So my latest adventure was a true comedy of errors - but turned into an unexpected visit to Atlanta with an old friend. As the years pass and I get busier I have less and less time to take anything short of a redeye back to the East Coast, yet my tolerance for them has dropped. So, on the principle that a luxury once enjoyed is a necessity, I've started flying First Class.

Not that I really want to - I mean, I enjoy it, but it's expensive. First Class on some recent flights overseas, which I did NOT get, was in the range of ten thousand dollars. But if I can find a reasonable ticket back to my hometown, I'll take it. (Rarely, I've even found cheaper First Class than normal flights).

One of the perks, apparently, of First Class is that they will call you if your flight connection is delayed. Because of fog, rain and mechanical issues, my plane to Atlanta was delayed, so Delta called me up and alerted me that if I headed to the airport RIGHT NOW, they'd get me on an earlier flight so I could make my connection. Mom and I were already on the way to the airport, so we asked for the check and motored.

I waved to one of my high school buddies in the airport bar - we'd originally been on the same flight - and made my new connection with moments to spare. We pulled back from the gate aaaaand ... sat there. And sat there. And sat there, as the minutes ticked down. Finally, the pilot told us that the plane was off balance because it was underweight, the computer was confused, and they were having to reset everything manually. Finally, at the time the plane was originally supposed to have departed, we taxied out.

But then stopped on the runway. I and my buddy texted from two different planes that each was in trouble - ours had no gate to land, his, my original plane, had mechanical trouble and had rolled back to the gate, no mechanic in sight. I said, "screw it", and in moments had reservations for the spectacular Atlanta Marriott Marquis hotel for only $50 bucks using Expedia points. I almost made reservations for my favorite restaurant, then rethought and texted my buddy: "Hey, you've missed your connection too, right?"

Yep. He sure had.

When he landed, I already a car, had upgraded the room for free to get an extra bed, and had a list of places to eat that were still open. We hit Manuel's Tavern, one of our old favorites from back in the day, and then crashlanded in the hotel bar for an hour before calling it a night.

The next day, we were out and rolling at the ungodly hour of 6:50am - what is that, I mean, is that even a thing? - and having breakfast at Gordon Biersch. Now it was his turn to wave to make his LA connection, and an hour later I followed on my own flight, with Danny Devito sitting in seat 1B only a few rows away from me during my LA connection. By 4pm, I was hugging my wife and heading back home to hug some cats.

I guess the point, and I do have one, is that I could have had a miserable time with a delayed flight. Instead I got to have a great mini-trip to Atlanta, caught up with an old friend, and had a great story to tell.

I guess attitude is everything.

-the Centaur

Happy New Year, y'all! And here's a productivity tip for all my fellow adventurers: a holiday or vacation is a great time to catch up on that illness you've been putting off.

Seriously, I've gotten sick something like three or four times in the last month: first a cold which canceled my trip to the WAFR conference in New Mexico, where I was a fricking invited speaker and couldn't go. That turned into a lingering sinus infection which just about went away by the time I returned to my home town of Greenville - but which then reared its ugly head again. Since my mother, my buddy Derek, and at least one other person fell ill to the same bug within a day or so (stuffiness, a 1-2 day period of severe lethargy, followed by lingering sniffles) I'm guessing this was an entirely new bug that I picked up at the airport. Again this disappeared, but after my return flight back, an adventure in and of itself because of weather delays, I got what appears to be a different bug, this one a slight sniffle plus lingering gastrointestinal distress. Fun! All clearing up in time for work.

So, what can I say? Computing continues its usability slide - I had to switch from Feedly to Innoreader, the Microsoft Word broke all my keystrokes, and the new WordPress editor sucks, making all common operations that much more difficult in favor of something "new" and "cool" that just adds a bunch of junk to what was a clean, simple and easy to use interface. WHAT? Oh, I was going to say something about taking care of yourself in winter colds, but WordPress's new editor decided to turn a carriage return into some strange modal event that absorbed all my keystrokes and threatened to post the page before I was ready. Where was I?

Oh! So! What can I say? To prevent propagation of infecftion, elbow bump or fist bump rather than shaking hands, don't touch the "T" - your eyes nose or mouth - and if you have to cough or sneeze, do so into your shirt, not into your hand or even a handkerchief (those spread infection to your hands). If you get infected, get plenty of rest, plenty of fluids, look up the appropriate treatment for your symptoms, and take your placebo of choice, because while placebos don't work, the placebo effect definitely does. No, it doesn't have to make sense; it's just the evidence. Suck it up, Chester.

So! All that stuff I wanted to blog over the holidays. <looks at list> Sigh.

Guess it will have to wait. Back to work!

-the Centaur

Having just finished having a great conversation with a good friend over dinner, it struck me how different a great conversation is with a friend than it is with some people I meet.

For example, at lunch today, I spotted a familiar looking fellow at the next table over. I didn't quite recognize him, but as he was finishing his lunch, he turned to me and said, "You look damn familiar."

As it turns out, we both were at the same restaurant a year ago, both on business trips - him with music, me with Dragon Con. We briefly caught up, and he mentioned moving away from California in the housing crisis.

He hit the can, and when he returned I got up, laptop in hand - my turn. He mentioned selling out just before the housing crash and recommending to all his friends that they cash out; I unfortunately had the opposite story.

He then said that he simply couldn't turn down leaving - "It was like getting a free house!" I started to respond with a quote from a friend: "Planning plus preparation plus opportunity yields luck."

I never got past "My friend once said." The gentleman at the table continued his story as if I hadn't spoken, talking for a full ten minutes about his wife, her mother, and all the houses that they had bought on credit.

It was like seeing a living slice of The Big Short while a vice was slowly squeezing my bladder. After an interminable period of 'yes'es and 'uh-huh's, I finally found a point to excuse myself and beat a hasty retreat to the can.

Writing  in coffehouses and restaurants as I do, I encounter this from time to time: someone who comes up to talk to me, who appears to be using the standard form of normal conversations, but who really isn't interested in a conversation at all, just in hearing themselves talk.

Now, I have friends that can go on a bit. Hell, I can be like that. But among friends we've all learned this and developed signals that mean "I gotta go," and when that signal fires, all of us have learned to say, "Talk at ya later."

I think the key difference is the reaction to a response. When talking to a blowhard like me, you may have to wait to get a word in edgewise, but the blowhard will then listen to you for a period of time.

This coffehouse phenomenon is something different. You can tell it's happening most clearly when the person you're talking to will let you get out one-word responses like "yes" or "no" or polite conversational "Oh reallys" and such, but as soon as you try to say anything back - anything of substance at all - they just talk over you as if you have not spoken.

I wonder what's going on in their minds when they do that.

-the Centaur