After landing at one end of Newark Liberty Airport, [EWR], and finding we need to go to… the Other End of the terminal for Gate C121. And… of course Dragon Chick wants to stroll and window shop.. Unh Uh we need to hustle and find the gate first so we know what our time issues will be.Once ALL THE WAY over there… we find a Starbucks to hook up, charge the batteries, and load the wireless driver…or so we thought…
“Terry, Ok… now walk me through this so I don’t screw it up. It took 25 minutes at 64kb to download this file.”
“Ok, find the file on the thumb drive, extract it, and find the setup file.
“Its not loading… got a screen “Intel Wireless can’t install, says there is no hardware”
“What… flip the ‘puter over and give me the DELL key tag number”
With that in hand, he'll call me back.
In the meantime I try a different install method… no go.
“Chuck, we got another problem," he says on call back, “we downloaded the wrong driver. You don’t have an Intel adapter, it’s a DELL adapter. We need to download a DELL driver and guess what… If access there is as slow as FLL you're gonna really love this one… its 96Megs! Now, is there anyone around with a laptop again?”
“Of course not.” I tell Terry I'll call once we find solution at our end and of course… it’s coming up on time to board the flight to Rome.
After several queries in the area for access; one finally tells me there’s a Wireless Shop… where you ask… back the way we came in, by gate A-82…at the OTHER END OF THE TERMINAL… of course!!!
I grab the laptop, carryon’s and Illy, and we run [no REALLY… RUN] to gate A82…
50 minutes to departure.
At the wireless shop, Asst. Manager Richard tells me,
“We don’t have direct access, we piggy back the terminal system, and we can’t download on our business system.”
Say WHAT!!! …
40 minutes to departure
With a little Chuckie silver tongue [and a lot of whining] Rich concedes to try his personal laptop. After 4 attempts he finally gets the terminal signal which of course IS AS SLOW AS FLL...
35 minutes to departure.
Without the blow by blow again, but with all the stuff running on Rich’s laptop and the slow WiFi, it comes up on 20 minutes to make it back to C121 and only 60meg of the 96 meg file downloaded… which we still have to copy to the thumb drive, ‘cause, "computer whiz" Asst Manager Rich… sent it to his desktop instead of directly to the thumb drive.
Hey… wait; this is a Wireless Accessory Outlet!
“Rich, do you have any USB wireless adapters?”
“Nope, we used to but they discontinued them.”
“How about PCMC somethin’ or other card,” I ask showing him the slot on the side. [Quit groaning Terry]
“Yeah, we got that over here… ooooppps… sold out.”
This just keep getting’ better ‘n’ better!!!
The PA system blares, “last call for flight 40 to Rome at Gate C121…”.
We abort the download, grab the thumb drive, hug Rich, promise to immortalize him too, and Haul Ass weaving through the crowd of people back to C121… arriving at the gate literally out of breathe we find… the Jet way door closed but a kindly attendant, who took pity on our haggard look and “Wrong Terminal” excuse, checked our passports and sent us onto Flight 40 to Rome, which… was backed up at the cabin door.
Finding someone in our seats, we negotiate some swaps putting us across the aisle from each other instead of someone between us. It seems that half this section has swapped seats.
And….of course it’s a sold out flight, we’re in the back and there’s no overhead space left… or so the smirking early arrivers say.
Hey, it’s Chuckie…Expert Packer of Bulging Suitcases! After checking around, I find space for the camera case here… coats there, and the rolling ‘puter case right over my head.
The Good News: there’s an AC outlet at my seat to document the chaos.
The Bad News: I'll have to scramble Friday in Rome for a Wireless solution before boarding the ship Saturday.
As we pull away from the gate and halfway to take off... the engines shut down.
“This is your Captain speaking… no need for alarm, we just shut off the engines to conserve fuel. SAY WHAT?!?!?…. How the hell do you get to Rome with the engines off to conserve fuel?!?
”Because,” he continues after the collective gasp in our area, “we’re #26 in line for take off. No worry’s we'll still get to Rome on time, and thanks for your patience.”
An hour after scheduled departure, we fire up the gas guzzlers and we’re off to Rome.
Once in the air, dinner is served [Chicken Cacciatore or Lasagna… So, So… well it is a flight to Rome] but the Beer is good; expensive… but good.
As everyone settles in for our 8 hour nap… I wonder:
Sheeesh… and this only started 18 hours ago… what’s next?!?
Yeah…it just keeps gettin’ better ‘n’ better
Ciao 4 Now,
Chuck and the grinning while playing games on her personal flat screen, Dragon Lady
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