Travel necessities:
1. I am (or was when I wrote this) comfortably ensconced in a Herman Miller Aeron chair at the O’Hare Admiral’s Club. (This is the chair that is allegedly on order for me for my office. The mesh from which the seat and back are made must be grown very slowly in large vats, considering the length of time it’s taking to receive the chair.)

2. I have blue Halls Mentho-Lyptus® drops for my head, which has apparently decided to develop a cold right before arriving in Hawaii for 9.5 days (8 of which are work-related and might as well occur in East Jabip, ).

3. I have lots to read – Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, Fortune, a trade magazine, several other library books stashed in my carry-on.

4. My first flight was on time and I had an empty seat next to me. My next flight claims to be on time. The only item in question is whether my bags will arrive at the same time that I do, which is always a crapshoot. (Second flight was on time, also had an empty seat next to me, bags arrived quickly. There was one unpleasant incident during the flight. There was a group of 3 or 4 couples who started congregating in the aisles (apparently this is a security hazard) and were very loud (interrupting my nap). The flight attendants had to reprimand them and ask them to take their seats. I would guess they were all in the their 60s. Perhaps they should not be allowed to travel unaccompanied by a responsible adult.)

Passengers get off the planes here in Hawaii looking vague-eyed and somewhat shell-shocked. Many have been traveling for 12 hours or more, and they seem disconcerted by the sunshine, palm trees and efficiency of the old, dingy Honolulu airport. Most have their winter jackets with them, and thread them through their carry-ons as they realize that 79 degree weather doesn’t require them.

Back in the mid to late 90s I subscribed to Wired magazine. Every issue would contain a one-page article about the current status of some cultural phenomena. Sometimes these were about the hype surrounding dot.com-type trends (*somebody* thought ordering dog food over the web was a good idea). One of these articles was about the future of music, specifically Western-style music. The magazine asked the question about when we would essentially “run out of” new music – when will we have used up all the tunes and melodies and arrangements that would be pleasing to the ear. There were about 5 experts who weighed in on the subject and several suggested that we were quickly depleting the reserves of new music. Although they did not recommend that we slow down the pace of music harvesting, or plant new music in place of old, and they did not to my recollection blame global warming, they did forecast that within a relatively short timeframe (10-20 years) we would have exhausted the limited supply of music. This has been worrying me ever since. Spending 12 hours in various planes can do that to you.