I don’t really have any superstitions. I kind of think that when you have them, it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So while I took two flights today, one from SFO to LAX, then the second from LAX to Las Vegas since American Airlines doesn’t have a direct SFO > LAS flight, I didn’t even really think about the fact that September 11, 2018, was the 17-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. I also didn’t really think about the fact that I was flying on the airline that got taken down by terrorists on that dark day. But apparently, some customers who were traveling to our company’s conference in Las Vegas were fully thinking about it, and even opted to not travel on September 11, and instead to arrive on September 12…. when our conference events begin at 7:45am that day. What this ultimately meant was travel delays, many of them missing the entire first official day of our company’s user conference. So, in other words, it meant a complete waste of time and money.

I always feel conflicted when I hear stories like this because on the one hand, everyone is scared of something — heights, spiders, the dark, swimming, you name it. I’m sympathetic to that since I clearly have my own fears. But to allow a fear to prevent you from living your everyday life? It’s hard for me to be sympathetic to this type of thing. Life disruption is not worth it. Live your everyday life to the fullest. Some fears are meant to be faced, especially when they are as delusional as this one. Do they really think that security would not be ultra heightened on days of anniversaries of major terrorist attacks?

After getting back late from Charlotte last night, I had to haul myself out of bed at 4:30 this morning to catch an early morning flight to Chicago for two long days of customer onsite visits. These are the moments when I dislike travel, when I know I have to wake up extremely early after a limited amount of sleep, and I have to spend the full day completely engaged and with my business brain on.

Chicago is just as beautiful as I remember it to be four years ago when I came for a work trip. But it’s definitely a lot more expensive than what I remember: while looking up menus of things I thought about eating, all the prices for the most part seem to be on par with New York’s. And based on the Yelp reviews, people seem to be noticing that prices are rising and are endlessly complaining about them.

At least Chicago is still a universally known and loved place. What I really didn’t understand was on Sunday when we were in Asheville, all these restaurants that were supposed to be popular and tasty had multiple-hour waits, and even asked if I wanted a 9:30 or 10pm reservation, as they tend to book out months in advance. Sorry, but Asheville, North Carolina, is not New York, San Francisco, LA, or Chicago. You cannot get away with that with someone who has lived in San Francisco and lives in New York. Asheville is just another small town city that seems to be be trying to be something from a culinary perspective that it will never be. I guess they can keep trying, and the locals will deal with it.

Today, we visited the Carolinas Aviation Museum just outside the Charlotte airport to see the exhibit for the US Airways Flight 1549, also known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.” This recounted the story, the plane, and the aftermath of the U.S. Airways flight that had a flock of random Canadian geese fly into its engine and as a result, had to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River where every single person survived and barely got injured back in January 2009. It actually had a happy ending, which is not usual when emergencies like this happen with airplanes.

It’s strange to think that what these passengers and flight crew experienced could easily be any of us on any given day. Chris and I fly so much between business and pleasure travel that our probability of having something like this happen is just so much higher than for the average person. But I guess it just goes to show that it really does matter to understand the flight safety card, where all the exits are, and what to do in an emergency. For the most part, I don’t really listen anymore to the flight attendants as they are explaining this now, but occasionally, I do stop and listen… just in case.

Every now and then, I am still haunted by the Malaysian Airline plane that went missing, and is still missing to this day. My heart aches when I think of the people onboard, as well as their loved ones. You can’t always be prepared.

People always say that if you educate others, then they will be more knowledgeable and open minded. Frankly, I don’t really think this is true if someone already has set pre-conceived notions of something. I’m not really exempt from that either. For example: you’ll never get me to agree with you if you say that abortion should be illegal. I understandwhy people want it to be illegal, but I do not and will never agree no matter what information you share with me. But it bugs me when people have pre-conceived notions of a place they’ve never been to merely based on random news stories they’ve read or anecdotes that friends have shared with them of places they’ve visited.

Tonight, I was telling my friend about my India trip, and she asked me if I felt safe. “Safety,” or the feeling of it as I recently read, is strongly rooted in feelings of race and class if we care to dig uncomfortably into our subconscious. “You always read about how women are constantly getting raped in India,” she said. “It’s so scary.”

I countered her point by asking her if she was aware of how scared many people in other countries feel about the U.S. in terms of how lax we are with guns, with the number of school shootings and shootings in general that happen in this country every single day. “People actually think that if they come here, they may get shot and killed,” I said to her. “It’s so easy to get a gun; anyone can do it. That’s the way it’s covered abroad. But we live here, and we know that’s not the case that we’re all fearing for our lives every single day.” Our mutual friend lived in Asia for years and said she was scared watching the news coverage of all these shootings in the U.S. Her in-laws, who lived in Singapore, said they didn’t feel comfortable with the two of them potentially moving back to the States. Not only that, but there are people who simply do not want to enter the United States while Trump is president because as foreigners, they do not feel welcome. I literally just heard this back and forth conversation between a dad and his son in Canada this past weekend. Tourism has notably declined into the U.S. since Dipshit took office.

“Maybe,” my friend said skeptically. “I’m not sure about that.”

I don’t really know what there is to be skeptical about. If you have perspective and you are aware of what’s going on around you and outside of the city or country or continent where you live, you will know that places like India or the U.S. really are not as “dangerous” as the media make them out to be. A lot of what ends up happening in our lives occur because of our attitudes and pre-judgments before events actually happen. If you complain and say that you will have a terrible time at a party before attending, you’re probably going to have a crappy time. If you keep obsessing over your luggage getting lost on a flight like that insufferable woman from Sunday, I’m pretty sure your luggage will get lost. But if you enter India or the U.S. hoping for an enjoyable time and are optimistic, it’s more likely that you will actually have fun and stop worrying about getting shot in the head or raped in the streets. I told her this. She remained skeptical.

And if you are really unsure or feel unsafe about going to a place… just don’t go. Also, don’t ruin it for other people when they express that they want to go.

After one last day of exploring Vancouver, I reluctantly headed to the airport yesterday late afternoon for my return flight back to New York. After I boarded the plane, which was headed to Phoenix since there’s no direct flights on American between Vancouver and New York, a middle-aged white woman was conspicuously (and audibly) disgruntled that there was no overhead compartment space for her roller bag. She took the liberty to announce quite loudly before she sat down, “Before boarding, the crew had announced that this would be a completely full flight, and people would have had some grace to check their bags, but I guess it goes to show that people lack humility and courtesy for others.” She then took the middle seat next to me in the second row of economy class.

Damnit, she is sitting next to me.

Because of the big fuss she made, the crew was kind enough to take her roller bag and store it in the First Class closet. She really lucked out. 

The woman proceeded to try to make small talk with me when I had my earbuds in. Why is she doing this?She revealed to me (and pretty much everyone on the first half of the plane because of how loud she was) that she had two connecting flights before reaching her destination, the Cayman Islands, where she works in the hospitality industry and has for the last fifteen-plus years. She was scared of having her bag lost because the last time she flew on American, she had her bag misplaced and had to wait two days for it, so there was no way she’d allow them to force check her bag this time. In the end, she got what she wanted by being so obnoxious, but did she really need to share her entire life story so loudly?

We took off. She probably realized at some point that I really did not want to talk to her, so then she turned to the man seated in the window seat of our row and tried to talk to him… after he had his eyes closed and was clearly trying to sleep. She seriously has no common sense. When he made it even more obvious that he absolutely did not want to talk to her and continued closing his eyes, she thencontinued to get the attention of the people in the row in front of uswho had a service dog, and started telling them about her life story, including how much she loves dogs.This woman could not have been more frustrating in her existence.

But this woman really had to epitomize the most annoying specimen on this flight when the flight attendants came around with snacks and drinks, and I asked for a wine and a snack box. Since I have Executive Platinum status on American, if I am seated in economy, I always get these items complimentary because that’s a perk of the status; you wouldn’t know this unless you actually kept track of flight status perks or had this level of status. But the flight attendant who served me tried to make me pay, and I told her that I had “EP” status, so I shouldn’t have to pay. This middle-seat woman decided to interject and said, “Of course you have to pay! Why wouldn’t you have to pay?” I glared at her, shocked that she would say anything in an interaction that had nothing to do with her. Does she even know what “EP” stands for?! The flight attendant ended by admitting she was wrong after some back and forth and said she didn’t check the EP list. She gave me my food and drink and continued serving others.

I later found out that this woman was Canadian and originally from Vancouver. She was in town to visit family. Considering how rude, annoying, and invasive she was, I really had thought she was just another dumb and entitled American flying on AA. She’s tainting the “Canadians are friendly” stereotype for me. I suppose, though, that “obnoxious” and “passive aggressive” as adjectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive from “friendly.”