Author: geoff

Collective frustration and optimism for a bunch of Sun engineers, marketeers, and managers is….
We’re at a week-long workshop held in a secure facility, which means no network connections, WiFi, etc. So we all book into the same hotel (so we can share cars), and we obviously pick a hotel that proudly advertises free Internet access. And then the hotel WiFi goes out… for several days. The poor desk clerk, who has no control of things, gets harrassed by all and sundry. Just now, in sheer desperation, a colleague and I walked to another hotel just down the road and paid $10 each to get a few hours of our “drug of choice” – pure WiFi Internet, served straight up, no chaser.
Although it has been an occasionally frustrating week (bad weather, no opportunity to visit the city, not even a quick look around the Air and Space Museum, though we drive past it twice a day), overall I have to say that it’s been a very productive one. It’s always good to get a chance to work closely with colleagues from California, Colorado, New Hampshire, and England, whom I usually encounter as disembodied voices on a phone conference. As usual, the challenge is going to be sustaining the team commitment and energy after we all head home and have to work with out different organizations, with colleagues who haven’t been a part of this workshop. Nonetheless I’m very optimistic about this particular initiative. We’ll see. Kudos to my colleagues Brian Wong and Mary Vanleer….

Yes, I’m here – so yes, the hotel WiFi works. But the journey was interesting. The flight was United 861, a routine 415 mile hop in a Boeing 757 from BOS to IAD. I checked in online from home, and managed to swap my middle seat for a window – 30A. Boarding was uneventful, though the flight was absolutely full.. The pushback was delayed slightly, and the captain came on the PA to explain that there were aircraft in the “alley” blocking us in; he also mentioned that “radio communications are available on Channel 9”. (This is my favourite thing about United – if corporate policy permitted, I’d only fly on United, just to listen to ATC on channel 9. But anyway….)
A minute or two later the aircraft was pushed back, and as it was, there was an audible bump. We stopped, and suddenly channel 9 switched from radio to muzak. Hmmm…. We sat there for about 15 minutes. Eventually the captain announced that during the push-back “the push bar had been bent”, and he was “having a maintenance engineer check it out.” After a further delay, we taxied out, and normal channel 9 was resumed. Obviously we’d missed our “slot” into IAD, so we were held at the “Bravo hold point” until the top of the hour (0000Z) before we were allowed to take off. (We also switched our call-sign – from “United 861” to “United 8143” – to reflect the fact that we’d had to file a new flight plan.) The flight was uneventful, and so was the landing, though I must admit I held my breath as the nose gear hit the tarmac and reverse thrust came on. We were about 30 minutes late.
In the “mobile lounge” that transports passengers between terminal C and the main building I caught up with the captain of our flight and chatted to him about the incident at Boston. What had actually happened was that during pushback the tug driver turned a bit too sharply, and rather than the tow bar steering the nose gear, it popped off the lugs on either side on the gear. “The tug driver isn’t an engineer,” said the captain, “and I wanted someone to take a look at it to make sure that it hadn’t damaged anything.” We talked about what it might have hit, and agreed that “it’s better to fix these things on the ground – they’re a bitch to repair in-flight!” Various aviation geek stories ensued. “I notice you turned off channel 9 when it happened,” I said, and we discussed the fine balance between keeping people informed and alarming them unnecessarily.
So overall it was an very enjoyable flight, more interesting than most.
P.S. Chantilly is the Virginia community occupied by Dulles airport; it’s also where my hotel is. Of course I take this on trust; the hotel is indistinguishable from thousands of others across North America (and now, sadly across Europe too).

Time for another trip: I’m heading out of here to fly down to Washington DC for a week’s seminar/workshop/training. (Categories blur.) I’m going to be in a hotel close to Dulles airport, working in an office close to Dulles airport, and I’m not renting a car, so who knows if I’ll have any time to get into the city? Last time I was there I went to a really cool Ethiopian restaurant not far from Dupont Circle….
And yes, the hotel has WiFi. So I’ll be blogging.