The last 24-hours have been interesting.
It all began with working as the CTV health producer until about 6pm on Tuesday. The day went well, and I spent most of it writing. No surprise there. My co-workers seemed more excited than I about the trip. Feel like I am getting a cold, realize that it is the beginning of the spring allergy season. Good time to be leaving!
6:00pm – Zipped home, grabbed bags, met up with Randy, headed to Seattle.
7:00 – US Customs: No problems.
10:30 – Arrive and get settled at a low-cost (Travelodge) hotel near the Seattle airport.
10:35 – Run to local grocery store and pick up some local brews. Also food.
Wednesday Morning:
9:00am – Aaaah! A decent sleep in.
10:00 – Hello Seattle! We spend the day running around to places like REI, the Apple Store, Best Buy, etc. I was able to leave my luggage at the hotel. A good thing, as our car is a tiny Toyota Echo – and there is no trunk. Spend time playing with D70 cameras and the 10.5mm and 400mm lenses.
Noon – Aaaah, again! Pike Place Market! This is such a fun place to poke around… lots of fresh foods, fish, and neat little stores. The Left Wing book store a particular favourite.
2pm – Kell’s Irish Restaurant & Bar – it is really warm (20?) and the sun is beating down. Randy and I grab a table outside, order a couple of pints of Guinness, and relax in the sun. Nothing on the agenda, so it’s easy to take things slow. My flight out isn’t until midnight. Notice many large bottoms. Some Texans arrive and start smoking cigars. Smell great – ask if they are Cuban. Texans ask if I am with Homeland Security. Laugh. They are Cubans, the Texans has brought them back from Whistler – where they said the conditions sucked because of rain and warm weather.
6pm – Head to SeaTac Airport area for dinner. Find a great Mexican place for a NAFTA meal (Canadians eating Mexican in America). Realize how great America is when you strip away the politics. In fact, not one person we met was even remotely annoying. And, America does something way better than Canada does: customer service. Always helpful & pleasant.
8pm – Change into more southern clothing – ie. Ditch the fleece vest.
9pm – SeaTac. Randy drops me off. We promise to get out ANJ podcast up and running this week.
9:05pm – Check in electronically and easily.
10pm – Easy pass through security.
10:01pm – Waiting. Discover wireless internet in the boarding area. But it won’t accept Canadian addresses, and that means my credit card info wouldn’t match. And that means no internet. However, at US$10, it’s expensive and I would have a max of an hour online. Go buy a copy of Wired which has an indepth article about Podcasting (!).
Midnight – Boarding time. My routing takes me though Houston. Score an aisle seat – in the emergency row! Pop some anti-histamine to deal with the allergy symptoms. Hope that it will knock me out.
THURSDAY 2/24
12:30am – Another bonus: free seat between mine and the guy sitting in the window seat. Pull out iPod, book, prepare to read. Fall asleep.
1am – Annoying and tall man behind me starts shaking his seat – he wants me to move my seat up. Now, if he’d been pleasant about this, I would have moved my seat up 100%. Because he was an asshole, and woke me up, I moved it up an inch at most. Fall back asleep.
3am – Turbulence wakes me up. Move seat back. Snicker. Fall asleep.
6am – Wake up again, we’re on approach to Houston. Really bumpy as there are tons of thunderstorms.
6:30am – Land. Bolt off the plane.
6:35am – Make long journey to next boarding area. Walk for what seems like miles. Need the energy boost. Find a Staryucks, get a big one.
6:45 – Pass statue of 1st George Bush, whom the airport is named after. People posing to take pictures with him. Feel like vomiting.
6:55 – Disappointed to discover no wireless internet in my boarding area. This sucks as I have another 5 hours to kill. Decide to hunt for some overpriced and greasy breakfast, an AC outlet to run the computer and save the battery,
7:30 – Watching CNN out of the corner of my eye. They run a story by Ted Chernecki from BCTV in Vancouver. Odd. Sad story: Seattle man found digital camera in Thailand. Lots of images of the Tsunami approaching. Somehow tracks down kids of the people who owned camera. Heads to North Vancouver to give it back. The parents are missing. Sad.
10:39 – Finally found hotspot! Near gate E11, from the president’s club!
Uploading… Cheers!
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