I’m sitting in Terminal A at Orlando Airport and have two hours before boarding. Travel is always such a surreal experience for me but as I’ve aged I’ve noticed there isn’t much excitement for it. I don’t look forward to packing, to the preparation and if for business, find I’m without emotion during the whole event.
Even though I’m an experienced traveler I still get a bit of anxiety on the car rental return. I’m always afraid I’ll not be able to find the return and at worst, go into the wrong car rental return. That has actually happened before at Midway which is a terrible excuse for an airport sitting in a residential neighborhood. The return signage was unclear and I ended up going into Hertz instead of National which was an ordeal.
Thankfully my fearfulness is usually unfounded as most airports have very clear signage. My only complaint about MCO is that there are three terminals and the rental return sign had us in the middle lane of a six lane highway then you suddenly need to get over three lanes almost immediately. That would be rather difficult with so many tourists coming to see the Mouse. The airport announcement welcomes us and lets us know that millions of tourists come every year which is a staggering number. How many of those tourists miss that car rental return due to less than ideal signage placement?
As I sit in the airport I see so much humanity. So many people coming from all over to see an entire world based on make believe which started from a simple animation of a mouse. As I get older I start to realize how strange this world is. I walk past stalls selling everything from trinkets of cute vermin to fake hair, to sugary and unhealthy food. So much humanity eating, drinking, crapping, looking for diversion based on talking rodents. Many of these people will spend Sunday then worshiping an all seeing divinity, go to the shooting range, then, being Florida, advocate for the expulsion of immigrants and war with Canada.
What a strange world we live in.
Travel gets me out of my shell, out of my bubble, where my life flies by in a blur and I age. It isn’t like my younger days when each chapter of my life was vastly different. Now, I blink and my children are 5 years older, I probably have to contend with a life changing layoff and in the current political environment, worry about war, not for myself but for my children. I then devise plans to ensure they don’t need to fight for some oligarch’s random whims and get discouraged as it seems so much in terms of geopolitics is changing.
As I look up life seems normal as a group of women that appears to be a sports team as they’re all wearing the letter “C” passes by. Does it stand for Canada and did they vote for the person that is currently threatening our peaceful neighbor? People pass by in their t-shirts, jeans, sneakers and baseball caps noshing snacks, or going to or from an overly priced airport meal looking very content. Did they vote for the current leader of the USA? Do they own guns and want to shoot things? Some pass by in shirts depicting all the Disney characters and carrying plastic light sabers. Did they vote to alienate our allies, eliminate hard working people’s jobs and cause a complete cluster on the international scene? I don’t know but I hope their meal of steak tacos were tasty as they’ve voted to expel the immigrants who brought such incredible food.
This is my mindset these days. I have a very strong desire to move to the countryside of Japan and engage only in exercise, karate and meditation.
I should mention another experience here at MCO. My backpack got set aside at TSA which I was afraid might happen here, but not in San Francisco. As I’ve moved to self hosting everything I have to think about backups and some backups off site should the house burn down. That’s how careful I am with the data. So I have three external drives of 8TB. These are EXPENSIVE but I need to keep the off site backups current so it was necessary. I got through Oakland airport without a problem but here in Florida it had to be checked. Thankfully the TSA agent just had a look and let me be on my way. If he wouldn’t have let me, I’d have been extremely put out as those drives are $400 each and some unencrypted therefore, I don’t want them to just be thrown in the trash.
Well, that will do for now. Need to take care of a bit of work before the flight.
I’ve finished the messages I need to get out and still have an hour before boarding. Here at midlife I am cognizant of how fast time passes. When young, an hour of waiting would have seemed like an eternity. Now, it seems no longer than 10 minutes and I can do practically anything, even nothing to make that time pass quickly. To begin for this waiting period, I’ll just write, even though I have nothing specific to write about.
I have to say the feeling of numbness is slowly lifting. I really enjoyed seeing my customers and we all had a wonderful time. But outside the actual meeting I was numb. I was numb driving, numb sitting in my hotel with no desire to go out, numb getting to the airport except for a little anxiety on the car rental return. But since I’m going to Ohio I’m starting to feel pretty happy. I suppose personal trips are much different than business trips even though I try to get myself excited, through a mindset shift for the business trips.
It is a bit odd to be going to Ohio when my family is sitting at home in California. Normally, I’d go back to Columbus when my family is in Japan, or with them for Thanksgiving. But I thought since I’m in this “part of the country” I should take the opportunity to drop by. I’m doing very well on my face to face meeting number so I can take a few days to work from Ohio.
I’m fortunate to have been to so many places in my life already I really do not excite easily, nor do I really care to see whatever attraction there is unless it is something historical which I do enjoy. Being here in Florida I think not of animated vermin, but of the Spanish searching for the Fountain of Youth and discovering this whole place is a swamp. It is now a highly developed swamp compete with asphalt as far as the eye can see but for the Spanish, it must not have been more than mosquitos, alligators and misery. No Aztec empire here.
Looking down from the plane I’m always amazed at how people are EVERYWHERE and how much development has occurred over the past 300 years. People multiply at incredible rate and one group pushes out another just like bugs. We consume and generate huge amounts of trash. Looking down from the plane I wonder what goes on in all those cities, downs and desolate isolated places. Aside from a bit of American history it is much of the same I imagine and there should be a McDonalds somewhere, just like everywhere else. It reminds me of a meme comparing Europe with the USA where in Europe you can see Roman ruins, castles, cathedrals and so much history which is the origin of who we are in the ‘west’ today. Unfortunately, there aren’t any marble pillars holding up temples dedicated so some ancient goddess here. Instead you’re going to have a podunk church, a McDonalds and a Walmart in a strip mall nearest you. From the pictures, I see the beaches are very nice where you can run across an extremely sunburnt, overweight men with beer in hand and sports sunglasses resting on a backwards baseball cap.
Boy am I negative today! Must have something to do with alienating international allies, wanting to war with Canada and the thought that our democracy is on life support. Even though these shocking things are happening, plastic Storm Trooper helmets are still being sold, girls are dressing as princesses and I’ve even seen a Moana shirt or two worn by people who most likely voted to deport anyone who looks like Moana. Can you blame me for being pessimistic?
In fact, I’m a bit concerned that if things continue as they are I should take this blog off the internet. As i look up a man in a red baseball cap with JESUS prominently displayed walks past. I wonder, who would Jesus deport? The way things are going it might be safer to take my journal offline. How sad and depressing is that, that we’re at the point where we cannot even express ourselves due to fear of retribution, from our own countrymen??
These certainly are weird times we’re living in.
Anyway, I’ll go back home and look forward to sitting on the porch, having some glasses of wine, then taking a very refreshing steam shower which my sister has at her house.
Look at that, I now only have 50 minutes until boarding. I look over at the gate and see my ‘people’ with OSU t-shirts and wouldn’t you know it? Mr. JESUS cap is also sitting at the Columbus gate. Jesus saves, but hopefully not Michigan.
OK, that is enough out of me. I’ll put away my laptop, charger, go take a piss and then it will be time to go.
