Description
I don't usually write about my personal life, mainly because nobody cares. But enough interesting stuff happened on a recent trip that I decided to write it up.
The circumstances are needed to add some perspective; I'm from Long Island and moved to Fort Lauderdale 6 years ago and I still have some ties up there that I've been shedding little by little. My parents have both passed in the last 3 years, so the current goal is to completely leave the land of rogue cops and corruption behind in the near future.
I usually plan my trips up north in May or September, which are the only months that the weather has some high chance of being good. In this case, my last employee (finally) found another job, but somehow didn't think it was necessary to give enough notice to properly clear out the office that I kept just so that he could have a job. So I had to fly up to clear out and close the office on short notice. I decided that I had no interest in hanging out on Long Island, so I made plans to fly up on Monday and fly back on Tuesday; I'd pull an all-nighter if necessary and catch up on my sleep when I got back. The only practical schedule had me arriving at Islip airport at 1:30pm on Monday and Heading back to Fort Lauderdale on the 1:55PM flight on Tuesday.
Parking At the Airport
I've never parked at the airport before; The break even point on daily parking is 3.1 days, and I rarely take a 2 day trip, much less a 1 day. The car service I use costs me $70 plus tip round trip, but it reduces the hassle and it's nice to be picked up at the airport. But for a 1 day trip, parking would only cost $30 (or so I thought), as they clearly say that it's $15 MAXIMUM per day.
Southwest flys out of Terminal B, so you really want to be in the Cypress Garage, which will put you right into the rental car center close to the security check-in point. Of course this garage is a PIA, as the entrance for public parking is in the Hibiscus Garage. So you have to go all the way up to the level 9 (the roof) and then you can get over to Cypress. I parked on level 7.
When I got out of the car I realized that they didn't have any markers in this area, so I feared that I'd forget where the car was parked. I wasn't far from the terminal entrance, so I didn't worry too much about it. It turned out that my fears would come to fruition.
Fort Lauderdale Airport (FLL) is great; it's a much more likely target than Islip (ISP) yet in Islip you feel like you're in Israel or something. I zipped through security and passed the long, long line at the Dunkin Donuts up front and headed to the kiosk in the back of the airport. You can't get a freshly toasted bagel at this one, but I was just getting some coffee. One thing about a 10:30am flight is that I'd already had 2 cups of coffee at home.
One of the funnier things in South Florida is "Chef Allen", a self-appointed culinary legend who builds his "brand" giving away french fries at local events like the Burger Battle. The Dunkin Donut kiosk has sandwiches made by the great chef that you can buy for $8.50. Key Lime Tuna. Yum.
If you haven't been to the airport in a while, you'll be excited to find out the the Cruzan Rum Bar has been taken over by Pasha's; it's largely the same thing with a different sign. You can now order from Pasha's from the bar; I ate there once and never will again.
The flight was actually quite pleasant; no screaming babies. The plane was full but a skinny kid sat in the middle seat so it was fairly comfortable. Southwest is currently offering free TV on the flights, so I was able to watch CNBC to keep myself occupied and informed. They only have a handful of stations so don't expect to watch your favorite soap opera; it ain't happening.
I don't like to take pictures on planes so we'll just fast forward; I got my rental car and headed west to my office in Melville. The first South Floridy sort of thing I noticed is that Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza is opening a location right at the airport entrance on Veteran's highway.
It was 23 degrees when I got off the plane, which is just fantastic.
It was 2pm and time for lunch, so I'd planned on picking up a pizza on my way in; it would serve as my fuel for a day of lugging outdated computer equipment out to the dumpster. My favorite pizza place just happens to be on the way; just hang a right at Hauppauge High School and you're there.
This was definitely my first time at the Branch during daylight hours. Maybe in the summer when it wasn't quite dark yet, but pizza is a late night thing for me. No matter. It tastes just as good for lunch.
I got to the office and to my horror I discovered that my ex employee, who I directed to throw out everything that had no obvious value, had done nothing. I had a lot of work to do. Luckily I had the pizza.
For those of you who've never left South Florida and who don't know what a real pizza looks like, this is it. 18", kind of wobbly with some bubbles in the crust, lots of sauce, cheese and sausage. $17.25 and worth every penny.
I spent the day lugging stuff out to the dumpster and doing a bit of reminiscing; It was sort of like going through grandma's attic and finding stuff you haven't seen in ages. By the evening is was 18 degrees out, and I discovered that the zipper on my coat was broken; I probably hadn't worn it in 3 years. Just Fantastic.
I was kind of beat by 9pm so I figured I'd take a break and watch some Monday Night Football. There's a place on route 110 that has a different name every time I'm back in town; it was Kodiak Sports Bar last time and now it's the Main Event. Typical Long Island; a big place with no people during the week in the winter. Jewish and Italian chicks behind the bar.
I ordered up some grilled wings; one of the tricks on LI is that they give you a little thimble of blue cheese for the wings and charge you $1 extra for more. I made due with what they gave me.
Pretty good wings. I couldn't really drink as I had a long night ahead of me; half a beer and that would do it. I left at halftime, and there were about 12 people left in the place.
Yada, yada, yada. Packing, off to Fed Ex, countless dumpster runs. Of course it started snowing at about 6AM. Good thing I had a good hand truck. Amazingly enough, even working all night I didn't have time to finish up. It was time to head to the airport. I didn't know what the roads would be like, so I needed to give myself some extra time.
I dropped off the car; it took the guy like 10 minutes to process my car. Meanwhile, I had a 1/4" of snow on my head.
Islip "MacArthur" airport is pretty small with only 2 airlines flying out of it; you walk though a big, empty airport that has more cops than people, and then you see all of the people on line. Something new (and just fantastic) is that they have a new body scanner that EVERYONE gets to go through. That's right, no more targeting. Everyone gets a full body scan. It's one of these new radio wave machines which are supposedly marginally less dangerous than X-Rays.
Luckily I didn't stuff any contraband in my pocket which I'll occasionally do. These are the same travelers who fly through security in Fort Lauderdale, and what kind of security threat is a crumby airport on Long Island with hardly any people?
Anyway, the OK sign came on so I was through; off to the gate to wait. I thought it was kind of funny that the unions broke out the heavy equipment to clean up the tiny bit of snow on the ground.
The flight back was the opposite of the first. A nice young couple sat next to me so that was fine, but the kid count was out of control. Kids were everywhere, screaming, hanging over the seats, jumping up and down. What was interesting was that the only baby slept calmly for the entire trip. No crying, but lots of screaming from the 4yos.
Now I hadn't slept in 32 hours and I didn't want to fall asleep on the plane because I thought I'd fall so fast asleep that they might not be able to wake me. We landed a bit late, and I made a bee line for the garage.
Quick Pay is a Ripoff
When you enter the parking garage they give you a ticket, and they encourage you to use the Quick Pay machines so you don't have to pay at the gate. DON"T DO IT. Quick pay is a rip off. A scheme. A trick.
I paid the $30 for 2 days (actually only 30 hours) and headed for my car. Now after 36 hours awake you become a tad disoriented, and I made a wrong turn. I walked up and down and couldn't recognize anything that I recalled from where I parked my car. I actually had to go back down to the rental car area to take the exact same elevator where I got off; at that point I recognized the area and found the car. It took about 20 minutes. To get out of the garage, you have to follow all of the arrows around the garage and down all kinds of ramps; and then wait on line behind a bunch of cars, even if you've paid in advance (because everyone else has paid in advance also, and you still have to present the ticket). There's a Haitian dude at the ticket machine who can't do anything other than put the ticket in for you. It comes out and says I owe $3. Say what? I paid $30 for 2 days and its only 30 hours after I got there, but no matter. It's $3 more. Nothing the Haitian dude could do; brains aren't involved in the process.
The scam is that you have 15 minutes from when you punch the card to get out of the garage. So if you can't find your car, or you make a couple of calls, or you have a flat tire, or you run into a friend and chat, it's going to cost you an extra $3. It probably takes 10 minutes if everything goes perfectly. It's just stupid.
This is simply Broward County ripping off its citizens; a bunch of old farts on some board thinking up ways to rip off the public to make a few extra pennies to fund their inefficient way of doing things. It's why we hate government.
There is ZERO benefit to Quick Pay . Just Don't Do It.
There you have it. Ain't traveling great?