Meet me in St. Louis....

Wow….It’s been a month….a full month since I’ve been up in the air. The last thirty days or so however have not been devoid of change. As promised, I moved, choosing the location based not in small part to its proximity to the Airport. What’s more, it comes with my very own travel maven roommate.

Yes, I now live with a fully-fledged frequent flyer who can discuss such things as “Mileage Runs” and what a respectable “cent-per-mile” ratio is for an international fare. He’s definitely put in more time (and miles) than me, and I secretly hope I don’t find myself with the time to catch up. Still, some of his antics are truly impressive, like the time he flew to Orlando and back and came out $16 and 4,000 miles ahead at the end, or the tickets he recently booked to Lima for $230.00 ai (“all in”).

But this hidden benefit aside, I’d recommend living with a Flyer any day- you always have the place to yourself!

Anyhow, the moving and having a few weekends to remember that Southern California is a pretty decent place to be on a weekend aside, it’s good to be back.

Today it’s the 11:45 to STL, continuing on to BOS, and I’m privy to a truly interesting (and unlikely) conversation taking place in row 6 behind me. From what I can gather fate in her infinite humor has seated a California living-computer science professor and self-professed “gadget geek” next to a missionary who’s spent the last 4 years in New Guinea translating the new testament, and trying to convert people who live in grass-roof huts. Needless to say, the mismatch is worth listening to, especially when he proudly whips out his iPhone and shows exactly what’s playing on his home DVR.

Now, I’m not passing judgment on either’s life choices, and while I’d love to see New Guinea I’m not sure how I would feel about “converting the pagans” from their traditions and beliefs that have been in existence for thousands of years. Oh well, maybe Oneworld will have a fare special…I wonder how many miles I could get…

Still, you’ve got to wonder what it would be like to take off to some far-flung destination for the next four years and then come back to whatever our society has cobbled together in the mean time. Limiting myself to the world of technology I know and love, four years ago cell phones were pretty much that…phones, the term “there’s an app for that” had yet to be invented, Facebook was still that strangely addictive thing those kids at Harvard built to get dates, and tweeting was something birds did far too early in the morning.

And on a personal note, four years ago Boston was a place I woke up in, not something that required 5 hours in the air to get to. After some introspective thinking, and a glass or two of wine with my in-flight meal, I’m coming to the conclusion that you’ve just got to sit back and wonder where we’ll be in 2014, as a society and as individuals. Dreaming and planning is necessary and positive, but in the end we’re all just along for the ride, altitude changes and all. Simply put- We cannot change the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

……Happy Friday