Dad’s Air Taxi – On the Road again

Haven’t had a a chance to post any new posts over the past few days as, Dad’s Taxi was transformed into Dad’s Air Taxi for my 12 year old as a delivery and pickup service.

The past Sunday (Father’s Day), I dropped my 12 year old to her friends house for a visit. As it happens, her BFF (I’m sure you know what that is), happens to live in Oklahoma City!My end destination after this delivery was Dallas, where I would spend 3 days awaiting the pickup of the delivered passenger to Oklahoma!

This trip took the long and winding air route to get from NJ –> St. Louis –> Oklahoma City –> Plano Texas and Back 4 day later.

Let me tell you something, this exhaustive trip was just that, exhausting.

Flying stand by is extremly stressful, as you really don’t know whether you will be on the flight till you get the boarding pass in your hand! Sometimes you get lucky and the flight is open, other times, you just hang out at the gate waiting for your name(s) to be called for available seats. No doubt, you and your closest 100 or so air paying traveling friends are along for the ride, you certainly are just out there hanging out  from airport to airport to airport…

I can tell u one thing, if you want to know which airport has the best fast food, hands down, it has to be Oklahoma City.. You can absolutely die happy with their Sonic burger Stall!

Going from NJ to Oklahoma city (second to last stop on this magical journey), was not bad, except when I failed to notice the sign at the airport saying “go beyond this point, you must go though security scan again” (Courtesy of the great people of the TSA which protect us at the airports). I was supposed to hand off my daughter to her friend’s dad at Oki Airport but of course, since I crossed the threshold of TSA, I had to go back the counter and get a new security clearance certificate! So imagine, me and my daughter running through the airport with a couple of bags, so I could re-enter via security check. All because I crossed that invisible line beyond the point of no return sign. Funny thing was that I had stepped about not even 5 steps beyond the sign when the TSA agent who stopped me told me I had just exited a secured area.. BTW, I would be fortunate for him security check me back INTO the gate area for my next flight from Oki land to Plano, Texas!

By the time I reached the steamy Dallas Airport, my energy had just about drained out of me as we had started our journey at 6 in the morning from Newark and after all the flight changes, by 5 PM I reached my final destination of Love Field in Texas! Hoorey!

It gets better.. When I went to pick up my daughter on Wednesday night from Oklahoma city, a normally 40 minute ride took me 5+ hours, due to “equipment malfunction” another way of saying we don’t have a plane to take you where you want to go sir.. After my endless Wednesday night trip, I got to my friends house by 11 PM and after a few hours of respite.. repeated by journey from Oklahoma City —> St. Louis — Newark Liberty Airport.

The St. Louis to Newark trip could have also been endless, but someone had mercy on us and we were able to sneak in before the T-Storms hit NJ!

My reward for all of this travel adventure was for my daughter to tell me on the car ride home: “All parents do this for this kids, Dad” after I had (in my unique sarcastic)  jokingly said to her.. “I will never ever do this kind of taxi service again!”

I just found out, our next trip in a few more weeks will either be to Canada, Hawaii, or Los Angeles.. hmm. I choose LA, because it has the most stops and I can go through more torturous security check lines at more airports!

Which airport has the longest security Check in line?

Hands down it’s Newark Liberty Airport followed closely by Dallas Love Field!

Happy travels friends.. Just remember.. “With Air travel, if you don’t plan on delays,  you are truly not experiencing today’s air travel experience. !”

Honesty – A random Act

Last Friday after my lunch, I encountered an “random act of honesty” that I did not think would exist in today’s work environment, especially in a large work environment campus that I happen to work in. I was thinking about this all weekend and was wondering, “what would I do?”  After a few moments of back and forth, I said I would have done the same, in that situation.

I had a check for approx $60 in my jeans pocket that I needed to deposit. Of course, I had put my iPhone in the same pocket. As luck would have it, when I took my iPhone out, I dropped my check. Didn’t know where, or how, but I knew it was gone.

I wasn’t about to backpedal to the 1 mile walk I had just come from, so I was resigned to the fact that $60 check was not in my destiny. I walk into my office and on my screen I see an instant message from one of the 5000 colleagues that I work with in my campus style environment. Vasant had had found my check in the cafeteria and had gone out of his way to find me on the Intranet. Wow! He said “He found my check and wanted to return it to me, and I could pick it up from him whenever I wanted to”.

I was just astounded by this act of “random honesty” as I didn’t think this kind of honesty didn’t exist anymore. I had written off the lost check as carelessness on my behalf.

I picked up my check and I offered Vasant a simple reward and he of course politely declined, saying it was not big deal! For me it was.

Even the check was for a small amount, Vasant could have easily cashed the check and had a few lunches at my expense, but he went out of his way to do the right thing. I commend him on that. I told my family about this “random act of honesty” and as usual they were non-plussed. They felt that I deserved to have lost the check.. 🙂

I said to myself, I’ll try to pass on this honesty when the opportunity presented it self. Last night, I went food shopping and as I pulled into a parking slot,  I found a dollar bill on the floor. Obviously, this was such a tiny amount that pursuing the driver who lost this dollar was out of the question, as he/she was long gone. So who would I turn in this dollar bill in place of the rightful owner,.

Not knowing what to do.. I folded the dollar bill and put it in my wallet. I figured, if I can’t give it back to the right owner.. I’d at least hold on to it and give it next random owner who needed it more. One thing I do know, I will not spend this dollar as it’s rightful owner is not me.

What do you think I should do with the dollar?

Injuries and getting older

I’m an abashed tennis fanatic, but I’ve been injured with a bad ankle sprain.  What I’ve come to the (painful) conclusion is that any injury I sustain  today takes almost double and triple as long for it to heal than it did when I was in my 20′ s and 30’s. I wonder what will happen to me when I become a senior citizen.. which is not too far away!

I’m of course talking about the physical injuries.. emotional injuries are for ever and in my case these just never heal or go away.

Tomorrow will be my first real attempt back on the court with my friends from work. Hopefully, my ankle will hold up to the rigors of double play.. that was a joke by the way..

I play Softball (which is more injury prone for me than tennis)  during the Tennis season, and I have to be extra careful that I don’t disable myself from both Softball and Tennis with an act of bravery on the softball field. I remember the first game I played a few years ago, I stumbled out of the batters box and immediatley pulled a hammy and had to crawl to first.. of course that was not necessary, as I was thrown out anyway… 🙂