the everyday adventures of sabrina

22h27, no word from jrd. and it’s either too bright from the city, or too overcast, to see the stars out.

music: “I Came As A Rat,” Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica
feeling: disappointed

first, lots of bad hotel coffee.
then, attempt to call john at house and work. if no answer, proceed to Jack Daniel’s distillery to take a tour. otherwise, see if can hook up with john for lunch, at least.
try to refrain from leaving groundless threats (i.e., “i’m going to kick your ass if you don’t call me”) on answering machines, as that’s not very nice.

then, head west.

überweird dream last night. all i remember of it was the end, which went something like this: i was going to my high school reunion, so i got there and got in the queue to get in the door. everyone thought my hair (my actual hair, not some weird dream hair concoction) was cool. we got to the door, and it was steve’s house. we went inside, and it turned out that we were all really there for job interviews to take over the CEO position of my mom’s fortune 500 company. and then when my mom wasn’t looking, someone let it slip that she’d already picked out the person, but they didn’t tell me who until a little bit later, when it was revealed to be … richard simmons. who was sitting on the couch in the next room, watching tv. i yelled at my mom about the impropriety of her interview process, and then richard simmons got really snippy with me, so i stomped out, and took my high school reunion people with me. then i woke up.

told you it was weird.

Typical female: goes to bar, has drinks, goes to restroom, flushes toilet, toilet won’t flush, leaves bathroom.

Geek female: goes to bar, has drinks, goes to restroom, discovers toilet is apparently not flushing, takes lid off toilet tank, discovers that the reason it isn’t flushing is because the chain is too long and is preventing the flappy thing from closing by getting in the way, improvises fix on the spot, fixes toilet for future generations of helplessly confused bargoing females.

Mechanical inclination, /rawk/.

Today:
Go to sleep at 0100 PDT.
Wake up at 0530 PDT. Despite having set alarm for 0605 PDT.
Eat bad hotel muffin; drink bad hotel coffee. Steal hotel banana to eat on the plane.
Depart hotel at 0705 for LAS. Arrive at 0715. Go through curbside check-in; tell the nice man I’m on the 0905 to Chicago. Nice man responds that there’s an 0857 to Chicago, and I’m not on it. Check itinerary: I am, in fact, on the 1105 to Chicago. Oh. Well.

Kill time in the airport. Wander around. Read touristy descriptions for touristy things in airport. Become bored. Drink too much coffee. Go to gate; discover airport wifi network, which blocks all but ports 80 and 443. Discover that the web is actually very boring and annoying when what you /really/ want is ssh access. Take picture; dial in over phone long enough to sftp it up, then get back on wireless to load the page. Generally dick around for hours.

Become extraordinarily bored.

At 1055, it’s announced that the flight is delayed until 1130.

Boarding begins at 1135. Am on plane and settled in at 1145. Plane taxies to runway.

Plane sits.

Plane sits.

Plane eventually taxies to another runway — apparently it was too hot to take off at Runway #1 (?!). Queue. Plane sits. And sits.

Weather conditions change; plane taxies back to Runway #1 from the queue for Runway #2. Queue. Plane sits. Plane sits. Pilot asks us to please stow our tray tables, “in case we get to take off any time soon.”

In case you’re wondering, two hours in a giant tin can sitting on the tarmac baking under the Nevada sun is apparently a challenge for air conditioning equipment.

Passengers all cheer madly when the pilot asks the flight attendants to prepare for takeoff and cross-check. Plane finally takes off at 1320 PDT. First 90 minutes of flight are incredibly rocky and bumpy. I sulk. Get a beer from the flight attendants (free! go me!). Put on Sea Change, try to sleep. Sort of drowse, but never really sleep. Eventually, get another MGD ($5, woe).

Plane lands at 1825 CDT. … And sits. Apparently there’s a waiting list to get a gate. Am on the phone with Kim at the time; nearly weep when saying “I’m never going to escape this plane, Kim!” as the pilot makes the “It’ll be at least another 15 minutes, folks” announcement.

Everyone on plane bitches about their missed connections. I just hope I can fucking get off the thing without another couple of hours passing.

Home right about 2010 CDT.

Rant on blog.

Now to Kasey’s. Oh boy do I need a drink.

Have more moblog (or my approximation thereof) photos to post later; will backdate as appropriate. Now, I need drinkahol.

it’s 20h43, and john hasn’t written back to my last email and neither has he called back to respond to the message i left on their machine at 3PM.

this sucks a lot.