I was waiting for my team mate Bob Hickey to land from another flight. In the meanwhile, I took it upon myself to esplore the airport. And it is then that I came across this beautiful piece of art.

This sculpture is 25 feet tall and made in 1984. The artist is Roy Lichtenstein. Entitled “Brushstrokes in Flight”, the sculpture was thought to arrange some brush strokes to evoke the sense of flight.

Which airport am I in?

It is very unusual to get such a clear picture of the entire Atlanta airport from so up close. If you are wondering what happened – this is the answer… We were flying in from San Francisco. The plane twisted and turned about 30 miles before the airport and aligned itself to land from the West end (all the 5 active runways at Atlanta airports run East West) and then something funny happened once we hit about 7000 feet.

The pilot had made all the necessary announcements and then I realized instead of continuously losing height, the nose seemed to even out and then we banked a little more and then straightened out. Which means we were aligned with the runways but we would be missing them by a couple of miles if we are hitting the ground.

And soon, I realized that we are not landing after all. For whatever reason, we had changed our minds and instead we just flew along the runway. Seemed like a last minute change of mind. Perhaps sudden change of wind direction? Checked the wind speeds – only 13 mph. Meant nothing for a big 737-900.

We went to the other end – flying parallely to the runways on the North end and then eventually banked back and landed from the East end. After the flight landed, I asked the air hostesses – they were of no help. And the cockpit door was still closed. Could not ask the pilots and a plane full of people wanting to get off a plane they had been in for over four hours did not help 🙂

For the life of me, I could not figure out why we tried to position ourselves to one end of the runway, and then flew along the runway and then landed from the other side. On the plus side, it let me take some lateral pictures of the whole airport from barely five miles away in the air. That is a great sight for frequent fliers from Atlanta airport like me…

… and from there, it just went south!! 🙂

I would suggest that during an overflow, get the heck out of here. So parking – sharking…

(that is River Williamette and I was in Oregon City south of Clackamas. Not sure why I had to point out that “south of Clackamas” bit but I love saying “Clackamas” 🙂 )

This airport regularly features pictures of young kids (I could find kids from 7 years to 16 years old) who want to be adopted by a family. This is thanks to the efforts of an organization called ForeeverFamily.org.

Pro photographers work pro bono to take pictures of the kids and write up short stories about the kids and they are then put out in this airport.

Great effort.

Which airport?

Strolling along inside the airport, I came across this nice corridor with the aesthetic carpeting (which is a rarity for an airport), a beautiful art work and the long wall portraits of a few people.

Where am I?

Here is a hint – those pictures are of: Brent Jones, Dave Righetti, Tim Brown, Walter A. Haas Jr., Bob Ladouceur, Bob Lurie, Tony La Russa, Owen Nolan, Jim Hines, Jonny Moseley, Dusty Baker, Barry Bonds, Roger Maltbie, Franklin Mieuli, Anne Warner Cribbs, Jeff Kent, Peter Magowan, Mitch Richmond and Raymond Chester.

As I walked along the corridor, I noticed something on the wall that looked like a long metal box with serrated holes cut in. Curious, I walked towards it and realized that it is actually a board that has the art work of young kids from different countries like Croatia, Ecuador, US, Iran and so on. Each one of those openings are actually envelope flaps and if you open any of them, you will see a water color card made by a young school kid!!

Amazing smorgasbord of young kids’ imaginations!!!

Where am I?

This morning, I woke up early, skipped my first coffee, changed into my running clothes and went out to my rental car to head out to the spot I wanted to run from today. Last night, I had scoped out the area – there was beach about 17 minutes away and thru satellite pictures, I had spotted where I would be parking my car.

Plugged that spot in Google maps this morning and Siri said in 17 minutes I would be there. Fair enough.

After about 4 minutes or so, Siri declared that she had found an alternate path that would save me 6 minutes!! That was even more “fair enough”. If I can save 12 minutes going up and down, I can put in an extra mile or perhaps just sit in the beach and take in the beauty of the huge lake.

I did get a little suspicious about how there could be such a faster route. I had studied the map the previous day well enough to realize that something was wrong. At the next traffic light, I picked up the phone and zoomed out to see how Google Maps would cut down on my time.

And that is when I realized that it would save me 6 minutes out of 13 by simply not taking me to where I wanted to go. Siri was proposing to drop me at a completely random place!!

Check out the grey route (used to show alternate routes). It even says 7 minutes faster. Except it ends nowhere close to the end point marker as you can see way up in the map!!!

I guess it pays to do your homework. Either both Siri and I skipped coffee this morning or she has some devious designs on me 🙂

We were all getting ready to board the United Airways flight from Denver to Chicago. Frequent flyers already know this – but UA has one of the better methods for boarding people – separate queues for separate zones. Avoids the massive confusion that results when boarding starts on a Delta or American flight.

Suddenly the elderly lady at the boarding gate came on the Public Address system and announced: “I have a book that somebody left at the counter. If it is yours, please come over and collect it. It is titled…”, she peered over her nose thru her reading glasses and announced “The Seamy Side of Denver”.

We were all smiling and grinning as she leafed thru a few pages. And then came back onto the PA system and further announced “…and when you come here to pick it up, we need to talk”. Then she looked at the crowd over her reading glasses.

All we could hear were peals of laughter all around us!!! Needless to say, nobody stepped forward!!!