It's holiday time - mid-term report

Have a good holiday, Alan! Do plans include jamming with other GN moderators?

:D :D :D

Vic

Near Columbus, Ohio? How near? I'm not far.

I thought you meant it's time to start practicing Christmas music. (I am.)

Have a great time! :D

Tim - it's a place called Westerville

Vic - Yes, the man who signs off "Peace" says he's got an open mic/ jam night lined up

Christmas Music will have to wait - I've got a Spanish Night to play in October. Ole

Hi, Alan. Yes, I know Westerville -- upscale suburb on the eastern side of Columbus (hence the name Westerville?). PM me if you want to get away from the in-laws. Maybe our schedules will match up??

Tim

Hey, cheers.

We get to Westerville on Wednesday for three nights. Will try and get away.

Well, I take it all back.

Compared to the debacle of American Airlines the other year, where I made myself very unpopular by suggesting that the check-in queue supervisor phone some of her staff at home and get them in to do some work, we walked in to Heathrow Terminal 4 and were pounced on by a very nice lady from Delta who checked us in on her machine, gave us our boarding passes and then ran down to open a desk so she could take our bags. The flight was half empty, the food and attention to service was first rate and the seats were comfy - no kidding. Eight hours in the air wasn't much fun, but they really tried to make it tolerable.

Hotel Pennsylvania (yep, Pennsylvania 6-5000) was a bit scruffy, but I hear it's being knocked down for renovation anyway. We enjoyed it. We went to the Mets game on Tuesday (they spanked the Washington Nationals 10-8). Apparently this is the last season for Shea Stadium. I'm glad I got there again.

And then - from JFK to Columbus OH was a revelation. Again, the check-in staff were very helpful (ok, so the girl who took our bags had a massive attitude problem but we only had to be in her airspace for 30 seconds). Chautauqua Air ran the Delta Connections service to Columbus, the plane was three seats and an aisle wide and there were only eight of us on the plane. I had so much legroom I could have set up a drum kit. Excellent service again, and 90 minutes in the air just vanished.

So, we're in Westerville OH. We've been fed and we've been organised - Kathy's niece has something lined up for tomorrow and we're really looking forward to it. Then off to Boston on Saturday, and unless David gets held up in Nashville we're off to Andante on Monday.

You guys have fun

Have a good time, Alan.

Sounds to me as if you got the check in girl from "Meet the Parents" :D :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgkvIbsJrD0

If you're ever in Columbus, check out Shadowbox - an anarchic mix of very loud guitar music (Highway to hell, Renegade, Ariels, and some Floyd from DSOTM amongst others) mixed with some excellent comedy sketches (there is a very very good send up of West Side Story involving Trekkies and Jedis and the da-da-da da-da-America song is now a da-da-da da-da-da chawbacca song). They're housed at the Easton Mall near Columbus right now, but they're relocating to downtown Columbus next year.

We're off to Boston today - going to a tea party. American Eagle airlines to Chicago, then change planes and take our lives in our hands with American Airlines to Boston. Fingers crossed.

I got in maybe a half-hour ago, Alan, so things are go to go on my end.

Hope you had a good trip to Boston. We went Nashville to Albany via Chicago and while it certainly wouldn't have been my choice (especially given the weather in Chicago), things went without a hitch. Southwest Airlines for me, by the bye.

See you tomorrow afternoon.

Peace

David

Y'all have a good time :!:

We're home!

Masses of things to talk about, including how I am never ever ever ever booking with American Airlines again and what a good time we had at David's. Watch this space.

OK, where were we? Oh, yes, I remember.

We got to Columbus airport for our flight. Remember how, in 2006, when I went to NY with Bear Stearns, how there were 20 check-in desks, 8 working, the check-in machines broken down, and a huge 90-minute queue to check in? American Airlines at Columbus, five desks, two working, the check-in machines were broken down, the "first-class" check-in guy sitting there scratching his butt, and a queue.

"Boston via Chicago" I said in my best "I'm not p'd off" voice as I got to the desk. "Oh, your connecting flight's been cancelled" he said and basically that was it as far as his interest in us was concerned. Eventually, in response to "So, how are you going to get us to Boston today" he got us on the UAL flight but it meant Kathy and I had 15 minutes to get to the gate. The guy on the UAL desk told me to use the machine to check in, but had to get involved when I said "How the **** does this thing work?" So, we got the bags x-rayed and ran down to security. "Your airline has selected you for additional security screening" said a spotty youth in uniform at security, "please wait there." Five minutes later I said to him "You are making us late" and Kathy was laying into his mate finding out how this could have been allowed to happen, which was clearly something he'd never been trained to deal with. He got on the radio for someone to pat us down pronto. Eventually, we sprinted to the UAL gate. "Oh, the plane's gone" said the UAL guy. So, our bags were going to Boston via Washington Dulles and we were stuck in Columbus. The guy from UAL told us we had to go back to the American Airlines gates and told us what to say.

"I am an American Airlines passenger" I said to a girl at the AA desk whose name I forget but actually turned out to be reasonably helpful and got us on the Northwest Airlines flight to Boston via Detroit. "Oh, I saw you running for the plane" said a very nice girl on the NWA flight. We got to Boston 25 minutes later than originally planned and were re-united with our bags.

After Lockerbie, if you are not on the plane your bags are removed. Clearly not so in the US on Internal flights - fortunately.

Boston was great - we'll go there again. We had a great swordfish, shrimp and tuna salad down by the harbour. Yum yum.

Amtrak had a bus laid on to take us to Pittsfield because of track work. We got to Pittsfield, with only a minor incident where the front Amtrak bus rammed the double-parked Poland Springwater truck outside Boston South station and then reversed into our bus whilst trying to manoeuvre out of its parking space, at 3:40 and met up with David.

Andante is a marvellous ski-lodge house halfway up a mountain overlooking some ski-runs and David and Karen made us feel most welcome. Do go there if you get the chance. I got some photos of wild chipmunks and a hawk, but scared off the wild turkeys crashing through the undergrowth to get a photo of them. David showed us around the area, and Karen took us to the Bash Bish Falls, and on the Wednesday I played at a closed Open Mic at Crissey Farm in Gt Barrington - I also got to meet Celt from the forum pages there. More about this on Karen's blog at http://kberger466.wordpress.com/ under the title "When It All Comes Together." I'll be putting photos on my myspace and reverbnation pages once we've finished unpacking, and I'm sure I'll get some on the Rollmop Music website too.

From there, back to Manhattan on Thursday and home overnight with Delta. We're tired, but we've had one wonderful holiday. Great to see David again, and to meet Celt. A pity we couldn't get out to see Tim whilst we were in Ohio - another time, mate.

Oh - and I have a copy of David's most excellent album "Songs & Sandwiches" and I've been and had lunch at the Monterey General Store where it was recorded too.

Oh, again - David makes a pretty decent sandwich himself. He's great in the kitchen