A Day Lost is a Day Gained

Back on traveling days, my wide (ok wife, little slip of tongue there... but she never reads my blog anyway) claims that I have certain liking for travel. I suspect that might be true. I was thinking about this while entering the Los Angeles International airport, and the smell of airport lounges and stale restaurants hit me really hard. The suspicion was not true after all. I hate the international travel. Crossing five continents in 3 months is bad, flying in aluminum jets is worse. With international travel come the unique problems that Columbus never faced. For example, the international date line. I am starting my homeward journey now from LA on 19th April and by the time I reach Singapore it would be early hours of 21st April. It is as if the 20th April never existed in my life. There are 24 hours in my life which would forever go unaccounted for. Would that make me younger than rest of the world? Rest of the world would be enjoying the Friday of 20th April, having meetings, dinner dates, fighting with their wives, but not me. I would never have this day in my life. When 5yrs down the line I am on my deathbed and accounting for all the good or bad things I did in my life, this one day I can never account for. Somebody would ask me, what were you doing on 20th April 2007, and my answer would be "what is 20th April 2007?", I don't even know if that day is applicable to me.
This opens up several opportunities, e.g. I could have set up all my meetings on 20th April and people would call me for attending, and could never get me. As if I am in hyperspace transitioning from one dimension to other. A complete blackout... few seconds in my life would mean 24 hours for the earthlings. Wow, I am really onto something here. The biggest possible scam of the life. I would doing this feat again in May when I travel to San Diego for another conference. As it is I have lot of less time in my life, this crossing date lines in reverse direction is costing me several more hours.

I wonder some times how much time I might have spent in travel. It could be some thing that I should be able to reuse, you know, like reclaiming the life spent in sitting in the airplanes. It would be fun that way, like, give me back my 20hrs wasted at Tokyo, due to canceled flight. I think I could make at least a year this way.

Traveling is always tiresome activity. No matter how glamorous it may appear. Sitting in one seat for 20hrs is no joke, neither is getting too many unsolicited requests of help from unattended old ladies (one even used my phone to call somebody... I am feeling terrible about it now!). I think it is my face, I look like a person who is gullible enough to be fleeced. Even the beggars become very forceful when they are talking to me. All over the world I get mugged, cheated, fleeced for money. I think like interpol, the anti-social elements world over must be having record of world travelers, and I must be ranking pretty high in the category of 'easy-to-rob'. The cab drivers always ask me for tip, while several others get away without. The check-in lady is always very arrogant with me. The airport helpers always show me the 'tips please' board, and probably are always remarking on my back. Invariably I end up spending more money than I can afford to. Just the bad luck I guess (or gullible face) whichever way you look at it, it is a personal characteristics that affects me a great deal. And I am saying nothing about all those days I am loosing simply because of the rotation of earth.