My great-uncle used to do that on transcontinental flights. He got a lot of very confused looks, but never got punched so far as I know.
Er, used to do calisthenics, that is. I doubt he did the workout clothes or the sponge bath.
If someone was doing calisthenics all up in my personal space in a small, enclosed area like that, I'd have a hard time not losing it. Hell, I quit a gym once because there was this weird personal trainer who thought it a good idea to have his clients run around the ellipticals while we were on them, using them as an obstacle course.
Yeah I'm not defending it. He was a very, very strange man and probably had no real sense that other people would be bothered.
Oh, God, I read that, and all I could think was 'the poor person who has to sit next to him while he's lunging and crunching.'
It's wildly inappropriate, but if you can squash all sense of obligation to your fellow passengers, which this guy obviously has, I can see how a full yoga series could really improve a long flight.
I wonder if he grunts while he's doing it? I bet he does.
The guy is a saint. The least we can do to help him fight HIV is to let him exercise.
And I can't help but smile, when I'm running through a village and these gorgeous little African children start running with me[...].
But I've not given up. I will keep working to fight this disease. And I will keep running and swimming to help me, for just a few hours, escape from it.
See? A saint.
This really needs to appear as a scene in a movie. I see it in a romantic comedy. It's the woman doing the exercises, she's impossibly cute, and the fact that she's incredibly irritating and borderline insane is the barrier to romance that must be overcome before the closing credits.
Flight attendants always seem to stroke out about folks blocking the aisle. I guess I find it hard to believe that boyfriend can gambol about for an hour without being told to sit the fuck down. And frankly scaring the bejeezus out of his fellow passengers.
That said, I hope he wears a headband and veloooouuuuuuur.
10: international flights are different; there's big chunks of time with no service.
Having actually read the article, 8 is right. The guy's like a hero, you jerks! And you want to punch him.
Didn't profgrrrrl blog about this guy?
My experience has been that the flight attendants are much more lax about the aisle blocking on really long flights. I have seen people stand for half of the flight to Beijing. I haven't seen them lunge though. But I'll tell you what, every one of those flights I took, and there were many, involved a distributed snack of basically ramen noodles, dehydrated, which were then brought to life by the pitcher of boiling water the attendants carried around and poured in. Over my lap. During the flight. No man's calisthenics could rattle my comfort more than this ritual.
That said, I hope he wears a headband and veloooouuuuuuur keffiyeh.
This really needs to appear as a scene in a movie. I see it in a romantic comedy. It's the woman doing the exercises, she's impossibly cute, and the fact that she's incredibly irritating and borderline insane is the barrier to romance that must be overcome before the closing credits.
This sounds exactly like something from Elizabethtown. I can't actually remember what the hell the wacky girl did in that movie, but she sure did a lot of stuff and it was all wacky and a lot of it involved airplanes.
On Air France flights there's a whole aisle-blocking bar scene that congregates around the stewardess station where the free wine is to be had.
9: Problem is, Meg Ryan is too old to play that role any more. No one else could pull it off.
QANTAS has frequent fruit and drinks service. Also, hot chocolate. For some reason, I am completely enchanted by that.
No exorcising saints, thank God.
Over my lap. During the flight.
My ex the Lufthansa flight attendant once told me that the favored means of getting back at obnoxious passengers was to pour them a cup of hot coffee really, really full, and then proffer it on the little tray right over their lap so that they inevitably spilled some on themselves as they retrieved it. Ooops! So unfortunate!
Most of the aisle blocking that I have seen has come not from drinking or lunging, but davenning.
The best fly tip in the world is to befriend someone who works for your airline's check-in desk. A good friend's mother works for BA, and I get free upgrades to 1st class.
17: Odd thing. My wife has a big anti-Meg Ryan thing. The woman that I otherwise should have spent a long time with was a huge Ryan fan. Seems like there's some sort of message there.
I once sat down for a three hour Delta flight next to a gentleman whose very first words to me after "good morning" were "Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and personal saviour? You know that no one can give you peace like He can."
Scarcely a minute after that, the captain announced over the loud speaker that the aircraft had a mechanical issue and the flight would be canceled, thus suggesting to me in the most ironic fashion possible that there might be a God after all.
24: I was once taken out into the middle of the ocean by a dive instructor who gave me the same speech. I planned to swim back to shore like a Frog Man.
I once sketched out a "Tom Clancy"-type book that started on a flight where the terrorist mastermind was seated next to a talkative annoyance. I figured I'd get the reader to sympathize with the bad guy for the 1st chapter.
24: I once picked up a BYU coed on a plane.
I once picked up a BYU coed on a plane
That must have been a good workout. Was she heavy?
Not particularly, but she protested, so it ended up taking some effort.
I was on a flight where the captain announced that it was his first flight as head captain. He also announced that his mom was in the cabin. She stood up and we all cheered.
It was one of those flights where there's great camraderie, and the flight attendants are hamming it up on the intercom. Everyone's having a great time.
It's time for the landing, and the captain nails it. Everyone cheers. We pull up to the walkway-hallway thing. The lights come on and everyone stands up.
Then we wait. For like fifteen minutes. In that hunched, awkward, overhead-bins half-emptied purgatory. Finally they come on and say, "We have overshot the opening to the jetway by two feet....Flight attendants will assist you stepping over the gap."
No exorcising saints, thank God.
Totally. I hate when they start screaming "Begone, foul serpent!" And then all of a sudden the plane is full of motherfucking snakes.
You know what would really be funny? An Obama commercial modeled on this.
On a transpacific flight once with my infant daughter I sat across from a guy whose look was "If Che Had Flown Qantas." He was reading a book by Timothy Wickham Crowley on revolution. My daughter cried for a few minutes at the start before going to sleep, and his cool evaporated instantly. He was all dirty looks, etc. "After the revolution there will be no babies, mate," I said to him.
Another time a guy tried to get me to administer his anti-stress aromatherapy medicine to my daughter. Sure, my parenting policy is to routinely accept unknown medications for my child when offered by strangers! Thanks!
And then all of a sudden the plane is full of motherfucking snakes
That's when the FAs show a movie. Distracts us from the Gaderine swine/snakes/alewives.
34: An anarchist neighbor once went into a rage because a friend's 4-year-old twins had used two spoons they found on his front steps to dig in the dirt in front of his house.
Come on, man, those were private, personal-use spoons.
Never Mind the Bollocks, You Kids Get Off my Lawn.
The spoons of the proletariat will never dig the holes of our toddler masters.
Fucking anarchists.
On Air France flights there's a whole aisle-blocking bar scene that congregates around the stewardess station where the free wine is to be had.
Yeah, the self-serve drinks 'n' snack stations are a definite reason to fly Air France. Although the flights we were on didn't have free booze.
I figured one of you would eventually pick up on the fact he's a saintly AIDS researcher. Which makes me wonder -- if you're a saintly AIDS researcher, how much shit can you get away with that the rest of us can't?
And the hot chocolate on Qantas is fantastic.
if you're a saintly AIDS researcher, how much shit can you get away with that the rest of us can't?
I'm thinking a hell of a lot.
Does he have a much younger wife?
Oh, I bet he has a much younger wife.
I'll ask the stewards stewardesses for a lot of those steamy washcloths, and then retreat to ask them to come to the restroom for and give me a sponge bath.
Fixed.
I bet if he dug in the dirt with an anarchist's spoons, he wouldn't even get in trouble.
I guess that he flies at least Business Class what with being a frequent flier and all. Good. Do the lunges closer to the cockpit.
Why is Business Class closer to the cockpit? To get off the plane sooner, I presume. But aren't those people statistically more likely to die in a crash? I'm surprised there's not some airline with Business Class in the back of the plane with "executive express rear-door-exit service".
Stanley, everybody dies in a crash.
49: Nuh-uh! Internet says so. I win. To the back, rich people!
Stanley, if everyone doesn't die, it wasn't a real crash.
That's cool, Stanley. You and I can sit in the back and live, we'll let Tweety and Emerson die a painful death in the twisted wreckage.
43: Research says: Inconclusive. But photo here (click on "Professors").
Lots of people survive the crash. But, due to broken legs, trashed cabins, &c. they die from smoke or fire.
This crash had 133 survivors because they could get out easily. (It was a charter to a bunch of aviation fans and they had minimal carry-on luggage.)
Better to die plied with free drinks than to live with your knees jammed into some poor bastard.
I know it gets kind of boring to hear people proseltyze about the wonders of singapore airlines in any discussion of this sort, but really they are amazingly, preposterously great. I'd rather fly SQ coach than a US airlines business class for the trans-pacific. I can no longer take advantage of their generous free booze policy, but that shouldn't stop you guys. free, all-you-can-drink VSOP cognac!!!
Yeah I hear great things, rosy-toes. Royal Thai was pretty nice trans-pacific, but I can imagine that's only scratching the surface of what can be provided. Have you done one of those 21+ hour nonstops?
Oh, that video in the 1st link might be disturbing if you are nervous about flying.
Holy crap, md. All but three people survived that?
It's teh fire, no doubt. Plus it was at about 1/7th capacity from the sound of it.
Yeah. Amazing. This was a group that was more likely than the average passengers to know what to do in an emergency. Also, they weren't carrying a ton of stuff with them and that's a big factor. Still, that plane went boom and almost everyone escaped.
Airbus's fly-by-wire and FMI issues were a leading topic in comp.risks for quite a few years.
comp.risks! md tying things back in to cosma's notebooks! Delicious.
That plane was pretty full but not maxed. 130/180 or 130/150 depending on the layout.
I saw comp.risks! md and thought Beefo Meaty was bringing back BangNet addressing.
I've seen this guy around town. He used to have a beard.
64: if only!
65: it is Allah's beard! I only borrow!
Nice 'stache, wattle.
Dude apo I'll go pure 'stache if you will.
Apo is correct:
Dr. Charles van der Horst shaved his beard so he could wear a mask to treat patients suffering from SARS, the disease that ravaged many parts of Southeast Asia.
Shaved his beard for SCIENCE & HUMANITY.
Going PURE 'STACHE saves African children.
Going PURE 'STACHE saves gorgeous little African children.
He does it so they can experience the joy of running with him.
68: No, I did some pure 'stache time back in the mullet days. It's not a fortunate look for me.
Saved by refresh. I almost typed Sores.
I did some pure 'stache time back in the mullet days. It's not a fortunate look for me.
Tyranny of the wattle, no doubt.
I don't fly so much as I used to, but my facial hair is graceless enough to induce anxiety in both my fellow passengers and TSA types. I used to regularly find myself in a room with equal proportions of Arabs and South Asians, with dashes of Sikh. The solution to this is the same as most other air travel problems: more and better books. I lost a copy of Life and Times of Michael K. to a distressed Arab once, but I regret nothing.
78: Aren't Sikhs also South Asians? /pedant
You know, Mr. 79, I could probably drag up a couple non-Punjab Sikh communities if I felt like it. But I won't, because I am a gentleman.
57: Eh, the ability to lie down (at least mostly) cannot be underestimated, ever. On a flight of more than 5-6 hours, a seat that reclines to at least a 135 degree with a good high footrest is worth more than all other services an airline could provide combined.
That said, Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways have both had pretty sweet service the few times I've flown them. They just don't have the upgrade love that US carriers do, you have to pay for your comfort. Screw that.
AF long haul used to be seriously underused. I was generally the only person in the row - in other words, flip up the arm rests and you have a lie-flat bed in economy. Hurray!
But I suspect that Capitalism is now forcing them to get rather more passengers in.
I once had a guy next to me on a flight who was listening to music on his laptop. Without headphones. I asked him to turn it off; he refused. Ultimately, I summoned the stewardess, who patiently explained, over his shocked objections, that, no, you can't play your own music for all to hear on a plane.
If you're going to be on a plane for seven or more hours, you really need to get up, walk around, do some stretches, at least some of the time.
And face it: these long flights are boring. Dull, dull, dull. A guy doing calisthenics, crunches, push-ups and lunges in the aisle? Dude, that's quality entertainment! At least compared to the TV on the seatback.
Having taken the NY-Johannesburg flight myself quite a few times, I'm sympathetic to the need to get up and do something physical. But if this guy did this right next to me, my sympathy would evaporate quicker than his sweat. I don't give a shit if he's helping babies with AIDS: I would have told Mother Teresa to sit down and shut it if she started doing her ab crunchers right next to me. Something more serene like tai chi? Sure, go ahead. Full on calisthenics and lunges? Go charter your own Lear Jet, asshole.
If Mother Teresa started doing ab crunches in the aisle next to me, in nun gear, I'd get out my camera.
85: Yeah. Thing to do is get several big people to sit on his chest for a while so he can get an early start on his sainthood.
No free booze?!? Les bâtards!
We use stubby baguettes to beat the flight attendants into pouring drinks? I guess that makes sense since there aren't any paving stones on planes.
A family photo album is online at a website tribute to his late mother. Sorry to disappoint, but he doesn't have a much younger wife. Maybe he's just badly affected by dehydration....
He does have a hideous tie, though.
And today in the Times he is quoted as suffering from cramps. He is good.
