Soon to be a Netroots Nation

As I sit here in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in Austin, Texas, participants in Netroots Nation are starting to stream past me.  I arrived here very late last night—more on that in a moment—when nearly everyone in the hotel appeared to be members of the national Sigma Nu fraternity.  Apparently, we progressives aren’t the only ones convening in the capital of the Lone Star State.

This morning, I ran into Dave Neiwert of Orcinus, so we strolled about looking for breakfast.  And while writing this post, I chanced upon more Seattle area Kossacks, including rickeagle and ct (dKos’s resident system architect), as well as former Washingtonian natasha.  I’m not sure how many others I’ll run into while writing, but they do seem to be appearing rapidly.  Since I don’t really know very many Kossacks by face or real name, though, I’m sure that a lot of people I’d really like to meet have walked past me without even a sideward glance.  Then again, I’m not flashing any sort of “N in Seattle” credentials myself.

My arrival in Austin was rather later last night than I’d expected it to be.  I was scheduled on a flight that would get here at 7:20pm, but instead we didn’t touch down until a bit after 11pm.  That’s not a complaint.  In fact, it shows that there may still be a touch of customer service remaining in the airline industry. 

Yesterday morning, as I was packing my stuff, I got a phone call from USAirways.  The representative explained that the first leg of my trip would be delayed due to belated crew arrival, and that the layover between flights in Phoenix would be razor-thin (19 minutes at best).  Would I care to rebook onto a later flight?  After first contemplating pressing my luck, I instead chose to take them up on the offer.  So instead of leaving at 11am, I was on a 2:40pm flight out of SeaTac.  All went well on the trip after that initial setback; I even booked myself into an exit-row seat for the first leg of the trip.  The Phoenix-Austin flight was only about half-full, so I suppose that even if I’d tried and failed to make the original connection I would have ended up taking the same second leg into Austin.  If I’d only known, I could have “enjoyed” a long wait at SkyHarbor instead.

I’m still astonished that USAirways would actually call a passenger to inform him about this potential difficulty with his itinerary.  It’s utterly unlike what one would expect from a bleeding corporate monstrosity like today’s airlines.  Especially when you consider that I’m making this trip on a frequent flier miles award.  For the record, my flights this week cost me $10 (well, 50,000 miles too).  BTW, I didn’t check any bags, so I don’t know USAirways’s current policy on luggage.  Their soft drinks are still free, however, and they actually gave each passenger an entire can of soda.

Finally, perhaps the most amazing part of the trip in.  When I finally checked in and got up to my hotel room to unpack at a few minutes past midnight, I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels.  I stopped flipping when I saw baseball on the screen.  Expecting it to be a wrapup of the All-Star Game, I was instead viewing the game still going on! It was just past 1am in The Bronx, and the AL and NL were tied 3-3 in the bottom of the 13th inning.  I watched the remainder of the game, which finally ended at around 12:45am here in the Central Time Zone (1:45am Eastern).  It would have been a happier ending if the National League had been victorious, but you can’t have everything.

Hmmm, I see that Markos and his entourage just walked into the lobby ... this baby must be about ready to get underway…

Comments

Keep us up to date on the happenings there, and go American League!!

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