I’m in seat 45B on this 747. In case you don’t fly much, that means that I’m neither at the window nor on the aisle. Despite that, it’s alright. I’m between two small and quiet people, and there’s nary a screaming baby in sight. I’m feeling quite awake, and I’ve had a half liter of Red Bull so far today, with another 250 mL in my bag just in case I start to drift. I think I’m going to be fine, though, getting back into US time.

My flight is at 1600 today, so I’m trying to kill time until I go over to Heathrow. I started by staying up late. I wanted to be up until 0400, but I only made it to 0300. I slept in until around 1000 and then stayed in bed for another hour before getting up and getting out. Checkout was really crazy, so I’m hoping that it doesn’t mean a lot of people are leaving London, at least on my flight. I’m not really hopeful.

I’m sure the OmniOutliner guys read my journal, so I’m going to note some requests here.

We fell horribly behind yesterday, but today we caught up. I think that our coverage of one or two topics will be well below what I wanted, but I think we’ll do alright. I’ve even had time to meet with a few other people with whom I had some business. So, I guess I may color this trip a success. That’s good, because if I had to do all this travelling and miss out on National Hot Dog Day just for a failed set of meetings, I would be pretty irked.

I’ll be brief, since it’s quite late, here.

In late 2002, when hanging out with Matt and Rahm, Cardiff co-workers, I was told that Stella Artois messes you up faster than other beers, and for know clear reason. This is so true. I’ve had two pints tonight, and I feel like I’ve had four bourbons.

I have survived Monday. It is now Tuesday, just barely. I’m not really tired enough to sleep, yet, but I will be soon. I’ve been watching Total Recall, which is really a much better movie the first time than the fifteenth. It’s amusing how someone can be so traumatized by (mild) lack of pressure that his eyes bug out, but seconds later feel just fine. He doesn’t even have bloodshot eyes. That’s my kind of planetary trauma!

I had been using an application called BirthdayCal.app to keep a calendar in iCal updated with the birthdays in my Address Book. I figured this would be a nice application to replace in my attempt to make more non-Free software obsolete. (I know, I know, as long as it requires iCal…)

I forgot how long the days can be, here! Morning twilight begins at 0415 and evening twilight ends at 2205. In Bethlehem it’s 0500 to 2100. I was sitting outside waiting for Godfrey last night, and it was still bright enough to read comfortably. This morning I woke up and saw that it was nearly full daylight. Scrambling to read the clock, I found it was 0500. (I did manage to get back to sleep, thankfully.)

I’m at work, in the UK office. I am the only IT person here. I’m the only IT person in either office: it’s Memorial Day in the states and the spring bank holiday here. There are non-IT people here, but none of the people I need to talk to. I’m trying to do work things, but it’s so hard to concentrate. If I was in the US, I’d be asleep. Later, I’d be eating something suitably Memorial Day-a-licious, like corn and hot dogs. And I’d be hanging out with Gloria, relaxing on the sofa, possibly watching Farscape or Good Eats or something.