Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Sunday, October 14, 2002 9:20 AM

Denver and the Remaining Pieces


On Wednesday morning I am up somewhat after 4am in order to make an early morning flight to Denver. A co-worker and I have selected emergency aisle seats for the flight on the 777 to Denver. A flight attendant is doing his job of keeping boarding passengers from climbing over us (to get to the opposite aisle) as we sit and talk about the upcoming meeting. A boarding passenger takes exception to being told not climb over us and threatens the flight attendant. He and his wife go back to take their seats but pretty soon there are a number of flight attendant supervisors boarding the plane and having discussions with the threatening passenger. The irate passenger then threatens the supervisors. This is not quite the smartest move in the world. The irate passenger and his wife are soon being escorted off the plane by the supervisors. My co-worker and I offer any witness or facts or interviews to the flight attendant who was originally threatened as he writes his report. We leave telephone numbers with the flight attendant and later, as I'm leaving the plane, I stop and tell the flight attendant, "Anything that you need - just call me." He is gratefull and thanks me.

We drive to Boulder without incident and have substantial meetings over the two days. On Wednesday night I get out for a long walk along a nature trail just outside of Boulder and off the U of C campus. There are other runners, cyclists, skateboards, walkers, and rollerbladers to keep me company as darkness falls.

After the walk I go to the Safeway to round up some dinner. In rapid sequence there are three ChiChis who, as I'm browsing the store, seem to want to make conversation and/or contact with me. To each one I give a warm and friendly smile and take the advice that I should have taken a while ago - "Do not look directly into the eyes of the ChiChi. Just turn your back and walk away. Don't say a word." I take this advice right now because I am emotionally committed to someone.

At the conclusions of Thursday's meetings we head back for the airport. We arrive a bit early and are told that the flight is overbooked by 30%. After waiting for about a half an hour I decide to take action. I tell all of my co-workers, "Watch this - I'm going to get them to load the plane and go." So I go up to the ticket agent and start a conversation. "So you already have enough people to completely fill the plane right now, right? Okay, so why don't we just start boarding the plane and go? There is no need to wait for the departure time - we're full. Let's just go!" The ticket agent is polite and says that they cannot do that. (We won't go into her complete explanation right now.) My co-workers, somewhat dumbstruck by my initiative and brilliant idea, are just laughing so hard and are probably wondering if airport security is about to come and get me. But now they have a story to tell back at work on Friday.

We finally start to board the plane. Halfway through the boarding they shut the door to the plane (before I am able to board but after my co-workers have boarded) and announce that there is a maintenance problem with the plane and we will have to de-plane and use a different plane. Everybody de-planes the airplane and walks over to the next gate to board the replacement airplane. My co-workers make the obvious comments about me not being allowed to board and how that is related to my wanting to load and go earlier.

Friday is a disastrous day at work as everyone decides to change models, budgets, and requirements just days before delivery schedules. People from the bay, who don't know me very well because they just moved in, poke their heads into my office as they hear me use words that they have never heard me use before. A co-worker/friend ducks his head in and repeats for the first time the words that I have used towards him so often, "We don't use words like that here."

Friday night is my first ice hockey game in 14 months. Fractured bone in wrist or not, I'm going to play. We end up losing the game 5-3 and I don't play well at all. Oh I get a numbe of shots on goals and create some scoring opprtunities, but my stick handling is off. I'm probably trying to hard to protect the wrist or maybe the wrist brace (underneath my hockey glove) is limiting my mobility. I apologize to the team and promise to do better during Tuesday night's game.

Saturday I go pick up the motorcycle using the truck/motorcycle/bicycle/truck shuttle system and do not see any dead bodies. The motorcycle feels great after the fuel injection is re-mapped to match the new carbon fibre exhaust pipe. I only take the bike up to 130 mph on the trip home because there is no need to push it on a morning when I am physically hungover from the previous night's ice hockey game.

After running a number of errands and getting in a short nap, I'm headed to K-Town to pick up Person J_VKPI for a night of clubbing. Person J_VKPI is (pretty much) on time and we drive over to West Hollywood. We hear that the club that we were originally thinking of going to is closed after the collapse of a wall. So we have an uneventfull night - except for Person J_VKPI being sorta drunk after consuming half of a zombie. We finally decide to leave at 1:30 am and we're making our way for the door. The person ahead of me, who I don't know, stops to give another guy a hug. After I politely wait for the hug to end, I ask the stationary guy, "Don't I get a hug too?" The guy looks at me and realizes that we have never met before. But he still gives me a hug as I head for the door. Person J_VKPI wants to know who that was and I have to explain that I haven't the faintest idea who it is. Terry and Danny are just leaving also and explain that their friend Alex is celebrating his birthday today. So now I give Alex a birthday hug as we are introduced and he says rhetorically, "Does everyone know it's my birthday?" But I cannot stay and answer this question because now I have to explain to Person J_VKPI that I don't know who this is either. I'm falling asleep by 3am on Sunday morning.

Later on Sunday morning I walk, lift weights, watch two motorcycle races, and get cleaned up for a thing at noon. Person Whatshisname (Dao) has previously called and we have agreed to meet for lunch. Now, as background, I have not seen Dao in person since mid November of 2001. And why would I want to see the person who hurt me in that timeframe? Because this will give me a chance to prove that I have recovered from the hurt and also to show that I can forgive someone and become friends.

Dao and I have lunch and I ask the rhetorical question, "What were you doing one year ago today?" When he cannot answer, I remind him, "You were sitting in this exact restaurant having dinner with a strange guy who asked you to marry him after meeting five hours earlier. Exactly one year to the day!" We both get a good laugh over it.

We spend about 5 hours together eating, walking, sitting, and talking. During the 5 hours of conversation approximately 30 minutes is spent discussing one year ago. The rest is spent talking about looking forward, life's responsibilities, social structures, anarchy, family, and other interesting things. I tell Dao that I am committed to Person G and that we will find out the next phase of our relationship in a few weeks. But we agree to possibly get together next weeked for rollerblading or equivalent.