I had the rare pleasure of an approach pattern into O’Hare today from the west. I think something like 90% of approaches into O’Hare come from the east, which usually is a good thing because I tend to fly transcontinental via Chicago east to west, and an eastern approach saves time; west to east, I try to go from one coast to the other because it’s usually a red-eye and you want the longest flight possible in order to get something approaching a normal night’s sleep. East to west, though, it’s probably going to be an end-of-day flight, and all you want is speed and a short layover. That means you’re going to go through Chicago if you’re a United frequent flyer such as myself.
Panic!
I’m heading back east again – same thing we do every other week, Pinky, try to rule the world – and the airport here in Seattle is quiet. No surprise, really; frankly I was more surprised last Thursday when I was on two completely packed flights, Atlanta to Chicago, Chicago to Seattle. I fly enough that normally I get upgraded without a second glance, and the pilot will come out during the flight and thank me for my continuing custom. No chance last week: I had two middle seats and kept them.
Billionaires
In my career, I’ve met more than a few billionaires. Without exception, they have been unpleasant people. I mean in saying that that they are not the type of people that, as one might say, you’d “want to have a beer with” or “play a round of golf”. In fact I played a round of golf with a billionaire – it was a charity event, my company was sponsoring it, and for various reasons it ended up that I was the executive sent out on tour – and he cheated ruthlessly. He had a member of his entourage who giggled a lot whenever he did so, even when I glared at him, and the tournament director who shared my cart just thanked me for putting up with it. Apparently this happened every year.
That magic feeling
My son is back in Seattle with his mom after a week’s visit with me in Atlanta. It was quiet and uneventful. He’s almost eight, and this school break week was very different from last year, when we took the train to San Antonio and then on to New Orleans. Last year he needed more accompaniment, someone to keep him moving, someone to supply things to do. This year, not so much – he has a sense of what he wants to do even when he’s somewhere he doesn’t want to be. There is too much demand for video games, too much demand for television programs (although in his favor, he prefers documentaries), but there’s a growing sense of self-created desire that comes through in him.
Future Blockaded
Canadians are such a mild-mannered people that, if you bump into us, we will likely apologize. Not for ‘being in your way’ per se but simply because civility obliges us to. Indeed, we value courteous social relations to the point where we might not ‘say what needs to be said’ if it’s likely to cause even a smidgen of tension. You may call us conflict-avoidant. I prefer to say ‘Peace-Loving’ — but I recognize that ‘being polite’ might not be the ‘winning’ attitude when worldviews collide. Therefore, when our nation gets embroiled in any conflict, it shocks us to our very core.