Carmichael's Position

Case III Recovery to a LaGuardia Wave-off

Yesterday I flew from Denver to New York for a scheduled week of presentations and client visits.

All was going quite well initially.  My Frontier airlines flight departed on time amazingly enough (despite two similarly routed United flights posting a 2 hour delay).  I sat, mostly comfortable (as comfortable as a economy airline seat can be) traversing the countryside at 500 miles per hour, enjoying the distraction of the 4 inch TV broadcasting from the seatback in front of me.

I can’t say I was surprised when about 3/4 of the way through the planned duration of the trip, somewhere over western Pennsylvania, I noticed we took a significant left turn.  Followed shortly by another left turn… and alas another followed by another.  Yep your typical holding pattern.  I changed channels on my video, first to the moving map display to confirm my suspicion, yep… we had apparently joined NASCAR… then I changed to the Weather Channel to see the onus of our penalty laps. 

Gleefully explained by some tight skirted blonde with a pair of “Store-Boughts”, the New York Metro area was getting pummeled by 40 knot winds and torrential rain!  About that time the Captain came on the PA to explain what I had already deduced… we’re gunna be delayed.

We continued in marshal for the better part of an hour, finally released to our approach into LaGuardia through still angry skies.  The airbus? She was a’buck’n.  But alas our Cowgirl of a pilot pressed on!  We continued the approach bouncing off airborne moguls with all the dexterity of a drunk hippopotamus riding a pogo-stick!  Our bus driver ever determined pressed on though the murk… “down” appeared an easier direction to maintain.  No comfort in that by the way…

As we proceeded through the soup, altitude, attitude, and bearing all appeared to be mere suggestions… and even that a stretch!  We broke through the clouds at a mere 600-800ft, and the runway?  It was Dutch rolling!  Out MY WINDOW!  (remember, I look out the side of the plane…).

I’m pretty sure our Captain made a Bovine Scatology reference and then pressed the throttles forward!  Really forward!  We climbed… and there was much rejoicing!  We eventually poked our nose through the top of the turbulent cloud deck, and heard the voice of our frustrated Captain inform us that we were running out of “Go Juice” and would be modifying our itinerary to include a stop in Philadelphia!  Yep, we made yet another left turn and headed south.  About 30 minutes later we arrived in the city of brotherly love… or at least their airport.  It was 1:25am.

Oddly enough our plane did not taxi to the terminal in Philly.  In a heavy rain, we taxied out to the far east section of the airport and set the parking break in front of the Signature Air terminal.  Engines secured, the airstairs drove up, door opened, and in walked 4 soaked, reflective vest clad ground crew.  One I swear was holding a credit card swipee thing… No, no need to fill-er-up, we’re just going a few blocks!  The gas truck pulled up, and added needed ballast to our wings.

We hung out, there on the apron, passengers awaiting their turn for the head (toilet) and others continued watching the Food Network programing droning on in front of each of us.  Many also texted our plight to friends and family in an effort to reswizzel completely FUBAR’d logistics.

Me, I pinged Ginger and gave her the promise I’d let her know whatever happened, as it happened.  What the hell else was I gunna do? 

After another hour bored on… and amazingly enough the same chick who had won on “Chopped” earlier in the night won again!  It might have been a repeat of the same show… We were cleared to try again at LGA.  Yippie!  Load her up in the shoot again!  Let’s see if we can stay on the whole 8 seconds this time!

We got airborne quite expeditiously and turned north, toward the city that never sleeps… wondering when I would.

We broke through the cloud deck at an uncomfortable 400 feet, and proceeded to land after a somewhat less dramatic approach, reverse thrust kicking up the two and a half inches of rain that had fallen on the runway that day.  Taxied… and eventually parked.  That is the emptiest I have EVER seen LaGuardia!!! 

The one smart thing I had done is checked the Metro North Railway schedule to learn that the trains did not… train… between 2:30am and 6:00am… it was now a few ticks past 3:00am.  So taking a cab to Grand Central Station would be pointless… borderline stupid.  Yep, was gunna have to pay the fare to White Plains.  Assuming there was a cab to be found!  You see, cabbies in New York have learned over the years that hanging out past midnight at an airport where the last scheduled arrival is 11:30pm, is only good if you want to nap.  There were no cabs… there, I said it… IN NEW YORK!  I COULD’T FIND A CAB!  I or 130 other passengers of our flight… So I walked to the middle roadway and hailed a car service!  White Plains please… Ok. 

Fastest I’ve ever got to my hotel from LaGuardia actually.  I walked in my room at 4:15am… Have to be at the office in 4 hours… easy peasy! 

And that’s just day one of the trip!  Looking forward to my Earth Day Celebration with the GSA tomorrow.

Me? Tonight?  I have a date with my eyelids and my pillow!  G’night!

Moving on…

I wanted to give Lex’s dedication a proper life here on my pages as the post you land on when visiting Carmichael’s Position.  It is hard to believe we were all struck with the news of our friend’s passing two weeks ago now.

In that two weeks, the rest of my world blurred a bit.  Not because of accumulated tears, though there were those… but more because life’s obligations did not let up in his passing for the rest of us.

Me, after hoisting numerous Guinness's – for strength – I had to get my act together, get all my shit in one sock and then “Move On”. 

Moving on for me involved my work obligations, which required my presence back in New York City, the “Center of the Universe” (their opinion… not necessarily mine!).  Work was good.  Fifteen meetings in 4 days is not an effort to be made by the weak or meek… Although being 10 pounds lighter and possibly five laps less around the sun might not have hurt none… I was beat by the end of the week.  It’s good to be exhausted once in awhile.  All of the meetings went well and were productive.  I like our clients, they are good, hard working people.

In the course of my daily rounds I occasionally have opportunity to work on my passion of photography.   Unfortunately, I was mostly disappointed in my efforts this time around… be it poor subject matter choice, poor composition or the occasional poor technical settings, I was not excelling at my hobby.  I did however, manage to capture a couple of images I rather like, and after posting these on my Facebook pages, others have liked them as well… I am flattered and humbled by their appreciation.

The first one I took while waiting for my train’s departure from Grand Central Station.  I had to have a long exposure due to the low light conditions in GST.  What I captured was all of the motion of the busy transportation hub, all better exemplified by the still, motionless photographer in the middle of the bustle, trying to secure a photo of his own…

And the second image from the trip, was taken on the way home after the long week.  From seat 7F of a Frontier Airlines Airbus 319, meandering along at 34,000 feet and 486kts, I looked out my window and was captivated by my view.  Through an arch created by two spent thunderheads, in the setting sunlight, a cumulus cloud was highlighted in all its grandeur.  It was fascinating and I had to take a crack at capturing it through the double plated window. Here’s my result.

 

This week following has been busy as well, always is after a trip back to NY.  Plenty of life’s daily’s to keep me busy and focused.  That’s a good thing… sure beats the alternative.

Travel…

I travel quite a bit for my work… less than many, more than most.  Most of my commute is between Denver and New York.  The majority of our clients are in the New York, New Jersey, Hudson Valley area so that’s where my travels take me.  A couple of times a year we are invited to Washington DC to give a performance briefing to one of our largest accounts… Think Federal Government…

I really dig Washington DC!  (Not necessarily the Carbon Dioxide Factories that work there…) the city itself is captivating in it’s history and architecture.  One just feels pride as an American when strolling the Mall.

I didn’t have much time for photography as our work schedule was packed with presentations and client and potential client visits.  But I managed a few right around sunset on Monday while I was waiting for my Boss’s flight to arrive at DCA later that evening.  All around the Lincoln Memorial (one of my favorites).

So as always here are some of the fruits of my labors… I hope you enjoy.

 

Then once again it was back up to New York for the remainder of the week.

I was hoping to capture the Northeast’s famous fall colors, but to my surprise and disappointment the foliage was only in it’s early stages of transition, and not very vibrant.  Probably had  a lot to due with all of the moisture the east has experienced this year, and the fairly mild fall thus far… That and the persistent gray overcast each day I was in town.  So… no leaves for you!

I joined my sister and brother-in-law in Brooklyn on Thursday evening for our usual sushi dinner and then took a stroll to the East River overlook of Manhattan to see if I could capture some compelling images of Lower Manhattan in the mist. 

Eh… had better, had worse. 

Then Friday… after multiple meetings in the city it was off to LaGuardia to catch my flight home.  I hate LaGuardia… (JFK and Newark for that matter too!) I would say I get out of that airport on time about 17% of the time.  This time was no exception… Due to leave at 5:30… Left at 7:30!  (Had better, had worse!) Things were looking ok until a cold front came through bringing a line of storms with it.  Knocking the NYC TRACON on it’s ass!

LaGuardia went into a ground stop, suspending all departures and arrivals for about 40 minutes… wrench, meet gears!  At one point I counted no fewer than 27 aircraft on taxiway “Bravo” in line for departure on Runway 13.  At 3 and a half minutes between departures… you do the math!

Yep… supposed to be home around 8:00pm last night… opened the garage door at 10:30pm.  I’ve had worse.

And there you have it.  This week in Denver… next? Jacksonville FL, Vienna GA, Tampa FL, then back in Denver.  Boy are my arms tired!

Bear Creek

Went fly-fishing with a buddy of mine today in Colorado’s Bear Creek.  A nice day to say the least.  We saw tons of trout!  We caught OUNCES!  Well… One of us caught ounces… Your’s truly got bubkis!  Seriously I fished this one hole, where there were literally 10-15 trout lining the bottom of the stream, I floated countless drifts over them with a variety of flies… Got bumped maybe twice!

Scooter was also experiencing the same poor luck as I, until he switched to a black fly with white wings… and nailed a 12-14 inch rainbow.  That was it for the day for us.

So after getting shut out, I decided to pull out the Nikon and try to catch something…  Here’s the result.

Again… didn’t really matter that I got shut out… it matters that I got out!  Into GOD’s country!

Now that’s a Week of Variety

Finally back at home after  10 days of serious “Jet Setting”. 

Started last Thursday with a trip to Reno for the annual Tailhook Symposium and Reunion.  That whirlwind trip included a trip up to Lake Tahoe, a Winery Tour, a 4 hour Mixer with 3,000 of my closest flight suit clad friends, an awards luncheon where two very close friends of mine – Hans and Kathy Schmoldt- won “Honorary Tailhookers of the Year”, various symposiums, a couple of trips to In and Out Burger, more than a couple of trips to the “At your leisure Beer Taps”, and finally a banquet with 1,800 in attendance where Senator John McCain was the Keynote.  All in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Naval Aviation!  Trust me… a great time was had by all!

 

Then, back home to unpack and re-pack for my trip to New York for work… 

Monday I was up with the dawn patrol, wheels in the well at 0700 for my monthly visits with clients and co-workers.  Non-stop from the moment I touched down until I was once again wheels in the wells headed back to the Mile High City.

In New York I visited Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, White Plains and then in New Jersey I saw the lovely towns of Phillipsburg, Elizabeth and Newark (tongue firmly in cheek for those last two… those two towns couldn’t find lovely if it bit them!)

One break from the usual fare of client visits came in the form of a company outing to Citi-Field to take in a Mets Game!  Despite being a bit of an on-again off-again rainy day we had a blast! I had not been to Citi-Field and was pleasantly impressed.  Still can’t get over the air traffic passing in close proximity as they shoot the Expressway 34 approach into LaGuardia.

It was all fun and productive, but lemme tell you, I’m glad to be home…

Annual Camping Trip!

My friends and I have a bit of an annual ritual… Every summer we all give up many of our daily trappings and retreat to the near wilds of Colorado for a few days of R&R, fly-fishing, steak eating, beer swilling and fire poking!

This year we spent 3 glorious days at the base of the fourteen thousand feet Colorado Collegiate Peaks along the Arkansas River.

As I’ve gained in age, wisdom, and waist size… I’ve migrated away from the more rugged style of camping, sleeping in the tent on the ground in a 1972 psychedelic sleeping bag, to mooching off of a friend of mine, ‘Scooter’- and occupying one of his two double beds in his pop-up trailer- complete with heater!  (Yeah I know it’s August, but I’ll have you know that the ambient at 3:30am was indeed registering 38 degrees!)  Odd I know coming from a guy who does not wear waders when fly-fishing in 52 degree river water!

And speaking of wading, there was indeed opportunity to do that as well in Colorado’s Arkansas River… Note I specifically did not say fishing!  Because even though I had my fly rod in hand, casting any number of feathered bug-avatars into said flowing torrent… I’m convinced there were no fish to be wrangled this year!  (My wife and Clay, who both claim to have caught something, beg to differ -- I never witnessed either acquisition so I’m still convinced it was the river and not my angling skills!)  The rest of our herd is inclined to agree with me!  Lest their angling skills be impugned as well!

But the views more than made up for my shut out!

Alas, the closing day of the long weekend was upon us all too soon, and the campsite required we yuppie nomads to vacate the wilderness… with electric hookups, flush toilets… and coin op showers… no later than 11:00am.  We departed at 10:55 for our 2 hour journey back to civilization, all of us proud in the fact that not one of us deposited a single quarter in their Shower Racket!

Besides there is something immensely satisfying to arriving home, unloading the SUV and proceeding to spend 20 minutes in the master bath shower, rinsing off the smoke smell of 200+ store bought pine logs sacrificed to the meditation god known as the “campfire”! 

I bid you all a good evening, as I hope to dream of star-filled skies, gentle breezes, and the trickle of a nearby tributary… 

Thanks again to Scooter for setting this whole decompress up!  You’re a GIANT among men in my book!

Indoor Polo and Photography Challenges

Last week when I was back in the rain and humidity of New York I had the opportunity to watch my boss play polo… indoors!  Nope, not water polo!  Real Horse-involved-and-all… polo!

Ya see, his polo club has options, either they play on one of two 300 yard by 160 yard pitches, or if it is raining… like it was on that particular Wednesday evening… they move it indoors, in a quite sizable barn.

I had joined up with Kevin in hopes of photographically capturing something different.  Man was I in for a challenge!

   

Initially I captured a couple of decent outdoor (in the mist) shots as best as I could lighting conditions permitting.  The horses were beautiful, strong peaceful animals and quite tolerant of this camera tote’n, Bostonian wearing interloper mingling amongst the riders, the keepers and the other steeds.

The challenge came in when the action started… again not on the field, but in the dimly lit barn.  Camera setting had to be greatly modified to even begin to capture the action.  ISO jacked to 1600 – Check!… Fastest Lens @ 3.5 – Check! shutter speed as slow as I dare go @ 60 – Check! 

Ha!  Who am I kidding these are going to be grainy as 1930’s ‘Talkie’! and blurrier than Rosie O’Donnell’s figure!

Doesn’t mean I didn’t try!  And yep sure enough upon my opening the images on a full resolution screen, about 90% of the images were indeed crap!  Discernable yes… but still crap when it comes to quality!  My kingdom for a Nikon D3s!  and a super fast lens!

I did however have an idea.  In a tip learned in one of my many Photoshop instructive publications it counseled to not get rid of grainy, out of focus images that have pretty good content.  Rather, alter them using any of the many image filters available in Photoshop!

And voila’ creativity in action!

More efforts can be seen here [Link]

Enjoy…

Artistic Expression

In New York again, in preparation for a major presentation we have on Thursday.  At the end of another long day, I took about an hour and headed down to Tarrytown, along the Hudson River to exercise the Nikon… (I’ve been remiss).

I was playing a bit more with some HDR imagery.  Once again without a tripod… And about the best I could come up with was this image.  Not sure what to do about the horizon angle… played with that a bunch and still can’t settle on any particular rendering over another…

 

Ah well… Call it Artistic Expression.

Vegas with Friends!

Just returned from a mini-vacation in Vegas.  Six couples were meeting up in Vegas to celebrate 3 of our May Birthdays, one for 50, one for 40 and me for 45.  And to celebrate Ginger’s graduation from Grad School receiving her Masters Degree in Nursing! I have to say this was one of the most relaxing de-compressing trips I’ve had in a long time! 

And to top it all off I’m returning with more cash in my pocket than what I left with!

All did not start off smoothly on this trip however.  We were on the 9:25pm flight out of Denver to Las Vegas last Wednesday.  And it being Spring and all here in the Mile High City, the weather was forecast to be a little on the wet side.  No biggie… planes fly in the rain all the time.  Well wouldn’t you just know it?  As I am driving up the approach road to the airport, said rain that had been pelting the GMC the whole drive swapped places with SNOW!  Heavy big potato-chip sized flakes that grew to such intensity in the next few minutes that I could not see more than a hundred yards or so.  “Yeah this’ll delay us… I just didn’t know for how long.”  Short answer… 4 hours!  Turns out Denver International Airport hadn’t planned for a snow storm this particular day and only 2 de-ice pads were open for the first couple of hours of the delay.

Finally around 1:30am we depart for Las Vegas… and wouldn’t you know it about 40 minutes into the flight over the PA we hear, “If there is a doctor or a nurse on board, please ring your call button.”   This is actually one of those weird things…  I have literally flown on more than 1,000 flights over the course of my business career and leisure life and I have heard this announcement 3 – count ‘em… 3 times!  And EACH of these times I have been flying with my wife Ginger… The Oncology Nurse! (prior to that an ICU nurse).  So I caution you… the odds of you getting sick on an airplane increase dramatically if my wife is onboard!    Turns out the patient in question probably had a case of heat exhaustion and dehydration.

We finally make it to the Mirage around 2:30 local… It’s Vegas baby!!! Its not like its dead or anything.  We drop the bags off in the room and head downstairs to grab a small snack at the 24 hour deli.  Heh… Small my ASS!  This sandwich could feed the entire front line of the USC Trojans football team… or Rosie O’Donnell whoever got to it first. 

Being that Ginger and I are both over 40 we see no sin in heading to the room for a little shut eye, besides our friends Karyn and Bob are due in on the 8:00am flight and may need our room to dump their stuff and change for the pool in the morning.  Trust me after that travel day? Slumber engulfed us like a fog on the coast!

8:00am my phone text buzzes… “Super smooth flight!!! We’ll see you guys shortly!!!”  Ginger Loves Karyn and Bob… but you wouldn’t have known it right then by the grumbled response to my reading aloud said message.  I texted back to Karyn about our tribulations the night before, to wit she was offering plenty of accommodation telling us to get more sleep… but in reality, Ginger and I too wanted to get on with our vacation.  Besides chapter 1 was simply, “Go to the pool!”  order up some Bloody Mary's (or a poison barbed mamosa), how tough could that be?  I mean really what could possibly go wrong.  Other than whist we were all in some painfully deep intellectual discussion about the various fashions arrayed around the pool… Karyn stops us cold with “Hey I have a problem, I’m having a serious allergic reaction!” as her right lymph node began to look like she had swallowed a peach pit!  And according to Nurse Ginger who happened to be sitting right there… (I’m telling you, coincidence?  I think not!) it felt like a pit too!  This time Bob to the rescue with his stash of Benadryl!  Yea Bob!  Which did indeed help reduce Karyn’s reaction… to what we still were not sure.  Olive? Strawberry? a spice of some sort?  (Plot spoiler here… a day later Karyn discovered that something had either broken off of the plastic spear used to stab the olive she ate or a piece of the pit from the olive lodged in her lower salivary gland).  Karyn is much better now!  And after removing the culprit, was fine all that trip… not counting almost losing a wallet and actually losing an iPhone… Trooper!

Ok… Festivities!   What I really enjoyed about this trip is that we did much more than sit at a slot machine and watch our 401K’s get smaller by the minute (ya know like 2008). 

We ate fantastic food at Capo’s Italian restaurant true to the “Godfather”-esque ambiance, we played golf at two really nice courses, both in good condition with stellar views of the Las Vegas Valley… by the way, if you play there… the friggn’ ball is going to break to that damn valley!  I don’t give a crap that it looks like a two footer breaking the other way.  Trust it like you would a politician!  Seriously golf is great in Vegas, that’s honestly the cheapest 5 hours you will spend!  Even if the tee was $200.00 which ours wasn’t.

 

Friday night many of us caught the Circque du Solei – tribute to Elvis show at the Aria hotel in the new city center.  Good show!  Great art direction!  I was a little annoyed with the lady next to me who spent the gross majority of the show with her fingers in her ears.  PLEASE… Don’t go to shows where strong music is going to be played if you are sensitive to loud sounds!  And if you know this already… have you heard of EAR PLUGS?!!!  Your elbows are distracting me!

Now don’t assume we didn’t partake in some of the vices Vegas has to offer as well… there was gamblin’ to be commenced.  After all we know all of these people from our monthly Poker group!  Many of us played in poker tourneys, some of us played the slots, some video poker and some of us the tables.  My buddy Cliff and I?  We headed to Craps!  The two nights we played we did quite well, Cliff better on night one with the dice I better on our second excursion.  Yes we both profited… fairly handsomely actually, hell you have to be doing well to hold the table for 3 1/2 hours with your original buy-in!  More importantly Cliff and I whooped it up good!  High Five’n yelling at the dice!  Getting the table all excited!  It was tons of fun!  Hell I think our tips to the dealers made them a couple hundred… easy!

The second golf round was guys day, with four of us heading to Red Rocks Country Club to beat that little white bastard!  I had a very good round even with a couple of blow-up holes I still managed an 82.  Not bad for a course I have never seen before in my life much less played.  Damn ball still breaks up hill sometimes… I swear it does!

While we are on the links, my bride emails me with some good news… She hit another Royal Flush on a Quarter Video Poker Machine (cashing in over $1,000.00)!  Whooooo Hooooooo! Dinner on Ginger tonight!  That’s her 3rd of those in as many of years… Her first two coming in the same month a couple of years back!

This trip even had its moments of complete spontaneity.  After our group dinner at Hugo’s Cellar in downtown we walked the Fremont Experience… As we looked up into the canopy we noticed 4 cables strung from the far end to about the halfway point of the mini-strip.  ZIP LINES!  YEAH BUDDY!!!  Who’s with me?  Dennis, Bill, Farri, and Ginger!  That’s who!  We all head off to the west end of the block to get hooked up and go for a thrill!  20 minutes later we’re all 60 feet in the air hauling ass over the crowds gathered on Fremont Street!  How fun was that!!! 

All in all, a great trip!  Surrounded by great, fun, entertaining, genuine people!  Fortunately our flight home was uninterrupted by a PA announcement looking for Ginger.

Washington DC

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington DC (West Springfield VA to be specific) and I always enjoy any opportunity to return to the Nation’s Capitol whenever I can.  Of late that opportunity has been a smidge rare.  However this past week our company was invited to present at a gathering of facility managers for the US Government (all our clients).  Of course we accepted, and off I was, winging my way to the greatest swamp ever!

On top of all of our meetings and obligations I was on a mission to meet face to face with my fellow blogger and photo-hound “Pinch” Paisley.  We’ve been exchanging stories, sharing photo tips, and commenting on each other’s thoughts for years now and I thought “Hell, he works at the Navy Yard! I should be able to swing by.” Turns out I had a meeting scheduled there and wouldn’t you know it? It was in the building right next door to his!… By fate of my and Pinch’s schedule we really didn’t have too much time to spare for a meet an greet, but we managed to carve out 10 minutes to insure we had the opportunity to finally shake hands, put a voice with a face, and snap a picture… which he’s still supposed to post!  

It was great to finally meet the retired CDR!  I look forward to a bit more time available next time I’m in DC where we might be able to belly up to the bar to swap a few lies whilst imbibing the local tavern’s finer ale… or two.

Back to the rest of DC… Of course you know I had my Nikon with me to snap a few images… Here’s a taste:

These first couple, were taken immediately after I landed at Reagan National and had retrieved my rental car.  As I headed out of the airport there is an access to the park that lies immediately under the approach path of Runway 19.  For those of you who have landed at Regan that’s the approach that makes all the twists and turns following the Potomac River, past the monuments of the National Mall all the way to the numbers.  I pulled into the park and grabbed the camera to snap a few. 

Later that evening, after my boss landed we headed off to dinner, but first a brief stop at the Roof-top lounge of the “W” right next to the Treasury Building.  WOW what a view!

That’s the Treasury Building in the immediate foreground on the right with the White House just beyond it.  Then panning to the left is obviously the Washington Monument with the Jefferson Memorial in the distance.

After dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill Kevin and I walked off our meals by touring the sites, including the White House, the WWII memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and the Korean War Memorial.

These first two images were created using HDR (High Dynamic Resolution) to balance all of the light vs Dark areas of the well lit White House while still illustrating the color and richness of the grounds.  I especially wanted to try to capture the red tulips surrounding the fountain.

After a good walk we ended up at my favorite site in DC… The Lincoln Memorial.  A place where people have taken literally Millions of pictures.  I wanted to try to capture that elegant Daniel Chester French sculpture of our greatest President in a creative light (exposure).  I think I like how I managed… what do you think?

And there you have it… After DC we winged our way on the Delta Shuttle up to NYC where I have been the past coupla… to return tomorrow to Denver!