11:08PM/4:08AM – Over the Atlantic – Wednesday into Thursday

I’m running on borrowed time, and by that I don’t mean the Boeing 777 in which I’m seated has depressurized and is about to crash into the ocean (the What About Bob? principal: if I say it, it won’t happen). I mean batteries. The laptop’s on battery saver, as always, and so I’m good on that front, but the CD player – fool that I am – has been blinking its warning ever since I put on Tempel, by Colour Haze, which I’m well into now. I figure any minute and it’ll just be me and the keyboard clackeys. Most everyone else is asleep, except for a woman in the next row reading. They’ve been pumping knockout gas on us for hours now, and if not for the weekend’s homework to occupy my mind and my steady vigil of keeping watch on the left-side wing of the aircraft to make sure it doesn’t come flying off – because if I stop looking, it will – I’m quite sure I’d have succumbed. Plenty to keep me busy.

But seriously, how do I not pack AA batteries in my carry-on? Oh, I’m stocked in long-since-checked Big Blue (my luggage, in case you missed it), but I’ve got a single AAA and two outlet converters on my person, one British and one European. Both are swiped from hotels last year, and neither are doing me any good at the moment. I mean, come on. I found (and chewed) year-old Rolaids in that bag, and not a single AA? Not like this is my first time making this trip.

Here are the records I’ve listened to so far:
Graveyard, Hisingen Blues
Black Sabbath, Mob Rules
Sungrazer, Sungrazer
Colour Haze, Tempel

If I make it through the latter, it’ll be a damned miracle.

Much to do when I land, and at some point, I do need to sleep. The truth is, I love traveling, and more than anything else, that’s probably what’s kept me up. I’m not so thrilled about the whole flying deathtrap thing, but if I could do one thing with the rest of my days in one of those money-and-obligation-don’t-exist scenarios, I’d just go places and sit and write and that would be my life. I mean that.

We’ve been in the air I guess about four hours now. Taxi’ed forever in Newark, of course, and finally took off a little after 7PM. When I land, it’ll be in London, then a quick flight to Amsterdam, a train to Tilburg, walk from the station, check in at the hotel, maybe crash out if I can, and check in on the work stuff I left behind in Jersey. This is going to be a much different trip this year.

Tags: Roadburn 2011 Adventure, The Netherlands, Tilburg

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 6:16 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.