rant is where the heart is

diaryland: sirilyan.diaryland.com: entry for 2001-04-11 (19:51:00)
In which our plucky young hero is full and upright.

These are the notes I took in my Palm IIIxe during the flight from Saskatoon to Minneapolis. If you're wondering why there are sentence fragments, this is why. I don't normally write. Like this.

4/3/01 6:33 am
Northwest flight 318, awaiting runway clearance.

By now I'm a veteran of these international flights. Sheppard. Passport, right here. One carryon. Nope, nobody's asked me to carry anything. Gate C5, 5:45, thanks. You have a good flight t-- er, thanks. Here's my pass. Sure, I can turn it on. Jussasec, change to empty. Is this going on my frequent flyer card? Cool.

Had a Harper's to pass the time, with an article by David Foster Wallace. He, too, loves him some prepositions at the end of a sentence. I feel warmed by this.

6:39 am Oops, engines powering up. 9 mins late = on time. Welcome to Airline Logic Land.

Because I'm flying to the states, I must fill out a form 6059B, customs declaration. I must specify the US address where I will be staying, presumably not to be able to funnel foreign nationals to internment camps in the wake of a presidential declaration of martial law, but One Never Knows.

On the back of the form 6059B:

"Paperwork Reduction Act notice: the information collected on this form is needed to carry out the Customs, Agriculture, and Currency laws of the United States. We need it to insure that travelers are complying with these laws and to allow us to figure and collect the right amount of duty and taxes. Your response is mandatory. The estimated average burden associated with this collection of information is 3 minutes per respondent or recordkeeper depending on individual circumstances. Comments concerning the accuracy of this burden estimate and suggestions for reducing this burden should be directed to U.S. Customs Service, Information Services Group, Washington, D.C. 20229. DO NOT send completed form(s) to this office."

Remember, this paragraph was mandated by the Paperwork Reduction Act.

Soon, I'll be in Minneapolis, home of Dack and Lileks. Also Ventura, though I'm told they downplay that now. I wonder if they still sell Governor Jesse action figures in the airport ("now with unicameral legislative action!").

4/3/01 10:00 am
msp gate g11

I wonder if I flew over Lileks's house.

I am convinced Airport CNN sucks the very living brain out the ears.

Saw some tall kinda boxlike things through the clouds, coming in to MSP. Could be that one of them was the Norwest Tower, but it's equally likely that they were giant lego bricks, part of the Twin Cities Godzilla Defense Initiative: giant monster arrives, giant monster sees 2200-foot stack of legos, city is saved as monster builds boats and planes until, bored and sated, it goes back to Tokyo.

Which, having no legos, gets utterly destroyed.

Lego Saves Lives, kids, and don't you forget it.

4/3/01 12:28 pm

I touch American soil.

Concrete.

Whatever.

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