Flying Sick

Tuesday night I met with my buddy Jorge for drinks, and to pick up the iPhone he had bought me (as payment for some consulting I did for him previously). I gotta tell you, I LOVE the iPhone – it kicks ass.

I have a new phone number (actually I still have the old phone as well since it’s a company phone). Send me a private message and I will give you the new number if you want it.

So anyway, after drinking with Jorge and staying up until 1:00am setting up my iPhone I went to sleep only to wake up at 3:15am so I could catch a 5:15am flight to Salt Lake City.

Yep – Mormon land. I had to fly there for work to meet with an eBay integration company. So I woke up groggy and feeling like ass, but I shrugged it off with the thought that I’m not as young as I used to be and 2 hours sleep just wasn’t enough. I’d sleep on the plane and feel better.

Fat chance. As I showered I started feeling progressively worse. I usually shave in the shower and I forgot to change my blade. I was feeling so bad I didn’t notice until I looked down and saw a crimson streak running down my chest and into the drain. My dull blade had cut the hell out of my face.

My day was not starting well. I turned the water as cold as I could stand it and it pretty much stopped the bleeding – even though it put me in a really pissy mood. Nothing is worse than being sick, nekkid, and bleeding under a 50-degree shower head.

The only things that would have made it worse is if a trio of Japanese schoolgirls in Catholic schoolgirl dress has been pointing and laughing at me. (don’t ask me where that came from – I’m not feeling well and during these times the depths of my depravity leaks out I suppose)

So I grumpily get out fo the shower and make it to the airport. I get through security quickly – thank god for small favors – no one flies at the ungodly hour of 5:00am on a Wednesday. There were only a few soulless zombies wandering lifelessly through the terminal to keep me company and we studiously averted our gazes from one another as we walked past.

So the plane takes off and I plug in my iPhone to listen to some tunes. I forgot to bring my noise-cancelling headphones and have to use the shitty Apple ear buds that bruise the inside of my ear canal after 10 minutes. Those ear buds were not enough to drown out the conversation of the animated woman behind me who, as I found out in depth, used to raise cattle in Texas and did you know that you can tell a lot about cows by their poop?

God – I wanted to lay a steaming pile on her lap and ask her to tell me my future but all I could do was groan and think daggers at her.

So anyway – with very little sleep I ended up in Salt Lake City whereupon I turned my phone back on. And was greeted by 7 voicemails and 101 email messages. One of my projects had turned very sour and the world was falling in. After dealing with that tragedy – we went to the meeting.

The meeting from hell that lasted all damned day. I was so sick, my head was huring so bad, I wanted to jump out of the 6th floor window I was near and hurl myself to the ground below. But I sucked it up and made a deal with the company.

So my boss, who was with me, went back to the airport. We were going to stop at a bar but in Utah the Mormons have made it so all bars are PRIVATE clubs. You have to be a member to drink or you have to pay for a “day pass” into the “Social Club,” as they call them. WTF. So we went to the airport and I drank there – for once I was glad the airport wasn’t bound by the local laws.

So I was supposed to fly from SLC to Phoenix to Orlando. The first leg went well – and remember by this time I had been up 20 hours and was sick as a dog.

The second leg of the trip went south. West actually. As we were 20 minutes into our flight the lady 3 seats over from me had a stroke. She was Indian; spoke no English, and having a stroke. It was scary to watch.

The plan turned around and went PAST Phoenix and flew us to LAS VAGAS to drop her off to paramedics. Apparently the pattern was full in Phoenix and they couldn’t get us in.

So I had an unplanned stop in Vegas. The unloaded the lady, who was doing very well by that time, and it took another 90 minutes before they could punch a hole in the pattern to let us leave.

So I got home at 8:00am this morning. I spent 19 hours on a plane yesterday. Sick and miserable.

So I took the day off today. No good deed goes unpunished though. I just peeked at my email and saw 749 unread emails waiting for me. Damn.

On the plus side, because I was feeling like ass, I bought Halo 3 and the HD DVD player for my XBox 360 today.