Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The Stars at Night Are Big and Bright

We'll ignore, for now, the self-conscious ramblings and celebrations of a former blogger coming back to the fold. Rather, let's dive in:

I'm in San Antonio for a conference pertaining to PAWS reading and writing. I'll spare you the details in lieu of an update about the trip so far.

Due to a communication breakdown with the corporate travel agent, I'd been upgraded to first class on the flight from Denver to San Antonio. Now, that's a little like calling shotgun for a trip to the grocery store, but I hadn't sat In First Class in 20 years or so, when as an unaccompanied minor my seat was double-booked and the attendant decided that the beheadphoned teen needed a cushy seat more than the bebriefcased businessman. Uh. Huh huh. If you say so, lady!

Anyway, after an early morning drive to Riverton and a remarkably smooth Riverton to Denver flight, there I was at noon on Sunday, sitting In First Class looking east, and down. About halfway through the flight we crossed a rather large meandering river, the kind of river that pulls double-duty as a border. I'm not bad with states and borders, and part of the Oklahoma / Texas border is clearly defined by a river, so I assumed I was looking at the Red.

That got me thinking about two things. First, the river. I wonder, if rivers could talk, if they would find border duty amusing. I mean, there's no inherent reason that tax rates and license plate colors should be determined by rivers, so surely rivers might find our endeavors silly. The river might smile a little and shake its head at human constructs like taxes and borders. The river might say, "For now, suckers. For now. But get back to me in eight millenia."

Second, geometry. The only math class in which I have ever performed beyond merely satisfactorily (or more likely, awfully), and in fact blazed into advanced territory on a regular basis, was geometry. Maybe I'm a visual learner. Maybe my teacher's personality - he would say things like "that works slicker than giraffe snot" - kept me engaged. Regardless, there was something about geometry that just clicked with me.

So it wasn't a big surprise that calculating our bearing was easy. Now, one could easily do this by consulting a map. But that would be cheating.

The bottom edge of a plane's passenger window will usually be parallel to the plane's center line unless it is a very unusual plane or perhaps an alien spacecraft from the planet Zoltron. Most agricultural grids are laid true N/S, and the bottom edge of the window bisected the grids at a shallow angle, so it was easy to see that we were flying somewhere east of south. Due east is 90 degrees; due south, 180. I'd guess that our bearing was around 150 degrees, but someone should check that.

Meanwhile, sitting In First Class was oddly nerve wracking. I'd bought the latest Popular Mechanics and The Economist in Denver and kept waiting for the suit across the aisle to clear his throat. In my head the conversation would go like this:

Suit: So sorry to bother you, my good man, but is that a copy of The Economist I see?
Paul: It is, sir! It is!
Suit: Could I trouble you to lend it to me?
Paul: Why, no trouble, sir!
Suit: Most excellent! I'd like to check in on the Taiwan situation. Derivatives, you see.
Paul: Indeed.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened, although I was the only one to refuse the hot towel before landing. It should be noted here that one of our attendants, the one with intercom duties for the flight, had a full-on Texas accent: "We'd lahk to thank yew fer flahin' with us tuhday!" And as I deplaned I had a sudden vision of Pee Wee Herman with a phone, yelling "The stars at night, are big and bright!"

Up next: Driving in San Antonio; The Alamo; The Riverwalk

Onward.

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