Becaus e I'm getting old and don't remember everything

so travelling to Bangalore is a unique opportunity and experience. I've gone through quite an interesting array of thoughts and experiences just over 24 hours into my 2 week trip, and I'd like to not forget them. when it comes down to it, I likely will.... my memory isn't as good as it used to be.

So i'll start off with a little bit of pre-departure.

The plan was that the little girl was going to go up to Auntie Andi's house with Grandma to celebrate June and the imminent arrival of Lauren's cousin. through the morning, we went out for breakfast, went to the playground for a little bit, and stopped at trader joes to pick up some last minute snacks.... and she was supposed to nap somewhere along those lines....

she didn't nap..... "hmm... that's not supposed to happen" as she would mimic one of her favorite tv show personalities, Widget from Wow Wow Wubzy(sp?). so... she ended up coming to the airport with me to see me off... sortof. She fell asleep just as we got the to airport. I got to give her a couple of kisses and I was into the terminal.

I only needed to check in my one bag, but the line was long... and it was all for the same flight. I was moving, as all the desks were being used.

What the heck.... the banners say 2 items of 23kg each. the information from my travel agent said 30kg total.

I realize that I'm the only Chinese or oriental person in line, interesting, but not unexpected I guess.

So... after 20 minutes in that line, I stand in another line for 10 minutes to pay an additional $50 for my overweight luggage. Doesn't matter that I only had a single bag instead of 2. Ding against Emirates there. also ding against them in the fact that they only have a single person doing the next step, and I have to stand there for 10 minutes while one person helps one group in front of me.

next is the security line... it moves, but people are stupid as usual.. I get singled out because I'm wearing loose clothes(my typical shorts, lined sweats on top, t-shirt with a long sleeve shirt on top). I have no metal of any sort, but whatever. this takes about 20 minutes

I got to the airport about 2:00 and finally got down to the terminal about 3:10 for my 3:45 flight. I dash in, grab a sandwhich and a bottle of water(ouch $11.50 or so) and hustle down to the terminal.

I'm in boarding group D, and they start at like K or something.... I guess I am at the relative front of the plane in row 28... first, business, and a small chunk of economy in front of me.

I have a window seat, which means I get to cache a bit of my stuff next to me... i pull out the netbook, 12-cell battery, book, snacks.

I settle down into my seat... and a nice person comes by with a hot towel.... cool!

The seat back in front of me is pretty fancy.... probably about a 7" screen, and ICE thing that pulls out with a keyboard etc on it, a power plug, USB plug.

The selection of entertainment is also impressive... there are lots of movies to watch. After we take off, I take a short nap and then settle into Star Trek... not really impressive on a 7" screen, but the movie is entertaining nonetheless. I doze in and out...

the meal comes... and the veg people are served first, then there apparently is a shortage of veg. that sucks. I'm not veg, but still... how could they run out? where did they think they were going, oklahoma?

the person next to me has some weird type of jitters... he seems like a nice enough guy, and I allow him the usage of the armrest as I have the window to lean towards, but there are some lines I'm willing to draw when it comes to my foot space.

I continue to doze in and out as I'm watching Julia/Julie... not a great movie, but Stanley Tucci is pretty amusing.

I busted out the netbook and watched an ep of Get Smart in there somewhere too. I did meet a couple rather interesting people though... a person that runs an Enterprise Architect firm down in SoCal that does SAP consulting... and the person next to me works for Accenture doing Baan stuff. Met another person that has worked at IBM for 21 years.

The flight lands and we are in Dubai... when it came down to it, 15 hours wasn't so bad. not something I want to do for a weekend, but whatever.

I pile out of the plane an into the dubai airport... its dark outside and the airwalk(or whatever you call it) is pretty cold. The terminal is pretty spectacular, I'll have to take a pic of it on the way back. They have a mini-ish mall there so I walk around a bit... look at some Nokia phones etc.

I finally settle down into a lounge chair, and crack open the netbook... there is wifi!! so I crack open the work laptop, log into VPN and see if I can make a call from the softphone to home.

Bethy answers the home line but it seems the connectivity isn't great... there are long gaps, but it's good to hear her voice.

I mosey down into the checkout area for the connecting flight and finally get seated.. smaller plane, older, not as many amenities... I hope that the seat next to me is open, but alas, no such luck.

I talk to the nice person and apparently he's a consultant that does operational readiness for airport terminals. very nice guy and we chat it up a bit. apparently he fly's quite a bit(surprise) and so he gets his meal before me but is kind enough to wait.

I try to sleep for most of that flight.

I unpile from the plane in Bangalore, then run into some customs problems... apparently they don't like the fact that I've brought two laptops into the country. my work laptop, and the netbook. geez.. would have been nice to know these things from my travel agent.... costs me about $160 to hold onto it during the trip.

That's all for now... next entry will start roughly 4AMon the 10th.