Quick Thursday Update

Posted: January 24th, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 26 Comments »

I made it back home late last night.  Traveling home was a bit of an adventure and I was too tired to write up any notes.

The South practice ended yesterday at 3:25pm.  Jimmy and I walked around trying to see if we could find Eagles scouts talking to prospects.  That lasted for about 10 minutes before we had to leave.  Both he and I had a 5:30pm flight out and that was from Gulfport, MS which is 70 miles away.

Jumped in the car and headed to Gulfport.  Traffic was heavy and more than a few idiots sat in the left lane going at or under the speed limit.  Then I had the bad luck to get behind a cop for 10 miles.  He wanted to fly, but the cars ahead of him got bunched up and were scared to go fast.  Ugh.

Finally parked the rental car at 4:45pm.  Turn in the keys for that and go print out my boarding pass.  Walk up to security at 4:55.  There are 2 people ahead of me.  There are more than 5 TSA agents.  Unfortunately, these are the most thorough TSA employees in history.  The kid screening bags found reason to re-screen 3 bags.  He stopped the scanner and checked those things as if the president and the Pope were going to be on the plane.  They physically searched my bag and then re-screened it.  I did have dirty underwear in there, but that’s it.

Finally they let me go (I know how Moses felt several thousand years ago).  It was probably 5:15 by this point.  My flight is due to depart in a matter of minutes.  I’m nervous.  Go running to the gate.  Walk on the plane and it is less than 1/4 full.  Jimmy is sitting in his seat and more relaxed than Nnamdi Asomugha at a wine tasting.  Jerk.

I had a chance to relax and get situated.  Then the captain announced that we had an oil leak.  He had called maintenance and the guy would be there in 30 minutes.  I can only imagine the guy had to finish watching Judge Judy before he could come save us.  We ended up sitting there for an hour as they fixed the plane and decided it was safe to travel.

We arrived in Atlanta at 850pm, one hour late.  My connecting flight was leaving at…850pm.  Luckily there was another flight to Raleigh.  I walked out of my plane and went up half a mile to the new gate, where they were just starting to board for that flight.  Once on that plane, things went smoothly.

The moral of this story…it is all Jimmy’s fault for making fun of Duke WR Conner Vernon.

* * * * *

I’m going to write up yesterday’s practice notes and post them.  I’ve got a few Eagles things to cover as well.

I’ll have my long form Eagles stuff going up in the next few days.  Lots of thoughts and ideas.  Who knows…some might actually be good.

Check back later this afternoon for some actual Eagles content.

As for now… Sheil has up the latest on the coaching staff.  I haven’t talked much about some of these names.  I’ve got some thoughts, but quite a few are new to me.  I do like the fact the staff is a mixture of college and pro guys and from all over.

_

  • Ark87

    I kinda assumed that it was Kempski’s fault when no updates came last night (or H2H), jerk. Glad you made it back to igglesblitz HQ safely. We have a revolution half in progress against Howie for snubgate. We have been needing the centerpiece for our propaganda movement, onward!

    • D3FB

      Howie clearly paid those TSA agents off. On a related note I’m surprised Tommy hasn’t started selling POWER BEER ROSEMAN (unofficial drink of Howie Roseman). Little did we know the PBR he always speaks of isn’t Pabst…

      • A_T_G

        I like it. We could sell it in cases of 144 bottles, so the lowly blue collar workers can’t afford it. The catch phrase, that only appears under the heat of soft, uncallosed hands could be ” PBR – get drunk with POWER”. And really, we could just fill the bottles with that regular PBR swill, the target market wouldn’t know and would be buying the exclusivity.

        • ICDogg

          From the Toilets of Old Latrobe

  • Baloophi

    Time to share everyone’s nightmare travel stories! I have several, but will start with just one (you’re welcome).

    Flying from LAX to Chicago one 4th of July about ten years ago. This is when there was maybe one electronic check-in kiosk per airline and before the days of checking-in online. After the typical, pleasant drive through LA traffic, I arrive at the terminal about an hour before my flight. I attempt to use the kiosk (you would scan your credit card back then… no entering of reservation numbers, etc.). No dice. So I attempt to flag down a check-in agent who gives me a lot of “just a minute, SIR” guff (and I wasn’t being pushy). She finally comes over and takes my credit card, then chats with a colleague for a minute before finally working her little computer. Then, she goes “Uhp. Your flight leaves in 44 minutes, I can’t check you in unless you’re here at least 45 minutes before.” I was in an Andy Reid twilight zone. No amount of pleading would work, so I get put on standby. I get to my gate and they haven’t even started boarding. No luck convincing the gate agent to let me on. I finally get on (middle seat) five flights later.

    • Ark87

      I have 2 nightmares, but I shall share one. Twas the year 2001, in November, my Grandmother was hosting a family reunion type event for Thanksgiving. This is almost immediately post 9/11 so the air fare is LOW. So I end up doing a flight with 2 lay-overs 1 way. At the time the security was jacked WAY up, no airports trusted the other airports’ security system. So the were security checks at every stop. So I got to go through 6 sets of security round trip. Well I only had a driving permit at the time as I was 16 years old. So there I was, the 6′ tall solo male with no ID. Let me tell you, those “random” searches went off every time on me. I got felt up more times than Megan Fox going crowd surfing.

      Also, for one stretch of the flight, I had a pilot who spoke broken English who flew us over DC, we got a nice escort out of that air space. So yeah, I didn’t fly for a while after that.

      Edit: Baloophi, somebody went to town on our posts with the vote downs, sheesh. We have haters, I guess that’s when you know we made it.

      • Baloophi

        Oh, that was just me. I hate everything I write.

        Which is why I won’t bore everyone with the story of how on a connecting flight from Cincinnati to Birmingham, I was sitting in the last row on an MD-80 (2 by 2 seats) with two empty seats next to me and a women who didn’t speak English got on the plane with her three children and tried to squeeze into the seats and then, after a long huddle, the flight attendants went row by row asking if anyone wouldn’t mind holding one of her kids during the flight and a woman volunteered and her boyfriend looked like he mentally broke up with her right then and there.

        • Ark87

          Classic, I can see that guy in my head, ahahaha.

        • TommyLawlor

          Awesome story.

    • ICDogg

      One time I was on a plane and the pilot got on the speaker and sounded totally trashed as he was speaking to us. Fortunately we got to our destination and landed OK.

    • http://twitter.com/alex_karklins Alex Karklins

      On my honeymoon, my wife and I took Singapore Air to Asia, and literally all of the flight attendants (female and male) were smoking hot. My wife and I were distracted and felt inadequate for the entire 14-hour flight. http://img.singaporeair.com/images/Promotions/global/parchn-970×345.jpg?undefined Then, once I was accustomed to supermodel flight attendants, the final domestic leg of our trip featured a 250-pound stewardess dressed like a baggage handler. Oh, the humanity!

      • Ark87

        Nothing like putting a new marriage to the test like surrounding yourselves by beautiful people. Wandering eyes can kill a whole day. I’d have to have my face glued to a window to survive that challenge!

        • http://twitter.com/alex_karklins Alex Karklins

          Oh, it really wasn’t bad at all. Just thought I’d put up a “First World problem” type complaint on the board. I quite enjoyed myself, actually.

      • Baloophi

        You must have at least considered spraying graffiti on the plane with the hopes that one of them would cane you, right?

        • http://twitter.com/alex_karklins Alex Karklins

          You have no idea . . .

    • A_T_G

      Our honeymoon flight was scheduled to leave Newark at 2:30 AM. We left the hotel at 1:00, got through check in and (pre 9/11) security no problem. Then they announced that our plane had a flat tire. I took 6 hours to fly in a new tire from Boston. We took naps in shifts, afraid to both fall asleep in the Newark terminal. Around 5:00 I was prepared to donate the can of Fix-a-flat from my car, but we arrived in a limo.

      The best part was the loud, complaining couple that kept bragging about he great deal they got at the best resort. The shuttle from Cancun dropped them off first, at a scary looking dive. That really made it all worth it.

      • TommyLawlor

        Hate can be awesome.

    • R G

      How about Scary Flight:

      Birmingham to Dallas in an MD-80. (Do you realize these planes are like 20 years plus old?) I am sitting in an aisle seat right next to an engine facing an airline stewardess who is in a jump seat. 10 minutes after takeoff we hear a very loud “BOOM’ come from the engine next to me and hear it slow down then completely shut off. The plane begins to list that way and lose altitude rapidly. The stewardess across from me tries to pick up the phone but drops it since her hands are shaking uncontrollably. She is about to cry at any minute as the plane continues to lose altitude but at least is leveling out. The pilot gets on the intercom and says we have an engine failure and that we are headed back to the airport. He also advises us that stewardesses will advise us on crash procedures as we get closer to landing. The stewardess is now crying. Fortunately we landed safe and sound and had to wait 3 hours to fly in a different MD 80 to Dallas. I talked to the pilot, copilot and 3 stewardesses. None had less that 19 years experience and had never gone through that before. All of the stewardesses called in sick the next day.

      I fkning had MD-80s.

      • http://twitter.com/alex_karklins Alex Karklins

        Winner!

        • A_T_G

          Winner? If I knew this was a competition, I would have made stuff up.

          • TommyLawlor

            Like the time you and I were on that hang glider over the volcano…with no Sprite or Funyuns!?!?!?

        • R G

          My wife could definitely add more terror and funny details. I evidently missed alot when I was trying not to scream or shit my pants. The stewardess shaking in controllable remains vivid on every flight I take now

  • Sb2bowl

    Well, I haven’t had a lot of bad stories, but right before 9/11- I did bring some pot back from San Franscisco. Funny thing was, they “randomly” searched the bag they thought was mine; was actually my mom’s. Glad it worked out, don’t think I’ll do that again…………

  • Iskar36

    I’ve had several close calls with missing flights, but I think my favorite story was when I had mother’s brother & family from Turkey come visit us in Philadelphia. While they were in the States, we had plans to spend a couple weeks showing them Philadelphia and New York and then take a week long vacation in Florida.

    So the day of our flight, my family of five, two cousins, aunt, and uncle wake up early and try to get everyone ready to head to the airport. My family is always late for everything, and with 9 people to organize, that made things worse. Predictably, we end up leaving extremely late to the airport, so much so that my Dad has us all get out of the car and try to check in while he goes to park the car. If he misses the flight (which we assume will be the case), he will just come on the next flight. My family runs to the check-in counter, panicked that we had already missed the flight, and ask (more like plead) if we can still get on the plane. The person behind the counter looks at our tickets, looks back up at us and says, “Well… as long as you guys are here a little bit before this time tomorrow, I think you will make your scheduled flight tomorrow…”

  • SteveH

    I just read that the Pats signed Mike Kafka, Tom Brady must be looking over his shoulder.

  • http://twitter.com/alex_karklins Alex Karklins

    I’ll just leave this here: http://youtu.be/KpUNA2nutbk?t=4m25s