Some Plane Facts

I'm back from my trip and will resume regular posting tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are a few observations from my travels:

• On the first leg of yesterday morning's flight, from DFW to Memphis, the flight attendant came on and said, "Our flying time will be one minute and....umm, make that one hour and eight minutes." Laughter ensued, and my own reply was "Really now?"


• On the first leg of yesterday's flight back, from Evansville to Memphis, we were on a small regional turbo-prop plane that many call a "puddle jumper." Their engines say "GE Jet Power" on the side. I've gotten used to this by now, and I'm aware that GE is now a huge multinational corporation that specializes in things like finance, but it was still unsettling the first time that I rode in a plane like this to think that its engines were being built by the same company that made my toaster.


• On the Saturday layover in Memphis, I heard an announcement that elicited more than a few chuckles from some of us in the gate area: "Attention Springfield passengers, I need to see a representative of the Adams family." I'm sure I wasn't the only one who had "Ba-da-da-DUM *snap, snap*" going through my head after that.


• On tonight's layover, I noticed quite a few people having to run like crazy through the airport to make their next flight ("O.J.-ing it," as we used to call it, though that needs clarification on several levels now). It made me wonder if they shouldn't schedule the connecting flights closer to each other, or do they all work on paper and the problems are caused by delays? The funniest airport runner was the girl who ran completely out of her flip-flop and took several attempts to get it back on.

More tomorrow; I've had some subjects sitting in the pipe for a while.