TDY in Kansas City

Downtown Kansas City as viewed from my room


Union Station as viewed from my room


Diner inside Union Station


WWI Memorial across from Union Station


Westin Hotel Atrium


Ret. Col Gail Halverson


Mercedes


Hallmark HQ & Maxine


Hallmark Kaleidoscope


Kaleidoscope Workspace


TDY July 07 Kansas City

This May I received a nice surprise. I was going to be able to attend a conference in Kansas City courtesy of the US Air Force. I had already done the research for the trip in March, but after the cost went over the “magical” $1000 range it was determined that there was no funding for me. However, it turns out that there was money left in the funding for civilian TDYs and my trip became a “we have to use this money or lose it” kind of a thing that is so common in governmental spending. Not that I’m complaining mind you. So my trip to the Military Child Education Coalition Conference in Kansas City was back on and I was raring to go.

After what seemed like endless amounts of paperwork my tickets were bought and in the first week of July I was on my way back to the states. I was supposed to have an aisle seat for my flight but didn’t realize that I had been given a window seat until I was boarding the plane. The flight was very full, but when I found my seat I was delighted to discover that the middle seat was still unoccupied. This elation lasted for a few minutes until the last passenger to board the plane happened to be a really tall and very wide German dude who had to squeeze into the space next to me.

They guy was actually very nice and understood as I began to get very restless during the last two hours of the nine hour flight from Dusseldorf to Detroit. I did get up one time and stretch out, but I just hate asking people to move for me and it’s a real hassle if they are sleeping or watching a movie. So for the most part I just stayed in my seat hating life, reading or watching movies on my portable DVD player.

When we landed in Detroit I had 90 minutes to make my connecting flight so I followed the signs to customs hopeful that I would have plenty of time to get to my gate. The walk from the plane to customs was a bit misleading as I only saw people from my plane, but once I went through the doors into the customs/homeland security area I was simply overwhelmed. The room was like giant convention center filled with people standing in lines going nowhere. The area directly in front of me was simply packed with hundreds of people who were in a holding area before they could even be placed into one of the 20 or so lines. Then I noticed that US passport holders went to the right half of the room. This section was less crowed and I was able to get into on of the 20 lines there and had about 14 people ahead of me. The huge delay for foreign travelers is that they are required to be photographed and fingerprinted. Now, I don’t have a problem with this. I would be willing to be photographed and printed to come to Europe, but if Homeland Security is going to require this they absolutely should have the manpower to do it within a reasonable time frame. From what I saw it might take a foreigner a couple of hours to get through.

Once I had my chance to flash my passport and explain that I had been gone for a year I was allowed “in.” Wooo hoo! One positive thing that I can say about our military medivac flight from last year is that we got to simply exit the plane, pick up our bags, and board the bus to our destination. That of course is due to the fact that we flew from a US Air Force base in Germany to a US Air Force base in the US. Not a bad way to go after the cluster fuck of Homeland Security if you ask me.

I guess that the wait in line didn’t take that long because our bags still hadn’t arrived. Well, to be honest, the airport was VERY slow in delivering our bags. So then I began to worry. I still had to pick up my bag, clear US Customs, check my bag back in for security scanning, get screened myself and get to the gate. I found parts of that process to be extremely redundant as I had just gotten off a plane, but there was little choice in the matter. After getting my bag I had to stand in the much shorter customs line to submit me declaration form. I guy stamped the document and pretty much waved me through without a glance at me. But I was still chapped at having to wait in the second line. I like what most of the airports in Europe do, if you have nothing to claim you walk through the green doors where…gasp…they profile you and if you look like trouble or a liar they pull you aside. Knock on wood…I must have an honest face because I have yet been pulled aside for European customs.

So, now I was past three gauntlets with two to go. I had to wait in line again, albeit it was a swiftly moving one where the lady at the front directed me to the luggage screening portion of the event. Then I got to get into line again…yippee!! This was the x-ray and bomb sniffing section. I was selected for the “puff” of air thing and my results were negative…well no shit, remember I just got off a plane an hour ago and had no where to go but where I was. I am happy to report that I did make my gate with time to spare, but I had been a bit concerned.

My flight to Kansas City was uneventful and the bags were delivered in a timely manner. I did have to wait about 45 minutes for my van to the hotel so by the time I had checked into the Crown Center Westin I was starving. After a quick glance at the room service prices I headed to the Crown Center Mall hoping that I could grab something at a much more reasonable price. I was in luck as some of the restaurants were still open.

The Crown Center Mall is a huge complex right in downtown KC. Most of the buildings are linked through a skyway call “The Link,” including Union Station, a Hyatt, the Hallmark Cards Corporation building, the convention center and a small upscale mall with a multi screen movie theater. It’s actually really nice, but the shops were mostly specialty boutiques. The surprising store was the Hallmark “Hall Crown Center” that was a fancy over priced department store. The malls small size meant that I spent much of my free time wandering around looking at the same stuff. The only thing that wasn’t great was the downtown location as there were not a lot of post 5pm inexpensive eating options. I did make two runs to Panera Bread for cheap breakfast and lunch options. It’s not that Panera is that cheap, but after the $20 breakfast buffet at the hotel on Sunday I needed to limit my spending.

I did not limit spending when it came to shopping. I had done a lot of research before the trip and knew that I wanted to go to the Oak Park Mall and surrounding area to visit all of the ubiquitous American stores that I love. Unfortunately it was about 15 miles from the downtown area and across state lines in Missouri. So the simple solution was to rent a car and plan to shop the entire day. During lunch on Monday I met Janet who is from the base in Incirlik, Turkey. When she discovered my plans she asked to join me and we ended up having a blast. She introduced me to DSW shoes and I drove her all over to the different stores.

We had some Air Force SLO training on Monday and attended a joint seminar with our Army SLO counterparts which was very informative. I also confirmed my belief that being an Air Force SLO is much better as we have very clear directives of what our job responsibilities are where as the Army guys can get all kinds of programs and tasked dumped on them. Sucks to be them….ha ha!

Tuesday, my shopping day stared well when Ryan from Enterprise picked Janet and me up. What a cutie he was! We even asked his boss if Ryan could get the day off to drive us around. My car was even upgraded and after lots of joking and flirting then we headed out onto the Interstate. We got to the mall right after it opened and went our own way for two hours. After shopping at the mall we enjoyed some Mexican food, and then off we went to Target, Old Navy, Best Buy, DSW, Marshals and then had a great dinner at Outback. Our day was prosperous and I spent way more than I had intended too. I just went a little crazy in Best Buy. We both had packed an extra suit case to bring back our ill gotten booty, so I knew that Janet and I were soul mates.

On Wednesday, the first official day of the conference was really cool as we were introduced to a program that brings books to military families. The featured book was “Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot.” This is a true story about the Berlin airlift and the pilot that dropped candy down to all of the German kids. As a child Mercedes had written the “Chocolate Pilot” a letter and they developed a life long friendship. After hearing the story we were introduced to Mercedes and Ret. Col Halverson. I thought that the program was so cool that I’m working on bringing it to our base.

On Friday I went with some other conference members to the Hallmark “Kaleidoscope.” This is an art/card making workshop that Hallmark runs for children’s groups for free. It was pretty interesting, but the work centers were too damn short (ha ha). My back was killing me by the time I left. The rest of the conference was interesting but not enough to write about. I have my “official” trip report for that.

While I was at the conference I managed to see three movies at the theater and eat at the world famous Jack Stack’s Kansas City BBQ. The view from my room was awesome and the “Heavenly” bed was very comfortable, except for the fact that they put way to many damn pillows on the bed. I was only able to make it to the pool once, but I still really enjoyed my stay. The Westin was just an amazing conference location and I fell in love with the atrium area. Kansas City was also much cleaner than I had expected. Some of the downtown areas were run down and in need of paint, but I was really surprised at the lack of graffiti and trash. It’s a place that I would go again for a conference, but probably not on my own.