12h40-13h32, 06-March-2013
Flight delayed, word of “extremely slippery” conditions on the road from Keflavik to Reykjavik, and My Missus just received a call from her bank asking if she is in the U.S. racking up charges on her credit card (she is not). All things considered, though, we could be in Bucharest…or Detroit.
Airports. Photo opportunities are to be had with just about every eye-blink at the airport. Building infrastructure that is not applied (or appropriate) anywhere else, a virtual gumbo of different peoples caring for a seemingly inexhaustible array of luggage styles and sizes, this gadget that gadget the other gadget and a gadget I never thought I’d see, the shoes!, strange vehicles purposefully darting here and there (Or to and fro? I am growing ever more certain that it is the closing in of the Cliché Cops that is causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up.), baggage carrousels…? And, of course, I could go on. Everywhere I look I see pictures that deserve and demand to be taken by someone with far more photography skill than I wield, and — By gum! — it pisses me off.
Today my Eljay (everone should have one) is also in transit, heading for Austin from Londontown for another go at SxSW Interactive. Via social media this morning she reported seeing a Heathrow shop selling “freshly ground coffee & pastries” and quipped that she had “decided to pass on liquidised-coffee-flavoured pastry sludge for breakfast”. As entertained and thought-provoked as I was by Elj’s bon mot, though (and her spellings, though my faith is strong that the day wiill come when the Brits learn to properly speak and write English), I cannot shake the thought that there might be a business opportunity in it all.
Weather reports from Iceland continue to come across, with conditions worsening and a weather warning being issued for parts of the south and west (Keflavik, Reykjavik…). Heavy snowfall, strong gale winds of more than 20 m/s and blizzards…m/s? Into the icy maw of Scandinavian HELL we go (if IcelandAir actually opts to put 543 in the air today, that is)!
I spy with my little eye…a black leather-clad tallish blondish thinnish woman applying far too much lip gloss, a twentysomething student-type guy with his headphones askew (left ear in, right ear out) who is tapping his iPhone against his thigh like a drumstick (wooden, not chicken), a faux beige cowboy hat sitting atop an extensible luggage handle, a lost mouse who is considering making a break for safer harbor…a mouse? Heh no, I made that up. No mice in evidence today at CDG. None of the mammal variety, anyway.
When did Boeing start making planes with tip-up wings? Are new Airbus planes employing the same feature? Is it a design affectation or does it truly add to the flying/flight experience? If free wifi was in the offing I am sure I could find the question’s answer, thus proving yet again that instant information access does not always enable a sense of wonder.
And the Airmail beta? Those crazy kooky tinkerers just refuse to sleep! Build 143 turned up a short time ago, this following yesterday’s release of both Build 141 and Build 142. Feature me once, shame on you. Feature me twice…?
Flight 543 IcelandAir is now boarding. <Cue omininous violin music behind slow fade to white>