Passenger 18C

The following is a letter to my lovely [read: ass-wipe of a human] friend in seat 18C on the Continental flight from Houston to Colorado Springs.

Dear 18C,

I hate you.  The end.

Not really "hate," but wicked dislike.  I thought everything was going to be fine when I saw you coming down the aisle staring at my row.  I even scooted over towards the window seat so that you could have PLENTY of room to sit and be comfortable.  I thought, "surely, this man will be generous and take the aisle seat leaving the required 1-seat-padding-room on non-assigned-seat flights."  You must not have gotten the memo about this new rule.

You decided to sit in the seat directly adjacent to mine.  Now normally, I would not mind this as I have no personal space issues, but this was different.  I'm not sure how to word this politely, but you're a very large man, and I am also a fairly large guy as well, though we are large in different definitions of the word.  I have nothing against comfortably plump people, but there is a reason that larger people must buy 2 seats.  It's just uncomfortable to have a large man directly against your entire left side.  Trust me.

I thought that eventually you'd get up to use to bathroom or get hot enough to stop suffocating me ... but you didn't.  I thought you would feel uncomfortable in the same was that I was, but you must have a much higher tolerance to having someone smother you.  Instead of moving over one, you made things even worse by lifting up the only sliver of metal separating our bodies, my one barrier to cling to: the arm rest.  I didn't think this was all that horrible either, but the fact that we were now side-by-side totally, my tolerance for people in my personal bubble were beginning to thin.

If only you had brushed your teeth, maybe things would have been better.  Even a mint.  I even offered you gum as a nicety, but you would not have my delicious, melon-flavored gum.  I hate you.  I didn't appreciate you endlessly talking to me WHILE I HAD MY HEADPHONES IN MY EAR.  I hope you realize that I did not listen to a single word that you said.  I remember your name, but for anonymity's sake, I'll remain closed-lipped.  How, sir, did you not catch all my signals that I didn't want to talk, and that your body heat was making me uncomfortable!?

I thought the breath was bad, but nooooo, you had to go and outdo yourself.  Sleeping?  REALLY!?  Ughhhh.  I don't care if someone sleeps on a flight ... hell, I normally STRIVE to fall asleep on a flight.  But you had to try to sleep and then try to use MY shoulder as a pillow.  I swear, I was about 2 seconds away from punching you.  Thank GOD the flight attendant was sympathetic to my cause because she woke you up to ask if "you needed a drink" hahahahaha.  It was a short-lived victory; however, as you just haaaad to go and fall back asleep.  I didn't appreciate your head nodding and falling onto me.  I also didn't appreciate your snoring in my ear.  I basically made my ears bleed with the volume of my music to drown you out.

If you're wondering why I suddenly jerked you awake to "use the bathroom," then here's a hint: I hate you.  I also didn't come back to our row because of you.  I felt terrible the whole time, but that was hell.  I feel a little badly for sounding so harsh, but how has no one gone off on you yet!?  I even left my unfinished magazine in my seat to escape you.  I paid $5 for that sucker!  Grrrrrrrrr.  It was like being in a bad movie.  I didn't even know that there were travelers like you in real life!  Now, I'm forever scarred by you and I don't know if I'll ever look at airplane passengers the same!  You may have just made yourself the root cause of all of my personal bubble issues, hahahaha.  Ass.

Well.  I suppose that's all my grievances for now.  I hope YOU had a lovely flight because I know I sure as heck didn't.  -__-



Signed,
Jovan.

PS: I hate you.

Side note: Thank God Colorado was amazing.  And heck yes for having awesome return flight single-serving friends!  :D  Made it all okay!

Epic Journey, Pt. 1

Destination:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

That's Denver.  Heck yes!  Okay, so I was really on the way to Colorado Springs, but I didn't have any nice pictures that would let you know I was in a city!  Plus, Colorado Springs isn't exactly recognizable by picture alone.

Alright.  Well, I meant to document my epic journey through 6 airports, 4 states, and lots of snow in a series of blogs WHILE traveling ... but my interwebz effed up.  So no.  Now I had the idea of just doing it anyways.  Even though it was ummmm ... 2 weeks ago now.  Oh well.  Deal.

My giant journey began on November 25th.  The day before Thanksgiving.  I know.  What was I thinking travelling the DAY BEFORE Thanksgiving?  I had the first flight out of my airport so I thought I'd be okay.  My flight left at 6:26am (super random, but that's what my ticket said!).  I have always been in the practice of arriving at airports about 2 hours early for bathroom breaks, security checks, stupid random checks, gates changes, and delays--in no particular order.  Since I was leaving from College Station-Easterwood though, I felt that I only needed to be there about an hour early.  It is only one terminal with two gates after all.

Front check-in of CLL:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

"Secure" area of CLL in front of Gate 2 (oooOOOooo ... sarcasm):

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

I was rewarded with a 30-minute wait outside of the terminal as it didn't open until 6am.  Lame.  I had to stinking wait in the cold for what seemed like ever.  Thankfully, I am quite the benevolent person, and I held my composure.  So.  The airport finally opened and I got my tickets (heck yes for electronic check-in via iPhone!).  My security check was quite thorough and consisted of the 70-something year old guard asking if I had any bombs.  Of course my answer was a resounding, "Yes!"  Okay.  So I said "no."  Same difference.  I was taken aback considering that I am always the one out of my group to be "randomly" checked.  I suppose I look like a terrorist with my dark skin/hair/eyes?  The part that freaked me out most about this portion of my journey and the airport in general was the lack of jetways!!!  I had to walk outside the terminal, onto the tarmac in cold rain, and then climb stairs to get into a plane.  Still not the worst part.  I'm a pretty tall guy, and America doesn't care about the increasingly tall average Joe (haha, I'm JOvan!!! ^_^) since I had to pretty much double myself over to fit into the plane.  Similar to how this kid looks in the safety pamphlet (probably the best part of the entire trip) on the seat backs:

To my horror, while walking out onto the tarmac, I was greeted by a plane with propellers!!!  I didn't even know that they were still used for commercial serivce!!!  I was so scary being on that sucker.  I wish it wouldn't have been so dark so I could've taken a pic.  Moving on--I've flown a lot in my life, and that was the scariest flight I've ever been on.  The propellers were loud and buzzy-sounding and the whole plane was vibrating and felt like it was going to be ripped apart by the sheer centrifugal force of those propellers.  And to top it off, the flight was to Bush Intercontinental (only one of the most horribly laid out airports of all time) which was a paltry 30 minutes away.  I felt a little badly for using such a disproportionately high amount of resources to travel this year.  Oh well.  Worth it times a million.  At least.

Speaking of Bush Intercontinental, I had to disembark onto the tarmac yet again (still raining) and get onto a cramped little bus.  I have never done this ... and I've been to some small airports ... this is one of the busiest in the country though!!!  The bus didn't even take us to all the terminals.  If you weren't terminal A, then too bad.  You had to get off that bus and walk or ride a bus to the other terminals.  Of course I was in E which is the furthest away from A.  Thank God I wasn't having to make a quick connection.  The terminal I was in was kind of neat ... in a quirky 60s chic kind of way.

Terminal E (imagine a white cylindrical room complete with faux ceiling gilding):

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

This is what I got to stare at for a good solid 3 hours:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

The bathrooms in Terminal E are aptly named, "Mens & Womens Bathroom."  Hahahaha.  I did find a lovely little oddity that I've yet to encounter anywhere else.  The hand driers in the restroom.  They were these weird gray, curvy, newfangled boondoggles with big opening for you to stick your hands into.  It was weird.  I had to watch someone else use them first ... how embarrassing.  No joke though, those suckers don't lie!  They really dry the hands completely in about 4 seconds.  I can't remember the last time I didn't have to wipe my hands dry on my clothes after using a hand drier.  Other than that I didn't encounter anything worthwhile in Houston.  Imagine that.

Hand drier instructions with hand drier following:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

From Houston, I proceeded to board my plane to Colorado Springs.  Wooooot.  CSprings is where my best friend and several other friends live (thanks to the US Army stationing them at Ft. Carson).  That flight was slightly better than the one from the other CS, but not by much because of the passenger in seat 18C.  I was in 18B.  I wished I could kill 18C the whole time I was in the damn plane.  Ugh.  That disgruntled letter will be the topic of another post.  It's funny for everyone else but me.  Moral of the story: the flights from CS to CS were hell.  It was highly worth it though ... I got to be with my best friend in her wicked awesome 3 storey house along with crazy army friends for almost 2 weeks (heck yes, no finals!!!).  I also found an amusing wonder of science in the Sky Mall magazine (see toothbrush below).

A toothbrush that cuts brushing time in half (you know, because that minute is just brutal as it is).  It looks like it would hurt and you'd have to have a perfect bite and teeth:

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

This is what I finally arrived to (Right outside Colorado Springs Airport):

From Thanksgiving 2009 - Colorado

So worth it.

I Long For Pervious Concrete.

Okay.  So I don't really long for pervious concrete, but I would like to see more widespread usage.  This is what a sidewalk made out of pervious concrete looks like:

What is pervious concrete?  It's pretty much concrete that is permeable and allows water to pass through it, just as the name implies.  What I love about this, is that it does more for the environment than what you would think it could.  I feel like the only problem is that it isn't as glass smooth as concrete ... oh well.  I can live without smooth concrete in exchange for it's benefits.

When it rains, typically concrete and asphalt allow all rainwater to run off.  The problem of concrete/asphalt runoff is that it picks up ridiculous amounts of toxins and pollutants along the way.  Runoff also causes rivers and creeks to swell with water since none is being absorbed leading to widespread flooding.  It has been noted time after time, that the large amount of development in North Dallas (and associated parking lots and streets) is responsible for the Trinity River Levees' decreased ability to provide flood protection.  Supposedly, 11 inches of rain in one day would overwhelm the levees in Ft. Worth and Dallas.  Imagine what kind of damage that would cause.  Breaching of Dallas' levees would result in damage far greater than that of New Orleans.  It's a little scary to think that Hurricane Ike dropped 12 inches of rain here in Bryan/College Station ... eeek.

Moving on.  My solution is to replace all sidewalks and parking lots with pervious concrete.  I mean, obviously not all at once, but some here and there.  Maybe charge some kind of tax for sprawling parking lots and use that to fund the initiative.  Maybe require all new parking lots and sidewalks to be made out of pervious concrete?

The only problem with pervious concrete is that it's basically not suited for high traffic streets or highways.  Sad day.  I'm thinking residential streets and driveways can also be made from this material.  It's great for the environment because the water absorbs into the soil underneath the concrete.  It also traps pollutants and toxins in it's airspaces and allows nature to naturally degrade them and return nutrients to the soil.  How nice.  So, it lowers runoff pollution, hydrates land, reduces runoff volume, is just as durable as concrete, and costs about the same as concrete.  Hmmmm.  Why aren't we using more of this!?

Dallas, I Just Solved Your Flooding Problem and Saved You 15% On Your Insurance.

Dear Dallas,

Your Trinity River Vision-Project-Whatever-The-Hell-It's-Called sucks.  There.  I said it.  Your plan sucks very large whale testicles (do those even exist?).  First of all, why the hell are you adding a rowing course on a river that is disgusting brown and has enough chemicals and waste to spontaneously combust?  Also, why are you making fake lakes that do nothing more than look pretty?  Another thing, why did you pay Calatrava a gazillion dollars to design 2 bridges that could've been just as pretty had they been designed by someone else?  Why are you "restoring the meandering path" of the Trinity if your ultimate goal is flood control?  Please tell me how 2 small (in comparison to the flood plain project area) chains of wetlands will help control flooding?  One last question before I move on to my solution: WHY THE HELL ARE YOU BUILDING YET ANOTHER TOLL ROAD IN SAID PROJECT AREA!?

Okay.  Whew.  I'm calm now.

My awesome plan kind of involves the same things, but in a much more practical application as well as some more realistic options to not incur billions of dollars of cost.

1.  If you're going to make lakes, you might as well make them useful AND pretty.  Instead of having 3 off-channel lakes, you should have one much larger main-channel lake.  If you have a larger, deeper lake, then you get the inherent flood control capabilities of a reservoir.  As much as the Trinity floods its flood plain, this will obviously not be the only answer to flood control.  Put the rowing course here if you MUST have one.  Added bonus: a larger, deeper lake will allow some siltation to occur, clearing up the water some.  Added bonus number 2: you'll be forced to clear up the river water quality since the lake will concentrate toxins, and I don't think you want headlines plastered everywhere reading "Dallas Lake Toxins Kill Hundreds" or "Toxic Dallas Lake Cancer Causing Nightmare," etc.

2.  This is about those dang bridges.  I wish I could say that you shouldn't have paid Calatrava to do them, but you already did it.  I will say this: the bridges look gorgeous.  It should be noted that both bridge designs have already been done and with shocking similarity.  See the following pictures.

These are pictures of the A1 bridge in Reggio Emilia, Italy.  Note how it is both bridges in one design, lol.  These pictures were taken from Flickr, the user ecatoncheires.

Now, these are the two to be built in Dallas.  Margaret McDermott on top and Margaret Hunt Hill on bottom.  These pictures were taken from the Trinity Trust's Facebook page.

Alright.  Look at how pretty those unoriginal, very expensive bridges are.  At least they'll add something to Dallas' skyline that no other city has.

3.  Flood control.  As I have already mentioned, since money is going to be spent to change the river's course and to dig out aesthetic lakes, why not spend the money to deepen the river and widen it?  Eh, eh?  I think whatever money is going to be used to do the dirt moving could be better spend by widening and deepening the current channel.  As I've calculated, if the river were widened from ~100ft. to ~1250ft. and deepened by 5 feet then most of the water during rains would stay within the actual banks of the river.  Imagine that.

This is just for fun but, I calculated the volume of a man-made lake as well as the extra storage capacity of said lake if the trinity were deepened and dammed.  I know this sounds ludicrous, but since this is supposed to be Dallas' largest public works project, I feel like the public would gladly pay more taxes to see those levees lowered or even eliminated totally.  I'll get to that part in a second.  If the Netherlands can reclaim 40% of it's land back from the ocean, then Dallas can do what I will describe.  My idea is that the Trinity River/Lake should be deepened from ~15ft. to ~55ft.  I also think it should be widened to ~1200ft. instead of the current ~100ft.  I pretty much envision the cross sectional shape of a trapezoid for the River/Lake.  To calculate the storage capacity I pretty much just did the volume of a very large trapezoidal prism.  Very easy.  I compared it to the capacity of the levees at maximum capacity (which also is a trapezoidal prism if simplified).  In my plan, I also added about 10 feet of flood capability (also in the form of a trapezoid) to protect park equipment and the like.  It would look kind of like this (it's very a very crude idea!):

The weird thing about Dallas' levee system is that the levees around downtown bottleneck.  The width between the levees at Westmoreland Rd is about ~2600ft. while the width at Commerce St is ~1500ft.  And hydrological engineers wonder why the floodwaters back up and steadily raise.  It's called the funnel effect, hello.  I'm not sure why the levees are like that, but it's part of the reason they fill so readily.  I have made adjustments to my Lake plan to follow suit.  The part near downtown would be ~1200ft. wide while around Westmoreland Rd it would be ~2200ft. wide.  If the length of the project were to extend from Loop 12 in Southeast Dallas to Loop 12 in Northwest Dallas, then there would no longer be a need for the levees.  I think it'd be pretty sweet to see Dallas without those horrific levees.  The city of Dallas could even drain the Lake/River significantly in anticipation of very heavy rains.  Then flooding really wouldn't be much of a problem anymore.  A wide river would look very lovely in Dallas.

4.  Stupid toll road.  Why the eff are you making a beautiful sprawling park that is supposed to be the central park of the South?  Last time I checked there weren't many public parks that had toll roads running through them.  As if Dallas needed yet another highway.  Why not spend the money on upgrading and reconfiguring the highways around downtown?  Pretty much every study on traffic in Dallas has indicated that adding a lame ass toll road and fixing the downtown highways have the same effect.  Heck, start tolling people for going into the city center like London.  Then you could have a toll, cut down on traffic, and encourage alternative forms of transportation.  I say scrap the toll idea in general.  Keep that frikin toll out of the park.  It'll be ugly and since it will be between the levees, don't you know what happens to smog in valleys?  Just take a look at LA or Phoenix.  Sure Dallas, give people yet another way to bypass the downtown area that you are so feverishly striving to revitalize.

5.  Why did Dallas put the Lew Sterrett Unit right next to the Trinity and Reunion Tower?  I mean, it's nice that you gave the prisoners a nice view, but really?  I thought the City was trying to encourage "river front" growth?  Yeah, a prison is the best way I can think of.  Now, when you approach the core, you get a lovely addition to the skyline in the form of a prison.  A big, giant, brown, concrete block.  Yum.  I guess it's okay since downtown doesn't seem to be able to fill all that office space.  You know, no one wants to live in downtown when there's prisoners there.  It's just a vibe thing.  It FEELS weird.  Houston has that same problem.  85% of downtown Houston's population is prisoners.  Heh.  See why no one lives there now?

6.  Why was Industrial renamed River Front?  Last time I checked, even during a crazy flood, the river is not visible from any portion of that road.  Misleading, much?  There is a nice view of the backside of a levee, though.  Maybe it should be renamed again to Levee Backside Rd?  Seems more appropriate.

See, if Dallas were to use MY plan, it would probably cost a heck of a lot more, but then River Front Blvd would actually have a meaning.  People would want to develop those decrepit industrial sites.  It's highly en vogue to develop industrial sites into more useful, attractive areas.  Humans also like to live near water.  Especially near water with views.  Humans + industrial river front property + fastest growing metro area in the US + downtown core = success.  Think of how many repeats of Victory Park (successful versions even!) the City could have.  Then, I'm thinking across the river in West Dallas, there could be a river front shopping/play area like the Boardwalk in Bossier City!  Not only is the western shore of the Trinity perfect for beautiful views of downtown, but it would serve the purpose of helping spur economic growth of the western side of Dallas.  Meh.  I suppose Dallas will never be that since it's all about exclusivity of the wealthy.

Dallas, hire me.  Done.

Isn't Dallas pretty with the river and such (even with the prison in front of Reunion Tower and the Hyatt)?  This picture was taken from the Trinity Trust's Facebook page.

Also, if Dallas had a respectable river front and ample water space, as well as maybe a new stadium or something in place of Reunion Arena, then I'm smelling Olympics!!!  Not a Dallas / Fort Worth Olympics, but a Dallas Olympics.  Sorry Ft. Worth, it just doesn't make logistical sense.  We don't need another Atlanta repeat.  Imagine.  The 2020 or 2024 Dallas Olympics ... ooooohhhhhh!!!!

My giant letter is done.  I spent random boredom time writing this and I think I may even send it in to the City of Dallas!  Whaaaat!  Not really, but maybe.

Jovan, out!  I don't even know why I wrote all this, hahaha!

Six Flags Over Texas!

Alright so this really isn't a post as much about Six Flags as it is my sadness over the fact that the Giant is being closeddddd!!!  :(  I really liked having my neck snapped, my back broken, and my insides churned.  The Texas Giant was pretty much my favorite ride outside of Cedar Point.  Speaking of, Cedar Point pretty much destroys all other amusement parks.  The fact that Cedar Point is not even remotely close is precisely why the Giant will be sorely missed.  They better do a badass replacement or I will murder someone.  Thankfully I rode that sucker 17 times in a row about a month ago.  No joke.  17.  I had the worst headache ever.  It was awesome.

This is the lovely Texas Giant.  Heck yes for Wikipedia and permission to copy!  :D

To the right is me and my friend at Six Flags with Daffy and Porky!  Woot.  Strangely, Daffy kept face-palming me and poking me in the sides.  It was very awkward.  I am insanely ticklish and I suppose he/she thought it was funny to make me jump.  I was still laughing from the previous poking in this picture and Bethany is pretty much deathly afraid of mascots, hahahaha.  I love it.

HALLOWEEN!!! Baking and schtuff!

Aowright.  So yesterday was Halloween.  I don't normally celebrate Halloween because it's kind of a depressing time of the year for me (Don't worry!  No depressing story in this post!)...BUT...I decided to go hardcore this year!  My friends and I decided about 2 weeks ago to throw a giant party (hooray for Facebook party invites!). Overall, yesterday was wicked fun.  Amanda and I baked stuff ALLLLLLL day.  We woke up at 10 and pretty much baked till 8 then got ready.  I'm definitely only posting the pictures of the baking since the rest are too scandalous (and no one should be allowed to be as drunk as I was, hahaha!).  I will say that my costume involved underwear, tights, towels, and toothpaste.  It was a super hero costume, but maybe just not a super hero you know of!  I did make it up after all.  That was our party theme, unusual super heroes!  There was a cucumber man, super woMAN,  and super hygiene girl and super hygiene boy (me!) to name a few!  :D

This is the lemon cake mix ... as a warning to anyone making lemon cake, you have to mix that effing mix for like 3 minutes total!  NO CAKE SHOULD TAKE THAT LONG TO MIX!!!!!  It was extra yummy though!

This was the lemon cake after frosting and before the "blood and guts" were added.  I think I may have eaten about half of this cake before midnight...

It was also our friends Brooke and Denise's birthdays so it was a two-for-one!

Decorating sugar cookies!!!  We did a really terrible job AND ran out of icing!  LAME.  Still, no one seemed to mind because all 4 dozen were gone.  Nice.

I wasn't really very sure how to imitate the face on the cookie ... I made that face a lot last night.  Heh.

Amanda making the "mud."  Seriously, so easy and tasty!  It's like rocky road ice cream that doesn't melt!  Okay, it's like rocky road ice cream with gummy worms.  The only thing that sucked: cleaning up peoples vomit later that evening.  Gag.

Random: Brooke's son as Raggedy Andy!!!  CUTE!!!  He probably ate about 483257098 pieces of candy before nightfall.  It was nice to visit with them before the party.  You know, since she's a parent, lol.




So, the moral of the story is: Halloween was awesome.  I woke up today, feeling awesome.  (Is that a comma splice?)  I never get hangovers or anything anyways.  It's like I was blessed with the ability to drink tons, never throw up, and not have hangovers.  What more could a college student ask for!?  I mean, I have to cut loose some times, right?  I have a lot of frikin studying for today though.  If anyone wants to tackle Quant. Chem with me, I'll love you forever.  I also get to write a lovely paper today.  Kill me.  I'll reiterate: I feel awesome today.  I still managed to do my normal 3 miles, and still woke up early!  I'm partially done with my paper at the moment, so pretty much all is good.

Oh!  I also need to point out that Hocus Pocus is a GREAT movie to watch on Halloween.  It's got tons fo awesome quotes and it's extra funny when you're drunk.  Just throwing that out there.

I also just realized that I probably sound like an alcoholic, but I promise I'm not one!  Uh oh, alkies always say that don't they?  Hmmm.  Well, since I'm in college, I'm allowed to just say that I'm not an alkie, I'm just a normal college student!  Plus, I'm old enough so I'm allowed!