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not something you want to deal with in an airplane
Tuesday, August 22 2017
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
The Organization would be having its annual retreat again this week, and they'd gone through the trouble and expense to fly most of the staff to Camp Hollywoodland in Griffith Park for the second year in a row. As a logistical and cost-cutting measure, they'd decided to only fly the heads of the international operations to the retreat, though all the American employees would be there. The super-efficient woman in operations had arranged my flights into and out of Albany, my second-favorite of the airports I use (and better than anything near New York City).
This morning as I was getting my things ready for the trip, I stopped to make myself a pair of smallish burritos, which I knew would be especially delicious due to the cooked spicy cauliflower Gretchen had prepared last night. Gretchen suggested that I also prepare some food for the trip, which I found annoying since it is my trip and I know how to travel on my own. I know she felt like she was helping, but there's a limit to the amount of helplessness I can tolerate her projecting on me. In most of the ways that I dismay her with my incompetence, it's a consequence of how good she is with the skill in question. It's easy to just defer to her when it comes time to perform them. But in the grand scheme of things, I can still do those things, and doing them is just like riding a bike. There are things (like flying in an airplane) that I don't often do alone, and I almost never buy plane tickets, but if one approaches the world with even a slight can-do spirit, it's possible to quickly master new workflows and procedures. I don't like dealing with human beings, but most of this stuff these days is intermediated entirely by machines, and I'm perfectly comfortable with them, even when their interfaces are terribly designed.
On the drive up to Albany, I had a pair of pint-sized beers in cans from the Stewart's, and I drank all of one and most another. I prefer to be a little drunk on a plane, though the problem with beer is that it tends to result in full bladders. The first flight, though, was just to Newark 150 miles away. It was complicated by delays that seemed likely to cause me to miss my connection, a flight from Newark to Los Angeles. But we made up some time in the air and (by looking at an airport map on my phone) I carefully planned my run/shuttle ride through the Newark airport so as to maximize the efficiency with which I would go from one gate to the other. The plane to LAX was still boarding when I arrived at the gate, though I was one of the last ones on. The two women between whom I plunked down must've silently cursed their bad luck that the seat between them would not be open. It was in an exit row with enough legroom for someone to get in and out of the two non-aisle seats without the woman in the aisle seat needing to do anything but scrunch in her legs. At some point in the flight, one of them let out a silent fart that, while not the worst thing I've ever smelled, was not something you want to deal with in an airplane. I drank a little booze on the flight but did not take any drugs.
Fortunately there was 120 volt power available at my seat on the plane, though the women on either side had the only nearby outlets occupied with their stupid five volt chargers, oblivious to the USB ports on the screens in front of our faces. But those became empty when the plane took off (that's apparently a rule, enforced by the flight attendant), and I was later able to take advantage. But then it turned out that the stuff I needed to do actual work wasn't on my computer (and I don't pay for crappy airplane internet), so I watched the final 40 minutes of Tarantino's seemingly endless The Hateful Eight, which turns out to be one of his least-watchable movies. (Though the gory momentary shot of a post-shooting empty cranium almost made it all worthwhile.)
Once landed, I quickly called up an Uber at LAX, and was hit with peak pricing: my ride to Camp Hollywoodland would be over $50 for a normal Uber. I took an Uber Pool instead, which meant we might've picked up other passengers. My driver was Indonesian and seemed to delight in driving as quickly as possible, something I assured him was fine by me. I told him that, after my experience in Uganda, most crazy driving in the context of America seems totally normal. We needed to get to Camp Hollywoodland before the gates closed at 10:00pm. We got there with about ten minutes to spare, and there was a guy at the gate to happily let me in. I insisted on walking all the way up despite the fact that it was "a long way" and I could've just continued in the Uber or ridden in the security truck. But after being bottled up for hours in the stratosphere, it felt good to walk. And I travel light, with the heaviest single thing being Hyrax, my laptop computer.
Up in the main hall, it was frenetic scene as people milled around and socialized. I know people in The Organization, but not all that well, and there seemed to be a lot of people who knew me but whose names I did not know, so I felt shy and awkward. I ended up chatting with the new developer Luke for a bit. He seemed nice, and a bit taller than expected. Then I grabbed the bedding I'd been provided (which was exactly the opposite of what I'd asked for) and a pita bread stuffed with various things and headed up to my assigned cabin, #12. I've described Camp Hollywoodland in the past, and it's pretty rustic living. It's got all the charm of military barracks, though there had only been four or five people assigned to each cabin. Using the excuse that I was still on East Africa Time by way of East Coast Time, I managed to avoid much socializing with the youngish men I found in the cabin. They're good people and they meant well, but I didn't have it in me to socialize. I had trouble falling asleep, though that had more to do with the fact that all I had was a pillow, a towel, and a tiny blanket I'd stolen from United Airlines.
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