Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
I beg you, Delta Air Lines and LaGuardia Airport. Please fix the insane asylum that is Terminal C and D, and the Marine Air Terminal, at the airport. For the unfamiliar, here's how it works if you've got a Delta flight at LaGuardia. Delta is at Terminal A (the Marine Air Terminal), Terminal C and Terminal D. When you approach the airport, the Delta Shuttle (flights to Washington and Boston) operate out of Terminal A. The other flights operate out of Terminal C or D.
If you print out your boarding pass a couple hours before your flight and head for the airport, you'll usually have the gate number on the boarding pass. If not, God help you.
Let's say you're not from New York, and you're just in town, and you have to catch a plane out of LaGuardia on Delta. Cab driver says to you, "Where to?'' You say, "LaGuardia. Delta terminal." Cabbie wonders if that's the Marine Air Terminal, Terminal C or Terminal D. You don't have your boarding pass. So you don't know. You approach the airport, and there should be some signage on site, telling you where your flight is flying out of. Nope. No idea.
And if you guess Terminal D, let's say, and it's Terminal C, you get through the rat's maze of security -- it's always long, because Delta is always busy -- and then have to get sardined into a bus downstairs for the ride to Terminal C. Or if it's the Marine Air Terminal, you've got a long ride on a different airport bus.
I mean, anybody at Delta ever hear of signage?
So, to summarize: King, who travels out of LGA on a regular basis, imagines that people from out of town might get a little confused about which terminal to go to. You know, if they:
A) don't look at their flight information before they print their boarding pass, AND
B) if that boarding pass doesn't have the gate number.
Oh, and
C) if they don't get to the airport an hour before their flight, like they're supposed to.
If they fail to do any one of those things, they may have a stressful 20 minutes where they have to ask someone where to go, and get on a bus for a 5 minute drive to another terminal.
But again: this never happens to King. King is just looking out for everyone else. What a guy.
So, Delta: how about spending 20-30 Million to redo some terminals? Make 'em close together? Lord knows LGA is a broad expanse of airport with plenty of room to work with. And, construction wouldn't cause a big disruption, it's not like NYC is a huge airline hub or anything. We all know airlines are doing really well these days and have plenty of excess cash to throw at problems. What's the big deal? Get 'er done, ok?
Tweet of the Week II
"Troy polamalu is the most instinctive safety in the history of the #nfl #pittsburghsteelers''
-- @merrilhoge, the ESPN football analyst and former NFL fullback, after Polamalu blitzed in the first quarter at Denver and tackled running back Knowshon Moreno for no gain.
Oh fuck off, Polamalu over-plays every fucking down. It's not instinct, it's all-out pursuit. Sometimes he gets the guy, but other times he gets burned. He's like the Rob Deer NFL safeties.
"Don't go. I don't know if I can do this without you.''
-- Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, to a fading Modell at his hospital bedside Wednesday in Baltimore, from a terrific piece by Ravens PR czar Kevin Byrne on baltimoreravens.com about the last day of Art Modell's life. The piece was spine-tingling. It included a passage about GM Ozzie Newsome rubbing Modell's hands the final time he would ever see his old boss and saying into his ear: "I want you to feel what good hands feel like.''
I guess that old saw about how, being on your death bed, you never wish you had spent more time at work isn't really true. Or Steve Bisciotti forgot about it. I mean, isn't it a little cold and selfish to say to a guy
as he's dying: "Hey, man, can you stick around a bit longer so I don't have to work as hard"? Cripes.
And the thing about the "good hands"? WTF is that? What does that mean? I'm seriously not sure. Does that mean that Modell was going to hell, and he'd only feel evil hands from now on?
From his former boss atop the NFL:
"Absolutely. Absolutely killed him ... As time passed by, it was more difficult for him to satisfy himself that he wasn't responsible in some way for at least some of the harm there, some of the harm to the fans' passion.''
-- Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, to host Chris Russo on SiriusXM "Mad Dog Radio,'' about the responsibility Modell felt later in life for ripping the Browns out of Cleveland.
Yup. Right there on the chart, the doctor wrote: "Died of an acute moving-franchise-from-Cleveland syndrome."
Perhaps "killed him" isn't the best turn-of-phrase to use there, hm?
c. My forecast of the Jets: awful. I mean, I thought they'd get wiped by the Bills, and it was the Jets who did the wiping.
Ewww.
b. Anything I can get you, Brandon? A hot towel, perhaps? Some warm milk?
Ewwww. Jesus, what a creep.
e. This is what the Red Sox have gotten for the final four years of the six-year Daisuke Matsuzaka contract: 17 wins, a 5.52 ERA, a 1.52 WHIP. For $37 million. Matsuzaka, Lackey, Beckett. Boy, the Red Sox really know pitching.
Whatever. You're the John Lackey of Red Sox
fans, asshole.
f. I've got a great idea. Let's pay Zack Greinke $17 million a year
I know he's trying to be funny, but...dude, you're not a baseball writer. You're not a spokesperson for Red Sox fans. Fuck the fuck Off.
g. The freebie Red Sox calendar I got last spring extends to January 2013, with a different man each month. Just checked it out the other day. October: Josh Beckett. November: Carl Crawford. December: Clay Buchholz. January: Bobby Valentine. Three out of four ain't bad. Weirdest thing about Valentine's radio diatribe is he sounded like a man who is either already unglued or within five minutes of being there. Scary.
h. Be careful, Clay Buchholz. That's some bad omen.
King is like Shank except somehow worse.
