Pet peeves

This is a collection of sentences, or behaviors, that immediately raise a red flag in my mind. Some of them are not necessarily bad, but in my experience, they have been associated with stupid people.

• Ample use of emoticons – things like or – in writing: almost always it’s someone silly.
• Ample use of exclamation signs: nobody can be that excited about things. I find it dishonest.
• “I’m a realist”: what they usually want to say is “I’m more intelligent than you”. Unless, they do believe there is one reality, and they grasp it, in which case they’re deluded.
• “I see shades of gray where you see black and white”: I almost always hear this from cowards.
• “I would have done that for you”: said when you refuse to do something they ask. Maybe they’re honest about that, but would they be willing to do for you what YOU want done? No? I didn’t think so…
• “You and I can understand this, but most people can’t”: toxic, run away.
• Apologizing profusely: people who really mean it, apologize only once or twice, then fix their behavior. I find serial apologizers dishonest.
• Great gratitude: same as above. Honest people say thanks once or twice, then surprise you returning the favor at a future time.

Hardware

My iMac and my MacBook Pro had been running out of memory and disk space for some time now.
After some research online, I found that, even though a hard drive replacement in a MacBook is risky, I could handle it myself. It was fun to buy the screwdrivers and the components. I like doing manual work now and then. Aside from a short, tiny scare, it all went smoothly, and I enjoyed seeing the bowels of my machines.

Now they are ready to serve comfortably for another few years.

PS: If you’re looking to replace the hard drive on your MacBook Pro, here are instructions.

Manners

When I travel home to Madrid, I always dread that first intense exposure to Spaniards, in the airport lounge. I feel ashamed, I wonder why they (we) are so loud, have such a flock mentality, find it so difficult to wait in line. Oh, those boring conversations about media personalities, those old jokes; everybody rehashing the same opinions, dispensing advice to people that didn’t ask for it.

Why can’t we be more reserved, more independent, more perceptive?

This travel season, though, my experience was different. Except for an annoying Spanish-American family, the Spaniards were fine.

In my flight from Newark to Seattle, I was sitting between American teenagers. They both came equipped with their iPhones. The girl, probably 16-17, on my left, was reading Twilight. The boy, on my right, was on his best efforts to appear cool. Everything was fine until we were ready for takeoff, and the attendants asked passengers to turn all electronic devices off. The teens could not let go. The boy turned off his iPhone, but started listening to his iPod. I reminded him that that, too, was forbidden, and he put on his American teen persona: “Oh, huh, really?, huh, oh, yeah”.
The girl just would not turn off her iPhone. When we had been over 5 minutes waiting for takeoff, she started calling and texting. First, a flight attendant asked her to turn the phone off. She did, but when the attendant left, she started playing with it, and before long, texting. I then told her that the phone was supposed to be off. She said: “Yeah, I know, but I’m not worried”. After a few seconds, she turned it off, seemingly for good.

Towards the end of the flight, due to problems in SeaTac, the plane needed to refuel, and we landed in Spokane. Information came little by little on the conditions in Seattle, and on how long we would be staying in Spokane. The teens both called and texted several people to inform them of the new circumstances.
Again, when we were about to take off, the girl had to be asked four times over ten minutes – thrice by a flight attendant, once by me – to turn her iPhone off. She reacted defiantly, complaining loudly that she was just texting her dad to let him know we were leaving.

I know teenage is not an easy age, but there you go: iPhone girl, you are the rudest and most annoying person I have encountered when flying. I’m glad you are not a Spaniard.

Snowstorm

Seattle was not prepared for the onslaught of snow this holiday season. There are not enough snow machines in the city, and the airport is similarly optimistic about the weather. This season gave us the worst weather in many years. Some say 17, some say over 30.

All of this happened during the days I was traveling home.
Now it is fun to remember the chaos: spending the night before my flight in a hotel by the airport, navigating a SeaTac brimming with people who needed re-ticketing, missing my connection in Newark and having to spend the night there. On my flight back, having to make a stop to refuel and defrost, waiting over an hour for baggage, waiting again over an hour to get a taxi. All throughout, dealing with the harried airport staff, who often displayed good intentions, but had been outwitted by the events.

People were elated to make it through the madness, though, and let their guard down. I had my most interesting flight neighbors to date – in the Seattle-Newark flight, an electrical engineer turned carpenter, in the Newark-Madrid, a lady from Michigan going to spend Christmas with her Spanish grandchildren, and a Spanish mechanical engineer working for Audi in Silicon Valley. Unlike most flights, our minds were set in the present moment, and the present location, and that made all the difference.