Tuesday afternoon I flew into Boston to visit a customer with a problem using my employer's stuff. Turns out to be a broken server, our bad, but that's not the story.

I flew into Boston on a RJ50 regional jet, a small 50 seater. I had a window seat, rare for me since long-legged me prefers aisle. I've flown enough over the last several years that an airplane ride is like being on the bus, I prefer to read than look out the window. An airplane is one of the few places where I can sit back for an extended period and enjoy a book without being interrupted or tempted by other distractions.

But on this flight, on approach to Boston I looked out the window, and saw that we were flying between two columns of cumulus clouds going miles high into the sky. Bright sun was pouring through the canyon between the clouds, and it was quite literally a canyon, with steep clouds on other side. The clouds were roiling, and deep in the heart of them through openings you could see flashes of lightning.

It was one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen. I wish I had a camera. Here we were in this puny aluminum can flying between ethereal mountains that held enough energy in them to blow us to bits. All conjured out of nothing, out of hot moist air meeting cool, dry air. Man made insignificant by a collision of summer breezes.

We landed safely and soundly at Logan, and I had to wait for nearly an hour at curbside for my shuttle bus to take me to the suburbs.

That storm that I flew through? It had finally arrived and unleashed itself. Big city airports are massive clockworks, all geared up to be as efficient as possible, and they are stretched massively and depend on everything working just so.

The skies opened. And the airport stopped. Cabs couldn't move, planes just sat there, people huddled under canopies and in bus shelters. An old lady nagging her husband to keep the bags dry made divorce sound real good. The fastest things moving were baggage carts, herds of them were being whipped across a parking lot by the wind in a strange aluminum stampede. They crashed into airport limos, confounding drivers who were holding passenger signs with one and trying to keep dry with the other.

One of the most complex entities ever devised by man was put paid by a collision of breezes. I stood under a canopy, feeling the wind and spray lash against my face, alone, and thought about how beautiful this was.
7/12/2001 10:33:53 AM