Live high, live mighty, live righteously

Listening to: Jukebox the Ghost, "Hold It In."

The Midwest may be devoid of natural disasters like earthquakes or wildfires but it can be extremely difficult to fly in at times. Try going through Chicago sometime during the winter. You're pretty much guaranteed a delay. I'd been getting so used to the short commute between San Diego and San Francisco that flying to Michigan this past weekend seemed really far away. When we landed, we sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half while the ground crew refused to bring out the connector thingy in the pouring rain and thunderstorms.

People around me were complaining. "Why don't they do their jobs! Get them out here! Grumble, grumble." It didn't help when the captain announced that he was trying to negotiate with the ground crew to come out. It made it seem like they were being sissies for not braving the rain. I didn't think it was very fair for passengers protected by an aluminum fortress to complain about little humans who didn't want to walk around in lightning with big metal staircases. I've decided to be wary of people who get easily frustrated by transportation inconveniences. Road rage, flight tantrums, boat berzerk, railroad rampage, whatever.

You're getting someplace faster than you could have at any point in human history and you're complaining? I wonder if this will be the case when teleportation (finally) comes around. Will hordes of tired business people, eager to get home in time for Kwanzaa, swear bitterly as they line up behind each other to be transported instantaneously across the solar system? If waiting in traffic, being jammed in an elevator, or staring down the tunnel toward invisible subway cars is any indication, humans will always just bitch about travel delays. Somehow we naturally selected for this trait.

I'll be naturally judging and silently criticizing people for this exact same trait.

I left San Francisco after an all nighter talking about girls with the boys. Fueled by Filipino food and coffee, I promptly passed out the entire way to Detroit. Six blissful hours later, Eric arrived to pick me up and as we hung around, waiting for Hong to show up and listening the Michael Jackson tributes on the radio, I slowly transitioned from California brain to Michigan brain. We were in town for a wedding, and also to hang out with our friends who have three young children, so we rarely get a chance to see them. It was family time versus single time. In the city, most of the people I hang out with are single and we go out to bars and lounges a lot. In Michigan, everyone has families and they do things like play group sports, start tribute bands, and gather for birthdays and celebrations devoid of alcohol.

Given the two, I'd prefer to hang out in Michigan. I mean, this past weekend, we managed to fit in a little bit of chess, some basketball, lots of Magic, kite flying, and Transformers 2. I'm a family oriented activities guy trapped in going out land. When the weekend rolls around and someone asks me what I want to do, I always reply, "Don't ask me, if you leave it up to me we're going to end up at home playing games." I find that this attitude strongly curtails my social life -- or at least my dating life. But that's okay. I like most games better than most girls, I think.

During our time in Michigan, we split our time between afternoons with our friends and their amazing three sons, and nights spent at the wedding (it was an Indian wedding, so there was a sangeet on Friday). Late nights were reserved for guy time spent playing games while the kids slept. We also celebrated Ryan's birthday. We probably ruined Eric's sleep schedule but it was good training because he and Anna are expecting any day now. Anna also introduced me to a new kind of gummy penguin, the Trader Joe kind. They don't replace my first love but are more widely available than the black and white peachy ones. Go get some now.

So everything was beautiful. The weather, the people, the wedding, the weekend. I held a one month old baby -- with the help of a boppy -- and I felt really accomplished. Until he started squirming and I panicked. I'm much better with a remote than a baby, but I'm working on it.