Tuesday, April 26, 2005
For whom the bell tolls
I'm staring at a telephone. I'm not waiting for a phone call, I'm just thinking about the phone. It belongs to Lorna. It's old. It's faded yellow and has a dial. It reminds me of the phones in our house in Monrovia, CA when I was a lad growing up in L.A. Phones were different then. It's a kid thing. Remember when the house phone rang and you and your siblings would yell "I got it" in a full tilt run for the hand set. I hated it when they got there first. That's the only sport in the world where girls routinely beat the shit out of boys. You put a pink phone with flower decals on it at 100 meters from a 13 year-old girl and ring that number...You got a new world record on your hands. But a phone call was cool back then because it was always something good or important. A friend. Something to do. Information. It was the only "net" we had back then. (Telemarketers weren't invented yet)
It's weird how you can always remember your phone number from when you were a kid? I don't really understand why that is. I suppose it's because your parents beat it into you so if you get lost you could call home. I can hardly remember my own cell phone number now...In fact...I can't at the moment. But if I was magical transported back to 1972, I could call mom and dad right now. Boy, would that freak them out. I'm much hairier now! It's neat to think that my kids will remember the phone number here at the house for the rest of their lives and I can't even think of that one now!...This is just great! Remember at the end of Citizen Cane when Charles Cane is on his deathbed and he mutters the mysterious "Rosebud" and nobody knows what it means. I don't think I'm giving away too much by telling you that it is the name of his boyhood sled. I mean the movie is over 50 years old. If you haven't seen it yet well you just missed out on the big surprise. I think that part is crap. Screw the sled, I think he would have mumbled his childhood phone number. The camera would have moved in on his lips and they would have mumbled quietly and dramaticly..."359-7285"...My God...What could it mean? Yea...That's movie magic.
And that is why we'll most likely have this old phone around for decades. Too bad too because the ring on this thing is deadly. Two bells and they bore right through your skull. I had it in my shop in Scottsdale and I had to use duck tape to keep them from startling me out of my skin. That's always been a problem for me. Phones startle the hell out of me. And that leads us to the:
"Hawley totally screws" up story of the month.
I was flying for Vanguard Airlines. (MD-80s out of Kansas City) I was on a layover in Atlanta, GA. Now when you fly for an airline you are usually either getting up really early in the morning or flying really late into the night. I prefer the latter but on this occasion I got stuck doing the former. It wasn't so bad this day because, although I was to get up early, I was done for the day after only one leg back to KC. I'd be done by 9:00AM. Now, if there is one cardinal sin in the airline industry, it is being late. And the worst worst case of that is when you over-sleep and you get a phone call in your hotel room from a crew member downstairs letting you know that everyone is in the van and "where are you?" (Like they don't know...I mean, they called you, right?) Now, I must say, this has never happened to me (knock on wood), but I have seen it happen several times so I figure it's only a matter of time.
To combat this potential, people typically set every form of alarm known to man. At precisely 4:00AM the phone rings, Linkin Park screams to life on the clock radio and their cell phone vibrates across the bedside table to a Japanese disco tune. I used to be the same way until this day in Atlanta. As I said earlier, phones startle me. And a phone ringing inches from my ear while I am in deep slumber threatens to stop my heart. So I came up with a system where I would get a wake-up call, but before I went to bed, I would put the phone on the floor beside the bed and put a pillow over it so that I would hear it but...softly. Well, on this morning, when the phone rang, it was still a bit louder than I would have preferred. I pulled up out of bed quickly (still a bit asleep) and realizing what the noise was, quickly reached for the phone to silence it. Unfortunately, I forgot or rather misjudged where and how high the bedside table was and as I "quickly" reached for the phone, I also managed to slam my forehead down onto the corner of the bedside table. Wow, that hurt! I rolled back onto my pillow and rubbed my head. "hum...wet?...Shit!" By the time I got to the bathroom, there was a steady stream of blood emanating from a 3/4 inch gash in my forehead running down my face. I washed it off with a towel and tried to convince myself that it didn't need stitches. After all that would totally delay the flight. (Is that dedication to the craft or what? Is that brain tissue?) I decided to get a second opinion so I walked across the hall to my captains room and knocked. He opened the door and looked at me standing there in my boxers and t-shirt and the bloody towel in my hand. "what's up?" (Pilots remain calm at all times.) I told him and he grimaced and gave it a closer look. To this day, I am so glad that none of the other crew members (or anyone else for that matter) saw us standing in the hallway together in our underwear with his face at my forehead. He told me it looked pretty deep and that whatever I needed was OK with him. I went back to my room and sat on the bed. I started getting light headed and dizzy so I put my head between legs because I heard that in a movie once. It worked. Movies are great! I skipped the shower and shave (and stitches) and just concentrated on any signs of trouble with my head. The flight home proved un-eventful and I flirted with stopping by the hospital on the way home but convinced myself that I was fine and that the gash would heal on it's own. It did! You can just barely see the scar. (Great...now everyone who reads this will be staring at my forehead the next time they see me.)
I skip the wake-up calls now a days. When we sign in at the hotels, there is a column for your wake-up call time. I always think of Atlanta and then I draw a line through that box. If I ever get in trouble for missing the van, I'm going to tell the Chief Pilot about Atlanta and hope he has a sense of humor.
Wait...Is that the phone?
I'm staring at a telephone. I'm not waiting for a phone call, I'm just thinking about the phone. It belongs to Lorna. It's old. It's faded yellow and has a dial. It reminds me of the phones in our house in Monrovia, CA when I was a lad growing up in L.A. Phones were different then. It's a kid thing. Remember when the house phone rang and you and your siblings would yell "I got it" in a full tilt run for the hand set. I hated it when they got there first. That's the only sport in the world where girls routinely beat the shit out of boys. You put a pink phone with flower decals on it at 100 meters from a 13 year-old girl and ring that number...You got a new world record on your hands. But a phone call was cool back then because it was always something good or important. A friend. Something to do. Information. It was the only "net" we had back then. (Telemarketers weren't invented yet)
It's weird how you can always remember your phone number from when you were a kid? I don't really understand why that is. I suppose it's because your parents beat it into you so if you get lost you could call home. I can hardly remember my own cell phone number now...In fact...I can't at the moment. But if I was magical transported back to 1972, I could call mom and dad right now. Boy, would that freak them out. I'm much hairier now! It's neat to think that my kids will remember the phone number here at the house for the rest of their lives and I can't even think of that one now!...This is just great! Remember at the end of Citizen Cane when Charles Cane is on his deathbed and he mutters the mysterious "Rosebud" and nobody knows what it means. I don't think I'm giving away too much by telling you that it is the name of his boyhood sled. I mean the movie is over 50 years old. If you haven't seen it yet well you just missed out on the big surprise. I think that part is crap. Screw the sled, I think he would have mumbled his childhood phone number. The camera would have moved in on his lips and they would have mumbled quietly and dramaticly..."359-7285"...My God...What could it mean? Yea...That's movie magic.
And that is why we'll most likely have this old phone around for decades. Too bad too because the ring on this thing is deadly. Two bells and they bore right through your skull. I had it in my shop in Scottsdale and I had to use duck tape to keep them from startling me out of my skin. That's always been a problem for me. Phones startle the hell out of me. And that leads us to the:
"Hawley totally screws" up story of the month.
I was flying for Vanguard Airlines. (MD-80s out of Kansas City) I was on a layover in Atlanta, GA. Now when you fly for an airline you are usually either getting up really early in the morning or flying really late into the night. I prefer the latter but on this occasion I got stuck doing the former. It wasn't so bad this day because, although I was to get up early, I was done for the day after only one leg back to KC. I'd be done by 9:00AM. Now, if there is one cardinal sin in the airline industry, it is being late. And the worst worst case of that is when you over-sleep and you get a phone call in your hotel room from a crew member downstairs letting you know that everyone is in the van and "where are you?" (Like they don't know...I mean, they called you, right?) Now, I must say, this has never happened to me (knock on wood), but I have seen it happen several times so I figure it's only a matter of time.
To combat this potential, people typically set every form of alarm known to man. At precisely 4:00AM the phone rings, Linkin Park screams to life on the clock radio and their cell phone vibrates across the bedside table to a Japanese disco tune. I used to be the same way until this day in Atlanta. As I said earlier, phones startle me. And a phone ringing inches from my ear while I am in deep slumber threatens to stop my heart. So I came up with a system where I would get a wake-up call, but before I went to bed, I would put the phone on the floor beside the bed and put a pillow over it so that I would hear it but...softly. Well, on this morning, when the phone rang, it was still a bit louder than I would have preferred. I pulled up out of bed quickly (still a bit asleep) and realizing what the noise was, quickly reached for the phone to silence it. Unfortunately, I forgot or rather misjudged where and how high the bedside table was and as I "quickly" reached for the phone, I also managed to slam my forehead down onto the corner of the bedside table. Wow, that hurt! I rolled back onto my pillow and rubbed my head. "hum...wet?...Shit!" By the time I got to the bathroom, there was a steady stream of blood emanating from a 3/4 inch gash in my forehead running down my face. I washed it off with a towel and tried to convince myself that it didn't need stitches. After all that would totally delay the flight. (Is that dedication to the craft or what? Is that brain tissue?) I decided to get a second opinion so I walked across the hall to my captains room and knocked. He opened the door and looked at me standing there in my boxers and t-shirt and the bloody towel in my hand. "what's up?" (Pilots remain calm at all times.) I told him and he grimaced and gave it a closer look. To this day, I am so glad that none of the other crew members (or anyone else for that matter) saw us standing in the hallway together in our underwear with his face at my forehead. He told me it looked pretty deep and that whatever I needed was OK with him. I went back to my room and sat on the bed. I started getting light headed and dizzy so I put my head between legs because I heard that in a movie once. It worked. Movies are great! I skipped the shower and shave (and stitches) and just concentrated on any signs of trouble with my head. The flight home proved un-eventful and I flirted with stopping by the hospital on the way home but convinced myself that I was fine and that the gash would heal on it's own. It did! You can just barely see the scar. (Great...now everyone who reads this will be staring at my forehead the next time they see me.)
I skip the wake-up calls now a days. When we sign in at the hotels, there is a column for your wake-up call time. I always think of Atlanta and then I draw a line through that box. If I ever get in trouble for missing the van, I'm going to tell the Chief Pilot about Atlanta and hope he has a sense of humor.
Wait...Is that the phone?
// posted by Chris @ Tuesday, April 26, 2005
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