My Allusion

This has been the most bizarre week ever.  Well, not EVER, but it’s definitely up there.  Here’s the recipe:

Take an airplane landing from hell.  Add in one mid-week “team bonding” drink drunk-fest (combine one 1/2 price wine night with a Great Create-A-Shot Contest).  Mix well.  Toss in a generous helping of  hangover, and another installment of “The only job offer ever arranged by Instant Message”.  Add in about 10 bottles of water and a Gatorade.  You know, to re-hydrate.

Marinate the above in a gallon of Office Drama with a pinch of Big Boss Sets You Up to Throw Your Lead Under A Bus (you can find it in most senior management offices), but only after you throw in a whisper of Wanna Go to the UK Next Month?  Refrigerate for long enough to miss your flight home.

Bake at 350 for five days in a three hour time difference.  Voila!  There you have it.  The only job I know of that is a grown-up version (heh) of every [fond] memory I have of WAZZU.

 I’m just sayin’.

I fly a lot.  Actually that’s an understatement.  To put it in perspective, I’ve flown 54,000 miles since January 1.  Of this year.  In all of the time I’ve been in the air/airport, I’ve seen my share of delays, turbulence, and touchy landings.

Maybe it’s the fatalist attitude one must have when they choose to go into burning buildings for fun, but I’ve never really worried about anything ever happening to me on an airplane (not even when I watched an engine spontaneously combust from my window seat while we were still at the gate).  Or anywhere at all, for that matter.  Until tonight.

As I’m sure many of you have heard, the East Coast is experiencing yet another weather phenomenon.  Growing up in Eastern Washington State, 40-50mph winds don’t really phase me.  Spending the past two years in Seattle, driving rain doesn’t give me pause either.  However, I’ve never had both of those lovely weather events happen at the same time that I (and about 140 other souls) was trying to land in an Airbus A-320 at Dulles airport.

Normally, my favorite part of sitting in the window seat is watching takeoffs and landings.  Maybe it’s my geeky side, but I like to play a game and approximate the time it takes between when I first see runway pavement to the first bump of wheels down.  Tonight, as we made a very wobbly descent through the rain-soaked blackness, all I could think was “I don’t think so, I don’t think so!”….and then we rose back up into the night…..”Whew!  I didn’t think so!”

As we circled the airport for a second try at runway 1R(ight), I actually contemplated my existence.  What if?  Have I accomplished all I’m meant to accomplish?  Before I could truly answer that question for myself, my thoughts turned to the 33 lives that were lost today at Virginia Tech.  Thoughts of those that were students, lives that were cut short before they could start on the journey of adulthood.  Thoughts of those that were professors, dedicated to shape those young minds for years to come.  All so senseless.

As we landed on that second try and cheers went up from the cabin, I was grateful.  Grateful that I could, if nothing else, send my thoughts and prayers to the family and friends that lost a loved one today.  And grateful that I could spend another day getting one step closer to completing my own journey.

 I’ve lurked around blogs of some kind for quite a while now.  Several things have kept me from starting my own, mainly a fear of the unknown, and a stupid thought that there wouldn’t be a soul out there that could possibly want to listen to my random rants and musings.  I really didn’t figure out until recently that what I think of as just part of daily life is pretty out there for some people, and pretty entertaining for others.

I’ve always been a busy person.  In addition to a full time job as a Software Engineer, I’ve supplemented with things like volunteer firefighting, officiating boat races, and pit crewing for a drag race team.  The past two years, I’ve been on about 80% travel for work.  I’m sure you’ll hear all about it in the months to come.

So here goes.  Thanks to the encouragement of one of my best friends, I’ve been at this for less than 24 hours and I already think I’m addicted.  This is not a good sign.

OK.  Take a look up.  A little farther to the image at the top of the page.  Stop.  You are now looking at a picture I took a few weeks ago of Jerusalum from Mount Scopus.  As in Israel. 

 As ironic as it may seem for a semi-Catholic girl (whose father was so scarred by the nuns when he was a boy that he vowed never to force HIS children child to go to chatecism) to have the first stamp in her passport be from the Holy Land, this was an amazing trip. 

When I first heard that work was sending me to Tel Aviv for a week-long business trip, I was a little concerned.  If the all-knowing American press was to be belived (heh), this trip was going to consist of non-stop shuttles between the office and the hotel.  Do not pass “Go”.   Fortunately for us, CNN is not the place to get the scoop on visiting that part of the Middle East.

Everything was amazing.  The accommodations, the people, the food, the country, even the mud was nothing short of wonderful.  Outside of work, we were fortunate enough to squeeze in a day tour of Jerusalem on the front-end of our trip, and stayed over the weekend to visit Masada and the Dead Sea.  On the way home, we did a quick overnight in Frankfurt, Germany.  Who would have thought that the first bar we came across was an Irish Pub full of New Zelanders and American G.I’s singing Karaoke?  Go figure.

Amazingly enough, I was nowhere near ready to come home.  If only they knew how to put ice in drinks.  Forget kissing U.S. soil when I touched down in Chicago.  I headed straight for the airport lounge and an iced soda.

Update:  Pictures are up.  Links to the slideshows for each place we visited above.  Enjoy. -J