Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Air Travel

If you've been reading here for very long, you know that I despise air travel - except for the part where you're somewhere different at the end of the trip. Well, because of my penchant for general ranting about the airlines, I thought it only fair to say that I had four flawless flights on this trip.

Of course they were miserable - how could they be anything else? And, I was herded like livestock as always. But, everything was on time, my luggage arrived on time and intact, none of my flights or gates were changed or cancelled and to top it off on one of them I met someone interesting.

During the flight from Chicago to DC I was seated next to a gentleman who works for Coleman. We had a wonderful chat. He was very, very pleasant. It always makes the time go quickly when you have an interesting seat mate. Unfortunately, that's rare. But, he was delightful - sort of the ultimate dad type - with a really interesting business perspective.

Yesterday I wasn't quite so lucky. On the DC to Chicago leg I was seated next to a guy who should have used more deodorant before boarding. On the Chicago to Wichita trip I was seated across the aisle from a body builder. I find the body builder look very creepy, but I guess some women go ga-ga over it. There's something weird about men who have used so many steroids that their veins look like they could burst through their skin at any moment. Yeah, a guy who's in shape is appealing, but there's a long way between in shape and that "my skin can't really contain my muscles anymore" look.

Of course, he was wearing shorts, so in case you didn't catch the veins in his forearms looking like they could explode if he moved his arm too much, we had a good view of his leg muscles that were like one of those drawings of muscles without the skin over them. I swear I expected them to be blue and red like the pull down charts your 8th grade health teacher had.

But, if you think that was the creepiest part, you'd be wrong. His wife and one of their kids sat in the row behind him so his mother could sit next to him. I looked over more than once to see his mother with her hand on his thigh - his inner thigh - near his crotch. (Apparently she doesn't know what steroids do.)  Way creepy.

Of course, none of this was the fault of the airlines. It was just another part of the air travel experience. There's always an experience.


First Day After Being Gone

The first day back at work after being gone for a few days is always a treat - in so many different ways. Today was no exception.

It would be nice to ease back into things, but with the garden tour less than two weeks away, that just isn't feasible for me. So, I jumped back in with both feet.

To add to the day, the insurance guy came to look at the car's damage from the hail storm a couple of weeks ago. It's totalled. So, I have to deal with that. The guy said there was probably $6,000 worth of damage to it. Not suprisingly, a 10 plus year old car is not worth that much. But, it still runs perfectly well, which is all I need from a car, so I'll just keep driving it. It's certainly banged up from the hail but I guess I'll just have to accept that and deal with it. I'm one of those people who drives a car until it's done. When it's used up is when I give it up. As long as it's mechanically sound I see no point in getting anything different. I don't really like driving a car that looks rough, but I don't like making car payments either, so there you go.

I still haven't heard from them about the house yet, but my next door neighbor tells me he has $18,000 worth of damage to his roof.

Tonight was Chicks, which was good, as it always is. It seems many of the other Chicks are as busy as I am these days. I am eager to get through the next couple of weeks and then relax and take a deep breath or two. I'm pretty much just trying to move through one day into the next, leaving things done in my wake.