OMG, Juliebird -- I don't know that I would ever be able to eat again.

My anger-inducing trauma is the incredibly slow baggage claim at BWI.BWI BAGGAGE SUCKS!

Oh god -- that's why I do my damnedest not to check bags. By the time I get off the plane, I've got to GO.

OK, there is pizza. Smells nummy, at least.

I have showered and got mac's clothes for tomorrow out and my outfit out and I think I am headed to bed. YAY for one leg up on tomorrow morning.

I'm all about checking baggage because I've rarely had a direct flight (because all my people? Live in odd places. Or very far) and I hate lugging shit through the airport. I like being a light traveller. Except for the fact that two of my common destinations (BWI and ELP) suck ass at baggage claim, it's not been an issue. Yet.

I swear, I LOVE peewee airports like Killeen's used to be. If baggage claim people were off, you pulled your luggage off the runway carts. I love small airports. Even "small" like Burbank is so much more efficient.

I've been flying since I was a child. It has changed a lot. We just went away for a few days - and getting to our destination, there was a three hour delay. Changed our plans quite a bit. Why was our flight late - a scheduling problem on the part of the airline. not mechanical, not weather, just bad scheduling.

so today:

work bad: There has been this whole thing about having only one reference/children's person in branch I. It is small and slow, so it isn't tragic if there is only one. A little hard, but you can usually get lunch. Well my co-worker C needed time off , or she was going to lose it. But we couldn't leave S alone at the lib. So I switched Wednesday's with C. Today I get there , find out that S is not going to be there , because she had to take days off or lose them. No one bother to mention to me that I was going to be on my own. and my boss ( also S and C's boss) was off today. no sub. no notice. I had to find out by a co-worker. Like I said, not a big deal to work alone, but no notice - annoys me.

Work good: We are doing something called Learning 2.0 - which is an intro to all of the stuff that is in what people are calling Web 2.0. So I am having a guided learning thing at all the stuff I have vague ideas about - so very cool. First step - create a blog. and as I feared, I keep tweaking.

God. I hope the Sarah Connor Chronicles don't suck.

ita, I saw the pilot, and thought it was actually pretty great. But perhaps I was just ready to be pleased.

I need to go wrap things.

Talking of flight suckage, the last leg of my flight home from Bali (San Francisco to Seattle) was quite funny, though irritating and a bit scary.

We were towed out of the gate, and the engine starts. It sounded like someone was sawing off one of the wings. The pilot turned off the engine and announced: "There seems to be a maintenance issue. Our maintenance people can do amazing things, and they'll be checking his out."

20 minutes later the pilot came on the loud speaker again. "Sorry, we can't seem to diagnose the problem on the runway. We'll be pulling back to the gate where our maintenance crew has access to more advanced tools". One of the other passengers muttered at this point "yes, they'll be putting in all new hamsters, and additional rubber bands."

We were towed back to the gate , and about an hour later the pilot came on the loud speaker again. "Maintenance diagnosed and fixed what turned out to be an easy to solve electrical problem".

We were towed back out of the gate, and the engine turned on and made a noise like someone was sawing off one of the wings. The pilot kept taxing down the runway, sped up, and the noise became normal engine noise. I guess it was like running your car with a fractionally bad electrical system. You get the engine warmed up and the problem temporarily vanishes. We took off, reached cruising altitude - all the cabin lights flickered, and continued to do so throughout the flight.

At this point almost everyone in the cabin was just roaring. One ~17 year old girl asked indignantly "why are you people laughing; this isn't funny?" A 50ish women replied "honey, its hilarious. Its awful, but that doesn't keep it from being funny."

My college was number 8 for prettiness. Which is about right - it's a gorgeous campus.

Its awful, but that doesn't keep it from being funny.

Well said!

And any takeoff you can walk away from is a good one.

Pain management has shifted me to a new level in painkillers. Which so far don't work. I hate testing new pain meds. Hell, I hate pain meds.

Also hate pain. I'm a little ball of hate¹.

The krav class was uncancelled. But I didn't tell the lead instructor since he's been having a stressy week. Well, I didn't tell him until after I'd started teaching. He got to nap. We have to keep him happy, because that way he kills and eats fewer people.

And then I came home instead of teaching my class because the effort of teaching his made my head hurt. Hence the pain meds. And the hate.

'Suela, I trust your judgment. Unless you like Chuck. Or Pushing Daisies. No, I'll trust you anyway.

¹: Actually, I'm not. That's what we call this amazing ab exercise where you get into the closed part of a crunch (elbows touching knees) and your partner rocks you through a small arc, and you keep your elbows touching the knees. It's important they don't rock you so much that gravity's helping you hold the position--it's all ab. And you keep at it for 30-60s. Little ball of hate, how I love you.

Typo, I would've been much more like the 17-year-old, only I would've been so busy hyperventilating in terror that I couldn't have actually spoken!

I'm not afraid of flying on a normal flight where everything goes smoothly, and I can deal with garden-variety turbulence. But severe turbulence or any hint that the plane isn't in 100% working order, and I'm pretty much expecting to die.

Actually, I guess I am a little afraid of flying, because I always, um, bless the plane as I board. Like, as I'm stepping from the bridge thingy onto the plane I pause for a second, lay a hand on the plane's skin, close my eyes, and say a silent prayer that we'll make it safely to our destination. I've been doing it since the 2000 Alaska Air crash, which for some reason scared me more than any crash before or since. So far I've never had a crew member so much as look askance at me, so maybe I'm not the only one who does something like that.