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July 30, 2007
About the airport
We never lost the airport, just the terminals. And even then not really. We simply got lost trying to figure out which terminal we should be going to. We got to the airport exits on the interstate and they read "Humphrey Terminal Exit 5a", "Lindberg Terminal Exit 5b" or something similar. That was it. NO indication what so ever of which one was which. I've been to lots and lots and lots of airports around the world, never have I been confronted with a choice like that. No indication of which was the international terminal. No indication of which airlines flew out of which terminal. Nothing. So we had to choose. We chose poorly. So we were following signs to the Humphrey terminal (which AirTr*an fly into). That was fine, except it is not possible to return your rental cars from there. Thus the mild panic and widespread confusion.
It slowly began to dawn on me that clearly the Humphrey terminal was not what we wanted, but by that time we were down in the maze of roads that run around an airport. Humphrey terminal reminded me of going to the cargo terminal in Atlanta. Luckily we managed to follow the signs to the Lindberg terminal. Once we got over there it was EASY to follow the signs to rental car return. The best part was calling our rental car agency and asking them which terminal to choose -- they had absolutely no idea.
Oh and the MN airport is actually shaped like a U with the rental car decks in the middle and the entrance/exit at the open end. So when we returned to the airport we followed the following sequence of events:
1) return rental car (3rd floor), take elevator to basement and then take tram 1 stop (there is only one stop) to the basement of the main terminal
2) check bags
3) take tram back to where we came from and take elevator to 2nd floor
4) proceed through security which had absolutely no line...
5) to find food walk all the way back around until directly over place where we checked bags (just 2 floors up).
6) walk rest of way around the terminal to return to our gate.
Clearly this is an airport which can be very friendly if you know where you are going and which gate. If not, good luck.
Posted by kfeigh at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
Background
From Irwin's message it's clear I need to provide more background. First let me just say that unfortunately I have not yet finished (soon, please God). But since it was a possibility that I'd be taking a position either here in academia or elsewhere that it would be good for me to take a post-doc position. The problem with these is that they pay like crap. Less than you'd pay someone with a bachelor's degree.
So when an opportunity came up for me to take an 9-12 month internship, at hon*eywell which was well paid, it was impossible to turn down. Plus the flexibility will allow me to afford both monetarily and time-wise my crazy schedule next year. One little snag was that the position is in Minneapolis. So off I go for 10 months.
Brian and I don't intend to live apart after this, and the decision was rather complicated. I can explain but it is easier in person, so if you are interested just call.
Posted by kfeigh at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)
July 27, 2007
Minneapolis
My mom flew in to town yesterday and we had a whirlwind day of wedding stuff as well some thesis stuff thrown in for good measure. We met with a florist and will probably hire him. We picked out invitations and finalized all the wording. We grabbed Brian upon walking into the apartment to get his opinion on colors and fonts -- things every groom wishes to have say over :) Good progress.
We had a great dinner at La Tavola, one of mom's favorite restaurant. We got up super early this morning and flew up to MN. We had lunch with my new group, who all seem to be doing really interesting stuff. Then it was off to look at apartments. Only one snag. Our brand new Garmin went dead. What happened? Well it turned out our rental car's cigarette lighter wasn't functional so it ran out of battery power while being plugged in. It died on us rather inconveniently -- as I didn't really have a back up plan (or much of a map). I did remember the number for the ring road, and we managed to get back to the airport and exchange the car. It was sporting though as my mom is not normally a good navigator even with good maps, but she did pretty well with a sparse map. The big fun part of the story involves her calling Budget repeatedly to ask for instructions on how to return the car only to be told to follow the signs. However the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport has two different terminals conveniently named Lindberg and Humphrey -- which one do you think was the main terminal. Only one of them actually has signs to the rental car return. Guess which one we chose -- clearly the wrong one. We must have made 3 calls trying to get directions none of them resulted in any useful information other than to "follow the signs." We did eventually find it through process of elimination. Highly amusing.
So tonight we decided to do something simple for dinner. So we walked across the street (literally) to the Fridays. We were in time to take advantage of happy hour -- particularly useful for a hotel within walking distance :) We are both feeling much more mellow now.
More to come.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:09 PM | Comments (3)
July 23, 2007
Juniors
Last night Brian opened a brand-new jug of milk and discovered it was really bad. I think he washed his mouth out 3 times. So that meant no cereal for me this morning. Instead, I decided to grab breakfast at Juniors. It is actually kind of fitting in a way. As I sat there eating this morning I thought about how many times I'd come in for breakfast either before or after a big test. Considering the possible gravity of a meeting I have today at 9:30 in my future career and life it just seemed appropriate to begin the day at Juniors.
And of course very little tangible came of the meeting. Sigh. Closure would be so nice sometimes.
Posted by kfeigh at 08:17 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2007
Harry Potter
Oh, and my copy of Harry Potter is on its way. I checked the waterstone's website last night and it has fully shipped. After I read this one I'll have read all of them in their native language :)
Posted by kfeigh at 10:51 AM | Comments (1)
Committee Meeting
Well I had my committee meeting today to show them what I've done with the last 14 months of my life. Not too bad, but it boils down to just 3 bullet points so it looked a little sad on the slide. The meeting was to give everyone on my committee an opportunity to throw up red flags if there was anything I was doing that they didn't like.
The meeting went well. I've got a great committee. They have tons of good questions, now if only I had answers to all of them. So I can keep doing what I'm doing and hope for the best. Everyone pray that all my little airline peoples write back to me with availability for the end of August! Oh and that the IRB people get back to me soon with only minor revisions.
And that the scenario fairy will come down and bless me with 10 wonderful working scenarios.
Posted by kfeigh at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2007
New Tires
Last weekend I got new tires for the Mazda, aka silver. During the process I also got the standard balance and alignment. In fact thanks to the very nice man at the tire place I actually now have balance and alignment for the life of the car. I didn't really expect much of a difference in the way the car would drive or handle. After all these weren't the top of the line tires (unless they messed up). But boy did it ever make a difference. I'm not sure if it was the tires themselves or just the alignment, but whatever it was the car drives MUCH better. This is particularly true at high speeds where I can now go over 60 without beginning to feel the car cavitate, now silver happily goes over 70 with nary a wobble. We are both much happier now. Silver gets to live up to the Mazda zoom zoom label and I get to keep up with traffic.
Oh, and this weekend is peach weekend. I made my annual peach cobbler -- it looks great. We'll eat it tonight. Plus I lucked out and got some free stone peaches so making was much less of a wrestling match than last year.
Posted by kfeigh at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2007
Arg
My code is broken/not done, the coop office is being its usual self. I want to cry. More later.
So after a few more emails I am a registered coop student after almost 10 years of enrollment. Personally I find this kind of funny. But ready or not I'm committed now.
Posted by kfeigh at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2007
Weekend with the extended family
Last weekend Brian and I went to visit his parents. Brian had a dentist appointment on Monday and I needed to pump his mother for information about addresses for wedding stuff. So off we went. It was a nice weekend, but I think I got a little too much fresh air and pollen because my sinuses have been throbbing since Sunday. I think it is grass pollen -- very annoying. I woke up so dizzy yesterday morning that I almost fell into the bathtub and then had to go drop myself back on my bed, where I prayed the world would stop spinning. Since that lovely incident I've been chugging water and maintaining a steady diet of sudafed and motrin. My head still hurts in between doses though, so right now I'd like to lop off the left side of my face.
In other news the coding is coming a long and fast approaching the drop dead date. Everyone send good coding karma my way.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2007
Who'd have guessed it
Here it is the 3rd of July and the high temperature of the day is forecast to be 81 degrees. Who'd have guessed it. I'm betting Sarah is really wishing she was running this year's Peachtree. Strange, strange weather.
Posted by kfeigh at 08:51 AM | Comments (1)