1997

Planes, Trains, Boats, and Automobiles

To better understand what each company did, team members from each video team would visit the other team and evaluate their status.  NYNEX sent several people down to Reston for a couple of days and then a week later my boss and I flew up to New York to evaluate NYNEX video services.  I had been to New York for business a few years ago and didn’t care much for it, too big of a city, to much traffic and too many people.  My boss on the other hand said he liked New York and had lived in the city before so he knew his way around. It is a quick and easy commuter flight from Washington National Airport to LaGuardia Airport with flights every couple of hours each day. I drove my car down to National to catch the 7 am flight, it wasn’t too bad of a drive from Reston at that time in the morning and we took off on time.  After arriving at LaGuardia, we took a taxi to the NYNEX building where we spent the day in meetings. Around four o’clock we took a taxi back to the airport for a six pm flight, got our boarding passes and waited to board when they announced a delay, something about bad weather in Washington. After several more delays they cancelled the flight, so we tried to get on the last flight of the day back to Washington only to find the flight was full. I was not much of a traveler at the time and would have probably hung out at the airport until the next morning, but my boss said we could take the train back to Washington. The train? What train, we were at the airport. The train station was across the river in the city, my boss explained, if we hurry, we could catch the last express train to Washington. He went on, we can take the ferry from the airport, across the river where we could take a taxi the few blocks to the train station. We rushed down to the ferry arriving a few minutes before it was to leave. I would have probably enjoyed the ferry during the day, but it was dark, raining, and the water a bit choppy, so I didn’t find it all that pleasant and fortunately it was a short ride, so I didn’t get seasick.  Arriving at the opposite side of the river we found taxis waiting and soon arrived at the train station. It would have taken me a half hour to just figure out what train to take, much less how to get tickets, but my boss knew exactly what to do. We quickly got tickets and boarded the train with fifteen minutes to spare. The only train I had ever been on was the open tourist train in the mountains of North Carolina that went from one small town to another and then back.  This was a totally different experience. With wide comfortable chairs that reclined, you could get up and walk around and there was even a café in one of the cars where we got sandwiches for dinner. It was very comfortable, and I quite enjoyed it. It took longer than flying to get to Washington but was so much more comfortable than flying.  There was a problem though, my car was at Washington National Airport and the train didn’t go there but it did stop at New Carrollton in Maryland on the opposite side of DC, which fortunately was the last stop on the DC Metro Orange line.  So, I got off the train in New Carrollton where I got on the Metro Orange Line which of course didn’t go to National Airport which was on the Blue Line. After transferring to the Blue Line in Rosslyn, I finally arrived at the airport, got my car, and made it home just after midnight.  Twenty years later the Metro Silver line would be extended to a few blocks from where I lived in Reston.

Meditation