Welcome aboard...

...TWA Flight 978 with service to Long Beach, California. My name is Jason and I'll be your captain. In just a few minutes, we'll begin our pushback, but first the ground crew needs to apply de-icer to the exterior of the aircraft. The maple syrup smell is normal for the de-icing procedure.

Okay, that was super geeky, but I just had to do something to introduce post number 978. Actually, the jab about the de-icing procedure and the maple syrup smell would not be normally mentioned by the captain on a commercial flight, but rather by one of the flight attendants. Speaking of flight attendants, how the heck do they maintain the kind of composure that they do? I mean seriously, they look like they've just come out of some sort of a press or something. I don't know about y'all, but I hate being jammed in an airplane. I love flying, but man, do I hate being jammed in one of those small seats. And what's up with the people who fly? I mean, it seems to me that even though flying is pretty much something we take for granted, the folks who do fly are a cut above everyone else. I have met some really interesting ones on planes. I mean, I never meet just some person flying for the crap of it or because it's a trip. No, people who fly have some very serious, intense reason to be there.

Of course, it's always interesting to see what happens when the captain gives the go-ahead for electronic devices. It's like device city all of a sudden! Everyone pulls out the cell phones (despite the fact that I think it's probably less effective to make a cell call from 32,000 ft), and the PDAs, and the microwave ovens, and you name it. It's crazy. You don't see that on a bus, now, do you. Of course, now they're starting to feature Wi-Fi on buses so you can be hacked and still get to work on time.

On airplanes, it is often customary to be served a bag of peanuts and a soda. Okay, that's interesting because the only other time I would really consider having peanuts and soda is when I am watching the Super Bowl, and even then, it usually involves other enhancements like chips and salsa, and Li'l Smokies. So, the airline industry is what's keeping the peanut industry going. I guarantee that if we stop flying, peanuts will cease to be sold. However, if we stop buying peanuts of our own free will and choice, that means that there will be a peanut surplus and we might just get bigger bags of peanuts on the airplane!!! Go for it!

Finally, if you've ever flown more than a couple of times in your life, being a passenger in that big pressurized metal tube becomes a bit less exhilarating. The tops of clouds look exactly the same. The only time it's actually fun to look out the window is when a) there are no clouds and you're flying over a city and b) when you're taking off and landing in clear weather where you can see the city features. Either way, it's looking at the city that's fun. Okay, I'll admit that flying over Japan in the middle of the night was pretty cool, but only because the sky wasn't filled with clouds. That was just a collection of lights; I couldn't really make out any discernible features. So really, the windows in airplanes are non functional for most of a flight. And why the crap can't they ever line up the rows of seats with the windows? I mean, seriously, nothing ticks me off worse than having to look through the window that really should belong to the row in front of me. It's like I'm stealing their window space. The "screen peeking" is, of course, impossible if the seat or half of the airplane next to that window is occupied by anyone under the age of 10. Their little face will be planted firmly in that window for the duration of the flight. This will enhance any desire for you to catch some shuteye during the flight, but will make the job of cleaning and disinfecting that window quite the chore for the ground crew.

Amen.