Even though I went to bed around 10pm, I still slept in until 8am or so. When I woke up I looked out the hotel-room window and saw everything covered in snow! Yesterday it was sunny and warm. Today it’s freezing and snow. I wonder if this is normal for Harrisburg.
I took a shower, got dressed, packed, and checked out of the hotel. I drove through the snow the 20 miles to my grandmothers house. I arrived around 10am. The limo was scheduled to pick us up at 10:30. Around 10:20 my cousin Dawn and her husband arrived, and at 10:40 the limo from the funeral home showed up.
Chris, Wayne, my grandmother, and Mom sat in the back while I sat up front. Dawn and Brian followed behind us in their car. I thought we were going to the cemetery, but instead we went back to the funeral home. When we arrived, we seated in the chapel again with the open casket and waited. A short while later others started to arrive.
The funeral director allowed the family to go view my grandfather behind a closed curtain. We all went up and they closed the curtain behind us. It was quite an emotional moment as well all stood there and said our goodbyes. My grandmother removed the medals from his coat and covered him up. We took our seats again and they closed the curtain while the funeral people closed up the coffin.
When the curtain opened again, the casket was closed and a large American flag was draped over it. They moved a podium in front of it and a priest showed up. The priest gave a brief sermon about death and then once he concluded, we all went outside and got into the cars. The hearse was already waiting and shortly thereafter we began the funeral procession to the cemetery. All of the cars now had little flags on the hood saying ‘Funeral’.
The drive to the cemetery (Indiantown Gap National Cemetery) took about forty minutes. It was still snowing and all of the bare trees looked white with the snow that accumulated on the branches. At some point during the drive I dozed off for a few minutes. Once we arrived, a cemetery administration official and another priest came out with some paperwork for my grandmother. It had the section and plot information indicating where he was going to be buried.
We drove over to a small outdoor chapel area where a group of old veterans were waiting as well as two young honor guard guys, one from the navy and one from the coast guard. They were all dressed up in their formal uniform. The group of ‘veterans of foreign wars’ took the casket out of the hearse and placed it on a cart where it was wheeled to the enclosed outdoor chapel area. We all took our seats. The two honor guard guys stood rigid on either end of the casket while the group of veterans saluted.
It was bitter cold outside with the wind and the snow. The priest gave a short sermon similar to the one we heard in the funeral home. When he was done, an honor guard of seven soldiers fired their guns into the air three times (representing a 21-gun salute). Then, as the two honor guard soldiers raised the flag and began to fold it, they played that depressing funeral music (’taps’ I think) on a horn. This whole scenario was very chilling and I had a tough time holding back tears. When they folded the flag, they presented it to my grandmother. They also said that inside the flag was three of the casings used from the 21-gun salute.
Despite it being a sad occasion, I was proud and honored they did a military funeral. It shows the respect for a veteran that a normal civilian wouldn’t have. The ceremony and honor guard and national cemetery really install one with a sense of pride.
After they presented the flag, we got back into the cars and headed home. The drive back didn’t take as long. When we got back to my grandmothers house, my aunt Chris and her husband Wayne left to drive back home. The rest of us went to Applebee’s (again) for lunch. It was around 2pm or 3pm now. Once again, having lunch together lifted our spirits and we had a pleasant time.
As we left the restaurant, my cousin Dawn and her husband left to go home as well. My grandmother, my Mom, and I went back to her house where we stayed for about an hour before leaving to go to the Harrisburg airport. Our flight wasn’t until 7pm, and we left her house at 5:30.
We arrived at the airport at 6pm, and returned the rental car. I rented the car from Thrifty rental company and will _never_ use them again. I had the car fro two days with a $28/day rate. My total bill was $140. Something doesn’t quite add up. Where did the extra $80 come from? I’m still trying to figure that out. There were three different taxes. There was a mysterious $35 ‘extra charge’ fee that they wouldn’t explain. And then there was the $25 for a full tank of gas. I only used 1/8th a tank of gas the whole time I had the car. When I picked up the car yesterday, they said the policy was to now have everyone do the prepaid fuel thing. They made it sound like they would only charge me for the fuel that I used. Apparently that isn’t the case in reality. I said to the girl at the counter, ‘So let me get this straight. I only used 1/8th of a tank but I have to pay for a full tank?’ ‘Yes’ she replied. Thrifty will never get my business again. Goodbye Thrifty!
When we went through security, the bored TSA people (TSA = Thousands Standing Around) asked us to do their special random search thing. They made me remove my shoes and belt and pass through a secluded metal detector. They gave me back my shoes and belt and asked if they could look through my duffle bag. I, of course, consented.
The dude with a goatee searching my bag took out the case for my digital camera, took the camera out and wiped it with the special cloth to run through the bomb-material detector. While he was running the detector on the swipe-sample, the machine started making a loud alarm noise. Uh-oh. The guy looked as if he didn’t know what to do. Fortunately since they are government employees, there were at least a dozen other TSA guys standing around with nothing to do. So, what looked like a supervisor and four other guys huddled around the dude who was searching my bag.
They appeared to be at a loss as how to proceed. They started swiping everything in sight. They swiped my camera again, my camera case, and my duffle bag. This time the bomb-sniffing machine didn’t detect anything (as far as I can tell). Then they got obsessed with our shoes. They asked me any my Mom for our shoes (again) where they swiped them and didn’t find anything. Now the ridiculous part was that they dug around our bags looking for only other shoes (that were packed, not being worn). I still can’t figure out why they would zero-in on shoes packed in the bag. The whole idea behind testing _worn_ shoes is that if they contained a bomb, the x-ray machine wouldn’t see it because they are being worn. The _packed_ shoes already went through the x-ray machine. This concept seemed to be beyond the TSA people as they swiped our packed shoes (and didn’t find anything of course).
This seemed to frustrate the TSA people who swiped my camera and case a few more times. Then they (unsuccessfully) tried to turn it on. I had to assist them. I operated the camera, offering to take their picture (they declined). Finally after about ten minutes they decided that my Mom and I weren’t working for the Taliban after all and had no intentions of blowing up the small 50-seat regional jet. They took down my drivers license information on some form and sent us on our way.
The flight was delayed thirty minutes taking off but the flight back was uneventful. It was nice too considering that more than half the plane was empty. Shortly after takeoff we climbed out over the clouds where we got to see the sun beginning to set. For the next thirty minutes I peered out the window to the west and watched the incredible sunset. We were sandwiched between two layers of clouds so below us was a cool blue ‘floor’ of bumpy clouds. The thin amount of sky was a brilliant blue with the reflected orange and gold and red from the flat layer of clouds above. I wish I could have captured a picture of the incredible sunset.
I got home around 10pm. I turned on the TV to Fox News as they were breaking really good news. Apparently the intelligence agencies have been tracking Saddam via a special encrypted phone system (called the Jaguar phone system). The US intelligence somehow managed to break the encryption and had tracked Saddam, his two sons, and a whole throng of high-ranking Iraqi officials to a house in a residential area of Baghdad. They even knew what they were meeting about. It seems Saddam was plotting a way to escape out of the city. The military then ordered the air strike. An hour later a B1 bomber dropped FOUR, 2000lbs ‘bunker buster’ GPS-guided bombs on the house. According to defense department officials, all that remains is ‘dust’. They are ‘highly confident’ that Saddam was in the house at the time of the strike. It looks as if they may have finally eliminated him. It should be an interesting day tomorrow.
Just as I predicted, selling my DAL position resulted in Delta going UP, not down. Today Delta traded up to $10.80 a share. I missed out on about $1,000 because I sold early. And I think Monday will be another strong day given the news of Saddam. At least I’m sort of hedged in that I have a decent DAL positing in my 401(k) that I bought when it was low.
I spent the rest of the evening writing in my journal and talking with Jenn. We had another pleasant hour-long conversation.
