Killing Time in an Airport

This morning I find myself waiting for my son and his family's flight to arrive from Columbus, Ohio. I am here with my wife so at least I am not alone, which makes waiting a little easier. We have a lot of fog today and so flights are delayed coming in. So how can you pass the time at an airport waiting? That is a question I am sure a lot of people will be asking as they travel this Holiday season.

The airport in Salt Lake does not have a lot to keep you entertained outside of security. Once through security there are a lot of different shops and restaurants, including a Lego store which has a lot of different activities to keep one entertained. The only problem is that all of those little pieces are very easy to lose if you are not careful. So I'll pass on that activity for now. The real question is how to get through security if you are not flying. The easy solution is to purchase a fully refundable plane ticket for later in the day. Once you get through security, just cancel it and your money will be back on your credit card before you leave the airport. It is a trick I have used more than once.

Another thing to keep yourself entertained is to catch up on your e-mail. That is what my wife is doing right now. You do have to be careful with the free airport WiFi as it can be very easy for a hacker to steal your e-mail password. You may be better off using your phone as a hotspot and using it instead. Then there is my favorite, using a virtual private network or VPN that hides your network connection. I have a VPN for work and use it whenever I connect to the free airport WiFi. My e-mail only took me a few minutes this morning and so what should I do for the next hour?

I could watch a movie but it is too early in the day to start watching a movie. Perhaps if it is closer to the evening I would appreciate that more. I know my grandkids don't care what time of the day it is, they are always down for watching a movie. I'm sure that is what they are doing on the plane right now.

Last year for Christmas my wife got me a kindle electronic reader. I recently loaded up a new book on it and will probably pull that out shortly. Until then I've written in my blog, something else that helps pass the time. I could also annoy my wife. Maybe I should go get myself a breakfast burrito instead.

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.

Laptops, Tablets, Phones, and Paper

I have several hours to kill while I wait for my next flight and so I am hanging out in Delta's Sky Club at the Los Angeles International Airport. Technology continues to evolve and so I thought I would look around to do a non-scientific survey of what devices people are using while they wait for their flights. The lady in front of me is working feverishly on her Mac laptop. In fact most of the laptops in here are Macs. About the only exception is the guy to my right with his Dell. However he is using his oversized iPhone, so does it count? In fact the majority of the people in the airport lounge are actually mostly staring at their small smartphone screens. I wonder how many of them are playing Pokémon Go?

I do see one or two women using tablet computers. All of them seem to be reading. Amazingly I don't see a single book out. I wonder if that is because there is a plethora of electrical outlets here, so everyone seems to be taking advantage of them to recharge batteries. Most of the aforementioned phones seem to be corded to the outlets as well.

Finally the older woman to my right has taken over her table with an old-fashioned paper notebook. Papers are spread everywhere as her husband carefully guards a small corner of space for his bowl of chicken chili. In a large room filled with about 50 frequent fliers, she is the only one using paper. Considering the lounge provides a stack of newspapers and magazines for everyone to read, I find that interesting.

As for me, I have my Mac laptop out as I prefer a full-sized keyboard over the simulated one on my phone. Earlier today I completed a Powerpoint presentation for my meetings this week and now want to top off the battery before my next flight. While I know there will be a power outlet by my seat on the plane, it still feels good to have a full battery just in case I need it. I also used my phone to call my wife and talk about her exciting morning without me. Yes technology is everywhere and most of my fellow travelers seem to be taking advantage of it.

Video Games I have Been Playing

I am stuck at the airport yet again and so I thought I would add to my blog seeing as I have sort of neglected it over the past couple of months. I tried to think of an interesting topic and reread the last video game review I wrote. Since then I have completed some really great titles and so I thought I would write about what I have been playing. None of the games are very new and so including multiple games may help you select a very inexpensive game worth looking at if you have not already played it.

When I finished playing Sniper, I had a number of games to choose from. While Sniper played well, I wanted something a little more mainstream and popular. There are a number of PlayStation exclusives in my library and so I wanted to get through a few of them before sequels arrive on the PlayStation 4. I selected God of War as the next game. I had heard a lot of good things about it and have a copy of the remastered version for PlayStation 3. It originally released on the PlayStation 2 in 2005 and has been around for a very long time. I have to note that I do have a copy for the PS2 as well.

I must confess that I have actually been to Santa Monica studios where they originally developed the God of War series. It is a great place to visit and the people that work there are awesome. Therefore I am probably not an impartial judge of their game and can't really write an unbiased review. What I can do is say that I really enjoyed the game. There are certain games that you cannot put down once you start playing them. I often found myself playing late into the evening when I should have been sleeping.

I enjoyed playing God of War but it is not a title I would recommend for children or teenagers. There is a lot of nudity and violence. The nudity is animated and cartoonish but I would not have wanted my son playing this game back when he was a teenager. Regarding the violence, at one point you have to BBQ a captured soldier. Even though it is just a video game, I thought that to be a bit over the top.

I finished God of War and thought about playing the sequel. Instead I chose to play a different sequel from another PlayStation exclusive: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I provided a review of the first Uncharted game and want to complete 2 and 3 before starting 4. Of the first 3 games in the series, the second one is my youngest son's favorite. Once again I have to excuse myself from trying to write an unbiased review for this game. I love all things about the Uncharted series and own copies of the first 3 games for both the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles as well as Golden Abyss for the Vita. I also have a copy of Uncharted 4 still in the plastic waiting for me to finish the other titles before I play it.

As with God of War, I really enjoyed playing Uncharted 2. However I found it much easier to put down in the evenings and didn't try to continue playing late into the night. One reason for that is that Uncharted is divided into nice chapters that serve as great stopping points while God of War just keeps going in one long epic video game. When I would get to the end of a chapter, I looked at my watch and decide if I had time for another one or should head to bed. Don't get me wrong, I would have preferred continuing to play, I just found it easier to break away from the game.

As I mentioned, my youngest son really loves Uncharted 2 and took offense when I told him that it had a similar story to Uncharted 1. He scolded me and said they have different characters, different environments, and are nothing alike. I actually beg to differ. You run through a series of trials where you solve puzzles, kill bad guys, and ultimately lead the main bad guy to a special power that can be used to create immortal soldiers. Looking back on both games, you would have been better off sitting on a beach in the Caribbean or Hawaii. After all, the bad guys aren't smart enough to get to the supernatural power on their own.

Both God of War and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves are fairly old titles and can be found rather inexpensively. A quick Internet search revealed that you can purchase each of them used for less than $10.  Considering their original selling price and how much fun I had playing them, they are real bargains. I played both on my PlayStation 3 even though Uncharted 2 is also available for the PlayStation 4. I just have a PlayStation 3 on my boat and that is where I play most of my video games. Soon I will replace it with a PlayStation 4 but until then I am trying to get through a huge backlog of PS3 games.

Dog vs. Technology

Sometimes technology is no match for a good old dog at your side. Yesterday I headed to the Salt Lake Airport to catch my usual Monday morning flight to the Bay Area. A lot of other people seemed to be gathered at the airport yet the security line moved fast enough that no significant line existed. The secret is that TSA is using dogs in one of the terminals instead of those insanely expensive body scanners. All of the lines merge into one section where passengers have to walk past a dog with his handler. Then it is like going back in time 15 years. There is an X-ray machine for baggage and a metal detector for the passengers. No need to remove shoes. No need to take your laptop out of the bag. Consequently the line moves incredibly fast.

Engineers think they can solve problems with technology and sometimes they are right. Other times you just need a cute-slobbery pet and life is better. Now I wish all of the airports would switch from expensive machines to furry and lovable dogs. Airport congestion will improve greatly and anyone who travels will appreciate that. Oh a word of advice: don't pet the dog.

A New Phone

Yesterday I sort of got a new phone. The actual phone is the same one I have had for a few months. I just had a new OS put on it and that completely wiped everything I had on the phone previously. Knowing that I periodically would be wiping the phone for such updates, I don't keep anything important on the phone without having an online backup first. Both Android and iOS allow you to keep things like contacts backed-up online or "in the cloud." However there are a number of things that don't get backed up and I am discovering those things today.

I am at the San Francisco airport this evening and realized I am headed back to Utah where I plan to work from home tomorrow. While my virtual private network (VPN) program reappeared on my reset phone, all of my account information got wiped from it. That required a call to the company's IT desk to get it reconfigured. Fortunately that only involved clicking on a link that showed up on the phone in the form of a text message.

While all of my old programs magically reappeared on the phone, none of the shortcuts on the home page remained. About 30 seconds later, they were back where they belonged. Again, I don't keep too many apps on this phone. Had the same thing happened to my personal phone, it would have taken a bit longer.

The final configuration task was entering account information. While my Pandora and Spotify apps could be found on the phone, I still had to enter my e-mail address and appropriate passwords. Now everything is working nicely and the phone is back to the same state as before the complete reset.

Remembering all of the steps required to set up a new phone helps to keep me from constantly updating it to newer and later versions. Perhaps that is why there are not lines around the block at the Apple store with people hoping to get the latest iPhone. I am perfectly happy with my current iPhone and don't plan to upgrade it any time soon.

Ubiquitous WiFi

I'm not sure why, but Southwest changes its flight times about every other month. This week I am flying from Oakland to Salt Lake City at 4:00 pm while last month the flight was at 3:35 pm. You wouldn't think 25 minutes would make much of a difference, but I use public transportation to get from my office, near the San Francisco airport. As I have to go across the San Mateo bridge there is a single bus line I can use and it is mostly geared towards commuters. That means there is a bus at 11:00 am, one at 12:45 pm, and one at 2:30 pm. The 2:30 bus puts me at the airport way too late and so I take the 12:45 pm bus to catch my flight. I get to the airport at 2:00 pm if everything goes smoothly after taking a train and another bus. That gives me 2 full hours to waste at the airport. I liked it better when I was only wasting an hour and 35 minutes. Like I said, it may not sound like much, but week after week, it adds up.

This week I decided to maximize my time and came to the airport with a list of tasks to accomplish. Updating my blog was one such task. This wouldn't be possible without an Internet connection. Amazingly, I also had an Internet connection on the bus across the San Mateo bridge. Finally, chances are good that I will have an Internet connection on the flight as well.

Sometimes I want to be disconnected from the rest of the world and I loathe the ubiquitous availability of connections. However I really appreciate it when I can connect when I want to and get real work done. Besides, when I really want to get away from e-mail and the Internet, I just use the excuse that my battery died.