Day 7 – Upper West Side, New York, NY and Denver, Colorado, 8 April 2005 Was awoken by my alarm at 4am, as planned, and a 4:15 call from my mom, also planned, to make sure I was up and about for the trip to the conference. Supershuttle arrived, as expected, at 4:45am – and the shuttle was already pretty full; I was surprised at that – and I was carted off to La Guardia for the United Flight 1183 to Denver. It seemed the weather had broken again and I left New York that morning as I had arrived 6 days prior – 6 days already? Seriously? – in the pissing rain. I was a little disappointed that I had got to see so little of the place. I have mentioned repeatedly that some of the details were kinda out of my hands, but I would have liked to do a lot more in the 4 days I had been in the five boroughs. I didn’t see the UN, or the battleships in the Hudson, or get up the Empire, or get out to Coney Island, or stop at the 1001 small eateries scattered throughout the city and its surrounds. I didn’t get to fall in love with the place in any great way, or even fall in lust. It was barely the beginnings of an affair, and not even a torrid one. It was, all things considered, hardly even a flirt. At best, just the very beginnings of eye contact across a crowded smoky nightclub dance-floor, the sort of eye contact where you’re not even sure that it was eye contact at all and may have just been a casual, tipsy glance in your direction, if at all. Better would be the eye contact at an unnecessary cocktail or dinner party, where at least you’re certain of what it was, regardless of where it may end up. It was, though, much more than I got with Denver. Nevertheless, I was checked in and ready to go – marveling again at the efficiency of the US check-in systems where you can book your own suit via an unattended electronic e-ticket booth – by 6am and, knowing that United were not all that big into food, even on a four and a half hour cross-country flight, on the prowl for something edible before I could go through the gates and board in an hour’s time. I got something from a deli there; for the life of me, though, I have no idea what it was. There was caramel iced-coffee, I remember that much, and something cooked, but I can’t think what it was. It has been 3 months and 17 days, after all. I should probably quit arsing about and get this thing written and done. At this point, got a text message from my mom back home, who is still learning the joys of cellular communication. Something along the lines of “Are you up and about? You sounded a bit out of it this morning and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” A wonderful sentiment; bearing in mind that had I not been at La Guardia by now, there is no way I would have got there in time for my flight… nevertheless, I wrote back to say that it was all good and I was having breakfast and wondering around the airport. After breakfast – and I recall that it was something tasty – I swanned about La Guardia, reflecting that this was my only trip to the 5th borough, Queens. I had done Staten Island and Brooklyn briefly on day 4, and the Bronx on day 5, with Manhattan occurring throughout, but this was my first and only time in Queens. I was, in fact, looking for something to keep me entertained on the flight – a magazine or a novel or something – but couldn’t find anything worthwhile that I felt like reading. After a goodly amount of time, and a rejection of a personal DVD player and 2 movies for $12 – that I was quite impressed by; when I said I’d love to but I wasn’t heading back to La Guardia, they told me I could drop it off at their offices in Denver International but again none of the movies offered grabbed my fancy – I went to go watch a fight between an elderly German trio and the security people at the metal detector. That sounds a little mercenary, so I will clarify: it just happened to occur right in front of me as I shucked kit and waited for my turn to get detected. Elderly pair of Germans – I’m guessing late 50s – and her mother – I’m guessing 80s – refusing to take off jackets and shoes to get detected, and getting well riled with all and sundry; most everyone was losing their temper on account of it being the crack of dawn in the middle of a pissing thunderstorm. A word on air travel OUTSIDE the US of A: we don’t have all that “take your clothing off” nonsense. You go through our security wearing your jacket, and your shoes, and hat, and everything. Our metal detectors can detect right through that stuff; perhaps ours are more hardcore than yours. This applies in Europe and throughout Africa. I myself got a wee bit flummoxed at Dulles on my outbound trip from DC when everyone was instructed to take off jackets, hats and shoes. At HPN, they didn’t make us do that, you see, so this was an entirely new, and dubious, experience. Not a patch on my trip out of LAX 8 days later, of course, but anyway, the Germans had also never had to do this before, and were protesting somewhat. “I am a sovereign citizen of the German republic and I am not subject to your laws,” was the German man’s idea of a good go at it, and he tried to shunt his way through the door in jacket and shoes. About 4 security people tried very forcefully to get him to take his shoes off and politely firmly shunted him back through the metal detector to comply. Then his wife tried to make a run for it with much the same result. At this point, voices were raised, and my rudimentary knowledge of German could only detect the rude words, on account of me having learned my German from schoolfriends and a few extremely dubious er… art films, if you know what I mean. I make no excuses and offer no apologies for my misspent youth. Anyway, one of the security guys was doing his best to arbitrate – poor fellow, getting yelled at by his own guys (“she is refusing to take off her shoes! Make her take off her shoes!”) and the Germans (“You Goddamned Americans think you can just do whatever the hell you want!”) while he is trying very hard to keep order. I can see where everyone is coming from on this issue; yes, the security is important, but perhaps the check-in guys, who can see where you are going and where you are from from your ticket and ID/passport, might point out that this is what will be required. Everyone was screaming and yelling and carrying on – it was ridiculous. Anyhoo, eventually the German woman (not the granny), displaying the usual casual European attitude toward nudity, said “Fine, you want me to take off my jacket? Fine!” and ripped off her jacket. Some unfortunate, trying to defuse the situation, said “thank-you for your co-operation,” without seeing that she had the crazy-eyes thing happening and was very much die moer in with the situation. And still going. “Perhaps you’d like me to take my blouse off as well?” she continued, “and my bra?” and proceeded to start doing just that. Well, the looks on the hapless security guards faces said it all. Obviously knowing the whole Janet Jackson’s not-boob Superbowl incident, and subsequent ridiculous censorship in the US, her husband tried very hard to get her to stop, but she wasn’t having any of it. The security guys were well out of control here and panicking; Granny spotted that and made for the metal detector like she was running for the West Berlin through the Wall. Everyone is screaming and yelling and half-naked and about to call in the SWAT team, no doubt, when finally a supervisor of sorts appears on the scene and miraculously everyone calms down. He has a few curt words with his team, ushers the Germans through to some chairs on the other side, instructs one of his guys to get some coffee “before the old lady has a heart attack” and then says the magic words – and I’ll admit at this stage that it was the magic words which I knew would come out had I attempted to get involved, which is why I didn’t – “take them to a private room for security screening,” which sounds wonderful but is, no doubt, NTSB code for “bring out the spotlights and rubber hoses.” The Germans were ushered down the corridor, still protesting, while the rest of us pretended to have paid no attention to the whole lot and got our shoes and jackets off. Finally, we boarded the plane. It was a Boeing 757-200, or B752 in air transport slang, in United’s classy, but staid, blue and grey livery. Then was a delightful wait in the La Guardia takeoff queue. We only got airborne at 9:08; it was an 8am flight. But the pilot did point out to us that 8am is rush-hour at La Guardia, and there were about 30 planes all vying for runway. What I did get to do was listen in to ATC – Air Traffic Control – through the supplied headphones, and that was good fun. There is surprisingly little banter between the pilots and the tower, and no cross-talk between pilots at all. I guess that they have to keep the channels clear, or something, but there is no way I could resist not having a bit of a chin to all and sundry, so perhaps it is good that I have horrific eyes and wasn’t allowed to become a pilot. Still, there was one particularly amusing incident when a plane parked behind us was hailed: ATC: What’s that… er… who’s that, what is it, a 752 at gate C (forget)? Us: It’s United 1183. ATC: Gotcha 1183, stand by. Who’s that behind you at gate C (forget), a 762? (Boeing 767-200, you see.) 762: It’s United (forget the number), bound to (destination). ATC: Gosh, are you still there? 762: Yeah. ATC: How long ago did you push-back? 762: About 25 minutes ago. ATC: Sorry. I forgot all about you. Er… okay, tell you what, I’m going to move 1183 and then you go out behind him and I’ll give your priority to the front of the queue, how’s that sound? Good times, I thought. Anyway, he went, and eventually we got our spot and off we went. They showed Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I had seen the week before leaving Cape Town – it was also an SAA in-flight movie, but I didn’t watch it then – so I gave that another whirl and enjoyed the other news and bits of info that played as we cruised out over middle America. I have no idea what route we flew, or if we went over any other major cities or anything, but you guys sure do have a shitload of airports, all visible from the sky, in both urban and rural settings. We made up the bulk of our time and flew in only 5 minutes behind schedule into Denver. I tell you, I did not feel the landing. The little UA pisswilly out of IAD was terrifying, the one into IAD was okay if a little bumpy, and the SAA Airbus somehow didn’t break into tiny pieces on its 2 landings out of JNB, thus proving the existence of some or other God. I had a window seat into Denver – in fact, the flight was quite empty, so I had a whole row to myself – and I was watching quite happily out of the window in an emergency exit row, so I was well comfy and had a good view of the wings and flaps and everything and I thought we were pulling a gopher-raper and just skimming over the runway without touching it a few feet off the ground, even though the engines were clearly in reverse thrust, and the brakes had deployed, and I was waiting, with detached concern, for a bump of some sort to say we had touched down. But no, we were on the ground already. Hats off to our pilot, I say. Now perhaps, in fact, undoubtedly, a B752 and an A343 are vastly different – shortish vs long haul, 2 engines vs 4, short vs fairly long etc – or perhaps our pilots on the A343 were just crappy. In fairness, we didn’t die or anything, so I suppose fair play to them. And I’ll admit to a certain amount of hours clocked up on MS Flight Simulator 2002 at this point as well, and I am king of crash landings in that one. A little bit on DIA, as its known to the locals, or DEN as it was listed on my ticket – the great’n’mighty Denver International Airport at Stapleton, some 30 miles east of Lodo, or Lower Downtown Denver, as I was told by the conference guys. It has a big peaked roof over the main terminal, some 52 white spires carved out of what looks like (but presumably isn’t) canvas, representing the 52 peaks in the Rocky Mountains. I thought there were more peaks in the Rockies, myself, but this is what our shuttle driver told me the next day when I was heading back to the airport to catch my shuttle bus with other conference guys to the venue, so I speak under correction at this point. Perhaps it’s the 52 which are in Colorado, or perhaps the 52 which you can see from DIA, I don’t know. The airport is massive. Kennedy may have 9 terminals, Dulles may have 7, whatever. Denver only has 3, but man, are they big. The buildings exist as a series of big buildings connected by an underground railway system. Several airlines share each of the 3 terminals; it seems again that nothing is split into an official Domestic and International area like here at home. Not quite sure where Customs and Immigration are for guys like BA who fly in direct without stopping in New York or wherever else first; anyway, they are presumably there somewhere. Unlike Terminal 3 at Kennedy, the baggage claim area is wide open; in fact, pretty much anyone can wander in off the side of the road – a big road, admittedly, and some fair distance away, but nevertheless – and just make off with your bags. We don’t have that here, that’s for sure – baggage claim is before you get anywhere near a road. Perhaps that is more the case for the domestic airlines – I can’t imagine that you could get off an international flight like BA and not have your bags going through customs. Anyway, in addition to the suitcase carousels, there are also carousels with smaller, upright slots designed (presumably) for ski/snowboard bags – well done, everybody who thought of that. The downside, of course, is that I, or anybody in the airport, could have made off with anybody’s snow gear as a result of the layout. Assuming they would wait 15 minutes expecting more baggage to get onto the carousel, then another 20 or so trying to find someone to ask if it has been misdirected, and I could have been at my dubious hotel already with more snowboarding stuff than a ski-resort in high season. Nevertheless, I didn’t nick anything, because that would be wrong. I’m just saying it’s not the best idea in the world, near as I can tell. Anyway, having had one so far extremely good Supershuttle experience that day already, decided that another one would not be a bad idea at all. I had no idea whether or not there was a bus service, like La Guardia and Dulles and Kennedy have – presumably there was one; however, in my frantic booking over the Blackberry the day previously, I had neglected to plot any course whatsoever and had no idea which bus to take, or where I may end up. Thus, Supershuttle, stepping again up to the plate, and providing the necessary. It was at this point which I realised that I had perhaps spent a little too much time plotting the bits for New York, and hadn’t spent enough on Denver; likewise for my time in DC. I checked with the Colorado Mountain Express guys at DIA when I was booked in to head to the conference venue the next day and changed my return for bright’n’early on the 13th – they had me at 7:30pm, for some reason, so I could connect on the midnight flight to Atlanta from DIA and head back to Cpt on the 14th. So got that altered right there ‘n’ then to a 5am departure on the 13th to connect to UA 223 to San Diego at 9am instead, since that was the plan, and those were the tickets I held. That completed, I dodged some taxi service and pointed Supershuttle at my destination, booking a return to DIA the next day to get on the 2:30 CME to Breckinridge and Copper Mountain. The road to Stapleton from Denver is long. Pena Boulevard, they call it, and we are talking like 40 minutes to the outskirts of Denver non-stop, past gigantic rental car lots and large corporate offices, perched like warts on the side of the road. Much like the road up the East Side of Manhattan, through the Bronx to Mamaroneck, but not as bottled in, and not nearly as tree-laden. The approach to Denver itself, which gleams like a distant jewel against a backdrop of frosted snowcaps, is desert-dreary. Eventually we hit a place called the Commerce City, a vast industrial wasteland, full of truck-stops, small, identical warehouse-offices, fertilizer plants and the like. You could still see Denver some distance away, all spires and silver, when I realised that we were coming up quite rapidly on a Days Inn, and that it was mine, and that I had fucked this one up something chronic. You will recall how I mentioned in the entry regarding yesterday’s events that I booked into the wrong place. Yeah, that’s right. There were 2 Days Inns, all going for some fantastically special price, and I went for the one with the facilities which was a little further out of town, but near the public transport, so therefore was a good option. It had a gym, and a heated pool, and all sorts of cool things like that, as opposed to the other which had nothing of the sort for the same price. Yeah… no. The one I had selected did indeed have a gym – 2 exercise bikes in a stuffy room – and a heated, outdoor pool – “Closed. Seasonal” – but was near the intersection of 2 major big roads and thus was a bit of a hub. No. Not quite. See, here in .za, big roads like that have footbridges over them, and pedestrian tracks from time to time so you can, you know, get about. Not these two. Fenced off roads, with cops who, I was told by the bored-looking guy behind the counter, would arrest me if I tried to leg it across. The hotel also didn’t offer a shuttle service to town – I was advised to get a cab. But I wasn’t really keen to spend another fortune getting to and from town, so I moped up in my room – which was spacious, I will say that for it – and felt annoyed with myself for an hour or so before deciding to find something to do. So I went down to the internet place – they had one of those – and found maps of where I was and where there might be a bus or train stop nearby and lo and behold, hit paydirt. It seems there was indeed an occasional bus looping down to a mere 1 block away every third time, and I had about 15 minutes to get the last one. What it also meant, unfortunately, was that I was going to have leg it home from the looping point since this was going to be the last bus coming that far today. I figured I could manage a mile or two, if push came to shove, provided it didn’t snow. So off I went, past the dubious truck-stop, where everyone looked inbred, and the dubious strip-joint, where I was damned if I was going to head in there, and managed to spot the bus as it pulled up. I got in and explained my dilemma to the driver, who laughed heartily and took me on my way. She gave me a transfer ticket so I could get on another bus without paying – we don’t get that here, that’s for sure – and directions on which bus to take to get to Cherry Creek, where I had planned to do some shopping, and loiter for a bit. So off we went, and I found myself at said Cherry Creek Mall, shopping spot of the rich’n’famous and all of Denver’s glitterati, it seems. Yeah, it was okay. About as impressive as the Fashion Center at Pentagon City in DC – the usual Macy’s, A&F, Gap etc etc, as well as – and this was a surprise – a surf store, which was even selling surfboards, as I recall, a bit unexpected given that we were, you know, in the Rockies. And at vastly inflated prices, too – more even than we pay down here in .za, and we get fleeced for stuff like that. Puzzling, and annoying, no store there selling anything resembling snow gear; in particular, no heavy-duty snowboarding gloves. So that was fairly infuriating. And people seemed largely surprised when I asked, which was a wee bit bemusing, too. Anyway, walked the mall dead, and, now bored and aimless, went in search of something, anything, to keep me entertained that evening. The aforementioned hotel had very little in the way of nightlife – the guy there bemoaning the lack of success of the sports bar; seems the nudie bar across the road has that particular area completely sewn up – but I was without transport, and some 8 miles away from home, and damned if I was going to be walking all the way back. I didn’t find anything. Even the newsagent was no help, being completely devoid of any of my usual literature; to whit, Guitar World, Guitar School, UK-edition FHM, Maxim or GQ, Mad magazine and even US-edition Men’s Health were all conspicuously absent from their shelves. At this point, I Was beginning to wonder why on earth Denver even existed – my guess is as a staging area for snow activity. Admittedly, as mentioned earlier, I didn’t plan too well – couldn’t fit in a trip to the Mile High Stadium, home of the Broncos, I think; or the Anheuser Busch brewery, or anything else, but it did seem a little dull by comparison to, you know, everywhere. Everywhere in the whole world. I found myself wondering about where to get some food. The hotel had a dingy diner thing going – mostly, it seemed, deep-fried specialties in the Sports Bar, as sports bars are wont to have. I did not feel up to the challenge, and so I went hunting for actual food which I could assemble myself, seeing how the hotel room had a small kitchen thing happening in it, complete with fridge, crockery and cutlery, a sink, a small stove and a coffee machine. In addition, that would help to kill some time, seeing as how I was going to be holed up miles from anywhere. I ended up at a supermarket of sorts about 2 blocks down from the mall and managed to not find anything inspiring at all. I couldn’t recall whether or not the stove had oven capabilities, and I also couldn’t recall whether or not there were any cooking utensils like pots and pans. I’m guessing a blender or egg-whisk were also unlikely, so in the end settled on some fresh cheese and onion breadrolls, a gigantic vat o’ potato salad and some farm ham. Potato salad sandwiches are always awesome; I had enough there to last the night and even have some extra for lunch the following day before heading back to DIA and then out to the mountains. I also figured that the catering out at the ski place probably wouldn’t be 24/7, so I went for a 6-pack of Mountain Dew as well, for the quick sugar factor. I was fairly pleased with my purchases. Also stopped in at a nearby pharmacy and kitted myself out with 4 rolls of Kodak Iso 400 film – for the price of 2, I think it was – and a box of aspirin and another box of decongestants. My little purple pills had long since finished, and I was not relishing the idea of 4 days out in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere, without the possibility of hard drugs to clear my sinuses. This is one of those things. Shortly after that, vastly unimpressed with LoDo, I headed out for the bus stop to retrace my steps to my dubious lodgings. Managed that okay, then got the transfer to the next bus which would take me closest to the hotel. The driver confirmed that she was not going all the way there, and promised to let me know where to get out, which she did, and I began the trudge back to the hotel. By now the weather had turned ominous. Dark clouds were everywhere – they were predicting snow, after all – and it was muy cold. I could also see that I had a goodly distance to get to the hotel, and the not huge, but bulky, pack of groceries was getting a little heavy and cutting into my arm. I’m not sure how far I actually had to walk, but it took the better part of 2 hours, including a detour around some unsavoury-looking characters, and also one where the track looked a little too not-beaten for my liking. Black belt aside, I though it best to survive by not needing to rely on my combat skills. I mean, even though I could probably take the majority of the population on and win, easily – it is a black belt, after all, right? – you never know whether or not the person/s may be armed or not, and perhaps discretion being the better part of valour, the PhD training made logic take over and I avoided anywhere which might have the later Oprah-guest “If only I hadn’t taken that path” factor. So much of survival is logic – the best way to not be in the wrong place at the wrong time is of course to not be in the wrong place as far as is possible, so I had to practice what we preach at the karate club. The other thing we preach, of course, is that it’s okay to kick someone in the nuts, throw sand in his eye and run away screaming like a girl, if it’ll save your life, but I digress. It was a long walk. It was dark and cold by the time I got back, and my feet had blisters on the heels. Still, my own fault for not making adequate plans, so nobody to blame but me, I suppose. I was kinda the moer in when I got back, though, because I was annoyed at myself. The dude behind the counter barely looked up when I walked in and so I went back up to my room on the 5th floor and got settled in for the night. Enjoyed my potato salad sandwiches – well done, supermarket people – and tried to watch a bit of TV, but couldn’t find anything worth watching and eventually fell asleep. -d-