Friendly skies

The last time I was on a long multi-leg trip, it was the final flight that was the problem. This time it was all the rest. Our flight to Atlanta (of course) to catch the big bird to London was delayed by an hour before we even left the house. It eventually took off not quite two hours late. Luckily, it is not as hard to get out of our country as it is to get back in, and our overseas flight was almost an hour late taking off, so it all turned out okay. Apparently they pushed the throttles to the stops because we landed in the UK right on time.

Speaking of getting back in the country, when we landed at Heathrow there was a passport gate for EU Citizens that people were walking through sort of waving their passports, while foreigners stood in line with a zillion other people waiting for a manual passport check and light interrogation. Since we had been in row 41 on the plane, we got to watch 280 other people go before us. Luckily, when we reentered the U.S. at Atlanta -- no wait, it was worse! The foreigners were standing in a line shorter than ours, while the four agents manning the twenty-something U.S. citizen gates quizzed us about how long we were out of the country. I wanted to tell the guy it was none of his business, but assumed that would be counter-productive.

One benefit (maybe the only one) of being in a long queue is that it is a great opportunity to people watch. This time I was interested to see how opinions colored people's perception of our situation. I assumed that the dearth of passport control agents was likely a combination of budget cuts and some calculus concerning how long people would stand in line before becoming too unruly or missing their flights. The lady behind us seemed convinced that there was an agent for every gate, and the rest were apparently lazing around in the back somewhere. Probably playing dominoes. You know how union workers and bureaucrats love their dominoes.

After an hour at passport control, there is the ceremonial claiming of the bags and putting them on a different belt. I can think of no logical reason for this little ritual, except to give people a chance to stash their duty free liquids in their checked bags before going through security. Again.

None of this would have been a problem, except that we were an hour late getting to Atlanta. Only about 15 minutes of that was flying time. There was still a plane at our gate when we landed, and a few babies and old people decided they couldn't wait until we parked to pee, so we sat between two runways for about half an hour. As it was, we got to our gate in plenty of time, our plane left more or less on schedule, and the flight home was uneventful, which is exactly how I like them.

As air travel goes these days it wasn't bad. Except for one cranky little dude on the first overseas flight, the flight attendants were generally friendly, I got to catch up on a few movies, and the person in front of me never tried to lay their seat flat. There was a child under five either directly in front of or behind us on all four flights, but Biscuit got the brunt of that.

The final session of a conference. This room  was full on the first day. Most of the people remaining had something to do with organizing the thing, and are just waiting to receive their appreciation gift.

I will write about the rest of the trip when I get through the pictures, and can stay up later than 8:00 pm. Okay, not the conference so much. Not even my mother wants to hear about the conference.

Ninety-five percent half naked

I have worn a St. Christopher medal most every day since I was fourteen. This is not something most people know about me. That's well into five figures of days, placing the chain around my neck when I dress in the morning, laying it down carefully before I climb into bed at night. I have long since grown accustomed to the feel of it, and in most cases I could not tell you without checking whether I was wearing it or not.

The current medal is actually my third, each a gift from a (different) woman who meant a great deal to me. The first barely outlasted the relationship that started it all, lost after only a couple of years. The second survived much longer, through my days on the road and other youthful misadventures. Unfortunately, the ex never really liked the fact that it was a gift from someone else, and it disappeared during the turmoil of our divorce.

The second medal was similar to this one. I always liked the Be my guide
inscription over than the more common Protect us. It seems less needy, somehow.

She needn't have been concerned. While the medals were important symbolic gifts, they were never strong reminders of the givers. They were my secret indulgence in superstition,  egotism,  ... different things at different times. But this little piece of jewelry (I really think of them as one object) has always felt like mine -- perhaps more than anything else I own -- and I associate it with my personal journey much more strongly than its own origins. I have worn the current version for over twenty years now.

It never mattered to me that St. Christopher was removed from the official roster of saints when I was a child. Actually, since I am not Catholic, it was a bit of a bonus. What was important was that we shared a name, and that he was the patron saint of travelers. As a fledging disciple of an eclectic mix of Eastern philosophies, I initially found the symbolism quite compelling. I no longer read the Tao regularly or consult the I Ching, but I still see life more as journey than destination, so the feeling of kinship with St. Kitt remains strong.

Yesterday morning I reached for the silver chain in its pewter tray, exactly as I have done thousands of times before, and came up empty. The medal and its chain have vanished, and a light search of probable locations has come up empty. I can't definitively remember the last time I noticed having it. You may as well ask when I last remember having my left pinky. All I know for sure is that I don't have it now, and I am beginning to feel its absence.

There may be feline involvement. I felt confident that the cats would not be interested in it, but I began to rethink my position when I saw one carrying a pill organizer down the hall this morning. If so, then it may turn up again, though both cats love to watch things disappear, and there are some suitable crevices and drain holes in our house.

While often proud of his possessions, Boy Cat was trying to sneak away with this undetected. Don't worry.
He doesn't have a drug problem. We use these to portion out fish food for vacation pet minders. The cats love fish food.

More likely the clasp gave way and it slipped from my neck in some random location on campus or in the yard. It has happened before, and while up until now I have always felt it fall, I assumed the day would come when I would not be so lucky. If this is the case, and I have seen the last of this iteration, I hope it has fallen where someone will find it. Like the two before this one, I like to think of St. Christopher helping someone else navigate life's strong currents.

Joys of Moving

As a footloose young man, I never met a move I didn't like. I graduated from high school living in the house where I was born,* and relocation possessed for me the romantic appeal that only comes from inexperience. Between my eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays I lived at eight different addresses in five cities in three states.

Of course in those days everything I owned fit in my car.** And half of it never got unpacked. Moving took about four hours plus driving time and however long I spent broken down on the side of the road. I probably would have done it more often, if not for utility deposits.

That all changed when I acquired my first live-in girlfriend, destined to become my ex-wife some dozen years later. Before I knew it I owned a pit sectional, component stereo, and my own refrigerator. A refrigerator, for Gods-sake. Suddenly, moves required U-Hauls and planning, and pizza and beer for friends. Soon I was hiring moving companies and putting things in storage.

This could be a post about the evils of acquiring things, but it's not. I really just want to make the point that moving sucks if you can't fit everything in one carload. And sometimes even then, depending on circumstances.

Why bring this up now? I'm glad you asked. The research center where I work has occupied various temporary homes since its inception, waiting for the fabled "new building" to be designed, funded, and constructed. That day has finally arrived. Or at least, it was supposed to arrive last September, then December, February, April, and latest of all, this week. Of course this requires packing our offices and labs into boxes, and sorting it out on the other end.

Everyone keeps telling us that this is our new work home. At this point, I will believe it when I show up and my stuff is there.

For most people -- or at least for me -- this is a chance to be rid of some old things that are obsolete, worn out, or otherwise no longer useful. In this case we have the added motivation of moving into a smaller space with glass walls. Unfortunately, my colleague and part time boss is a ... umm, let's go with "collector," so we've managed to throw away only a fraction of what we should have. As an example, we have a box labeled "paper scraps." I am not making this up.

Undiscouraged, we packed and sorted and taped and labeled and stacked. By last Thursday we were down to things we actually use every day, and the boxes for those things were assembled and waiting. There is not really any room to work, but we only have to endure for a couple of days, right?  The IT people were taking down whiteboards and preparing to move our servers. Then, around 4:30 in the afternoon, came the "Move Delayed!" e-mail with the high priority status icon. The main difference in this edition of the all-too-familiar-by-now message was that there was no "until" included. It seems there are some issues with the building, and all we know is that the move will happen some time in the future. The most persistent rumor I have heard is nine weeks.

Oh, happy day.

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* Not literally. I was born in a hospital. I'm not that old.

** Except for my albums. The were held for safekeeping by my friend Winston. There were only two people on Earth in whom I would place this sacred trust, and the other was already married.