Mar 10 2007
Conference 1: Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, February 17
One day, three cities:
4:15 a.m. Wake up for real. It’s not that I don’t want to get up, that I don’t want to trek to Albuquerque, but let’s face it: 4:15 is an awful hour at any day, but even more so when you’ve only had a few hours of sleep.
5:30 a.m. Leave for the airport. I’m not entirely sure if I have been caffeinated at this point–I think so, given how long it took me to pack and make myself presentable.
6:00 a.m. Check in for flight after waiting in line nervously, the sign "Check-ins are closed 45 minutes before flight" staring me down and making me nervous. Apparently the sign means nothing, though, as I’m able to check in and then…
6:25 a.m. Leave Austin for Denver, where I’ll be making my connection.
7:40 a.m. (MST) Arrive in Denver, call wife, find gate for next flight–which won’t take off until 9:40–and wait.
8:30 a.m. Isn’t that odd? The monitor behind the gate attendant says the plane won’t leave until 12 noon. I ask the gate attendant what’s going on. She tells me that the plane was damaged last night in a storm–a window was broken–and they can’t leave until it’s fixed. I rush to the customer service area, in another terminal, and wait in line. The line grows behind me quickly as the others from my flight arrive to complain. I inform the customer service agent that a United flight will leave at 11:15–really, the latest I can leave, since my presentation, the whole reason I’m taking this trip, is at 2 p.m. Can she get me in? Well, n0, but she can give me a paper ticket and I can be put on the standby. I rush over to the United gate, again in another terminal, knowing that a crowd looms behind me that threatens to take my place in the standby line. I arrive, but am rebuffed–the Kansas City flight must be boarded before I am to receive attention from the gate attention.
10 a.m. I give my paper ticket to the gate attendant, who wonders aloud why Frontier is giving their passengers these paper tickets when the flight is full. He’ll see what he can do. I endeavor to inform the panel chair of my possible tardiness, first calling 411 for the Doubletree, who says the conference is at the convention center. I call a bewildered security guard, who finds out (I know not the mysterious ways of Albuquerque security guards) that the conference is actually at the Grand Hyatt. No, he can’t direct me there, but he can give me the number. I call the Grand Hyatt. Is there someone I can talk to about the conference? Certainly, I’ll transfer you. I am not here at the moment, but if you need immediate assistance, you can call my assistant. I call the main desk again. Can I speak to the administrative assistant? The administrative assistant answers "Catering, how can I help you?" and I feel that I have been misdirected–but no, I have not. This is indeed the administrative assistant to speak to, and she will certainly put a note on the door to let them know that they can start the panel without me if necessary, that may arrive during the session.
10:45 a.m. I am called by the gate attendant, who hands me a United boarding pass, and I call the wife, estatic that the trip will not be for nought.
11:15 a.m. I take off. Joy, thy name is alternative flights.
12:15 p.m. I still have to make it to the hotel in an hour and fifteen minutes, though. Cab or shuttle? I ask the shuttle clerk how long it will take to get to the Grand Hyatt? Only 15 minutes? Can I be picked up at 3:30 to go back to the airport? I pay the man. Behind me, a party of 10 wait; thankfully, they are also going to the Grand Hyatt. I was first, I proclaim to myself. I will be on the next shuttle. I try to calm myself. I am successful. The shuttle ride is pleasant, if crowded, and I arrive at about 12:45 p.m. Just in time to kill time.
12:45 p.m. Prepare for the panel, prepare for the flight home. I have arrived too late to see any other panels, and the program, which I find laying on one of the tables, notes that I am reading in the last panel of the day. The registration booth is naturally stripped, so I will not receive my tote bag. I toy with the idea of sending an email requesting that my tote bag be sent to me, that I was here but they were not. I think better of it. Once I am refreshed, I print out my boarding pass at the front desk computer to eliminate the stress of waiting in line.
2 p.m. Panel begins. The other papers are on Battlestar Gallactica (one compares BG to 24). They’re all well-argued, and it comforts me that they’re speaking extemporaneously from notes, as I did not write down my presentation verbatim. The presentation goes well, despite some technical difficulties, and I leave satisfied both with it and with its newfound place on my CV (i.e., "Paper presented at…").
3:30 p.m. Wait for shuttle to leave for the airport, which is mercifully painless. I arrive at the airport well in advance of my flight, and I strike up a conversation with a pleasant English psychologist who attends conferences
and writes about film for fun.
5:15 p.m. The plane leaves for Denver. The psychologist and I talk most of the flight about film–good and bad–and about film criticism–good and bad. Fascinating, on the whole. We arrive in Denver about an hour later.
6:30 p.m. I wait. That’s all. I’m fading at this point.
8:30 p.m. Joy, thy name is flight departing on time.
11:30 p.m. (CST) I arrive in Austin, find my car, and drive home.
12:30 a.m. I sleep the sleep of the broke graduate student.
