Off to Dublin for a couple of days to dig into fun architectural and engineering issues with IBM… I just discovered that there is a handy little power outlet under my seat, which could mean a serious four episode 24 marathon. Of course, I only slept about four hours last night and this flight is only five and a half, and I can’t check in until the afternoon… so I should probably try to get some sleep. At least one episode first, though.
I will say that an exit row seat with power and a relatively small person sitting in the middle seat is pretty delightful. Not business class, but if I wasn’t already sleep deprived I’d almost enjoy the uninterrupted laptop time. I’m trying out a new set of headphones, too. After leaving my Etymotics ER-6 ‘phones on a flight a while back, I bought a pair of Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 (or something like that). Phenomenal sound quality and pretty good isolation, but I simply cannot get a good seal in my right ear anymore which means that the whole noise isolation thing is less than effective. Plus the actual earphone bits are larger than the Etymotics and they’ve never been quite as comfortable.
So, now I’m going back and trying the big over-the-ear headphones. I’ve done multiple trials of the Bose headphones but try as I might, they just don’t do it for me. Too bulky to carry around and not (to my mind) as immersive as in the ear headphones (which tend to let me pretend no one else is on the plane). I’d like to find some that work - the comfort level is likely to be higher - and I’m trying the Audio Technica QuietPoint headphones on this trip. They’re quite good but don’t block everything out the way I like and carrying around a big pair of headphones is likely to get tired fast.
I suspect the right answer is to just shell out the money for another pair of Etymotics, maybe the ER-4Ps this time.
Anyway, now it’s time to decide between chicken and beef, take a pill, and watch 24 until I crash… and then wander Dublin in a haze for the first half of their Sunday.
Update: woohoo, early check-in at the hotel! After so many long flights this year, the 5 1/2 hours from EWR to DUB felt extremely short… 2 episodes of 24 and then maybe 2 1/2 hours of sleep if lucky (and that’s with sleeping through breakfast. I need to learn the get on the plane, go to sleep immediately trick if I’m going to take these little flights where you go as many hours in flight as you go hours ahead in time. Or something.
