21 April 2014

you can call me queen bee.*

although it'd be wrong to narrow the differences between myself and the late great john denver to just this one thing, it's true that whereas he laid claim to a sometime-in-the-future intention to be leaving on a jet plane and furthermore professed to not knowing when he'd be back again -- i already left (yesterday) and am quite aware that i'll be going back on thursday evening.

four coworkers and i are in shawnee, kansas, to be trained as admins for an enterprise content management system recently acquired by our company. shawnee, kansas, sort of sounds like the boondocks but in reality it's just 30 mins or so out of kansas city. it's more along the lines of a surrounding burg than a completely separate city.



sunday evening around half-five, i hit the freeway for what turned out to be an uneventful jaunt to the airport. thirty mins on the freeway, another five making the obligatory missed-the-economy-parking-entrance circuit of the airport, and a final ten surveying the economy lot like a hawk making lazy circles in the sky. when i'd located the perfect parking spot to entrust with the care of my dear sweet little car, i left her and boarded a shuttle on which i was the sole passenger from economy to terminal.

click here for shuttle ride vid.

it's not much to look at because i was attempting to be stealth, so... it's basically a vid of the seat cushion. BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT! turn up the sound. that's the shuttlebus driver singing!

(you might have to download the vid and then play it. i don't have a streaming vid server #sosorry. also, that voice isn't me trying to compete with his lovely vocals - it's his dispatch radio.)

the old guy's proficiency at operating the shuttle bus like a professional entertainer -- complete with singing and with comically delivered shuttle stop announcements -- made me suspect he once hosted the train ride from grinder's switch to the el paso station. #opryland #goodtimes



traffic a the TSA checkpoint was light - about 20 or 30 of us in all, maneuvering through the various stiles and gates, removing our shoes as we went, taking out laptops for inspection. after my turn in the x-ray machine, the agents pulled me aside for a pat down... i had forgotten i had a chapstick in my pocket. the agent informed me: there's something in your right side pocket. i said, yeah - it's a chapstick. she was like, please remove it slowly. HAHA. what the hell, TSA. it's a damn chapstick. settle down.

i am a fan of getting to the airport early, and since TSA couldn't hold me for the chapstick #rolleyes, i had time to spare for a starbucks and a snack before meeting my coworkers at the gate. the passenger load was light, so when i took a window seat and a coworker took the aisle, we had the middle seat free and clear.



my favourite part of flying is take off. landing makes me a bit nervous, and the parts when we're way-away up in the air (although miraculous!) don't do much to impress. taking off reminds me of the skyride #oprylandredux with its gentle yet forceful push.

up-up-up and away!

we launch into the night sky, our steep trajectory quickly putting distance between us and the endless black velvet landscape, pocked orange by a million sodium vapor streetlamps, each thoughtfully positioned to drive back the night from its alloted portion of the teeming population which is now completely invisible to us. the plane dips heavily into a sharp left, coming about from a north-facing takeoff to head due west, heaving her awkward bulk about on the tip of a down-pointed wing... like a hippo performing ballet.


















---^^^---
*kansas city ~> royals ~> lorde ~> queen bee

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