I typed the following 'live' on the flight from San Francisco to New York... little did I know what an epic journey we were on...

They should have a sign at the departure gate of San Francisco airport that reads - “You are now leaving California. Prepare to be disappointed. OK I don’t mean that, but since we got of the plane 4 days ago, we’ve had nothing but good weather, good food, good service and great company. It’s all about to change. At least for the duration of the flight to NYC.

“You might want to take your shoes off. And take your laptop out of your bag. Oh and would you like to take off your top, and your belt.” Well, actually no, I don’t, but they’re not going to let me on the plane if I don’t. I don’t know why I bothered getting dressed. Or packing my stuff. So I leave San Francisco pissed off. Pissed off for having to leave, and pissed off because airports are designed to piss you off. Sure, they need security these days, but they seem to require some special skills from airport employees. At San Francisco airport, all new employees must surely take intelligence and English language tests. If you get even close to passing either, you don’t get the job. As soon as we arrived at the terminal, we have to get past the greeter. “Where are you going today?” she asked with a smile. And that was the extent of her English. What followed was a series of, what? pardon? JFK? Where? and “Thankyou, join the line over there”. Yes, that’s what we we trying to do. A bit later, I watched Linda order some food at the airport café. Nothing complicated. Just some sandwiches from the large print menu behind the counter. “Sandwiches, all freshly made with lettuce, tomato, dill pickle and fresh mayo”. But the guy serving seemed to have no idea what Linda wanted. A cheese sandwich? A what? This was just minutes after having to explain to another of the staff what a pain au chocolat was. “One of THOSE!!!! The ones with chocolate inside!” Linda said pointing.

BING BONG flight 24 to New York is now boarding at gate 65. You only get the job as an announcer if your voice is totally indecipherable over the PA, so someone has messed up. Maybe they’re new. So you get up, pick up all your bags and walk over to gate 65. But we have to wait while they board the plane backwards. Yeah right, let’s board the people nearest the door first so the whole process takes three times as long as it needs to. That’ll piss ‘em off. They needn’t have bothered. I’m ALREADY pissed off man!! (I’ve got to stop talking like a Californian. It’ll sound silly back home) Finally we’re allowed on the plane. But in the tunnel, a little old lady sprints past us, towing a little wheelie bag which bounces along behind her like a Samsonite branded scotty dog. She is, of course, heading for a seat 3 rows closer to the door than ours, and she manages to pass a couple of other people before reaching the plane. We all wait while she sorts out her scotty bag, and her coat, and a whole load of... “Hey lady, will you just sit the f*** down?” I thought in a angry American accent. Well, I believe that I just thought that. A guy in first class had his “Ferrari Club America” jacket proudly hanging next to his seat. Tosser. Lucky he has a jacket like that. How else would we know how small his dick is otherwise? Maybe Viagra should sponsor the Ferraris in the American LeMans series... Yeah, I’m pissed off, angry, and I’m looking for a fight with someone. I’ve got to find something to lighten my mood, or I’ll arrive in NYC in handcuffs.
As luck would have it, American Airlines provide some humour in the form of the “Sky Mall” magazine. A shopping catalogue of things so completely ridiculous that I’m wondering if it’s real or a joke. Who for example would buy the “Exclusive” Double Decker Pet Stroller. The picture shows a device that looks like a baby’s push chair with two cat baskets instead of the seat. A Siamese cat looks unhappily back at the camera through the bars of each cage. Yours for just $249.95. Cats not included. Or how about the “exclusive”, skid resistant and made in the USA Pet Staircase for just $149.95? Soft on the paws and helps your pet climb on your furniture. Someone must actually get paid to design this stuff!

We’ve flown across snow covered mountains, some of those craggy red barren landscapes that you see in cigarette ads, and vast flat brown plains. It looks like agricultural land, but nothing seems to be growing. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live down there. You must be able to see 5 miles in any direction, only there’s nothing to see. The roads are dead straight. It’d drive me nuts! Right now we have an hour of holding fuel before we have to divert to Dulles. JFK is closed due to wind snow and poor visibility. The sandwiches we bought at San Francisco, have long since been eaten. Quite how they managed to make a cheese sandwich taste of absolutely nothing I don’t know, but it went well with the coffee, which also tasted of absolutely nothing. No longer angry, or amused. Bored. Why are we here!!!! Here, apparently is just west of NY, but looking out of the window we are precisely nowhere. I can see the wing. And everything else is pale grey. We have arrived at nowhere. Those flat plains seem far more interesting now. It seems that they’ve been clearing the snow from the wrong runway at JFK. I guess they take those same tests as the people at San Francisco.

Wooohooo! The wind’s dropped and they’ve re-opened the runway. We’re in the approach sequence! That’s all I managed to type before the captain came back on the tannoy to tell us that the ‘braking action’ isn’t good enough and they’ve closed the runway again. I wonder how they found out? Glad we weren’t first in the sequence. I wonder how much fuel is left.…

Welcome to Pittsburgh! Where the temperature is 24deg F and the wind’s gusting at 30mph. Powdered ice is blowing about the runway. It’s 7 hours since we left San Francisco. I wish we hadn’t.
Dear reader. We’re still in Pittsburgh. 10 and a half hours after leaving San Francisco. News is that JFK is pretty much snowbound with 50mph gusts, but we have the possibility of a wheels up time in the next half hour. It’s chaos here. They let us of the plane, then called us back on. Then allowed us off again, before calling us back on. Then, they gave up and said we were staying put here until morning and they’d put us up for the night. Then immediately said we were going to New York and should return to our seats and buckle up. The AA info guy here at Pittsburgh stomped off in a rage several hours ago after having a row with the flight crew. We’ve had tears, we’ve had joy, People all over the plane are making new friends... We’ve no idea if our Hotel actually exists as directory enquiries can’t give us the number. I found a card that said “Jesus loves us big” but I’m having doubts...

UPDATE: I couldn’t type any more on the plane as my iBook’s battery was running low. Needless to say we made it to New York - arriving in the Hotel some 17 hours after leaving Jeanne and Tony’s house.