Three Days In The Land Of Large Cars

South Korea, bomb scares, wind chill factors, vintage ties.

They're not the lyrics to a Billy Joel song. They are... The Little Details.

• Last week I went to Minnesota, ostensibly on a last-minute business trip.
• I like the way the word "ostensibly" sounds but it implies that there's some sort of hidden agenda. There was no hidden agenda. I went to Minneapolis FOR a last-minute business trip.
• It just so happens that the business was canceled before I touched the ground.
• Do you know what you do when you're sitting on a plane in Phoenix and get a phone call that informs you that you will not be spending the next seven weeks traveling the country and making several thousands of dollars? I suppose if you're somebody else, you cry. Or you rebook your ticket. Or you get off the plane.
• Whoever this somebody else person is, they clearly weren't sitting next to a nice young PhD candidate on her way to Waterloo, Iowa.
• Ostensibly, that makes me sound like a hound.
• Here's the thing you have to understand about my life: My job is pursue opportunities. Most of them -- in fact, a large majority of them -- will go to somebody else. You only hear about the successes because I don't tell you about the misses.
• So I lost another gig. Throw it on the pile with the other eighty or ninety percent of the gigs I audition for and don't ultimately get. If I dwelt on each and every lost opportunity, my life would be eighty or ninety percent miserable.
• If your life is eighty or ninety percent miserable, you need to make some major changes. You're also probably sitting in an airport in Phoenix, arguing with a ticketing agent about the cost of re-booking a flight while clutching a tear-stained itinerary in your pale, sweaty hands.
• That didn't seem like fun, so I went to the Holiday Inn in Bloomington and had some drinks with a nice woman named Maggie who's off to teach English in Korea.
• Who needs match.com when you have US Airways?
• Hey, here's some weird trivia: In Korea, everyone is one year older than they are here.
• You'd think that would be because of the International Date Line, but it turns out that only makes you a day older.
• Instead, it's because the moment you are born, Koreans consider you to be 1 year old. BOOM! Happy first birthday! Let's make you a belly button!
• Wait, it gets weirder: On January 1st, no matter how old you are, everyone in Korea turns one year older. Happy birthday Korea! Everyone count the rings around your belly button!
• Yeah, that means if you are a Christmas baby, you will turn two SIX days later.
• You don't learn that sitting in an airport in Phoenix swilling Bloody Mary's and grinding your teeth about the audition you missed for CSI.
• Koreans also think all Americans are fat. Statistically, they might be right.
• I suppose it has something to do with the fact that Americans don't work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and eat nothing but fried rice and kimchi for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• Also: men smoke everywhere, but women only smoke in the bathroom.
• Did I go to Minnesota, or KOREA!?!
• As far as I can tell, I'm still the same age, so I guess it was Minnesota.
• ...dodged a bullet there, I tell you.
• The captain of my US Airways flight to Minneapolis was jovially unapologetic about the fact that it was six degrees when we landed.
• Feh. It's only a sixty degree temperature swing. I've been through worse.
• Once, we went on a family vacation to Cozumel and the temperature difference was 120. The captain (also somewhat jovially) informed us that "the slight bump we felt upon landing was due to the brake pads being frozen to the wheels."
• I don't know how old everyone is in Cozumel, but I'm guessing they think all Americans are fat, too. That's the downside to catering to tourists in bathing suits.
• I did get to do some actual business on my trip: I met with some director and actor friends. They all seemed pretty busy. Always good to check in on the home front and see what's cooking. I'm not going to bother telling you any more about it. Because I am a JERK.
• A jerk who loves you.
• I almost didn't make it to Minneapolis, or Phoenix for that matter. Terminal 2 at LAX got shut down moments before I arrived due to a "suspicious package."
• [Insert dick joke HERE.]
• I almost set off another security incident when they finally re-opened the terminal because I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag. CRISIS!
• Hey Mr. TSA X-Ray Dude, if you can't raise your voice enough to flag down a coworker to run a laptop through the machine, how do you expect to stop a determined criminal with guns?
• Not that I'm arguing for more aggressive TSA guys. Repeat after me: "Every time you take off your shoes at the airport, the terrorists win."
• That last part was just me checking to see if John Ashcroft is still reading my blog.
• What's that? We have a new guy? Sorry, I hadn't noticed.
• You know what's not political? Shopping at second-hand stores.
• I got five great ties, four of them vintage. (Notice I didn't say what vintage.) I also got a shirt, two bolo ties, and two pairs of shorts.
• Yeah, it's FEBRUARY. Look, there's a SIXTY DEGREE temperature swing. I need shorts!
• Or at least I will in a month.
• Fact: I will wear those shorts more than I will wear any of my ties.
• And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why ties are ONE dollar and shorts are THREE.
• Maybe I should make it a goal in 2010 to increase my tie-to-shorts ratio.
• If I ever start a band, I'm going to name it "Suspicious Package" and if that doesn't pan out, I'll go with "Tie-To-Shorts Ratio."
• Ostensibly, that's what I'm going to do anyway.
• Speaking of ostensible things, on the flight back to LA, I sat next to a Somali woman who slept the whole time, and a music producer dude who promptly put in his headphones and followed her example.
• I don't know how they measure age in Somalia or at the Grammys, but however they do it, it makes you tired.
• I talked to the flight attendant instead. (I *told* you I was a hound. Or maybe cold weather just makes me chatty.) I asked her if she preferred weekend travelers or the Monday-Friday types. She said she preferred business travelers because they get on, sit down, and don't argue with you.
• I'm glad I agreed with her. She looked surly.
• If you had to tell a disgruntled series of jackasses to stow their bulging carry-ons above their OWN seats thirty times in twenty minutes, you'd be surly too.
• I told her maybe if they didn't charge twenty-five goddamn dollars to check a goddamn suitcase maybe they wouldn't have so many goddamn problems with all those goddamn carry-ons.
• Apparently, surliness is catching.
• I didn't actually use the g-d word that much, it was more implied.
• Flying, it's fun.
• On the shuttle to the parking garage, I got another cultural lesson. It was just me and a Chinese family on the bus.
• I don't speak any Chinese, but I'm pretty sure their conversation revolved around these topics:
  1. Are we going to a hotel? This concrete structure looks like a hotel, but it is filled with large automobiles.
  2. I can't wait to celebrate my birthday. However it is celebrated.
  3. Statistically, most of the world is Asian, why does this round-eyed boy seem so amused to see us?
  4. Don't sit too close to the American. He is fat and his surliness is catching.
• Vacation travelers. What a pain in the ass.