I am five years old.

Our Fargo trip finally happened today. Sat on the plane next to the founder/chairman, the president, and the head of transportation on the way back. We were, appropriately, watching Fargo on the TV's. Most of the development department was in the back with the leasing guy having some sort of meeting about a project I'm not really involved in. I sat next to them on the way out, so I didn't feel bad sitting up front on the way back. (Not that there was room in back, anyway.)

The president of the company asked if I wanted to sit in the rumble seat (which is located halfway inside the cockpit) when we landed. Of course I said yes.

I spent the last twenty minutes or so inside the cockpit figuring out what all the dials and switches do. I talked with the pilot and copilot about what was going on. I asked if Microsoft Flight Simulator is very realistic. It is.

Watching a plane land from inside the cockpit is just about the coolest thing you can see on an airplane. I don't even know if I can adequately describe what it looks like. Imagine the end of a mission in "Top Gun" for the NES, but about a billion times cooler. You're coming toward the runway, you can tell that there's some wind because you're drifting a bit from side to side. There's some yaw, but not too much. You've basically got the computer making sure you're all lined up and you've got to watch the throttle. The computer starts telling you your altitude.

I've been thinking a lot lately about getting a pilot's license. Probably not for a jet, but for a small plane. I don't think I'll ever be able to get April to go up with me, however.

What's that smell?

The wife is hungover today. Like Ryan: November 1st, 2002 hungover. Bad news.

She's slept pretty much the entire day, although she's kind of moving now. Poor kid.

The Ryan Horror Picture Show

We're prepping for a derby-Halloween party. April can't decide what she's going to wear. At a different party last night she went as a Stepford wife. Today she's freaking about either going as a zombie Stepford wife, Enid, or zombie Amelia Earhart. I'm going as Zombie Elvis, M.D. I think I can run this for a few years: Samurai Elvis: Attorney at Law, Father Elvis: D.D.S, Senior Vice President of Organic Meats: Lt. Commander Elvis.

This is probably the most comfortable costume I've ever worn. Scrubs are magnificent. I also bought a lab coat and made a fake hospital ID badge, which I laminated at Kinkos. Good times.

At least I get an hour of sleep back tonight.

Almost forgot

I meant to post this on Thursday, but it slipped my mind until a Casino Royale trailer showed up on TV.

While in Tennessee earlier this week, my travel companions consisted of a guy with a Walt Disney mustache who sounded like Wallace Shawn, and a guy from England who looks EXACTLY like Daniel Craig. Just thought you might like to know.

I'm a party animal.

Last night, I went to sleep at 6:30 PM. My sister's boyfriend called me at 10. I didn't pick up, but I assume it had something to do with baseball.

.....Or not.

We took off this morning promptly at 9 (Private jets are the best. You show up at the tarmac ten minutes before takeoff and just hop on the plane. No lines, no security. Just travel.)

At 12,500 feet, we weren't able to pressurize the cabin. Apparently this becomes important around 13,500 feet. We ended up landing about 45 minutes after takeoff and had to reschedule the trip for a little more than two weeks from now while they made repairs to the plane.

Still taking another trip tomorrow. Just got back from Walgreens where I purchased tiny versions (less than 3 ounces) of all my toiletries so that I wouldn't have to check a bag. This is nowhere near as fun as the private jet.

Come Fly With Me....

In the next 72 hours, I will travel 2,630 miles by air. Not one of these miles will be on my preferred airline, so I won't get to accumulate any frequent flier miles. (I have a frequent flier account with every major airline in the United States, so I will actually accumulate miles, but not those of my preferred carrier: American Airlines.)

Normally, I'd be slightly disappointed about this. Not today.

Tomorrow's flight (3 legs, 1,694 miles) will be on a Gulfstream G5, the $46,000,000 private aircraft of the company founder. (Bonus: He's coming along.) Taking the plane is cool enough; facetime with the company bigwigs is gravy.

I'll happily give up the opportunity to earn miles for both experiences.

Wednesday's flight is commercial: 2 legs, 468 miles. It's on US Air, so I won't get any AA miles. But since I just found out about it today, and we're flying from one small market to another, the ticket was $800. This is good because I put it on my American Airlines credit card, so I'll actually get 800 miles for purchasing it, just not for flying it. We fly back Thursday.

Extra bonus: everyone on the Wednesday/Thursday trip is staying at the Hilton. By the time I was invited along, it was sold out, so I'm staying at a Marriott down the street (my preferred hotel) where I'll get to accumulate Marriott points.

All of this eventually adds up to free vacations, which is obviously a good thing.

Rental Car Goodness

Rented a car this week when I was in Madison on business. The guy at the counter was really excited because he had a Malibu to rent me. "My favorite car in the lot" he told me. I smiled politely and took the keys.

I hate American cars. Specifically, I hate American design, American engineering, and American construction. About the only thing I like about American cars is that they're cheap to repair. Which is a good thing, because, as I mentioned earlier, they're designed, engineered, and manufactured in America.

The Malibu Maxx (I guess you could call it a wagon, or a hatchback. It's schizophrenia in car form) didn't suck as bad as I was expecting it to. Granted, it only had 6,000 miles on it, so it won't start falling apart for a few more weeks. I liked the remote startup feature. Didn't start the car once while I was sitting in it over the course of three days. Will definitely look for something like that in my next car. Liked the auto-stick feature (wherein you can control when the car shifts gears, without a clutch pedal) but I will never buy a car with this feature. Why? After twenty minutes, the smell of burning car parts begin to fill the cabin. I remarked to my clueless (and much older, boring, lame) coworker that "someone must be burning some tires or something" before switching back to regular automatic mode because he would very much disapprove of me setting the car on fire.

I drove the hell out of the car. Floored it everywhere we went. Redlined it as frequently as possible. Randomly turned off traction control in the middle of hard accelerations. Slammed on the brakes. In three days, we used a half a tank of gas. The thing really surprised me the mileage it was getting with the way I was driving it.

All in all, would I buy one? Hell no. Would I rent one again? Hell yes.

Holy shit!

The flute started at $13,000. Final sale price: $40,000.

Formatting photos and text.

I give up on blogger.

I'm going to lose The Inner Fight

Good news: Star Trek auction started today. Bad news: Too many rich geeks.

Case in point: Captain Picard's Enterprise E Chair.

Projected to go for up to $9,000. Final sale price: $52,000.

This doesn't bode well for my Ressikan flute dreams, despite my bidding over twice the projected high.

It's a good thing I didn't put in a bid for Worf's baldric sash. I couldn't handle double disappointment.

Stir it up.

Is it wrong to use Blogger to stir shit up for no good reason? I think not.

April secretly likes beating me up, and I've now given her two good reasons to today.

I should get out more.

At last nights roller derby awards banquet, I saw enough nipples and hot lesbian action that I was beginning to think I was at the AVN awards. Apparently this isn't all that unusual at these OHRG functions, of which I have been invited to several, but haven't gone to any (outside of the bouts.) This will change. April will hit me now. Good times.

Dear God.

I should hook up a breathalyzer to my computer to allow me access to Blogger.

I am equal parts amused and embarrassed.