gonkulair

Well, that’s just it. I’m home, after a long trip begun many days ago, I have returned. Everything went as smoothly as expected when you just want to get home. I had a wonderful flight on Air New Zealand from Auckland to Los Angeles. If you have a chance to fly ANZ, I highly recommend them. They are courteous, and the cabin is almost as nice as business class on other airlines. Their in seat LCDs are bigger than most and they had by far the biggest and best selection of movies, for free. I got lucky in that we had a very friendly check in person who “maintenance blocked” the seat next to mine and fellow crew member’s seats. I lifted that arm rest and got a pretty darn decent amount of sleep. We have the advantage of a little thing we call bus effect, but still it was very comfortable. I had a really nice, but kind of wierd guy next to me, but like I said he was really nice. The best part was, as soon as the plane took off, he donned a red and white stocking cap and think black rimmed glasses. I knew where Waldo was, he was just one seat over. He was a pleasant guy, with very little understanding of the in-flight entertainment system, so in the Geek Squad spirit, I was more than happy to offer my services and give him a quick tutorial. He thanked me and then had tons of questions and it was really fun talking and explaining to him my take on how the system worked. The best part is, the system required an upgrade after we landed and it proved me correct, they run an embedded version of Windows CE and they restart them at the beginning of each flight to improve stability. I leave any Linux/BSD comments out, or did I . After landing in LA, I proceded through the slowest security check point ever and headed to my gate on the other side of the airport, we boarded the plane and of course then the PA kicked on. “Upon a walk around inspection, my first officer noticed a fluid leak from the left wing.” explained the Captain, “we’ve had the maintenance team inspect it and they’ve found a hydraulic control system valve to be the culprit.” At this point, I’ve already missed my connecting flight in Chicago. My fellow crew member, Raf(ael) and his wife were in the front of the plane, and she ensured me that they, United Airlines, have almost hourly service from O’hare to Minneapolis/St Paul. I headed to the Customer Disservice Desk, and was informed that I should head to the Gate for the 2pm flight and get on the waiting list. I did just that, only to find a bigger line and an announcement that they wouldn’t be taking any additional people on the waiting list. My smile changed to a frown, and I headed back to my original flight. Upon sitting down, they made an announcement that we would be reboarding shortly and leaving for Chicago. Frown mode off, smile mode on. The flight to Chicago was a nice nap, and upon deplaning, the counter agent informed me to go to another gate for the 9:50pm flight to MSP. 10 minutes later I was enjoying a Quizno’s sub waiting for boarding to begin. We left on time and 1 hour 9 minutes later we were on approach to a very snowy Minneapolis-St Paul international airport. After a very, very soft landing and some additional reverse thrusting, we were cruising along on the taxiways heading to our gate. The funny thing is, this woman with kids in front of me overheard the pilotz weather vox and she heard that it was “poor braking conditions” at MSP. She kept talking about it, so I said “Listen, the plane on the ground doing 100MPH is safer than you driving your car in the same snow at 40MPH. The plane doesn’t care about the pavement condition for steering, it has the control surfaces and jet engines that all rely on the air and not the runway surface for control.” It worked, whether it’s completely true in the real world or not is up for argument, but physically speaking it makes good sense to me, and she bought it. No harm, no foul. I took a taxi home, and tipped my driver well because he took every consideration while driving in less than ideal conditions. When I walked through the door, my beautiful Jen was waiting for me sleepy eyed and smiling. I pulled in a small snowbank, cleaned that up and went to bed. I didn’t want to get up this morning because the bed was way too comfortable, and Jen hit the snooze button a record number of times. Finally, I drove her to work and now I’m making this, the probably last(chronologically), and probably final post. So to all I say “Hello there, it’s good to be home.”

Local Time 17:29(GMT+12) Saturday 11 March, 2006

So I got my flight details today. I leave on the 15th of March in the evening and get home the 15th of March in the evening 2 hours later. That International Date Line is a funny thing. For now it’s a matter of sitting here, waiting and sorting gear on the 14th. Gonna try and get a few things done and see some more stuff. Tonight is Dori’s birthday and we’re going out for drinks and dinners and stuff. Anyhow, not much more to post. I did add an xfire banner to the bottom of the page so you’ll can see how much time I’m wasting on BattleField 2, but it doesn’t quite seem to be working right. Maybe I’ll look into it tomorrow morning…

Local Time 18:32(GMT+12) Thursday 9 March, 2006

If you haven’t already heard the news, well then let me tell you. The remaining dates of the tour have been postponed, and well, they’re sending us home. I should be leaving sometime in the next 10 days with my final destination being that of my beloved home, Minneapolis. Jen sounded pretty happy that I would be coming home, and well, it’s been fun out here, but I have to admit that I have a bit of a smile on my face. I long for being able to cuddle with Jen, sleep in my own bed, drive my own car and last but not least the constant and predictable speed offered by my home internet connection. I am not, however, looking forward to all of the “see you laters” (goodbyes) in the next week. Nor am I looking forward to the 20 hour flight home, and the accompanying Jet Lag. The good part is, it’s similar to that of flying to Europe, I just add 5 hours to the time and subtract one from the day. You know what else I’m looking forward to? Chipotle. I haven’t had one in over a month, and it’s a craving nothing can cure, well except a Chipotle burrito of course. To all of you, I will not say that this is my last post, but it is definitely the first of the last. I’ll try and get some of the final pictures up, and I’ll be posting as I get more news on the recent events and what it involves for us to pack up and leave. Safe travels, and I’ll see you soon.

Local Time:GMT+12 - 18:59

Yesterday (4 march) we left Buenos Aires for Auckland, New Zealand. Our flight out of Buenos Aires to Santiago went smoothly and we all arrived in time with about 45 minutes to wait at the next gate. After sitting for 2 hours, we were given the bad news. Our flight had been cancelled and would not depart until 10:30am on the 5th, about 12 hours later than planned. So they loaded us up on a bus and sent us to a hotel in Downtown Santiago. We had about 4 hours to sleep before we need to leave to go back to the airport for our flight. Most of the 14 or us went to sleep. 2 individuals had other plans. James took off and went to a bar, returning just in time to get his wake-up call. Andrew decided to have a stand-off with his mini bar. He ended up winning and had a grin like a cheshire cat in the morning, it was quite funny. After getting to the airport and waiting for about 2 hours at the gate, we finally boarded the plane and departed. about 14 hours later we were in New Zealand. Now it’s about 7pm on the 6th, so I pretty much lost the 5th, which I’ll get back when we go to Hawaii. My plan today is to stay up as long as possible and reset my body clock so I can adjust to the new times for the next month.

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