When you get up at an ungodly hour to catch one of the cheaper flights to Chicago on Virgin America, it can be the the little joys that really make the whole thing part of a great day. The middle seat was not taken and I’m in Main Cabin Select on this flight, so I’ve got hella room and I’m nicely comfortable. I learned after my last coach flight that I’m all about paying for the upgrades to actually get more leg room; what can I say, I’m a big fucking guy.

Here’s some of the other stuff bouncing around in my head today:

• I’m heading home to Chicago to see two of my old friends tie the knot to each other in my hometown. I’m actually nervous about this for a few reasons, but mostly because I just have a mixed set of emotions these days when it comes to weddings and/or “people getting married.” Maybe I’m jaded and I think it’s just the first time I’ve had to re-expose myself to such an event after my divorce. But I love my friends getting married and they’re happy together, so I’ll nut up and get over my sorry sack of feelings and have a great time. Saturday night in my hometown with a ton of old high school friends is also the indirect benefit of this whole anxiety fit, too, so I shouldn’t worry too much.
• It really was scary watching the Hurricane Irene coverage, but I found particular comfort in one Twitter account by a New York Times reporter named Brian Stetler. His status updates (@brianstetler) on the on-the-ground reporting they were doing was pretty exhaustive and it gave me a birds-eye view of what was going on while the storm was pounding the East Coast. Hopefully everyone’s starting to dig out of the destruction.
• My brother Tim is back blogging again. He keeps me amped on it and I like his publishing style and his ideas for posts, but if you don’t like skateboarding or know my family at all I’m not sure you’d get a whole lot out of it.
• Watching CNN on a flight is pretty rad, except now I remember why I never watch news on television — once you’ve caught up on the news for the day, you should turn it off. I have not taken my own advice here, and with that, I think I’ll put on the X-Men: First Class now.
• So I’m going home to a wedding and I don’t have any good shirts to where, so I packed one in a half-assed fashion first thing morning. But I’m pretty psyched because I think this means I just effectively forced myself to do some shopping while I’m home. Retail therapy…YAY.
• I’m on this Google Chromebook that they give you for free at Terminal 2 (if you ask for one from the cute hipsters in Google Chrome t-shirts). Virgin America is offering it on any of the flights from SFO to ORD, and I think it deserves an official post on what I like and dislike about these little machines. But for the purposes of this post, that’s where my wifi is being provided and I consider it almost necessary in every case going forward that I fly Virgin and get them to let me borrow a computer and browse the internet for free on the four hour flight. That’s a nice perk.
• In some hilarious way, I’m actually slightly concerned I didn’t do enough writing on the Phish shows/tour I saw this past month. I wrote up three reviews for Live Music Blog.com — part one, part two, and part three — totaling over 5,000 words. And yet I still have a ton of photos and videos that never made its way on the internet. Look for more on that coming soon, I guess.

That’s all for now, but I have two more hours of airborne time left so I may have another post or two today if I get the gumption.

I’m in Chicago for a few days this week and got to stop by my ex’s place yesterday to visit with my favorite cat in the whole wide world, Lucas. He was always relatively good to me even if he occasionally likes to bite people (i.e. my ex). I’m pretty sure he remembered me…