Leaving Home and Heading for Home

We left at ten minutes to nine in the morning. The city took sympathy on us and did its best to let us out painlessly, unlike when we had arrived seven days earlier. There is no other city I have seen where the skyline does so much to define its nature. At times it seems so compact you could imagine it is inside the glass dome of a snow-globe, just waiting to be shaken up.

As we drove down the Kennedy, the monumental buildings increased in size as we passed by their feet, until we got to Sears Tower. Then faster than they had grown they fell away again. The Kennedy became the Dan Ryan and the soullessly named US Cellular Field appeared on our right. After that it was foot down and head for Indiana.

We turned 90 degrees at the bottom of Lake Michigan, the sun shone and the lake was sparkling blue in the distance. We left Illinois via the Chicago Skyway. Sounding futuristic and romantic, the reality is the heavy industrial iron design of the bridge never allows you the feeling that you are on anything more than an interstate. Incredibly we were in Indiana in a little over thirty minutes from leaving the northern suburbs; a journey that has been known to take as much as four hours, though 60 - 90 minute is more normal.

After an hour of driving we had left the black and smoky rail connected buildings that line the Indiana banks of Lake Michigan. The terrain was green and flat. The cold sadistic reality of the mile markers read 30 and reminded us that our friends, family and other comforts were falling further and further behind. Ahead of us another 900 miles of interstate, 700 of which was to be a straight line on one road, I80. In total 14 hours of driving but with nature and food breaks 16 hours of road riding.

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Bazza

End of the World - Update

After Saturday I decided to look up the definition of anticlimax.

It said: 'An event, period, or outcome that is strikingly less important or dramatic than expected.'

And given the definition I guess the end of the world not happening could be classed as a bit of an anticlimax. The calendar did roll over to a new number (see picture) which I am assuming means 100. If that is the case then we must assume the end of the world is probably 900 days away. So the apocalypse is officially rescheduled, by my Hyundai, to a new date of October 26th 2010. I'll try and remember to remind you the day before.

Couple of other points.
There a fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims but you never hear of fundamentalist Atheists

Last night on the TV news the new reader said that Ford were recalling thousands of their trucks ‘because of problems with their ho’s’ does Eliot Spitzer have a Ford then?

In professional and school life we are taught there is no such thing as a stupid question. Bollocks!!!! There are tons of ‘em. “Do you want another beer?. “Would you like some chocolate?”, “Do these trousers make me look fat?” and “Do bears poo in the woods?” Are among the first that spring to my mind. Let’s bring some sanity. SOME QUESTIONS ARE STUPID!!!

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Bazza

Good luck for the End of the World Tomorrow Lunchtime (Central)

Just checked the calendar in the car and it reads Feb99th so just wanna wish you all the best for tomorrow. I have noticed that the calendar changes at 1pm Eastern so you Brits have got a bit more time whilst the Californians have 'til about 10am.

Anyway enjoy it - I was gonna video the end of the world but I'm not sure I can be bothered.

(Confused? See here and here and here)

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Bazza

Three Slices of the Long Haul

This week’s blog is actually three different observations on my recent flight from England to New York.

Airbus A380
Most people who travel by air a lot (especially men) are interested in some way in aircraft. I have loved aeroplanes since my childhood. I may not be able to remember much about my years at primary school (grade school) but I do remember the first time The Concord flew over our house. A few days later the kitchen ceiling in our flat fell down, my mum and dad attributed it to the amazing noise and vibration of the supersonic passenger plane.
Therefore Monday’s flight from London was quite exciting for me. To be exact the taxi from gate to runway at Heathrow was exciting. I was sat in a window seat on the port side of an American Airlines Boeing 777 as we taxied when the pilot drew our attention to the fact we were passing one of the two Singapore Airlines Airbus A380s.
My first impressions were:
‘How many wheels?’
‘How ugly?’
‘It really does look like a Beluga whale,’ and then,
‘It’s huge!!!!’
Unfortunately we took off before it did so I couldn’t see it in flight but I have to say it is a spectacular aircraft despite its sea mammal looks.

If This Is A Film – Then We’re Dead

Boarding the plane in London it was hard to miss the festive bunting and banners that the crew had placed all around the aircraft. ‘Happy Retirement’ was the theme of the day. Now I don’t know about you but in any film or book you watch or read, when it is someone’s last day, well you know what happens – they die!!!! They never make it. From Catch 22 to Ed McBain, they die.
So when the purser announced it was the final trip of Captain Bob, the pilot, it was all I could do not to scream “We’re doomed. We’re doomed!”

The Time We Stopped Moving and Everyone Forgot About Us

Somewhere over South Eastern Canada the blue outside my oval window became grey and the plane flew on. On my iPod the Thievery Corporation filled in the aural space with rich, compressed full-range sound. Out of the window I looked upwards and there was grey. I looked back and there was grey. I looked forward and down; grey. And the plane droned on. Thievery Corporation became A Girl Called Eddy, Ivy then Embrace and the plane flew on – still enveloped in grey. The iPod started on Massive Attack and I wondered if we would ever see anything again. What if ATC had forgotten about us and we had no place to land. Would we spend eternity suspended in bleakness? Was this what happened to pilots – they didn’t retire they are just held in an endless holding pattern?
When the New York suburbs did suddenly appear they were alarmingly close and were followed almost instantly by the hatched markings at the start of the runway. The ceiling must have been less than 200 feet.
I hope pilot Bob got home safely or maybe he waited until we all got off, took his Boeing 777 and disappeared back into the grey forever.

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Bazza