Weekend!
I know that the last couple of times I went to Qatar I said that it was the last time I had to go, but I seriously think that this is the last time I’ll have to go.
Well. Maybe. The long-term plan has changed again, so they might need to send me out again in 6 months or so. But I seriously think that this is the last time I’ll have to do what I’m doing this time and if we’re doing something new next time, they have half a dozen people to choose from who have never done this something new before.
Went over to Dman’s for dinner and wrestling and I called over his son and we took the globe down from a bookcase and we traced out where Colorado was, pointed where his Aunt lives on the east coast, and then spun the globe and found Qatar on a map and then spun it back to Colorado. “Wow! That’s a long way!”, he said. I admit to thinking the same thing as I’d never traced out on a globe where Qatar is. Holy cow, you’re spinning that globe for a *LONG* time.
But the schtick is the same: go out to breakfast with Maribou, get to the airport by noon, get on a plane to Denver, get on a plane to Germany, get on a plane to Qatar. Arrive at, like, 10PM and take an hour to get the car and drive to the hotel, get in the room at 11:30 at night, shower, pass out, wake up at 7ish and be mostly acclimated to the new time zone. Then you work a whole bunch of 12s, because you’re an intervert who works with introverts, take a day off in the middle to do laundry and hit the souk, work another whole bunch of 12s, get on a plane to Germany, get on a plane to Denver, get on a plane back home… get home around 8ish, take a shower, collapse into bed… and wake up at 3AM. Staring at the ceiling. No chance of falling back asleep.
Anyway, so this weekend will be spent tackling the honeydew list. Primarily involving getting the car its 60K checkup and then hitting the various stores and making sure that Maribou has enough dry goods to only have to go to the grocery store for perishables while I’m gone.
Two weeks of being a road warrior and driving like Mad Max. Then, I hope, a year of not even thinking about the airport. Because, quite honestly, this should be the last time I have to go out to Qatar.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
I fly throw the Doha airport a bunch for work. Qatar Airways is by far the nicest of the airlines that go to some of the places I need to go and because of Qatari subsidies, I don’t have too much trouble getting the fares approved.
Last time I flew through, I decided to get out and have a look around. I spent the day and that night, which seemed about the right amount of time to spend checking out Doha if you’ve got no other reason to be there. The Museum of Islamic Art was definitely the highlight. The souk was nice. That Qatari lime mint drink really hits the spot when its 42 degrees Celsius. And had some of the best hummus and tabbouleh I’ve had at the Syrian restaurant in the Souk.
Oh yeah, there’s this viral Che-style image of the Emir that was up all over the place. Wondering if it was there the last time you were there. Heard it was a new thing, since the beef with the other GCC members.Report
Oooh, I haven’t seen the Che-ish Emir portrait yet (may he live one thousand years). Just the one portrait of him standing and that portrait was always next to the portrait of his son in a similar pose.
I’ll look for it this time!Report
I like the Denver airport. PDX is my favorite and LAX is the WORST, but Denver is in my top five for sure.Report
@miss-mary It’s pretty great once you’re inside it, pretty awful to get inside of, IME. That’s why I like flying places COS—>DEN (layover to account for bumps)—>
Agreed about LAX. THE WORST. Toronto is a close 2nd.
SFO international terminal is pretty great, dunno about the rest of the joint.Report
My wife and I flew to Toronto and landed at YTZ, the little airport in the lake. I love small airports, mostly due to security being way less of a hassle. I’ll choose Midway here in Chicago any time there is a choice.Report
@slade-the-leveller Oh, that would be glorious; I was of course talking about YYZ.
Trying to get from COS (or DEN) to YYG, at a price that won’t bankrupt me, has led me to compare the merits of way too many airports that are way too big, over the years…
I like Winnipeg’s airport a lot. Small and friendly.Report
Seeing IT tonight. The trailers look good, so I’m hoping it’s a decent horror flick. I know it can’t possibly get all the scary stuff from the book (even if this one’s only doing the kid part), and that’s okay.
Other than that, grading and preparing my next paper unit for my courses. Maybe a little of Destiny 2.Report
In a way that’s a shame, because I thought the creepiest part in the book was the build-up at the beginning as all the adults were drawn back to Derry. Then again, the parts with the kids in the old TV movie still hold up and the parts with the adults, er, don’t.Report
I agree with you about the book (and I liked the history bits, too). But I think it’s a (possibly) good choice in adaptation.Report
Because they would have to introduce the seven adult characters and make a connection with the seven kids and then start the kid’s stories. That’s a lot of work for a movie. I think the ideal adaptation, one that could fit in the best bits from the book would be an HBO series. Or maybe a Peter Jackson extended edition trilogy.Report
Plan to spend the weekend doing the chores that exhaust me since I don’t really have a be-utterly-exhausted option when Jay’s away – he takes really good care of me if I overdo when he’s around. Litterbox switchout, mostly, maybe something else if I have juice to spare. (Stupit chronic illnesses! I used to be a person of boundless physical energy…)
A lot of sleeping and watching dumb TV is probably also in store. And probs some reading.Report
@jaybird
How long is the flight to Denver? Does the plane even reach altitude? If my math is right, aren’t you less than 100 miles away?Report
Google says 96.6 miles from airport to airport. You actually end up waiting in the terminals at both ends longer than the flight itself. But the drive sucks, so…Report
Yeah, the drive is what makes it awful.
There’s a part of me that would want to just fly from Denver and get picked up from Denver, but when I get home there is *NO* way that I could possibly drive and I wouldn’t want to put anybody else through that after sunset.Report
Things that are worse if a Colorado Springsian flies out of DIA than the relatively tiny C Springs airport, in order of magnitude.
1) Cost of gas + parking (+ tolls if you want to stay under 100 miles and not drive through all the Denver traffic, adding at least 30 minutes to your trip) is more expensive than the flight from C Springs to Denver. If you choose to have someone drive you and drop you off, gas doubles and they’ve just spent an extra 1.5-4 hours on the road roundtrip than if they drove you to C. Springs airport (depending on traffic and if you took the toll road). Possibility of really bad construction traffic completely horking the timing.
2) More likelihood of drastic, majorly slowing-you-down security issues in DIA than in C Springs
3) Way more crowded, worse wi-fi, and longer waits for breakfast/lunch/whatever.
Downsides to flying out of C Springs
1) sometimes they cancel the c-springs / denver flight
2) higher likelihood of 50+ soldiers all getting deployed somewhere getting into the checkin line right in front of you at the same time all the machines go down (this has happened to me twice)
Overall flying out of Co Springs is a better bet.Report
It’s about thirty minutes or so. (i’ve flown from Springs to Denver a fair number of times). The plane reaches an altitude, but not “altitude.” It feels like the flight is a perfect arc: take off, reach an altitude and start the landing process.Report
@jason Heh, it’s a perfect arc when it goes smoothly. A rollercoaster (or as an old guy once said who was sitting next to me, “a real tree-skimmer”) when there’s a bunch of turbulence.
I’ve had takeoff to wheels-on-the-ground take fewer than 15 minutes in ideal conditions.Report
I try to fly from Springs when I can because it’s about 35 minutes from Pueblo and I don’t even hit any Springs traffic to get to the airport. (your assessment above is spot-on; just add another hour for Pueblo traveling.
Unfortunately, most of traveling lately (conferences for work and two trips to Paris) has been from DIA. I’m not rich, but I spend the money for the toll road.Report
This weekend I battle our lawn. One last round of spray on the crabgrass before fall. Then we’ll over-seed in a couple of weeks and hope for the best. The peer pressure of life in the suburbs is real folks.
And completing the last of my management course. 20 hours of prep work and the actual class runs all of next week. I’ll learn new skills like Time Management! Successful delegating! Developing employees!
Should be fun…Report
@mike-dwyer Brrrrand new skills, right? I’ve had a few of those myself. Usually pick up some nuggets here and there but occasionally the thought crosses my mind that I’d make more money teaching these classes than I do sitting in them.Report
I’m sure I will learn some new things and I generally like that kind of training, but this one is kind of silly. I’ve been in management for years, but I fell through the cracks on this class. It’s similar to when I forgot to take Archaeology 101 in college and then had to take it after working in the field for three years.
The pre-course did have some stuff I hadn’t seen about prioritizing tasks and action lists, which is like catnip for me, so I will enjoy those items for sure.Report
I’d never make it in the burbs. I don’t even notice the grass until it’s away too long. My thoughts are with you, Mike.Report
I was supposed to be getting ready for a trip to Orlando and a week of strategic business planning, but apparently they are having some kind of thunderstorm this weekend, and as normal, the whole state is flipping out and closing down 😉Report
Even when self employed summer vaca has to come to an end. Start working on my next map, which at this stage is really mainly thinking about and researching to see if anything new has opened. Not much of a weekend really, but to make up for it, I am replacing half the stair treads in my house, which is fun do to the precise fitting. By the way, 12″ bullnose stair tread runs an astronomical amount per foot, and I need many, many feet.
If you are interested, I plan to pull out one of the damaged treads, use it to make a template out of scraps (put my skill saw against one edge and clamp it down, then put a piece of scrap down the length with a 2×4 up against the end to give consistent cuts for each piece.) cut the pieces I need, fit them, pull them back out for staining (putting the old ones in temp. so no one falls) and while drying fill the screw holes some former owners put in. Should be fun!Report
Unexpectedly, we were approved for an animal adoption this afternoon. Though the timing is bad, we’re going out to meet him tomorrow.Report
@will-truman
Mazel tov!Report
Oh that’s great! Good luck!Report
Unfortunately, things didn’t work out. They put us down under another dog’s name and while I drove an hour to go meet the little guy, the little guy was interviewing with a potential guardian just down the road.
The whole thing was really a mess. It’s no fun to explain to a five year old that she’s not going to get to meet a new dog that we might be taking home with us. I stressed the “might” but it didn’t penetrate, occasionally. Then the dog they did match us with was an Australian shepherd, which is a no-go… but that didn’t matter because he was adopted by someone else before we got to meet him anyway. Combine that with the truck being an hour late, and we spent about two-and-a-half hours not meeting any dogs.
But she did get to see a bunch, which helped her get over her disappointment.Report
Dude. That totally sucks.Report
But she did get to see a bunch, which helped her get over her disappointment.
There ya go.Report
Sorry to hear that Will. We tried to adopt a basset hound about a decade ago, and the people fostering the dog turned out to be rather large jerks. We liked the dog, and the dog seemed to both like us and our dog, but the stars were not aligned.Report
Nowadays I feel like all I do is pump breastmilk. Literally day and night. I do get to leave the house to volunteer for the Parent Teacher Organization today, and tomorrow I’m hitting the farmer’s market. I was going to paint at my pregnant friend’s house this weekend but she canceled due to bed rest. One day I’ll have a life again, but for now it’s mostly rest.Report
Ugh, that sounds like one of the most unfun jobs I can think of.
I’m glad you are getting to the farmer’s market, though.Report
Maribou, it has been very educational. With my son, I breastfed for 14 months. Exclusively pumping is totally different. More clinical. But you’re right, it’s not what I’d call fun, lol.Report
Editing a paper (not mine; one someone else wrote) for a journal. Volunteer scut work that there’s not really enough thanks to make up for the time and effort it’s taking. (the author occasionally makes big spelling errors, and is someone who seems to randomly make up sub-species and varieties of things – I am mostly doing the name-checking of species, which is something I’m good at because it’s incredibly-anal-detail-requiring work, but it’s exhausting and not fun.).
And this afternoon is a much-delayed memorial service for a friend. (A particular family member was being…difficult, to be polite about it….in re: planning/scheduling the service).
So, it’s not a happy or fun weekend here, and next week will be hell, because I have several evening meetings.Report
I’m sorry for your loss, @fillyjonk. And I hope your weekend has some moments of light in it.Report
Thanks. I mean, things are pretty good, it’s just, this is one less-wonderful weekend. It’s not like I’m in Houston or South Florida….Report
I was in Phoenix for work for the first time this week. Some thoughts:
1. The airport is nice but their TSA seems much more through than SFO. I wonder if this is because it is smaller and the workers are bored.
2. Phoenix would not exist in its current size without air conditioning. Same with QatarReport
The same with Florida.Report
I’m guessing Atlanta would be the same. And Dallas.
I know I wouldn’t live where I currently live if I couldn’t have AC, but I have asthma and am a fattish woman of a certain age, and I also just really hate heat.Report
@jaybird and I decided to go off the rails of our quiet and dutiful weekend at home with a date night tonight, because our local AAA team was in a playoff series game. They lost in the 10th after a series of weird confusions in the 9th that could’ve used a @richard-hershberger in the box to explain to us what the heck just happened. (As in both teams were confused, not just the fans… the ump was clear on things but not the rest of us.)
It was a heckuva game, and if Jay wasn’t heading out next week, we’d totally be there for the series final tomorrow. I’ll be figuring out how to listen to it on the radio.Report