NYC in the morning…

6:30pm

I’m heading to NYC in the morning. Flight leaves around 7am. Figured I’d blog through this evening. And perhaps in the a.m. before I leave.

I’m not a very experienced flyer. My 8-yr-old daughter has more miles than I do. And I’m flying alone. Also, I’ve never been to NYC before. So this should be interesting. Actually, the flight will be the easy part. More challenging will be getting from La Guardia to Grand Central Station where I’m to meet Mike, a friend from college. There’s a bus that cost $12. If can’t find that, a taxi is between $30 and $40. I’m hoping to save the money.

6:53pm

Making a pot of pasta sauce and meatballs. That’s dinner for me and the remainder get tupperware-d for my gals when the return home from LA where they have been spending the week.

Hey, I thought thought of something. When I’m in NYC tomorrow, C will still be in LA. We’ll be like one of them famous, rich  power couples of whatever that divides their times bewtween and NYC and LA. Only with out the fame or the riches or the power. But still. Kewl.

Things to do, things to do. Like clean the guinea pig’s cage tonigt. I’m off!

7:10pm

The guinea pig cage clean.

Getting my travel face on — grrr! Watching Grosse Pointe Blank and having a bit of sauce (alcoholic not tomato-based).

Need to pack. I’ll be traveling light, very light. So I don’t have to check a bag, but also because I’ll be carrying whatever I bring with me all around NYC Friday. To save money, Mike and I (or rather Mike did) booked a room in Stamford, Connecticut. Sure, we’ll have to take the train in and out of the city each day but even so it’ll be less than staying in the city. I mean, unless we want to flop at a real dump or a hostel or something. No thank you! Maybe when I was in my 20s, but not now.

I blogged about the concept of traveling light in regards to Generation X but I neglected to save draft and clumsily stroked the wrong key (hate when that happens), wiping it all out.  I just got to wondering when kids regularly started carrying backpacks. I didn’t when I was young. Got my first bp when I started college. But I think it’s safe to say that Generation X pioneered, if you will, the backpack as almost constant companion. I’d imagine much if it has to do with so many kids of divorce. Since they might never know where they’d be form one day to the next, they had to carry certain thing with them all the time. They would have had to learn to pack light, not to mention quickly. I don’t have that particular skill (maybe because I feel the need to blog about it instead of actually doing it) but my wife does. Of course, her rents big D’s when she was like 2 and mine never did. Seems like there’s something to that. I don’t know.

8:29pm

Ahhhh. Nothing like a belly full of pasta and meatballs.

All but completely packed.

Need to get to bed earlier than usual tonight. Shouldn’t be hard. Feeling pretty sluggish already.

Still. I’m nervous about the trip. And not just because I’m flying alone. Or going to NYC for the first, and alone.  Been reading this book, The Survivors Club, about why certain people survive in certain situations and why other don’t, like plane crashes, which are covered in the chapter entitled Ninety Seconds to Save Your Life. Apparently 90s seconds is about all the time you have to get out of a plane that has crashed and is on fire. After that most people bite it. Also, you want to be no further than 5 rows away from an exit. Picking my seats, I made sure I was even closer than that.

Two thing to remember. First the 3-8 rule, which states that the first 3 mintues of a flight and the last 8 minutes are when a crash is mostly likely to occur. Ironically, those are the times when most people are least prepared. People have drinks before they got on bored. They take off their shoes. They read a book or newspaper. Listen to music. And reports reveal that only 61% of people actually pay attention to the in-flight safety instructions.

Second is 10-80-10. Which means that 10% of people in an emergency freeze. 80% freeze but are capable of snapping out of it. And 10% immediately act. Chances are you fall into the 80% so being prepared for that possiblity is worthwhile, because another related stats is that something like 47% of all flight attendants freeze, so you’re likely to be on your own in a crash.

The one thing I have working  my  favor, in addition to being close to an exit, is that statistically I am the most ABP (able body passenger type). I’m male, slender and traveling alone. So as long as I keep my shoes on and make a mental note of at least to escape routes I’m as well off as I can possibly be.

Anyway, you can see why I’m nervous. Maybe I wouldn’t be if I hadn’t read that stuff, but at least I’ll be prepared. Also, it’s worth keeing in mind that you much more likely to be in a car accident then in a place accident, and you’re more likely to survive a plane crash than an auto accident. Statistically speaking anyway. And staticically speaking, the majority of people survive plane crashes that are survivable. The ones that don’t are the ones that do not act to save themsleves.

So  yeah. I guess I’d rather be a little nervous and prepapred. But that’s just me.

That’s a wrap. For no anyway. Peace out.

Global warming: a reason to stay in Michigan

According to this slate.com article, part of week-long series that wonders how the United States might finally come to an end, if global warming does in fact inflict the damage that some predict it will Detroit is one of the places you’re gonna want to be. Along with Buffalo and Cleveland.

There’s a reason these cities were settled early on in the country’s history — there’s an abundant source of water, and for Buffalo there’s Niagara Falls nearby (i think; i’m not looking at a map and have no memory for geography and believe that i’m recalling the article correctly) to provide power. Makes sense to me.

Which is why I’ve actually considered this a factor in whether or not we should move, believe it or not. As appealing as California sounds right now, if water becomes scarce, which it already is out there, then it is not the place you’re going to want to be. Also, worst case global warm scenarios expect that both coasts will be pretty much devastated, driving people inward. The slate article assumes that cities like New York and Boston will be entirely abandoned.  Yikes! Just imagine. If you can, let me know, because honestly I can’t even begin to.

As for Texas, well, it, along with other gulf coast states/cities, will be pummeled again and again by increasingly powerful hurricanes and storms.

The Great Plains will turn to dessert. Southwest will become almost unlivable. And all the people there will have to migrate somewhere — inland and northward.

In such a scenario some think that we could head towards a conflict, ie war, with Canada.

Of course, the aticle concedes that this isn’t going to happen suddenly, like a James Cameron action flick. But rather it will unfold more slowly, like, say, a Terrence Malick or Stanely Kubrick film, over the course of years, perhaps almost a century. But still.