Thursday, May 25, 2006

A Trip To Florida for the Golden Year

A vacation for some means no blogging. For this vacation, I've got plenty of post Early Bird dinner time to blog and blog some more.

Yesterday morning, I flew to Florida for a vacation with the pretense of a Memorial Day weekend 50th anniversary celebration (The Golden Anniversary, if you didn't know.) 50 years is a long time.

I had an 8 AM flight and decided to put the ride in the hands of my father. I'm not sure if I was trying to give him a chance to surprise me or to completely fail me so I could berate as per usual. The last time he took me to the airport, a different airport, he passed it. We ended up on Queens Blvd and he dropped me off 18 minutes before my flight was takeoff. I somehow cut an entire X-ray line of New Yorkers and made the flight. No thanks to my sister's father.

So back to today's fight. I tell this man not to dare call me before 6:15, no matter what time he gets to my house. Of course, he calls at 5:00 before he leaves his house. I ask him to bring me one bagel, toasted with butter, since there are no places to stop on the way to the airport and we were already going to be close. He arrives with 3 bagels, one was cinnamon raisin. His response to his ineptitude, " I can't do that." The man doesn't have the ability to ask for toasting but knew to call me and tell me to bring butter.

He doesn't arrive till 6:30 with my untoasted bagel. So it took him an hour and a half to get 15 minutes of driving length at maximum and to stop for th bagels on the way. Further proof that he can not accept any time restrictions. If this was his flight, he'd be bitching like a school girl if it took me an hour and half to get this far.

My sister gets to the gate about 3 minutes before boarding. We board. In the pre flight address, Captain Carl told the maligned morning flyers in a Southern drawl that we should "please play close attention for some very important pre flight belt tightening instructions. THe FAA does not believe anyone in this plane has been in a car since the 50's.

After a speedy 2 hr plus flight, featuring some orange juice, mini muffins, and my rowmates multiple gin and tonics, we were at the Daytona Beach airport and its five gates. (THe flight was on time, no delays out of Newark Liberty Airport is a miracle in itself.)

Look out to your left and you can see the beauty and the awe inspiring greatness of Daytona International Speedway. I love Nascar as much I like sleeping on top of a bed of cactus in my RV.

I spent most of the flight reading the humrous book "Company" by Max Barry. The story of a young man who works for a corporation but goes to great lengths to actually figure out what their business is. It's part Office Space and part 1984. Very funny. Will make a good movie eventually.

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