I generally groan at puns, but I thought my title above (lifted from LA Times) was appropriate for this rather nifty website.
To be honest, I don’t pay attention to airport flooring. Usually, my sole concern at the airport is whether my upgrade is going to clear, whether my flight is oversold, or grabbing a quick snack in the lounge prior to departure.
My priorities won’t change, but I will take a quick look at airport flooring after seeing George Pendle’s airport carpeting website. Maybe I’ll even snap a picture or two.
When George Pendle found himself stuck longer than expected at a New York airport — braced for a transatlantic flight with a few gin and tonics and a Xanax — he found his mind, not surprisingly, altered.
"I was in a Timothy Leary-esque state," he says, recalling the moment when his eyes locked on the spilled-soda-hiding pattern beneath his feet.
Pendle, an author who divides his time between London and New York, is fascinated by carpeting in airports large and small. It’s his hobby, although some might call it an obsession. Regardless, he’s busy recruiting frequent fliers to join his merry band of what he calls "carpeteers."
"Flooring is considered mundane," he says. "We’re all too busy looking at the sky and the planes to look at the ground beneath us. So I thought it would be a fun experiment to compare and contrast airport carpets from around the world."
Pendle recruits travelers with time on their hands to snap close-up photos of flooring and e-mail them to him.
And there’s more than just pictures of airport carpeting. Each picture has a story of its own, often humorous.
Check out the website and submit your own contributions here.
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