It turns out that staying with my folks is the worst thing one could do if one wants to maintain a daily writing habit. Not that my folks are anything but supportive, mind you, but my Mom is one of these people who needs to entertain guests all day, every day. Before going I made it clear that I didn't need to be entertained and that I intended to work while I was there, but that didn't take. My Mom— and I'm not condemning her for this, just stating it— feels that if she is not entertaining a guest, than she is allowing her guest to be bored. So, even though I wanted to be alone for a portion of the day, it was quite hard to get that time. After a few days I even started to feel guilty if I spent any significant amount of time in the back room where I was staying and where my laptop was set up.
Of course, a few habits that I developed didn't help the situation any. I found myself staying up late each weeknight to watch Craig Ferguson's show. After the first night, I set the DVR to record the shows, thinking I could then watch them in the day, but that show is a bit 'mature' for my parents and I found it uncomfortable to watch when they were around. So, I ended up watching every episode at night.
And, if you've been reading the last few posts, you know there was a lot of time spent just relaxing on the patio and watching the wildlife in the backyard. These nature-watching periods fell in the morning after waking, in the late afternoon before dinner, and after dinner. After dinner was the big one, and we might all be out there for an hour or more. Especially after the rains set in because the rain made the evenings very comfortable. It was hard to resist sitting there in a comfy chair with a cup of coffee and a pair of binoculars. Occasionally someone would have to get up and fetch the bird book from inside if a different sort of bird was seen.
I guess that's the long way of apologizing for my absence. I do hope to be more diligent now.
My trip back from Florida was delayed on both flights. In Tampa, after we were all loaded onto the plane, the pilot came on the P.A. and told us that he couldn't get the proper engine sequence started and that we would have to wait, basically, for a jump. Apparently, there is a truck that drives around the airport and starts engines when needed. Perfectly ordinary, I guess, but not what one hopes to hear from the captain. There was a subsequent announcement, after the right engine was started, alerting us to the fact that we may hear abnormal noises as a hydraulic system was being used to start the left engine from the right engine. Abnormal noise aside, however, we did make it to Phoenix close to on-time despite leaving about 30 minutes late. Since I had about 20 minutes to spare before boarding in Phoenix, I decided to stop by the King for a burger. I got to my gate and sat down right around the time we were supposed to begin boarding, only to hear an announcement that our plane was just now airborne from Los Angeles. This was followed by a cheer, and I can only assume that there had been many previous announcements about our flight being delayed for an undetermined amount of time. We ended up leaving Phoenix about 90 minutes late and arriving in Ontario on the same schedule. All in all, I ended up walking in my front door about 12:30 AM.
Of course, this is the official end of my experiment in flight times. I have long believed that one should always fly on the earliest flights possible. Any delay on any schedule flight for a particular airplane means that all remaining flights for that plane on that day will be delayed. Therefore, booking an early flight means one is far likelier to arrive on time. I've followed this rule for the last several years, but I decided to book my last few flights later in the day to test the theory. Since they have almost all been delayed, I can only conclude that my theory is right. I will be booking early flights again in the future... in the far future when I can afford to travel again.
I'm going to wrap this up for the day, but I wanted to announce to everyone who didn't already notice that my previous post was post number 100! I know that there are quite a few unworthy posts in that mix, but I still feel a sense of accomplishment. Someday, when I have the extra cash again, I hope to self-publish a small book with these early posts. The first 100 would have been nice, but since money is a problem now, I might have to expand the book to include the first 150 or 200.
See you again soon!
"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall."— Vince Lombardi
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