Trying to travel during a holiday...

I’ve got to tell you that spending a large amount of time in an airport on Christmas Eve, well, it’s just no good, no good at all. This little adventure of mine started early on Saturday morning at say, oh, 6AM when I rose to get ready to meet the day and to travel home for the Christmas holiday, home being Maine of course. To get to Maine one has to catch 2 different planes because there are no direct flights from anywhere that I can fly out of into Portland Maine. First choice when making the reservations back a few weeks ago was to fly through New York, and then get the connecting flight into Portland, getting there by 1 in the afternoon and catching a ride home with my sister to engage in the annual Christmas feasting. Of course as is the case with anything that I do these days, this didn’t work out correctly, or at all for that matter. Getting to the airport, not a problem. Checking in and making it through security, not a problem either. The hard part came when it was time for the plane to leave on time, which never happened.

First problem in the litany of problems to follow was a bum aircraft sitting on the ground in Raleigh. They weren’t really sure what was wrong with it. Call me nuts, but if you’re going to be flying in something, and there is something wrong with it, you are probably going to want to know what’s wrong with it, and that they can fix it before you climb aboard. I mean, a car malfunctioning is one thing. There is usually a shoulder that you can pull onto should your car shit out on you. An airplane, well, there is no shoulder, just a loud and horrible crash. So plane #1, it appeared to not be feeling well. They wheeled it out of there, and rolled in a new one, which, lo and behold, it also had some sort of warning light flashing in the cockpit that they could not seem to make go away no matter how the prodded it. By this time though, the airline had called my name and given me the bad news that indeed, my original flight plans were now null and void because there was no way anyone heading to Portland was going to catch their connections in New York, so a choice had to be made. Either go later on in the afternoon at 5PM and get into Portland at 9:30, or wait until the following morning. I decided to consult The Mom, because really, it was kind of her call as to whether I came in this evening or on Christmas morning. Her decision was for Christmas Eve, so off I went to make arrangements for that. And now the problem, it was only 10AM, flight time to Charlotte was going to be 5PM. 7 hours of waiting lay ahead of me. I tried to make the best of it without complaining or cursing too loudly as I languished walking the terminal repeatedly to maybe get some exercise, and to do a little mobile people watching (one of my all time favorite airport activities of course). What I did notice in my 20 laps of the terminal that I was in, there were a lot of the same people sitting in the same places everytime I walked by. I walked 10 laps in the morning to keep the legs fresh, and then another 10 laps later on in the afternoon after watching a movie on the Lappy. Lots and lots of the same people, so it appeared that there were a lot of people in the same boat as me. Did this make me happy? Nah, but misery does love company doesn’t it? Seems as though the airlines were having a hard time getting people onto planes for some reason this Christmas Eve.

The flight from Raleigh to Charlotte, uneventful as a 30 minute trip can be. And now as I write this, I’m sitting in the Charlotte airport, which always seems like a waste to me because what’s the point of flying into an airport that is in the same State in which you reside? Silly, pure folly. That’s how the air routes go though, especially when you’re flying US Scare, I mean, US Air, because for them, all routes pretty much lead through Charlotte. If I had known I was going to be flying out of Charlotte, I would have just driven down here this morning, instead of getting a numb ass sitting on my duff in Raleigh. At least I would have been doing something. Ah hell. And to think, I had to be talked into coming home for Christmas this year, just for the mere fact that I’m tired, very tired, and just needed a break from the hustle and bustle of life in general. Getting stuck in an airport for 10 hours, getting diverted a couple of times, and getting home to Mexico Maine somewhere close to midnight on Christmas Eve / early Christmas morning, yep, that is not my idea of maximizing my relaxation time for what little vacation time that I do have this year during the holidays. Not maximizing things at all. If I had stayed at home for Christmas this year, the temperatures in Chapel Hill today were in the 60’s, the sun was shining, and the air was still. It would have made for a few days of relaxing bike rides out in the countryside, rolling along feeling the wind and sun on my face for a change, and just pedaling along thinking, and getting lost in the rhythm and flow of the ride, which is something that I haven’t done in a good long while. Instead though, I’ve been cooped up in an airport all day long with coughing and hacking people, small yelling children, smaller crying children, and developing a general sense of piss offed-ness (Is that a word? Doesn’t matter, I’m using it.). As the English would say, a cracking good way to start this vacation indeed. I am the poster child for the old saying, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” This year, this couldn’t be any more true. I’m still waiting for something good to happen to me this year, I mean, aside from being with the SO and all, but something other than that. The SO situation is great and good, but there has to be something else that can go right for me. Isn’t there?

I’m really starting to wonder what the hell I did in a past life to deserve all of this bad karma, because I know deep down that I’ve not been this bad of a person in this life. I think that there might be some cosmic force out there keeping a good man down, it’s like someone has got their thumb on the back of my neck most days. I’m starting to feel like Rodney Dangerfield, can’t get no respect out there. I can sort of pinpoint when all of the really bad things started happening to me, and it was awhile ago, but nonetheless, there they are. It’s felt like a downward slide ever since then, over which I have no control. They just happen. And keep happening. Maybe I’ll break out of the slump here in the near future, been in it for, oh, I don’t know, about 7 years or so at this point in time. Or maybe I just see the bad things, and not the good, because when shit is going wrong, you just see the bad shit, you probably don’t see the good things around you because your mind is pre-occupied with the bad. Know what I mean? I’m sure that things aren’t as bad as I perceive them to be, but hey, as some people (like my boss) like to tell me. Perception is reality. Which is a turn of phrase that I’ve never understood until I went to work for GKN. That’s another entirely different story though there. Let’s just say that for most people that I work with and or for, there is a severely skewed view of reality, and that comes from growing up, going to school in, and now residing in Roxboro, NC. People there don’t seem to like to leave the town to go and see other things. For instance, you have a damn hard time getting anyone from Roxboro to even hang out in Raleigh, which is, for the record, about 40 minutes down the road. They like being big fish in a very small pond, but I suppose to each their own. They live in their own little world separate from the actual world I think.

Let me review some of the good things. I have the SO. She’s special to me and I love her, and this past year has been great being together with her. Back in December we celebrated our 1st year of being together, and I honestly and truly hope that there will be a lot more years to come with her. Then there is my friendship with The Chad and The Alex. I feel like they are 2 people that I will be in constant contact with for the rest of my life really, and I feel like my friendships with them are getting ever stronger and tighter, so that’s a good thing. And of course, I always have my family. They’ll always be there I know that. There are a few good things that I have this year, and there are a mess more of bad things. Too numerous to list right now, maybe I’ll take that up in an entry all of its own at some point in time here down the road.

Holy shit! I just saw the funniest footwear that I’ve seen in a long time. Just imagine a pair of boots on some woman’s feet that are fuzzy and fur covered and have little dingle balls hanging off the top of them. Now that is some comedy. Sorry, had to mention that. Oh, here she comes again. Damn, someone needs to have a talk with her about that style sense. I’m not Versace over here, but damn. Just, damn… I’m betting they were Ugg’s. They’re taking the US by storm. Official uniform of the UNC woman in the winter. Ugg boots, and some short of hip hugging tight across the buttocks jeans. If you are the woman that wears the really fuzzy boots, please don’t. Take them off, and immediately burn the footwear. I’m sure they would make good material to start fires with. There are some of these boots that are OK, for the most part, but these particular ones that I just saw. Kick them to the curb, kick them to the curb. And of course only in the Charlotte airport would have a display of several NASCAR cars sitting in the middle of the airport. There has been some controversy lately as to who is going to get the NASCAR hall of fame, and where it’s going to be located, and I can’t think of a better place than Charlotte. I mean think about it. NASCAR started down in NC for the most part, a large number of the teams are based in NC, it just makes sense. It would be like locating the baseball hall of fame in Canada. But no. Where did they locate it? Cooperstown, where it all started. Same should go for NASCAR. It only makes good horse sense, but back to the original point. Only in Charlotte, and only in NC would there be 5 NASCAR vehicles parked in the middle of the airport on display.

Christmas morning has come and gone now. And the sitting around and eating begins. Around here, tradition dictates that we get up in the morning, open presents, and then sit around and eat meat pies with ketchup of course. I got some good stuff this year, and my Mom commissioned an artist, and had him draw our house, and then she got prints of that for everyone framed and such. It is pretty cool. Good depiction of the old homestead. Of course my sister Amy, when seeing this cried, mostly because she’s a crier, and well, that’s just what she does. They were really nice prints though, and I’ll have to have mine shipped out to North Carolina, because that isn’t going to make the journey back home on the plane very well, or at all. I’m sure that shit would get broken with the gorillas that they have out there handling the luggage and all. No way I would entrust that shit to them. No way. I also got a dashboard Jesus, which I am most definitely bringing to work and putting it somewhere on my desk without a doubt. Maybe the folks that I work with will think I got saved over the Christmas break and all. And my plot to get enough gift cards to Best Buy fell through for the most part, but I did get one more that brings the total to around $150, which is more than close enough to get what I need. Now if I can find a Best Buy that has a 30GB color video iPod hanging around. Those bad boys are a scarce commodity, but maybe, just maybe I can peruse the local Best Buys around here, and find one that someone got for Christmas, and returned it (for whatever reason), and it could be an open box item so I can get it cheaper. So indeed, the evil plot for a new iPod continues. I got a bunch of other stuff that is pretty cool. A stainless steel martini set, some new Maine vodka that just came out, and some big ass olives. Socks, a hat, and a few other odds and ends. Good stuff all around. I think my brother Joel said it best though. This was the first year that nobody received some sort of high tech high dollar electronic device. Times, they are a changing.

And now, it’s mid afternoon nap time, and TV watching time. Time to kick back and do what I came here to do. Nothing. Nothing at all. And I like that.