Keith and Lacey

I started tanning today at a place called Sunny Buns… Sunny Buns.  I realize that a lot of guys do fake tanning these days, in fact 50% of the tanners according to the girl who signed me up, but that does not make me feel any more masculine.  And even though the reason I’m tanning is to prevent burn and misery in Asia, it does not make me feel any more masculine.

Upon entering Sunny Buns, you are bombarded with bright tropical colors, bikinis for sale (no man shorts), lotions, moisturizers, and intense olfactory hues like a double hit of Bath & Body Works.  I wonder if most people actually enjoy the olfactory overload?  For my part, it makes me a little queasy.

My favorite part about this place is the themed rooms because I don’t know if I could handle 3 minutes of strip time and 3 minutes of unstrip time without visual stimulation.  I think the room I was in may be their “man-room.”  The motorcycle theme definitely gave me a rugged, manly tanning experience.  It also has a funky multi-colored lampthing which doesn’t really add to the theme but I suppose helps create a soothing ambience.  Of course, all that doesn’t matter once you get in the bed because you can’t see anything except a pinhole of light through the eyeball goggles.  Now that I’ve made fun of myself, the name of the salon, the bright lights and smells, and the themed rooms, I am glad for one thing: headphones.  That way I can focus on music for 20 minutes instead of thinking about all the fake UV light stimulating my melanocyte cells to create melanin and then mixing up a good batch of good old fashioned malignant melanoma.  Mmm, tasty.

On Wednesday, July 27, 2005, I will emplane in Portland, Oregon and fly away from my beloved homeland, the United States of America, to the clean and civilized city/country of Singapore.  By using the adjectives “clean” and “civilized,” I’m not implying that the U.S. (or the other Asian countries for that matter) is unclean or uncivilized but I needed some descriptive words for Singapore and that’s what I came up with.  Also note that the previous statement, along with many future statements, is intended to be interpreted with sarcastic undertones.  I may end up being the only one who can actually locate and understand all said veiled sarcasm but at least I’ll make myself laugh.  Or chuckle anyway.  Well, maybe snigger.  Ok, I’ll be honest, perhaps a slight grin on one side of the mouth.  Fine, I admit it, I’ll probably frown, turn my head and cough, and start thinking about food.

Despite my assured abduction by alien lifeforms of a deep outerspace planetary system, I plan on flying away to a place only 1 degree north of the Equator in the middle of the summer according to the following schedule.  For fabulously fantastic fun, I’ve listed the local datetime first followed by the Pacific Standard Time.

Northwest Airlines Flight 0005
Depart: Portland, OR — 2:35pm 7/27 | 2:35pm 7/27
Arrive: Tokyo, Japan — 5:00pm 7/28 | 1:00am 7/28
Flight Time: 10 hrs, 25 mins
Flight Miles: 4,829
Meal Served: Dinner
Airplane: Airbus A330-200
Cruising Speed: 545mph
Seating Capacity: 243
Business Class: 32
Coach Class: 211

Depart: Tokyo, Japan — 6:40pm 7/28 | 2:40am 7/28
Arrive: Singapore — 12:40am 7/29 | 9:40am 7/28
Flight Time: 7 hrs, 0 mins
Flight Miles: 3,311
Meal Served: Dinner
Airplane: same
Total Flight Time: 17 hrs, 25 mins
Total Trip Time: 19 hrs, 5 mins
Total Flight Miles: 8,140

I didn’t list my seat assignment as I don’t want to be too trackable by all the governments, special agencies, and girls (especially girls) that are stalking me.  I will say that right now I’m assigned to a window near the front of the coach class because I love looking out and thinking about how amazing it is that I’m flying.  I think most people take flying for granted nowadays but I hope it always remains a novelty to me.  I have never flown for more than a few hours though so after 5 or 6 hours of nothing but endless vapid ocean my hope may dissolve and end tumultuously like Alka Seltzer in a seagull.

Back to my seating assignment..  When I was looking up the flight information on the NWA website, I noticed two different diagrams offering two disparate versions of the airplane wing width.  The width of the wing is important because if it reaches to my seat I won’t be able to see the endless vapid ocean, thus unnecessarily stifling frightening thoughts of crashing tragically in the middle of the Pacific.  Boo on stiflage.  As you can guess, one diagram shows my seat wingless and the other diagram shows my seat winged.  Er, I was about to profess my need to call NWA and find out but instead I got all pro-active and just did it.  My seat is definitely over the wing but close enough to the front of it that I think I’ll have a pretty clear view; now I’m beginning to wonder how loud the turbofan engine will be… I also asked the friendly NWA call girl how long she thought it would take to get off and she guessed 30-45 minutes from the back.  Ouch.  Since there really won’t be too much to look at except ocean (correction, NWA call girl pointed out that it’s more likely to be clouds), I think I’ll try to save some deplaning time and keep my seat.  Did I actually gain anything by this lengthy consideration of my seat assignment?