En Route to LA - Airport Delay Blues

I'm writing this post at the Taipei airport, mooching off of free Wi-Fi (why isn't this standard in every other airport??) while waiting for my connecting flight to LA to... um... arrive. When shuttling back-and-forth between LA and Manila, as I've done twice a year for the past 2 years, I prefer to take EVA Air, the Taiwanese airline. They're actually a lot cheaper for comparable-class tickets to Manila on Philippine Airlines, and they provide decent enough service. The real clincher for me, though, is the cool on-demand movie system they have in ALL their seats - on a long-haul flight like the one I'll (hopefully) be boarding in an hour, I can watch any of the several dozen movies and TV shows they have anytime I want. They even have relatively recent summer releases like Iron Man and Kung Fu Panda - definitely going to watch those before I fall asleep.

My back's a bit sore from carrying around ~40lbs of camera gear, hard drives, random electronics and my laptop in a hiking backpack as carry-on luggage - more on this in another post. Basically, I can't trust the airlines to take care of my gear, especially when it costs so much, and especially at a time when they're trying to find every possible way to cut back on expenses and charge for things. Fortunately, the ground staff in Manila felt the same way - they weighed the bag (that's how I know how heavy it is, heh) and motioned to check it in, but then they took one look at all the gear inside and waved me through, saying that they really, REALLY didn't want to be responsible for all that stuff.

Hopefully my flight's got a good pilot that can make good on the lost time. I really don't have a lot of time to play around with once I get into LA - my classes start on Monday and I still have to move in, unpack and buy furniture. I also still have to get cable Internet - I may be online only intermittently from this point on.

I'd post a photo of where I'm at now, but I packed my card reader in check-in luggage, silly me. Oh well.