United States 2009

In keeping with my continuing attempts to save the planet by recycling wherever possible, I've once again chosen to recycle e-mails sent while on holiday in the United States rather than burn precious energy trying to come up with new material. In a further effort to minimise greenhouse gasses, I have chosen to recycle Greig's e-mails under the assumption that Greig operates more efficiently than I do.

In doing so, I hope to do my little bit to preserve what's left of this planet. This may only represent a fraction of a millimetre saved in rising oceans, but if everyone did their little bit, wouldn't the planet be a better place for us and our children? People with houses on the coast should be especially thankful.

So.

These are called "flags". They represent the U.S.A.
These particular flags were in Chicago.

I was last in the U.S. (Also known as the United States, the United States of America, America, The Universe, That place between Canada and Mexico) almost exactly ten years ago. In fact, it was my first time outside Australia. Evidence can be found on this page.

Greig has never been to the U.S. It was the trip we had to have, just so he could see for himself that I wasn't making it all up. That's part of the joy of these e-mails - the U.S. from a fresh perspective. That and the fact that all I had to do was copy and paste and a small amount of formatting.

We flew United to the U.S., which was probably the only major mistake we made on the whole trip. I didn't realise that in the 21st century any long distance flights lacked in-seat entertainment, relying only on a fuzzy CRT projector to keep the passengers from going completely starking while they were trapped for 14 hours in a aluminium tube. I was a little surprised that the headphones they issued didn't have hoses on them.

Luckily we'd taken our little Asus Netbook, loaded up with lots of "Arrested Development" that we needed to catch up on.

The flight back was heaps better. Mainly because Michael had sweet-talked a friend of his into securing us an upgrade to Business which does have in-seat entertainment. Unfortunately, Greig's was broken. Luckily we'd taken out little Asus Netbook, loaded up with lots of "Arrested Development" that we needed to catch up on.

But I'm not telling the story. Greig is.

He's a fairly prolific writer, shooting off a total of eight e-mails over the course of a four week trip.

The e-mails: