These are a few of my notes from my trip in late May through early June 2008 to Greece, England, Scotland, and the US state of Georgia. I’ve been rewriting the notes and adding different thoughts and turning scribbled freehand code-like notes into legible, and hopefully comprehendible articles. I’ve also had quite a bit of time to think about everything, time to process all the different cognitive input that I rapidly consumed. Letting the entire experience soak in allows this, and each time I retell what I did with my summer, I learn more and more from these notes and memories.
The first flight was a three and a half hour flight from San Diego to Atlanta. I think it was a 747 with touch screens on the backs of the seats. The prices for the on-demand content were a little ridiculous. A limited selection of music, movies, and television shows each cost $6, with a droning in-flight movie for people who weren’t wise enough to bring something to do. I brought two CDs and my classic Sony Walkman MP3-CD player. I had an enjoyable time in the window seat, staring out at the sky and the wing that occupied most of my view.
As I listened to the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack ‘Blue’ on repeat, I realized that the airline charges for every little thing. The meals are $6-10; drinks are $5; headphones are $2, luggage costs extra, more than one carry-on costs extra, fuel ’surcharges’. Almost as disgusting as the cellphone service corporations inventing new fees to add an extra $20 a month to the bill.
The only cool thing about the flight was that the touch screens had an option to look at the flight information. It displayed the altitude, time, distance to destination, a map with the intended and actual flight path, and other information. I’m not sure if this information was real-time from the airplane instruments or if they were delayed and altered so the passengers don’t get freaked out of suddenly their flight takes a turn for the worst. Best of all, the system is running on Linux, as the touch screen system on my chair crashed and rebooted in front of me. (The picture below is from a flight later on in the trip, but I’d be willing to bet they all use the same software base.)
I’m not a fan of Atlanta, nor am I a fan of the Atlanta airport, but that part of these notes, is at the end of the trip, not the beginning.
Author
Bryant Rosell
yeah, to hell with georgia.
Posted on 18 Dec 2008 at 9:54 pm | Permalink
Author
Bryant Rosell
portland airport rocks. want to know why? free internet.
Posted on 24 Dec 2008 at 10:53 pm | Permalink