Janae in Australia

The group finally made it to Australia after 16+ hours of flying. No way I could do that unless I had a first class ticket and could lie down and watch sports, sleep,have a massage and grill up some hamburgers.

It is quite possible that I would freak out being stuck in an aluminum tube for that length of time. I did LA-Paris in business class a number of times and that is 10 hours going and 11 coming back. Atlanta to Lima was also 7+. Barely managed on those trips. I stumbled out of the airport in LA just wanting to be home but still had to do the LA-Vegas leg. This is why going east to Europe works with Virgin Air although their planes are essentially buses with wings. Filthy too. Why can't anyone build a decent bathroom on an airplane? They are still using designs from the 1960's. I feel sorry for women since they have to sit down amid all that filth and stench.

The whole crossing the International Date Line is trippy too. Janae left on Monday and landed their on Wednesday. Coming home, she will get back before she left....and I don't go in any plane that engages in time travel. No way no how.

So it's just me and the animals here at home. Jake and Alec are in Ecuador and Salt Lake City, respectively. I was too lazy to even do Outback takeout last night and just crashed at home reading some interesting books....part of my summer reading program (inside joke).

One of the books I'm reading now is, "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins. He's an atheist/scientist who espouses the law of natural selection versus creation. It is a fascinating book that takes a look at life on earth from an entirely different perpective from what I believe in. I know some people would question why I would even read such a book. I think its important to be familar with conflicting points of view....even as divergent as Dawkin's belief that the earth is the proverbial "needle in the haystack" of planets that exist in the galaxy that hold the necessary building blocks for life, and came about as a cosmic coincidence. He accurately points out that our place in the universe is all about the chemistry, and physics being properly aligned. We just have different beliefs about how the chemistry and physics were established. He makes some decent arguments that are deeply thought provoking. It is the age-old debate of creation versus evolution. He did make an interesting point though.....Imagine a world without religion: no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no Israeli-Palestine conflict, no witch hunts, no crusades....There sure has been a lot of death over religion. Why can't we all just get along?

The other book is the "The World Without Us," by Alan Weisman. In this book, the author takes a look at what the world would look like if mankind suddenly disappeared.....for whatever reason (he doesn't get into why this would happen- (plague, war...use your imagination). In two days the NY subways would flood, in 40 years our neighborhood houses would have collapsed from the absence of maintenance, in 300 years bridges would have collapsed from rust, in 250,000 years NYC would look like a meadow with no signs whatsoever of human life. Sure it's a speculative piece, but it's hypnotic reading. The History Channel also did something like this earlier this year and I happened to watch it.

Check Janae's blog later in the week for photos and stories from down under.