The trip really got off to an interesting start as our plane was waiting on the tarmac at Newark International Airport. The pilot came on the radio and said, \u00a8Folks, believe it or not, this is not the first time this has ever happened.\u00a8 (Words you don\u00b4t want to hear from your pilot pre-takeoff. That\u00b4s like hearing the pilot say, \u00a8Folks, now that I\u00b4ve finished my drink we can get going.\u00a8) The pilot continued. \u00a8We are hearing a strange knocking sound and we think we may have locked a baggage handler in the luggage compartment and he\u00b4s trying to let us know that he wants out.\u00a8 You think? After a hefty delay of about an hour the pilot came back on the radio. \u00a8Folks, it turns out the strange knocking sound was actually just a misfiring pneumatic valve. The good news is that it\u00b4s something we don\u00b4t really need once we\u00b4re up in the air so we\u00b4re gonna go ahead and get going here shortly.\u00a8Really, I thought to myself, how about we go ahead and switch planes and make sure that\u00b4s the only thing misfiring or\u00a0to see if\u00a0there were any other dangerous stowaways hidden in the plane\u00b4s undercarriage?<\/p>\n

Anyways, we did go ahead and got aloft safely. The movie that was playing during the flight was \u00a8Mamma Mia.\u00a8 This movie has actually become one of the highest grossing flicks of the year and just moved in to second place in the U.K. as the second-highest grossing film of all time there, so I decided I may as well give it a viewing since the likelihood of me ever seeing it when I wasn\u00b4t a captive audience was slim at best. After about an hour into the film I began to wish that it was\u00a0I that was locked in the luggage compartment where\u00a0the hum of the jet engines would drone every other sound out.\u00a0I really liked Sweden when I was there, and they really have a fantastic culture, but\u00a0Abba is clearly\u00a0one obvious blot on Sweden\u00b4s otherwise rich history of cultural exports. I began to think that this is what the rest of the world probably thinks of America when they hear a Josh Groban song come on the radio or watch a Michael Bay film. On behalf of the United States I officially apologize to the rest of the world. I now know the pain that you have felt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The trip really got off to an interesting start as our plane was waiting on the tarmac at Newark International Airport. The pilot came on the radio and said, \u00a8Folks, believe it or not, this is not the first time this has ever happened.\u00a8 (Words you don\u00b4t want to hear from your pilot pre-takeoff. That\u00b4s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2569,1,2576,2562,2577],"tags":[111],"yoast_head":"\n