Waiting, Flying, Waiting

Oh man am I pooped. I've been on a business trip this week. Those things always tire me out, but the killer was the ride home. My second flight of the night was supposed to take off at 9:15 and land in Boston around 10:30. No such luck. At about 9:30 someone from the flight deck announced that there would be a delay.

“Aaaaaah, we've got a light on the panel that's not supposed to be on, and aaaaaah, we're having maintenance check that out, we'll see if we can, aaaaaaaah, get underway shortly.”

Something about jet pilots, they all do that aaaaaaaah thing.

Round about 10:00 the stewardess tells us that it is an electrical problem and that they are trying to repair it. If they can't, we may have to get on another plane. Guess what?

“Aaaaaaah, the aircraft has a major electrical problem, the safest way to fix it is to entirely replace a component. That part is in Atlanta, so aaaaaaaaah, we're going to aaaaah, move to another airplane.”

Anyway, we take off about 15 minutes after we were scheduled to land. It wasn't too bad. The passengers took it all with good humor, the stewardesses were very nice, and once we finally got into the air the flight was smooth.

By the time I got back to terra firma the T, our local mass transit system, was running at its absolute slowest. A bus, two trains, and a long wait in a station later, I was back home, at 1:30 this morning. Oof.

By the way, the best leg of the trip was getting to the big international airport that I spent so much time in. I started from a small local airport that is surrounded by farmland. From the waiting room you can see the control tower and two silos. I guess that's why they called it barnstorming. I caught a Cessna out of there. It was less crowded than the jet I would be uncomfortably waiting in later. In fact, I was the only passenger. The view was very nice for a few minutes. Then we got into the clouds. We flew through a little storm. Nothing bad, just some rain and wind. The little plane bounced and and bucked. If it weren't for the seatbelt I probably would have tumbled from my chair a couple of times. It was kind of fun.

I've never been a big fan of roller coasters. You get jumbled around, you experience g-forces, and for all that you end up where you started. In a little propeller driven airplane going through storm clouds you get the jumbled around part, but you don't have the heavy g-force, you get to see the sun streaming through the clouds above, below, and around you, and when the ride is over you're in another town.

It's good to be home. I'm going back to bed.