Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:43:58 GMT

Okay, who wants to send Jimmer some Ding Dongs??

THEY SOUND AND LOOK SO GOOD!

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:23:59 GMT

Okay...so I'm watching the VMA's. Yeah, it's a day late...we used to get it live, but not anymore. I digress...
I'm watching the VMA's...I'm watching the pre-show thing, and I'm thinking to myself.... "John Norris??? WHAT THE FUCK???"

Oooh, gotta go...Nelly Furtado is way drunk and making herself look even more retarded than she normally does.

Does anyone remember the days of Kurt Loder? At least he fucking knew what he was talking about and didn't ask people 'who are you wearing?'.

A Traveller's Tale

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:11:51 GMT

This could end up being lengthy. Read on if you want, don't if you don't, essentially, it's up to you, I will try and condense as much as possible.

Friday 27th October, 11:45 am. Due to a prior arrangement with my manager, I left work early (the people in my section actually smuggled me out a side door so that anyone else in the company wouldn't know I'd left early) and got in a waiting car, and sped off to the airport. I couldn't believe this was finally happening, after the countdowns and waiting, I was on my way. Once we were on the motorway, I lay down in the backseat, wriggled out of my work clothes and put on some far more comfortable travelling attire, well, I put on some jeans.

Thanks to the amazing driving efforts of my Dad, we got to the airport in record time, and I managed to check in exactly at 1pm, 3 hours before take off. I went back outside the terminal for a while, to call Jenise, tell her I was checked in and to share in some of the excitement of the upcoming trip.

I did what everyone else does at airports, a whole lot of nothing. I got some coffee, a book to read on the flight and sat and waited for my gate to be called.

Around 3pm, they called the gate, so I made my way there, and sat (again) and waited (again) to get on the plane. All I could think about was being with her again, I knew we wouldn't have long together, but I was just so excited to actually share time with Jenise again.

We started boarding, and for the first time in my life, I found myself in an almost empty plane. I had an aisle seat, and it soon became apparent that I would have the other two seats as well. A whole row of 3 seats to myself, this trip was getting better and better by the minute. 4pm rolled around, and I started getting ready for taxi and take-off, it shouldn't be long now, there really is no reason for it to be delayed, the day is beautiful, everyone is on the plane, we're good to go, right?

Wrong. We sit. 4:15 comes and goes, no news. 4:30 comes, the pilot comes over the speakers telling us of a 'slight technical problem' with the plane, the engineers are looking into it, we should be up and away soon. I check the time. I have a two hour window at Newark in which to collect luggage, go through immigration and make it to my connecting flight. I start thinking of my deadline to make this happen. If we leave by 5pm, it should be okay.....

5pm arrives, the engineers are 'consulting their manuals'. I try to relax, there really is nothing I can do about it. I look out my window. Seems the problem is something to do with an engine under the wing on my side, I see trucks parked under it, but no-one seems to be doing anything. At this point the pilot comes on again, informing us that the engineers have discovered the fault, but he can't give us a timeframe. Great. I text Jenise, and she informs me that my connecting flight to Kansas was the last one until Saturday morning. This cannot be happening. The flight attendants begin walking the cabin, talking to people. At this point I hear a girl talking to them a row back from me. She's asking what will happen with her connecting flight. They assure her that she'll get it, that people at Newark are aware of what's going on, and when we get there they'll look after those with connecting flights. Just to be sure, I ask them the same question. This is when I met Ida, a great girl who pretty much saved my arse over the next few hours. Ida was connecting to Chicago, but had the same 2 hour time window as I did, we talked for a bit, I told her why I was flying to Kansas, and we pretty much decided that when we landed at Newark on the plane, we would link arms, and just fucking RUN to the exit if we had to.

I took advantage of my space, and lay down across the three seats, or at least tried to. I was too nervous and agitated, I would lay there for a minute, then spring up, look out the window and check what, if anything, was going on out there. Ida and I kept nervously glancing at each other, and with each passing minute it became clear that I would not be spending my first night of my small vacation with Jenise.

At 6pm, the pilot's voice crackled over the speakers again. 'Ladies and gentlemen, not good news I'm afraid, we are going to have to cancel this flight'. My heart sunk. What will happen now? Where do we go? What do we do? I called Jenise and told her the news, and she didn't handle it well. Well, she handled it about as well as I would. She had to get off the phone.

We were told to re-claim our luggage, and go and check in again for a flight that was supposed to be leaving at 8pm that night to fly into JFK. I ask about the connecting flights, and get told to make my way to the ticket desk where my new connecting flights will be waiting for me, along with a voucher for a hotel room in NYC so I can rest and shower. I get to the ticket desk, and get met with blank stares. No tickets here, no vouchers either. I’m told to ’get on the flight to JFK, there will be someone there waiting to help you’. Okay, cool, now I have to get on a flight across the Atlantic not knowing what’s going to happen to me when I get there. I call Jenise again, we’re both a little more collected now, and I tell her that I will try everything within my power to get to her as soon as possible. Now it’s my turn to finish the phone call, I can’t handle this right now.

I’m back to doing a whole lot of nothing again. Around 7:30 I walk to the gate, to be told they won’t be boarding a few hours now, as they are processing all the new passengers from the cancelled flight. Joy.

I hang out with Ida for a bit, talking, just passing time. She travels frequently from the UK to the US and Canada as she is originally from Canada, and lives in the UK.

We finally board the plane at around 9pm, and it takes off at 10pm. Six hours late. I flick around the entertainment channels on the TV, try watching the remake of ‘The Hills Have Eyes’, realise it’s shit, or I’m just not in the mood, flick off my TV and finally fall asleep for a couple hours. I spend the rest of the flight in some kind of half-awake, half-asleep state.

We land at JFK around midnight. It takes us like, 90 minutes to get through immigration then we collect our luggage. ON TO THE CONNECTING FLIGHTS DESK! YAY!.

Connecting flights desk. One airport worker there, not a representative for Virgin, just some random airport worker. He tells us to ‘get on the bus waiting outside’ which will take us to Newark where ‘someone will be waiting to help you with tickets for connecting flights and vouchers for a hotel’.

Do you see a recurring theme here? And you wanna know something really funny? I believed them. Every time.

So, we go outside in the wind and rain, load up our luggage into the bus, get in, and head off for a 90 minute drive to Newark. At one point I look out the window and see the NYC skyline, Empire State Building and all. I’ve seen this sight a few times in my life, but there’s still something quite breathtaking about it.

3am, we pull up at the Air India gate in Terminal B of Newark Airport, our cases are unloaded and we get off the bus, and walk into the terminal, not really knowing what to do. We find where the Virgin desk is, and make our way there. Of course, we get there, and there is no sign of life at all. Ida tells me we should go to the Continental desk, as that is the company we’ve got the connecting flights with. A short trip on the monorail (seriously, how many other fucking forms of transport am I going to use tonight?) later and we’re there. Nope, no-one around. But….woohoo, they will be opening at 4:15 am. Not long to wait. I get in line (yeah, there’s already a line) and Ida leaves me, as she discovers that flights to Chicago check in at another terminal. We say our goodbyes, I thank her for looking after me, and she gives me her email address telling me to keep in touch and we’ll go out for dinner when Jenise gets here in January.

I make it to the Continental desk, and the lady taps the computer screen in front of me as if to say ‘check in here’.

“I can’t do that” I say.
“Then why are you here, honey?”
“I’m in a bit of bother, can you help me?”
“What’s that?”
“I was supposed to connect to Kansas at 8:40pm last night, but my flight from the UK got cancelled, so I missed it, I need a new flight, can you help me?”
“Can I see your original ticket?”

I produce my ticket, and she makes a call to someone, somewhere. To finally be getting some kind of help is the most amazing feeling in the world.
She gets off the phone.

“How many pieces of luggage you got?”
“One”
“Put it on the scales”
“Huh?”
“You’re going on the 8:40am flight to Kansas, honey”
“Wha? Really? Oh…thank you. Thank you so so so so much”

She prints out my new boarding pass, takes my luggage and half smiles, half giggles as I back away, still thanking her.

I make my way back into Terminal B, as that is the only terminal with any kind of coffee shop open. I buy a coffee and slump at a table, head in hands, almost crying with relief. I spy a line of payphones next to the counter, and go get some change. Not one of them works, so I find some more. In my sleep deprived state of mind, I have the hardest time trying to figure out the US calling system, so much so that I get close to asking a nearby couple if they are American, and if so, can they help me calling my girlfriend. But I go back to my table, gather my thoughts, drink more coffee and head back to the payphones to call Jenise. I finally manage to get through, and even though she is sleepy, I manage to tell her that I got a flight, I give her my new flight number, and tell her that I’ll be with her around 11am.

I walk back towards the coffee shop and spy a familiar person at an ATM. I walk up behind her, and tickle her sides. It’s Ida. She spins around and hugs me. We both look at each other with a ‘well? How did you do?’ kinda way. We both nod that we got our flights, and laugh, saying how bad we would have felt if the other hadn’t been successful. We still have a few hours to kill before our respective flights leave, so we go grab some more coffee and sit talking for a couple hours.

Eventually, we take our leave of each other, again, and I make my way to my gate. My flight is due to leave at 9:05am, but it’s already delayed by 20 minutes. I sit at the gate, slumped across a chair, and snooze for a while. I check the information screens again, now it’s delayed by 40 minutes. This is getting beyond a joke, guys. Can I just see my girlfriend already?

Eventually, after what seems like a lifetime, I board my tiny plane, and after queuing for a slot on the runway, we take off. The sense of achievement and relief as I made the incline into the sky was something else. I was finally on my way.

I think I sleep for a while, but wake up about halfway to Kansas, groggy. The girl next to me says ‘hi’ and we talk for a while. People can be really sweet when they see you travelling by yourself, I’ll always appreciate the kindness of strangers that night (there are many more cameos by people on this journey, but I’ve excluded them for sake of condensing this. Also, I should point out, Ida’s role has also been greatly condensed, she was with me throughout everything).

I look out the window. The day is beautiful, and rolling along beneath me are fields…just fields…it looks like a green and brown patchwork quilt down there, so very beautiful.

I arrived in Kansas 12 hours later than planned. I’d been awake since 6:30am Friday, UK time, and it was now 6:30pm Saturday, UK time. 36 hours had passed since I last had any form of decent sleep, and I’d been travelling for some 30 hours.

Jenise had always told me that she would see me as soon as I got off the plane, due to the fact that Kansas City Airport is awesome, but that didn’t really prepare me for how soon she would see me.

The plane pulled up to the gate, and we disembarked. As I was walking up the gangway into the terminal, I spotted Jenise through the glass wall keeping the public from entering the gate, and I naturally broke into a smile.

I walked through the turnstile and into her arms, and we stayed that way for a while, holding each other, shaking, and telling each other how much we love each other.

We kissed, then started to walk out the airport.

Out the airport, and out onto a new adventure. One that I will write about at a later date.

This one is much more fun, believe me.

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 19:58:14 GMT

'Cos I'm leaaaaaaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again!

Actually, I do, it'll be the too soon date of 1st November, but hey, I'm not gonna think about that right now.

The packing is done, I just have a couple hours of work to get through in the morning then it's all systems go!

This excruciating wait is almost over, and it feels better than I ever thought it would. In around 30 hours I'll be with Jenise again, and that, my friends, is about as good as life gets.

Okay, I'm gonna get to work on my 'flying metal death tube' playlist for the iPod.

Take care of yourselves!

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 19:19:30 GMT

Monday, 22nd January, 2007.

Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms.

Norma Jean and He Is Legend.

HELL FUCKING YEAH.

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:51:50 GMT

If I hear 'Welcome to the Black Parade' ONE MORE TIME IN MY LIFE, I'm gonna go fucking postal.

It makes me want to vomit.

Oh my.

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 20:15:35 GMT

Life just got very interesting indeed.

Or, to quote Friends, as I do.

It. Just. Got. Interesting.

Urgh

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 10:52:13 GMT

Far too much of a mess to write anything vaguely resembling sense right now. But I thought I would say something to try and capture the moment.

Cheers, mate.

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 18:35:24 GMT

The Agony Scene has never sounded so good.

Snare sound to die for, I tell ya.

Fragility

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 15:19:46 GMT

Oh the fragile nature of it all. Gmail is acting like a spoiled brat. I can't email right now. So yeah, I'm doing this instead. If you read this, bear with me, I'll be with you soon.

Now I'm gonna get back to finishing these damn CDs.

unintended98

A Traveller's Tale

Oh my.

Urgh

Fragility