Some FFN Summit Day One Highlights

[Hell Puppy]

So we hit the airport a couple or three hours prior to flight time, and it was a good thing. Travelling between Thanksgiving and New Years always sucks. And the security line at Hartsfield (I refuse to call it Hartsfield-Jackson) was out thru the Atrium.

For those of you who do not know the Atlanta airport, that's a medium long line. Worst I've ever seen it is wrapped around back down past baggage claim well into each terminal.

We get to the front of the line, let the obligatory half blind TSA agent check docs and ID and then get in a really short line to get bags screened. Nope, some other TSA nightmare walks up and decides to exercise their author-i-tie by making us go around to the T-gates line to get screened since she hadn't seen that move in a while. Now had she walked her lazy ass over and looked she'd see it wasn't moving as it should because they had only one line open and it was at a snails pace. But no, instead she thinks adding more people to it will move it.

I'm still pondering the logic for that one.

Now you'd think all of this big fancy new signs and the 3-1-1 campaign would be enough to let even the most dimwitted of individuals know you can only have liquids in 3 ounce containers and must be able to fit them all in a one-quart ziplock bag. But no, they act as though they've never heard of this as the TSA agent is throwing their drawers everywhere to get to that deadline 3.5 ounce container of vagisil.

With a jacket, carry on and a very overpacked computer bag which they insisted upon having me pull out computers and cameras from, I made it thru without a full cavity search. But I nearly had to bitch slap someone for throwing the container with my gear in it around like it was a sack of potatoes.

10 minutes later I finally have my batman utility belt all re-equipped with my phones, my keys are back where they belong and I've managed to shoe horn all my gear back in place.

All told about an hour from parking til we finally got to the crown room to have the FFN breakfast of champions....

[Hell Puppy]

And what exactly is the FFN Breakfast of Champions?

Here ya go:




Rinse and repeat as needed.

[Hell Puppy]

After we board the plane, we get a quick lesson in why Delta is in bankruptcy.

Airtran flies for the same or less money with a nice shiney new fleet of 717's and 737's. For a puddle jumper flight like this one, Delta has an aging MD-88 fleet. In fact, Delta's whole fleet is aging.

Now first thing you notice is that for all of Delta's domestic flights that do not cross ocean, their first class configuration gives you a 18.5" wide seat. Yup, bout the same as Coach. Airtran gives you 22.5". One notable exception for Delta is the 757-200, you get 22" seat on that one cause they couldn't figure out how to shoe horn one more seat in each row in first.

That's problem number one.

Now just as they are doing final pre-flight checks, the plane is loaded, we're ready to shut the door, the pilot comes on and says the co-pilots airspeed indicator has failed. They'll need a replacement. They're gonna raid one from a plane that is out of service and should have it installed in about 30 minutes and be underway.

Let the bitching begin.

They did at least give us water and entertain us with some of the most godawful muzak versions of classic rock you'll ever hear. Somewhere Steve Miller is really really pissed off about what they did to his song.

GonZo was not kidding about Raven being on our flight. He's been eating like we have apparently. And his head is one big scar at this point. His only comment about Delta was "nevermore".

35 minutes later...

The head inflight waitress comes on and says she's sorry she has no idea what's going on....that's comforting. They have a guy there to install the part, but the part hasn't shown up and they dont know where it is. It's straight up lunchtime, we figure union labor stopped for a samitch.

More bitching by all involved.

Now it's at this point that I should mention this flight is packed. When we planned the dates for this trip we tried to pick on that wasn't crowded to keep things cheap fast and easy for everyone. We missed one thing. The SEC championship game was Saturday night at the Dome and would't you know Arkansas was in it. Now imagine the fun of sitting with a bunch of pissed off, hung over razorbacks on a delayed flight.

Sssssssssssoooooooooooooooooooooooooo---eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee------piiiiiiggggggggggggggggggg

Around 15 minutes past the time we were shceduled to land in Memphis the part is finally here, installed, and we push back and are off.

They were nice to us. Plenty to drink, I even got a small bag of peanuts! I suspect even coach was getting to drink for free by this point.

Something I should mention about all that drinking....GonZo didn't go before we left the Crown Room. Nor did he try to squeeze his fat ass into a MD-88 toilet. All that liquid refreshment and the whole time we're on final all I can hear is "peeeee pee".

When we stood up, he started doing the pee pee dance like a 4 year old.

Welcome to Memphis, this was our first stop!

[Hell Puppy]

After resolving GonZo's pee pee problem.....

Next stop was ground transportation. Now I'm a top level member of any rental car agency you can name, in this case Avis Preferred. I'm used to shoooting across the street, getting in a car and leaving.

In Memphis, they put you on a bus, drive you halfway to Nashville and then make you stand in line regardless of your status. I'll be checking to see if Hertz in Memphis is any better next trip.

No worries though, just glad GonZo got to piss or that bus would've been damp.

So they put us in a sky blue Ford Taurus since Avis doesn't have a luxury class in Memphis. GonZo said a silent prayer as he know what I do to rental cars. And we set out for some BBQ.

We were on a quest for best BBQ, we did our homework and if we didn't find it, I've gotta know what is better in Memphis. We ate at Jim Neely's:



Note the camera....I think that's in case the corner kids decide to decorate his mural. This is a bit of an iffy neighborhood, but some damned fine Q.

Kathi called it dead on....she said we would be elbow deep in BBQ about that time. She knows us well, we had literally rolled up our shirt sleeves for this one.

They put the food in front of us and after being on a late flight and only having had pretzels and biscoff cookies, most of the food had disappeared before it occurred to either of us we shoulda taken a pic.

We had a combo with chopped pig and ribs. The ribs were perfectly tender and would pull right off the bone with ease. Great sauce....sweet but spicy and a good balance of both.

Highly recommend this place.

[gonzo]

Mohammed Ali / Sonny Liston apparently eats there pretty frequently.
I think its for the "zipper ribs" -(tm) Rodney Walston.

We offered to send them a poster sized pic of my avatar to hang on the wall but they still were wondering what a fat white boy was doing wearing a purple enyce shirt.

If any of yall go there to eat just tell the waitress you are an FFN.
She will indeed remember...

"I got five dollars!"

[Hell Puppy]

Next stop!

Would you believe Walgreens?

To save hassle with the wonderful members of the TSA we decided we'd just buy all necessary liquids at a drug store en route to the hotel. Eckerds and CVS dont do Memphis apparently. But we found Walgreens.

It's at this point I should mention that Memphis has a nasty habit of putting the signs for stuff right at the turn. The town can be a bit of a bear to navigate if you dont know it. And this Walgreens is in the projects.

Peekers didn't think to warn us about that one til after we were at the hotel. Fortunately, I'm part coondog when it comes to finding my way around and the natives didn't quite know what to make of 2 big white boys covered in BBQ sauce.

Now you'd think a simple trip to Walgreens would be uneventful. Not the way this day was going.

No, it turns out that in the Sunday paper they had some ginormous sale on generic toilet paper at Walgreens. I get the impression that all that BBQ creates some sort of intestinal issues in memphis because I swear to god we had to stand in line behind 6 people all with buggies FULL of asswipe paper.

Peekers called just as we were checking out and they were about 10 minutes ahead of us. I'm sure she thought we were full of shit ourselves with the comments about the toilet paper, but we weren't And the girl at the register was cracking up just listening to the phone conversation.

I shoulda got a picture of the buggies full of toilet paper but again who thinks to carry a camera into Walgreens?

I guess I'm gonna start.

[gonzo]

To all our Memphis readers...axe body shots are on sale for a low low price of $1.99! Perfect as an air freshener after youve used a buggy of asswipe from eating some fine Que at Jim Neely's.

[Hell Puppy]

Originally Posted by gonzo

We offered to send them a poster sized pic of my avatar to hang on the wall but they still were wondering what a fat white boy was doing wearing a purple enyce shirt.

Funny you should mention the shirt, and we shoulda got a pic of that too....

But here's an example of just how loud and ugly that shirt is....

We light out of Walgreens, and I'm giving GonZo a lesson on how to get all up on a Taurus. I tried to get it to do a burn out at a couple of lights, but that just was not happening.

I figured we were going to get to the hotel about the same time as Happy Peekers. But what I didn't know was apparently Deeprub drives like old people fuck (slow and sloppy). And I've been doing about 90 across northern Mississippi.

Shortly before we get to Tunica, we blow by another vehicle which blows it's horn at us. I back off and move back and sure enough it's them. The glow of that damned shirt GonZo was earing had gotten their attention.

[Hell Puppy]

This is getting long, so this is last chapter for tonight I think....

Anyhow, got to Gold Strike along with HappyPeekers and Deeprub about the same time. This was actually first time I had managed to cross paths with them face to face.

Nice to meet yall!!!

If you haven't had the pleasure, they're two of the nicest folks you'll ever meet in the business.

I got checked in, the puppy suite was on the top floor with a view of the river:




The rest of the crew showed up later, we spent most of the remainder of the afternoon and evening drinking, eating, drinking, gambling, drinking, etc. Here's a view of the Gold Strike from outside....pardon the blur, but I'd been drinking, taking pics, drinking....

[Hell Puppy]

That's enough for tonight, tomorrow we'll talk a bit about Esmerelda and Sonya....

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by Hell Puppy

That's enough for tonight, tomorrow we'll talk a bit about Esmerelda and Sonya....

Dont forget Clive!

[Hell Puppy]

Originally Posted by gonzo

Dont forget Clive!

Clive is your's.

Unless you want Les Schillinger, Vern's younger brother...

[Peaches]

Originally Posted by Hell Puppy

Now first thing you notice is that for all of Delta's domestic flights that do not cross ocean, their first class configuration gives you a 18.5" wide seat. Yup, bout the same as Coach.

Noooo!

MD88 has 19.5" in first
757 has 20.75" in first

Where they REALLY screwed up was taking the ER planes (the one I took to Maui) and while it has the nifty electronic reclining and foot rests, where you're basically prone if you want to be, THOSE are the ones that are 18.5" wide. Ditto with the regular 767's and they've taken the flights with the personal TVs off the Las Vegas route.

Delta's planes just totally suck. Period. But when you live in ATL and you've been in their FF point program for years, you're screwed

[justb]

I think next trip to Memphis would be a road trip. Is it that far from Atl?

[iamkathi]

Peaches said it was just over 4 hours from her house...Google said it is 7 hours, 42 minutes from ATL

for me, I'm flying.

[justb]

hmmmm that would be borderline

8 hours is kind of my cutoff for driving

It's like when we got to Ft Lauderdale, I'd rather drive 5 hours than deal with the airport

[Peaches]

Originally Posted by iamkathi

Peaches said it was just over 4 hours from her house...Google said it is 7 hours, 42 minutes from ATL

for me, I'm flying.

We left from Blue Ridge when we made it in 4 hours - and someone else was driving - and fast Probably closer to 6 for us old ladies.

6 hours is worth driving for me. Same with Biloxi - I'd rather drive than fly.

Of course, I'm also the idiot who drove 12 hours to the Outer Banks by myself with 2 dogs

[Hell Puppy]

Originally Posted by Peaches

Noooo!

MD88 has 19.5" in first
757 has 20.75" in first

Where they REALLY screwed up was taking the ER planes (the one I took to Maui) and while it has the nifty electronic reclining and foot rests, where you're basically prone if you want to be, THOSE are the ones that are 18.5" wide. Ditto with the regular 767's and they've taken the flights with the personal TVs off the Las Vegas route.

Delta's planes just totally suck. Period. But when you live in ATL and you've been in their FF point program for years, you're screwed

All I know is it makes my ass less happy than it is on an Airtran flight in business class.

That fleet truly is a large part of their problem, and it'll be the last thing to get fixed.

First is still worth the money for the extra shoulder room and a usable armrest on a long flight.

[Hell Puppy]

Originally Posted by justb

I think next trip to Memphis would be a road trip. Is it that far from Atl?

Depends on how you go and how you drive. I could do it in 6 without risking incarceration.

Thing is you have two choices. The direct route going due west means you lose the interstate and end up two laning it across half of mississippi.

The faster route is to go by way of middle tennessee believe it or not. I-75 out of atlanta to I-24, across Mont Eagle, down into Nashville, and then hit I-40 to Memphis. That's the way I'd go if driving.

[happypeekers]

We had a total blast with you Hellpuppy, Gonzo and SirMobey..

We had some awesome business discussions.. You guys are some smart cookies!!

We first saw Gonzo and Hellpuppy right outside of Memphis ( The Ghetto ) they were doing about 90 mph lol
I think they were scared. :-)

I was shocked to find out that they stopped at Walgreens in that area..
Gonzo called me and asked if I needed any extra Toilet Paper ( they were having a sale ) hahahaha

You gotta understand.. this is TOTALLY in the projects, crack houses, whores, pimps hahaha

WELCOME TO MEMPHIS!!! lol

We should have told yall NOT TO STOP between Memphis and Tunica sooo sorry lolol

I wish we could have spent more time there.. Yall need to meet us in Hollywood for the Xbiz Show or Tahoe for the Webmaster Access!!