Fun With Insomnia, Sleep Deprivation And Jet Lag

You would think that with as much traveling as I have done over the years I might manage to actually get used to it at some point. Even though I currently have two different frequent flyer cards to my name, I would hardly use the term “frequent” to describe my travel habits. For that matter, “infrequent” is kind of pushing it too, Nonetheless, over time I have presumably accumulated enough time on airplanes and on car trips (not to mention the occasional cruise or two) to make it look like I have some idea what I’m doing here. That said, I’m pretty sure I am far from an expert on the subject. And it isn’t the vaguely entertaining comical ineptitude version of lacking expertise either. I mean. Its not like I go get chased by rhinos in the African veldt, cause international incidents by wearing the wrong pair of pants in an Italian restaurant or anything like that. Mostly i just forget things, carry around too much useless crud and occasionally overdo things and end up getting home in need of the proverbial vacation from one’s vacation.

As I write this, I am currently on the San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale leg of my outbound flight for the cruise, about 2,243 miles away and somewhere over middle-of-nowhere Nevada. Thanks to the handy screens they have here on the plane, I know all of that, as well as current ground speed, outside temperature (-73f) and what inflight movie options i would have if i wasn’t busy writing this and/or lacking the attention span required for inflight movies. Combine all that with inflight Wifi and an iPad, and I’m pretty sure i wont be getting much sleep on this flight, thus ensuring that I should be a barrel of somewhat dubious fun tomorrow morning. Oh, and i am also running on about five hours of sleep last night, and it’s a wonder any of the stuff i am writing rit now is coherent at all. Actually, for all i know, it may all just be blather anyway. I am typing on the iPad, so if it doesn’t make any sense I’ll just blame the hardware, same as usual.

This particular trip started off this morning with one of those awkward customer service calls that goes nowhere to Virgin America trying to figure out why I was supposed to not only pay twice for my checked bag, but to also go claim it at SFO, recheck it, and then go back through security. That didn’t accomplish much, so the next step was to post a complaint on Twitter, which got a surprisingly prompt response, although I soon learned that writing a complaint letter in 140 characters is a lot harder than it looks (and it looks pretty dang hard.). By the time I got that resolved it became a bit of a moot point anyway as my checked bag ended up with my parents (who had two checked bags included in their reservation) on a different flight. So when all is said and done I am flying to Fort Lauderdale through San Francisco, my luggage is (hopefully) getting there a couple hours later via Charlotte, and if I’m lucky enough with all that I may not have to wear a big oak barrel to Formal Night.

Aside from that, the travel has been mostly uneventful so far. The airport shuttle from the hotel near my apartment ended up being an Escalade, which sounds more luxurious than it really was (but I have to get my delusions of grandeur from somewhere, right?) the flight got delayed in Seattle by about an hour, but with three hours in SFO expected, that was no big deal. Not much to report beyond that , aside from a mildly regrettable meal at Sea-Tac. Oh yeah, I also have that old hippie song about wearing flowers in your hair if you’re going to San Francisco stuck in my head right now (and you probably have it there too now if you’re old enough to know it or listen to classic rock radio) but that’s a minor detail.

As noted previously, blogging will be light to semi-nonexistent for the next week or so (i will probably manage to come up with something in St. Thomas where my phone will have coverage) but there should be plenty on this when I get back. I don’t know if i am going to do one of those full excruciatingly detailed trip reports like I did for Disney World a couple of years ago, but there should be plenty of material to work with here.

Meanwhile, i have 1,893 miles to go to get to Fort Lauderdale, and I am pretty sure I won’t be sleeping for any of those. At least there are plenty of new and exciting ways to be bored in style on this flight.