I'm in Des Moines, Iowa today, where I grew up, for my step-mother's 60th surprise birthday party. I landed last night, and fly home tomorrow. We had the party, which my stop-mother knew about already, tonight. I got to meet and talk to some of my parents friends, talk to my brothers and sisters. My sisters Erin and Emily are both pregnant, Emily newly-so. My brother has just moved into a new house, and walk talking about it. My sister Andree was in town with her boyfriend, she'll be staying a couple of days. For my part, I just tried to be as annoying as possible taking photos, and talking to everyone.
A good time was has by all.
As noted in the previous entry, I'm in Des Moines, where AT&T does not yet have any 3G mobile phone service. They only started rolling out 3G a while ago, and Des Moines is not one of those places that seems important to the large carriers. (Or maybe, Des Moines doesn't seem like it's important to the large carriers based on how they treat their customers. But that's true of most large companies.)
I'm trying to decide if it is ironic that I was finally able to get a 16 Gig iPhone, as an upgrade to my 8 Gig iPhone, here in Des Moines. It might be ironic, because the new iPhone is a 3G device, and I got it in a city that doesn't have that service. Or, is completely logical, because people here haven't been flocking to the damn things because they don't have 3G service here and thus I was able to find one.
I should note, I want a new iPhone because I want a 16 Gig version to replace the 8 Gig one I have currently. All my music and podcasts I want to take with me (a subset, I have 34 Gig of music files) do not fit on a 8 Gig iPhone, but would on a 16 Gig phone. So I want to upgrade. There is a real data speed improvement, but I'm not convinced it will do much for me because mostly I want to use the iPhone's web browser in places that have heavy WWAN data traffic. Like airports, to check flight times.
At the main Apple store in NYC on 5th Avenue, a store that is otherwise open 24-hours a day, they only sell them for part of the day 8:30AM to 11:00 PM I think, and you have to wait in line for a couple of hours. And there is a line. Every single day, there is a line. I've checked. More than once. The store in Leahwood, Kansas, near where I was at a customer site recently, never had them in. The other two Apple stores in NYC didn't have any in stock when I would check them.
But I woke up early today, and had made an appointment to have my old phone reparied at this Apple store. The mall is across the street from this hotel, so thinking maybe they'd have a new iPhone, I went there early, and they did. I bought one. My old phone is now basically an iPod Touch. But it has a battery problem I'm not going to fix now, so I'll probably just turn it in to Apple for them to recycle it.
I'm using the new phone, it's activated and everything, it's just using AT&T's Edge network here, which is what the old non-3G iPhone used.
Due to some problems remaining after I was supposedly cured of India, I had reason to be checked for lactose and gluten intolerance. I did the lactose test today, and got the results of the gluten blood test as well.
I'm happy to report that I am neither lactose or gluten intolerant. This is good. I can continue to eat pizza like it is one of the 4 basic food groups. (Along with beer, steak, and cocholate-chip cookies.)
I did some research on gluten intolerance, since I knew not what it was. And that was the first possible health problem I could get that actually freaked me out. It is brutal. Basically, all food becomes poisonous. And it is not just "you can't digest that". Gluten intolerance can cause nerve damage if you keep consuming it. And gluten is in EVERYTHING.
The final diagnosis: Eat more fiber.
One of my favorite airlines was called Midwest Express. Today it is called just Midwest. Based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, they fly MacDonald-Douglas MD80 aircraft. Today the MD80 is called the Boeing 717, due to Boeing having acquired MacDonald-Douglas a few years ago. Before that, the MD80 was the successor to the DC9. But I digress.
Midwest fly smallish aircraft, but has only one class of service, which equates to somewhere between coach and first on most other airline's domestic serivce. The seats are the size of first class seats, spaced no farther apart than coach seats. Those who are fat, as I am, get the seat width they need to avoid sitting in their neighbor's seats too. A feature people sitting next to me probably love. People who are tall, as I am, do not get any more legroom than they would in coach on a normal flight. They actually get less due to a footrest that folds down, but is to close when down, and blocks access to the space under the seat ahead of us when up. But again, I digress.
I am flying on a UA flight between SFO and JFK, and United has done an interesting thing with these flights. They fly custom B757s, that have far far more business class seats than a normal 757 configuration they fly. The coach seats are all "Economy Plus", meaning they have extra legroom. It looks like they aren't as roomy as economy plus on normal 757s. The difference is 2 inches, 34" seat pitch verses 36". Business class seats do not fold flat when fully reclined, but they are much closer to being laying down than sitting up.
This is a trend I heartily encourage. More than once I have thought of fling a class-action lawsuit for all those air travelers over 5'10", citing health hazards of being in coach. I would get laughed at by an attorney if I tried it, but I like to dream sometimes.
United also flies these aircraft between JFK and LAX as well. They may fly them between IAD and SFO/LAX too, but I can't confirm that up here on the plane. I would hope they do. The plane is nice, and it is nice to see this happen, even if I can't figure out why they did it.
When I came home from India with a full blown case of the galloping collywobbles, I went to the doctor. That doctor sent to another one. The final medical diagnosis: eat more fiber. So I have been.
And the results have been predictable: I just got done taking a dump in an aircraft lavatory, into a Boeing, old-style, crapper. I managed to drop trou, shit what seemed like an enormous turd, wipe up, and get all arranged and dressed in a space so small you have to step outside to change your mind.
It was pretty satisfying, really. That shit dropped thru the swinging drap-door like thing with a satifying, metalic, "clunk-chunk" noise, not once, but three times. Remember: eating more fiber. There is also the cabin air pressure factor too. I felt like my colon was two or three times normal pressure. Also probably due to fiber. At flight altitude, the air pressure in aircraft cabin is roughly equivalent to being at 10,000 feet above sea level which means the normal intestinal pressure is even higher than normal if I'd been at sea level in NYC. The metal flap at the bottom of the bowl makes a clanging noise normally, but the sound is muffled by the fact that my ass is covering the bowl.
So imagine if you will: The shit didn't just drop thru the metal swinging flap. It shot out of me at speed, and hit the metal flap and made a ass-muffled sound that was as satisfying as the noise made by slamming the door of an expensive car.
I'm always surprised that the poo drops right thru the swinging door at the bottom. I try not to need to shit on aircraft, but the urge presents itself from time to time, specially on long flights like SFO to JFK (5 hours 50 minutes). Every time I've taken a crap on a plane, I'm surprised my private Mr. Hanky isn't sitting on the side of the bowl, or crawling up the back or something. Not sure why I'm surprised. It's not like the anus is located in a region of the body it takes geography to describe. Maybe I just expect that everyone sits on the toilet seat differently or something. Or maybe it's just that when nobody talks about something, you always assume your experience is unique in some undefined way you'd rather not speculate about.
Toilets on airplanes are basically porta-pottys, and work the same way. So the toilet paper has to disolve in the same solution the shit disolves in, which means it's thin and nasty on your ass. Not the nice soft, strong, paper I use at home that is so thick a normal ass-wiping uses enough to make the roll visibly smaller each time. Not a whole lot you can do about this. The cleanex isn't any stronger or softer. Paper towels aren't either, and they also clog and break the toilet, which would be bad in case you need to go again before you land.
5 or 6 years ago now, I spent a few months of my life in San Francisco, California. All told, it added up to maybe 9 months. I was even moving there at the time, but ended up staying in NYC. This was during the RiverSoft days, and a good time was had by me, and everyone else who worked there, until everyone got fired and I quit.
Three years ago or so, after not having been in San Francisco for a couple of years, I had reason to go back for a couple of weeks on business. I actually went to Dublin, California, which was a ways east of SF across the bay, but I flew into SFO. United flies direct from NYC to SFO, but not OAK. Even though Oakland was closer to where I was going, the overall trip was shorter since I didn't have to change planes.
At the time, walking down the SFO concourse from gates 80-90 to baggage claim, I suddenly had a strong feeling of coming home. I can't really explain why. I never went into SF itself, except to drive thru it to get to the Bay Bridge and Interstate 80 to go East to Dublin.
Maybe the old song has it right. Maybe you really do leave your heart in San Francisco. Maybe there is some magic there. Some shamanistic, earthy, witchy, magic that cause you to remember San Francisco as the home you most want to stay in, or come back to.
I had reason to be in Concord, California. A suburban city East of SF, across the bay bridge and over the Oakland hills. I might have left my heart in San Francisco, but I either picked it up and took it home with me on that last trip, or someone stole it. Walking down the SFO concourse from gate 87 to baggage claim, twice now, I'v felt nothing but what anyone feels when they get off a nearly 6-hour flight.
I don't know if it was time healing my heart of what it had been missing. I don't know if absence had made my heart go wander. I have no idea why, but I didn't feel like I was coming home. I wasn't looking forward to being in SF, even just to drive thru it to the Bay Bridge and I-80.
But I did miss the longing for SF. I was looking forward to visiting the city that had claimed my heart so long ago. And it didn't happen.
I want that magic back.