I got word today that we have plans to start teaching our internal software in Grand Junction, CO, two days after Memorial Day. This is my last week in Louisiana, perhaps for a long time. I may miss the B-52s, A-10s, and other military aircraft flying their touch-and-gos at nearby Barksdale AFB. I tried to take pictures, but my poor phone camera renders our planes as UFOs.

I’ve been to Colorado before, with some good and bad memories. Denver (and being from Kansas City, I cringe to admit this) is a wonderful place to teach. The Halliburton Business Development group had season tickets to the Colorado Rockies games: lower level, first base side, with a Mike’s Hard Lemonade stand at the top of the seats. The downtown is pedestrian-friendly, and on 16th Street the electric train will take you to just two blocks from Coors Field. There is an ESPNzone, a Hard Rock Cafe, and a wonderful Italian restaurant whose name escapes me, but if you leave there hungry it’s your own fault.

The travel side of my memories is not as pleasant. One itinerary I had called for me to fly into Denver-Stapleton (evil airport), rent a car and drive to Brighton, which ranked (pardon the pun) as the second most malodorous field facility that I’ve been to. Both Brighton and Liberal, KS, operate slaughterhouses that slammed my sinuses shut. Finishing software deployment in Brighton, I next had to drive from Brighton to Grand Junction, west on I-70 across the Rockies. In February. During a snow storm. Thankfully the Lumina’s anti-slip and anti-locks worked perfectly. The runaway ramps in the Rockies are huge, and I was praying that I would not be pushed up one of those by an out-of-control semi. I stopped at Breckenridge to see if I could get any cool merchandise, but everything was fantastically expensive.

United Airlines handles the flight from Columbus to Denver, and the flight was one of the more pleasant coach flights that I had been on. This was before September 11, so we’ll see how everything changes. Food was served hot; beef with carrots and green beans in a ceramic tray with real silverware. United let passengers listen to music through their special headphones that use hollow air tubes to channel music and talk rather than standard electrical wires. They are also the only airline that lets passengers listen to air traffic radio. I found it fun to listen to our pilot talk with the various control centers. Normally this is quiet until the plane changes areas of responsibility, such as moving from the Indianapolis-monitored airspace into Kansas City-monitored air space, but somewhere in the Indianapolis area I heard a conversation like this:

“This is Indianapolis Control to (airline flight x). We request that you climb 1000 feet, over.”
“This is (flight x), I cannot comply with that request, because (rest of response was muddled).”
“Ok, (Airline Flight y), this is Indianapolis Control, we request that you descend 1000 feet, over.”
“This is (Flight y), we will descend 1000 feet.”

Five minutes later:

“Indianapolis Control, this is (Flight x). we have just passed within 300 feet of another airliner.” Pause.
“This is Indianapolis Control, we are aware of that.”
“This is (Flight x). Isn’t that within the reportable bounds of a near miss?”
“This is Indianapolis Control, an error was made, and we are handling it.”
“This is (Flight x), has Indianapolis Control not had their coffee yet? Someone needs to wake up!”
(snidely in return) “Flight x, this is Indianapolis Control, please proceed to (new location, new heading), over.”

Thankfully my plane was not involved. I’m interested to see if they still allow passenger air traffic control monitoring, especially after September 11. Given that UAL has filed bankruptcy and is further embroiled with their underfunded pension situation (link dead), I’m expecting peanuts and no in-flight movie for the next 3-hour Columbus to Denver leg.

Grand Junction on a clear day has a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains from the west side. The mountains themselves are bands of lighter and darker shades of red. I hope I can get a decent picture of it in a couple of weeks.