Travel Timing

For security you get to the airport early. Detected, poked, prodded and approved you have a little over an hour to kill before boarding. Hit the bar. Order some food and get your drink on. Drink some more. Drink enough till you pay your bill and walk up to the boarding line with a nice little buzz.

That's the ideal.

Usually you walk up and there's a gate change or some delay. There's a tick or two of your buzz now gone. Go back for more? Risk another change? Tick or two more gone. By the time you get on the plane, you're stone cold sober and dealing with all the unhappies that don't travel enough.

It reminds me of motorcycle racing. We bought these fancy tire warmers to pre heat our tires before an event. We'd wait till the last grid call-up to get the most out of our artificial heat. Ideally, we'd head off for the warm-up lap, grid up, then race. Usually something happened and the grid was delayed. We sat there baking in the sun in our leathers and helmets as our tires cooled. Advantage lost. Tire warmers wasted.

It doesn't take t-boning someones car to negatively impact someone else's life. Many times it's more subtle then that.

- b