So here I am sitting in the “lovely” Oakland International Airport waiting to board my flight. I’ve done A LOT of traveling in the last 6 years or so, and as a result I kind of consider myself a bit of an airport connoisseur. With that in mind, I’ve got to say that I’m not the least bit impressed with Oakland… Actually, I’m thinking that it’s pretty close to a dump… They tried, it looks like the local airport authority really tried to pretty the place up, but it’s really not that nice an airport at all.
Now, I understand that this is probably one of the busiest days to fly this year considering that this is the last weekday before Christmas, but this place is a mess… For starters, it took me 20 minutes once I got on to airport property to get to the parking lot, traffic was that bad. Once I got into the parking lot I realized that a) I didn’t know exactly how to get from the parking lot to the terminal, and b) of the two terminals, I didn’t know what terminal my airline departed from… Figuring this out would have been much easier if there were signs! There wasn’t a single sign in the parking lot that indicated how a passenger was supposed to get out of the lot… lots of walls and barriers, but no signs.
So after a bit of wandering I finally stagger out of the parking lot and over to the terminal, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s no directory either that might be used to direct us poor schlubs coming from the daily lot over to the airline check in we might need… Luckily I picked the right terminal.
Two things that went very well, check-in with no waiting at all and security which had a HUGE Disneyesque maze to get to security, but no wait at all.
The concourse however is an absolute zoo. The few beverage locations had long lines and there’s trash everywhere…
I’m a big fan of public WiFi, especially free public WiFi and I salute those airports that offer free WiFi. However, I can also sympathize with those airports that charge for WiFi access, but it would be nice if they told me what the charge was BEFORE I go through the effort to unpack my laptop maybe scout out a rare power outlet, boot up my computer, connect to the access point, launch my browser and discover that the WiFi provider wants $9.95 for 24 hours of access! So, I’m writing this offline and it’ll get posted after I arrive at my destination.
Then there’s the tool sitting across from me in the waiting area who’s apparently very proud of the Motorola Razr phone he just got and therefore feels the need to serenade the entire waiting area with the full range of ring tones that came pre-loaded on the phone… Yes, pal even though I’m staring at the ceiling when I write this, I’m witting about YOU, and I’ve got news for you Razr’s are so last year, nobody cares about the ringtone on your phone, I’ve got a significantly COOLER phone than you anyway. BTW, I think your herd went THAT WAY!!!! Maybe I should whip out my phone and start watching the TV back at the house using the Slingbox. Then again, I’m not really looking to assert my dominance as an Alpha Geek.
Now I’m going to sit back and watch the lovely crowd headed to Greyhound Airways Southwest. That’s got to be good for some entertainment… and heck there goes somebody who they had to have charged for a second seat!
Why yes, I am tired and grumpy, why do you ask?
