February 05, 2005
Lost in Pink Elephant
Nothing quite as exotic. It’s the name of a vast (and I mean VAST) long stay car parking service at Heathrow Airport.
I had to go to Dublin on Thursday. Just for the day. Got out of bed at 4:30 - on the road at 5:30 - at the Airport at 6:00 - boarded the flight at 7:00 - was on the streets of Dublin at 8:30 - and was back at Heathrow at 7pm. The only problem was that I forgot to write down the exact place that I parked my car in the Pink Elephant car park.
After dropping off all the sensible people who remembered exactly where they had parked their cars - the shuttle bus driver kindly drove me up and down the entire length of the car park - up and down every aisle - slowly enough for me to look out for my car. Which wasn’t at all easy in the dark. Eventually we found it - in the Blue Zone - Area 13.
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I couldn’t remember where I had parked my car at Pink Elephant.
(I’ll remember to write it down next time.)
Posted by jag at February 05, 2005 12:13 PM
(I’ll remember to write it down next time.)
Comments
Picture taken with "nightshot" mode on. I don't like nightshot mode usually. But I like the way this came out.
Posted by: Jag on February 5, 2005 12:15 PM
I know they have those little red button on the key chain deal they give with your car but that thing is only goood for a short distance. I magine if there was a number you could call on your cell phone which would activate four long blasts from your car's horn. At least it would give you a direction to look in. Or you could just write down the lot number, D'oH.. I have done the same in the past at the massive mall lots and now I tend to park near something I can get a line of site on.
Posted by: Fritz on February 5, 2005 03:18 PM
Some people use their camera phones to take a picture of the aisle location. I either do that or write it down on the notepad in my Treo 600.
Posted by: Anand Viswanathan on February 5, 2005 03:55 PM
I love that picture. Very atmospheric.
Posted by: Snappy on February 5, 2005 05:22 PM
Hi JAg, wanted to know what camera you use, it takes some damn fine shots ! Thanks.
Posted by: Safed on February 5, 2005 06:29 PM
For that cold, you must have had really steady hands, as the nite shots really requires quite a bit of exposure.
Probably you should paint your car in a very brite, easily spottable, color.
That was a really fast trip.
Posted by: sat on February 6, 2005 03:47 AM
great pic! nothing like sparkly cars!
Posted by: ashley on February 6, 2005 09:16 AM
Fritz: That mobile phone idea sounds interesting! In the meantime I'll just have to write it down!
Anand: Aha - hadn't thought about the cameraphone idea - nice one! I find using PDAs a real pain when you have prepared your pockets for "airport"!
Snappy: thanks!
Safed: thanks! The camera is a Sony DSC-V1 - I love it.
Sat: it was steady hand Sat! I wasn't leaning on aything either - maybe just lucky. Even a distinct colour would have been difficult to spot in the dark. But I guess being dark blue didn't help with the search! If I go somewhere within 2 hours flight of London - I try to go there and back in a day - unless I need to be there for more days of course.
Ashley: cheers!
Posted by: Jag on February 6, 2005 02:56 PM
ouch, forgot where you parked? if i'm with my family, my mum always has his habit of writing it down on the car park ticket. which i've now picked up
Posted by: Jaina on February 6, 2005 08:17 PM
Sure enough I looked around and found this motorola phone, it has a feature that causes the phone installed inside the car to beep the horn and flash the lights...called auxilliary alert function
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/cellpoint/motin45phon.html
Posted by: Fritz on February 8, 2005 01:11 AM
All I can recognize in that photo is a faint meroon color for that car. Mostly, though it seems to be black and white.
And I need to get a tripod soon for the nite shots.
Posted by: sat on February 8, 2005 07:54 AM
didn't know that Pink Elephant parking is that big... hav just seen the board while going around the area.. nice pic Jag.
Posted by: Chakra on February 8, 2005 09:15 AM
Me too (loving the pic, that is). It looks like an old sepia pic that has been hand-colored. Stunning.
And yeah, we write the location on the back of the parking ticket too. We figure that if we lose the parking ticket we'll have bigger (more expensive) problems than just trying to find out where the car is parked, so we tend to take pretty good care of it :-)
(Actually it helps to dedicate a place to stuff like that, like "this particular pocket in my bag." That way it becomes habit, you don't even need to think about where to put it, and you don't end up having to up-end your bag in the street to find the ticket.)
Posted by: Sivani on February 8, 2005 08:34 PM
Jaina: the car park ticket actually has a space for you to write down the location of the car - and I usually do this - but on this occasion I didn't - and I guess I paid the price!
Fritz: amazing! Just goes to show that there's bound to be someone out there who has thought of everything!
Sat: Yes - when the picture is taken in "nightshot" mode - the colours in the scene take a back seat. I'm surprised that one car came out slightly maroon coloured in fact!
Chakra: it most certainly is BIG! Thanks!
Sivani: Thanks to you too! Great tip re dedicated pocket - must remember that - as I can be so disorganised in terms of collecting bits of paper and receipts when travelling - always causes me problems later. Cheers!
Posted by: Jag on February 9, 2005 09:32 PM
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