Somewhere over Spain...

Ok, so it's official. I'm scared of flying. This is my 18^th flight in 13 weeks with a mix of short and long haul. I had a pretty rough flight out to Las Vegas back in January (honestly, and I'm not one of those girly girls either) – There was screaming (not mine), oxygen being doled out and sick bags being bandied around as if Woolworths was going into Administration all over again. I just sat there for 30 minutes with my fingernails in the armrests trying desperately not to be sick whilst ignoring the bloke next to me shouting “shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit” over and over. I used to really like turbulence. Enjoyed the adrenaline rush and secretly laughing at the other passengers. This is bastard karma coming back to get me, I know it. So here I am, on a flight back from La Coruna, Spain and at the mere mention of “slight turbulence” I find myself reaching for my Kindle, plugging my ears in and drowning out the plane's propeller (I'm not even kidding - PROPELLER) with Deniece Williams,' “Let's Hear it For the Boy.” Spotify's fault I might add, not mine. Actually, the bloke sat next to me on the Vegas flight (the one shouting “shiiiiiiiiiit” a lot) worked for Spotify. Maybe this is a running theme. Anyway, it seems to be doing the trick. I had to abandon ship (poor choice of words, I know) on the Kindle as my mind kept wandering ,so I thought I'd get down to what every other bloody bugger seems to be telling me to do and start writing a blog. I secretly think this is so that I stop clogging up their news feeds on Facebook. I guess this is like a status update extension for the massively self-indulgent. God help us all.

Here's a picture of this particular airline's sick bags. It made me laugh. It also amuses me a bit that my first photo on here is of a sick bag. You can take this as a sign of things to come if you like.

 

15:30 – Spanish time.

So it's not that I think I'm particularly interesting, but I seem to be one of those people that things just happen to (like planes crashing, for instance) and have been told that I have some sort of observational comedy thing going on. Which I then think, obviously, that I have to share with Facebook and this has resulted in me being banished to the (and I promise never to ever use this word ever again after this post)... Blogisphere. I actually just died a little. I'm also not sure how to spell Bloggersphere and don't have wifi on the plane to Google it and make myself appear intelligent. Bloggisphere? This is using up my lifetime output of arse-cringingly knobbish words (knobbish is also one) so let's just assume that you know what I'm on about and I'll shut up now.

No, I didn't mean shut up for good. Really? You got that from that? I've still got some not-plummeting-to-the-ground-at-'000s-of-miles-an-hour to do and my playlist just flicked on to Erasure's “Give a Little Respect.” - This bears no relevance to the post other than that when the tracks flick on I can hear the propeller again and that, once more, gives me the heeby jeebies. I strongly suspect that Mr Goatee next to me (yep, a goatee in this day and age) is starting to question my taste in music, but I'll continue with my rather tenuous blaming of it on Spotify and hope that no one points out that I must've put the Playlist together in the first place.

Soundtrack to the film, Signs. Er, maybe not. Chase & Status, “Time”. That'll do. In the fast bits I can imagine my iPhone powering the plane with its sheer bloodymindedness.

15:50 – Spanish time.

So I've no idea why I'm writing the time to each loose section of this post. I think some chapter-style breaks might help me to get a move on and not ramble too much (yes, I appreciate the irony that all I've done so far is spurt out words I always vowed I never would and promote Spotify for all the wrong reasons). So, let's pick a subject... I suppose the point of a blog is that it should give you a running commentary in some sense, so as I gave reference to Vegas earlier and I'm obviously on a plane again now, I'll tell you a little bit about that.

And, wonderfully timed, something to demonstrate my fantastic taste in music, Electric Light Orchestra, “Mr Blue Sky”.

I won't go into loads of detail about my job (as it's really not that interesting)... All I will say is that it's not as self-fulfilling as working for a charity or saving lives, but it's also not as bad as working as chief sweeper-upper in a peep show in Cleethorpes (I once read that the guy who has to sweep up after peep shows was voted as having the worst job in the world by some magazine, poor fella. I added Cleethorpes as it's my least favourite place in the United Kingdom). Oooh, nice segue. Las Vegas is my least favourite place in the US.

I hate Vegas...

So, I was there for work. There's a massive electronics show called CES that's held in Vegas every January as a punishment for people who over-indulge on spirit at Christmas and need a bit of their soul taking away from them. This year was my second in attendance. 2012 was my first (you could probably have worked that out for yourself, but I thought I'd step in – you're welcome) and I really hated it. Not because of the show, that's actually pretty interesting and it's very good for meeting new business contacts, seeing new gadgets announced and catching up with old acquaintances, but the reason I hated it is because I didn't know what to expect and everything about Vegas is fake. It's smokey (and this comes from a smoker), claustrophobic, has a totally skewed perception on how many light bulbs is an appropriate number for a small city to house (and had me pre-fixing words with “totally” for a week) and if on the rare occasion you think you have managed to wander out into some fresh air and see some of Mother Nature's self-made beauty, you'll soon look up to realise that someone's actually painted the sky on the ceiling and that you're in fact still in Vegas's cruel clutches. What a bitch. So this year? I tried to go with a different attitude. Embrace Vegas. It is what it is. Enjoy it. The difference? I still hate Vegas, but was slightly happier about hating it.

The big man himself...

The best part of my trip was “meeting” Danny DeVito. There I was, sat on the grass with a colleague (I promise you, the Vegas/CES week is 16 hour days and you average 3 hours' sleep a night, but we sat on the grass for 5 minutes...) We'd been playing a game all week called “spot the celeb”. CES normally has a few in attendance, usually promoting their new range of headphones or talking about technology and various bits and bobs. Danny (to his mates) was there for an interview with one of the tech websites. Completely unrelated, but the girl from Weird Science was also there, much to my joy as I used to love that film. Anyway. Myself and my colleague had basically spent a lot of the week pointing out anyone who had even the most minor resemblance to a famous person and saying their name to each other, in an attempt to make the other person laugh (I told you it was a long week). For instance, woman walks past with a slightly big honker? Barbara Streisand. Black guy crosses the road in front of us? 50 Cent. So there we are, on the grass, and a really short man walks past to which I shout out, “Danny DeVito!” My colleague responds with, “shit, it's him!” and rushes over to ask for a photo. This, by the way, is something I would never do. I hate awkward situations. Despite all the different walks of life I see on my travels, and all the situations I get myself into and out of, I struggle to even ask for a wifi password in a bar or cafe. If it's work related? I'm fine. If it's anything for my own personal benefit? I'd just rather make do. So anyway, Danny agrees to the photo, calls me beautiful (I now LOVE him) and the rest is history. January 2013 and already I have the best photo of the year ever. 75 likes on Facebook. You just can't buy that sort of online self-esteem. The weirdest thing? I genuinely didn't think it was him as he was 'too short'. Really short. Half person height. I guess it's true what they say about the TV adding 5 inches...

Working away...

Now most of my friends (particularly the Facebook kind, the friends I see on a regular basis know better) think my life involves jetting around the world having meetings with this brand and that manufacturer and generally lahdihdahing about the place on my jollies. I'll be very clear... I am very grateful to have the opportunities I have. I didn't go to University. I fell into my “trade” accidentally on purpose and don't get me wrong, I worked hard to get here, but I could easily have ended up waitressing on Friday nights (that was actually the first job I turned down, purely because I didn't want to get pigeon holed by the temp agency). Not that there's anything wrong with waitressing – Jeez, this is difficult. I'm just going to continue on the basis that there's a strong chance I'm going to offend some people with this blogging malarkey, but hope that you will learn that I'm actually just a bit blunt by nature and not to take anything personally. Anyway. Travelling for work. Those who do will realise that in reality it just means lots of jet lag, tiredness, staying in hotel rooms and not always even seeing the place that you're travelling to. Like the past 24 hours, for example. Last night I landed in La Coruna, drove 10 minutes to the hotel (I'll get on to driving in foreign lands later) checked my email, did my day's work, went to sleep, woke up, went to a meeting, found a cafe with internets, worked for a bit, drove to the airport, got on a plane. Some trips are better than others; I particularly like going to California because I have friends there, but I'll get on to that later too.

Ok... we're coming in to land. Or we're about to crash. I'm not sure which. It's pretty bumpy and there's a man, I'm assuming the Captain, talking in Spanish. That reminds me... When we were about to take off he was talking and a distinctive “parp” sound came over the speaker. I'm not sure if this was an accident or an intentional inflection within the Spanish language, but everyone else seemed to find it highly amusing. RIght, there's my first fart joke. Time to leave I think. Sorry it's been a bit wordy for my first post. I do like a ramble, but as time goes on I'll keep them a bit shorter. Hasta Luego.