Up in the Air

Since I first saw the previews for it, I've wanted to see Up in the Air since it had the potential to be very close to home for me. I wasn't disappointed. Warning, there is a SPOILER ALERT BELOW…. I don't want to ruin it for anyone- it's safe to read until you see the Spoiler alert. The movie was very good, and shows what life can be like on the road. While there are many similarities between the George Clooney character and I, there is one BIG difference. Once I get to a city, I am generally with people I know.

I think the biggest similarity I have with him (besides the requirement for Travelpro luggage (more on that later) is how empty our homes were. It took me about a month of living in my current apartment before I realized why I was so comfortable in it. My apartment feels like a hotel room. From the exterior hallway with it's rows of doors-



to the privacy latch and peep hole,




it feels like a hotel room. Generally my refrigerator is empty. Sure it may have leftover beer from my last party and 3 month old milk, but that classifies as empty to me.

Lots of people have asked me when will I get off the road and start having a normal life. What people don't understand is that this travel is my normal. I don't know anything else. I don't know if I can handle life off the road. After a stressful point in my life a bunch of years ago, I was comforted by sitting in an airplane seat. That is where everything felt right. I was at peace. Very few people I know have successfully made that transition. It's not an easy transition to make either way. Life on the road is very independent. Eating dinner by yourself in a restaurant isn't something that you get used to right away. Eating room service every night isn't practical. Eating fast food every night isn't healthy.

It is very difficult to have a successful relationship when life on the road is involved. Many years ago I was at a hotel outside of Philly while covering a Villanova basketball game and there was an very attractive young lady at the bar hitting on a slightly older guy. They were both business travelers, he run down, her full of energy. I recall they were both involved with other people, and this was seemingly a problem for him, but when she uttered the following "Don't you know the mantra of all young travelers?-- What goes on on the road stays on the road." he forgot about anything else and they started getting closer to each other, more flirting and eventually left the hotel bar together. To this day, I've never made a pick up on the road. I don't have that in me. I don't know if its catholic guilt or what. I see people I work with do it all the time, and I hear stories about when they were younger. I can only imagine how bad it was before they were married.

The other side of the relationship coin is for the one who isn't traveling. It's got to be tough for that person to stay faithful as well. While there may not be as many opportunities for infidelity, the time spent apart adds up and people have needs. Someone who is in a relationship with a traveller needs to be just as independent. They need to be able to function without their partner for long periods of times.
SPOILER BELOW











Getting back to the movie, it ends up showing all of this, although not quite directly. Assuming you have seen the movie- George Clooney is the person who doesn't know how to function not on the road. He has traveling down to a science. He knows his job in and out. For him, life on an island is best because the way he is wired, it is easiest. You do get weighed down by all those things in your life. One could argue that those which weigh you down also keep you grounded. I used to be great in keeping in touch with people and making sure that I would see everyone. Now I suck. If Isee my family maybe 6 times a year, talk to them 15 times I think that would be a lot. I went over a year without seeing a friend, and the way we knew is that her daughter had been pretty much a new born the last time I saw her and I was attending her 2nd birthday party.


We actually learn two things form the young woman who he is teaching how to travel. The first is from her boyfriend who we never meet. The partner of a traveller has to be strong. They can't be upset that the person is gone, and they have to be able to function on their own. In the young woman herself, you can see someone who just isn't cut out to do the travel. She is wide-eyed and eager, but the road (and her job) ends up wearing her down. She left for the job she was meant to do, unencumbered by her boyfriend. While on the subject, you have to make decisions for yourself and not for anyone else. Her going to Wichita because her boyfriend got accepted to some school there was asinine. She took a soul sucking job that she never could have been happy at for her partner. As soon as things started to go bad, he left her, and she was still in Wichita at a soul-sucking job. When I moved to be closer to C, I gave up the NY metropolitan area, but not much else. My job remained the same and I lost that what if factor. The character should have taken her dream job in San Francisco and dealt with the long distance relationship. She also had the same dream that I have had on occasion- How fun would it be to pack a suitcase and head to the airport and pick a destination to go to on the spot with Frequent Flier miles.

From George Clooney's love interest in the movie you see the worst. She goes on the road and lives by that same motto. When she is doing that she is not only endangering her own marriage and family, but taking advantage of other people as well. The Clooney character thought he had finally met his equal, his match and was starting to let her into his life. He brought her to his sisters wedding, let him into his very inner circle and was finally ready to settle down, only to have his hopes crushed. He was ready to give up everything he believed in. Being a member of the 10 million mile club really doesn't mean anything in the big picture. It would take someone years to recover from that if ever.

I am well on my way to 2 million miles currently. The funny thing is that when you travel so much to accumulate that many miles or hotel points the last thing you don't know what to do with them. I gift my miles more than I use them. I have used them to fly friends internationally, to send my parents on vacations, to help friends get to where they need to be in family emergencies.

For the Travelpro comment above- on my trip out to Minneapolis this past Thursday, my bag of 10 years finally broke. The handle came out from baggage claim locked in the up position. I couldn't get it down. The person next to me was shocked and questioned me when I didn't go to the Baggage office to complain. I told them that the bag had lasted me 10 years. It survived over 1000 flights. I think that I got my moneys worth out of the bag and it's time to replace it. If you're in the market for luggage, get the Travelpro Crew series. It's a little more expensive, but you won't be disappointed.

How 253 affects me (and other things)

By now, I'm sure everyone has heard about the Nigerian who tried to light an explosive during the descent of Delta Flight 253 into Detroit. I can't comprehend what drives a person to commit an act of mass destruction such as that. What I do know is this-- the actions of that one individual will seriously impact my life and many of those around me.

I like to spend as little time at the airport as possible. In the ideal world, I arrive at the airport and check my bag 45 minutes prior to departure, head right to security and then to the gate and get on the plane. I hate having to wait. I carry on lots of electronic gizmos. My laptop, cell phone, iPod, Kindle plus extra batteries, charges, headphones, etc to support them. The keyboard on my laptop suffered damage in June so the Y, H, M and 6 keys don't work. I was holding off replacing my laptop until the new ones came out (late January 2010) by traveling a full size USB keyboard with me. I ordered a replacement keyboard and will be installing this week when I get to Dallas. I don't want to have to spend any more time explaining things than I have to.

From what I heard form colleagues today -- security lines are longer than ever now, passengers had to be individually patted down, Passengers had to explain and turn on every electronic device they had with them. People who arrived a full 2 hours before their flights missed them today. I now fly out at 6:45am on Wednesday on a ticket that was purchased 2 hours ago. I'm trying to figure out what time I need to get to the airport now in order to make that flight. Typically I would have left my apartment at 5:15 and had plenty of time to spare. I'll let you know how that goes.

As for those I know in the airline industry -- I can't fathom what they're going through now. More and more pressure is being placed on flight crews to fill the holes that are left by TSA.

As for TSA -- Like security anywhere, it is just window dressing. It deters MOST sane people. If someone is really dead set to cause harm and willing to give their own life for it, the will succeed. Even though this person did not detonate their device, it has changed all of our lives forever. He won, much like the infamous 'shoe bomber' did.

Blast from the past...

If at anytime you doubt a vote for Obama, just watch this....

Dreams

A couple of weeks ago I had a weird dream. It was odd that I remembered it all. Typically I don't remember dreams, and this one was particularly vivid. In the dream, I was walking to the train station as I would be doing that day and saw someone drowning in the river. In my dream, I ran to the fence line, found a life saving ring and through it out towards the guy. I then put my bag down, took off my jacket, shoes and socks (weird, I know) and jumped in. I swam towards the victim, pushing the life saver to him, and then pulled him to the shore. By that time paramedics had arrived and as far as I know the guy survived.

That morning, I go about my day, and I walk past that area. What was weird was that it was exactly the same as it was in my dream. The Fireboat wasn't there (it usually is), the same boats were in the same position as they were in the dream. It was a little awkward but I went on thinking nothing of it.

Later on in the day, I get a text from one of the ex's I'm still friends with. She and I exchange messages often, so again, nothing unusual. She wasn't feeling well and thought she had the flu. Throughout the day, she continued to tell me through texts how bad she was feeling, etc. Through texts I was trying to get more information from her to try and help out. She figured it was food poisoning or the flu, but couldn't keep anything down, including water. She was throwing up every 30 minutes, almost as if on a schedule.

I was done working, and called her to see how she was doing. In talking to her, she sounded weird. Not weird as in sick, but just not there, as if something major was wrong. I started to go to her place to see if I could help. On my way, I started to use my Blackberry to do some research. An important piece I've left out so far is that she is a type 1 diabetic. She has been for 19 years and is well controlled. She switched to using an insulin pod over the summer and it has given her great freedoms. Searching diabetes and vomiting I found out about DKA- Diabetic Ketoacidosis.

DKA is caused when the body has little or no insulin to use. The blood glucose level keeps rising to dangerous levels. The body ends up building up acid in the blood as it is buring fat for energy now. I'm being over simplistic here, but DKA results in a dangerous cycle- the person isn't breaking down sugars, so they're feeling tired. The body tries to break down fats to sugars for energy, causing the glucose level to continue to rise, and then vomiting ensues, trying to keep numbers ok. Because of the vomiting a person becomes severely dehydrated. The person is feeling very lethargic, they have difficulties with thinking. This prevents the person from testing themselves. If a person were to test themselves, they'd realize that there was something wrong.

As I'm on my way over, I ask her to check her blood sugar. She's in the high 300's. In doing this quick research, I learned that when I diabetic person starts vomiting when their blood sugar is high, they should seek medical attention immediately. That started around 10am. It's now 8:30pm. We're 10 1/2 hours past that point. As I get there, I tell her all of this and tell her I'm taking her to the hospital. She looked awful, her eyes were almost recessed. She says lets wait for 30 minutes and I told her no, we're going now.

When we got to the ER, she was taken almost right away as this was recognized to be a serious medical situation. Long story short- the needle from her pod had back out of her skin and hadn't been delivering insulin for approximately 20 hours. Her blood sugar had been in the high 300's for over 20 hours. (Normal is 80-120). She was roughly 8 liters dehydrated. Her kidneys were with in hours of shutting down. She was only a few hours from going into a diabetic coma. She was so out of it, she didn't realize how bad she had gotten. She ended up in the hospital for 2 days and was released with a clean bill of health.

I don't know if there was any correlation between the dream and taking her to the hospital, but the doctor said she was in a life threatening condition when I brought her in. It was a very weird coincidence for sure.

Day 1 - Northern CA

After the disappointment of not having J coming on the trip (it was just 2 friends going on a trip together, but who knows where it might have lead), I drove up to the hotel, which was just a wee bit further than I thought it was. OK, it was a lot futher. It was close to 300 miles from SFO. It was a beautiful ride up Hwy 101, over the Golden Gate Bridge, and the road went on forever.


Finally around 10:15pm PT, nearly 22 hours after I left my apartment, I arrive at the hotel. This hotel was more like a trailer park. They had cabins, and I got a deliverance vibe as I pulled up. I found the place on the internet, and needless to say it didn't look nearly the same in person as it did on the website. Exhausted, I crawl into my cabin/trailer and go to sleep.

When I awoke, I went of exploring the town, and find that it's a small fishing community nestled in with the Redwoods.

I walked down to the water and found a beautiful little beach.
After an hour or so of walking around, I headed back to the trail, and off to the redwoods.

J Pulls a "Kevin" plus a bad start to Vacation

I guess that it was a long time coming. I finally got burned by someone doing what I do so many times. C always used to say when something didn't happen because of a lack of planning or an assumption of time off that it was a "Kevin". J and I had planned a getaway. It was planned for the time between the end of the MLB Regular Season and the start of the Championship series. Because of the one game playoff, she ended up having to work. She planned to the come out a day later. Not so bad. The planned trip was to fly to SFO, drive up to Redwood National Forest, stay at a lodge on the water for a few days, tour around the redwoods, drive down to Napa, hang out in wine country for a few days, then head to SFO and fly home.

Now to the bad. I fly predominantly on one airline for work. I take advantage of this when I go on vacation and use the miles that I earn to fly for free. That airline changed the type of aircraft 2 days before the flight, and I ended up bumped off that flight and accommodated on a partner airline of theirs, albeit with a connection. Not too bad, I'm still flying in First Class for free. I knew it couldn't be that easy.

I went to check in online and couldn't. This has happened before, so I'm not worried. I go to the ticket counter the morning of the flight and find that I'm not in First Class, but in 23C to Atlanta and 44B to SFO. I'm able to get to change my seat to 44C, so not nearly as bad. The next shock comes that I have to pay to check bags. When I fly my carrier of choice, I don't have to pay for the first 2 bags, up to 70lbs each. Now I'm paying $50 to check bags on what was supposed to be a free first class ticket. I question the Delta agent, but it's not her fault and there's nothing that she can do. She's just following the rules. I'll save that for when I get back.

I fly out to ATL and sleep through most of the flight. On our decent, I wake up and realize that I have Dish Network for free on this flight and think things are looking up. I deplane and head for my connection (40 minutes to change terminals at ATL) and didn't have time to pick up something to eat.

I get on the plane, and see once again, Dish Network in front of me. This Delta thing isn't so bad. Then come the announcements. There will be a meal, available for purchase. Then, since I'm in the last row of the aircraft, by the time they get to me, they don't have what I want. They ran out. I purchase my $3 mini pringles can and consider myself lucky for getting anything (and a free drink). The Flight Attendants come through again, and start at the front of the Cabin again, and once again, the person in row 43 bought the last of what I would have wanted. To myself I think maybe they should have started in the back of the cabin this time so we got first pick instead of running out AGAIN before getting to the last row.

I deplane in SFO, and hear that J thought that she was off from work, but didn't take vacation and now had to work during the week. She was very apologetic, and truth be told, I understood. I also now truly understood how so many others felt when I put them in the same situation. It just wasn't after they spent 10 hours flying.

A little to the left, a little to the right...

Let me preface this by saying I am truly an Independent. I typically identify as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. I know what you're saying- Basically I want everything but don't want to pay for it.

Last Friday, I was driving out of town and searching the radio for a local traffic report. I ended up stuck on the Jay Severin radio show and was appalled at what I was hearing. I couldn't believe the hate this supposed patriot was spewing. He was taking facts and bits and pieces of news stories to make them support his points. He didn't bother to mention the rest of the story. He was blaming Democrats because some schoolteacher somewhere had their students sing a song about Obama. This is the only place that I heard about this, but I'm sure it's true. What he didn't say was that it was possible that it was ONE schoolteacher that did this. It's entirely possible that the teacher was actually a Republican who was trying to elicit this response from the right side.

I'm not giving the left wing extremists a break either. I think that they can be just as bad. They also spin facts into what ever suits their side.

My brother-in-law (a staunch right-winger) sent an email forward of Lou Dobbs criticizing an illegal immigrant amnesty bill last week. I was watching this video and realized something wasn't quite right with it. First, I hadn't heard anything about a new amnesty bill. Second, there was no mention of healthcare or Obama. Third, the graphics on the screen wasn't the current look CNN was using. The clincher for me was reading the ticker at the bottom of the screen and seeing that the national average for gas hit a new all time high for the 11th day in a row at $3.21. The video was actually from August of 2007, about the previous administrations proposed bill. My Brother in Law, like so many other Americans took what he was sent, and immediately sent it out as gospel, vilifying Obama and the Democrats saying can you believe they put all of this in their bill...

Please people, do your own research. Don't just accept what you hear or read is fact. Once again, we're all contributing to the dumbing down of America.