Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

There's so much I didn't tell you in my last post about the weekend! First, I was going to bitch about NorthWorst, the suckiest airline in the entire freaking world. Ursamajor proved once again what a fabulous friend she is by getting up way early to take me to the airport. I'm an anal traveler and actually get to the airport two hours early for an international flight. I got through check-in and security within 30 minutes, so I took my time walking to my gate (the flight was listed as On Time although it was a later time than my itinerary read – but I'm easy-going, so no biggie). I bought the Sports Illustrated Special Edition on Steve Yzerman and still had a long time to wait for my flight. We board on time and I get ensconced in my window seat and then comes the announcement from the flight deck "Good morning. This is the captain speaking. We will have a slight delay before we take-off. This plane was originally scheduled to go somewhere else and it has too much fuel on board, so we have to take some off. We are waiting for the fueling guy to come back and help us out with that." Yay.

I got out my knitting. However long later, the captain comes on again, "Okay, the defueling guy is coming. He should be here momentarily." Fifteen minutes later, "The fueling guy has arrived. We should be on our way shortly." However long it takes to get the proper amount of fuel out of the plane, "The defueling is finished. Now we just need to complete some paperwork." An hour after our scheduled departure time, our plane pushes away from the terminal and proceeds to wait God knows how long to take-off. Here's the fun part, my layover in Minneapolis is only an hour and eleven minutes. Good thing, I'm easy-going, right. ARGH!!! I damn near finished the scarf I was knitting (and had just started on the plane and it was three skeins long). I had a very pleasant chat with my neighbor (nobody in the middle seat, so that was nice). He was going fishing in Montana for ten days or so, school principal from the Pittsburgh area, and also saw his hour and ten minute layover disappear. When the flight attendants were handing out beverages (I want the whole damn can, thank you very much, cheap-ass NorthWorst), I asked about our connecting flights. I guess that's one good thing about flying into a hub, they're well used to having to wait for their own flights. And the odds of my international flight to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada being in the same terminal as my domestic from Detroit hub flight? Yeah, slim to none. I had to race from F14 to C-Something in 9 minutes in my slip-on chunky platform sandals (of course, the time I choose not to wear my Chucks, because I was tired of having to take them off to go through Security, I have to race through the friggin' airport like O.J. Simpson) while carrying my two carry-on bags. I was not pleased. My seat mate grabbed one of my bags at one time while we raced through the airport (he was heading to terminal D). He handed my bag back to me, we wished each good luck in catching our flights, and then found out I had to take a TRAM to my friggin' gate. I was positive by this time that I was going to miss my flight and I couldn't imagine there was more than one flight to Edmonton each day. My easy-going-ness was disappearing FAST!

As I ran up to the gate I hear them announcing my name (along with two others) asking me to report to the podium at C-Something. As I ran along the gangway, a worker told me "Plenty of time, don't worry." And of course, there was plenty of time because we had to wait for our luggage to get put on the plane. Yes, it did, thankfully. The highlight of my entire trip was finding out who my seatmate was. On this flight I was blessed in that I got the middle seat. How on earth do overweight people deal with those seats? Crap, but there was no room to freaking move. Knitting would have been rude because my elbows would have been in their midsections. The guy in the window seat is wearing a white shirt with the Champ Car patch on the left side. On my flight to Vegas two years ago I sat next to Roy, a member of the Champ Car safety team. To this day I say Hi to Roy when I see him at the races (he wasn't in Edmonton). Anyway, if you know me, you know that I have a tendency to talk to strangers at ballgames, hockey games, on the plane, standing in the line at the grocery store, just about anywhere, so having a guy wearing a Champ Car shirt next to me, meant he was not safe! I immediately started talking to him, let him know I was heading up to Edmonton for the race, etc. I asked him what he did for Champ Car, "I'm 'the general counsel." "You're their lawyer?" "Yeah, we're not all bad." LOL. By the end of the flight, I had his business card (don't worry, I wasn't completely obnoxious, he spent plenty of time listening to his iPod and reading his book).

He was on my flight (or was I on his?) coming home on Monday and the poor guy was sitting near me again. This time I had an aisle seat and he was one row back in the aisle seat on the other side of the aisle. I was very good and didn't bother him, although I did pass the sports section back to him at one point. And then when we were waiting to exit the plane I turned to him and asked if it would be too forward of me to send him my resume. My own company is in dire straits and although I like my job and the people, it's a tad stressful always wondering when we're going to cut jobs again. He said, "Of course not, we're always looking." So, I took the time on Wednesday to make sure the resume was up to date (added two references from my current employer and searched down my SF boss and got his number) and then e-mailed it. I get a little queasy just thinking about it. I don't really want to live in Indy, but a friend of mine says it's a nice city. Of course, there's no major league hockey or baseball there, and I would have to get the cable packages which would give me access to Wings & Tigers games, which is a problem, but I think it would be pretty sweet to work for the company I love most in this world. Of course, it's not going to happen, so it doesn't matter, right?