Pro Tour-San Diego Wednesday

by Bill Stark | posted at 2010-02-18 02:31:00
tagged: WOTC, MTG, Magic, Wizards, Wizards of the Coast, Magic the Gathering, Pro Tour, PT, United, Denise, Free Ticket, Greg Collins, Kelly Digges, Coverage Team

 

I left Seattle for my flight to Pro Tour-San Diego at approximately noon. I had a connection in Los Angeles for about a half hour, then a twenty minute flight to San Diego (United doesn't fly directly from Seattle to San Diego, and I always fly on United when I can thanks to ridiculous frequent flier status). Kelly Digges, the editor for DailyMTG.com on Wizards' side, was on my flight.

 

Greg Collins, the head of the Pro Tour coverage team (aka my boss when I'm covering an event for Wizards), had set up a coverage staff dinner for Wednesday night at 7:30. These are informal affairs where the squad gets together, gets drinks and food, tell stories, catch up, and talk about plans for the weekend. Afterwards there is drafting. It's always a good time, and I was looking forward to it but it's not a requirement to attend.This was important because when I got to Los Angeles I quickly discovered my flight to San Diego was delayed by twenty minutes thanks to a mechanical problem.

 

I hunkered in to do some reading (Zvi's book "My Files" from Top8Games.com), and ate some of the lunch my lovely girlfriend had packed me for the trip. Delicious.

 

When my Nalgene ran low on liquid, I got up to refill it from the water fountain. No sooner had my butt left the seat then the airline attendant managing our counter picked up her microphone to announce our flight was oversold and that she was taking volunteers to give up their seats for a later flight in exchange for a free round-trip ticket in the U.S.

 

*DING!*

 

Thanks to my positioning from getting the water, I was the first in line and got myself on the list. After all, I was in no rush to get to San Diego; dinner wasn't until 7:30, my flight was scheduled to arrive at 4:30, and I didn't NEED to be there until Thursday at 4 p.m. for the actual coverage meeting which IS required.

 

They started boarding the flight, and it became pretty clear pretty quickly that poor Denise, the United representative handling everything, was in over her head. From what I could make out from conversations she had on her walkie talkie and through announcements to passengers, it looked like the plane mysteriously showed up short two seats, able to take 48 passengers instead of 50. Furthermore, since we were running twenty minutes behind schedule thanks to repairs (which clearly didn't include adding seats to the plane), she needed to push us out the doors as quickly as possible.

 

In no time flat, Denise put herself on the plan of "F it, everyone is getting on who has a ticket." There were only two of us waiting to be bumped, so we headed down the gangway. Denise had to run ahead of us due to the fact they were closing the doors, and when she got down to the plane they only had one seat. "Mr. Stark, we need you to give up your seat."

 

Roger that Denise!

 

I was pretty pumped to net a free ticket, so I turned to Kurtis Stuver, Denise's sergeant-at-arms who was trying to help her control the chaos, and gave him a loud "Kurtis, we did it!" while raising my hand for the congratulatory high five. Kurtis was not amused, but even a sixty year old man a few months short of retirement as a United representative can't leave a brother hanging, and he raised his wrinkly palm for the five. Kick ass Kurtis.

 

Denise handed me my voucher for my free plane ticket, then pointed at the next gate down, where my next flight was scheduled to leave. Because of our maintenance delay, the flight was actually within minutes of boarding, so I headed down to get ready to board. Being clever, I figured since the previous flight was overbooked by ten or so passengers, and only one of them actually got on the plane, it was probable some of them were going to want seats on the plane I was now on. And because I had relinquished my seat on a flight for the airline's benefit, they were obligated to force me onto the next available flight. I was smelling a second opportunity.

 

I moved from gate 88 to gate 86, and promptly approached the ticket counter. "Are you overbooked on this flight?" I asked the gentleman standing by the counter.

 

"No sir, we have exactly the right amount of passengers." He replied. I nodded, but stood in place, waiting for it.

 

"Oh wait, we're overbooked by one seat now."

 

*DING!*

 

I immediately said "I'm happy to volunteer!" and he took my name down. When Denise had sent me from gate 88, she had forced me onto his flight which bumped someone off. That meant they needed one person to give up their seat to get that person back on, and I happily volunteered. It took the second gate agent about five seconds to figure it all out, but there was nothing he could do. The system wasn't set up efficiently, and I was clearly going to be the benefactor of some poor planning decisions for United.

 

The agent started boarding the plane when Denise happened to walk by. "Are you waiting to rebook on the next flight?" She inquired, to which I promptly, and cheerily, replied "Yes!" She offered to take care of that for me, sending me to the 5:15 at gate 84, again one gate away from where I was, and I thanked her and told her to go for it. As she started to walk away, I was struck by the thought that the next flight was STILL going to be overbooked; I was giving up my seat, but no one else had volunteered, so only one person of ten was getting on yet AGAIN.

 

"Denise?" I called out, drawing her attention. "Could you go ahead and put me on the 'willing to take a bump' on that flight too?"

 

"Sure!" She said with a smile. I was beginning to fall madly in love with Denise and her me-benefitting massive level of incompetence. Gate agent 2 could just glare as I gave him a smile and headed off for gate 84.

 

I was pretty pumped to have dinged my way to two free airline tickets, and if I caught the next flight I would still make it in plenty of time to San Diego to hit up the coverage dinner. It was turning out to be a pretty successful day for being stuck in LAX for most of it.

 

Upon finishing my short walk to gate 84, I verified with the gate attendant that I was the first name on the volunteer list. "We don't have a volunteer list." Was her response. I cajoled her into double checking her computer, and was promptly rewarded when she broke off mid-sentence explaining the flight wasn't overbooked to inform me instead that she was just being notified they WERE overbooked and WOULD need volunteers. "Are you...Mr. Stark?" She said, looking at the top name on the list.

 

*DING!*

 

If Denise had been within grabbing range, I think I would have kissed her then and there. An hour later I was sitting down to airport dinner with three free plane tickets, a great story, and a 6:15 flight to San Diego that would probably see me missing dinner with friends and coworkers. I was hoping I'd get to keep free rolling, but the fourth flight of the day was well undersold and every passenger was going to board it, even those on standby.

 

My seatmate, whom I don't usually talk to, struck up a conversation with me over my iPhone. She asked a few questions, and we started chatting at length. It turned out she was a scientist who studies the impact of global warming, and was in town for a gigantic science conference held at the San Diego Convention Center, the same place as the Pro Tour. When she described her job to me, I pointed out that it sounded like the scientist characters in Roland Emmerich's classic enviro-blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow."

 

"Actually," she said, cutting me off excitedly, "they did the research for those scientific characters from our staff. They're based off the people I work with!"

 

I'm a total sucker for Roland Emmerich's films, no matter how cheesy, lame, or plot device-thick (anyone notice in SPOILER WARNING "2012" when China mysteriously appeared in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles away from where it SHOULD have been just in the nick of time?), so it was really neat to meet someone attached to them in such a way. We spent the half hour in the air talking about all manner of things career wise (had to explain what Magic was and how it worked), nature wise, and convention wise.

 

I landed in San Diego at exactly 7:20. Dinner was in ten minutes. Time to call BDM.

 

"BDM, hey, it's Bill."

 

"What's up Bill?"

 

"How much was your cab ride to the hotel?"

 

"About 15 bucks."

 

"All right, I'll meet you guys at the restaurant."

 

*DING!*

 

I rushed to a cab, hopped in, and managed to get to the restaurant (the one Alexander Shearer suggested going to, The Field). In fact, the cabbie got me there so quickly, I actually beat BDM and the gang who were still walking from the hotel. Up three plane tickets, a comped dinner with friends and good times, and a draft afterwards.

 

By the end of the day, losing a draft featuring a Jace didn't even faze me. This has already been an awesome Pro Tour for me, and it's only the first day...

 

-Bill

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