s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Ah, the joys of jet-lag.

I returned to NZ on Friday morning. It is now Monday, and my body is starting to catch up. Adapting to a time differential is easier when the environment is warm and brightly lit, coming back to the cold and dark makes it a good bit more difficult to stay awake.

My final week in the States was good. The “big shindig” (my parents 45th anniversary) went off really well. I got to see family friends that I have not seen in, well, decades.

The trip back to NZ was a bit fraught. First, there is the TSA. If anything represents the creeping fascism in the USA, it is the TSA. They have a casual arrogance and thuggary which is not at all healthy in a democratic society. At least this time they didn’t steal any of my stuff. They did, however, “search” my checked bags. This seems to involve pulling out the carefully packed contents, tossing them with giant salad forks, then pouring them back in. This is very helpful for ensuring that carefully packed fragile and delicate items will be damaged in transit. Thankfully the damage is mostly annoying (bent and damaged book covers), but it exemplifies the whole attitude of “we are the TSA- so you can go $%#& yerself.”

The airlines also added a twist for great customer service. One of the flight attendants was late for work for the Philly-LAX leg on US Air, so nobody was allowed to board the plane until she sauntered in. So now we are a half hour late, which gets us caught in a 90-minute traffic jam on the ground (due to develoing storms west of the airport). Did I mention I had 2 hours to make my transfer to the NZ bound flight? Sprinting from end to end of LAx was quite envigorating. I thought my luggage would not make it, but a 20 minute delay loading the Qantas plane gave it time to transfer.

I was hoping the plane would be empty, as we are in the “off” season for tourists heading to NZ. No such luck, every seat was filled. Why? Christian missionaries. There was a big church group, with evangelical kids from all across the US, off to bible camps in NZ and Australia (plus some limited touring around the Auckland region). I was sitting next to one of the adult leaders. My readings in the last few years have taught me enough about Abrahamic religions that I could have totally ripped his theology, but why bother? A pleasant non-confrontation flight was more to my liking, and he was a nice guy in spite of all his narrow-minded religious views.

Now, I need to get back into the farm-groove. Plenty of projects to do, now if I could only remember what they were!