Day 64
I awoke late today and watched the morning news report from the comfort of my bed.
It appears a plane made an emergency landing at Heathrow airport and skidded to a halt with its wheels several hundred yards away from the fuselage. I don’t know much about avionics but I seem to recollect that wheels are quite important things to have on an aircraft when attempting to touch down.
I also suspect the cabin crew gave their well-rehearsed instructions for the passengers to adopt the ‘crash position’.
The ‘crash position’, for those of you that don’t know, is bending over with your head between your legs, your underpants filling up very rapidly and the person next to you being sick in the magazine pocket of the facing seat.
Anyway, no one was hurt in the accident and they had the added bonus of being able to wiz down those fun looking inflatable slides that pop out of the doors when this sort of thing happens. Their main point of concern was probably waiting two hours to get clean underwear from their luggage when it finally reached the baggage hall, except of course, those who had their bags sent to Minnesota by mistake.
It evoked memories of a trip to Barcelona last year when I intended to play some sparkling poker at the beautiful casino in the Olympic village area.
With some shameful and embarrassing begging I persuaded Mrs. Snowman that a long weekend break in Europe would be a good idea although my thoughts focused on the casino rather than anything romantic.
We boarded the plane at Heathrow, the flight went without incident and we landed ahead of schedule in Spain. A short walk to the baggage hall to collect our belongings (four large suitcases for the wife and a small overnight bag for me) was made in good spirits and the wife’s luggage appeared within a few minutes as I waited patiently for mine.
Everyone else has long since shuffled off to Immigration leaving me sat there alone like a spare prick at a wedding. I waited for over an hour before it became clear my bags were not going to be crawling around those infuriating carousels. She decided to make her way to the hotel with the intention of me catching up shortly.
After finding an airline employee to whom I explained the situation, I was given a form to fill out and assured they would call my hotel later that day - which they didn’t.
A long wait at the hotel followed but as I was losing valuable poker time I got a taxi back to the airline office to find out what was going on and was eventually told (after tapping a computer keyboard for a while) that my luggage had taken a separate holiday and was happily sunning itself in Caracas.
Some unconvincing apologies were offered and I asked, quite reasonably, when they expected to get it back. More tapping followed before they told me it could be as long as two weeks. I must report, Dear Reader, that my equilibrium went a little off balance at this point; it wasn’t helped when the employee said sarcastically:
“Well, how do you expect us to get it here?”
I responded with a little more vitriol than was strictly necessary.
“What? You’re a fucking airline! You throw it on a plane and fly it! I don’t care if you strap a parachute to it and jettison the damn thing when you’re 30,000 feet over the Mediterranean. What’s your solution, stick a sail in it, pat it on the head and hope it finds its own way back across the fucking Atlantic?”
To cut a long, and somewhat boring, story short; I completed my holiday without the benefit of my intended luggage and ended up purchasing a new suitcase and clothes.
My original belongings were finally returned to me ten days after I got home.
It didn’t put me in the best frame of mind for any poker.
Needless to say I managed to perform quite badly in that particular venture and it was much the same story at the online tables today.
Just the one freeroll game was entered and I didn’t even make the top 1,000, although I don’t really mind being busted out to an Ace high flush to my mid straight. I’m considering cheating a little and putting $10 into my account to give me some kind of a springboard. I shall have to think about the ethical considerations when my original intention was to start with nothing.
I might be better off trying to go on another trip to play some live poker but I don’t think this time the wife will be fooled if I tell her we’re off to Las Vegas simply to watch the fountains outside the Bellagio.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $0
It appears a plane made an emergency landing at Heathrow airport and skidded to a halt with its wheels several hundred yards away from the fuselage. I don’t know much about avionics but I seem to recollect that wheels are quite important things to have on an aircraft when attempting to touch down.
I also suspect the cabin crew gave their well-rehearsed instructions for the passengers to adopt the ‘crash position’.
The ‘crash position’, for those of you that don’t know, is bending over with your head between your legs, your underpants filling up very rapidly and the person next to you being sick in the magazine pocket of the facing seat.
Anyway, no one was hurt in the accident and they had the added bonus of being able to wiz down those fun looking inflatable slides that pop out of the doors when this sort of thing happens. Their main point of concern was probably waiting two hours to get clean underwear from their luggage when it finally reached the baggage hall, except of course, those who had their bags sent to Minnesota by mistake.
It evoked memories of a trip to Barcelona last year when I intended to play some sparkling poker at the beautiful casino in the Olympic village area.
With some shameful and embarrassing begging I persuaded Mrs. Snowman that a long weekend break in Europe would be a good idea although my thoughts focused on the casino rather than anything romantic.
We boarded the plane at Heathrow, the flight went without incident and we landed ahead of schedule in Spain. A short walk to the baggage hall to collect our belongings (four large suitcases for the wife and a small overnight bag for me) was made in good spirits and the wife’s luggage appeared within a few minutes as I waited patiently for mine.
Everyone else has long since shuffled off to Immigration leaving me sat there alone like a spare prick at a wedding. I waited for over an hour before it became clear my bags were not going to be crawling around those infuriating carousels. She decided to make her way to the hotel with the intention of me catching up shortly.
After finding an airline employee to whom I explained the situation, I was given a form to fill out and assured they would call my hotel later that day - which they didn’t.
A long wait at the hotel followed but as I was losing valuable poker time I got a taxi back to the airline office to find out what was going on and was eventually told (after tapping a computer keyboard for a while) that my luggage had taken a separate holiday and was happily sunning itself in Caracas.
Some unconvincing apologies were offered and I asked, quite reasonably, when they expected to get it back. More tapping followed before they told me it could be as long as two weeks. I must report, Dear Reader, that my equilibrium went a little off balance at this point; it wasn’t helped when the employee said sarcastically:
“Well, how do you expect us to get it here?”
I responded with a little more vitriol than was strictly necessary.
“What? You’re a fucking airline! You throw it on a plane and fly it! I don’t care if you strap a parachute to it and jettison the damn thing when you’re 30,000 feet over the Mediterranean. What’s your solution, stick a sail in it, pat it on the head and hope it finds its own way back across the fucking Atlantic?”
To cut a long, and somewhat boring, story short; I completed my holiday without the benefit of my intended luggage and ended up purchasing a new suitcase and clothes.
My original belongings were finally returned to me ten days after I got home.
It didn’t put me in the best frame of mind for any poker.
Needless to say I managed to perform quite badly in that particular venture and it was much the same story at the online tables today.
Just the one freeroll game was entered and I didn’t even make the top 1,000, although I don’t really mind being busted out to an Ace high flush to my mid straight. I’m considering cheating a little and putting $10 into my account to give me some kind of a springboard. I shall have to think about the ethical considerations when my original intention was to start with nothing.
I might be better off trying to go on another trip to play some live poker but I don’t think this time the wife will be fooled if I tell her we’re off to Las Vegas simply to watch the fountains outside the Bellagio.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $0