I made it. I'm alive. Nobody had to put on the gloves.Wednesday, January 28th, 2009-I've finally gone through and edited the inexcusable errors in this document. To make up for it, I've included a little more content, and a picture! You're welcome!
Douglass Adams once explained why the term 'pretty as an airport' never really became a common expression. For those of you who have been, I'm sure you can understand why an airport should limit itself to other descriptors. Being my first flight, I'm still stumbling at the bra-straps of flying, although I admit, it is not as bad as I had expected.
I've seen Hollywood's representation of airports, with bustling yuppies and creepy men in winter hats, but I've never taken the complete initiation personally. With the exception that I forgot to empty my change before walking through the anti-anti-American gates, the operation went very smoothly. My first shuttle to the Twine Ball State was small, bus-sized, and typing on my laptop was a chore, as the area I have which to breathe is about the size of a coffin. Thanks to the low-visibility my laptop offers at any angle not perpendicular at 90 degrees to the screen, I can't exactly see what I'm typing. I can see notations that I assume are characters, but as far as the quality of my word, I am completely blind.
I had promised a great number of people that I would keep them updated via my Twitter account and the more conventional medium of mobile telephonics. Oddly enough, my phone, which handles all of those tasks for me, decided to lose the ability to send and receive signals of various castes. My mother most likely assumes I am dead, and is watching CNN feverishly and calling the airport agency to try to reach me. After all, I've been out of her site for a solid two hours now. I need to figure out why my phone has ceased to work, but not at this time. The little orange light tells me it would emit a sound that only captains can hear, lulling them to a very fulfilling, although abruptly ceasing, dreamless sleep.
I was surprised to discover that take-off excited me. The initial banking (my side tilting down) thrilled me, and being the kind of gentleman who didn't seek such rushes of adrenalin in real life determined te phenomenon was caused by a linking of real life to video games. The helicopter in Grand Theft Auto, the Gyrocopter in Giants; Citizen Kabuto, the Wing Cap in Super Mario 64, the list goes on. I had hopped on my first flying mount, and it was fantastic. As I had guessed, civilization from this altitude looked like malignant infections on the land, with dotted tendrils growing from pulsating nuclei. Humanity's great stride towards civilization looks like an infected splotch on the horizon. It really gives me a sense of proportion.
After being dropped off by the mud-skipper, I proceeded to travel 13.7 miles through the Minneapolis airport to gate G3, to the final flight path to California.
The moment the airlock opened after touchdown I realized that the fresh ocean air was possibly going to give me a system shock, as it did not smell like dirt, dead animals, and Mets/Yankee/Giants fans. It was like the transition in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when Eddie drives through the tunnel to Toontown. If you are my landlord right now, I'd be getting ready to post something in a newspaper.
I've seen Hollywood's representation of airports, with bustling yuppies and creepy men in winter hats, but I've never taken the complete initiation personally. With the exception that I forgot to empty my change before walking through the anti-anti-American gates, the operation went very smoothly. My first shuttle to the Twine Ball State was small, bus-sized, and typing on my laptop was a chore, as the area I have which to breathe is about the size of a coffin. Thanks to the low-visibility my laptop offers at any angle not perpendicular at 90 degrees to the screen, I can't exactly see what I'm typing. I can see notations that I assume are characters, but as far as the quality of my word, I am completely blind.
I had promised a great number of people that I would keep them updated via my Twitter account and the more conventional medium of mobile telephonics. Oddly enough, my phone, which handles all of those tasks for me, decided to lose the ability to send and receive signals of various castes. My mother most likely assumes I am dead, and is watching CNN feverishly and calling the airport agency to try to reach me. After all, I've been out of her site for a solid two hours now. I need to figure out why my phone has ceased to work, but not at this time. The little orange light tells me it would emit a sound that only captains can hear, lulling them to a very fulfilling, although abruptly ceasing, dreamless sleep.
I was surprised to discover that take-off excited me. The initial banking (my side tilting down) thrilled me, and being the kind of gentleman who didn't seek such rushes of adrenalin in real life determined te phenomenon was caused by a linking of real life to video games. The helicopter in Grand Theft Auto, the Gyrocopter in Giants; Citizen Kabuto, the Wing Cap in Super Mario 64, the list goes on. I had hopped on my first flying mount, and it was fantastic. As I had guessed, civilization from this altitude looked like malignant infections on the land, with dotted tendrils growing from pulsating nuclei. Humanity's great stride towards civilization looks like an infected splotch on the horizon. It really gives me a sense of proportion.
After being dropped off by the mud-skipper, I proceeded to travel 13.7 miles through the Minneapolis airport to gate G3, to the final flight path to California.
The moment the airlock opened after touchdown I realized that the fresh ocean air was possibly going to give me a system shock, as it did not smell like dirt, dead animals, and Mets/Yankee/Giants fans. It was like the transition in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when Eddie drives through the tunnel to Toontown. If you are my landlord right now, I'd be getting ready to post something in a newspaper.
