Today I have perhaps set a record for the most timezones directly experienced in one twenty-four hour period. Leaving for my on-site interviews at the evil empire, I was on Eastern Daylight Time. My stopover in Chicago put me and my laptop in Central Daylight Time. Arriving in Seattle put us in Pacific Daylight Time. That night, as the Everything2 April Fool's Hack was in full swing, BAM I found myself in Pacific Standard Time. Considering that on April 3, 2001 I'd be adding Mountain Standard Time and Eastern Standard Time to that list, I was sort of impressed. Suffice it to say, my body had no fscking idea what time it was supposed to be!
In any event, I figured I'd practice my Grafiti by writing down a few little rants about my trip. Yea air rage.
This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.
Cramped in my so-called "Economy Plus" seat, digesting the soggy single-serving danish and kindergarden carton of 2% which could only pass for a "continental breakfast" in this most degenerate case of polite society, Edward Norton's post-flight depression repeats in the Dust Brother's video's "This is your life" loop.
Is it so bad? I am on my way to interview at the evil empire, and since they offered me a position last summer I'm not particularuy nervous. One of my friends from last summer's Trilogy internship is interviewing the day after me, so perhaps we'll get to hang out together in overcast Seattle.
First thing I do when I get to my stopover gate (after buying a heart-healthy McDonalds lunch) is find an outlet. Only by crawling behinb a pillar and taking a seat close to an over-stressed mom can I plug in my brick on a leash.
As I wait to board in Chicago O'Hare we hear that a seal on one of our engines is being replaced. They will then run the engine for about 15 minutes to ensure that the new seal was installed properly. I always wonder how they know things like that need to be done.
All that searching and manouvering was for naught, as it turns out. I hadn't even thought to check, but that power outlet wasn't hot. So my hour of Evangelion (what, you thought I brought my laptop to do work? At least I use it for something more sophisticated than Solitaire.) on the flight from PIA to O'Hare, justified in my mind by the half-hour I'd have to recharge in Chicago, may have cursed my little Vaio to a dark four hours.
Somehow, the mean passenger age is always the same. I hope for the late-20s, early 30-something Palm-wielding jet-set from whom I might beam a new game or two, but half of this flight still gets help when they need to pee. I have no choice but to order a preemptive vodka tonic. (Thankfully, the vodka is imported, not tasteless American swill.)
Airlines edit in-flight movies for objectionable content, right? How can they leave in scenes where people smoke, especially strolling down the street or relaxing in a bar? Not because I think it's so objectionable to depict smoking in a situation where the easily-influenced (note the under-age crowd described above) sit staring at the tiny screens like they're the only thing keeping them sane, but because I feel sorry for the smokers -- the passengers on this four-hour flight who connected thru Chicago, where you have to leave the airport before it's legal to light up. Of course, given that the awful unsightly alternative seems to be "smoking rooms", walls stained as yellow as the poor saps' teeth, if you could see them through the thick haze of smoke, let them suffer, the airlines say. Then again, I think those smoking rooms may be one of the best anti-smoking messages out there: "get hooked now, kids, and when you're flying out for an interview you'll still be spending your stopovers in here."
Finally, I arrived at Sea-Tac. Someone who looked like the captain and then an engineer were out there, looking up at the wing. Great.