The secret to sleeping on a red eye for me is getting in
plenty of exercise and getting a seat next to someone that does not snore and
as far away from the engines as possible.
I have taken a total of nine red eye flights in the last forty months as
I think about all the travel I have done for auditing forest products
companies. It is not something I am proud
of, nor is it something that I would wish upon anyone, but it is a necessary evil
for my current job. When company
contacts ask me if I want earplugs to tour their mill I often find that I
follow the age old adage that I learned from Ray Berthiume “take two for
safety”. One for the mill and one for
the red eye home.
My dad once told me this story of the time that he used to
take the bus from Boston College to Maine for summers when he was a student and
the strategy that he had was to always get on the bus after it was half
full. His reasoning to me was this: "If I get on the bus when it is half full I am
able to choose who I want to sit next to and minimize sitting next to the
passenger that takes up a lot of space or doesn’t smell nice."
I find myself thinking of this as I take flights and what
type of strategy I have to avoid exactly that.
I have some fond memories of the time that I was in Hawaii but I do also
greatly remember that my seat got upgraded to first class and I gave it to
Steph while I took her seat next to the crying baby that lasted for 3 of the 6
hours. I feel like it is a crap shoot
and there is nothing you can do except for pray that you get a good luck of the
draw. Part of me also wonders if it is possible to get an exit row seat and
then say I am not willing to help if there is a really smelly b.o. ridden
passenger in the seat next to me.
As I am in Salt Lake City today my stratagem is to run 7
miles or as much as possible at altitude as training and do as much physical activity as possible
in after my audit and before I drive to the airport. I have flown enough that this flight I also
have the deck stacked in my favor by getting an upgrade to first class. I hope that it all works out to me sleeping on the plane. Looking at SLC if I have a few extra minutes I am going to go to the Black Diamond store and headquarters as I think it would be neat. The hardest part of this job is that auditing can be draining on the mental side and travelling is draining on the energy side of things so you combine them together and you get a bad combo where you find yourself ina neat place that you should be enjoying and have no energy. I find that going some place and not actually seeing it in your way at least for me is more frusterating then just staying home. I try to combat all of this travel with nightly exercise and an extra hour here and there.
I guess we will see what gets done. I am hoping that the audit contacts at the mill are friendly and non-argumentative.
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