Travel

I’ve noticed that in the criminal absence of in-flight wi-fi connections, a lot of people are starting to write blog posts while they’re on the plane and then post them later when they get home. I’m doing that now as I sit on my flight between Phoenix (an airport with free wi-fi) and SeaTac (one without—get with it, Seattle!).

I’ve also just finished catching up on a good 3-400 blog entries. While I was stopped over in Phoenix I used Google Gears to pull an (apparently random) sample of blog posts down to my hard drive so that I could cruise through them on the flight.

So between Google Gears and TextEdit, I’m pretty well set up for the flight.

I also finished reading Steve Martin’s “memoir” Born Standing Up. It has an excellent title, and is a very easy read. I’m sure the traveling helps, but I don’t normally go through 200 pages in two days.

Steve Martin has been one of my favorite comedians, if not my favorite comedian, for a very long time. I am, however, a big believer in “passive research.” Passive research involves me sitting around and waiting for interesting fact to find their way into my head of their own accord.

Which explains why most of what I learned about Martin’s career and work in this book was completely new to me.

I won’t claim that I was any good at it, but I had a short-lived stint doing stand-up comedy in two or three coffee shops and comedy clubs. There are some things from his experiences that I find similar to my own, and plenty more that were completely alien to me. I found it fascinating, and if you have any interest in Steve Martin in particular, or stand-up comedy in general, I think you’ll find it a good read.

In any case, I’m rambling, which I assume is something that Just Happens on planes. I’ll be home soon, and it’ll be good to be back.

A couple of years ago I spent a semester studying abroad in Brighton, England.

It was a very defining experience in my life, but it was that way for a myriad of reasons that are nearly impossible to count up and put together.

While I was there I took some time to write a piece of “creative nonfiction” about my time there. It’s called Halfway Across the World.

And because I’m on a “I’m playing with InDesign” kick (which I’ll explain later), I’ve laid it out in a PDF which you can download. I’m reasonably proud of it.

The writing, not the layout ;)

I thought I’d throw up another set of pictures that I took while gallivanting around Rocky Mountain National Park. If anyone wants hi-res versions of these go ahead and shoot me an e-mail.

Some bighorn sheep just inside the park entrance

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Yesterday I drove up Trail Ridge Road with my dad and took about 150 pictures of scenery and wildlife. Between the two of us we had about four lenses to choose from, and I got some good pictures with all the ones I used.

I haven’t had time to really go through and convert the RAW files for most of them, but here are a few of my favorites:

The Range

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I don’t think that rope swings will ever go out of fashion, because they’re just too much fun. My grandmother has an old one out in her back yard, and since today was a pretty nice day in Texas, my brother and I…swung around on it.

Here’s Me:

And Here’s Conrad:

Tomorrow (today) is a travel day, but this time we all have our seat assignments in advance, so we shouldn’t end up flying standby on our own flights. If all goes well (yeah right) I’ll be back home in Seattle tomorrow evening. Hooray!

Ah, the holidays. That time of year when everyone flies everywhere else. I’m actually secretly convinced that everyone plays a giant game of musical chairs, and if you could see a big map of the world and all the people moving around, it would be pretty funny.

But I digress: Online check-in is bullshit.

As I’ve said before, the purpose of checking in at the airport is to say “OK, I’m here.” The reason you do that is because airlines overbook their flights, and they need to know who makes it to the airport, so that they can make sure that the people who actually SHOW UP are the people who get on the flight.

So why would you let people check in without showing up?

In any case, the argument I usually hear is that “Oh they release the seats about 30 minutes before the flight leaves, so it’s OK it doesn’t hurt anything really.” Well, let me present a counter-example:

My family arrived at the airport for their flight TWO AND A HALF HOURS EARLY, like you’re supposed to. However, they could not get boarding passes because the flight was ENTIRELY CEHCKED IN via Online Check-In.

So my family sat around for two and a half hours to fly standby on a flight they booked months ago and and got to the airport for in more than plenty of time. They sat at the gate and watched people show up more than an hour later than them and get seats, no problem.

Then my Mom watches some woman walk onto the plane without getting her ticket scanned. Seriously, this woman just walked down the ramp when the attendant wasn’t looking. (Not entirely the airline’s fault, but, this plays later…)

The airline was supposed to release the seats 30 minutes prior to departure, but they didn’t actually release the seats until 10 minutes prior to departure. My family was granted the last seats on the plane.

However, that woman that got on to the plane earlier? In my Mom’s seat. And she refused to get up.

Long story short, several mechanical malfunctoins, annoying travelers, and hours later, my family missed their connecting flight by 15 minutes and had to drive the second leg of the trip (+4 hours to an already long day).

Now I might not be able to blame the delays on Online check-in, but you can damn sure bet it doesn’t make sense for someone to show up to an airport 2 1/2 hours early and have to fly standby on a flight they booked months ago.

That’s called screwing the customer over because you can, and I’ll be damnded if that shouldn’t be the motto of airlines and the TSA.

I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I think my luggage was less full coming back than it was going out - it doesn’t make any sense since I picked up a pint glass, mug, and bottle of wine while traipsing about Europe, but there you have it.

Right now I’m getting ready to shut down my big rig and lug it upstairs in preparation for my long haul down I-5 from Seattle to Los Angeles. It’s going to be a long ride.

But as I pack for the trip (by adding things to what I packed, basically, huh?) I keep thinking about the “one more thing” travel paradox, which, according to me, states that there is always room for one more thing, no matter how much you have already packed.

Bag full but you want to take a camera? No problem, put it in your pocket. Car funn but I want to take a DVD? No problem, I’ll slide it between the seat and the e-brake. Want to take a pencil? Tuck it behind your ear.

I know it’s not logically, physically possible, but it works pretty damn well.

Next time your packing, to to think of something you’d reasonably want to take that it’s actually impossible for you to squeeze in somewhere. I dare you.

Assuming nothing really drastic happens before Saturday, I’ll be on a plane to Amsterdam with my friend Ben.

Getting ready for the trip is more trouble than I’d like it to be, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy the trip. Posting will be light, but I’ll do what I can.

Driving from Los Angeles to Seattle…posting will be light.

Turns out that if you’re going to have your luggage lost, Southwest Airlines isn’t a bad place to do it.

They found it by today and my friend picked it up for me at the airport. In addition, Southwest gave me a $75 travel voucher towards my next SW flight.

Granted, it’s kind of a gimmick to get me to fly Southwest again, but it’s still $75 off a flight.

In a word: incompetence.

Somehow, Southwest Airlines managed to lose my baggage between Midland/Odessa and LAX.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that people carry ludicrously big bags onto planes, spending several minutes awkwardly shoving oversized lumps into overhead bins, crassly crushing the coats and small briefcases the space was intended for.

It looks dumb, it holds up the line, and its a blatant misuse of the overhead bins and disregard for the flying regulations. I wish airlines would enforce their carry-on size limit rules.

And I don’t want to be a hypocrite, so I always check my bag.

But the fact of the matter is that every time they lose a bag…which for me is twice this past year…they validate the carry-everything-on method.

And it makes me mad because it can’t be that hard to put a (clearly labeled) bag onto a plane going to the right place. The huge tag says “LAX.” Don’t put it on a plane to Boston. It’s that simple.

Another great day on the slopes. I took a video or two and uploaded them to YouTube - just click on the image below to stream the video.

I also uploaded more pictures to Flicker, and you can view my photostream there.

Thought I’d make a quick post since we’re having a bunch of fun up here at Whistler. Spencer and I got up a little late since the lifts are basically only open until 3:30, but I imagine we’ll try to make it to the slopes a little earlier tomorrow.

The snow is incredibly nice and it’s clear out, although yesterday it was down to -50 degrees F at the top, and we didn’t try to go up there today since winds were still reported at around 20 mph. It was very tempting, though.

There must be something about airports and airplanes that is somehow conducive to writing. Every time I travel, especially while I’m sitting in the airport waiting for the plane (except for this trip, where I was apparently so tired that I slept for the hour before boarding without noticing that I slept), I have some overpowering urge to write something down. Silly observations, blog-style essays, or work on one of my eight-million fictional projects that just never seem to get done.

As it is, I’ve just written another six hundred words for the short story I’ve been working on (which is incidentally as yet untitled), and I’m actually reasonably happy with what came out. For a batch that large, that’s a pretty decent showing.

I had to say goodbye to Tom and Andy this morning, them being the people whose flat I’ve crashed at for the past few days. I’m excited to be home, but in more of a getting grounded sort of way than out of any real exuberance for returning to what my life was like before I left this past August.

Traveling and studying abroad has been essentially the most amazing experience, and I’m so glad that not only did I talk myself into applying for the program, but that I talked myself into really going to enjoy it. It some strange ways I felt almost more at home in Sussex than I do at Oxy, which is something I should definitely work on when I get back to school.

Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of the people I’ve met again (which will happen at some point) and the fact that I now have places to bum housing in Iceland, Belgium, Germany, Afghanistan, and all over England. Traveling is so cool.

But for now I’m home.