Right place, right time.

[JessicaTam]

Have you ever found yourself somewhere at just the right time? Not something planned - just dumb luck?

Recently I did a status run to PTY and found that the weekend I was there was the opening of the new locks for the Panama Canal. I couldn't have planned it better had I tried. I toured the old locks on the Saturday and watched the opening on TV on the Sunday.

 

[RooFlyer]

In 1992 I visited New York for the first time, staying down town and I became aware that the 'Operation Desert Storm' welcome home parade was the next day, going along Broadway.

Tactically I did well - went early and secured a spot on the footings of the fence to the Trinity Church, at the intersection of Wall Street. This gave me a precious foot of height to see more of the parade - although that benefit waned as the crowds got bigger.

It was a genuine 'ticker tape' parade - I still have a souvenir, somewhere.



As the parade wore on, those above obviously ran out of ticker-tape, then it started raining computer paper (from the old continuous-feed dot matrix machines!!), then torn up phone books, and then ... not so well torn up phone books :shock:



Patriot missile. Never known if it was real or not.




The aftermath. The parade zone (behind me) was barricaded off after it started.

 

[RB]

Have been very lucky in our travels & stumbled upon many unplanned events. We ended up in Chicago on a day when there was a parade to celebrate the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup & the Blues festival was also on

 

[lathiat]

Personally I like hunting out shows, exhibitions, tech conference, etc.. that happen to match up with my work trips. Coming from Perth we missed out on a lot that even the rest of Australia gets.

Had a few successes.. you may guess I am a techy and a star trek fan...

Big Bang Theory: Live audience during the taping of season 2 (~2007), back before the insane popularity of this show. Got signatures from several cast, saw a shirt-less Penny and literally walked through the door as it was sealed after struggling get a Taxi from LAX to Hollywood in peak hour without a working phone service. Was my first ever international trip for work.

BarCamp 2.0 in Los Angeles (2007).. was the second event that started off the trend of "unconference" events where a bunch of tech people rock up and do impromtu unplanned presentations planned with sticky notes on a wall.. received an awesome "H2Go" drink bottle that is the best drink bottle I own or have ever seen to date.

Star Trek: The Exhibition - Phoenix, Arizona (2009) - Had just opened on it's second stop in over 10 years while I was in Vegas.. flew in the morning, out in the evening on the way back Museum kindly stored my luggage lol! Very sadly I missed Star Trek: The Experience in Vegas by less than 2 years. Still sad about that to this day. At least I still got my shot on the Enterprise bridge, as they had the 2nd set here.

RubyConf - Manila, Phillipines (2016) - Happened to start the last day I was in Manila just a few months ago, didn't realise until the morning of when I saw someone post about it on Twitter.. it was only 15 minutes away! Got to meet one of my favourite speakers, and the organiser kindly let me in without a ticket for a few hours. Had to leave at 4:30PM to make my 8PM flight, oh Manila traffic..

 

[Anna]

Once I went to CNS and the ukulele festival was on

 

[NoName]

We visited Lake Tahoe in October 2010. Went to the visitor centre to get some tips on what to do and it turned out we were there right at the time that the salmon in Taylor Creek were spawning. It's a very small window of time each year when they swim upstream to die after laying eggs. Seeing thousands of them all trying to get further up was quite a site.

 

[Milboo]

NY City last year. Was there for the Snowmaggedeon (that really wasn't). Next day a lot of the city was shut as they subway had been shut down. Happened to wander through Time Square, no one queued at the Ticket Booths and they had very limited tickets to Hedwig and The Angry Inch there.

Got awesome seats about 12 rows from the front. Was blown away by the show - John Cameron Mitchell (THE original Hedwig, in the role mid season briefly) and Lena Hall (won the Tony for her role) was starring and had my hand grabbed by her as she departs up the aisle before the grand re-entrance.

I love the theatre and this the perfect experience.

 

[JohnK]

Dinner 01 January 2013. Met my wife there. Last minute trip to Chiang Mai with a friend. As they say the rest is history.

 

[Pushka]

NOT being on the A380 on the flight after ours on the way to NYC - that flight was the one that blew its engine.

 

[drron]

On so many occasions.
We were visiting the Corning glass museum.noticed a flyer for the Curtis museum.It was only a short detour so called in-turned out to be the day when old Curtis flying boats were flying in.
But the most memorable was as a young medico doing GP after hours on call to supplement the then meagre income.Came around a corner in Marrickville to see a car accident happen.Stopped and the young woman driver of one of the cars had a tension pneumothorax with her mother beside her loosing it.I guess it was that woman's lucky day.

 

[Denali]

I was in Ohio for a work project and on the way home we had to fly Columbus Ohio>Memphis>LAX>SYD

Memphis.. never been before so decided to make it a 36hr layover because its home of the Gibson Guitar factory (hubby came home with a Les Paul)

But then I found out that during our visit was the World Championship Barbeque Cooking Contest I died and went to heaven!

 

[DaveB]

This should probably be posted in scams like these post...
Youngest daughter whilst on a History school excursion of WW1 & WW2 sites was 'stuck' in Paris for an extra three nights due to the 2010 volcanic ash cloud.
Pretty sure she was the only student to ever scam three OS school trips in an HSC year going to Japan for a Pacific schools conference, Italy though never studied Italian and the Belgium/France trip.

 

[RB]

It was dumb luck that I got this photo as we left BKK last year

 

[docjames]

I think the best one I know of is my father getting to LAX early from NYC and thus getting a standby seat on UA839 (direct LAX-SYD) and transferring off UA811 (LAX-HNL-SYD). His pre-selected J seat was no longer in the aircraft shortly out of HNL....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811


A close second was my parents flying out of NYC on 9/10......

 

[helebah]

My parents flying into NYC 10 September 2001....

 

[Hvr]

On a flying theme when I was in London during May 2016 I was walking near Westminster Palace (aka Parliament House) and saw these phụ nữ xinh đẹp during filming for a Vietnam Airlines television advertisement.

They were happy to pose.

 

[Cool Cat Phil]

I was in Ohio for a work project and on the way home we had to fly Columbus Ohio>Memphis>LAX>SYD

Memphis.. never been before so decided to make it a 36hr layover because its home of the Gibson Guitar factory (hubby came home with a Les Paul)

But then I found out that during our visit was the World Championship Barbeque Cooking Contest I died and went to heaven!

Memphis rocks when it comes to western style BBQ.

Gus's chicken, Bar-B- Q shop and Rendezvous( despite the plastic cutlery) are top notch.

 

[Julesmac]

Visiting Italy with my dear friend whose lovely Italian husband had recently died: we were visiting his family, and afterwards went on to Cinque Terra. One night we grabbed some delicious meats, cheese and bread & some local wine for a picnic tea in our room & at the last minute decided we'd rather sit in a park. A beautiful warm late afternoon, we turned a corner and there was the cast having a final run through of 'Madam Butterfly'. We sat entranced and I still get goosebumps remembering Butterfly's aria. Quite magical

 

[Denali]

.....Quite magical

Reminds me, was staying at St Germain in Paris and late afternoon/early winter evening walking back to our hotel and we came across a small church and Choir. No idea what they were singing but we sat inside and listened and it was beautiful.

 

[Groundfeeder]

Years ago when working on a QLD Parks and Wildlife project in the Wet Tropics, I was staying over the weekend to complete my task the following week. My dear Director friend in the Cairns office said to fill in time we can get you on the Marine Parks weekend patrol around the reef D) or maybe observer on the Customs aircraft patrolling up to the Cape and back D).
I asked what aircraft Customs used and when they said a Nomad, so I had to regretfully decline (tails kept falling off! etc). So it HAD to be out on the reef for the weekend.