David Seruyange's Radio Weblog

Monday, August 16, 2004

The Terminal

(From Concourse C, Denver International Airport) I'm sitting here trying to get to South Dakota. Even in the days of the most modern technology, getting there is difficult and expensive. Living near LAX has corrupted my understanding of travel; I used to think that travel was from one hub to another. Although you have to hit a hub before getting to Sioux Falls on a puddle jumper (small aircraft), there are days like today where it requires multiple small aircraft to get there. At present I'm waiting for a flight to Minneapolis, and from there I'll "jump" to Sioux Falls. It makes the journey here a bit of a zig zag.

I feel rather spoiled for my concept of travel. It's easy to become annoyed with delays and reroutes like the one I had today but it really doesn't compare to a trip from Kenya to Uganda by bus. It's nowhere near that experience for discomfort.

Everyone, at least once in their life, should take a Greyhound bus. It would make the concept of "getting there" a little bit more elastic.

I wonder what marketing folks used to do before cell phones. It must have been agony for them to sit in the terminal waiting for their flight, building up all the empty conversations they are accustomed to having today. Who knows, they might have been forced to read something. But then again, half my entertainment is eavesdropping...

posted in [home], [snippets]

4:53:36 PM    comment []

My California: Pictures

This should have been a parking meter at Huntington Beach.

Huntington Gardens in Pasadena.

Barrell Cactus. They are some odd 90 years of age.

Out on the surf.

Wind chimes and a walk to the ocean in Long Beach.

LACMA was beautiful.

News stand with the usual suspects.

K in the apartment enjoys the cool and The Sectional.

Playin'

posted in [home], [prattle]

1:07:44 AM    comment []

My California: Words

It had been a while since I went down to San Diego. On Saturday morning I drove north from the Gas Lamp district to come home.

I ate breakfast in Del Mar. A friend of mine from high school, a skater, would pass around Thrasher magazines. In between pictures of skaters doing hand plants, I would see references to a place called Del Mar. "What an interesting name for a place," I would think to myself and let the words roll off my tongue to hear them out loud: Del Mar. Work eventually brought me there and I�ve never gotten it out of my system since; the quaint seaside town, the hill that runs down towards the ocean, and the quiet of a place that money can buy. The residents ignore me, which I might like best.

You could say that everyone is white except that tans run so deeply among locals. A girl next to my table flaunts her Harvard sweatshirt during breakfast with her mother. Everyone seems to have brought their dogs. The ocean is visible at the bottom of the hill.

I left Del Mar for Irvine. I had to take a Microsoft exam and wanted to give myself some time to get situated.

In Irvine I�m at the corner of Culver and Irvine Center Drive. Across the parking lot is China Trust bank. Around the corner is Sam Woo, the best Chinese food I�ve had in southern California. The bakery where I�m sitting is manned by a shopkeeper who barely speaks passable English. And why should she? The parking lot has no American cars save one: a lonely Dodge parked by itself, defining aloof to perfection. The occasional White or Indian person is a tourist, just like me.

Today I head back to South Dakota. But I�m taking the eclectic back with me, experiences from Del Mar, the Gas Lamp, Pasadena, Fullerton, Uptown Whittier, Los Angeles, Huntington, Laguna, Long Beach and the apartment in Buena Park; experiences with Mexicans, Armenians, Chinese, Korean, Black, and White; experiences in urban space, suburban sprawl, desert, beach, and wastelands.

Now it�s time to reflect, piece it together, and experience the contrast.

Goodbye, Angels and Insects.

posted in [home], [prattle]

12:38:13 AM    comment []