My brush with the Olympics.
James Kibo Parry
I was waiting in a long line at SeaTac airport (the closest airport
to the Burien, Washington Burger Baron that doesn't have the really
scary Burger Baron logo that the real ones in Alberta have) to go through
the security screening. The long line was waiting to have tickets
looked at by a ticket-looker-atter woman -- their first line of
defense between us passengers and the actual security screening.
Another woman with a badge came along and told us, very loudly, that
we shouldn't be in one long line because there were four X-ray machines
and we should be in four lines and three-quarters of us should move
to the left in the wide area between the barricade ropes.
Then, when we got to the ticker-looker-atter, well, there was only
one of her, and the barricade ropes got real narrow, and it was a big
mess because instead of the orderly queue the passengers had formed
up into it was now a loosely-aggregated wad of people who were all
grumbling about losing their places in line.
So in this case, all the passengers, when allowed to follow their
instincts, had tried to do the intelligent thing, and one of the
security people proved to be dumber than all the passengers COMBINED.
ARGH.
On the plus side, I made it through the security checkpoint without
having to open any of my bags, get patted down, get wanded, get grilled
about why I'm sweating after carrying my stuff through this long line,
why I have a passport even though I'm not leaving the country, etc.
(The passport incident was at LaGuardia. I explained that the reason
I was flying from New York City to Boston was that I don't drive,
hence no driver's license, and that I figured it would save time if I
showed people an official Federally-issued ID card. I mean, a
passport is what they should WANT to see, right? No, everyone else
leaves their passport at home unless they cross a border, so carrying
the little blue cardboard booklet made me look like a foreigner, and
we all know that foreigners are the most dangerous people on Earth!
On the plus side, the airline surprised me by just now informing me
that my flight from SeaTac to Logan will have a FREE! FREE! FREE!
stopover in Salt Lake City. You know, where the Olympics were.
The winter ones that ended, oh, about a day ago. So I will get to
watch out the little oval window as fifty-eight zillion people are
screaming at the airport representatives that all flights out of
Salt Lake are massively overbooked until about the next time Canada
wins the hockey gold.
However, Federal anti-terrorism precautions require us to stay seated
during the last half-hour of the flight to Salt Lake City, because
I guess they don't want the closing ceremonies spoiled by wads of
green ice falling from airplane toilets that leak and go back in time.
Actually, the real reason is that they probably don't want terrorists
to hijack the planes and crash them into the Olympic torch to set
fire to it, so they try to make the terrorists hijack the plane at
least 31 minutes before landing to get enough time to shoot it down.
Of course, this assumes that terrorists who are willing to die in
a flaming fireball of molten metal would stay in their seats just
because a stewardess asked them to.
The whole first-class section is taken up by some tennis team
(I think they had to clear all the non-winter sports people out of
Salt Lake so the doubles luge and biathlon wouldn't be contaminated
by any real sports) and they all have shoulder bags that look like
giant drumsticks and they have to have their bags inspected again,
because security people know that tennis players are dangerous spies,
just like Bill Cosby. Or it could be that they're just worried these
people will harass the other passengers with their constant shouts
of "EAT MORE JELL-O PUDDING!"
Also, I'm watching a truck driving around with sideways orange cones
bolted to its flank, apparently hailing from one of those dimensions
where gravity goes sideways (except for orange cones, which require
bolts.) I think the purpose is that if I start walking up the side
of the truck on my way to the Escher Terminal, they don't want me
scuffing up the Gate Gourmet logo.
But aside from those important matters, this actually turns out to be a
good airport to play "Can I see all three different Delta logos at the
same time?" because almost nothing here has the current logo. SeaTac
has a healthy mix of the ancient logo with the wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide
letttttttttttttters and the transitional logo with the pointy chevron
and the roman letters, with the current logo (curvy melted chevron)
hidden well enough that it's worth fifty bonus points.
The old logo is in block capitals so wide that the "A" had to be
ultra-blunt on top, therefore it looks like it says "DELTH", which I
think is the name of the airline that went to the Death Star. Of course,
after the Death Star got blown up, they started asking people why they
were carrying passports if they weren't leaving their home constellation.
I forget, which constellation is Earth in?
(At least Delth Spaceways would be the one airline that wouldn't
have Starbucks in its terminal.)
Okay, now I've completed the part of the trip from SeaTac to Salt Lake.
The area around the Salt Lake City airport seems to consist of lumpy
green pools of caustic goo, with some really nice mountains on the
far side of the alkali death pits. And, because of the Olympics,
half the people in the airport appear to be from overseas, so only
fifty percent of the people there look like Dave Foley at the moment.
I checked a few gift shops and they only had several carloads of
forty-four-dollar Olympics brand windbreakers, nothing interesting
like that special Mormon underwear with the little Masonic goniometer
stickers where the nipples are supposed to be.
However, the airport had Krispy Kreme doughnuts! I bought a sampler
kit of four differently-textured doughnuts, and was floored by how
geometrically perfect they were (the Masons could learn a lot from these.)
The three that were meant to be round were perfect circles, with no
flat spots, dents, lumps, fingerprints, or any other evidence they
may have been handled by either humans or machines. They're grown
right in the box! (The fourth doughnut was meant to be bumpy, but
it still looked like a perfect circle with a perfectly irregular
assortment of lumps of the proper sizes in the proper distribution
to make it the most perfectly random texture possible.) The glazed
doughnuts looked like they had been dipped in six or seven layers
of glass, or possibly molten diamond, due to their unbelievable
glossiness. God bless Phong for inventing this mirror-lake
doughnut glaze! Krispy Kremes are so smooth and shiny they look
as if they could pop at any moment, like Balki's bibibovkas.
Krispy Kremes are better than Dunkin' Donuts because they're (a) not
greasy, (b) not stale, (c) not crushed by fumblefingered employees,
and (d) they taste exactly like Twinkies, especially the ones with
the frothed lard filling. If you're not into yummy sweet cakes,
you wouldn't like Krispy Kremes, especially the ones with the goop inside.
I didn't leave the Salt Lake airport, as the layover was only about
an hour long and the airport was obviously waaaaaaay crowded right
after the Olympics so I didn't want to go through security again
(whereas I'm usually excited about the chance of writing up a new
story about being frisked) so I just looked out the windows and
bought doughnuts and found an unguarded electrical outlet to use
to recharge my computer. (Most airports have no publicly-accessible
outlets, I guess they don't want terrorists plugging in hair dryers
to make the runway lights get dimmer.)
The flight from Salt Lake to Boston was uneventful. Then I watched
nice, safe, Olympic-free TV for two weeks and posted this. The End!
-- K,
SeaTac has neat signs
that say KEEP OFF RED LINE
just because they hate
the Los Angeles, Boston,
and Washington D.C. subways.
The Avocado Avenger
>(The passport incident was at LaGuardia. I explained that the reason
>I was flying from New York City to Boston was that I don't drive,
>hence no driver's license, and that I figured it would save time if I
>showed people an official Federally-issued ID card. I mean, ...
There is no end parenthesis! It keeps going and going and going and we
never know when this sidebar of fantabulous information ends! Aighh!
>However, the airport had Krispy Kreme doughnuts! I bought a sampler
>kit of four differently-textured doughnuts, and was floored by how
>geometrically perfect they were (the Masons could learn a lot from these.)
I do not understand the Krispy Kreme donut fad. For some reason, the
thought of donuts is not appetizing, and I generally would eat anything
fried in lard and coated in sugar. You could fry dryer lint and coat it
in sugar and I'd eat it - donuts? Ugh.
So the idea of people here in town driving to the nearest Krispy Kreme -
2.5 hours away in Kansas City Ville - just to get a couple boxes for the
next morning astounds me. Now, you tell me these donuts are so spherical
they are used by NASA to calibrate their instruments?
Creeeeeeeepy. Donuts from MARS. Don't look at *me* when you all get
assimilated by the donut king.
Stacia * The Avocado Avenger * Life is a tale told by an idiot;
http://world.std.com/~stacia/ * Full of sound and fury,
There is no guacamole anywhere. * Signifying nothing.
David DeLaney
> I do not understand the Krispy Kreme donut fad. For some reason, the
>thought of donuts is not appetizing, and I generally would eat anything
>fried in lard and coated in sugar. You could fry dryer lint and coat it
>in sugar and I'd eat it - donuts? Ugh.
> So the idea of people here in town driving to the nearest Krispy Kreme -
>2.5 hours away in Kansas City Ville - just to get a couple boxes for the
>next morning astounds me. Now, you tell me these donuts are so spherical
>they are used by NASA to calibrate their instruments?
> Creeeeeeeepy. Donuts from MARS. Don't look at *me* when you all get
>assimilated by the donut king.
It's that perfection of Platonic form, plus the taste, that gets ya.
Dave 'one of my mailing lists has a quote from the lady standing next to
the lady who was going to try Krispy Kreme donuts, when -she- tried them,
but I can't reproduce it in this margin right now' DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Andrew Pearson
>
<snip>
>
> It's that perfection of Platonic form, plus the taste, that gets ya.
>
I do hope that you'll forgive me for butting in here Mr. D - but there's
really no point describing anything as "platonic" here as we've all been
programmed to read it as "planktonic".
Does plankton have anything to do with that Plank fellow BTW? Or was it
a Plank-Plato co-production? But I digress.
--
"Under! Under! UUUNNNNDERPANTS! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" - as
Xcott Craver would say.
Kev In, Boyz Out
sta...@world.std.com (The Avocado Avenger) wrote:
> So the idea of people here in town driving to the nearest Krispy Kreme -
>2.5 hours away in Kansas City Ville - just to get a couple boxes for the
>next morning astounds me. Now, you tell me these donuts are so spherical
>they are used by NASA to calibrate their instruments?
> Creeeeeeeepy. Donuts from MARS. Don't look at *me* when you all get
>assimilated by the donut king.
Well, um... I for one WELCOME our new donut lords. Infinitely wise, perfect of
form and oh so tasty. Wait, did I say that out loud? No, I didn't mean
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
--
-Kev "let's test MT-NW's wrapping algorithm, boys and girls!" in
robert lindsay
Kev In, Boyz Out <kbo...@toad.net> wrote:
>In article <Gsw16...@world.std.com>,
> sta...@world.std.com (The Avocado Avenger) wrote:
>
>> So the idea of people here in town driving to the nearest Krispy Kreme -
>>2.5 hours away in Kansas City Ville - just to get a couple boxes for the
>>next morning astounds me. Now, you tell me these donuts are so spherical
>>they are used by NASA to calibrate their instruments?
>> Creeeeeeeepy. Donuts from MARS. Don't look at *me* when you all get
>>assimilated by the donut king.
>
>Well, um... I for one WELCOME our new donut lords. Infinitely wise, perfect of
>form and oh so tasty. Wait, did I say that out loud? No, I didn't mean
http://residentassociates.si.edu/rap/otomar/kreme.asp
Not surprisingly, it's sold out already. OTOH, I'd rather not eat donuts with
Willard Scott.
--
Robert Lindsay, NASA - Goddard, Greenbelt MD rlin...@seadas.gsfc.nasa.gov
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