So, I just got back from a four day trip to Arlington, Texas for work. I led a team of engineers and technicians as we visited three factories of Bell Helicopters Textron, INC. We were there looking at the facilities, so we can begin planning efforts for similar facilities at Cherry Point. Enough of the boring details, I'm sure some of you have already fallen asleep. Anyway, this was my first time actually staying in Texas longer than a lay over at Dallas/Ft. Worth airport.
I actually have to agree with the saying that "Everything's Bigger in Texas!" First, DFW airport is rather large. I mean if you have to have a sky rail to connect the terminals, you gotta be a large airport. The interstates are monstrous in an of themselves, I'm talking 6-8 lanes, with 2-3 service/frontage roads on each side. Once you figure out how to use the service/frontage roads, navigating around isn't too bad. The hotel I stayed at was literally in the shadow of Six Flags, but the park wasn't open. I was also less than two minutes from The Ballpark at Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers. HUGE! And a few more minutes down the road, the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. FREAKING GINORMOUS! I got a few pictures, but they're on my cellphone and I've not bought the data chord to transfer them to the computer yet; maybe I'll do that one of these days so I can post those pictures.
On another note, has anyone flown lately? I'm frustrated with the airline industry on a whole after this trip. Each flight I was on had at least a 20 minute delay after we were boarded and "locked" into the plane. That Tuesday, we sat on the New Bern runway for 35 minutes because of air traffic controller (ATC) delays in Charlotte. We landed in Charlotte, five minutes after our connecting flight was to start boarding. My team had to make the mad dash from concourse E to concourse A, and got there very winded only to find the next flight hadn't started boarding. Shortly thereafter it did, and we were on track to leave on time until the Captain came over the loudspeaker and said that there was a weather front around the Dallas airport, and we were going to hang tight right here for a while...we'll 2.5 hours later we were in the air. That's right, we sat on the runway for 2.5 hours! Now this wouldn't have been too bad if we could have gotten up or moved around, or if the flight wasn't packed. I was crammed in a middle seat for 4 hours when I should have only been there for two (original flight time). It totally sucked! On the return flights, we sat on Charlotte's runway for 40 minutes waiting to go to New Bern, according to the stewardess's "I think there were atc delays." Well, DUH! I've got to fly to Jacksonville, FL at the end of the month and am already dreading the trip.
