Airborne

Greetings from Northwest Flight 860, Minneapolis to New Orleans! I just downloaded a big cup of Starbucks coffee – black with five sugars – so, “fair warning,” this may be long and rambling.

It was a busy, if somewhat disappointing, weekend. This afternoon we departed scenic Iowa City for the always relaxing and calm little Cedar Rapids airport around 2:00 p.m. I like this one-concourse airport out in the cornfields of Iowa. All of the ticket agents and TSA folks are relaxed and friendly and just dying for somebody to talk to. When we showed up at the ticket counter to check our bags, we had to ring a little doorbell to summon the ticket agent who emerged smiling and refreshed-looking. How nice is that?

It’s now 8 p.m. above Minneapolis and just a few minutes ago we finally worked our way to the front of a line of over a dozen planes waiting for runway access, so we ended up taking off for N.O. about half an hour late. The sky was full of landing lights and the taxiways were full of loaded planes. Situation normal for a holiday Sunday evening. There’s an enormous guy in the seat directly behind me and he’s been snoring rather loudly for the last half-hour, but otherwise it’s a typically quiet late evening flight on a half-empty airplane. I like these kinds of flights, actually. We’re heading south, of course, and out the left window I am watching a full moon rising above the wingtip. One of the planets hovers above it in the East. The view from the cockpit must be spectacular.

The GymHawks struggled and fought their way to a disappointing 6th place at the BigTen conference championships last night, but it was apparently still good enough to qualify them for Regionals. That means another unplanned trip to Salt Lake City in a couple of weeks, assuming we can figure out how we can afford it. Last night’s meet had a large contingent of Iowa fans, including practically all of the team parents, and we were all sporting our bright yellow and black T-shirts and pom-poms that The Wife and one of the other parents had arranged for everyone to have. The team got (again!!) a lousy rotation, starting on Beam and ending with a “Bye.” It’s best to start on Vault and end on the final rotation on Floor. The Daughter, normally a rock-solid beam worker, came off of her sheep-jump a little out of line and ended up taking a fall. Unfortunately, one of her teammates also fell, so the team had to count one of the bad routines, which pretty much put them a good eight-tenths behind from the start. Not good. They battled back admirably and had quite a good bars rotation, but would have needed to “hit” on everything else to get up to third place where they belonged. The coach was not a happy camper. The meet ended around 10 p.m., and we all headed for the nearby Old Chicago restaurant and bar (where they have a pretty decent beer inventory, BTW). “Table for 22, please.” We were e surprised to that the cover of the event program featured a stylized photo of The Daughter, so we scooped up a few extra copies.

This morning I got up early and rode the hotel torture machine for 45 minutes or so while The Wife went to Wal-Mart (on Easter Sunday morning, no less) and bought a fresh Turkey and salad stuff, after which we checked out of the hotel and headed over to “the house” where we were greeted by a pair of ducks that eagerly waddled right up to the car as we pulled in as if they had been waiting for us. So we made Easter dinner for The Daughter and one of her teammates, which was rather nice actually, and them bagged the substantial leftovers, stuffing them into the packed-solid refrigerator that the five roommates share. I also left her a pair of my arm-warmers, since she’s been wanting some in anticipation of the warmer weather.

The weather this morning in I.C. was really nice and it warmed up from 27F to about 45 really fast because of the clear skies. Quite a contrast with the day before. I spotted a number of roadies out on training rides and wished I were one of them. I could take little comfort in the three hours of uncomfortable, boring, and nonproductive exercise bike time I got during my FOUR FULL OFF-BIKE DAYS!

Hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow morning in N.O. so I can get back on the bike. There is talk of switching the local informal training races from the traditional Tuesday/Thursday schedule to a Wednesday schedule as soon as DST starts. Should be interesting to see how that works out. I’m not looking forward to the workweek though. I will be trying to pull together a big complicated piece of a research/training proposal on very short notice because the key faculty member has been in Africa the last couple of weeks and will be arriving back in town today (hopefully). Plus I have to negotiate our way out of a rather sensitive collaboration SNAFU with one of the local HBCUs, and somewhere in there find time to find a co-presenter for the upcoming NCURA regional meeting.

That big coffee has had its usual effect on my kidneys and now I’m anxiously waiting for the stewardess to get the drink cart out of the isle. I’m glad that this little Sony VAIO laptop that I brought on this trip has a nice healthy battery. It’s still showing almost two hours of run time left, which is pretty impressive considering it’s been running at least an hour and a half already today. I switched it to “maximum battery life” mode about half an hour ago. I just wish I could convince it to recognize my antique USB CompactFlash card reader so I could check out the 100 or so photos I took at the meet!