A Trip To Boston

I’m in Boston now for jQuery Camp 2008 and The AJAX Experience 2008, but the trip here wasn’t without incident.

The problems start with the lack of gas in Charlotte right now. People are waiting in line for over an hour for gas at the few gas stations that do have gas, and this has been the case for several days now. My car, with absolutely no gas in its tank, parked in my driveway, can’t even afford to move to go wait in line and get gas. So after making a call to my parents to see what their gas levels were I ended up catching a ride to the airport with Emily Powell, the girl I’m dating.

After a few stops along the way (bank, dry cleaning, and seeing my parents in a Food Lion parking lot to snag a piece of luggage) we arrived at the airport well before my 10:45 flight to Boston (by way of Atlanta). After packing all of my items acquired on the trip into the luggage acquired on the trip (hanging bag!) we walk in to find an absolutely absurd line at the check-in counter. AirTran airways had a bit of a problem with their computers and so the relaxing minutes I was planning on having before departing were being spent in lines.

I eventually get up to the counter get my boarding passes (one with a bright red “SEAT NEEDED” stamp on it), and now it is off to security theatre. Nothing of interest happens and so I head on to the gate, realizing that I didn’t actually have a seat for the flight. Could be a bit of a problem. At the gate I hand the gate attendant my ticket with the stamp and get to stand around and wait for a bit. Concerned that I was going to end up without a seat I waited in anticipation… and ended up being stuck in First Class. Seat 2A. Don’t mind if I do, thanks.

I was sitting beside a man named Kelvin H. from Kansas City, Missouri and we had a great chat about our respective towns and trades and even cooking. We had such a fun time chatting that we kept it up even into our layover in Atlanta. He and I sat at a bar for our layover in Atlanta—me eating breakfast and him having another two Budweisers (after his first two on the plane) and two double shots of some stiff alcohol. By the end of the conversation. Just too amusing. Time came around to leave for Boston and I headed on to that gate.

Of course, on this leg, I ended up right back where I belong, seat 27E. Middle seat, five from the back. Ahh, life of luxury, how fleeting thou art. I’m sitting beside a guy named Derrick who is in the military and a girl named Jessica on the way home to visit mom and take care of some things. We ended up having hilarious conversations about anything and everything that one could think of, made better only by the fact that they enjoyed my (bad) sense of humor.

My experiences with public transportation went swimmingly well, I got to my hotel with no problems and met some fun people along the way. There was the lady who was sitting on the bench waiting at the same time as me who ended up going my same direction until I got off who pointed at some of the fun things along the horizon when we weren’t underground. The mother and daughter across the bus aisle who I had a conversation with on the Silver Line. Mom was from France and her daughter from Boston–but still fluent in French. They lived in Greensboro in 94-95 while the father in that picture was teaching history at UNCG. P—- (since I can’t remember her name) is in school and currently studying Islamic law. How cool.

Checking in was uneventful, and so I checked email and then went out for dinner at a restaurant Jessica suggested: an Indian place called Bhindi Bazaar off of Massachusetts Avenue at Newbury. Dinner alone is weird, but the food was delicious.

Back at the hotel now and I’ve just had a long chat with one Emir Plicanic who is going to be at jQuery Camp 2008 tomorrow. We shared a few of the things we were working on and generally just had fun talking.

I can’t wait for tomorrow, it’ll be a blast.