Day 4, pt. 1

This is trully an adventurous day. I was woken up at 6:22 to an incoming text message from a would be acquintance confirming the plan to meet up in Houston once I arrived.

I woke up fully at around 8, checked out of the hotel at 9:15, and stored my luggage at the guest service. I was relieved from a one minute viewing of a pay-per-view movie charge. What can I say, their in-hotel movie system was poorly designed, it was probably a button or two got accidentally pressed here and there. I myself never intended to watch any movie. Who would, with a free wi-fi available?

I planned to take BART to the airport at around 10, which left me with enough time to pay a visit to St. Patrick's church on 4th St and Mission. I had planned on attending the daily mass at 5:15 PM yesterday, but missed it due to poor planning on my part. Who in the right mind would squeeze in shopping, tours, and a Mass in a five hour slot? Also, it showed what my priorities are these days (or is it all the time?).

I had no problem in locating the church. It was a smaller size of gothic influence. There are painted glasses all around the wall, statues of saints with devotion candles lit up next to each of the statue. A running water fountain on the altar area kept a soothing atmosphere despite of the heavy vacuuming from one of the staff. After taking pictures, I sat for a while in one of the pews toward the center of the church while trying to empy my mind from all worldly matters. After a few minutes, I let myself out in order not to be involved in a complication from missing a flight.

I was playing a game with myself these past four days, a game in which I am to not making any business with a certain coffee joint. I've been going to the local places instead. This morning, upon entering such premises, an older homeless lady was asking people for a little bit of breakfast. I, off course, have mastered the way to ignore "this" kind of people. But then I ordered a hot chocolate, an ice tea, and two pastries for the both of us. When I got around to my order and was about to give them to her, she was no where to be found. On my walk to the bus stop I tried to spot for unfortunate folks and then I saw an older man playing a Yamaha recorder along Market St. I gave him the food and drink. From a far I saw him biting on the zuchini bread.

I then hopped to the bus, got my luggage, hopped on the BART, and finally the airtrain. I checked in, passed the security point, got a few last minute souvenirs, and arrived at my gate just as boarding was announced.

I got a window seat with a couple en route to Brazil for a 17-day vacation. We hit it up a bit, and then the plane started to taxi. It stopped after a while and the captain announced that we needed to get back to the gate to check on one of the engines. What everyone was hoped to be a few minute delay, turned out to be three hours and counting (it is 3:30 PDT when I'm typing this). Murphy's Law is trully upon us. And of course, it is Friday the 13th.

These past three hours, I have texted people, called people, read book, wrote a post, listened to MP3 player, asked for water and orange juice, slept, and last but not least, have been torturing myself in between by thinking about R. As B pointed out yesterday what that kind of act should be called, the discussion somehow was lead towards the parallelism with S&M.

OK. We'll see how this journey ends. NY is driving to Houston. She'll be spending sometime at the mall. A considerable amount of time, I'd say. This laptop draining battery faster than a drought in Ethiopia. And to make things worse, I lost the only pen I have. One cannot rely on high technology alone, you see.

The captain just announced the faulty part has arrived for installation. As soon as it passed the testing we'll be continuing with the flight. He didn't even bother to give out estimate as to when things were expected to be finalized.