April 17, heading out

In Portland the plane boarded unusually quickly and took off as soon as we'd boarded, taxi-ing onto the runway before the safety video was even over and taking off right away. Then the question was: on a plane full of high school students, could I fall asleep just as quickly as we took flight. The answer...

4:30 central time. Oh, yes, I slept the whole way to Chicago. An amusing note about modern air travel: When the plane lands the cabin is now filled with the sounds of dozens of tiny speakers singing the recognizable ad jingles of the major cell phone companies.
Here's a picture of the tunnel in Chicago's O'Hare taken with my cellphone. It's a tunnel between the two main concourses filled with moving walkways. Over head there are bands of neon lights that pulsate, seeming to send color racing along the ceiling. Meanwhile, the United Airlines jungle plays (it's a famous classical piece, if someone wants to take a whack at Name that Tune). I tried to convince the kids that this tunnel was the coolest thing once upon a time, and very futuristic. They liked it, but called it retro. Here's the retro tunnel, blurry:



Jesse Gerdes wants everyone to know that Mrs. Warren looks like a little baby when she sleeps. I didn't take any photographic evidence of the phenomenon.