Woke up at 4 am to catch a 6 am flight from Raleigh to Atlanta. Made it comfortably to the airport. Breezed thru TSA Pre. Sat in the plane. Got my coffee. All the passengers were boarded. And suddenly I got a notification from Delta on my iPhone that the flight has been delayed by 30 minutes.
The pilot came on to the PA and greeted us. I am like – does he even know that we are delayed? (I assumed ground control crew or weather issue).
Then he came on again and explained that a piece of equipment is not working. It is a third level backup though. But without it he is not allowed to fly in the dark or thru clouds!!!
So the mechanics are coming to see how quickly it can be fixed.
Except the mechanics are coming from Atlanta!!!!
And he canceled the flight!!!
As I was disembarking, Delta sent me another helpful message – the flight has been delayed by another 15 minutes!! Go figure.
Too sleepy to drive back to Atlanta, decided to take the next flight couple of hours later. Waiting in Skyclub now, tired and sleepy wondering what the the next adventure in the upcoming flight will be.

So this is what the ground crew does when they are not waving a plane in or out of the gate!!!

Grainy picture of lightning. From inside the plane with my iPhone against a really wet window…

I have heard about chasing a pipe dream, but what is a pipe chase? Given that it was next to “janitor”, it certainly struck me as a very odd job. Consulted Google and found that “A pipe chase is an area of space where only pipe and sometimes electrical conduit are run. Though they are usually square, picture it as a tunnel that only has runs of pipe inside.”
Still not sure why you need a door but I learnt something today…

The Men’s room at the airport is the Tornado shelter????

We were all seated – mildly surprised that our flight was on time. Airplane doors closed. Electronics all off. And then the dreaded “safety procedure announcement” came on. Mid way thru the announcement the gentleman went something like this…
“In cases of emergency, this airplane is equipped with eight doors, four on either side…..Wait a minute”…
Total radio silence for thirty seconds – we assumed he was checking his notes. As we all started laughing out… Then he came back on the PA “… there are six doors in this plane. Three on either side .”
The lady serving us in the first class was clearly not happy and had that constant frown as she went thru that mesmerizing two hand over the shoulder wave that they do – this time with three fingers outraised on either hand instead of the previous run of four.
After the whole announcement was over, she walked up to him, had a little confabulation and triumphantly walked back. Then she grabbed the microphone and announced “Ladies and gentlemen, a minor correction in our security announcement: we do have eight doors in this plane. Four on either side”!!!
A few minutes later, I made friends with her. I let her know that in my 20 years and seven million miles of flying, if there is one thing I have learnt, it us this: in cases of emergency, nobody cares to count the number of doors – everybody makes a beeline for the nearest door 🙂
She was nice and sporting enough to take the joke. She pointed out that they were not based out of Atlanta and were not used to this plane configuration. I quickly glanced and noticed it was indeed one of the old Northwest configuration in the first class. I asked her if she was from Detroit. She said – No, the whole crew was from Honolulu!!!
Now, that is a job I would die for!!! Even if I died trying to escape from a non-existing door midair!!! 🙂

Here I am sitting down at the airport with my flight getting more and more delayed…. First they had no crew. Then they managed to grab one crew member. That started the search for a second crew member. Thirty minutes later we located her too. Then we got one co-pilot twenty minutes later. Now we are just one pilot short of taking off!!! Accessories! Accessories!! Accessories!!!
Every fifteen minutes Delta kept sending me text messages helping me know of a further delay. Their latest one informed me that I can now go ahead and check in to my return flight!
And I am like, a few more helpful text messages from you and I might not have any need for your return flight altogether 🙂

Learnt something knew while reading “Descartes Error” at the bar in the hotel (the guy at the bar showed no interest in making friends with me 🙂 – so I was reduced to reading a book from my book list 🙂 )
I always thought that the origin of “I think, therefore I am” was the Latin phrase “Cogito ergo sum”. Evidently, that is the popular version for English speaking people. The original words he wrote were “Ego cogito, ergo sum” [“Principles of Philosophy” (1644)]. And that is not even the original original!!! And that is what surprised me.
Did you know he actually came up with it seven years before this in a treatise written in French [“Discourse on the Method” (1637)]. Evidently, he first penned it as “je pense, donc je suis”.

BTW, if any one of know my parents or have a parent in India, you will probably relate to my sentiment that given their constant propensity to worry about silly things and think of problems and challenges that they can do nothing about, (“sobsomoy chinta hoy”) that this whole “I think, therefore I am” thing was something Descartes conjured up specifically for them.

Or so I think 🙂