How many completely unrelated things can I cram into one journal entry?
For starters, I have a story. You see, I'm home from vacation now, unfortunately. Florida was gorgeous and I have lots of stories about that, from our amazing lack of luck fishing (C. caught a slug that spit purple slime instead, my dad caught a fish as big as his lure but no bigger...) to the boat we rented that decided it didn't want to go anywhere, while we were in the middle of an ocean bay. I also have stories of yummy food and beach walks, sunrises over the ocean and walks through forests with lizards scampering around us and the vague hope of running into a bobcat (we didn't). And stories about C. almost stepping on a rather large snake at 11 at night, running frantically back to the hotel where P. and I promptly grabbed flashlights and went back out with impulsive childlike curiousity to investigate. It was a good holiday and I sincerely wish it wasn't over. Although that's not my story because as you recall, at the beginning of this paragraph I said I was going to tell a story.
My story is regarding the end of my vacation. First, some background: my dad had to fly home early, so it was just me, P, C, and my mom supposed to fly home together on Saturday. We were flying early in the afternoon so that P and C could catch a connecting flight. But the flight was overbooked. The check in agent said it was no problem, we were checking in rather early. But she couldn't give us seat assignments until we were in the lounge because the computer system wasn't telling her what seats were available. So P, C and my mom and I got talking. And when they announced in the lounge that the flight was overbooked and would anyone be willing to give up their seats and be compensated, P and C jumped to the opportunity (my mom and I decided against it). They were given vouchers towards their next vacation, a hotel, transportation and meal vouchers. Plus they were rebooked on the Sunday flight. All was good. My mom and I congratulated them and watched them leave the lounge to return to ticketing to get it all finalized.
So my mom and I sit back, relax, and feel that vague and distant sympathy for the family that was kicked off, that one feels when they are certain that none of it has anything to do with themselves. At least it started as sympathy. Because the family that was kicked off was plain nasty to everyone around them, and completely irate that they weren't all going to get on the flight together. But what else did they expect when they were the very last ones to check in?
So we watched, and the situation eventually moved itself elsewhere, when the half of the family that could not get seats on our flight decided to take that issue up with the rest of the world beyond the airport lounge.
And then boarding started. At this point my mom and I look at eachother and frown because as you will recall we were supposed to have received seat assignments in the lounge. We didn't. So my mom went to ask the agent (the same one as before). She said we didn't have assignments because there were none to make. We had no seats. Essentially what happened is the irate family got half of themselves onto the flight by stealing our seats. We were a little stunned. So we told her so and said that at the very least we wanted the same compensation that P and C had received. So she gave us our flight vouchers and meal vouchers.
To make a long story short, we went outside and hung out for four hours before eventually making our way back into the airport to be checked in again -- the agent that had dealt with us previously had guaranteed us that we would get on the next flight home (that evening) even though it too was overbooked. And when we checked in for that flight? She upgraded us to first class.
I swear, I'll probably never get to fly that way again, but I'll never want to fly any other way. It was amazing. Linens and a two course meal (a real meal that was edible, not typical in-flight-fare) with china and real metal cutlery, chocolate, wine (complimentary), incredible service....and that's not to mention the huge reclining seats that had footrests and built in back massagers... that's right. I have been spoiled.
But it was, all told, a fairly good way to end a good vacation.
Moving to another topic, here's my most recent thing written for to_boldy_nano, a community that gives 'prompts' on stuff for you to write about. I thought I'd post it here because frankly I don't think anybody's going to see it over there... it's an older post that I was slow to respond to. Don't know if anyone will read it here either, but at least they saw it and chose not to :)
This is actually part of a series. I'll post the other two parts of it later because the order doesn't really matter and I'm pretty lazy at the moment. We had to pick a location (mine is the patio of the fictional Cafe Otium) and then with each successive prompt we write about the location in a different time period. There's also usually a 'catch' with each prompt: for example, 'you can't use the word 'the'' or 'must be over 100 words'. I should warn you that I failed monumentally here: the catch was 'must be under 200 words, and I accidentally wrote 440 words instead. Managed to get it down to 291, and can't be bothered to do anything more with it at the moment. Must be getting back to work, after all.
Without further ado, here you have it. 291 words.
100 years in the future.
There’s a picture, just past the doorway on the inside of the Café Otium; the businessman saw it on the way back out to the patio. It’s a picture of what this place used to look like. It shows those fascinating iron chairs and tables, and a small and ineffective looking wrought iron fence acting as a division between the patio and the rest of the sidewalk. Nothing of the sort now. For one thing, a fence so minimal would not be welcoming to any patrons; a fence like that stupid little wrought iron one wouldn't keep out vandals, bullets, lasers or magnetic fields (as a matter of fact you might achieve some monumentally disastrous results with that latter) much less have any effect at filtering the light in any consequential way.
Nowadays, the patio has a slightly-indigo-tinged, and ever-so-slightly-fluorescing blur surrounding it--this indicates that the patio’s protected from all forms of random-passerby-evil. It also indicates that the light’s being filtered in an automated and intelligent fashion; intervals of healthy sunlight allowing for humanoid vitamin D production, but only at levels not harmful to one's health--you can’t be too careful nowadays.
The businessman reclines, suspended comfortably above the ground by the anti-gravity-field serving as his 'chair', and takes a sip from his synthetic-triple-espresso (exceptionally potent buzz without the annoying effects of hypertension and inability-to-concentrate). Nobody uses real chairs anymore, at least not anybody worth speaking of. The antigravity chairs automatically adapt themselves to optimize an individual's posture: they’re much better.
The picture inside’s gotten him thinking about how much more inconvenient life was back then. But thirty seconds later he’s up on his feet again. Only so much time for a break, you know; the businessman’s late for work.
In other news, I'm going to see GGK tonight!!!! SO excited. And I didn't get to go to karate last night, which I was very upset about. At the very least going to see GGK means that I will get to see Gnav. and Torrileah...but maybe they will be at karate on Friday, when I'm going. And I swear, if anything happens on Friday I will go berserk. I haven't been to karate in more than two weeks; since I joined karate I have never missed as many consecutive classes as I am right now. And a prime time to break that particular record: I'm grading on Saturday. At this point I am just hoping that SD got the message and that everyone with expectations of me understands that I was much more upset regarding my absence than they were. Guaranteed.
But GGK! I can't wait!!!!
[Update: No karate on Friday. *is pissed off* They are putting a finish on the dojo floor. Great, in general, but why the FUCK does it have to be this Friday????]
My story is regarding the end of my vacation. First, some background: my dad had to fly home early, so it was just me, P, C, and my mom supposed to fly home together on Saturday. We were flying early in the afternoon so that P and C could catch a connecting flight. But the flight was overbooked. The check in agent said it was no problem, we were checking in rather early. But she couldn't give us seat assignments until we were in the lounge because the computer system wasn't telling her what seats were available. So P, C and my mom and I got talking. And when they announced in the lounge that the flight was overbooked and would anyone be willing to give up their seats and be compensated, P and C jumped to the opportunity (my mom and I decided against it). They were given vouchers towards their next vacation, a hotel, transportation and meal vouchers. Plus they were rebooked on the Sunday flight. All was good. My mom and I congratulated them and watched them leave the lounge to return to ticketing to get it all finalized.
So my mom and I sit back, relax, and feel that vague and distant sympathy for the family that was kicked off, that one feels when they are certain that none of it has anything to do with themselves. At least it started as sympathy. Because the family that was kicked off was plain nasty to everyone around them, and completely irate that they weren't all going to get on the flight together. But what else did they expect when they were the very last ones to check in?
So we watched, and the situation eventually moved itself elsewhere, when the half of the family that could not get seats on our flight decided to take that issue up with the rest of the world beyond the airport lounge.
And then boarding started. At this point my mom and I look at eachother and frown because as you will recall we were supposed to have received seat assignments in the lounge. We didn't. So my mom went to ask the agent (the same one as before). She said we didn't have assignments because there were none to make. We had no seats. Essentially what happened is the irate family got half of themselves onto the flight by stealing our seats. We were a little stunned. So we told her so and said that at the very least we wanted the same compensation that P and C had received. So she gave us our flight vouchers and meal vouchers.
To make a long story short, we went outside and hung out for four hours before eventually making our way back into the airport to be checked in again -- the agent that had dealt with us previously had guaranteed us that we would get on the next flight home (that evening) even though it too was overbooked. And when we checked in for that flight? She upgraded us to first class.
I swear, I'll probably never get to fly that way again, but I'll never want to fly any other way. It was amazing. Linens and a two course meal (a real meal that was edible, not typical in-flight-fare) with china and real metal cutlery, chocolate, wine (complimentary), incredible service....and that's not to mention the huge reclining seats that had footrests and built in back massagers... that's right. I have been spoiled.
But it was, all told, a fairly good way to end a good vacation.
Moving to another topic, here's my most recent thing written for to_boldy_nano, a community that gives 'prompts' on stuff for you to write about. I thought I'd post it here because frankly I don't think anybody's going to see it over there... it's an older post that I was slow to respond to. Don't know if anyone will read it here either, but at least they saw it and chose not to :)
This is actually part of a series. I'll post the other two parts of it later because the order doesn't really matter and I'm pretty lazy at the moment. We had to pick a location (mine is the patio of the fictional Cafe Otium) and then with each successive prompt we write about the location in a different time period. There's also usually a 'catch' with each prompt: for example, 'you can't use the word 'the'' or 'must be over 100 words'. I should warn you that I failed monumentally here: the catch was 'must be under 200 words, and I accidentally wrote 440 words instead. Managed to get it down to 291, and can't be bothered to do anything more with it at the moment. Must be getting back to work, after all.
Without further ado, here you have it. 291 words.
100 years in the future.
There’s a picture, just past the doorway on the inside of the Café Otium; the businessman saw it on the way back out to the patio. It’s a picture of what this place used to look like. It shows those fascinating iron chairs and tables, and a small and ineffective looking wrought iron fence acting as a division between the patio and the rest of the sidewalk. Nothing of the sort now. For one thing, a fence so minimal would not be welcoming to any patrons; a fence like that stupid little wrought iron one wouldn't keep out vandals, bullets, lasers or magnetic fields (as a matter of fact you might achieve some monumentally disastrous results with that latter) much less have any effect at filtering the light in any consequential way.
Nowadays, the patio has a slightly-indigo-tinged, and ever-so-slightly-fluorescing blur surrounding it--this indicates that the patio’s protected from all forms of random-passerby-evil. It also indicates that the light’s being filtered in an automated and intelligent fashion; intervals of healthy sunlight allowing for humanoid vitamin D production, but only at levels not harmful to one's health--you can’t be too careful nowadays.
The businessman reclines, suspended comfortably above the ground by the anti-gravity-field serving as his 'chair', and takes a sip from his synthetic-triple-espresso (exceptionally potent buzz without the annoying effects of hypertension and inability-to-concentrate). Nobody uses real chairs anymore, at least not anybody worth speaking of. The antigravity chairs automatically adapt themselves to optimize an individual's posture: they’re much better.
The picture inside’s gotten him thinking about how much more inconvenient life was back then. But thirty seconds later he’s up on his feet again. Only so much time for a break, you know; the businessman’s late for work.
In other news, I'm going to see GGK tonight!!!! SO excited. And I didn't get to go to karate last night, which I was very upset about. At the very least going to see GGK means that I will get to see Gnav. and Torrileah...but maybe they will be at karate on Friday, when I'm going. And I swear, if anything happens on Friday I will go berserk. I haven't been to karate in more than two weeks; since I joined karate I have never missed as many consecutive classes as I am right now. And a prime time to break that particular record: I'm grading on Saturday. At this point I am just hoping that SD got the message and that everyone with expectations of me understands that I was much more upset regarding my absence than they were. Guaranteed.
But GGK! I can't wait!!!!
[Update: No karate on Friday. *is pissed off* They are putting a finish on the dojo floor. Great, in general, but why the FUCK does it have to be this Friday????]