Entry 99: The Great One

Since this is my 99th entry, I've titled it "The Great One" after Wayne Gretzky who wore number 99. I had a friend in high school who idolized Wayne Gretzky. I'm not sure exactly why. Gretzky was pretty far past his heyday at the time, and there was no geographical connection whatsoever. Gretzky is Canadian, my friend emigrated from South Korea. Gretzky played in LA, we lived in the Northwest. His adoration was pretty funny though, he used to sign his middle name as "Gretzky" on his assignments, and then write "#99" at the end. Once he wrote a "love letter" to a girl, and he signed it the same way. My friend JY actually obtained the letter somehow years after it was written, and I think he still has it. I remember it being HILARIOUS. I'll talk to JY, and see if I can post it on this blog in the near future.

[The Great One recently after his trade to the Los Angeles Kings from the Edmonton Oilers, with whom he won four Stanly Cups and eight MVP awards in nine seasons.]

Anyway, as I mentioned in my previous entry, we returned from our trip to the South Puget Sound region at the beginning of this week. It was a great vacation, except for the flight from Dulles to Sea-Tac. It was probably the worst experience at an airport I've ever had. I missed a flight once (a whole other story that I won't go into) and it wasn't as bad as this, because it was over in a few hours, and I just went home. This dragged on and on and on.

Here's an abridged version of what happened. We were supposed to leave at 5:30 pm, but due to unrelated mechanical problems on two different airplanes, we didn't takeoff until 12:30 am. Both times the airplane was completely boarded and then had to be deplaned. It was exhausting and frustrating. Friends asked me later what S and I did during all that time, and I responded, "We fought, mainly", which elicited some laughs, because everybody could relate. If you're stuck at the airport you're guaranteed at least three fights with your traveling partner. If you're dating or married to said partner you can up that total to five. I think if S would have been alone, she would have just changed her flight and went home. I was insistent we stay until the bitter end (which was very close, our flight was literally minutes away from being canceled when we got the go-ahead to depart), in part because I was hearing rumors that there were no available flights the next day, Christmas Eve.


I was pretty annoyed with the airline (United), but I was much, much more annoyed with the other passengers. People were flipping the fuck out -- shouting at and berating the employees, threatening to sue, and file complaints with the FAA and DOT. It was absurd, and not at all helpful. I understand people pay a lot of money to fly and expect things to go smoothly, but think for a second about the process of air travel. You are getting into a giant metal tube that hurtles through the sky at 500-600 mph, so fast that you can get across the entire country in the time it takes to watch a long football game. And remarkably this process is safe. The probability you will be seriously hurt or die on a commercial flight is essentially 0. That is freakin' amazing if you step back and think about it. So I cut people a lot of slack when it comes to mechanical problems. They are an unfortunate byproduct of air travel, and they're relatively minor in the large scheme of things. (This Louis CK bit is particularly relevant. I've embedded it before, so I'll just link to it this time.)

Plus, I don't know what passengers want the service reps to do about a mechanical problem. Should they demand we leave anyway? ("C'mon, how important can landing gear really be?") Should they hijack a different plane for us? Should they go down on us in the bathroom? What do people want? (Ultimately, we got a $125 voucher for our next flight, which isn't worth it, but it's something, I guess.) I'm not trying to let United off the hook, we should expect to leave when scheduled, I'm just saying I handle things differently. I'm not so hotheaded and reactionary. My strategy is to get through the current ordeal as quickly as possible, complain to the airline later if necessary, and then keep it in mind the next time I buy a ticket. I don't see what is accomplished by yelling at some lackey, who makes $12 an hour, who can't do anything about the problem, and who probably doesn't like her company that much more than you do. I mean, it's kind of entertaining to passengers like me, but other than that it's pretty much pointless.


In other news, the Iowa Caucus was interesting, kinda. You know, it was interesting if you're into bullshit and hot air like I am. Romney barely won and looks primed to take the nomination, Santorum finished a close second with his utterly insane anti-sex, anti-gay strong family values platform, and Ron Paul finished a robust third (Newt finished a very distant fourth). A lot of "liberals" like Ron Paul because of his anti-war, anti-war-on-drugs, and anti-torture positions (a few of my friends are ardent supports), but I personally think he would make a god-awful president. Michael Lind (a writer for Salon.com who I'm so-so on) does a really good job of laying out the anti-Paul case in this article (thanks Regulus for posting excerpts on your blog). It's largely a philosophical take-down, but it has very practical implications, in my opinion. I like the Abraham Lincoln quote at the end.

[Yuk, yuk]

A key point about libertarianism that Lind makes that I agree with. Is that libertarians have this idea that only government can be an oppressor. They don't seem to be particularly scared by the prospect of corporate interests and monied elites running roughshod over the American people absent strong government-imposed regulations. This seems quite wrongheaded to me given historical perspectives both old (trust, child labor, slave like working conditions, etc.) and recent (uh... the 2007 financial crisis, maybe). As I've said before, libertarians have a very bad habit of viewing the world as they would like it be, as it is in their pristine ideology, not as it is in reality.

OK, enough of that. I need to close out this entry soon... and speaking of closing... We're closing on our house on Tuesday (coincidentally, my bro's birthday). Everything is supposedly in order now. All we should have to do now is show up, write a check for every cent we've ever made, sign some papers, and celebrate. We shall see, though. I'm not getting excited until it actually happens.

Well, that's all for this week. Until next time...