer? This reminds me of an old saying: "A man with one clock knows what time it is, a man with two isn't quite sure." In my case, I have 3 and none of them agree.

One of the problems with keeping travelers up-to-date with the latest information is that it is often wrong. An airline may see a delay about to happen and so they notify passengers. Then a pilot will work a miracle and arrive sooner than expected. The seemingly 2-hour delay gets shortened to 45 minutes.

A quick check of my e-mail between paragraphs and I have received a message indicating that my flight is now only 45-minutes delayed. I have 2 sources of information that agree. It will probably change again before I actually board the flight and so I don't put much stock into my departure time until it actually happens. Fortunately I have a really good book to read and don't mind hanging out at the airport too much. I would like to get in at a reasonable hour but a delay is not heartbreaking.

Entertaining Yourself During Long Airport Delays

I have been flying between Salt Lake and San Francisco on an almost weekly basis for the past 6 years and this is the first time I am stuck at the airport trying to get home when the flight isn't expected to depart until after midnight. I don't expect to get home until 4am. This isn't a good way to start my long weekend. Other people I fly with have experienced such delays but this is a first for me. About the only thing I can do is try to occupy my time with something entertaining. Fortunately I have 2 smartphones, a laptop, a magazine, and my PlayStation Vita.

My original departure time was 9:10pm. Then it changed to 9:23pm followed by 1:04am. Now it is scheduled to leave at 12:51am and I expect it to change several more times before I board. That means that I really can't fall asleep or I run the risk of getting left behind. I got to the airport and did a little reading on my iPhone. I have a number of reference books on it and I was finishing up an article I started earlier today. Then I pulled out my PS Vita and started playing Uncharted: Golden Abyss. I will be sure to include a review when I am done, but so far it is an entertaining and fun game to play. The only reason I stopped was because I knew I had some time and wanted to create another blog entry. Once I am finished with this entry I will continue playing the game until my battery is drained to zero. I have the cable to charge my handheld console but the airport is crowded and I don't feel like searching for an outlet. At least not yet.

I really hate feeling like I am wasting my time and so when I think about what I would be doing if I was spending another night on the boat, I would just be playing a video game. My PS Vita is not as enjoyable as a PS3 or PS4 but it does come close. It is definitely better than trying to play a game on one of my smartphones. At times like this I just keep telling myself that sometimes the destination is not nearly as important as the journey. Tonight's journey is going to be a long one.

Real-Time Websites

I got up this morning and went skiing up at Snowbird. It has been a while since we have gotten any new snow so I was glad to look on their website and see we had 4 inches of it overnight. My wife and I had a good morning of skiing while it continued snowing and then we came home. I was eager to see how much snow fell while we were skiing. Imagine my surprise when Snowbird's website still registered the same 4 inches. I kept checking throughout the day as it continued snowing only to see the same number.

Snowbird is not the only website that has a problem keeping their website updated. I was trying to get real-time weather reports this last Thursday as the San Francisco area was pounded with a storm. All I wanted was a live picture of the marina where I keep my sailboat. The yacht club located in the marina claimed to have a webcam pointed in the general direction of my boat. Unfortunately I couldn't find the page with live pictures. They did have an automated feed of the anemometer in the marina so I could see the strength of the wind. That let me know that my boat was fine.

The secret to having a real-time website is not having to manually update it. There needs to be some sort of automatic feed to keep the website up to date with the latest information. Something like an anemometer or web camera. I think the people responsible to input the latest snow totals were out skiing instead of doing their job. I can't say I blame them though. I would be too.

Low-Tech Solutions

Last night it was time to fly from the Bay Area home to Salt Lake. I fly with a friend who lives in Utah like me and also works just South of San Francisco. He usually picks me up at my office and we drive to the Oakland airport. My buddy has arranged parking in a garage close to the airport but it still requires that we walk about a mile to catch a shuttle bus to the terminal. Usually it is a pleasant walk even though it might be in the dark. Last night it was pouring rain. That complicated things.

We knew it was going to be a wet walk and so I picked up some large trash bags from the office. I also had the foresight to copy down the numbers to 3 different taxi cab companies that operate in the Oakland airport area.

We got to the garage and decided it was too wet to try and walk, so we called each of the cab companies. Others must have had a similar idea because we couldn't get a taxi for 30 minutes. That was going to make us late for the flight. Ultimately we had to walk to the shuttle stop armed with only our large garbage bags. We stayed mostly dry until the sidewalk started flooding. It didn't take long before our feet were soaked. Our only recourse was to pull out more plastic bags and put them over our feet. The bags lasted only moments before they succumbed to the asphalt and grew holes.

My travel partner and I made it to the airport and while we were not completely dry, our luggage was, thanks to our low-tech plastic bags. With all of the technology around us, sometimes it is something as simple as a plastic bag that can solve a problem.

Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday I got to spend my day with other members of my department at work in downtown San Francisco participating in a scavenger hunt. They let us know about the event a month ago and when I told my kids, they decided I work for the coolest company ever. I have to admit it was a lot of fun and the organizers should be commended for creating a fun activity that helped to foster teamwork.

We all arrived at the office before 10am and then boarded buses to head to downtown San Francisco. Some of my coworkers were less enthusiastic about the event and planned on finding a bar where they could wait out the activity in relative comfort. However once we arrived at the starting point, everyone seemed to get into the event. We were given a list of about 50 clues and set loose on San Francisco. There was no way that we would be able to get everything in the 90 minutes and so some organization was required. To further complicate things, not all clues had equivalent point values.

My group ran to a hotel and got a map where we could locate where we believed all the clues to be. Those of us with smart phones used them to look up clues we weren't too sure about and put everything on the map. Then we started running around the city in a somewhat optimized manner taking pictures of the clues and e-mailing them into the referees for the event.

At first we stayed together because certain members of the group had to be in specific pictures. With only a half hour to go, we broke up into two groups and went after the high-point clues. Then we all congregated back at a restaurant for lunch. It was a lot of fun and I think I got my workout for the day.

This morning the referees are still tabulating the results. I think my team did pretty good but in the end it doesn't really matter. I got to spend a day running around San Francisco like a tourist. Furthermore I was paid to do it. I guess my kids are correct, I do work for a pretty cool company.

Yet Another New Job

I have just changed jobs (again) and am now working in the San Francisco area. While I have spent the last decade of my career working for small startup companies, I now work for one of the largest consumer electronic companies in the world. I have to say that it is a refreshing change. At the last place I was working, I started at 7:30 am and worked until 8:00pm every day. They also expected me to work weekends. My new company has much more reasonable hours.

I work in the research and development group of the company's video game division. My two boys think I have the coolest job ever. I would have to agree. Yesterday my boss told me it was OK to play video games while I am at work. He told me it was kind of expected and so I should not be shy about sitting down with a Playstation 3, checking out a few games from our extensive library, and playing them during the week. When I told that to my sons, they got jealous.

While my job seems awesome, it does come with one downside: I live in Salt Lake but work in San Francisco. That means I fly out on Monday mornings, live on my sailboat during the week, and fly home on Friday nights. Everyone asks how that works with my family. My wife hates it, but my kids that are still at home don't want to move. My oldest daughter is in college and so she doesn't care. My oldest son will be in college this fall and so it doesn't matter to him either. The two youngest ski for the Snowbird Ski Team and so they don't want to leave Utah. I have given them the choice of skiing every day after school or being with Dad and they would rather ski.

I guess that means I will have to rely on technology to help me continue to spend time with my wife and kids. Hopefully that translates into some interesting BLOG entries. Until then, I'm just glad to be away from the dog.