Happy Father’s Day! Today has been what the kids call a “Long Day.” The wedding this morning was fantastic, with a huge group of loving family and friends from many aspects and phases of their lives, heartfelt vows and ceremonies, and both grooms wearing ear-to-ear grins the entire time. It was very sweet, loving and happy, and was an excellent way to spend six hours.
Since then, however, there’s been a bit more to handle. My flight from Sacramento to LA, originally scheduled to leave around 8, got pushed back more than an hour, causing several of the people on the plane to miss their connecting flights. My 10 pm – 2 am layover in LA, which originally was pretty annoying, all of a sudden made me the calmest kid around, because even with all of the delays (apparently the auxiliary power was out, and they needed a jump on the engine… this didn’t exact inspire the utmost confidence, but here I am to tell the tale), I made it in plenty of time. Getting around LAX was a pleasure, as always, with one employee advising me to trek down to terminal 4 (from 8), only to discover that no one in Terminal 4 had heard of Copa Airlines. It was with the advice of a good-natured Customs agent, extremely reminiscent of Richard Riehle’s character in Office Space, that I was able to backtrack and find the correct terminal.
Tom Smykowsky, the luckiest man alive
Not to continue with the Fight Club theme, but I’ve found a new hobby in trying to make as many < 5 minute connections as possible. I met a music teacher from Tuscan on the first flight, and a surfer dad visiting his Peruvian girlfriend here in LAX, as I sit sipping a beer and munching on a sandwich in the International Terminal that reminds me of my 2006 trip to Israel. Even the zaftig Customs agent, the misleading security guard, the “What is Copa?” baggage claim worker, and the 20-something girls who figured out I was overhearing their conversation when I started laughing about one girl’s claim that she wasn’t afraid of flying so much as “being unable to swim if the plane crashes into the ocean,” for some reason stick in my mind, though I will no doubt never see any of them again.
Currently reading: The Stolen Season by David Lamb. One of the better descriptions of Minor League Baseball, this book seems like a crossover of On the Road and Finding Buck McHenry, describing a reporter’s travels through the country, learning and studying the Minors and the odd, quasi-communities that build up around them. A must-read for baseball fanatics.
Aw, my Danny boy is studying up for our show!