I figure I’ll write a few things en route as it will give me something to do…
Firstly, I should not have been in Houston, TX. I should have been living it up in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN but sometimes damn computers are too smart for their own good. Why do they wipe you off the passenger list if you turn up less than 45 minutes before your flight? Madness, but props to Tim, my driver (yes, I had a driver take me to the airport and I highly recommend it) for his Dale Earnhart impression weaving through traffic along the 75 to the airport. And here’s a point Erika has brought up more than a few times… No one in Atlanta seems to work, no matter what day or time of day you go out, the roads will be full, Tuesdays at 1pm is no exception it seems. but I digress… Houston is where I ended up and it seems like Houston is the airport equivilent of “Hotel California”, you know, “you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave”. If only I had a little more time, I would have given Ani Moller a booty call, I’m sure that would have made her day.
It was a short lay over on paper, not even an hour, but atrocious weather conditions west of Houston was preventing aircraft leaving in an orderly fashion, we sat on the runway for close to an hour, an hour… I’m on a tight enough schedule as it is… Eariler, in the *ahem* George Bush Intercontinental Airport™ I called Tiffany to tell her of my unfortunate change in plans, but only got her voicemail… I was originally meant to arrive in Portland, OR at about 7pm PST, now it would be closer to, if not after 8pm. So sitting on the runway, nervously glancing at my watch has done my nerves a world of good.
It’s cool that she was gonna wait util 7pm or 8pm for the first of her birthday nights out, but later? I’m pushing my luck here.
So, as I sit here sipping down a $5 can of Heineken and nibbling on cheap airline kibble, well that’s a lie… The beer was $5, but the kibble was actually a pretty nice teriyaki chicken sammich. it’s currently 5pm Tiff-time, the in-flight movie, The Hulk is playing, not the best comic book adaptation movie ever, so the iPod is keeping me company with the new Norah Jones CD… Where’s Concorde when you really need it?
While I’m on a rant, isn’t there some uncourteous passengers in the air, for exemple, the gentleman in front of me see’s me take my laptop bag out the overhead compartment, mainly as it was over his head. So what happens as soon as I push the on button?
*WHAM!*
He puts his seat back and my laptop keybord is shoved so far into my stomach it could feel my spine on the other side. In between gasping for dear life I tried to ask him to put the seat forawrd, but no success. I like to think I’m a courteous traveller… I rarely put my seat back, even if I’ve got next to no legroom, which I usually get. When the plane lands, I always allow people out after the rabid mob has grabbed their bags and departed. It’s the small things, you know? I was always brought up with my dad saying “manners maketh man” and it’s very true. A small proportion of travellers have no manners, none at all, they’ve always got to be first on the plane and first off it, they’ve got to get that emergancy exit seat even though they’re only 5’2″ and they always seem to find themselves in the seat infront of me. As the woman beside me said, it’s not enough that they have 18″ extra legroom, they have to take 8″ off ours.
Wait… My dad made the blog, how crazy is that?
Oh, an interesting sidenote… Don’t believe that crap about mobile phones and electronic equipment screwing up airplanes during and just after takeoff. I forgot to switch my mobile off and hey, we’re not dead yet, even this laptop with the wireless network card in and the signals that sends and recieves didn’t send it spiraling towards terra firma, nor did the iPod I listened to during the delay and during takeoff.
It’s a stange conspiracy, don’t you think?
And it even got me thinking… If you can’t use mobile phones during a flight, didn’t those people on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11 make a call during the flight? The imfamous “let’s roll” call to arms no less. Maybe that caused the plane to crash and not the supposed terrorists controlling it. OK, enough paranoia for one flight. Time for another beer, I’m gonna get me some of that air rage.