First Post In a Long, Long While....

...but that doesn't mean that there's nothing happening in my life -- Actually, I would prefer that very little actually happens in my social life, as that has become my equilibrium, dictated, of course, by my lifestyle as a computer geek/general geek.

But NO, my life has been completely insane over the last few weeks, dotted with entertaining and occasionally life-threatening weekends, light-hearted family tumult (the good kind), and extreme amounts of pizza (In fact, we are approaching the lethal dosage amount of pizza for humans, which is something like: L.D. 97 -- I am currently at L.D. 91, but there are signs of slow down, which is good, since this means I shall extend my life span)

OK...where in blazes do I start?......All righty, I'll start with a rundown of the life-changing events that have occurred in the last 2 weeks:

(1: My brother Dave has graduated from Harvard and acquired his PhD in chemistry, after 6 grueling years...congrats to Dave!

(2: My Mom's friend from Brazil, Idessi (sp?), visited for 1 month during most of August.....It was her visit to this country in many years, and she enjoyed it very much..

(3: I flew on a plane to North Carolina to attend a Jazz festival during Labor Day Weekend...Why is this life-changing? Because it was the very first time I ever flew on a plane.....I have a great story about that first take-off too :-)

(4: Last but certainly not least, out of nowhere, my brother Chris, who coincidentally came home from Vermont the same time as Dave, has announced that he is going to settle down with a girl named Elise in Seattle....Does this mean marriage for Chris??? Possibly, I'll find out as soon as I get some details -- such as Elise's last name, basic identity (which will enable me to identify her on the street, which is sorta important), and other essential contact information.

OK, I also had a full-weekend, which included violently intense mini-golf, a 7-mile Kayak run in the Pine Barrens (along with 2 extremely sore forearms), and a trip to the Met for some fine art yesterday, and 2 near-death incidents in a 5 minute time span, thanks to my friend Dan, the WORLD'S WORST DRIVER.

Yep.....I have LOTS to discuss......

OK, I think I'll start with my first flight in an airplane:

So I flew on an American Eagle jet from Newark Int'l....Being ridiculously prepared as usual (which is an essential part of the "Way of the Jeff"....yeah, I fully understand that getting to a place 1 hour in advance is quite possibly the LEAST sexiest thing a guy can do, but oh well, my ways are fixed, for better of for worse), I arrive 2 and a half hours before boarding time, and I am waiting in the terminal gate almost 2 hours before my plane actually arrived....I decided to purchase some Altoids, the curiously strong mints. I continue my daze/first flight anxiety for the remaining 90 minutes....All the while, I imagine that the plane will at least be somewhat spacious, with enough room for me to maneuver around if I so choose, with a food cart rolled up and down the aisle by a flight attendant....Then I imagine that if we crashed, we could become a real life cast of "Lost"....I then started looking around, trying to match each passenger with a character on the show..Amazingly, I was able to match many of the major characters (I nailed down "Kate", "Sahid", "Hurley", and "Sawyer" for sure....there was even an Oriental couple that didn't speak English!....Or, I should say, it APPEARED that they couldn't speak English...)

So basically, during this waiting period, I oscillated from thinking positively and confidently, and thinking negatively and about which character from Lost I would end up being (I concluded I would be a blonde-haired Charlie -- but with an altoid addiction, rather than a heroin addiction :-)) -- but there REALLY should be someone like me on Lost, it would make the show much more interesting, but realistically, I would be swallowed up by the invisible security system during my 2nd episode, or something like that....WHAT DO YOU THINK MY FATE WOULD BE READERS?

OK, so the plane arrives, and as I approach the plane, I am terrified to learn how tiny it is....no coach and 1st class sections, just 20 seats in what looks like the inside of a crammed schoolbus....I start to develop claustrophobic tendencies, but I try to stave that off by noticing where this potential real-life cast of "Lost" will sit on the plane....I sit next to Kate on my right and Sahid to my left. Sahid noticed that I have never flown before, as he observed my slight fidgeting and sweating. He says, "Do not worry -- I have flown many times before, you won't feel a thing"....his voice was very smooth and reassuring, so I managed to calm down considerably....he then started babbilng about a French woman, but I stopped paying attention by then :-)

So as our plane is preparing to take its position on the runway by backing up, an unknown object SUDDENLY CRASHES against somewhere on the right side of the plane!...The plane shook violently, and everyone yelled out, "What the hell was that??!!" ......Sahid then chuckled and said to me, "Heh heh......In all my years of flying, THAT'S NEVER happened to me before.".....

I responded by putting my hands against my face, and quietly eeping out:

"Oh my God, I'm going to die."

I then began to pray - to God, to Allah, to Yahweh, to Vishnu, to the Great Spirit, to the Trees, to the Mountains, to the Animal Spirits, to America, to Canada, to Mexico, to Homer Simpson, to WHOEVER!!!! for the next 5 minutes.....

...As it turned out, it was a very nice and comfortable flight....Of course, every time there was even a slight movement in the air, I clutched my hands against the seat...But my flight was made much more pleasant by the slightly flirtactious Kate, who turned out to be very cute as well (that's why she was "Kate" :-)) ....we had a nice little talk, and when we both realized we had different return flights to Newark, she even let out a cute little feminine "Aww...that's too bad"....Once again, I proved that I am the Don Juan of zero-probability romantic situations....Doh!

..Anyway, so I landed, which was SOO COOOL!!...and I went on my merry way to grab my luggage....End of story..

I have far more to tell on my blog over the next few days, STAY TUNED!