Howdy yall,

Wible and Langenbacher here, and we're sitting in the Baltimore-Washington/Thurgood Marshall Airport (gotta love airports named after supreme court justices).

The nice lady from Northwest Airlines just came over the loudspeaker to let us know our flight is delayed about 10 minutes, but we should be arriving in Minneapolis, Minn. on time. And best of all, she said there's snow on the ground in Minnesota, eh der donchaknow.

(Yea, you heard right, Minnesota. We're going from State College to York, Pa. (to see momma and poppa Wible and sleep Thursday night) to Baltimore, Md., to Minneapolis, Minn., then on to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which, coincidentally, is roughly half an hour from Iowa City, Iowa. So basically we're traveling in a sideways, reverse "S." Don't believe me? Chart it on a map.)

Anywho, the trip, thus far, has been pretty uneventful. We got into York around 10 Thursday night and were invited by a nice, big ole' bowl of kielbasa and red pepper pasta.

Shoot, we're boarding, I'll pick this up whenever we reach terra firma.

***
Whelp,
We're back. Sorry about the quick adios there, but there's only one flight to Cedar Rapids.
Anywho, it was a pretty relaxing night in good ole' M.t Wolf, Pa., (for all you political pundits out there, York County was technically the reddest country in the Commonwealth on election day.)
We got to catch the end of the TCU-Utah game, and before you scoff, both teams were ranked in the top- 15 at the time, and could very well be in the top three or four in the Big Ten.
After receiving tons of praise for its defense all season, TCU gave up a long game-winning drive with 0:48 to play as Utah held on to stay undefeated and keep its BCS hopes alive.
Unfortunately we didn't have time to take in York County in all its glory. Did you know York was the first capital of the U:nited States? Is home to Harley Davidson and York Barbell plants? Was the original home fo the York peppermint patty? The York Fair is the country's oldest fair?
OK, I'm done with my audition for the York County Visitors' Bureau.
We got a quick breakfast at Manchester Café, man I miss cheap, grease-laden food. It's much better than the pricy, grease-laden food they got in State College.
Walking out of the restaurant my mom pointed out what used to be a bank right near the restaurant and told the story about how my dad worked there when it robbed. My dad took over the story and recalled how the would-be robber shoved a rifle in his face and dad stared down the barrel. So the criminal ran out and started driving off through a cornfield. Unfortunately for him, my pops slipped some paint bombs disguised as money in with the stash and they exploded during the carried and the guy lost control and crashed. He was fine, but was apprehended on the spot.
That story just further proves a long-standing fact about my dad: He's a Grade-A badass.
Back to our trip, we wished my rents well, hopped in the Subaru Outback and headed south for the land of crabs, lacrosse and midshipmen.
We hit some traffice, but nothing a little lead foot couldn't make up for (I won't tell who drove), got to the airport and hopped on the plane.
***
We're sitting here on the tarmac and for some reason it's taking roughly 23 minutes to run some paperwork to the control tower. Now I'm not saying you gotta be Usain Bolt, but how long does it take to get some paper a couple thousand feet? Or even better yet, there's this new invention called wireless communication, I learned about in Comm 401, media history (I'm still waiting for my test grade). See, there was this guy Marconi who thought, hmm, if I get some energy waves or magnetic waves or something, I could send the letter "S' across the Atlantic, so he did.
Then on Christmas Eve some other guy, Fessenden, figured out a way to play an opera prelude, read a bible verse and play "O Holy Night," to a bunch of sailors at sea. And they heard. Presto, the first radio broadcast in history. Eat that howard Stern.
Sitting on the plane, it's just like any other plane, expect it's a fighter jet. Not really, but I wish it was, which gets be thinking, you always see video of fighter planes doing loops, flying upside down and doing barrel rolls. Can one of these commercial big boys do those manuevers? I tried to slip the pilot 20 bucks to do a loop during our trip but we've stayed pretty level thus far.
Ther'es a pretty cute baby two seats in front of me. The lil' dude's in love with the overhead air conditioner, blower type things, whatever they're called. He's got giant eyes and a huge smile.
Now's he's looking at me, sucking on his thumb. I used to suck on my thumb all the time, so much so it got callused (I know, probably sounds disgusting but my thumb is probably the greatest tasting thing in the world, even better than whoppie pie.)
Seeing the kid reminds me, quick shoutout to my nephew Jack who took his first steps last week. Way to go buddy, only a few more months and I can teach you how to cut like Evan Royster.
This might be the roughest flight I've ever been on. The "fasten seat belt," light has been on for pretty much an hour already and we keep bouncing around.
Looking out the window I just counted 27 lakes in one vista, only 9,973 to go as we fly over the Gopher state.
The pilot just came over the loudspeaker and apologized for the turbulence (what are we gonna do, complain and demand to get off the plane)? She also told us it's not snowing yet in Minneapolis, which sucks cause I wanted to pelt someone, probably Josh, with a snowball. Nothing personal, I just like throwing snowballs.
Speaking of snow, looking out the window I can't tell if its clouds or snow drifts that we're flying over. If it's clouds I'm pretty sure we're flying over the north pole, which would be pretty cool.
Speaking of snow, not many people know this about me but one of my dreams since boyhood has been to run the Iditarod dogsled race held every year in Alaska. The 1,051-mile race runs from Anchorage to Nome and pits man and dog against the wild. It's just you, your dogs and your sled for eight to 20 days. I think it'd be pretty cool to see the northern lights in the middle of the Alaskan wild with no sound but the howl of the wind and the howl of your dogs to disturb you.
Well we're starting our dissent to Minneapolis and the flight attendant is yelling at me to turn off my computer. Since I don't have a parachute in my backpack and therefore don't want to get kicked off this flight, I'm gonna turn it off. There probably won't be time in Minneapolis to update considering our layover has been cut from 40 to 20 minutes, so I'll talk to yall in Cedar Rapids.
***
Got off the plane in Minneapolis and it was pretty cold. Felt about 40 or so, but no snow on the ground, just rain. Guess the snowball battle will have to wait till another day.
We went to the gate on our boarding passes, A12, and there was nobody there. After uttering a few expletives, we got to one of those big screens with the flights and realized the gate had changed,
Whatever, we made it on time, no biggie. At the gate there was a guy in a Penn State hat and another in a PSU shirt and one people wearing the Black and Gold of Iowa.
Got in our seats and we sat. And sat. And sat.
Finally, the pilot came over the loudspeaker to announce, get this.
"We have exited the gate, but before we can take off we need to burn off 200 pounds of fuel."
Two-hundred pounds of fuel? Two-hundred pounds of petroleum? Two-hundred pounds of %#$@#% mother effing fuel?
You've got to be kidding me. Gas stations are charging $2.50 (at least) per gallon for this stuff and the pilot has to burn it? No wonder the airline industry is in such perils.
You're charging me 15 bucks to check a bag and I can't even get a pack of friggin' peanuts during a two-hour flight, but you still have the financial stability to sit on a runway for half an hour and "burn off" 200 gallons of fuel? That just ain't right.
We finally got off the ground and guess what, More friggin turbulence. What is it with the Midwest? Now I know why John Madden rides around the country in his pimped out tour bus.
Well, if you couldn't tell, I'm in a little of a cranky mood, so I'm gonna sit here and try to enjoy my tiny cup of ginger ale, which, coincidentially, is smaller than a 25 cent draft at the Cellblock. They could at least give us the can.
I promise I'll be in better spirits when we land, I mean who couldn't be happy in the land of corn and rasllin'?
***
For those of you wondering what one listens too during a 2-hour and 20-minute flight from Baltimore to Minneaplois, here it is. There are the tunes that were flowing through my ears (gotta love itunes suffle).
Claude DeBussy - Clair De Lune
TuPac - Changes
The Band - The Weight
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
Dave Matthews Band - Ants Marching
Steam - Na Na Hey Hey
Van Morrison - And It Stoned Me
The Allman Brothers - Ramblin' Man
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
The Rolling Stones - Ruby Tuesday
Led Zeppelin - Since I've Been Lovin' You
Wilson Pickett - Land of 1,000 Dances
Wu-Tang Clan - C.R.E.A.M.
Al Green - Let's Stay Together
The Killers - When You Were Young
Alan Jackson - Where I Come From
Todd Snider - Train Song
Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name
Love - Andmoragain
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow
Danger Mouse - Encore
Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
The Flamming Lips - Do You Realize?
Oasis - Part of the Queue
Kanye West - Good Life
Frank Sinatra - Somewhere Beyond the Sea

-- Wible