The Northward Contrail

Going Outside

So the long journey began.  I'd checked in from my friend's house, so I could go on through security.  I cleared security okay (though not without a slightly embarrassing moment due to my own rusty travel skills when I paused in the magnetometer, waiting for direction, and the guy said "keep coming!  don't stop!").  And then the long wait began.  I killed some time looking around the trinket shops in the concourse, and bought a little something to eat.  And I took pictures, too.  Here a couple of 747 freighters takes a little breather:

And a busy day at the Alaska Airlines gates.  Note the 737-400 Combi in the middle. 

Aside from that, it was waiting and watching.  And it was being in a sensory overload, too.  Not only from the piped-in '60s music, sort of making you feel like you're listening to Armed Forces Radio Saigon (and what's with playing "The End of the World" by Skeeter Davis in an airport terminal, anyway?), but from the omnipresent television monitors.

All tuned to CNN.

I can't begin to describe how jarring this was.  This is going to sound like the damnedest thing for me to say, especially given my professional background and the things I've said about how important it is to know what's going on in the world.  But, for the last week, I'd existed in a world where the basics mattered.  All that mattered was the nature around me and the fundamentals of not getting myself hurt or eaten.  My world had been blissfully free of concepts such as Barack Obama, BP, Mel Gibson, Glenn Beck, Lindsay Lohan, Harry Reid, Michael Steele, anyone named Kardashian, anything involving tea parties, anything having to do with poll numbers, anything having to do with the stock market.  (And -- this may surprise some of you, but not me -- through this trip, and even with passing a few times through Wasilla, very little exposure to anything involving anyone named Palin.)

That had been my week.  But now, as I sat in the concourse with nothing else to do but wait for my flight, the television monitors drilled into me.  And being brought back to the crap that fills the modern 24-hour news cycle, where public policy is hyperactively monitored like the stock market and poll numbers are treated like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, where there's a relentless focus on what's hot and who's up or down right now and no thought about anything of any long-term significance, really turned my innards.  I'd spent the last week in paradise, but what I was seeing on the monitors was like I'd just bitten down on a mouthful of beach sand.  It made me feel like I wasn't in control any longer.  I hated it.

Soon it was time to get on the plane.  I'd popped for the bulkhead seat again, and ended up being in the last row to be called to board.  (I joked with someone else leaving with us that I wondered if the airplane had been built with my row.)  I was alone on my side of the airplane again, which was nice.  It took a little while for me to get seated because someone wanted to use the lavatory right in front of my seat, and had ducked into my seating area for people to pass.  I ended up having to crawl over the seats to get in.  She got into the lav right when the call was made to take our seats so we could leave, and some drama ensued.  Everyone else was ready to go, but this lady was still in the lav.  The flight attendants kept knocking on the door and politely but firmly telling her to get out so we could go.  This happened two or three times.  Finally she got out and huffed back to her seat, complaining to her seatmate about how she'd never been treated that way before.  (Yeah, I feel really sorry for you, ma'am.)

We took off from 32 and cruised along.  As we began a slow climbing turn to the south, I looked down and saw a China Airlines Cargo 747 on a long final to 7L.  I was able to follow it all the way down to touchdown, and that was cool. I always have mixed feelings about leaving Alaska, and while there was a little sadness and a little regret, I found myself more interested in watching that 747 than in mourning what was slipping beneath me.  The sadness wasn't as strong this time.  I felt more like I was just commuting instead.  And maybe I am.

It was a pleasant flight to Seattle, and I got some work done along the way.  (Note to anyone reading this at my place of employment: I did get actual work done while on this trip, so even if I don't get a per diem or anything, I'd like to count this as a business trip.  Yeah, I know they won't buy it in the head offices, but it's worth a shot.)  There were interesting sights, such as the brief period we flew formation with a UPS MD-11 about a mile below and to our left.  At another point I could see a couple of cruise ships tooling along off the Canadian coast.  Final approach took us low over Boeing Field and the Museum of Flight.  Hello again, Queenie.  (I'm coming to see you soon.  I promise.)

Once in Seattle I had a couple hours to burn off.  For several reasons, I began to regret not including a night's layover in Seattle.  The airport Doubletree, where I'd stayed last year, stood over across the way and seemed to be calling me.  I resolved to do something about it sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, there was nothing I could do at the moment but kill a couple hours.  I went up to the Seattle Tap Room and relaxed with an Alaskan Amber and a plate of fries, thought about how good my life is that I get to do this, and started thinking about doing more travel before the year was out.  Then it was off for some trinket shopping, and finally sitting and watching some airplanes and taking a few pictures at other gates.

A little before midnight, it was time to get on the airplane to Houston.  Our 737-900 was oversold, and tasty offers were being made for volunteers to take a later flight.  I thought for a moment about taking them up on it, but for obvious reasons they wanted people whose final stop was Houston.  At any rate, it got sorted, and they started to board the flight.  I waited and waited for Row 8 to be called.  Finally, right when I thought it was going to happen, the gate agent called for "Rows 10 and higher."  Problem was, she'd already called for that, and there were only a few of us left.  We notified her of her error.  She corrected herself and called for "all rows."  So, with great gratitude, I dragged myself aboard and took my seat.

With the flight being full, I didn't think I was going to get the half of the row to myself, and I didn't.  The good thing was that my seatmates were nice.  Right next to me was a tall young lady who was very pleasant.  And in the aisle seat was a guy from Texas, probably in his 80s, very long and lean, almost like a guy out of a movie.  He wore jeans and a cowboy hat and a sport coat with a Wrangell, Alaska pin on the lapel.  And he was a hoot.  He told us about how he'd put his oldest boy on an airplane that morning for Ketchikan, Alaska and now he was flying back home to meet his youngest boy at the airport, and he was all airplaned out.

We pushed from the gate and the airplane started to spark it up for the flight to Houston.  The airplane sort of didn't want to get started, so the ground crew brought out a '59 Edsel to jump-start the airplane.  We lost cabin power for a second and the DirecTV system rebooted, but soon everything was fine again.  Both engines were vacuuming along just fine.  And, slowly, we taxied.  The cowboy in the aisle seat made a comment about how slow we were moving, and I told him, "They're just gonna drive us a few miles back up to Renton so Boeing can work on the airplane."

And we took off.  Houston was four hours away.  I tried to get some sleep, but couldn't.  I think I got all of about three minutes' worth on the flight.  As we got closer to Houston, the cowboy made conversation with me about which landmarks we were probably getting near.  I worried a little bit that he was waking half the plane, but it was still nice, and he was very charming.  He kept calling me "girl," and there was something endearing about having a little Texas hospitality there.

Finally, in we came.  The treetops got higher, the buildings got closer, the cars on the highways got bigger.  Then perimeter fence, grassy area, runway threshold, and we were on the ground again.  And soon we were at our gate, a few minutes ahead of schedule too.

Of course, now there was a new problem: four hours in the Houston airport.  Oh, blergh.

We interrupt "Municipal Roundtable" to bring you this football game

Sorry to interrupt the trip report, but a consulting job landed in my lap a couple days ago.  It's being made well worth my while to take the job, if you catch my drift, but it's required me to delay the next part of the trip report until Monday.

In the meantime...ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty.

Getting there

So I got up Tuesday morning of last week.  The usual "here I go" stuff was already chewing on me, all the angst and a little bit of guilt about leaving the boys at home, being so far away for so long.  I did my morning stuff and took my leave a little before noon.  Traffic was calm, at least until I got near the city.  I drove to the airport, found a place for my car, secured everything, and went on in.

Things went easily enough at first.  I had checked in online and printed my boarding passes from home, so I could just go on through security. The TSA folks were very friendly that day, unlike the last time I went through there so many years ago.  I stopped off at a newsstand for a couple cold drinks and a snack.

That's when the "goofy" started.  The appointed time came and went; no airplane.  I started to get concerned, and could see the itinerary unraveling in a string of missed connections.  Finally, it arrived about half an hour late.  There had been weather problems.  Thankfully, they were able to hustle the turnaround and get us aboard quickly.

This was a weird departure for me.  The last time I'd gone down this runway, it was in an airplane I was piloting.  But that was three years ago.  This time, someone else was driving.  Anyway, we screamed aloft with no hiccups.  Once we were at altitude, I started giving the iPod and the Bose headset a good workout.  They worked very well indeed.  On we flew, over the Gulf of Mexico.  I could see fellow passengers craning their necks, trying to see if they could see oil down below us.  (What I did see at one point was a close-up view of one of JetBlue's more recent color schemes, as an A320 whizzed past just below us.)

Houston looked to be coming out of some weather.  We came on in and toddled to our gate.  We'd only lost about 20 minutes in total.  Be that as it may, I thought it would be wise to hustle on over to my next departure's concourse, so it was up the stairs, onto the shuttle train, and off.  Turns out that was wise.  As I was sprinting to the gate, they'd just commenced boarding.  I rapidly bought a bottle of Diet Coke for the flight (not helped, of course, by a slightly leisurely transaction in front of me) and waited.  Finally, it was time.

Continental's seat selection system threw me a curveball at first; if you want an "extra legroom" or exit row seat, those are held until 24 hours before the flight, and you buy that extra legroom when you check in.  I didn't like the idea, but I remembered the last time I'd been on a 757-300, I'd been crammed into a space for four hours, and hated it.  I popped for the very first row in coach, and it was money well spent.  No stowage in front of me, but that was no hassle, and I liked the lack of claustrophobia.  I had two very nice seatmates, too.  It wasn't a bad way to spend four hours.  I had my tunes, I had a good headset, I had something to drink (and they supplied us with something to eat on the plane), and I'd brought some things to work on.  It's four hours from Houston to Seattle, and last year it felt like a sentence.  This year, it wasn't bad at all.

We landed at Seattle, and the nice thing was, this flight continued on to Anchorage.  We had about an hour's layover, and we had the option of getting off the plane for a bit.  This was my immediate seatmate's destination, but the guy sitting in the aisle seat stayed in his seat and we talked for a minute.  I told him I was going to get out and stretch my legs, and asked him if he wanted anything while I was out. He said he didn't need anything, but thanks.  So I took my bag with me, went landside, used the bathroom and stopped off for a quick bite, and got a quick picture or two.

Then it was time to get back on board.  When I got back, the guy was gone.  I figured he'd gone out to do what I did.  A few minutes later, they closed the door and we were pushing back.  I had no seatmates.  I had the entire side of the plane to myself.  Better than first class!

We soon screamed aloft once again.  Climbout took us directly over Boeing Field and the Museum of Flight.  I looked down and cooed at Queenie, who's still as lovely as ever, as we flew over.

I'd brought a copy of John Henry Faulk's Fear on Trial to read on the flight.  I'd had it forever, but had never had time to read it.  It turned out to be an excellent traveling companion, and I finished it on this leg.  Most of the flight, I just stretched out and let the scenery crawl past, knowing that we were headed to a place I loved but had let lapse.  A couple hours into the flight, though, I started to get those old feelings back.  The wonder of it all started to get to me.  I punched up the song beloved by astronauts, "Southern Cross," on my iPod.  (The line "When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you'll understand now why you came this way" -- always gets me.)  I could look out at our wing, at the big Rolls-Royce turbofan working away out there, at all the beauty beneath us, at the lovely evening sky, and it was perfect somehow.  The flight was great, the cabin was quiet, and life was indeed good.

Soon I looked out and the scenery was becoming familiar.  Then there was Turnagain Arm out there, the familiar esses of the Seward Highway I've traveled so many times.  The runways at Merrill Field out in the distance.  And then, out on its own corner, Anchorage International.  We descended, turned a dramatic base past Fire Island, and then came on in.  The 757-300 has seriously good brakes, as I was reminded after we landed.

So, there we were.  I was back in Alaska after three years.  I'd been told by my friend to call him once I was there, because the parking situation was goofy.  But, sure enough, there he was, standing in the terminal waiting for me.  There was some comedy as we struggled with a balky parking garage pre-pay unit that tried to eat my friend's ticket and cash, a situation that required the intervention of a couple of people and the completion of some paperwork.  (Isn't automation great at reducing the amount of human intervention and paperwork?  I didn't think so, either.)  Finally, we could depart.

Midnight had passed already, but, with it being summer in Alaska, it was still sort of bright out.  It's a measure of my innate sense for the place that it didn't disturb me any.  The midnight sun let me get a good look at everything I'd missed seeing for so long as we drove out of town.

Adventure was coming tomorrow.  For now, though, it was time to get rest.  This traveler was joyous, but weary, and a comfortable bed with warm blankets awaited.  Adventure could wait.

Ain't that weird?

One of the big influences on my sense of humor was "Brother Dave" Gardner.  I think I've talked about him before on here.  My parents had his first four ablums he did for RCA Victor, and my brother and I listened to them a lot growing up.  (And I mean a lot.)  I can still tell many of his stories word for word.  It's a little weird hearing this far-out stuff coming from a hep-talkin' Southern cat, but, man, it influenced me like crazy, not only in my philosophies of life but also in my sense of humor.

Back then, I didn't know much about him.  He seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth after the early 1960s.  Some time in the early 1980s, a local newspaper ran a wire story showing a picture of Brother Dave, smiling, sitting in a hospital room after a brush with death, talking about his poor health and trying to get out of debt.  Not long after, he died.  One day, we discovered his 1975 "New Comedy Album" in a used book store, and listening to it was sort of a jolt; you could recognize flashes of the old Dave, but there was something worn-down and a little bitter about it.  (Years later, I came across Larry L. King's Harper's essay "Whatever Happened To Brother Dave?" -- it used to be online in full but isn't any more, but it's worth seeking out regardless -- and a lot of blank spots got filled in.)  Even with what I know about Brother Dave now, and what became of him, I still love him and I'm still interested in him.  There's been rumors that a biography will be written, and I hope that happens.  

Anyway, while Brother Dave is remembered as a comedian, he was also a singer and musician, and that's the point of today's discourse.  The ever-useful WFMU blog featured this post a few years back I recently discovered, with some recordings from Brother Dave's 45s.  By far, my favorite is his minor hit "White Silver Sands."  He performed a version on one of his comedy ablums, but the 45 version is so much fun.  Give it a listen and see if it doesn't make you smile.

Obscurity quest!

It seems I'm not happy unless I'm hunting down some trifle that 99% of the rest of the world would never give a second thought to.  But fleeting ephemera?  That's my forte.  Be it a commercial no one else remembers, or a funny sound effect, or a piece of incidental music that's stuck in my brain, or the name of some bit player or announcer whose face or voice keeps popping up, I'm not happy unless I'm trying to get that information or find out more.

A recent episode is a case in point, and perhaps says more about me than I'd like to admit.  Ever since I found this clip several months ago, I've been haunted by that music.  I remember it.  I remember when CBS used to close special sports broadcasts with it, that sort of vaguely melancholy coda.  The hunt was on.  I downloaded the video, listened to it over and over, all that sort of thing.  A few months later, I found out it was something by Dave Grusin called "Rising Star," a theme from the film The Electric Horseman.  For many years it was a somewhat popular piece of background music for various purposes on television and radio.  I'd never seen the movie, so I didn't know that's where it came from, but at least the riddle was solved.

So now all I needed to do was get a copy of The Electric Horseman soundtrack.  Easy enough, right?  Not quite.  Seems the CD is long out of print and commands a fortune when it does turn up.  No way I was paying that for one song.  On the other hand, the LP is plentiful and inexpensive.  One visit to a website and a couple of clicks later, and the LP was on its way.

The ablum arrived last week, and I took it to our turntable and gave it a listen.  Something sounded strange, though.  It sounded more stately than I recalled.  I was going to digitize it, anyway, so I fired up Audacity and made a digital recording from the turntable. 

Then the wheels turned in my head.  In Audacity, I sped the recording up about 8% or 10% and listened.  Yep, that was it.  So now I have two versions of "Rising Star" in my iTunes collection: the "as issued" version, and the "1983 Talladega 500 closing credits" version.  

Sometimes I get the feeling that my life is some social scientist's case study grant proposal waiting to happen.  (And Heaven help me if I ever find out there's a good, in-the-clear recording out there of the theme music from the CBS Apollo 11 coverage.)

Maybe not

There are times I wish I did creative things more openly, instead of just doing what I do as a hired gun.  For instance, there are times I wish I wrote novels, or performed music, or was some sort of great public thinker.  Something, somehow, where I created something and put it out for the public to enjoy -- and, not incidentally, collect a little money for it.

Then there are times I'm very glad I don't do that.  Why?  Because it's inevitable: be creative, and somebody will take what you do and use it in a way far removed from your intent.  Put something out there over which you've labored, something with deep personal significance, and chances are somebody will appropriate it for something that's far removed from what you want.  If you're a philosopher, people will appropriate your words in ways that would horrify you, or use whatever ambiguities they can find to make your words fit their intent. 

(Or if you've said something really witty or memorable, you can bet on it making its way into Bartlett's.  Then, from there, you'll find it being included in graduation speeches, Speech 101 speeches, political addresses, personal webpages, editorials...so on and so forth.  Every year when the new student government officers are installed, I start wondering to myself which awkwardly-inserted, overused quote from which overquoted historical personage will be cited in the new student body president's inaugural address.  Churchill?  JFK?  Yogi Berra?  It almost never fails.)

If you're a musician, you run the risk of someday finding a song that's deeply meaningful to you being used as the backing track to a nacho chip commercial.  (Especially if you didn't sew up control of the rights.  Lots of musicians have been stung by that one.)  Be a movie star, and 20 years after you're dead, your estate will sell the rights to your image to appear in a commercial for something. 

I put this stuff out here on this blog for fun.  Some of it may seem like good stuff, on occasion.  But let me assure you that the really primo stuff, I don't share on here.  That, I'm saving, and I'm very careful who I share it with.  Because I know what happens.  You put it out there, and you lose control over it.  I've seen it happen too many times.  I don't want it to happen to me.

Awareness

By now you've probably seen this story, or some variant of it.  Granted, you'd think a beach would be a safe place to run while listening to your iPod, but then something like this happens that's so bizarre.  It reminds you that no place, really, is safe.

I like music, and I have an iPod that I enjoy.  If we lived on a beach, I'd probably run on the beach while listening to mine.  But I'm also aware of how it takes me out of the world when I'm listening to it.  It's easy to get distracted when you have music pumping into your ears, and I have a fear that if I'm listening to something while I'm in an environment I don't control, I will miss something that will, at the least, embarrass me and, at worst, kill me.  That's why I don't like to wear it when I'm outside doing most things.  I would love, for instance, to listen to some music when I'm out running.  But I also know that on our little dirt road, there's sometimes traffic, and that sometimes they fly down through there, too.  My ears are my best friends when I'm out running.  I can hear traffic coming, and know to get out of the way.  I'd love to listen to it while I'm out, but it's not the prudent thing to do where I do it. 

What I can't get over are the antics of some of the kids these days.  You see many of them walking around constantly listening to their iPods or texting away.  Which wouldn't be so bad, but they're wandering through busy parking lots doing this stuff, not paying attention to what they're doing.  It's a dangerous environment, and I have nightmares of backing over some distracted kid who crosses into my path at the last second. They're unaware of the danger in which they're placing themselves.

It's one thing when you're in a relatively controlled environment, like your home or yard or even a beach (and although the guy got killed on a beach while listening to music, and while he may have been able to save himself if he hadn't had the earbuds in, it's such a random and unlikely event that you really can't blame the guy.  It's one of those "the last little piece of Skylab falls down out of nowhere and whacks you" deals that just comes).  But out in a place where you know there could be danger...well, it bothers me.

Random randomness

Last week was refreshing, but this week I'm back in the salt mine, and it's one of the crazy parts of the year, and things are starting to stack up a little.  So, in lieu of any Really Deep Thoughts today, some random Internet silliness I've enjoyed:

-- Looking for fine dining?  Try Hamm and Buble.

-- Titanic, as re-imagined by a certain entertainment megacorporation.

-- And because there's a place on the Interweb for everything, a website devoted to game show pilot episodes (industry lingo for the "proof-of-concept" shows done for networks or sponsors). 

The musical ambush

I love music.  Sometimes I hate music.  And other times, I love and hate it at the same time.  There's a handful of very lovely songs like this; they tap too deeply into my heart and make me start crying because they remind me too much of how much I love.  For instance, I've never seen Dumbo all the way through because I know what's going to happen when the scene starts when Dumbo visits his imprisoned mom and "Baby Mine" starts up.  Not only is it going to make me cry then and there, but it'll stay in my head for the next few days, no matter what I do, and it'll whack me in the kneecap when I least expect it.

Right up there with that is "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Any version of it can do it, but Roberta Flack will forever own that song, and there's an ache in her voice as she sings it that really brings on the tears for me.  (Here's the story behind that ache, by the way, which will break your heart.)  It drilled me enough when I was single, but, oh, how it takes on new meaning once you've found someone and shared your life with that person for years and years.

And then one sneaks up on you.  That's what happened with "I Say A Little Prayer."  One night a few years ago, hubby and I were sitting on the couch listening to the radio, and that came on.  And I thought, "Holy cow, that's exactly what I do for him, too, isn't it?"  And the lump came to my throat.  I'd put that aside for a little while, but one day a couple weeks back we were at home and that song was played at the end of a Cold Case re-run.  Sure enough, there's that lump in my throat again, and the tears weren't that far behind.  Nor were they the next morning, when I thought about it.

Music, why must you be so eloquently accurate?  And why must you lodge in my brain like a Milk Dud in my teeth?

Getting pumped for the day

There are some mornings I need some really hard-driving music to get pumped up for the day's first class.  Sometimes I'll seek it on YouTube.  This is one of my particular favorites.  To me, it begs to be played really loud over a set of good headphones. 

Of course, I don't know what's more characteristic of me: that it's a big, loud, hard-rocking song, or that it's about the consequences of making a fool of yourself.