This Year is Going To Be Way Better Than Last Year…

Some day. Some day.

Wow, it’s 2014. A year when I thought I would probably be stroking my long white beard while my hovership is driven around by my robot butler. Sadly those awesome things haven’t come to fruition yet. Although I have noticed some white in my whiskers so maybe a long white beard is in my future. (Then I will be only one step from being a Kung FU master; granted it’s the bigger of the two steps: learn Kung Fu.)

As is common among the people of Earth, I like to make resolutions at this time of year. Resolutions to start this year fresh, to make this year different, to become a better man, to really go after it, to fix everything that’s wrong with me and the world, stop eating junk food, quit drinking alcohol and  finally get those six-pack abs. Sure there is a good chance that I will find myself in March, staring down in a bourbon haze at my flabby belly, covered in Joe Joe crumbs, making my navel talk with my hands; but it’s the potential for change that makes me hopeful that each year will be better.

Have you tried these cookies? Don’t. They are highly addictive.

This year is no different! I have huge plans! I may not be flying around in a hover car at the end of 2014, but I will be consistent and prolific with this blog thing I started and pay a monthly fee on. I am going to find a purpose for it, an audience and a regular schedule where I write a new entry every week (okay bi-weekly…I mean at least once a month I will write something in this blog) detailing my adventures in the sky, at the airport and any tangential thoughts or experiences that comes to mind. I feel like to get a fresh start on Marc’s Terminal Illness, I have to clear out all the ideas that I meant to write about in 2013 but didn’t.

I will start on the six-pack tomorrow.

There are some really good ideas here, that would’ve made awesome blog entries; complete with interesting pictures and humorous captions with some random clips of movies from the 80’s. But alas, I must clean out the attic and make room for more material. So below I have listed in no particular order, the top ten blog posts that never were from the last quarter of 2013. (Of course I reserve the right to go back and expand on any one of these topics, if in my effort  to be prolific,  I can’t think of anything to write about.)

1. Ireland: I went to Ireland with a good friend of mine and traveled half of the country. One of the main reasons to work for the airlines is to travel for cheap. I really wanted to write a ten page blog about all my adventures. But I got overwhelmed with the idea and didn’t write anything. I am still reserving the right to write about different aspects of this trip. All I will say is that I was told by an Irish man in a dance club, “You are a legend!” After doing a jig with him.

2. Me and Sean Penn had a moment: Flying out of LA you see a fair amount of celebrities. It is still a rare occasion when you have somebody on your flight who is universally recognized. Back in October, I had Oscar winner,  Mr. Sean Penn in first class. When I found out, I immediately Googled Spicoli references to work into my announcements.  Through my research I also found that he made his first appearance on “Little House On the Prairie.”

I didn’t get any Spicoli references into the announcements but I did get a nod and a thank you with ( eye contact!) as he exited the plane.  I felt pretty cool for the rest of the day. I also was able to resist the urge to tell him I once stalked him around the Denver airport during a three hour airport break. I didn’t want to make things weird.

Sometimes Mr. T be talking some sense.

3. The Ultimate Verbal Slap Down By A Passenger To A Passenger: If you hang around an airport much, there is no end to people complaining. Of course, it is often warranted, but many times people complain about things that are too massive and bureaucratic  and immovable to change. Usually these people whine and complain about something that everyone around them is experiencing too, so by them being loud and whiny, they are basically adult-sized babies; making the world a more annoying place for everyone.

On one recent occasion, I witnessed  the magnificent moment when a man with bigger cojones than myself,  verbally               slapped down a complaining woman in her fifties. She was yelling to a crowd of waiting passengers, “What’s going on here? This is taking way too long! I am an important person and I have somewhere I need to be. Where is the boss? What is wrong with the world? Whine whine whine, blah blah blah…”

When the hero turned to her and said. “Hey lady, why don’t you shut the f#@k up?”

The startled look on her face was priceless, her lip quivered with surprise and exasperation, “Well why should I?” The man gave her the best and most honest answer that I can think of; and one that she needed to hear. In a completely calm and resolute voice he answered,

“Because you’re a dumb b#%$! and no one wants to hear you complain.” She simply turned her head and went, “Oh I see.” And shut up for the next twenty minutes. Like she suddenly realized, “I guess that’s true. I am a little whiny and no one does want to hear my complain.” Now granted, that man was a little uncouth and abrasive and in certain company he wouldn’t be welcome, but on that day everybody was thinking what he said. I wanted to give him a medal.

R.I.P you handsome S.O.B.

4. Paul Walker Smiled at My Girlfriend and Now he’s Dead: Paul Walker was walking through the airport and smiled at my now ex-girlfriend. He is now dead and the girlfriend and I are broken up. Coincidence? I don’t know. I do know that she had a huge crush on him that made me jealous. All I am saying is that you can’t have it all. You can’t be rich, famous, good looking, and go around smiling at people’s girlfriends without making some enemies. Did I kill Paul Walker? Not according to the final coroner’s report. It had more to do with the fiery car crash. But if there is anything to energy manipulation (see Reiki below), than my negative thought bullets might have had something to do with it.

5. Drunk Man on Airplane Leaves it All Behind: I had a man so drunk on my air plane recently that he remained passed out long after everyone else got off the airplane. apparently he had snuck his own bottle on. When the flight attendants finally roused him, he ran down the aisle, with his arms outstretched like an airplane. He insisted his iPhone was actually my iPhone no matter how persistent I was for him to take it. He also left his carry-on bag behind. He really was so bad off that I had to wonder if he actually might be some super spy, drugged by a nefarious organization and put on the airplane to get him off their trail. That is possibly the only explanation.

6. You Outta Know: I can’t remember exactly when, but it was sometime in the fall (around the Sean Penn sighting) but Alanis Morissette was on my flight. I looked over my shoulder as the people were boarding and I made eye contact with the still lovely singer sitting in frist class. “Holy s#&^, Alanis Morrisette is sitting in first class!” I exclaimed to no one in particular. I wanted to tell her how much guilt she made me feel for breaking up with my high school girlfriend with her, “You Outta Know” song. I also wanted to tell her that I had to see a therapist because the guilt was mixed with a deep crush on Alanis Morrisette and I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. I also wanted to ask her to marry me.

I told her none of those things, but I did work into my announcements some references to her popular songs in code, so I think she knows I love her. She was very nice and even took picture with my flight attendant; which now hangs in a candle-lit shrine to Alanis (in the dedicated bedroom in my one bedroom apartment).

It’s in another language, but I am already entranced.

7. Handle Bar Mustache Comes to an Ignominious End: Last year I grew an amazing handlebar mustache, if I do say so myself. You can read about the growth right here: http://wp.me/p2LvAx-5i. I had the beautiful lip warmer for about six months. I still think it was my greatest accomplishment of 2013. Apparently the chief pilot got wind and didn’t like it. Not one bit. He told me I need to cut it within standards. Well I would just as soon put a bird down than cut it’s wings (just for the record I really don’t want to put down any birds or cut any wings). So I shaved it off completely. It actually worked out okay. It was starting to get in my mouth when I ate. How does Sam Elliot do it?

8. Having My Energy Aligned on an Overnight: As an aircrew member, most overnights happen relatively uneventfully. You eat some dinner; maybe workout.; watch some cable and go to bed. Every once in a while something happens that would make an interesting segment in a movie.  On one such overnight at the end of November, I had my energy manipulated through Reiki by my captain.

It happened on a 36 hour layover, where the whole flight crew (two pilots, one of them being me, and two flight attendants) had been unwinding with a couple of beers and good conversation. I mentioned something about my back hurting from sitting all day and an old injury. The other pilot, the captain ( a large gregarious man, with many interests including languages, other cultures, theology and philosophy and is a blast to fly with) volunteers that he also studies alternative healing and is a practitioner of Reiki.

With much cajoling, that’s how I found myself, facedown in a hotel bed, exhausted from a long day, hazy with a couple of beers, and a large man standing over me manipulating my energy with loud breathing while two other people watched. It was the closest that I want to get to prison (but in a good way (what’s the good way?)) and definitely one of those moments that I had the distinct thought, “Well, how did I get here?”

The Emperor Palpatine used Reike for evil.

What is Reiki? I really don’t know or understand it. It has to do with an Eastern medicine idea that you can manipulate a persons energy without touching them. You could probably find a better understanding here: http://reiki.org/reikinews/whatislg.html. Before you dismiss it as totally wacko, apparently there are a lot of people throughout the world that can attest to its effectiveness. Did it work? I don’t know. But it’s something that everyone should try once, just for the weird factor.

9. Baseball Playoffs at 30,000 ft: The only sport I really have any stake in, is Major League Baseball. Which makes me kind of a outcast because the general population finds it the most boring of the pro-sports. More specifically, I am a St. Louis Cardinal’s fan, which is weird because I grew up in Washington state (my parent’s are from St. Louis and I come from a long line of Cardinal’s fans.) So when the baseball playoffs roll around, and the Cards are in it, there is no where I would rather be than plopped in front of big screen, watching the game.

Unfortunately, this year I was flying for a majority of the playoff games so I spent a lot of them wearing my Cards jersey in the cockpit, trying to find the score on AM radio stations up and down the west coast. Listening to the game on the radio gave me a glimpse of what it was like to be a fan in the 30’s and 40’s. There is a lot of downside, like you can’t actually see anything happening. The upside is that you can imagine the players are actually giant lizard men, which for the people who find the game boring, can make it ten times more entertaining.

Oh kids, isn’t it grand? Can you imagine anything better than a box that transmits sound? It’s like we are actually there…except we’re blind.

New and more obtainable New Year’s Resolution: Drink enough Crown Royal to make clothes out of it.

10. (?) Well this one is a cop-out but it is already the middle of the month and I haven’t finished the first blog post of 2014! I have a bunch of ideas left over so in an effort to stick to my resolution at the beginning of this post (and to keep this under 2500 words) I am going to be satisfied and leave it blank. Time to go work on my abs. and fixing the world..Hmmm that bottle of Crown Royal looks pretty good and those Joe Joes look delicious…