Category: Advice

Airport Confusion

Advice, Funny Stuff

This article (via Insty, as usual) made me chuckle.

Having three airports in Washington is great. Until you go to the wrong one.

Having a super-abundance of airports is considered a big-city perk in Washington, as in New York, London and other major hubs. But with greater choice comes a greater chance that you will find yourself at, say, National Airport while your flight is boarding at one of the other two, Washington Dulles International or Baltimore-Washington International Marshall.
…
Online search engines are making the confusion worse. Shoppers using the airport code WAS often get a mix-and-match low-fare flight that sends them out via one airport and returns them to another. Cars get stranded and, sometimes, so do fliers.
“We see people getting deals on the Internet and having no idea that DCA and IAD are two different airports 35 miles apart.”

That hasn’t happened to me, yet, with our Dallas-Fort Worth and Love Field airports, but it’s only a question of time. Their airport codes are DFW and DAL respectively, so there are any number of possibilities for someone to screw up eventually. And even though they’re relatively close together — 20 miles or so — the highways connecting them are among the busiest in the U.S. even without any road construction: and there’s always some construction going on somewhere.

With DFW, you absolutely have to have the correct terminal information — the gate number within the terminal is helpful, but you can get by without too much hassle if you don’t. I did have one airhead woman from New York ask me to take her to DFW, and when I asked her which terminal — sometimes that will determine whether you take the North or South entrances to the airport, even — she said brightly, “Oh, just drop me off anywhere in the airport; I’ll figure it out.”

Now let’s be honest: Evil Kim might just have dumped her at Terminal E (the most remote and also least-patronized of the terminals) and gone on his merry way, but this time the old rascal stayed in the background while I explained to Miss Upper East Side that this wasn’t LaGuardia (which is small because it’s squeezed into an island and against the sea), there is no pedestrian connection between terminals, and it could take her up to a quarter of an hour to get from one terminal to another at the far end of the place, if the inter-terminal rail- or bus service was working at its maximum efficiency. (Frequent visitors to DFW can stop laughing, now.)

And she had a large suitcase and carry-on bag. I could have sold tickets just for the entertainment value. Anyway, she looked it up and lo! Terminal A. So all ended well.

I myself have made the mistake (in my private, non-Uber capacity) of going to pick up people at DFW when they were in fact coming into Love Field — and only my memory saved it from being a total disaster, when I remembered, too late, that Virgin Atlantic doesn’t fly into DFW, only into Love Field. (They were relatives, so I didn’t get spit-roasted or impaled on a spike.) That said, I did make it from DFW to Love in record time…

One last funny story about the Dallas airports. Last week I arrived at a near-downtown hotel to pick up an older woman, and asked, “Love?” whereupon she smiled and said, “Maybe. You offering?”

I haven’t blushed like that since I was a teenager.

Afterthought for my International Readers:  if you’re arriving in DFW and flying on to another U.S. destination, always make sure that you flying into DFW and out of DFW (and not out of DAL). Also, when you book your ticket into DFW, make sure that your outbound flight is at least three hours after your scheduled arrival, because while international flights all land in Terminal D, your connecting flight can leave from just about any terminal in the airport. And you have to go through Immigration (a long wait), get your luggage off the carousel (an even longer wait) and then stand in a long line to re-check it for the domestic flight. Also, DFW has some of the worst signage of any Western international airport I’ve ever flown through, and their public “service” announcements in Baggage Claim usually sound as though someone’s gargling raw eggs through a fast-revolving tennis racquet, delivered (usually) by someone who sounds retarded, speaking with an incomprehensible Hispanic- or Ebonics accent because diversity.

My advice is to connect through Atlanta’s Hartsfield (ATL), as long as you know that Delta flies into both DFW and Love Field. I hope this helped.

“Dear Dr. Kim”

Advice

“Dear Dr. Kim:

“What do I do?” — #MillennialProblems

Dear Problems,
Switch to Cascade. FFS, can’t your generation figure out anything for yourselves?

–Dr. Kim

Looks like I’m not the only one who is enraptured by this new Millennial activity. Try this comment (marked with the red arrow):

The Old Argument

Advice, The Gun Thing

From Comments in yesterday’s post about the CMP 1911s, Longtime Friend & Reader Vonz saith:

Certainly, I love the 45 ACP quite a bit and have one (not a 1911 though, which are good but I think there are better options, at least for me).
What is with the hate on 9mm though? It is a great round as well (I have one of them too). It has different advantages and disadvantages, but that is why it makes sense to own both or at least to have as options for different people.
Why does, “I like this” have to morph into “everything else sucks”? It is not an attitude that makes any sense to me.

As with computers (Apple vs. Windows), cars (Ford vs. GM), guns (Colt vs. S&W), cameras (Pentax vs. Canon), etc. etc. etc., I think it’s all an ego thing.

The “bullet wars” probably started when some prehistoric hunters were arguing about the optimal size stone to use in their slings, and the stupid argument has persisted to this day because we guys are always searching for the “magic bullet” [sic] in all our endeavors.

As much as I make fun of the 9mm Europellet, it’s really all about the bullet itself: the typical 9mm FMJ projectile is (I believe) only slightly better than marginal as a self-defense option (and I actually have some personal experience to support that thesis); but put some more-recent technology (jacketed hollowpoints etc.) into the 9mm Para casing, and it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.

I would have absolutely no problem carrying a Browning Hi-Power instead of the 1911, for example, as long as the 9mm bullets themselves were of the Hydra-Shok / SXT / Gold Dot / XTP / etc. genus. In fact, given that with the onset of age-related arthritis, my beloved Springfield 1911 is starting to really beat my wrist up, I can actually see a time in the near future when I might make that swap.

So nobody should take me too seriously when I slag off choices that people make. A lot of the time I’m just stirring the pot for fun, but underneath there lies a sound reason for it: if I question someone’s choice or action, they are forced to defend their position which means they have to think about the topic — and their rationale might even make me reevaluate my position, if it’s sounder than mine.

Good luck with that, though. Most of my opinions have been formed over many years of thought, contemplation and study, not to mention personal- or third-party experience. But it’s a stupid man who doesn’t listen to a sound, reasoned argument, and I’m not that stupid.

Just don’t try to convince me that Communism is a preferable system to free-market capitalism; scorn will follow in gargantuan quantities.

“Dear Dr. Kim”

Advice

“Dear Doctor Kim,
Is it OK to use a coupon when I take my girlfriend on a date? What about taking home leftovers?”
— Wondering in the West

Dear Blundering:
I suspect that you’re nervous about being called a cheapskate, but never fear: I have several ways through this minefield.

The only ironclad rule about coupons is: never ever use a coupon on a first date. I shouldn’t have to explain this.
On other occasions, however, whether or not to use restaurant coupons depends on a few factors.
1.) What restaurant are we talking about? If it’s McDonald’s or similar dreck, who cares? (The question in this case is: what kind of man takes his girlfriend to a hellhole like that in the first place?) If it’s Morton’s or Lawry’s, however, she should appreciate being taken there at all, so use that coupon at will.
2.) At what stage are you in terms of your relationship? If it’s still in its first bloom, you may want to hold onto the coupon for a while — once you’re settled, she won’t mind because (and I can hear the feministicals wailing already) less money spent at the restaurant means more money to be spent on her.
The only thing you have to avoid is not going to any restaurant on a date unless you have a coupon — it’s the infallible mark of a terminal cheapskate, and unless your girlfriend is of a similar bent, stand by for trouble.

As for leftovers: it depends completely on the food, the portion sizes, or whose food it is.
1.) No grown human being should take home leftover fast food, of any description.
2.) If the portion sizes are of New Jersey Diner Quantity (i.e. beyond the ability of anyone not Jewish or Italian to finish in a single sitting), then go ahead: there’s no shame in it.
3.) And regardless of portion size, if it’s her food we’re talking about and she wasn’t able to finish it but enjoyed it immensely, offering to take it home is going to be well received.

By the way: attempting to take home leftovers from an all-you-can-eat buffet joint should be punishable by scourging. There are limits.

–Dr. Kim

New Jersey Bastardy

Advice, Behind Enemy Lines, The Gun Thing, Travels

From Reader Mark D in Comments yesterday:

On the topic of suppressors, I’ve been saying for a while that I want to move from New Jersey to America, but I NEVER thought America would be found in Great Britain…

Don’t even get me started. On Saturday last, we got a text from Doc Russia in Newark Airport, while he was flying Edinburgh – Newark – DFW:

Fun fact: going through Newark with a federally-licensed suppressor will end up with you face-down on the ground, handcuffed.

Here’s the deal. Doc has a legal suppressor for his Remington, all the paperwork done, tax paid, blessed by the Pope, yadda yadda yadda. He was about to pack it in his rifle case to bring home, when both Combat Controller and I suggested that he shouldn’t, because New Jersey. He laughed it off, saying his luggage was checked through to DFW — but agreed that discretion was called for, and that he could bring it back another time when flying direct from Britishland to Dallas.

It’s a good thing he did. Here’s why.

As we all know, when arriving in a foreign country, you have to go through Customs and Immigration in your arrival “port”, even if you’re connecting to go further. Now, if your connecting flight is from the same terminal, you’re good to go. If you have to go to another terminal for your connecting flight, things might get more tricky.

As is the case here. Suppressors are completely banned in New Jersey — no federal blessing counts, no paperwork is acceptable. Set foot in the state of New Jersey with a suppressor, no matter how legal, and you will end up face-down on the ground, handcuffed.

So had Doc arrived in Newark with his suppressor and left the international terminal, the NJ State Police would have arrested him, even though he was simply in transit — going from one jurisdiction where suppressors are legal to another where it’s also legal — the very fact that he was in New Jersey at all with his suppressor, albeit only for a few minutes, would have made him an instant felon.

And we know all this because Doc happened to ask a member of New Jersey’s Staatspolizei what their policy is. Apparently the offizier got instantly aggro, and insisted on checking Doc’s luggage for himself — just asking the question is grounds for suspicion in the New Jersey Reich.

I’m curious as to how many other states would behave the same way. I can see New York and California doing likewise, but if anyone can shed light on this topic, I’d like to know.

In the interim, all New Jersey People Of Our Sort should make preparations to leave that shitty place and move to the United States as soon as it’s practically feasible. Like I once did.