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Category Archives: life in general

Professional airport circler

I recently had to pick up a friend from the airport.  She’s a time traveler extraordinaire.  In that…she’s extraordinarily bad at time traveling.  In trying to travel -1.0hr, she actually traveled +1.5hr.  But anyway, that’s not the point of this post.  The point is, while I was circling the airport (airport police frown, even scowl, upon your waiting curbside for longer than a few minutes) waiting for her to finish time traveling, I realized that I should quit my current job and become a professional airport circler.  I would be really good at it.

Maybe you’ve never heard of the profession of airport circling.  Well, I’m not surprised.  It’s a pretty small and exclusive field and there are few openings for a professional airport circler.  It’s a bit like astrophysics, in that you really don’t have many job openings in the field over your lifetime.  It’s also a bit like stock car auto racing…only you aren’t really racing against anyone else, there are no rules for having a “stock” car, and the track you circle isn’t a dedicated track but the airport, generally the arrivals circle, but sometimes it can be the departures circle.

Anyway, there are different variants of circling that a professional airport circler needs to be familiar with, but the finish is always the same: you pick up a specific passenger.  Rarely do you have to post the quickest lap time in a mostly empty airport.  It happens, just not often.  It’s hard to find an airport that is mostly empty now.  More often than not, you’ll be running something of an obstacle course, with lots of other drivers, taxis, and buses on the track where you have to avoid them and pedestrians, while still post a good lap time.  And you have to be able to do this on the spot at different airports.  You really don’t have any time to practice.  If you’re lucky, you might get one practice lap right upon entering.  But more often than not, you have to be ready to post good lap times right from the beginning.  It can be a pretty high stress job.

Now, I think I’m pretty well qualified for the job.  I’ve circled lots of airports in my time.  I’ve had a lot of experience circling the obstacle course as well.  Why, just this last time when I was picking up our time traveler extraordinaire, LAX was a mess of an obstacle course.  I had one practice lap and my posted lap time was about 15 minutes.  After that, my lap times averaged about 3 minutes, which was very good.  If you’re lucky enough to have a practice lap, you really need to make sure to pay attention to the flow of traffic and such.  Otherwise you’ll just forever be stuck at 15 minutes.  Anyhoo, besides LAX, I have circled SNA, ONT, LGB, DFW, and ORD.  With DFW and ORD, you also need to know how to navigate the toll booths, which I can do.  I have had experience with CAI as well, but I wasn’t driving.  I did circle it several times and I’m pretty confident I could post a very good lap time there.

I’m pretty sure this would be a good career choice.  I definitely should quit my current job and become a professional airport circler.

For when singing just isn’t appropriate.

Today I learned of a very interesting vegetable.  I had no idea something like it existed.  It is the Romanesco broccoli!

 

Fractal_Broccoli

Links to source

Look at it!  Isn’t it the most interesting vegetable ever?  It looks like smaller drills stacked on bigger drills!  Wikipedia says that sometimes it’s also known as a broccoflower, but I know this as broccoflower.

Basically a green-tinted cauliflower.

And you can’t have two vegetables named the same thing.  That would be confusing.  You also probably shouldn’t have one vegetable with one or more names either (I’m looking at you yams/sweet potatoes).

Anyway, doesn’t the Romanesco broccoli look so interesting that you must try and eat it, no matter how it tastes?  Well, apparently not.  I showed a picture of it to one of my friends and he told me that it’s probably poisonous.  When asked why and he said it was the combination of the color and shape that put him off.  He also said that things that look that perfect probably shouldn’t be eaten.  Haha.

But, I think you should eat them.  I said earlier that the vegetable looks like smaller drills stacked on bigger drills.  That’s important.  I’m pretty sure eating this vegetable will give you drill power.  You ask, what is drill power?  Well, drill power, also known as spiral power, is what you need when you are not manly enough.  Why do you need to be manly?  Because it’s the solution to most problems.  Where am I getting all this information from?  Here.

So, the normal way to gain drill power is to sing the song.  But what if you’re in a public area?  What if you’re in the library during finals week and everyone is studying in silence around you?  What if you feel like your studies are getting the best of you?  You need drill power.  But you can’t sing.  Singing would get you kicked out of the library where there is ambient study power.  What you should have done was to eat some Romanesco broccoli before you started studying.  You probably don’t need much of it.  There are so many drills on drills!  I would guess that a floret would be the equivalent to singing the song.  Thus, maybe you can pack some with you as a snack for such library situations.  You should respect the rules of your library though.  Most libraries don’t like it when you eat things inside, even if it’s to give you drill power for studying.

Drill power.  Good for studying.  Eat some Romanesco broccoli today.

(Btw, if anyone knows where I could get some, I’d appreciate it if you’d send that info my way.  I really would like to try it, drill power or not.)