Nates Brain Dump 3.0

Last night I went to a fabled brazilian barbeque restaurant and got overwhelmed with meat. For those who don’t know how it works, you sit down and waiter after waiter comes out with a huge slab of meat and cuts some off on your plate. As meny people told me, “If there is one thing you do, go to a brazilian barbeque,” I have to agree. WOW.

This morning I awoke from a meat coma, and when I went down for breakfast, all I wanted was fruit.

Last week I had an opportunity to take a stroll through the financial district of San Francisco, and I saw a LOT of people walking around with there phone in front of them texting, or emailing, or webrowsing or somesuch. A good portion of those phones were iPhones.

Here in Curitiba I have had lots of opportunities to stroll though areas with high pedestrian traffic (the financial district is a ghost town in comparison) and while nobody holds there gadgets infront of them, I do see a lot of people with ear buds in there ears. Most of the earbuds that I see are white, but they are not Apple earbuds. Being an Apple fan, I know what they look like, and most of them are either knockoffs, or just slightly similar. A small portion (maybe 5-10%) of the earbuds that I do see are apple earbuds. I even saw one woman with an iPod nano – in pink.

Today, on the bus, not only did I see 2 people with Apple earbuds, but one of them had the clicker on it signifying an iPhone owner. All I could do was knowingly grin. iPhones are not yet officially available in Brazil. What are the odds that there would be 2 iPhones on the same bus (270 person capacity) in a country that they shouldn’t be in?

I know I haven’t posted much in the past few days, I just haven’t been inspired. Here are a couple of completely unrelated topics:

1 – I could have sworn that in the Northern hemisphere, water goes down the drain in a counter clockwise direction. Confusingly, it appears that water goes the same way in the Southern hemisphere. Maybe I’m just crazy.

2 – Picture:

I was smart and didn’t whip out my iPhone when I was at the Brazil airports. Here are some of the things I wish that I could have posted:

The São Paulo airport is like a maze. Exiting the plane I had to walk for quite a ways to Customs where I handed over the declaration card and my passport. From there I got to bypass the baggage claim due to having a carry on and then I saw a long line to the exit, and the large Duty Free store. Sadly, I thought I was press for time to catch the next flight, so I bypassed Duty Free and went strait to the exit line which moved quite swiftly, and I found myself in the general area of the airport.

To get to the terminal, I had to pass through security again, and Read the rest of this entry »

I just looked up at the window on the far side of the plane to see this most beautiful dawn.

Message composed at 6:15 local time -1 hour before arrival in São Paulo. Sadly the iPhone wordpress program crashed instead of saving the picture

It was kinda bumpy while we were over Fay…

Wow, either the whole plane has first class accommodations, or I got bumped up. This seat is MUCH more comfortable than the last! On the intercom I have heard English, Japanese and Portuguese.

Not much to report on the Atlanta airport. I my arrival gate was a mile from my departure gate. By the time I had gotten some food and got to the departure gate, they were already boarding.

Coincidentally, my seat is E16, and the departure date was E16.

Update: glancing forward, first class does have nicer seats than steerage, but I think I can survive overnight in this seat, unlike the last 4 hours.

Update 2: the pilot says that the flight will be 9 hours 5 minutes.

Going dark again. See you tomorrow morning!

In Atlanta, eating, will post more later

I’m now seated on the plane – middle seat! Amazingly I do have knee room – just barely. The seat backs on this plane have touch screens for among other things a flight attendant calling.

The announcement just went out on the PA system that the flight will be 4:15 in length.

I’m now putting the iPhone into airplane mode. Talk to you on the other side!

Before takeoff there was a video talking about the obligatory airline safety procedures. No flight attendants to do the demo, just actors with insane smiles as they mimed life jacket drills.

Worse, there is no longer any complementary pillows or food! I had to pay $10 for a crappy salad.

What happened to the US airline industry?!

UPDATE: on the second flight there were complementary pillows, food and even ONE bear! Not to mention the more comfy seats as mentioned in another post.