Jan 28, 2014 - Random traveling thoughts

I'm in Austin, TX for a few days of training.  It takes a full day to get from NY to Austin, so I spent yesterday traveling.  When I travel, I notice things.   Here's a list of things I noticed, learned, and had questions about.

1) My original flight was cancelled, and I left at 12:30 instead of 7:30.  Turns out that the Mon morning 7:30 flight is cancelled "more often than not" this time of year.
2) I have lost all my frequent flier privileges, so sat in seating 3.  I thought it was the last seating.  I have been in seating 1 for the last 10 years.  I was expecting to have to check my carryon due to lack of overhead space.  Seating 3 has plenty of overhead space.  Seatings 4 and 5 don't have overhead space.
3) My earbud noise canceling headphones are still wonderful.
4) I left them in after deplaning in Houston.  I removed them after I had walked through the entire airport, and was almost to the rental car counter.  Turns out that airport also has a significant hum.  I will probably have them on all day long for my return trip.
5) On United, you no longer have to turn off electronics.  So I can put on my noise cancelers, turn on my MP3 player, and read on my Kindle from the time I sit down until the time I stand up.  I had no idea how much better this would make my travel experience.  Also, I can now take pictures during takeoff and landing, which is awesome.
6) There are some clouds at 30,000 feet.  I had never seen them myself before, so that was cool.  Several different layers of clouds are visible in this picture - and you can see some fluffiness just left of the wingtip.
7) When it's -2 degrees in Chicago, the runways are not 100% ice-free.  Mostly ice-free, but not 100%.  Evidently, it's okay for a 2,000-ton jet to hit the pavement at 150 miles per hour in 20 mph wind with ice on the runway.  Who knew?
8) Flightview is really a great app.  Annoying to enter a flight, but then you have everything right at your fingertips - what gate you arrive at, your connecting flight's departure gate, on time or not, airport maps, local weather.  Takes so much of the guesswork out of connecting flights.
9) It is cheaper to buy an entire 3-entree Chinese meal at the food court in Chicago than it is to buy 2 4.5oz bags of nuts at Hudson News.  I went for the Chinese and was glad I did.
10) O'Hare had drinking fountains set up to refill water bottles.  Awesome.
11) I'm an information maven.  Not to the extent of several of my friends (Jake and Nathan, that's you) but in several circles of people and for several different topics, I'm a maven.  I'm reading Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" (Chicago-Houston leg), and found the Maven/Salesman/Connector section intriguing.  This is why I'm not cut out for executive management.  I think they need to be more Connector/Salesman type of people.  I just like to learn things, get things done, and help people out along the way.
12) After years of wasting time playing Sudoku on electronic devices, my ability to do it on paper is severely curtailed.
13) "No impact" exercise is awesome.  This is from this morning - I hit the elliptical for half an hour at the hotel this morning.  I'd never used one before, and it was revelatory.  At the highest resistance settings, it really was a complete workout, my knee didn't bother me at all, and I was up at 150bpm for my heart rate for the last 20 minutes.  It was perfect.  The exercise bike is leaving my basement, and I have to save for a good elliptical now.  I hope Craigslist can deliver in April.
14) Uncle Tom's Cabin is a serious book.  I can't read it as a simple work of fiction.  While it's certainly about slavery, the details of mid-19th century life are stunning.  It's an incredibly dense study of the entire culture at the time, seen through the lens of a racist abolitionist.  I can only sip it.  Hopefully, I'll finish it before I fly home.  It needs to go into the "finished" folder on my Kindle.
15) In "We Didn't Start the Fire", Billy Joel lists "Bernie Goetz" as an important historical figure.  I have always wondered what his story was.  Turns out that he was a white guy who shot some black kids on a NYC subway.  He was acquitted of attempted murder.  It was a key point in the breakdown and subsequent rehabilitation of NYC's subways.  It's in Gladwell's book, too.





16) I'm still fascinated by ice.  We headed West from White Plains, and crossed the lower Hudson, where ice rafts are floating down the river.  And as we left Chicago, the frozen landscape showed the city's downtown skyline against a frozen Lake Michigan.

 17) There were some other things, too, but I forgot them.
18) When you rent a car in January in TX, they don't give you an ice scraper.  When you have a layer of sleet on your car, it takes 10 minutes to defrost it off.  And even though you planned for it, when you get to class on time, class will be pushed off for 4 hours and you'll have all morning unexpectedly free.