Over And Out

Outside, it's sixty-five degrees below zero. The seat-back screen tells me that we're thirty thousand feet above Omsk, Russian Federation, and Lyn comments that it's probably not much hotter on the ground.

The screen is about the only good thing I can say about the experience on the Qantas 747 Flying Daycare Center where I'm writing this. Takeoff was four hours late, at the brain-bending hour of 4:30 am. We were the only people to check the web site and adjust our airport arrival time, so instead of checking in very early, we checked in nearly last and ended up at the back of the plane, just behind the bulkhead.

Which is where they put the babies.

Still, the Hoods blasting through my earphones are drowning out the shrieks of the excess baggage. And the screen's showing me dozens of nearby places - Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, Brussels - as we fly over and out to London.

Maybe it's the coffee, but I'm feeling good about this.

We're just getting started.