It’s already Friday, 4 days since I’ve arrived back in Melbourne. I like the sun and maybe the heat is a little crazy, but I can forgive it at the moment. I rather have it hot and sticky than cold and lonely. Spent time with Vyanne and friends. I enjoy the company.

Just slotted right into the time zone, as if I never left Australia. It could also perhaps be the comfort of business class on the flight back from LA to Sydney. I usually spend time writing bits of my trip but they never end up getting posted as there is a whirlwind of activity when I’m back and there’s usually many other interesting things happening in between.

In summary, flying within the US is maddening and flights get delayed/cancelled all the time. I arrived at the airport early on Saturday and the most enthusiastic airline staff checked me in. He noted I had the ‘itinerary from hell’, making so many transitions just to get to one place. As I arrived too early, I managed to get onto an earlier flight to Denver. That was a 3 1/2 hour flight and I just slept through most of it. Got down in Denver and I was so hungry I just went to the first most familiar foodstop I could find. I ended up getting McDonalds, and it was after I swallowed my Big Mac whole did I notice the other shops around the area and started regretting my choice.

Denver Airport

Anyway, I was delayed in Denver as all the planes to LA either arrived late or had one issue after another. I was getting restless but the plane I was supposed to be on finally departed for LA, and it did so 2 hours late. I arrived at LA 30 minutes after my flight to Sydney had left. I was angry and annoyed. I had to stand in line after that for another 2 hours before being able to speak to a customer representative who booked me on the Monday night flight as the Sunday flight was fully booked. Also got some accommodation/food vouchers for my troubles, although I would have gladly traded those in for a seat on the flight back.

Finally got to bed around 4am New York time after checking into the LA Westin Hotel. Had a buffet breakfast the next morning but didn’t eat too much. Didn’t get the chance to look around much as the rain seemed to threatened the whole day through so I just decided to stay in.

I decided to try my luck at the airport, so I arrived early to request to be wait listed. I was turned away twice as again I was too early. LA International airport is rather massive and I had to walk up and down in the rain between buildings just to get things sorted. Heh, only had a cup of crappy coffee to keep me sane.

Finally managed to check in and get to the gate where I waited for the flight. Was anxious as I had managed to get this far but still wasn’t assured of a flight. I was pacing up and down, my shoulders already sore for lugging my hand luggage around since yesterday. About an hour before the flight, my hopes for getting a flight sank as they wanted to offer people the next day’s flight with business class as they had oversold the flight.

I hovered around the airline staff who was allocating the seats and in that short period of time, managed to find out more about airline operations. It’s quite a nightmare of a job and at one point, a flight attendant came back with a boarding pass stub showing a seat that did not exist on the plane! A few more calls and clicks on the computer and another seat had to be allocated.

I was fortunate in the end, as there were 5 other flights coming into LA with passengers on this flight and at 1030pm, when the flight was supposed to fly, 60 people were still trickling in from other domestic flights and rushing to this gate. One of the planes had not arrived and they were bumped, so I managed to get one seat and hastily got myself onto the plane. It was a sigh of relief at that point.

I have never travelled via business class before and it’s quite amazing, how much space you get. I have never slept well on a flight before and this is the first time I managed to do so. No cramped feet of aching backs, just simple sleep. For all the things that went wrong the night before, this turn of events managed to calm me down a little, and I felt pleasant for a bit.

* * *

Anyway, got back into Melbourne without any further drama. Had dinner with friends and proper coffee in the mornings. I’m just happy to be relaxing at the moment, taking my mind off everything else that needs worrying about. Heh, and here are the food pictures that accompany such posts.

Steamed abalone

A proper latte.

Heh, here I am sitting fully clad in my apartment, bags waiting to go.

I think I did a pretty good job this time round of packing and preplanning, as I’ve managed to cram everything into my bag and the weight feels about right, somewhere around 20kgs, based on just lifting my luggage up with both hands.

Hand luggage is still a pain, as my D70, D300 and the attached lens already border around 2.5kgs. As I will be hopping from plane to plane (NY -> Denver -> LA -> Sydney -> Melbourne), I’d rather not have too much stuff to carry. I always have a paranoia with flying, as there are so many things out of your control. The weather for one, as America is notoriously known for flights being delayed/cancelled due to bad weather. Then you have to go through customs, security checkpoints and there are like 101 disagreeable items that you can carry on board. Heh, I’m just thinking I need to survive the next 15 hours and as long as I’m on the plane from LA, hopefully I will be fine. Bought some books to read for the flights, and my DS Lite just in case I need extra entertainment.

* * *

I have been following up a lot on various types of photography. Heh, I realise that I’ve been looking at a lot of photos over the past few years but not paying very much attention. Heh, so 3 years I had a good camera in the D70, and I complain about certain aspects of it. Those complaints are still valid, but rather than complain about it, I should have found ways around it. It just never occurred to me then to check out the Internet for more ideas.

Learning photography is like work. You can either go about it the monotonous tried and true way where you get your shot, it sort of gets the idea and works for you, but it’s not value adding. These days I’ve been evaluating a lot of photos online, looking at shots and wondering how I’d frame the subject, how I’d approach the lighting aspect. I have all these ideas now that I want to try but haven’t had a chance yet. Heh, my pile of lenses are in Melbourne and they offer the flexibility to test these ideas. That and the fact that the sun sets at 845pm allows me more time to catch the rays of light.

The idea is to not revert to one’s comfortable mode of shooting, cause if I did, my photos will look good, just not outstanding. I want to be able to make outstanding photos, and preferably not just through random luck of pressing the shutter button at the right time and place.

* * *

Okay, praying that I make it back in one piece and can post something on Monday Melbourne time.

The winds have alternated and the cold winds of the north have blown south. I experienced a night of -10 degrees Celcius last night. Even at full blast, the heater barely had enough strength to heat up the air beyond a few centimetres. This is due to a slight leak in my apartment’s window and even a small constant stream of cold air was enough to freeze the entire place (a hole which I have since plugged).

Heh, anything below zero is not quite normal for me and while I’m still okay walking around in those temperatures, I’d prefer to just get out of it as quickly as possible. I doubt I’d function very long in these temperatures as I could hardly breathe or feel my body while walking to the station this morning. Heh, things generally break down as I noted that one of the fluorescent lamps in my bathroom takes a while to light up when it gets really cold. A few lights in the subway were not lit as well this morning, and I was delayed to work due to a power problem with one of the trains. Last of all I saw a bus stranded in the middle of the street and cars had to slowly make their way pass the dead vehicle.

I’m not too thrilled with the idea of moving from sub zero temperatures to blazing heat over 30 degrees, not sure my body will take it well after flying halfway across the globe. Heh, will survive it somehow.

* * *

A little more productive with work these days. It’s probably a combination of having the New Year arrive and wanting to shake off all the negative thoughts I’ve been accumulating. Plus also the fact that I’m leaving for 3 weeks and would like to get extra things done. A little disappointed with myself for not being more productive in the prior months in terms of getting my programming projects done. I wasn’t too keen on it before and learning was a chore a while back. Now that I’ve picked up a little more knowledge, it’s easier to wade through code and make sense off it all before writing your own functions and procedures to automate tasks.

I have sort of decided to spend at least an hour a day while on holiday hacking away at some code so that I can sort it out quickly when I’m back at work. I’m not sure how successful I’ll be (or disciplined to do it) but I’m much more comfortable with the programming environment that I’m working with now (Java, and no, it’s not the coffee kind), so hopefully I don’t get frustrated 5 minutes into writing something.

* * *

Heh, done most of my shopping, and again, I can’t shake the bad habit of doing it last minute. I always like to leave my options open when shopping for people, but in the end I realise that if I do it earlier, I don’t have to worry about it just before I leave. The counter argument is that I’m never in the mood to do these things early on. So it’s a dilemma for me.

I will change one habit for tonight by packing early. Heh, want to maximise luggage space on this trip back.