Frankfurt

Nope, no wireless here in Frankfurt either. The Lufthansa flight was cramped, my femur is exactly as long as the space between the seats, and no amount of geometry would let me get comfortable. On the plus side, Chuck & I wound up sitting with four NFL Europe cheerleaders, who'd been hired to work a trade show in Chicago, so at least we had someone to talk to. We just bid them auf weidersein and are now awaiting our flight to Moscow, which leaves in a little over an hour. I managed to scam an exit row seat for this flight, and the plane is supposed to be half-empty, so hopefully I'll have a chance to get some shut-eye before having to deal with customs. Local time is 7:10 a.m., Iowa time/My Body's Time is 12:10 a.m. Only two more time zones to go!

Update: Found wireless 5 min before we had to leave, but it wasn't free, so we didn't bother.

Chicago

It's pretty sad that O'Hare doesn't have wireless access either. Isn't this the nation's busiest airport? You'd think a wi-fi provider could make a killing here. There's a little kiosk shop where you can use one of their PCs for 65 cents/minute. That seems ridiculously high. Maybe I can find a pay-phone with a modem port...

Cedar Rapids

Made it through check-in in Cedar Rapids, which is apparently the only airport left in the state of Iowa without wireless networking. My suitcase was 9 pounds overweight, which I thought might cost me a small fee, so I asked how much it was. Since it's going internationally, United told me the fee would be $381. Ouch. So, I did some quick shuffling from my suitcase to my carry-on, and kicked out my heavy leather coat to ride back to UNI with the co-worker who brought us to the airport (still have a windbreaker and a poncho) and most of the food I was carrying with me, to get my bag back below 70 pounds. I weighed in at 64.5 pounds on my second try, so then I shuffled four of my 1 pound Twizzler packages back into my suitcase. I'm taking them as gifts, as apparently red licorice is a big hit in Russia, but in hindsight, i wish I'd picked something lighter to bring.

To Russia, with stuff

I'm packed up and ready to go behind the Iron curtain, my ride should be here any minute, and we'll depart for Cedar Rapids, from there I'll fly to O'Hare, then on to Frankfurt, Germany and finally to Moscow. It'll be at least 24 hours before I get to sleep in a bed...

Got Blogs?

While in Russia, I'm giving a presentation on weblogs. Here's the title: "Weblogs: The Changing Face of Academic and Political Discussion Online"

It's going to be a fairly short talk, as they translate it into Russian in real-time, thus reducing the amount of time I'm going to be blathering by half. I've already got some sites selected to showcase in my presentation, but if you've got a favorite political or academic weblog that you think is important or interesting, and worth a mention, please post it in the comments below, and I'll add it to my talk.