Circling the airport

I've been waiting this week. Professionally.

I ordered a new MacBook Pro last Friday, which was, in itself, the culmination of many, many months of dreaming and scheming. Ordinarily, I would spend a couple paragraphs rhapsodizing about what I love about Apple computers: You know, why their Operating System is the best I've ever seen; how unbelievably great their quality is; how the MacBook Pro is, in my opinion, the gold standard for laptops; how I've wanted one for years; yada, yada, yada.

And mind you, I still may, if enough interest is shown. but I'm not here this morning to proselytize. I'm here to share some Genuinely Useful Information.

My job this week has been to monitor FedEx's overseas flights. In between this, I've managed to find time to cover events that resulted in three top-of-page-one stories for the paper I work for, so don't think I've been slacking off. But largely, my hourly routine has consisted of:

1. Check FedEx package tracking website.

2. Check actual location of FedEx cargo flights between Shanghai, Anchorage and/or Memphis.

3. Recheck FedEx package tracking website.

4. Perform the necessary time zone calculations.

5. Sigh in disappointment.

6. Go do something else to take my mind off the fact that my computer still hasn't left China.

7. Repeat.

With that kind of experience under my belt, I am proud to offer you, the reader, the benefit of what I've learned this week. To wit:

1. Shanghai, CN is not in Connecticut — I actually knew this one already, but a surprising amount of people don't. In fact, there's a blog dating back to January 2006 that includes dozens upon dozens of comments from otherwise intelligent and well-read people who were of the opinion that the CN abbreviation stood for Connecticut. In fact, a friend of mine who helped me unlock the intricacies of the FedEx delivery system initially made this same mistake himself, even though he'd had the same model computer ship from the same place three years earlier. Sadly, CN actually means China, or I would have had it by now.

2. Shanghai's airport is so far from the actual city they had to build a land rocket to take people there — To pass the the time, I decided the least I could do was learn a few things about the city where my computer had been born, so I did what any college-educated American would do: I read Wikipedia entries and watched YouTube videos. My favorite of the latter sort is a promotional video of the Pudong International Airport's high-speed maglev train. Basically, this is like the monorail that takes you to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, only it uses magnetic suspension instead of pneumatic tires, and goes 267 miles per hour instead of 30. My favorite part of the video is the train station segments. Apparently, it's someone's job to stand at attention and salute the train as it leaves and arrives.

3. The FAA prefix code for Anchorage airport is amusingly close to the word "Panic" — One of the first things I learned during this interminable wait is that a great circle route between the FedEx hubs in Shanghai and Memphis bisects Anchorage, Alaska almost exactly. Not surprisingly, a lot of cargo planes go through that airport every day. The second thing I learned was that four-letter code identifying the Ted Stevens International Airport is PANC, which I will forever read now as "panic." I'm not sure that you want people planning to fly to your city to think of the word "panic" in any context, but as long as I don't actually have to fly there myself, I don't have a problem with it.

4. FedEx has black hole generators or transporters mounted on all of its aircraft — This is the only explanation for the fact that on at least one occasion, a package arrived 12 hours before it left. Even accounting for the International Date Line, I couldn't reconcile some of the time changes that my poor MacBook has gone through on its journey to me without invoking theoretical physics. I once got a ground crew "In Transit" scan on my package when I know the flight it was supposed to be on was 25,000 feet above the Bering Sea. So the only thing I could come up with was black hole-powered time field generators, or in-flight transporter booths. Of course, it could also be linked to the next, more mundane, explanation (see below).

5. In FedEx speak, "In Transit" doesn't mean it's actually moving — I used to think that "In Transit" meant "in a truck" or "on a plane." No, no. "In Transit," in FedEx parlance, apparently means "between stages." This is the only reason that a package "in transit" would take a full day to go from "arrived at FedEx facility," to "in transit," to "departed FedEx facility." Foreknowledge of this could spare the reader the experience of having his hopes of early delivery crushed like an empty beer can under a biker's boot ("What do you mean 'it just left?' The web site has had it in transit for two days.")

6. FedEx likes their packages to soak up the local atmosphere before sending them on their way — This is the only explanation for the fact that my precious MacBook Pro sat around the Shanghai airport doing nothing for two days, and the Anchorage airport for one day. And don't tell me things like "they're probably very busy," and "your package isn't the only one they have to deliver," or "If you wanted it faster, why didn't you pony up the extra $15 for priority shipping?"

7. I'm lousy at waiting — But you probably caught that by now.

No news is good news

Well, it's been a riotous month here. My wife has returned to work, and next week my daughter goes back to school. I've been busy at work; not to the point of becoming stressed, but to the point of being so tired when I did return home, I lacked the necessary energy to post anything.

And really, there's been nothing new here to speak of. I am still in the process of learning about things that grow. I am walking regularly. I still trying to stay aware of what is around me. In short, I am still trying to appreciate this gift of life.

But there is one new thing. I am learning how to cook.

Now, when I type or say the phrase, "I am learning how to cook," it is always with a twinge of guilt that I do not know how to already. The plain fact is that my mother handled all the cooking duties until I moved out in college. When I was on my own, I either ate low-maintenance stuff like peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (which has long been a staple for me), or "heat-and-eats." I simply did not know how to take separate ingredients and combined them with heat to make a dish, and neither did I care to learn.

When I married, naturally, the cooking duties fell to my wife — duties she accepted more or less gracefully. Like many husbands, I have been greeted with the occasional idea that I could cook something for a change, or even just help prepare the meal. And even more occasionally, I would actually step up to the plate and do so. Say, like once a year. Maybe. If I felt like it.

Three weeks ago, I had a revelation (which I seem to be have a lot of lately). As most of you know, I have long been a devotee of the Canadian power trio Rush — to the point that if you asked me to sum up my musical identity in one artist, I would point to them without hesitation. I have seen them in concert 12 times, own every album they have ever released with the exception of three compilation CDs, and can't go for more than a couple months without listening to them. Simply put, I'm an addict.

One of the many great things about Rush is that their drummer, Neil Peart, is not only one of the greatest rock drummers who's ever lived (and that is not just fanboy blarney), but is a pretty durn good writer to boot. Peart posts regularly to his website in a regular column called "News, Weather & Sports." In it, Neil does much of what I do here, only better — he writes about his life. Since he's highly intelligent, impressively self-effacing for someone who's one of the most talented drummers currently walking planet earth, and possessing of a keen sense of humor, he's a genuine pleasure to read. His web site, www.neilpeart.net, has several interesting side features, including Bubba's Book Club, in which he talks about what's been on his reading table; and a new one — Bubba's Bar 'n Grill.

This second feature tackles another of Neil's passions — cooking. Before Neil learned to cook, he was probably more of a heater than a cooker — much like your humble narrator. The Bar 'n Grill feature of his website tells the story of how he learned to cook (a tale definitely worthy of a read), and offers recipes and general information for other Bubbas who, like him, found themselves in the alien environment of the kitchen at age 40. He waxes eloquently about his successes and disasters in the kitchen, and makes a subtle pitch for other "Bubbas" to get in there and try it for themselves. The website features information about the well-stocked kitchen, and gives a few of his favorite recipes at various skill levels for readers to try.

I don't know if was the way I empathized with Peart's fish-out-of-water approach to cooking, the fact that he was about the same age when he learned to cook that I am now, or what — something about the feature spoke to me in a huge way. And for the second time in as many months, a light bulb went off.

So, in addition to being a budding nature lover and gardener, I am now learning how to cook. After a few false starts of stupidly trying to do everything by myself, I have given myself over to the gentle tutelage of my wife, and am happy to be her personal sous chef. Right now, I'm on basic things like chopping, peeling, measuring and mixing things together. At the moment, I'm happy to just starting putting some basic skills under my belt, and it may be a long time before I "solo" on a dish, but if it is, I won't care too much. I have come to find, like hosts of families already know, that cooking, although work, is also fun, and a great way to spend time with your wife.

So far, as a cooking team, we've had a few successes — like the batch of improvised spinach puffs we made from a pasta sauce that wasn't working. We've also had some "back-to-the-drawing-board" experiences — like the salmon filets we made last night that, although made from a fresh cut of meat, didn't quite taste right when we got through with it. But no matter the outcome, it's been great fun, and I've been kicking myself for the time I lost when I could have been doing this.

Ah, well — live and learn.