Saturday, July 31, 2004

Saturday, July 31, 2004

I was feeling kind of drab from a combination of shitty weather, hormones, etc. when serendipity struck in the form of a Secret Admirer.  Hehe, okay I'm goofing.  A man found his way to my site, read it all, and emailed me to say I gave him hope.

/swoon

Anyway, it definitely gave me a much needed lift to my day.  (Pssst ... I hope you don't mind that I wrote about you.) 

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Sooooo tired.  But I finally made it home last night after sitting on that runway for hours.  My manager told me he heard the test theory also.  I still never saw anything on the news.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Quite an eventful afternoon.

I was in a meeting all day at the airport hotel in Philadelphia, daydreaming in between important points being made.  During one of our breaks, we noticed that the line for security was so long that it had spilled out of the airport and into the hotel.  It turns out they had evacuated everyone from the airport because of a security issue.  I called a colleague of mine who had left about 20 minutes prior.  He said he hadn't gone through security yet but was close to the front once they reopened it. 

I jumped on CNN.com and MSNBC to see if I could figure out wtf was going on.  Nothing.  I tried Federal Aviation Administration.  Zilch.  I called my airline where the agent knew less than me.  However he did say all outbound planes were grounded currently.  Inbound were allowed to land.  He had no idea when they would resume but said the planes had to leave cuz they needed them at their destinations by the morning.  I asked about availability for tomorrow morning.  He told me there were 7 seats left on 2 of tomorrow's flights.  Another one was already sold out.  I'm actually amazed he disclosed the number because they never used to do that.

Someone near me spouted out that he saw an AWACS in the air circling the airport.

I started to weigh my options and thought about staying the night.  By this time, apparently so did everyone else because my hotel was overbooked, so I'd have to rent a car (if available) or hop a cab to an alternate hotel.  I called Galahad to let him know my status.  He explained to me what an AWACS is, and I started to feel a twinge of uneasiness.

AWACS: Airborne Warning And Control System. Aircraft fitted with long range radar that provide tactical and target information to air and ground control units. Usually big, slow and extremely high priority, both to defend and to attack.

We decided to go ahead and get our boarding passes and see what the situation was after that.  My manager discovered that the security line at the next terminal was about 45 minutes shorter.  Fortunately I was stuck with a couple of the fun guys so we laughed & joked our way down the long lines and outside down the street to the next terminal.  One did the limbo under the nylon ropes used to keep people in orderly lines.  Security was in fact much shorter there.

We finally had to split up as we were headed to different gates.  Our flights were still showing on-time.  Lying bastards.  I did see planes in the air again which reassured me quite a bit.

Of course I needed to get food so I followed a flight crew member since I figured he'd know where the good places were. :)  For a little bit, people seemed nicer while we all shared a potential crisis.  However, as the mood got back to normal, so did attitudes.  People got cranky again as fear & bewilderment turned to anger -- a much more acceptable emotion for most.

I finally boarded my plane (after talking to Galahad a couple more times to give updates and share some love just in case).  He was very busy at work though so I didn't want to bug him too much.  Amazingly enough, we left the gate only about 10 minutes late.

It had been approximately 3 hours by now, and I had heard 3 theories of wtf may or may not have happened.  One, it was a glitch.  Haha, nice line.  Two, it was a security breach.  And three, it was a test.

About 5 minutes after we backed away from the gate, the pilot said, "this is your captain and uh ... what can I say ... this is a mess."  I had to respect his honesty.  He said we were in line behind a gajillion other planes and only one runway open.  I snuck on my cell phone and called Galahad to let him know I wouldn't be home any time soon.  About 20 minutes later, the pilot came on again and said no change, feel free to turn on your cell phones.

So, I called my brother and caught up with him until I noticed my battery was dying.  Plus my ear hurt at this point from the fucking earpiece.  He reassured me that AWACS are also used to search for inclement weather like tornadoes.  Perhaps this was simply Mother Nature getting cranky at the same time as a defective security machine.  I feel so cutoff from news sitting sealed in here.  I miss the TV & searchable Internet.  Time to settle in with my book and make the best of it.  I'll assume the lady praying next to me will cover the whole row so I don't need to concentrate on that.  :p

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Well, it's a bit different.  I added some highlights and lowlights upon consultation with my stylist.  When did they stop being hairdressers by the way?  She's a crazy girl and a lot of fun even though I hate sitting there for 2 hours to get this done.  We talked about sex and men like any good salon inhabitants.

So I'm now the proud owner of some deep brown lowlights and some Kool-Aid Red & violet-red highlights.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Hair day again for me!  I'm nervous since I'm changing colors as usual.  Why do  it you ask?  Because stagnation is death and because I get bored easily.  :)

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

At about 7 PM tonight as I was writing out the date for the 30th time today, I remembered it was my mother's birthday.  It hit me hard, and I felt guilty for forgetting and proud for letting it go all at the same time.  It was very odd.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Sunday, July 18, 2004

After a few months, I finally learned what some people with whom I'm acquainted have against me.  Are you sitting down?  My expectations are too high.  Ummm .... duh.  I could have told them that.  So all this time, there's been tension and bickering over one of my inherent traits.  Fuck them!  I think they're upset cuz they don't measure up as good people or as wanting to try to better themselves.  I try very hard not to judge people.  Pretty much, the only time I do judge harshly is when someone doesn't make the effort to work on themselves.  We all come from varying levels of dysfunctionality, but there's no excuse (in my eyes) for not trying to change that.

Saturday, July 10, 2004

Saturday, July 10, 2004

Gah, another migraine.  Fucking thunderstorms!  Grrrr.

I did manage to watch a funny movie though and highly recommend it if you're into silly movies  --- Old School.

Thursday, July 1, 2004

Thursday, July 1, 2004

I felt all self-important & special today as I flew first class back & forth to Atlanta for a meeting.  My shine was a little tarnished though as I pre-write this entry the old-fashioned way with paper & pen (not even my red fountain pen either since I've heard too many fountain pen / airplane horror stories) instead of straight onto my laptop.  First, I forgot to load the current copy of my blog there from my PC; and second and more important, my battery sucks and dies in 15 minutes.

I meant to start it on the trip up when I had more energy, but I got all involved eavesdropping on the woman next to me.  :)  Rich people really have a different reality at times.  And I quickly succumbed to the lure of being privileged.  I boarded first with quiet dignity.  I received 3 bottles of water (the lady next to me had a Bloody Mary, and Galahad goofed that I should also when I called him before we left), 4 cookies, 1 bag of snack mix, and a set of free headphones.  Remember the flight is only 90 minutes long, and the peasants in the back were lucky to get 4 ounces of some beverage.  I also skipped a 30 minute wait at Security by asking for the first class line.  A girl could get used to this.  ;)  Plus, it helped me to be relaxed for my presentation, which went very well if I may say so myself. 

I showed up at the meeting in time for lunch, ate my delicious sandwich from the Atlanta Bread Company, did my dog & pony show, laughed quite a bit since I have a good group to work with, and left to get back to the airport in plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely dinner of sand crab cake sandwich cuz when you think Atlanta, you think crabs.  :p

So now I'm sitting on the plane in my roomy, leather seat -- listening to the man two seats over although his conversation isn't nearly as interesting as the woman this morning.  He must have received a complimentary upgrade.  :)  Don't even get me started on the man next to me.  He's having some sort of testicular issue and having to adjust quite a bit, definitely not first class material. 

[Side Tangent: Wtf is wrong with men that they think this is socially acceptable?  A woman would never dare do something like that.  And if she were in extreme discomfort for some reason (tries not to think why anyone would be), she would at least try to disguise it a little bit instead of pulling & tugging away every 5-7 minutes.]

I think I wouldn't mind traveling as much if I could fly first class all the time.  I'm treated like a real person whose business is appreciated instead of like cattle whose presence is merely tolerated.  I'll take it as a lesson to remind myself to treat all of my customers with genuine enthusiasm even if they're doing dumb shit.  ;)

Ha, I'm on my fifth page already and grinning at my own thoughts.  I bet the people around me have formed some type of opinion about me and it may not be complimentary.  =)