Travel to South Africa June 2nd

While we’re on the subject, can we change the subject please?

The flight wasn’t as bad as I expected. Four-point-something hours to ATL, a 5 hr layover and 16 hrs to JNB, all in a days work. …except that it took 2 flippin days to get here. !!! And by ‘here’, I mean Johannesburg, South Africa, where I’ll be working for ESPN on the 2010 World Cup. What? Don’t tell me you don’t know what the cuss I’m talking about. OK, that’s fine, not a soccer fan? That’s the same way I feel about baseball, cricket, or quilting. Yet, this is much different than watching 5 yr olds play ‘bee-hive’ soccer. This is just the largest sporting event on the planet! Not to mention the collection of cultures colliding to produce the once-every-four-year World Party!

During the next month and 11 days, I hope to immerse you into my random, wacky Jo-berg Adventure. I’ll give you the personal flavor that Samantha Brown or Anthony Bourdain can’t give you. We’ll go where Matt Lauer hasn’t been and experience more cultures than Carmen SanDiego. As usual, I’ll throw in a ridiculous dose of Purposefully Plagiarized Prose, add in a dash of illegal alliteration and then drip on some metaphorical mixes. I now pre-apologize for breaking numerous literary rules, blatantly pilfering internet information and all pun-filled references to 80’s songs.

The 16+ hrs in Coach seat 31C wasn’t as bad as I expected…with a few small exceptions. My foam seat cushion has been butt-pressed from it’s original 3 inches into what felt like a ½ inch piece of Home Depot plywood. Adjusting the touch-screen mounted in the back of my seat, the girl behind me punched the buttons for about 5 minutes in order to pick her movie, each ‘touch’ would push my seat forward….not enough to complain about, but annoying enough to keep me from falling asleep. Then the poor lad in the middle seat next to me had no control over his reading light for the entire flight-which brightened the otherwise dim cabin like a rainbow in the dark. Other than that, it was pleasant as a summer breeze, makes me feel fine.