Right, so I just got back from a few days in Portland for the Dew Tour. I’m sure you’ve already heard/read about all the highlights, but Mike Spinner’s whip 720 is worth mentioning again. Crazy. I rode a moped while I was in Portland; I think Degroot has photos.

I couldn’t sleep at all on Sunday nite, so I watched William Shatner getting roasted on Comedy Central until about 4am, then took a shower and hopped a train to the airport. When I got there, they were offering a free round-trip ticket to anyone who’d take a later flight because the early one was overbooked. I’ve been in this situation a few times before, but I either had to get back to the office right away or I was too hungover to sit around at the airport all day, so I’ve never been able to take advantage of it. Since I don’t have an office to get back to anymore, I volunteered, and not only did I get a free ticket, but I also got bumped to first class on a flight four hours later. 

First class is pretty pimp. They even give you drinks while you’re still on the ground. Once we were airborne, the first thing they gave us was a little cup of hot nuts. I don’t mean spicy, I’m talking microwaved. I’ve never had hot nuts in my life, and the thought never crossed my mind that anybody would even want hot nuts. They were all right, but considering the fact that I wasn’t dealing with the usual eight-inch wide seats in coach, I would have been content with room-temperature nuts.

It was a pretty short flight, but we still got a full meal, a tasty chicken salad with lobster bisque. Even the salt and pepper packets were fancy; what a waste. I ate the shit out of it, though, with a nice glass of wine, to boot. At one point, one of the common folk from the back of the plane came up to use the first-class crapper, and upon seeing the eight of us with food in our laps and silver spoons in our mouths, asked if there was a meal on the flight. If I hadn’t been so full, I would have smeared the gourmet chocolate-chip cookie we were given for dessert all over my face and banished her to the slums of row three and beyond, prodding her with my plastic knife (the fork and spoon were metal). I just grunted and motioned for another glass of wine.

My next flight will most likely be cross-country, so I’m not looking forward to returning to the rows of crying babies, fat tourists, and smelly bastards. Oh well, at least I experienced first class once; that’s all the class I’ll ever have.