security

me: well tai is through international security and i am not

There it is in a nutshell. The long-winded version (that's my disclaimer) is what follows. I am on my way to New York to stay with Tai's parents for 2 weeks waiting for Tai to come back from Morocco. In the meantime I should be going in for hopefully 10-12 hour days at the office where my checks come from. If that's how it works out it will be a substantial improvement from the hours I've been clocking the past couple months.

So I looked up Tai's flight a few nights ago (at first I thought she was leaving the country out of JFK, but it turned out she had United to Chicago before she was heading off to Rome, then Casablanca). I used to make it a point to stop through Chicago whenever I had a chance on a cross-country trip and catch up with a friend that I used to trade with. Last time I had a chance to do that was two summers ago, when I was still trying to figure out where I was going to work if I was moving to Boston (and Tai was getting ready to move to Seattle and start CY, for historical reference although I didn't know it at the time). So it's been a while. I figured "well ... one-way flights to New York are pretty cheap. One-way flights to Chicago are a little unreasonable, but if you get there it's only $69 on Jetblue to go the rest of the way". Then I sat on it, and the next day one-way flights to New York had gone up $200. Oops. Meanwhile, I noticed that if I booked an itinerary from Seattle, to Denver, to Chicago, to Milwaukee, I'd land in Chicago right smack in the middle of Tai's 4 hour layover, and it would be 200 dollars cheaper than booking a flight to Chicago. Yes, airlines are jackasses (for making this sort of thing a reality).

So I sat on that knowledge for 2 days, and last night Tai laid down at 1 am and I still didn't know if I was going to fly out at the same time as her or if I'd follow up several hours later. I also had a completely packed suitcase which would screw the whole plan up because you can't blow off the 3rd leg of your itinerary if your checked bag goes on to Milwaukee. Around 2:30 (her alarm was set to 3) I woke up from a light nap and thought, well, let's see if anything happened to fares in the last couple hours. The answer? Yes. Flights to New York had gotten more expensive. I should say "they came back down for a brief spell yesterday because US Airways is opportunistic, but by 2:30 am this morning, nearly all options had been limited to bad options." So I said well, let's just see how it goes if I unpack that suitcase into a bunch of carry-on sized bags.

By 3:10, Tai had hit her snooze alarm once and I had unloaded this large overpacked suitcase into a backpack, my gym bag, and my computer bag. I still don't understand the geometry of how that was possible. (ok I just took 30 minutes away from writing this and now there's a guy standing nearby who looks like George Lucas with a better pornstache) So once I realized it was possible to actually get on a plane, I broached the topic with Tai of not having booked anything, but maybe we could book something right now. She was not overly happy with my timing and surprise factor, but as the cab pulled up to take her to the airport, I hit submit twice and acquired a ticket for today to Seattle->Denver->Chicago->Milwaukee and tomorrow for Chicago->JFK.

So then we got to the airport, and she had to take her large box of rocks out of her suitcase to get it from 61 pounds down to 43 pounds. (very impressive rocks, if it was the same box we picked up yesterday) I thought about trying to crawl into the empty space left by the box and stow away to Morocco but that would have brought it back up to 290 pounds so we didn't. The person at the gate didn't say anything definitive about whether or not I could switch onto Tai's flight, so we went up through security and to the gates, and the guy seating passengers to Denver was like 'oh certainly -- heck you'll be doing us a favor, we overbooked by 10'. I didn't point out that 45 minutes earlier they had only been overbooked by 9 and that I had just finishing doing them an inconvenience, just nodded and said "oh yeah I love doing favors" and like that, I was on Tai's flight! Bear in mind, the going rate for a ticket on her flight was about 500 dollars and my 3-legged itinerary went for about 190. Love it.

So we got on the plane got seated together (another last minute win) and she put her little neck pillow in between our heads so that we could lean into each other and both rest on it while simultaneously supporting it, and I was honestly (honestly!) thinking "this is so perfect and completely romantic". It is NOT easy to get a comfortable sleeping position for you and a partner on a plane, and I think we pulled it off for a good hour or so before it was necessary to change positions.

Anyways, next thing we knew the plane was landing and I told Tai "the next time you do this you'll be landing in Rome" and she said "When in Rome...". *I said "Yes? Go on?" and she looked at me funny before explaining it's a common expression. I still don't quite understand what it means.

(everything after * is made-up/plagiarized, everything before it really happened)

Ok -- another 20 minute lapse there and bizarro George Lucas is now right next to me instead of 20 feet away. I started this around 2:20 and it's now 3:45 which means Tai's flight to Rome is due to take off any minute.

So yeah, we hung out here for a bit -- this airport kinda blows on account of it has hardly changed a thing since the early 90s when the internet barely existed and this used to be my favorite airport ever. Literally, 70-80% of this place has not changed. I got to walk Tai through the tunnel where they shine the crazy lights and keep saying "Moving walkway is now ending, please watch your step, moving walkway is now ending, please watch your step". I've probably experienced taking someone through there for their 1st time 5-10 times in my life by now, and I always enjoy it. Tai was skeptical at first, and probably isn't overwhelmed in retrospect, but I still liked showing it to her (or whatever you want to call walking in front of her and hyping up the tunnel she was already going to have to walk through regardless). I know that our baby is going to see it 6-7 years from now, it probably won't have changed at all (they'll probably still be charging for crappy Boingo wifi and have zero electrical outlets) and be completely blown away like I was the first time I saw it when I was 10 or 11.

Yeah so then I got online, realized the work I thought I had 99% finished last night was still 97-98% finished but had two major bugs I hadn't noticed that rendered the output useless. I was able to think fast and get the necessary corrections in a reasonable amount of time, but unfortunately I hadn't communicated any of that to Tai and 8 or 9 minutes before I had it all wrapped up she was ready to go. Oh, I failed to mention that this screwed up airport actually makes you go back out by the ticketing counter if you're switching from United to Alitalia, which brings us back to the start of this post "Tai is past security and I'm not". So we had to go back out of security -- Tai was flustered because I told her I'd be done in 5 minutes and took 10-15. We took the little train over to Alitalia and stood outside the security line over by where I'm sitting right now, she got a little less mad and a lot more sad. I've been pretty sad the whole time, but I'm really glad that we got to spend this morning on that flight together and share a little bit of "Chicago" (airport). There was a very tearful and extended goodbye, and then Tai went through security and rounded a corner out of my line of vision and next time we see each other it'll be in New York!

I would say that I feel very excited for the chance to spend a lot of time in the office, hopefully tying up loose ends and making money so I have some room to breathe and interview around, I'm very happy for Tai that she gets to experience this trip to Morocco and do all these things that she's looked forward to since she took the job last year, and I'm very sad that we don't get to see each other for a little over 2 weeks. The one nice thing that puts it in perspective is that 2 weeks ago I was taking all my folders out of the filing cabinet and spreading them across my living room, making a huge mess two days before my parents came in, and that feels like yesterday. I hope that our time apart will pass by just as fast, with the caveat that I will be very disappointed in myself if it passes and I'm like "whoa, I didn't get anything done." That would be the worst. But if things go according to plan we should be enjoying Thanksgiving together with a little bit more security (get it, security -- the title of this article? double entendre, BAM!) and maybe if I'm lucky I'll have something lined up trading securities (triple enten---ok i'll stop) or who knows. Hopefully the next two weeks will be very full and rewarding and involve minimal discomfort and put us in a better place than where we started -- how's that. In the meantime, I miss my baby. Both of them.