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An air travel rant. Cliché, I know…

There’s a reason it’s been twelve years since I’ve travelled by plane for something that was purely a pleasure trip. No matter how hard you try and how far in advance you plan, it is nearly impossible not to get fucked (hard and without lube) when using those little sardine cans in the sky. It’s absolutely nothing I’d ever do voluntarily, and for the past decade or more, it’s been something I only do because of relatives who live on the other end of the country–first mine, now Mark‘s. The thought of taking a “fun” trip to someplace that’s only realistically accesible by plane has pretty much  evaporated for me over the years. I couldn’t imagine getting on a plane if I actually had a choice.

I woke up at 3:30, after managing to get about two hours sleep, to make a 6:20 flight with my mom that was booked two months ago, so we could get decent seats. Upon waking, I immediately learned we’d been re-booked on a flight leaving three hours later, and arriving four hours later. Aside from the special excitement of an extra hour in the Atlanta airport, there were, of course,  only middle seats left on the new flight. This is unpleasant news for most people. For someone of my size (and increasing level of claustrophobia), it almost inspires panic attacks. Seriously. I haven’t been able to get back to sleep thinking about it; I feel my chest tightening up and my heart pounding, and I even considered scrapping the whole trip for a second or two. This is one of my nightmares. That’s why I book so fair in advance; so I can avoid this scenario.

Yes, I understand that I don’t fly often and that frustrations like this are an everyday occurrence for people who do–like my poor husband, who has spent many nights in airports in the past few years. But that’s sort of the point. I would fly considerably more if it weren’t such a gut-wrenchingly miserable experience, and if there were some viable option between first class and hell.

Or if they at least provided lube…

This son of a bitch stole an entire page from Groceteria, posted it on his own site (images linked directly from my server and all) without attribution and didn’t even include a link to the page he stole it from. Far be it from me to suggest that you add a comment telling him what you think of that, but…

By way of an update, the page was removed shortly after I commented on his site and made some creative edits to the photos he’d leeched.

I seem to have returned home bearing a nasty cold alongside the other souvenirs.

It’s kind of hard to believe that my five-week break from school is sixty percent over before it really even seems to have started. It was a really intense fall semester, and I was sort of looking forward to a few moments of calm. They sort of never came, what with the trip to Fresno in December, followed by the actual holidays, and the big road trip to Pittsburgh last week. I have a lot of things I really want to catch up on before things get crazy again:

• The major renovation of Groceteria, moving it into the PHP world using a content management system (Joomla, to be specific) and integrating flickr photo albums to make the image hosting easier and more logical.
• Back-correcting old links in Otherstream now that it’s a WordPress site. This is becoming less and less of a priority, I must admit.
• Catching up on all the home video.
• Getting a sports blog set up for one of my clients. While typing that, I had the brilliant idea that they might consider using Twitter, making it all easier for me and cheaper for them. We’ll see how that works out.
• Posting about the just-completed trip, not to mention the one from six months ago that I never really covered either.
• Reading about fifteen books I have piled up in the office.

I have my doubts that I’ll get it all done.

If you’re interested, the trip journal is now posted for your amusement. Not one of my most introspective or analytical, I’ll admit, mainly because my time is limited right now. I’m pretty sure I’ll be writing lots more about Pittsburgh, though.

It’s nice having heat again.

And a big “fuck you” to the guy I called first, who came on Friday, said he had to go back to his shop for some information, and then more or less never called me back, leaving me with no heat for four days. Yesterday, after one last effort to get him to pull his head out of his ass, I gave up and called someone else. I’m just waiting to see if the first guy has the audacity to call back now (or to send me a bill for his “house call”). Guess the economy’s in pretty good shape if he can afford to piss off potential long term clients that way.

The sad thing is that I’m largely starting to expect “no discernible customer service at all” as the default in most situations.