Airplane Bloggin’: Too Tired to Name This Edition

Whirlwind?  Well, its been more methodical, more drudgery that that would imply.  Yes, the word whirlwind has a nice romanticism, but it doesn’t convey the coach class compression that has defined my flights bookending the last twenty four hours, or the schedule compression that defined the time between.

I woke up early this AM (well, early for me) in Las Vegas, where I’ve been for the past (I have to look at the calender to know how many) ten days.  Went to the airport (thanks, Angela and Eric for the lodgings yet again, and for the ride to LAS) so that I could fly back to Los Angeles on the 8:40 on the Grumpster’s favorite airline, the egalitarian and efficient SouthWest. 

On the ground before ten AM, I said hello to my home, which I haven’t seen since the Monday after Thanksgiving.   Unpacked a bit, returned some correspondence via email, and jumped on a conference call with two scientists and a high level manager of a multinational conglomerate.  I could tell you what the call was about, but then I’d have to kill myself.  Or at least delete this entry.  So I won’t.

That was followed by a meeting with my newest clients, Green Planet Productions, the folks behind the film, Fuel, and their recent entry, The Big Fix, about the BP oil spill, the damage it has done, and the subsequent cover-up by one of the world’s most profitable companies.  Love those green signs at your gas stations, boys.

After the Green Planet meeting, I headed over to Tunnel to finalize some paperwork for another client’s new venture, before meeting Mario the composer at an Irish Pub for a happy hour dinner.  Mario had some things he’d wanted to discuss, I hadn’t seen him as I haven’t been in LA to see him (and I thought I could co-opt this into a ride to LAX, something Mario was more than happy to provide).  He’s been doing the score for Lee Daniels’ follow-up to Precious, a thrilled called The Paperboy,  which stars Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, Zak Efron and Matthew McConaughey.  I was glad he was able to make time.

I spend a good deal of time these days thinking and talking about environmental technology and the environment in general.  One of the books that I am currently reading is Greg Palast’s Vulture’s Picnic. It’s investigative journalism, with a Sam Spade wink, from a truly entertaining and informed writer who is looking very hard at the world’s petrofinancial industry, with a focus on the BP Gulf Deepwater Horizon disaster and its historical precedents in Alaska and the Caspian sea.  I mention this primarily because I am most of the way through a redeye flight (yes, this is all one day) to Miami from LAX, on a ticket I booked when I thought I’d be much less busy.   Its so rare that I fall asleep cramped in a coach seat, particularly when I am stuck in a row with two big guys (don’t get me started on the perverse humor that must, I swear, must exist, when seat assignments are made).  However, I did fall asleep, only to wake up, look out the window hours into the flight, and see the lights of boats and other structures (oil rigs, couldn’t say) in the Gulf.

I am still wiped out regardless of the three hour snooze, and I am looking forward to getting into the guest bedroom at my families’ place in Miami Beach and making a full morning of catching up on the missed sleep.  When I booked the ticket, I hadn’t expected to have been in NY eleven days prior, but its still nice to see my folks the extra time (they just arrived in Miami today, er, yesterday, I don’t entirely know what day it is).  I didn’t get even a single night (or a nap) in my own bed in  the twelve hours I spent in LA, but that’s OK.  What I am doing has meaning, I like for the most part all of the people with whom I am spending my time, and the future is exciting. 

Wonder if I can get back to sleep for the last forty minutes of the flight. 

Grumps.