dealing with vagaries

Here now in Beijing. Flight was long (13+) hours, but not as bad as ones I’ve flown before. But wow. United Airlines internationally is even worse than I remember. The flight attendants breached new levels of crabbiness– pole vaulting over established levels of decency. The sound continually cut out during the movies– at all the key plot points. As far as the “food” goes (and yes, I know it’s cliche to complain about airline food)– it had to have been carcinogenic in the least, harvested from post-apocalyptic fields, fertilized with radiation. Ugh. I’ve peeled back more than my fair share of tin foil on bad inflight meals, but wow.

We ran some errands yesterday– grabbing a cordless razor and some power strips. Stopped off for a quick meal and a beer and then an Ambien supported night of sleep at the Sino-Swiss Hotel. Now I’m sitting with some carry-on while we round up last minute cups of Starbucks and hop the 5-hr. flight to Urumqi. We got tagged with $1200 USD in excess baggage for this flight alone– so maybe that’ll buy us a meal upgrade….

Okay- on the plane…ready to go…excited. Fun to fly with Pete (my brother) again. Been awhile. Last time was Botswana I think. Hope they have good movies!