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AirTran travel fail

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that the more flying I do, the more annoyed with it I get. This weekend was no exception.

Seriously, if you’re flying AirTran out of LAS (Las Vegas) and either haven’t done online check-in the night before or have bags to check, make sure you show up at the airport at least 3 hours before your flight. 4 hours would probably be better.

My 3 day excursion to Vegas was a lot of fun until it came time to leave. Not in a “sad to leave fun Vegas” sort of way, but in a painful “3 hour wait in line to check in at the airport for a flight that’s delayed 2 hours” kind of way. AirTran has no check-in kiosks at their desk, so you’re back in the 80s waiting in line to check in. If you’re checking luggage, you have to wait in line anyway. It’s a pretty long line. The only reason I didn’t miss my flight out of Vegas was because the in-bound flight was delayed. To be fair, I believe the Las Vegas airport has some generic check-in kiosks that I could have used, but it wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyway with the delayed flight. I still ended up missing the connecting flight back to CHS, but fortunately the delay was caused by mechanical problems with the plane so AirTran put me up in a hotel in ATL to wait for the flight out the next day.

Leaving ATL was only a little less painful. Between two gate changes and the plane the flight crew was on being delayed by weather, my flight was only about an hour late getting off the ground. I think I finally made it into Charleston about 14 hours after I was supposed to have arrived.

Ugh. Maybe I’m just getting crotchety in my old age, but I’m really starting to dislike flying. A lot.

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Sea turtle release: DeBordieu

From the SC Aquarium‘s turtle lady:

I have exciting news to share! Recent findings of DeBordieu, 320-pound adult female loggerhead of the Aquarium’s Turtle Hospital since October 2007, have caused us to make some quick decisions concerning her release. DeBordieu is currently producing follicles (yolks) in preparation for the nesting season that is just around the corner. Just in the last week, she has gone into migratory mode with almost constant swimming. She is also completely refusing food. I have just learned that adult female loggerheads have a very small window of mating receptivity. Before and after the small window, the females actually repulse the males. In light of this information, it is very important that DeBordieu get released as soon as possible so that she does not miss that mating window. Mating will allow her to fertilize the follicles and ultimately lead to a productive nesting season. Current water temperatures are in a safe range, especially for an adult animal of Deb’s size.

DeBordieu will be released on Saturday, May 2nd at the Isle of Palms (IOP) County Park at 10am. I hope that you will be able to join us for this release, even with the short notice. The IOP County Park parking lot opens at 9am and parking fees will apply. An extra day will be added to the hospital tour schedule this week so folks can get a chance to see Deb before the Saturday morning release (Wednesday, Thursday or Friday at 1pm). Including Deb, there are currently 9 patients in the Turtle Hospital. Tour information can be found on the Aquariums website at www.scaquarium.org.

The release will be wonderfully timed with the start of sea turtle season in South Carolina. The majority of SC barrier island light’s out ordinances start May 1 and loggerhead nesting begins soon after.

You can keep up with what’s going on with the SC Aquarium‘s Sea Turtle Rescue on their blog.

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CREATESouth fun

Had a great time at CREATESouth today. There were some excellent keynote talks given by Tiffany Trent on creativity and writing, and Tee Morris on the “social” in social media.

The keynotes were followed by a delicious BBQ lunch prepared by Andre Pope

Andre Pope chopping up BBQ pork
BBQ lunch

Following lunch were the breakout sessions, organised into 4 different tracks: Community, Writing, Media and Art. I started off with the Writing track and Marsha Guerard’s talk on editing, which I quite enjoyed.

Then popped over to the Community track to catch Chuck‘s talk about organizing groups using Meetup.com and Jared‘s meme talk.

Caught part of Kreg Steppe’s presentation on digital photography where he talked about what’s ok and not ok to photograph, and Creative Commons licensing. A very informative session. Wish I had made it in earlier to catch the first part of his talk.

The final session of the day was the discussion panel in the Community track about geographic communities. There was a pretty good discussion about how the media was starting to use Twitter and some of the benefits and challenges in getting meetups going so that people participating in social media can get together and meet in person.

Community track discussion panel

Overall I had a great time at CREATESouth, meeting and putting faces/voices to more people, and came back a little more refreshed and energized than when I went.

The rest of my CREATESouth photos can be found in my photo gallery and on Picasaweb.

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CREATESouth checklist

  • Freshly charged battery for camera – check
  • Freshly charged spare battery – check
  • Lowcountry bloggers shirt – check
  • 5:30AM alarm – check
  • Map to Ian’s – check

Think I’m all set.

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Acoustic treat

A mostly free evening finally coincided with an installment of the Palmetto Acoustic Series at Muddy Waters Coffee Bar so I headed out there and met up with Ian, Kathy and Heidi for what turned out to be an evening full of some very good folksy music. I think I enjoyed the performance by the Barnard Sisters most. They had a fun folksy style that just makes you want to smile. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Hopefully I’ll have more free evenings that coincide with future installments of the series.