Travelogue
A couple of days ago I headed across the northern United States on a Boeing 757 on United airlines – the hungry skies. United is a quirky airline. They have three classes of seating on their domestic flights: executive, economy and then what I call the “hole in the bagel class:” Economy Plus. Economy Plus consists of a third of the rows of the economy cabin with four inches more legroom than the back two thirds of the economy cabin. In practice, Economy Plus seems to offer pretty much the same legroom as every other airline, but the economy cabin is cramped and uncomfortable, esp[ecially if you are penned in and the person in front of you decides to recline. At that point, your tray table becomes unusable and if there is anything under your seat, your legs start to cramp up. They should properly call Economy Plus, plain old economy and refer to the other section as Economy Minus.
To enjoy the stretchy legroom of Economy Plus will cost you $40 extra dollars – ten dollars an inch – and wil almost certainly guarantee you a row to yourself, because it seems on the Vancouver-Chicago and the Vancouver-Denver flights, almost no one is enough of a sucker to pony up for legroom they would get on any other airline.
And then the Starbucks at the G terminal in Chicago won’t take my travel espresso cup because, the barista was worried about “cross-contamination.” When she said that I walked away, for there was little I could to persuade myself that a shot of espresso was worth the risk that Starbucks would contaminate my travel cup. Interesting.
Anyway, I’m in Michigan now meeting with 24 very interesting people from across Native America and Hawai’i engaged in conversation about the nature of native leadership and looking now at places in which that leadership is having an impact in the world. The retreat is being sponsored by Native Americans in Philanthropy and the Fetzer Institute. The weather here is very mild, and a big thaw is on. Snow and ice have been plunging from the roof of the amazing retreat centre here called Seasons. One more half day and then it’s off to Toronto where I get to see my family and my new niece Rebecca.
