Charlottesville Tomorrow has spent the past month providing our readers in-depth information and exclusive audio of the debate over the 29 Western Bypass project. Now, we have dusted off VDOT's 1997 plans and created 3D visualizations that allow you to see how this proposed road would impact the character of your commute, of your neighborhood, and of our community.
In June we shared an overlay of the Western Bypass map usable within Google Earth. That was useful for showing you WHERE the road was located, but not WHAT it would look like when built in real terrain.
Today we are pleased to share our first 3D visualizations of the Western Bypass. We think these images bring a lot of the details into focus like never before.
In our Western Bypass information center, you can view a slideshow of 24 different perspectives of the project, download an image you like, or grab one Adobe PDF with everything for easy viewing on your own computer.
You can also review our brief summary of the current status of the Western Bypass in regards to costs, design, efficacy, and the public process. We even have a comprehensive and interactive timeline that will give you a great refresher on this project's long history.
If you have downloaded Google Earth, you can use this overlay map compiled by Charlottesville Tomorrow to fly the bypass route detailed in VDOT's 2003 supplemental environmental impact statement
VDOT’s regional administrator and the director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission disagree on the number of public hearings that will be required before the Metropolitan Planning Organization can vote to change its policy on the Western Bypass of U.S. 29.
“A single public hearing, to be held on July 14, 2011, is all that will be required for the [MPO Policy] Board to decide if they want to add this project to the plans,” wrote James S. Utterback Friday in an e-mail to TJPDC executive director Stephen W. Williams. Utterback is administrator of VDOT’s Culpeper District and a voting member of the MPO.
However, in the emails obtained by Charlottesville Tomorrow, Williams informs Utterback he will proceed as if two public hearings are required.
“I hope you understand it is my responsibility as MPO Executive Director to protect the MPO's interests,” Williams wrote in response.
Two planning documents must be changed before federal funding can be allocated to the project, which is estimated to cost between $260 million and $300 million.
The MPO’s long-range transportation plan, known as the United Jefferson Area Mobility Plan (UNJAM), was last updated in May 2009. Initial work to update the plan is being conducted as part of the Livable Communities project being managed by the TJPDC. A full update is expected to be complete by the spring of 2014.
Another document, the MPO’s transportation improvement program (TIP), must also be amended to remove language that blocks funding for construction from being allocated to the project.
Late in a meeting on June 8, the Albemarle Board of Supervisors voted 4-2 to direct its MPO representatives to remove the language opposing the bypass. The vote, which reversed an almost 15-year old policy position of opposition to the bypass, was not on the meeting agenda and the two supervisors that voted against the change said they were not informed in advance the item would be brought up by the other members.
A week earlier, the board had deadlocked 3-3 on a similar motion. However Supervisor Lindsay Dorrier changed his vote after receiving a phone call from Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton who promised to find funding for the old Western Bypass proposal if it gained the MPO’s support. Supervisors Ann H. Mallek and Dennis S. Rooker voted against the change.
The MPO’s public participation plan states that two public hearings must be held before the plan and the TIP can be updated. However, it only requires at least one public hearing to be held in the case of an amendment of either planning document.
Williams said he believes that both planning documents need to be updated, not amended, because of the scope of the Western Bypass. He has requested that the board proceed with updates, which would allow for public hearings on July 14 and July 27 with action to be taken at the latter meeting.
“The decision to treat these additions as plan updates as opposed to amendments seems excessive in light of the fact that only one project is being added to the documents,” wrote Utterback.
Williams responded by telling Utterback he is going to proceed as if the addition of the bypass is an update, and not an amendment, though he would take input from MPO members until later this week before setting the next meeting agenda.
“In my opinion there is ample justification for treating it as an update due to the fact that it is a very complex project with extensive impacts, and will represent a reversal of previous policy," Williams wrote in a response.
Utterback said in an interview Monday that he would accept Williams’ direction if it had the support of Supervisor Rodney S. Thomas.
“[Williams] is the director and if he and the chairman are on the same page than it's fine,” Utterback said.
A chart from UNJAM 2035 which indicates the amount of funding expected to be received by the MPO between 2009 and 2035.(Click to enlarge)
Federal law also requires that the long-range plan be constrained, which means it can only include projects which have a reasonable chance of being paid for before within the timeline of the plan.
Last Wednesday, the Commonwealth Transportation Board adopted a six year improvement program that does not include any additional funding for the western bypass. Their next meeting is not until July 20.
“Our interpretation is that before the MPO is able to take the vote on the long range transportation plan and TIP amendments on July 27, we must have evidence from VDOT that provides a reasonable assurance of project funding,” Williams said in an interview.
Charlottesville City Council members will be asked to give direction to its MPO members on how to vote at tonight’s City Council meeting. Councilors Satyendra Huja and Kristin Szakos are the city’s representatives.
City staff did not recommend which way Councilors should vote, but Neighborhood Development Services director Jim Tolbert did request in his staff report that the city condition its support for the Western Bypass on receiving funding for other projects.
“If Council desires to express its support for the Western Bypass, staff believes that Council should request the Secretary of Transportation to also provide funding to complete two of the City’s highest priority projects, extension of the Hillsdale Drive Connector and the replacement of the Belmont Bridge, immediately,” Tolbert wrote.
Claudius Place is a two-story 6,067 sq. ft. commercial project in downtown Crozet currently under review by Albemarle County.
The Piedmont Development Group plans to acquire the property in June 2011 from Barnes Lumber. Ground breaking is expected by the end of 2011 with project completion by Summer 2012.
A goal of our Cville3D initiative is to help our readers and decision makers see the community and proposed development projects in a whole new way. Taking the publicly available drawings, we can render a project in a three-dimensional real-world environment. Presto! You get more information to make an informed decision.
Funding for the Cville3D initiative has been provided by generous support of the Virginia Environmental Endowment and the Oakwood Foundation. The models are created by Bob Pineo, an independent local architect working under contract for Charlottesville Tomorrow. The final product is our best approximation of what this project will look like based on the material submitted to local government.
The existing Upper and Lower Ragged Mountain Dams will be taken out of service with the construction of a new earthen dam built downstream during 2012-2013. The first phase of the earthen dam will raise the existing reservoir pool by 30 feet and an oversized foundation will support a future 12-foot increase if conditions indicate additional water supply is needed. Learn more about the community water supply plan.
A goal of our Cville3D initiative is to help our readers and decision makers see the community and proposed infrastructure projects in a whole new way. Taking the publicly available drawings, we can render a project in a three-dimensional real-world environment. Presto! You get more information to make an informed decision.
Using Google Sketchup and Google Earth, we create the 3D perspective of the earthen dam design as seen in this Flickr slideshow
The Re-Store'N Station is a project currently under review by Albemarle County. It is a convenience store with gas pumps and office space located on property zoned Highway Commercial on Route 250 West in Crozet.
More than a year and a half after consultant Gannett Fleming was dismissed from work on the design of a new dam for the Ragged Mountain Reservoir, the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority has unveiled a new approach that is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars less.
Schnabel Engineering, based in Glen Allen, has recommended that the RWSA build a massive earthen dam just downstream from the Lower Ragged Mountain dam. The new dam would raise the water level by 45 feet, allowing for storage of more than three times the amount of water held in the reservoir today.
RWSA Executive Director Thomas L. Frederick Jr. said the new dam would cost between $28.5 million and $36.6 million, which includes final design and engineering work, an environmental mitigation plan, and protection of the Interstate 64 embankment the larger reservoir would reach.
“When we hired Schnabel we were persistent in pushing for attaining the goals of the community, which is a fine line balance between a very safe and secure dam that provides that long-term water supply, and one at the best cost we can get,” Frederick said. “I think Schnabel has been successful at getting us there, and I commend their performance.”
Chris Webster, Schnabel’s Charlottesville project administrator, said construction costs for the major components of the dam are about $22.5 million. The RWSA says that is about $50 million cheaper than the last construction estimate by Gannett Fleming.
“We have given a range for the construction costs of about $20 [million] to $27 million,” Webster said. “The final design phase and engineering during construction would cost an additional $3.7 to $4 million.”
“We believe this is a conservative estimate and it is very possible the construction costs will come out at the low end of the range, or possibly even below that,” he said.
The new dam is one component of the 50-year community water supply plan that would serve Charlottesville and the urban areas of Albemarle County. Additional water storage capacity is needed to accommodate population growth and prepare for future droughts.
The 2006 plan called for a new, taller dam at Ragged Mountain and a new pipeline that would transfer water from the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir to fill the expanded reservoir. That plan has come under fire by opponents who favor dredging South Fork and a new study of the community’s long-term water needs.
Dede Smith, a representative of the group Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan, which favors dredging, shared her initial reactions after seeing a copy of the executive summary provided to the RWSA board Thursday.
“I can’t comment on what this means without seeing a more detailed report,” Smith said. “It is difficult to compare this to earlier estimates because it is not detailed enough. … I am concerned about the sheer size of the dam. This is 135 feet tall versus 112 feet tall, so it is 23 feet taller and has a bigger footprint.”
Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris has also advocated for an alternative approach that relies on dredging, increased conservation and a smaller dam at Ragged Mountain.
“Assuming these numbers are accurate, it is strong validation for the decision by the key parties to take a step back from the original plan and recommendations,” Norris said. “I am heartened to hear that, if we do build a new dam, it would not cost nearly as much as we had feared. However, I would like to continue pushing the envelope when it comes to evaluating other options that may save us even more money.”
When the RWSA questioned Gannett Fleming’s 2008 design for the new Ragged Mountain Dam, and its $70 million-$99 million price tag, Schnabel Engineering was asked to provide a second opinion. At the time, Schnabel said a modified concrete design could be built for about $56.6 million.
With the two divergent proposals, Frederick convened in 2009 an independent panel of dam experts to determine how best to proceed. With the panel’s feedback, Schnabel replaced Gannett Fleming on the project in September 2009, when it was awarded a $1.3 million contract to redesign the dam.
According to Frederick, the idea for an earthen dam was first suggested by Schnabel. Following a review of that recommendation by the panel of dam experts, the RWSA announced in March that Schnabel would assess the option for an earthen dam after underground borings revealed the presence of much less rock and more soil.
Support for these visualizations comes from our generous donors, the Oakwood Foundation, and the Virginia Environmental Endowment.
Schnabel’s proposal has three major elements: the earthen dam; an inlet/outlet tower and tunnel through rock that houses the pipeline and spillway drain; and an emergency spillway carved out of nearby rock and designed to handle a 500-year flood event. The earthen dam is more cost effective because it relies on material available on site.
“Based on our calculations, we determined there is a need for 850,000 cubic yards of soil to construct the earthen dam,” Webster said. “There is at least 1 million cubic yards of material available on site.”
Charlottesville officials have said in previous meetings that no decision would be made about the dam construction until the city gathers additional information on the costs of dredging, the feasibility and costs of building on top of the existing 1908 dam, and a validation of the water demand analysis that was the basis for the 2006 plan.
“This [report on the dam] is the first piece of info we were waiting for,” Smith said. “It will be difficult to assess what the feasible options will be until we get the results from all the other studies.”
The city is selecting its own engineering firm to investigate whether the 1908 Ragged Mountain Dam can be repaired or raised by 13 feet instead of building a new dam. Five companies responded to a recent request for proposals.
“We’re in the final negotiations phase with our selected firm, and hope to finish that in the next day and so,” said Judy Mueller, the city’s public works director. She said she hopes to reveal the firm’s name and the cost estimate for the study next week.
Gary O’Connell, Charlottesville’s former city manager, is the new head of the Albemarle County Service Authority, which provides public water and sewer to county residents. After reviewing the report, he suggested the timing was good for another joint meeting of the RWSA and ACSA boards, along with the City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.
“Hopefully by the end of June we will have a lot of these questions addressed,” O’Connell said. “It seems like it would be a good opportunity to have the four boards come together and discuss the next steps.”
“I am encouraged by the [dam report],” O’Connell said. “We made the right decision to stop on the concrete dam approach and rethink it completely and have come back with a more cost effective approach that puts us back in the ball park of the original cost estimates.”
The earthen dam design will be presented to the RWSA board at its meeting Tuesday. A public information session has been scheduled for 6 p.m. June 1 in CitySpace at the Market Street Parking Garage.
New discovery about how the eyes are affected by brain injury could lead to simple non-invasive eye test to detect CVI.
CVI Facts - the cerebral visual impairments are not a single condition, with a very simple explanation.
***Embargo Flint-Saginaw-Bay City*** The Saginaw County Department of Public Health made sure of it by offering families immunizations and health screenings.
On Saturday, Aug. 18, the Saginaw County Department of Public Health made sure of it by offering families immunizations and health screenings.
“To help the people who can’t afford them, making sure everyone has their school supplies for school,” said Elizabeth Funez, a volunteer at the event.
A brand new school year is right around the corner and getting all of those school supplies can really start to add up.
It’s a free event to help kids get acclimated and ready to get back to school while throwing in a little fun along the way.
Six-year-old Giovanni is getting ready to head to kindergarten. He came to the event with his cousins who said it’s been a fun afternoon.
“Playing on the bouncy houses and getting book bags for school,” said Angelo Garcia, who is starting 4th grade.
“We got together and did backpacks for the first 20 kids that we immunized and also providing hearing and vision screens so you know we can catch those kids if they have any issues, so all know we can catch those kids if they have any issues, so all around ya know just being better prepared,” said Christan Harrington, the Health Officer at the Saginaw County Public Health.
“Trying to, you know, not only get kids ready from an immunizations standpoint but then we really wanted to do something good for the community,” Harrington said.
‘We were getting ready for school!’ Harvey victims lose everything in fire, night before first day of school
Tagged: cyber love Song, Cyber Love Song of the Week, cyberdating expert, dating expert, Julie Spira, Music Monday, online dating expert, romantic music, songs about love
Here’s a very romantic online dating story that I have to share. Nancy and Ron met on Match.com. Nancy was a single mother of two, and Ron had two children of his own.
After an enjoyable first date, Ron asked Nancy what her favorite flowers and flavors were. He arrived on their second date with a bouquet of flowers that included every flower ?she mentioned during their phone call. He also stopped at Godiva Chocolatier and selected one chocolate for each of her favorite flavors, along with a bottle of champagne.
Ron proposed to Nancy while on a beach walk with her and her two daughters. He asked Nancy’s children first if he could have permission to marry their mother. According to Nancy, she felt that Ron knew the fabric of her life like a quilt. They have been happily married for six years.
Congratulations to Nancy and Ron, our Cyber Wedding Album couple from your friends at CyberDatingExpert.com
At the very beginning, there were 21 startups. After three days of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner.
While the Adidas Futurecraft 4D shoes are cool looking sneakers, the story behind those shoes is even more interesting. The
Over the past two days, 21 companies have taken the stage at the Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield. We’ve now taken
Meet PoLTE, a Dallas-based startup that wants to make location-tracking more efficient. Thanks to PoLTE’s software solution, logistics and shipment
Disrupt SF (Sept 5-7) approaches with just a few days until things kick off. We have an all-star lineup that
Disrupt SF is right around the corner, which means startupland is prepping to congregate once again in the city for
Ride-hailing, social interactions from behind tiny screens and fitness tracking are just a few of the things we’ve all become
Even for the long-standing giants of the tech industry, quantum computing is one of the most complicated subjects to tackle.
Silicon Valley, for better and oftentimes worse, provides an uncanny valley view of the ups and downs of IRL Silicon
Listen up, early-stage startup founders! Do you know the line that Marlon Brando made famous in the classic film, “On
Medline Medline 610NTJ4XL-CA Top 2 Pocket Reversible Jade AngelStat Angelica Color Coding - 4XL is nice product, although it costs just 16.49! I recommend you buying this at UnbeatableSale.com, you won't regret it!
Medline Industries mission is to provide quality medical products with superior value to healthcare providers and end users, improving patient care and the quality of peoples lives. AngelStat Reversible V-Neck Top, Set Sleeve - Designed for comfort, our popular 50 percent polyester and 50 percent cotton AngelStat fabric is soft yet durable, and always gets the job done. Reversible shirt features set-in sleeves and upper left chest pocket inside and out. Neck bias is color coded (Medline color-coding or Angelica color coding) for easy size identification. 4XL, Angelica Color-Coding. Color Jade. Pictured in white and blue.
About once a year I go to an NHL game at the Verizon Center, often as part of an anniversary gift. Usually on my own, because my wife Jane is happier to have the evening to relax at home. Last night was the night, determined by the opponent of the home-town Capitals and the convenience of the date.
The Nashville Predators are in the Western Conference, and so are infrequent foes for the Eastern Conference Caps. Their logo suggests a saber-toothed tiger. The name is a little ambiguous, like the Toronto Raptors of the NBA or the even-more-vague NHL Minnesota Wild (a state and an adjective!). The Wild logo’s vague predator features a more ursine animal profile. I suppose both these team names are better than those of a prey species, like the Penguins or the Ducks. Nashville, in any event, seemed a suitable adversary for a team named after a seat of government. I’d have called the team the “Nashville Sound,” but what would that logo look like?
Even buying the ticket was a new deal to me. I use Ticketmaster, having found that the discounts on other sites are not dramatic, and that this site provides reliability. I was not prepared for the ticket format choices, however: an app or my credit card at the gate. Chose the latter, leaving me more mystified than ever about the “Order Processing Fee” of $6.00. Amazon can and has recently physically delivered everything from Haynes briefs to a stand-alone printer/scanner to my door in two days with no fees at all. But somehow the ticket folks need $6.00 to allow some electronic information to flow through their circuits and to send me about three emails. When I got to the gate they swiped my card and printed out a small slip with the seat location. They probably made about $5.98 pure profit on that transaction.
Jane dropped me off at the Metro, which conveniently has a stop right at the arena. Not quite as good as the old Boston Garden, where you could walk right from the North Station platform to the admission gate without ever going outside, but not bad. I headed straight to Fuddrucker’s for a pre-game burger and fries, and then went in to find my seat. I wanted to watch the pre-game skate, and I knew getting to the spot would take some time. I bought a $65.25 (tax included) seat, one of the cheaper available. It was on the third level (what they called the Second Balcony at the Garden, though we had other names for it), nearly at center ice, three rows from the top, on the aisle. Actually, it provided a very good view of the whole ice, from a somewhat high and distant perspective. The shocking thing to me is how expensive these seats are. For this very ordinary game, the best places in the stands go for nearly $300 apiece (this excludes the suites and other elite locations). You can’t get a seat anywhere for less than $55. I remember buying a box seat in the old Garden a couple of times, especially once when I was astounded that some people who’d paid box seat money got there late and missed some action (Don McKenney had scored twice in the first ten minutes on Jacques Plante, if you can imagine that!). That seat cost me $12, and while I know that was “real money” in those days, it was not the equivalent of $250, and maybe barely of $65.
After a series of escalator rides and a walk almost halfway around the concourse, I arrived about 30 minutes before game time. The arena was nearly empty. But I had come to watch the pre-game skate, which began a few minutes later. Whirling circles of skaters looped around. A few players stretched or did their private rituals. Dmitri Orlov practiced his stick handling, but let’s just say that at his best he’s no Brad Marchand. Braden Holtby, after practicing splits in full goalie gear (!), went between the pipes, and players started giving him shots, some hard and some easy. Nikki Backstrom got about a dozen pucks at the top of the right circle, and fed them one by one to his linemate Alex Ovechkin, who waited in the middle of the left circle, instantly slamming each one into the now-empty net as it arrived. Goal, goal, goal, . . . At the end, TJ Oshie ignored his teammates filing off the ice until he was all alone. Then, feigning panic, he raced for the door, did a flying leap over the boards, and disappeared down the runway. Then two Zambonis came out to preen the ice. So did a full-scale inflatable car balloon, powered and controlled like a drone, with 4 little props, advertising some dealership. Made me wish for one instant that I had a good air rifle for just long enough to take it down.
At the start of the game the arena goes dark. It is just 7:00. The seats are now maybe half-full. The four officials skate around to the very loud music designed to stir up the crowd. Spotlight beams dart about in the dark. Two minutes later both teams emerge. While the Capitals get a full spotlight and a “color guard” consisting of peewee players raising Caps banners on hockey-stick poles, the visiting Predators skulk out in darkness. Then it’s lights up, honor a soldier, national anthem, and the puck drops at 7:08. Afterwards I heard a fan describe it as a “sleepy” game. The Caps, red-hot and leading the Conference by several points three weeks back, had their “bye week” (a dumb idea if I ever heard one) and came back flat. Since then they had been 6-6-2, including a zip-for-four West Coast trip. Last night they played tough against a defense-minded Predators club that looked like they’d have trouble scoring in the between-periods peewee game. Late in the first period a Nashville defenseman, carrying the puck, lost his footing as he was turning to the left of his net to head up-ice. He fell and the puck skidded behind the other defender. The Caps suddenly had a 2-on-0 right in front of the net. Highly touted rookie Jakub Vrana drew the goalie’s attention, passed to (ex-Bruin!) Brett Connolly on the open side, and the Caps had a goal.
Other than that, the game was drowsy. Some antics with the Caps’ cartoony eagle mascot and a pewee hockey “game” enlivened intermissions. One team had a girl goalie, and she was interviewed. A few contests, shooting t-shirts into the crowd, the usual stuff. As if the sport isn’t enough by itself. There were few good scoring chances in the actual game. Both teams had a shots-on-goal number in the mid-twenties. But the Predators won a whopping 70% of the faceoffs, which kept the Caps from applying constant pressure. Neither team was good at puck possession, neither goalie was severely tested. On the one setup Ovechkin got in his left circle “sweet spot,” he completely mis-hit the puck, despite his pregame practice, and it weakly drifted to the boards in the corner. There were an annoying number of “commercial TV” timeouts, a practice entirely unknown in the old days. In the third period Tom Wilson of the Caps took a Predator hard but clean into the boards by the team benches. Another Predator decided to take Wilson on. Big mistake. Wilson is unlikely to instigate fights, but he likes to fight, and he’s good at it. The last seven or eight punches, all hard rights, were thrown by him, and the refs mercifully called it a TKO. Wilson went to the sin bin, the Predator to the dressing room, not to return.
Unfortunately, the two best shots on goal the Predators took both went in cleanly. The second was in overtime, when they executed a beautiful set play, luring the Caps up-ice out of their defensive zone and then sending both forwards rocketing in on a 2-on-1. The left wing had an open shot and did not miss. I was outa there fast to beat the crowd onto the Metro, which does not put on extra trains for hockey games. I got a seat on the Orange Line, but a couple of people stood all the way to Dunn Loring. When I told Jane the game had gone into overtime but ended very quickly, she said “actually it was at 3:12.” Coulda knocked me over with a feather.
For one week of every fifty-two, we like to go somewhere warm, sit by the pool or on the beach at a nice resort, and relax. We’ve been to a variety of such destinations in the Western Hemisphere, and this year it was Baja California. Making our travel plans months ago, we found routes to Cabo San Lucas from Dulles Airport through Denver, Chicago, and Houston. Our travel window, late February through mid-March, made the choice simple: Houston would be the most reliable transfer point. How could we have predicted that by March 1 Chicago would have recorded no snow on the ground all winter, a 136-year-old record?
Only thing about Houston was that the outbound connection was tight, at 55 minutes from arrival to takeoff. Understand that it’s really only 45 minutes, since aircraft doors are scheduled to shut 10 minutes prior to takeoff time. And that 45 minutes is really only 25 minutes if we want to arrive at the gate in time to board the plane with our preferred passenger boarding privilege, which allows us to get to our seats in time to be sure our carry-on luggage can be stowed overhead. (Lots of folks use only carry-on for warm-climate vacations, since you only need beach gear and enough clothing to pass muster at the resort restaurants.) In that 25 minutes the plane has to taxi to the gate (“arrival” means when the aircraft wheels touch the tarmac) and get attached to the jetway, we have to debark (leaving no personal items behind, of course), to determine what gate our connecting flight departs from, and walk/run to that gate, toting our carry-on luggage, in time to line up and board with our group.
The wild card is that we have no idea where in the airport the departure gate is relative to the arrival gate. It could be five minutes away. It could be fifteen minutes away. Usually you can count on 5 to 8 minutes from touchdown to gate, 2 or 3 more minutes until deplaning commences, and 3 or 4 more minutes until the seats in front of you have cleared (if you’re located about halfway back in the Economy section). So that’s 10 to 12 minutes from touchdown to being inside the terminal building, leaving 13 to 15 minutes for the walking/running part. That’s sufficient time, IF nothing goes wrong.
Our flight, it seemed, would get to Houston on time. It was slow leaving the gate after the doors were shut 5 minutes before the 8:15 a.m. takeoff time, and actually left the ground 15 minutes after that scheduled time. But airlines build some slack into their schedules so that they can claim a higher “on time” statistic. And so it was that our airplane touched down just about exactly on schedule. The pilot bounced the landing slightly, though, which proved to be ominous. Because he got to the gate, turned off the seatbelt sign, and allowed us to grab our stuff and line up in the aisle. THEN he announced that he parked the plane incorrectly, so that the jetway couldn’t attach to the plane. Seriously? I thought those folks on the ground gesturing with sticks assured that the plane would be right on the painted markings that indicate correct alignment. Geez, if I had half that much help parallel-parking my car I would nail it every time!
We had to sit down, buckle up again, wait for the pilot to re-park, and only then disembark. Luckily the rest is anti-climactic, as we discovered our gate was “just around the corner.” In airline terminals that means only a five-minute (quarter-mile) walk.
So we got to Cabo San Lucas and spent a week in San Jose del Cabo at the Royal Solaris, a very nice place. We left at the perfect time, sort of wishing we had one more day, but also looking forward to getting home. This would be the easy trip, because we had one hour and 50 minutes for the connection, double what it was on the way down. Yes, we had to go through immigration and customs, and yes, we had to go through security again, but so what? The layover was almost two hours, and doing the math we still had an hour and 25 minutes for all the in-terminal processing. Piece of cake.
The shiny new International Terminal at Cabo San Lucas relaxed us; we waltzed into the aircraft on time; we settled in, buckled up, and taxied what seemed like 15 minutes to the end of the runway (I hate it when the window-seat passengers keep the shades down to “preserve coolness” and “avoid glare,” because I want to see exactly what the plane is doing and where it is on the tarmac).
Then came the announcement: the plane was overweight, unsafe to take off. It was an unusual situation, we were told, but we’d have to go back to the gate. What? WHAT!?! This was a Boeing 737, the domestic workhorse of the medium-range fleet. It’s practically the jet equivalent of the DC-3: been around forever; solid, functional, durable basic design. After all the years they’ve used this plane, United still doesn’t have a way to figure out ahead of time how to prevent this aircraft from getting overloaded?
United wanted four volunteers to stay an extra day in Los Cabos. It got them in a hurry. (Having done this ourselves once in the past, we were not anxious to volunteer. The airlines make it so hard to collect and use the financial reward you’re given that it’s just not worth the hassle.) A quick, rough math calculation suggests the issue here: let’s say each passenger plus luggage = 250 lbs. If so, they needed to lose 1000 pounds. There were about 230 people on the plane, most of them having just spent a week at an all-inclusive resort. That means that each passenger was responsible for about 4 pounds of the overweight. If only everyone had eaten more healthily!
By the time the volunteers and their luggage were deplaned, the aircraft re-prepared for departure, re-taxied to the end of the runway, and ready to roll, an hour and ten minutes had elapsed. We were down to 40 minutes for our connection in Houston, including deplaning, immigration, customs, re-screening at security, getting to the gate, and doors closing before takeoff. I knew from experience that one jerk at any point, like the idiot Customs Agent we ran into at Dulles one night, could burn up 15 or 20 minutes of that time all by him- or herself. Spending the night in the Lone Star State seemed inevitable.
By the time we got to Houston, a couple of new factors emerged: our pilot had made up 10 minutes or so on the trip, and the connecting flight itself had arrived late in Houston, giving us another 15 minutes. The flight attendant with whom we had discussed our dilemma told us that United was monitoring several flights feeding into the one back to Dulles, and suggested the departure time could be set back further. He also said that the departure gate had been changed, but that news was not good. The original gate was one gate from being the farthest from Immigration in the entire airport. The new gate WAS that one farther gate! But we deplaned figuring we’d just give it our best shot, and hope.
Immigrating into Houston is better than the Dulles experience. They have the same new automated machines that read your passport and require you to take a selfie. But when you go to the agent at the desk with the printout, they don’t go over all the information with you again the way they do at IAD. They simply provide a human verification of the automated process, which is exactly what they should do. Likewise, customs has sufficient agents to handle the crowds, another contrast to our home airport.
On our way through customs, the same flight attendant was right behind us. He said “you are going to make it.” That seemed less sure to us, but we embraced the assurance with a passion. Then we hit security. There was not TSA Pre-check, and the line was fairly long. Suddenly we realized we’d need to be in the mode of toiletry bags out, belts and shoes off—all the intricate rituals of regular security. The line was moving, though, until we got near to the screening point, and some ill-trained TSA person strode out to lecture us about his intention to deliberately slow the line down to “teach us” that he really meant it when he said we could have nothing in our pockets. Nothing like being talked down to in such an urgent moment as if we were children by a guy who seemed to barely have made it through high school himself. At such times it is a real effort to hold my tongue.
However, sanity prevailed. I didn’t even have to go through the full body scan because I am over 75; only had to reassure the agent that I did not have a pacemaker or any metal in my body. But coming out of TSA screening we realized that the route to our gate was the longest way, looping backwards, and that time was running out. You won’t remember the old OJ Simpson commercials for Hertz that involve running through airports if you are (1) too young or (2) settling into senile dementia, but they come to mind in these moments of crisis. Unfortunately, we are not in the kind of shape OJ was in his prime, nor do we have his innate athletic ability. But we were doing our best OJ imitation. There were several defibrillators in the corridors along the way, well-marked for emergency access. I asked Jane to note their locations because I might well need one. Finally, about six gates away, I told her to run ahead and try to get them to hold the plane, because I could not keep up the pace any longer.
A while later I looked up and saw the last gates in the far distance. Jane was just disappearing into the crowd, the crowd of people waiting to board the flight at Gate C-31. Our gate! I chugged up, a sweaty, panting mess; got into what I thought was the end of the Group 2 line; was advised it was longer; relocated. It didn’t matter. We all were going to be on that flight, in our seats, with our baggage securely stowed and our seat belts fastened snugly across our laps, remembering that in case of emergency we would put on our own face masks before helping others.
A: Yes, it is. You get to use the software for free. The only "strings attached" are that, in general, you must comply with the terms of the GNU General Public License.
However, the fact that you can get the software for free doesn't mean that there is no cost to the people involved in producing it for you. The people who bring you the packages in the Cygwin distribution have often invested a considerable amount of their personal time into the providing you with the best possible Cygwin experience. This is particularly true of the people who work on the Cygwin DLL itself.
Advertisers: Don't try to get freeloader advertising by donating to me. I only take token donations from happy Cygwin users, not from google ranking vultures.
Donations of any size are fine, but when requesting a listing for a donation of $200 or larger, please paste a recent command line from your cygwin terminal as part of your request, so that I can get a feel for how my efforts are helping you.
Please note that we make no guarantees regarding the length of time that the below donations will be listed. Also note that donations are just that, and you should not ask for or expect a refund, whether or not a link is listed here, and whether or not the link here increases traffic to your site.
US Immigration Lawyers - The Jamae Law Group web developers have been using Cygwin for 15 years and thank you for all your hard work (10-May-16).