« Signs Life is Not as Interesting as the Movies| Main | Astro Images of the Day »
Important Online Research
I'm stuck in Chicago O'Hare last night. Actually, I've been stuck there quite a bit lately. Seems like for the last eight weeks or so United Airlines has done the best it can to prevent from giving me regularly scheduled service. I was in a very poor mood. Still am, really.
I started my journey with a three-hour drive. United Airlines doesn't seem to actually have regularly scheduled service into and out of Bloomington, Illinois, and yesterday was no exception. Out of 15 flights out, United was already predicting 2 hour+ delays. (Some days every other carrier but United flies in and out. I'm not really sure why they keep the charade up.)
So I said "Heck with it. I'll just drive to O'Hare, drop the rental, and pick up my connection from there" This was a good plan: it was a 2:15 drive to O'Hare and my flight didn't leave until 3 hours later. I got no bags to check, so all I have to do is grab a boarding pass and go to the gate. How simple is that? I got to Chicago just in time to have the check-in staff waste 15 minutes of my time simply trying to find my flight record. Then security wasted another 10 minutes by changing the active guard when I was second in line. The way they change the photo-id guard is special in O'Hare -- instead of a new guy coming in, they shut down one line and append it on to another. So I went from number 2 to number 20 just like that.
Finally I got to my gate 2 minutes too late to board. So I sat there and watched the other passengers on my flight getting on my plane and sitting down while I stood just 20 yards away. What's next? Try waiting in line for 30 minutes (I was only the third person in line!) to get them to rebook me, all the while staring out the window at the same plane they wouldn't let me board! I watched as they loaded the baggage, fueled up, etc. I'm not sure, but I even think I saw a United Employee get onboard to take a free ride. I couldn't go, no, because rules are rules. But the United employee could go, and the plane could sure sit there for 30 minutes while I watched it. Rules are very important.
But life has it's little rewards. For instance, as I was reading CNN I came across an article that mentioned that Sports Illustrated has an edition where instead of bathing suits, they just paint the swimsuits on the models. This I had to see. In the spirit of research, of course.
Jessica Gomes, champion non-swimsuit wearer
I've always been a sucker for body paint. Something about it is just really neat. When done correctly, it looks just like clothes, or flowers, or anything besides just the human form. It's like a cross between the beauty of the human form and the beauty of a good quick painting. What can I say? It's cool. Girls like doing it. I like looking at it. It's good for everybody.
Marisa Miller, who, I am told, is a prennial favorite
I wander around O'Hare, finally finding a "charging station." For those of you who haven't seen this, it's like 4 seats bolted together with four power outlets stuck in a back dimly-lit hallway somewhere. But at least they give you power. Hey -- ten thousand people with laptops and four plug-ins. Service is our middle name.
So there's four of us business guy-types, wearing suits and plugged in to cell phones and laptops all crammed into these little seats trying to continue being the part-cyborgs that we've already become. I'm sitting there poking around SI.com looking at the sports information regarding the body-paint competition. (I only read the site for sports information. For those of you not "in the know" as I am, I believe football uses the pointy-shaped ball.) After a while, I switch over to more interesting and productive stuff, like F#, startup blogs, and political commentary. That got old too, though, so I ask the guy next to me if he could watch my stuff while I get a drink of water.
"Sure thing. And why don't you bring back up those pretty girls on your computer when you get back!" he said.
I've got to admit, Jessica wears a pretty good non-swimsuit. I think we have a winner!
Hey? What can I say? It was the price of the guard duty. Here are a couple of random 30-40-year-olds sitting around O'Hare commenting on the temperature of the air in the Virgin Islands on the day of the photo shoot. Sports Illustrated is a serious sports site, and the swimsuit competition is a serious sport, you know. They don't call them the Swedish Bikini Team just for nothing. Photo shoots ain't bean bag. This stuff is a tough business. Brutal.
Enough of my rambling. I'll leave the commentary and drop in a couple more pictures. Try out si.com if you'd like to see more. What can I say? The simple pleasures in life -- the baby's smile, sun rays coming through a cloud, wild flowers in a field, a clear mountain breeze on a warm sunny day, and fat old balding men in a smelly airport oggling girls half our age covered in body paint -- it's what life's all about.
A little more revealing than I would like,
but I wanted to show some of the other models too
One of the tricks in shooting models in body paint is that it's like a magic act --
when done right the observer gets the feeling there's something there
they're just missing somewhere
Marissa looking picture-perfect
Is there a place you apply for this job? Can I sign up now?
I have a credit card. Do they take checks?
If you'd like to see more, here's a ton of stuff.
I LOVE what u guys r doing. I would love to see more BIG names like Marissa Miller...I'm sure everyone would agree w that