Planes, trains, and automobiles

[Ed. note: this post is from paper notes.]

I do not like to fly.

Between the privacy-invading TSA, the inefficient and false security, the piped stale air on the equipment itself, the notion that you're on something no more glamorous than a flying bus, the financial investment of a ticket, my physiological responses to flying in my ears and sinuses, and the raw dehumanizing fact of commercial air, the whole experience just rubs me the wrong way.

Between AUS and IAH, I rode on an decently sized three-and-three jet. Modern enough, too- there's a Verizon phone in the middle seat, and we were treated to a little video presentation on fold-down LCD monitors of the "sit down and shut up" flight prep speech. Notably, Continental Airlines' CEO and flight literature refer to all of the human sheep as "customers" instead of "passengers." Welcome, however, is the constant GPS updates on the little screen as to heading, altitude, flight time, and weather superimposed on various map projections. Very nifty.

I had less than an hour's layover in Houston, and naturally needed to go almost to the other side of the terminal to reach my connecting gate. Landed at E, need to get to B. To make this voyage more sci-fi, I got to ride the little monorail (aka "train") between terminals. When I got to my terminal and started towards my gate, I heard them announcing my flight. So suddenly I find myself in a movie where the character needs to get to the plane and runs at a half-jog instead of a full-out gallop. (Think the opening sequence of Jackie Brown.) When I reach my gate (again, at the end of the terminal), what do I see awaiting me?

A bus.

A bus to drive me to my tiny little plane.

The short puddle jump from Austin to Houston - about a half hour in the air - was on a real plane. Now I find the longer puddle jump from Houston to New Orleans - about an hour in the air - is on a tiny little baby plane. Not as eensy as a Cessna, mind you, but a small little jet that I at first mistook for a private plane. Continental has a whole flock of these little "express" planes with fifty seats in them- two on one side, and one seat on the other.

One stewardess, limited drinks service, and a nice chatty single-serving friend who relocated to Bisbee, Arizona (a town of about five thousand near Tombstone), who had yet to return to the city to see the damage. She says she lived near City Park, so who knows. I tried to help her brace for some of the sights she's encounter.

What's really different about the city? The sounds and smells of a city without industry, lying supine with a mortal wound.