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Shakes on a Plane
Sep. 22nd, 2006 05:44 pmThere have been a lot of not entirely happy posts on my Friends page recently. I myself have been complaining about Netgear routers, blocked sinks, and not having a job. But none of that matters now, because on those days I did not have to get up at three o'clock in the morning to travel to California.
I went into something resembling sleep at 7pm the previous night so that I would be ready for it, but I still felt insane when I got up that early. The day started off well enough, when in an attempt to get some entertainment I typed "Shooting Stars" into Youtube on a whim and was able to relive moments like Mark Lamarr having stuffed animals of varying sizes thrown at him, Vic and Bob fighting with anvils, frying pans, irons, buckets and various other heavy utensils, and George Dawes singing about baked potatoes and peanuts.
But the time came to leave, and I trundled my suitcase down the road towards the T station. As I was getting the first train of the day, I thought that I would be the only one on it, but it was pretty packed - especially towards the later stages, as I had to change trains twice. The third was actually a sort of underground/bus hybrid that went through a fairly impressive tunnel for the first half of the journey, then reverted to traditional roads just before reaching the airport. Although we nearly didn't get there - a worrying buzzing noise was being emitted from one of the wheels, and the driver stopped the engine and got out to look at something unseen on the roof at one point.
Having had, in total, a bowl of Cheerios and a slice of pita bread with cheese the previous day, I got myself a breakfast of pancakes at the airport, but they turned out to be fairly ghastly. I don't think I was ready for maple syrup at before seven.
I was flying with JetBlue, which are rather like the American equivalent of EasyJet, but with rather more comfortable planes. I spent the time reading Douglas Adams novels and playing emulated DOS games on Whitney's Mac, but the flight was the most turbulent I have ever been on. Massive shakes came in about twenty minute bursts every hour or so, and even with the pilot's friendly reassurance I was rather worried about the wings staying on, particularly as we descended into Oakland airport. At least my seat neighbour was decent - we had a discussion about Civ amongst other things, and I think he qualifies as the first remotely interesting person I have ever sat next to on a flight.
All this, by the way, is so that I can go to a small office tomorrow and have my fingerprints taken. I don't know why they felt the need to have my appointment at 8am on a Saturday morning, neither why I had to come all the way here to do it, because the US immigration people have somehow forgotten about the invention of the Internet.
One last thing - I was immensely surprised to see Dave Gorman appear on "The Daily Show" on the plane. I just remembered about him last week and downloaded all his lecture/programmes, not thinking that he was still doing anything anywhere. I'll have to investigate it further.
Six o'clock. Goodnight, I'm going to bed.
I went into something resembling sleep at 7pm the previous night so that I would be ready for it, but I still felt insane when I got up that early. The day started off well enough, when in an attempt to get some entertainment I typed "Shooting Stars" into Youtube on a whim and was able to relive moments like Mark Lamarr having stuffed animals of varying sizes thrown at him, Vic and Bob fighting with anvils, frying pans, irons, buckets and various other heavy utensils, and George Dawes singing about baked potatoes and peanuts.
But the time came to leave, and I trundled my suitcase down the road towards the T station. As I was getting the first train of the day, I thought that I would be the only one on it, but it was pretty packed - especially towards the later stages, as I had to change trains twice. The third was actually a sort of underground/bus hybrid that went through a fairly impressive tunnel for the first half of the journey, then reverted to traditional roads just before reaching the airport. Although we nearly didn't get there - a worrying buzzing noise was being emitted from one of the wheels, and the driver stopped the engine and got out to look at something unseen on the roof at one point.
Having had, in total, a bowl of Cheerios and a slice of pita bread with cheese the previous day, I got myself a breakfast of pancakes at the airport, but they turned out to be fairly ghastly. I don't think I was ready for maple syrup at before seven.
I was flying with JetBlue, which are rather like the American equivalent of EasyJet, but with rather more comfortable planes. I spent the time reading Douglas Adams novels and playing emulated DOS games on Whitney's Mac, but the flight was the most turbulent I have ever been on. Massive shakes came in about twenty minute bursts every hour or so, and even with the pilot's friendly reassurance I was rather worried about the wings staying on, particularly as we descended into Oakland airport. At least my seat neighbour was decent - we had a discussion about Civ amongst other things, and I think he qualifies as the first remotely interesting person I have ever sat next to on a flight.
All this, by the way, is so that I can go to a small office tomorrow and have my fingerprints taken. I don't know why they felt the need to have my appointment at 8am on a Saturday morning, neither why I had to come all the way here to do it, because the US immigration people have somehow forgotten about the invention of the Internet.
One last thing - I was immensely surprised to see Dave Gorman appear on "The Daily Show" on the plane. I just remembered about him last week and downloaded all his lecture/programmes, not thinking that he was still doing anything anywhere. I'll have to investigate it further.
Six o'clock. Goodnight, I'm going to bed.
