'nuff said!

Somewhere in Bloomsburg, PA, there is this street.

A nice medium sized airport

 I have flown into Chicago Midway many times. My usual journey to the midwest would be flying into MDW, and then driving a rental southward about a hundred lonely and dark miles on the I65 (mostly night flights) to West Lafayette, Indiana - a delightful wee college town. Not as delightful as Ann Arbor, obviously - but it does have its charms.

The thing is, life and times change and I now have no more occasion to make that particular journey. Future travels are likely going to take me through the mountains of Central Pennsylvania, through the understated, yet very cool Lehigh Tunnel and suchlike. However, I find myself retaining a certain fondness for Midway. The city of Chicago itself - I like a lot. But the Midway airport - well, it is a tad unfashionable to speak of an airport such - especially not one as beautiful and resplendent as Singapore or Dubai. But Midway is special.

For one thing, this airport (operational since the 1920s) was renamed in 1949 after the epic Battle of Midway in WWII, where US carrier battle groups dealt a crushing blow to the Imperial Japanese Navy. This airport has been through several ups and downs. The somewhat seedy neighbourhood doesn't help too much, however the location is quite central.

So, here are a couple of pictures. One of a US Navy WWII warplane. Also, I noticed that instead of murals and advertisements, Midway airport has chosen to decorate its walls with images from scientific institutions in Chicagoland. Microscope images, fossils and so on. Says a lot about the city.

Steaks and engines

We grabbed some ribs and wings from this place called Steak and Lube. Odd, I know. An auto workshop themed red meat joint? What could possibly be more 'Murican? Anyhoo, the ribs were merely ok, though the wings were rather nice. See, down in T-land, them ribs are usually prepped to a high standard indeed. So, high expectations and all that. The decor inside though was something else. They had a tractor mounted on rails above the checkout/welcome desk. And what appeared to be the business end of a winged sprint car sticking out of the wall. All very cool.

Spotted in town - a 1972 Chevelle SS

The 1972 Chevelle SS was one of many muscle car designs that had the same-ish proportions. A long bonnet, frequently seen flexing its biceps, a dickey that stood high and a tapered swooping fastback like roofline. This particular example is a nice one, seems like someone cares for it. I particularly like the way no B-pillar mars the contours of the side and that distinctive prow of a nose.Sure, it is an anachronism, but what a pretty one at that!

Spotted in Bloomsburg, PA somewhere on the outskirts of town.

Renting a car from Philly airport

I arrived on Thursday night, around 11 pm. There were two clerks on duty and 3 (or 4) kiosks for computer based reservation assisted by an agent at long distance. Only 1 of the kiosks was working. My reservation was through Hotwire and it was for a Standard car. The agent provided me with a Chevy Malibu. The Chevy website calls a Malibu a mid-size sedan. As I understand these designations, a Corolla is a compact, a Camry is a standard and an Avalon is a full size. So where does Hertz place a Malibu on this ladder? Apparently it is a full size. Which is obviously a joke. In their parlance, a 2 door Nissan Altima is a standard size. What the heck?

So, I picked up the car, exited the parking lot and within a couple of miles became aware that there was something wrong either with the rear wheel alignment or the wheel itself was deformed. A distinct bump-roll-bump motion was evident. I took it back in. The counter was closing, but I managed to find the manager on duty. He drove the car around the parking lot, pronounced it fine and told me to take it or be downgraded to a 2-door Altima. Now I needed the space, so I took it. Big mistake.

I drove 4 hours out of Philly, feeling that bump-roll-bump get steadily worse. Thankfully (and I can't believe I am saying this) construction crews had shut off one lane of significant sections of I476/I81 and reduced the speed to a manageable 55 mph. So while this extended my travel time, it probably prevented the wheel from falling off.

Since I was driving to a small rural town in Central Pennsylvania and would have no spare time once there, I didn't change the car or call Hertz.

I returned the car to Hertz on Wednesday midday. The manager on duty was Rich. I expressed my unhappiness to him - he gave me a couple of coupons for later use and found a driver to get me to the terminal pronto. So, I do appreciate the service from Rich - he seemed like a nice and professional person. But I have to say that the manager on duty the previous Thursday should have been more accommodating.

The problem I had was a safety issue and to not attend to such matters promptly makes for a horrible customer experience. If I do have to rent from Hertz again and such a thing happens, I am going to stand my ground and insist on a suitable change of car.

This is all a giant experiment, right?

Some wit on the internet made fun of the fact that people apparently lost it during a Facebook outage recently and called 911 emergency. Specifically, he said something about new mothers wandering down the streets asking people if their babies were pretty and to "like" them. The hysterical laughter masks a deep disquietude.

We all like our shiny devices and we love using them in the eternal game of societal oneupmanship ("checking in" to a swanky club, or Gawdhelpus, even an airport first-class lounge). However, given the magnitude of time and money dropped on these things, a long, hard, cynical look is called for. 

Consider most Pharmville games and their clones. Repetitive tasks, which somehow get you addicted and then you start paying for the privilege of watching fake crops grow or something (I have never played it). Then there is the game from Kardashialand. This appears to have taken the appstores by storm and is projected to gather 200 million$ of revenue this year. To put things in perspective, that is what about 10,000 students will pay for instate tuition at major US universities. That is about 100 top of the line NIH grants awarded to only the best and brightest principal investigators in the life sciences. That is two and a half times what India has spent on its Mars orbiter mission.

I am trying to find meaning in this. There has to be a reason why intelligent young adults, many of them burdened by crushing student loans, in an economy perennially stuck in the doldrums choose to throw their hard earned money at such distractions. I mean, this must be the Golden Age for those of short attention spans. An entire Netflix is at your command for the price of 3 or 4 cups of coffee a month. You can immerse yourself in intricate strategy games, or shoot em up with Master Chief. But you choose to crush candies while on the thunderbox.

Mayhaps this is all a giant social science experiment. When we peel away the layers of coders and celebrity endorsed inanities, perhaps there are a bunch of PhDs standing behind, collecting and analyzing the data*. And making you pay for it. That would be delightfully meta.

*Our man Nandi introduced me to the OkCupid blog a long time ago.