My Opinion of Airports

Daily writing prompt
What’s the best and worst airport you’ve been to?

I am not a well-traveled person, but I have been through a few airports. Obviously, the one I have been through the most is Memphis, now Fredrick W. Smith. The first time I saw that airport was as a Marine private flying in from LAX. I must admit, considering the size of the city, I was surprised at the size and the cleanliness of it, back in 1967. I found out later that it was relatively new and the one it replaced is now for general aviation. Since that day, I have gone through the airport more times than I can count. Unfortunately, I don’t think the airport has truly kept up. I wouldn’t count it as the best or worst. It might be better than average.

It’s been over a decade since I last traveled through LAX, yet it remains my gold standard for operational excellence and strategic planning. The airport processes an impressive volume of passengers and aircraft while maintaining a remarkable track record of avoiding negative publicity. What’s particularly impressive is their commitment to continuous upgrades that keep operations flowing seamlessly. That said, my experience is somewhat dated, so current conditions may well have evolved.

I’ve been through there about ten times without any issues or unexpected delays. They have a nice restaurant right in the center with a great view. The area has developed quite a bit, so the view has diminished somewhat over the years. But when I ate there, I enjoyed excellent food at a surprisingly reasonable price.

Chicago O’Hare is a hectic hub, as you might expect. One particular visit stood out as especially chaotic. I was scheduled to arrive from Memphis at 7 p.m., but severe weather caused significant delays. We circled overhead, waiting for clearance to land. Upon leaving the baggage claim 12:30 am, I found vehicles—primarily taxis and limousines—queued two-deep along the curb.

Still, I won’t call it the worst airport. It was the exception, not the rule. Besides, it features a smart design: you step virtually from the plane onto a train. (Or visa versa). If you know the city, that’s a major advantage. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. New York might offer it, but I only passed through New York on a connection. I’ll reserve judgment on that one. Besides, I don’t know which airport it was.

When connecting through DFW Airport, brace yourself for a challenging experience. On three separate occasions, I barely made my connections, coming dangerously close to missing my flights each time. The gates consistently closed just as I was boarding. This proves particularly problematic when transferring between domestic and international terminals.

Atlanta receives my lowest rating, primarily due to my personal experiences there. While I acknowledge that worse airports likely exist, I haven’t visited them to compare. Every time I’ve traveled through Atlanta, my plane has been positioned at one of the terminal’s furthest gates. Adding to the frustration, my luggage consistently arrived even later than I did. Thankfully, I no longer have occasion to fly into Atlanta.

Debt Free?

A few years ago I paid the last payment on my house, which made me feel really great. I thought of myself as debt free. However, I ruined that when I purchased my 2023 Nissan EV. Well, I am again looking at the possibility of being debt free as I have just a few payments left on my car.

As I recently thought about I felt really good. And then some character on the radio went and ruined it. He reminded me I will likely not be debt free in my lifetime, nor could I completely pay off my debt if I got that million dollar check I’ve been looking for in my mail.

You see, the feds owe about forty trillion dollars. My little million dollars would not even put a dent in that debt. And as an American citizen, part of that debt is mine. I’m guessing a million dollars would not even pay off my part of that debt.

My guess is that if I lived to a thousand, my portion of my debt will only grow larger by the day.

So much for looking forward to being debt free.

Two or More Words With the Same or Nearly the Same Meaning

That is basically the definition of Synonyms. Good writers make good us of synonyms primarily to keep from being irritatingly repetitious.

Many don’t realize it but the words communist and Nazi are effectively synonymous. That’s right. They both mean socialist. Okay. There are some minor differences, but they basically mean the same thing. Look them up. Go ahead.

Ergo, when I hear a communist or even a socialist call someone else a Nazi, I realize they are showing off his stupidity. It is simply one socialist calling someone else a socialist, especially when they are referring to a capitalist. Indeed, a capitalist is virtually the opposite of both a communist and a Nazi.

If you don’t believe me. Look up the meaning of Nazi. It is an acronym with the word socialist embedded within it.

So why do people still use the prajorative term? Because it works. Most people are not aware that it is a very accurate illustration of the old saying the pot calling the kettle black. One is about as bad as the other. In fact the communists have likely killed, outright murdered more than the Nazis.

The fact of the matter is, neither party has any political interests. There real goal is control. As in the day of kings and surfs, they want to be the royalty and the want the rest of us to be subservient to them. They are simply using the two parties to reach that goal.

Observations and Conclusions

I have taken note: there have been very large facilities built for sports, professional games. There are stadiums, untold acreage set aside for games for a few hours a week. This is small compared to the highways, parking lots and electric power resources set aside to play baseball and football from one end of the country to the other.

Then too, I have seen the land set aside for golf courses. For one game and the other, fortunes are spent to create and maintain fields to play in.

Oddly, I haven’t seen a whole lot of complaints though some of these facilities have been built on prime high value real estate. Indeed, many of these facilities are built in the middle of big metropolitan areas and these cities brag about them.

My conclusion, sports and games are greatly more important than power generation facilities and computer sites, this even though these stadiums use enormous amounts of power themselves.

Problems With Social Security

If only the people representing us in government would look past the tip of their nose when writing law. It would drastically reduce the well foreseen problems such as Social Security. From a number of sources, I have heard that Social Security will, by law be cut by nearly a quarter.

I have some easy solutions. However, there is what I call the options law. The longer you wait to fix a problem, the less options you have to fix it. Obviously, if we wait until it runs out, then we will no longer options.

First, the most effective way is to increase gross income. If income is increased ten percent, then the money going into the Social Security fund by ten percent. This, alone should extend normal Social Security.

Decrease benefits, about five percent. It would hurt all of us receiving benefits but if they did something earlier, it might be 1% instead of 5%. As I said, you put things off, you take away options.

Delaying benefits is also an option, again one that would not have hurt so much if it had been done twenty years ago. If we do it now, it’s not effective for another ten to twenty years.

Whatever the case, it likely will not effect me so much. I won’t likely going to be around to suffer the consequences. I am surprised I’m still around. Hence my suggestion s are not for my benefit.

Kennedy Assassination

Daily writing prompt
If you could go back and witness any historical event, which one would you pick?

I’d like to know know what really happened. Then again, that would likely put a bull’s eye on my back wouldn’t it. But then who would be those wanting to silence me? I’d really like to know.

Note: auto spell correction sometimes gets it wrong. Originally it changed my spelling of assassination because I dropped an s. Sorry, I did not notice it right away.

By Design

Some think that the Memphis democrats built a worse education system by incompetence. Actually that’s not true. It is by design. They want a bad education system. It is why they objected to the state coming in and fixing it.

It is what democrats do, they destroy things by design… They do it to gain money and power. The Shelby County democrats keep making the system worse so they can ask for more funding to fix it.

If you wonder where my proof is, consider the quality of the quality of the Shelby County Schools before Memphis politicians got control of it. Consider how the county schools took a nose dive after they took over county schools.

Speaking of Coincidences

A few days ago, I wrote a response to a prompt on coincidences. Then my wife and I went to the doctor. It was a bright, hot muggy day. Not a cloud in the sky. Well not one I could see anyway.

After waiting the better part of 2 hours, we were called back to an exam room. Within minutes, I heard a familiar noise.

Now let me pause to explain. In the waiting room, there were big windows through which I saw big blue clear skies. It was with confidence that I entered the totally enclosed exam room.

It was why I doubted my ears when I heard the little noise. A few minutes later, there was no doubt. I ran to the main entry door and realized it was to late. It would be useless at this point to raise the windows. The interior of the car was very likely soaked. To run out there would only make sure I was good and soaked too.

If we could consider rain an intelligent thing of life, I could say it did it on purpose. It had something against me or was taking a vengeance out on me. The rain poured down hard! The lightning flashed repeatedly. The sky was dark before night.

I suppose I could voice a conclusion that God was angry with me for some reason. He might have been, I guess. However, I’m more apt to write this one up to coincidence. Frankly, at the time, I was beginning to wonder.

There is no doubt in my mind that God can and does use what seems to be natural to chastise us. It is for our benefit. Certainly, it is a bad idea to ignore the chastisement of the Lord. The Jews did it dispute the warnings of the prophet, Jaramiah and they suffered dearly for it. They were told their punishment for abandoning God’s word would be 40 years of captivity and they suffered because of their unbelief. They chalked their problems to coincidence.

History does tend to repeat. Today, there are those that don’t believe in God’s punishment. They believe the problems of our country are nothing but coincidence.

For the time being I’m calling this thunder storm a coincidence. However, if coincidences as this become more frequent, I’m going to start reconsidering.

I Admit I Would not Be Good Policeman

As a child, I had a desire to be a policeman. I really liked the idea of putting the bad guys in jail. Naturally, in my youth, I was very pretty idealistic. You know, I figured I’d always catch the bad guy and he’d be soon incarcerated.

Unfortunately, things don’t always happen that way. I wish they did. In general, most of the TV shows try to make things a little realistic, but I can’t have but think they really bend things for the sake of drama.

Perhaps, one of the most common situations in the shows is the hostage situations. I don’t know exactly what the actual procedures are but I can’t believe that a police officer should ever surrender his weapon to save a hostage. If he does, the bad guy suddenly has two hostages.

Moreover, the one holding the hostage is foolish to kill the hostage. If and when he does, he immediately looses any advantage he might have. Even more, the officer is completely justified in shooting the bad guy.

The fact is, I’d likely never be a good policeman. I’d shoot the hostage taker the first time I had a clear shot. I don’t guess that’s procedure either. However, I’d do it for three reasons. First, I think I just might stand a chance of saving the hostage. Second, the bad guy would never take another hostage. Third, if word got around that the department quickly killed hostage takers, there would be far fewer hostage takers.

I have never discussed this with an official and I would guess none would discuss with me. Nonetheless, I suspect my ideas would not be readily accepted. As I sliced to before, I would not be considered a good policeman. If I confronted a kidnapper and he was hiding his captive, I would use whatever means to get the guy to tell me.

Naturally, it would only work once and I’d be unemployed. They might even toss me in jail for a day or two. But the way I look at it, I will have quite possibly saved a life. And that kidnapper, the one that did the kidnapping, he would continue to carry around and a few permanent injuries to remember me by, though he’d likely never be convicted. And, maybe some other would be kidnapper just might reconsider.

So, aren’t you glad I never became a policeman, me and people like me. Especially if you are one of the bad guys I am referring to.