On the flight

Is the longest sunset in the world on the afternoon flight between Helsinki and New York? It starts when the plane rises above the ubiquitous cloud covers, and you can just see the red sphere about to disappear behind the western horizon. But once the plane starts heading for JFK, the time seems to nearly freeze, and it seems that it takes forever for the Sun to vanish. It just grows redder and redder and sinks deeper and deeper and colors the cloudtops to a nuclear volcano.

I listen to Finnish pop lyrics, and feel sad. Finnish pop lyrics has a tendency to do that. Not because they’re crap, but because us Finns have always expressed our melancholic view of life in our songs. We don’t sing about how great love is, but how great love was, and now it is gone. We sing about longing and loneliness, and how fleeting happiness is, if you happen to be so lucky to find it. We sing in flat rather than major.

The seat in front of me is broken, because it leans back way more than any other seat. And the guy in front of me is happy about it, and plans to spend the entire flight in as horizontal state as possible. If I bent forward, I could drool on his head. I can barely see the screen of the laptop due to the angle, and the position to type is rather awkward. Of course, I cannot ask him to sit upright, because that’s just something you don’t do in the Finnish culture, so I’ll just tolerate it. (If I was drunk, it would be okay to start a fight. But a small plastic bottle of Chilean white wine is not enough, I’m afraid.) The situation is absurd in a very Finnish way.

Yes, I’m traveling again. This time to sunny California and San Diego, to the NFC Forum standardization meeting. We’re planning a JSPWiki users meeting for Friday, so if you’re around, follow this space for more information.

Update. I arrived. My luggage did not. Wa-hey.




Comments

Horizontal position instead of vertical, I think? But I'm happy you're safely there, although I must say I miss you already.

--Outi, 03-Dec-2006


Oops. Fixed... I miss you too :)

--JanneJalkanen, 03-Dec-2006


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"Main_blogentry_031206_1" last changed on 03-Dec-2006 22:11:26 EET by JanneJalkanen.