Touchdown!

I'm traveling this week and next. Came down to Florida for a stopover to visit my parents before a trip north to D.C. for Obama's Inauguration ceremony.

Anyway, already been on two jets, about to hop on a third before taking a train to New York City for a day and then another flight back to the bay.

I don't travel that much these days. I don't like to fly. I used to love it but I lost the love for it after spending five years as a sportswriter which is the same thing as living on planes and sleeping in hotels every night, in cities that all look so alike half the time you have no idea where you are when you wake up. Believe or not, I let a shitload of frequent flyer miles expire just so I didn't have to get on another airplane.

When 9/11 happened I wanted to give up flying completely. Not for any reason except like the rest of us, I went through this period of thinking that the world is a fucking dangerous place and if I'm gonna bite the big one, I'd rather it be on familiar ground. Ground being the operative word.

So anyway, a couple hours ago, my brother and his two young children arrived on a US Airways flight into Sarasota, Fla, airport. They arrived safe and sound and I'm kinda still amazed that my bro's kids are so damned cute. It's all so very weird to me, I'm telling you. Whatever. My folks don't have internet access (well, they do but it's something from another planet that's called "dial-up") and so I rolled on over to the local Starbucks to log on to the world wide web before I went into shock from withdrawal (and I'm not talking about coffee).

And the first thing I see is this amazing story on the front page of the New York Times' website. Holy fucking shit. I mean, really. I'm one of those people who thinks I'm going to survive a plane crash. I swear to God. These people actually did. Ditched in the damn Hudson River. How many times have you been in a plane and read that "Your Seat Cushion May Be Used as a Flotation Device" and could not even imagine that? Motherfuck, right? I mean I grew up along the Hudson River. There are fish that would breathe air just to get out of that water, but man, who doesn't think that it was the best fucking sight those 148 people ever freaking saw?

The full story is here, though there's obviously more details pouring in. I hope it's true. I hope everyone made it and I think they should give that pilot and his crew a freaking medal.