The Streets of San Francisco

I'm in San Francisco this week for Oracle's OpenWorld Conference.
Flew out yesterday afternoon.. or was it the evening. I don't know.. Stopped over in Denver on the way and I think that hour in the Mountain time-zone really messed me up on what time it was where I left, where I was going. Who knows?

Flew on Frontier Airlines, which I have to say-- I had never heard of before. They appear to be a burgeoning competitor to SouthWest for the low-rate fare market. Based in Denver, they have a pretty good service going, with flights reaching as far as New York.. but their specialty is obviously points in the West and Southwest.

The best part was the in-flight entertainment.
I had basically conceded that I'd have to watch highlights of the ND-UCLA game at the hotel when I got here last night. My plane left at 2:55-- so when we took off, according to my Blackberry, the game was just at the end of the first quarter-- the Irish up 7-0. Not bad. We'll see how it looks when I land in Denver in a few hours, I thought.

So I sit in my seat and notice a little flat-screen TV embedded in the back of the seat in front of me. And as the flight attendants are talking, I realize that they're delivering 24 channels of DirectTV to that little screen.. so then I start really hammering the channel button to see if one of those channels is NBC.. and sure enough...!
For $5 I was able to watch the game, while also flipping back and forth to ESPN and ESPNNews.
And that little surcharge for the TV is, I'm sure, one of the ways they're able to offer the cheaper flights.
I didn't pay for the TV on the second leg of the trip from Denver to SFO, and as a result, that felt like a much longer flight.
Then again, perhaps that had something to do with the nature of that game and how the Irish struggled and hung in there, but were never able to get an offensive rhythm, honestly until the very last drive of the game.

I am SO glad to see that this team can put together a 1 minute drill, though. No more of the ridiculous play-calling fiasco's of the past 10 years where the coaching staff couldn't get the play call into the QB in time. Before the end of this play, Charlie has already get the next play call in the queue. And Brady-- for all his flaws-- really does step up when time is of the essence.

Don't think, just throw, Meat.

So as the captain comes on over the PA to announce that we're making our final descent into Denver, the TV gets muted and I watch as Brady makes that pass to Samardzija.. the cabin is quiet, except for me, muttering under my breath "Go, go, go!" And when he hits the end-zone, I had to throw my arms up in the air and shout (well, not exactly shout) "YES!" Guy behind me was an Alabama fan, also watching the game, so he and I had a chuckle about that as we were filing off the plane.

I started to feel like I was a commercial for this little airline.. and I realize I'm sounding like a similar ad now. So before anyone (who actually reads this) accuses me of being a schill, I'll cut this short for now.

Conference starts this evening.. and based on what I've already seen, there's an interesting trend here among the vendors.. more later.