January 9, 2010: a lesson on waiting

In the early hours this morning, I gave a short lesson on structured procrastination. In essence, I put off doing the long list of tasks to prepare for today's journey by doing other things. Today I bring you a great lesson on waiting. I'll be doing a lot of waiting today. Actually -- seven hours worth of waiting. I'll update throughout the day right up to the moment that I am waiting on my plane to takeoff for Dubai.

11:15AM EST (GMT -5.00)

Presently, I'm waiting in Jacksonville to board the little plane for the hop to Houston. I'm enjoying Free Wi-Fi at the airport courtesy of Google. I decided to sit near the Jet Blue gate because I feel more at home in that section of the airport. I just watched the midday flight to JFK board and push back for taxi.

15:33 CST (GMT -6.00)

Wow! You missed so much during my 2 hour flight to Houston. I haven't flown Continental Airlines in such a long time because they just don't go where I need to go (JFK.) The flight attendant was super friendly and served these fun "brunch snack" packages that consisted of smoked salami, parmasean cheese spread, water crackers, dried cranberries, and a Kit-Kat bar. Who knew brunch snacks could be so -tasty-?

After we reached a comfortable cruising altitude, I turned to the HamPod for some music. A great friend provided me with 8 gigs of new music over the break, and I selected Ben Folds for this leg of my trip. I really enjoyed his live recordings.

I paired the live recordings with a deep perusal of the infamous SkyMall catalog. I've decided that people who fly must have extreme difficulties parking their cars in garages. I was distressed to find not one, not two, but FIVE different devices marketed towards parking your car in its sweet spot. Really? I have to hand it to the product developers at SkyMall. They've engineered "dual-laser tracking," motion sensors, specialized rubber mats, and, my personal favorite, the flashing stop sign that reacts after your bumper hits it.

Yeah. For fear of descending into politics, let's just say that Houston Intercontinental is a terrible place for a six-hour layover. You may have noticed that this update was time delayed. As I mentioned when I was chilling in the brand new, spacious terminal at JAX, Google sponsored free Wi-Fi for the holidays at airports across the country. Houston Intercontinental was also a lucky recipient of the Google gift. I'm a huge fan of free wireless, and I don't understand why hotels and airports feel the need to charge for the service. Despite the banners everywhere proclaiming "Free Wi-Fi by Google. Just log in," I have yet to connect to the internet.

In the meantime, I've explored some of the international terminal. I found this poster in the window of a Duty Free store.

Posted in: traveling