Trains, planes and grackles

So, lately, my life has become extremely boring or perhaps I am just failing to find the humor in it (which is most likely the case).

I spent last week in Lubbock Texas for work. This trip was a lot more laid back. No 16 hour days there. I was just doing training with an existing client and so only had to work the hours they were open. I met some really great people working down there too. All-in-all, it was a really great trip...for the most part.

I was more than just a little shocked that it was colder there than it was here in Salt Lake City. I was in Texas for god's sake! But no...all my life, I'd been living with the misconception of Texas being warm. Another fun feature of Texas (both Corpus Christi and Lubbock) is the grackle. Grackles are these evil demon-souled birds that I encountered in Texas.

There is never just a few of these birds. Every time I've seen them, they were massed in the hundreds if not thousands. These are the birds that at a squirrel while a few of us watched in horror. Okay, so maybe they didn't 'eat' the squirrel, but they sure as hell tormented the poor thing. On Staples Road in Corpus Christi, they would line the power lines for blocks. Solid lines of birds that just when on and on. In Lubbock, they again massed in the hundreds in the tree right out side of my hotel window. And these birds are LOUD! And let's not even get into what my car looked like after the grackles were done with it...let's just not.

I had quite the experience on the flight from Houston to Salt Lake City last Friday as part of this trip. I was flying on an ERJ-145 (see below). It's a smaller commuter jet that seats around 60 or so. It''s got an interesting seat layout. There is one row of seats on one side of the plane, and then two rows across the isle. Anyhow, somewhere over New Mexico or Colorado or somewhere, the plane started falling apart.

Luckily...it was the inside of the plane. Now, I'd rather it not fall apart at all, mind you, but at least if it's one of the panels below the overhead storage bins falling off, the plane most likely is going to be just fine and stay airborne. It made for something of an entertaining flight anyhow.

So...that and getting my Christmas shopping done last weekend has pretty much been my life for the past couple of weeks. I'll try to do better with keeping up on posts here and hopefully they'll be a bit more entertaining and not so blah...