Tag flying sucks

So my flight was scheduled to leave Philly at 6:15pm.  A couple hours prior to that they pushed the departure time back 20 minutes to 6:35, annoying but nothing major.    The gate area for my flight was getting quite full so I decided to wait in the gate right across the hall.  I figured I would easily hear/see when they started to load.  After completing my blog post I dug into reading Crash and Burn, which I only started the night before.  Well either the book really held my attention or the speaker system next door wasn’t turned up very high.  I glanced over at my gate and all of a sudden there were about 15 people left, they obviously had been loading for quite awhile.  I quickly snapped close my book and wound up being the second to last person on the plane.

Despite packing intentionally light to avoid the cost and hassle of checking luggage for the second time in as many flights I wound up having to check my small bag due to all of the overhead bins being full.  The only positive of being forced to check your bag is they do it free of charge instead of socking you with the bullshit checked luggage fee US Airways and almost all major carriers charge nowadays.

I found my aisle seat.  Next to me was a hispanic woman who was traveling with her cute little daughter.  The little girl was already all set to take a nap, complete with a pillow, her blanket and a teddy bear.  It was very cute.  I almost immediately dug into my book.  Despite reading I was unable to block out some of the unavoidable annoying people on the flight.  Immediately to my left was a chubby, nerdy looking guy that would make some utterly disgusting noises which sounded like he was rattling mucus around.  Sometimes he would combine this with bringing his hand to his mouth, presumably to catch the sputum that was accompanying the disgusting noises.  After doing this I would see his hand go to his pant leg for a quick wipe off before it went right back to touching various areas of the seat.  Disgusting.

Then there was somebody with a horrible, chronic cough about six or seven rows ahead of me.  They were hacking almost non-stop for the first 45 minutes we were in the air, it was awesome.  I figured my odds of getting through the next several days without catching some illness from one of the passengers on the flight is pretty slim. The little girl fell asleep quickly.  She had her legs across her moms lap.  A few times she shifted and hit my legs with her feet.  The woman moved her feet immediately but I smiled and told her it was fine.  I was jealous the little girl could sleep through the gross sights and sounds of air travel.

I have to tell you US Airways flight attendants are pretty grumpy people.  I hardly caught a smile on any of their faces.  I also thought it was quite odd that between my two flights we had more men then women flight attendants.  That was a first.  It’s too bad that US Airways is my primary option for direct flights to Philly, I really don’t like the airline at all.  Between the bullshit fees, the cramped seating, the barebones drink service (you get one drink and not a single morsel of food), and the generally lousy disposition of the majority of their employees I really wish I had better options.

So as I mentioned I was plowing through Artie Lange’s second book, Crash and Burn.  Artie is a comedian and was co-host on the Stern show for around 10 years.  He is very funny, quick witted, has a photographic memory and happens to be one of the biggest drug addicts on the planet.  The second book covers the darkness surrounding his exit from the Stern Show which included a suicide attempt where he drank four shots of Chlorox Bleach and stabbed himself a number of times.

The stories of self destruction that are in the book seem impossible in scope and how often they were happening.  It gave a very open look at just how deep and dark the world of a serious drug addict can be.  I am sure multiple times my mouth dropped open as I shook my head in disbelief as I was turning the pages.  It was amazingly terrible just how hard he worked at destroying both his life and as a result the lives of the people that care about him.

The book was odd in the way it was written where at the end Artie tells on himself, basically admitting that something written earlier in the book was a lie.  Also earlier in the book he described how his relationship with his girlfriend that he loved came to an end after another Artie self destruction event.  Then at the very end he says they reconciled and were now engaged. I did a quick search and found out that engagement ended as well.  Of course I’m not surprised.

Also the good fortune he described work-wise after he came back from his suicide appears to also have gone away as well.  The DirecTv show he had was cancelled as was the deal he had with Comedy Central.  It appears his only action currently is a podcast that you have to pay to subscribe to as well as some stand up gigs.  Unfortunately I have next to no doubt that Artie is cursed to spend whatever is left of his life, lying, abusing himself and hurting anyone in his inner circle as his demons come to the surface again and again.  The roughly 300 page book was a good read but certainly nothing that will make you feel happy or upbeat.  The best you can hope for is it will make you more appreciative that at least you are not him.

I had forgot to mention that I bought a unique present for Cindy that arrived earlier this week, an Amazon Echo.  The Echo is a wireless digital assistant.  Sort of imagine if Siri was pulled out of your Iphone and placed on your counter.

The small device has 7 microphones inside that are specially designed to hear your questions/commands from a considerable distance away.  It also has a high quality speaker system inside that provides high quality audio when you ask the Echo to do things like play music.

When Cindy first opened the box she was sort of like “great, another weird piece of tech”  but once she set it up and started playing around with the device she changed her tune.  She realized the Echo was sort of awesome. Not only can you give it commands by saying “her” name, Alexa, it can answer questions spoken in plain english, play music, tell you the weather, etc and even control home automation devices like the Nest and Phillip Hue.   In addition the device works with IFTTT (if this then that) which allows the Echo to be scripted to interact with other web enabled services in a near infinite amount of ways.

Amazon is continuously expanding the feature set of the Echo so the device should only get better and better over time.  Is it a necessary household addition?  Of course not.  Is it fun and cool? Absolutely.

It was nice to sleep in my own bed with Cindy and the two dogs near by.  The trip was quick and fun but it’s always feels good to come back to my familiar four walls.

This entry is getting keyed at 30,000 feet + on my way to Philadelphia, cool. So with July 4^th falling on a Saturday this year it meant I had Friday off which worked out well. After doing the weeding around the house Cindy and I changed and went to LA Fitness, which Cindy had just joined the prior week. She was hoping I would able to show her how some of the gym equipment operated. Part of her membership included a free two week guest pass so I could tag along for free.

I had never been inside a LA Fitness before, it was pretty amazing in size and scope. The place has pretty much everything including a huge main gym floor, stadium style cycle room, racquetball courts, smoothie bar, a lap pool, basketball court, and more. It was sort of overwhelming. The place was also packed, filled with lots of fit people wherever you looked.

So after walking the perimeter to see what was where we worked in a few areas. I wasn’t all that concerned with getting a full workout for myself, I just wanted to give Cindy the framework she needed to be comfortable working out there. Cindy found a few machines she liked, her favorite of all was the assisted dip/pull up rig.

As we were close to wrapping things up back in the free weight area some guy came up to me out of the blue. He was short, muscular, heavily tattooed, and sported a very long black beard. He asked me if my shirt was to show support of Kaitlyn Jenner, it was my Wheaties Movember shirt that we picked up at the last Tough Mudder Cindy and I did.

At first I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be funny or an asshole. Cindy joined the conversation and I was able to realize he was trying to be funny although I still wasn’t sure why he would randomly pick me as a conversation target. Cindy and he started talking more and more. She said that he looked familiar but couldn’t place him. After some more information was exchanged they realized something pretty incredible, they were from the same high school. If that wasn’t weird enough, they also were in the same class, graduating the same year.

This opened up a big can of worms where the guy and Cindy were talking about all sorts of things related to where they grew up. During the course of the conversation we found out even more which was spurred by his unwillingness to shake Cindy’s hand. It was related to the fact that he is a hasidic jew, a pretty hardcore one. Evidently part of their belief is a man should touch no woman other than his wife.

Like I said, his appearance, other than the beard, would not make one think this was a devoutly religious man, but he was. Along with their recollections about school Cindy and he even talked about religious beliefs. As you can imagine I had little to contribute during the entire conversation but Ben was indeed an interesting individual. I had a tie to him as well since he works in the same government complex I do in the county jail.

We wound up standing around talking with him for close to a half hour and if we didn’t break away I bet we would have been there another half hour. I could tell Ben was the type of guy that could literally talk forever. We told him we had to get going. He shook my hand, evidently that sort of contact is within the rules.

On the way home we made a pit stop at Sam’s for groceries. While I was there I decided to pull the trigger on purchasing a security dvr for the chicken coop and run. Having four internet accessible cameras out there would allow us to keep tabs on the chickens anywhere and anytime.

When we got home I had to do prep for the large holiday 5K I was timing on Saturday. I have been extra worried since it was going to be the first time utilizing the brand new timing hardware. I had been running through a lot of mental planning and practicing to ensure things go well. I had to leave mid-afternoon to go down to the store where early packet pickup was being held. I had a ton of people signing up in person so I needed to get all of that paper into the system.

When I got home we tried to somewhat act like it was just another Friday pizza night but obviously we had a lot to do. We completely loaded up the truck with all of the equipment so we could get out the door as quickly as possible Saturday morning. I set my alarm for 3:30AM, earlier than normal since this race starts at 7AM.

We went to bed relatively early, hoping to at least get a few hours sleep. That plan did not pan out. I found myself awake at 1:15 AM and unable to fall back asleep. My mind immediately started dwelling on race details despite my wanting to desperately fall back asleep. I wound up rolling around restlessly before the alarm went off two hours later. I felt miserable.

On the ride to the race I shared my poor sleep with Cindy, facilitated by anxiety over the race. I told her how moments like this make me question why I continue to subject myself to the stresses race timing lays on my back. This is nothing new, these feelings routinely come and go.

When we got on site the first thing we did was lay out the start mats and cable them since that was the most time consuming portion of setting up the new timing gear. Once we had it set up the club president stopped and told us that the start line was now relocated since the course was now certified, a detail that obviously should have been shared with me prior to race day. The new spot was about 50 yards away.

Well I certainly did not want to tear apart the mats that Cindy and I just spent close to 15 minutes setting up. I decided to try to drag the line of mats down the road. This was not a lot of fun. Each mat weighs about 25 pounds meaning I was dragging 150 pounds of rubber with a very big footprint on asphalt. By the time I got to the new spot my forearms were burning. I was also concerned that moving the start line to this spot could potentially push the large pack of runners out into an intersection that was open to traffic. Well there was nothing I could do about it now.

After laying the mats out at their new location we headed to the registration area to set up. Since we were tied up at the start line most of the tables, tents and chairs were already set up which was cool. Cindy and I got all of our stuff hooked up and laid out.

Once Ali showed up to handle data entry I headed to the finish line to get all of that equipment set up ahead of time. I spent next to no time in the race registration area, Ali and Chris handled all of the data entry and Cindy set up all of the timing bibs and signs. When I was done at the finish line I picked up Cindy and we headed straight to the start, earlier than I normally would to make sure I had time. We wound up having a lot of spare time since we had put the mats together ahead of time. All I had to do was carefully drag/turn them out across the road and hook them to the timing box. I had the clubs golf cart to help me shuttle between the different locations.

As the race started the timing box was beeping away indicating it was reading the hundred of runners passing over the mats. It seemed to be working fine. After the last stragglers crossed the line I disconnected the box, threw it in the golf cart and hauled ass to the finish. This race had some very fast runners so I didn’t have a lot of time to spare.

As the race leader came into the finish line I held my breath a bit, despite knowing this new timing hardware is very reliable. I felt better as I imported my first set of times, everything was working as planned. The new hardware worked flawlessly best that I can tell. I had no reports of any of the 800+ finishers missing a time which is great. Cindy shared in my relief when the race was over. She was the recipient of my grumpy mood more than once during the days leading up to the race.

Once we got home and unpacked I handled my post race duties while Cindy attended to the chickens. During the afternoon I installed the DVR system into the coop. I out one camera in the coop, one camera under the coop where the chickens like to hang out, and two facing opposite directions in the run.

Getting the cables for the cameras routed, secured, and into the coop was challenging. One entire shelf in the coop is filled with electronics at this point, it’s pretty crazy. We tested the dvr system from inside the house. It was cool having four simultaneous views at once giving us an instant idea of what was going on in the coop and run.

Originally we had planned on seeing the new Terminator movie Saturday night but after I woke up from a short nap I suggested we do that Sunday afternoon, we had Star Wars Episode II at home to watch anyway. Cindy liked the plan. The movie was as I recalled, with any scene involving the kid that plays young Darth Vader being acted incredibly poorly. B+

Sunday morning we skipped any endurance training as we had stuff to do that would make a 2 hour block of time cycling not practical. We ran out for some errands. One of the things we picked up is some white paint that is designed to be used on plastic.

We are planning on painting the roof of the coop white. The interior has been getting up well past 100 degrees during the day. The dark brown color of the roof sucks in heat like a magnet. If you touch the roof from inside the coop you can only leave your hand there for a split second, it’s that hot. We are hoping painting it white, while not being the most visually attractive choice, will reflect a bunch of that heat away.

We got out to the 2PM 3D showing of Terminator. I was curious about how they were going to handle the script this time. I also was curious how the actress that plays Khaleesi on Game of Thrones would do in the role of Sarah Connor. The answer was, not too well.

I thought her acting was pretty dreadful and she didn’t come close to being what Linda Hamilton was in the original Terminator films. Despite her shortcomings, overall the film was enjoyable. It had great special effects but that almost goes without saying nowadays. What big budget film doesn’t have eye popping special effects? Arnold had his normal share of funny one liners and the action was pretty constant. The way it ended didn’t seem to follow the guidelines of what was laid out in past films but I guess it didn’t matter. I’ll give a weak A- rating.

When we got home I needed to get my stuff together and packed for the trip. We had some hellacious storms blow in late in the evening that continued for a good portion of the night. I was in bed by 9PM, once again hoping for some solid sleep before the 3:30 alarm for the 6AM flight I am on. Again, I awoke stupidly early, 2:15 this time, and was unable to fall back asleep. In retrospect I should have planned to fly up to Philly last night instead of so damn early today. I have a full day of the conference to get through on far too little sleep. Regardless, it should be interesting and fun.

Of course air travel is always annoying. There are so many frustrating aspects to it, let me just list a few. The guy talking on his phone as the plane took off, the guy in front of him that was frantically texting at the same time like his life depended on it. There is the woman in front of me that thought nothing of cutting down my already miniscule leg room by fully reclining her seat. The couple with the young child who was incessantly crying whose father was telling the kid to “shut up” at regular intervals even though I don’t think the kid was old enough to even speak. I especially enjoyed the man that let a loose a big sneeze directly into the palm of his hand which he then of course proceeded to touch many surfaces with. There are few things that get me more annoyed with the human race than flying.