Bye bye bye, DTW

When I left San Jose, I thought leaving SJC was bad, but I did not know that flying from DTW was worse.

When I got up at 5:00AM, it was still dark. It was raining like crazy last night. Gusting wind and splashing rain was knocking the window. I couldn’t sleep well. I couldn’t sleep well at all in the last one week. I’m not sure if that was because of time lag or comfort.

Driving away from Windsor was an easy drive. The old Huron Church Road had many trucks preparing to get on the bridge and ship millions of goods as exports. I don’t see them any more in California. I used to feel a little weird driving in San Jose because there are few trucks on the highway. The U.S. Custom was alright. The same old if-you’re-Chinese-then-I-gonna-see-your-photo-ID attitude and tone, I can’t say anything about that. After all, I’m neither white nor black, and I was not born in the U.S.

I didn’t know that buying a U.S Airway ticket that is operated by America West requires to board at an America West check-in counter. Does this make sense? I know U.S. Airway is small, and I know the flight is operated by America West, but as far as I’m concerned, the money was paid to U.S. Airway. At the Smith Terminal of DTW, America West and U.S. Airway check-in counters are besides each other. The line was awfully long at American West, so I attempted to check in at U.S. Airway that had a much shorter line. However, the stupid machine couldn’t locate my reservation, and the lady at the counter was polite enough to tell me I did not belong there. So I went back to stand in line for America West, only to realize that the line became longer. I arrived DTW at about 6:15AM, and I walked into the security check at 7:05AM. One hour was spent just for check-in. I finally realized why the merge of America West and U.S. Airway call themselves “The world’s largest LOW FARE airline” ? If you want it cheap, then you need to find a trade off. America West is famous for long check-in counters and delaying people’s luggage. I’m just hoping that I can safely get back to San Jose with my bag arriving at the same time.

Security check is always a fun place to be. No, seriously. It’s a very busy place. After traveling many times for various reasons in the last year and a half, I consider myself a “mid-range” frequent flyer. And most American airports follow the same procedures. First, you walk in the line and show a person your board pass and an ID. A person must use identification to obtain a boarding pass at the check-in counter, but the home land security offices like to see them again in case someone stills another person’s boarding pass. (I guess it’s another way of creating job opportunities by the government when more high-tech positions are moved over to Asia.) Following that, I call the next procedure “Strip Dance”. Jackets, shoes, belts with metals, hats, wallets, cell phones, and any other personal belongs with metals (such as chains, etc.) need to be taken off and put in a gray plastic box. And it’s interesting to see how much stuff and how many gadget people like to carry, family pictures, poker, condom, or panties, etc. Then you walk on the dirty floor with your socks and your boarding pass in your hand/pocket to pass the meter detector (and chemical sniffer for advanced equipment). At this stage, it feels like prisoners transferred to a new facility. But the fun part is you gotta watch others around you ? Some people really get stuck. People with lots of tattoos, people from mid-east, people wear nose-ring/tone-ring, and people who look weird will be stopped regardless and checked by an officer. At the time, I was suddenly thinking that if the weather is warmer (like summer), I will have much better views of boobs and butts at this place. (No, I’m not a sexual criminal. But maybe you can call me a sex addict. Just kidding.)

Now, I just woke up from one-hour of sleep. The airplane is cruising above the clouds at a standard 33,000 feet. It’s beautiful in the sky. Nothing is around except sunshine and air turbulence. The planes shakes a bit like sitting in a jeep and rushing at 50mph on a country road. There is always some sort of “humming” noise from any airplane I took (A320, B737/740/760, etc). That’s the air noise, and it’s unavoidable. So the music from my iPod Nano sounds much weaker. Thank god the music helps me to kill lots of time, and it comforts me to catch some sleep on the flight.

I believe that when the airline charges people for renting a headset during the flight or buying a box of food, they’re trying to make money back from customers’ pockets. After all the low quality of services, one still needs to pay ~$10USD to enjoy more comfortably for the flight, and I call that ridiculousness. But the airline managers can argue that it’s better than filing a Chapter 11 case. Survival is always the No.1 choice, for any person or any organization.

The guy sits beside me is between 40 and 50 years old. I can’t always make a conclusion about people’s age, and he’s black. I believe he’s an alcoholic. At least he must have had some strong drink before getting in the plane, and it smells. Why would a regular person drink alcohol at 5 or 6AM in the morning to catch a flight? Anyways, I’m going to put my laptop into hibernate so that I can relax a bit in the next a few hours.

It’s nice to going back home (where is my “home” anyways?). But I know I have tons of things to do in the next a few weeks. This is life.