Pelican at Sunset, Naples, Florida

This post shows the ramblings of my mind – from storms to flights to connections in general.

The Storm

Last Friday I was supposed to fly home from Florida after a wonderful week in the sun with a good friend. On the same day, the North American east coast storm was about to begin. My flight into Buffalo, New York was not scheduled to land until after 9 p.m.

I arrived at the airport around 2:30 p.m. and my first flight to Detroit was on time. After checking my bag, I settled in at the gate. Five minutes later I received a text message from Delta saying that the second leg of my trip – from Detroit to Buffalo – was cancelled.

Despite the fact that there were probably many flight cancellations in progress, there was surprisingly no line at the gate counter. A very friendly agent helped me to rebook my flight. The only hitch was that I couldn’t get to Buffalo until Sunday – two days later. Luckily for me, I had the option to go back to my friend’s place and enjoy another couple of days in sunny Florida.

The Flight 

Sunday morning I arrived back at the airport bright and early. I thought that it might be a stressful day for airport personnel and travellers alike and I was right. Hundreds of flights were cancelled over the previous two days and Sunday was catch up day. As for my flights, they were overbooked and no seats were assigned. The agents were manually assigning them. Fortunately, my flights were uneventful and I made it home on schedule.

By the way, my airline Delta was stellar in its handling of the situation. I saw only one agent who showed visible frustration with a customer and that customer was extremely arrogant.

Connections 

As I watched people in both Naples and Atlanta (my new connection), I thought about how that East Coast storm had affected the entire country and probably worldwide since many international travellers go through New York and those airports were closed.

Do check out this short video that shows every flight on earth. Very cool.

So it goes with airlines, it does also in life. We are all connected and anything that happens can have far reaching consequences.

After arriving home, I opened an email from Upworthy that showed this visual map of potential high speed rail connections in the United States. Imagine having these options for exploring the country from the ground instead of the sky. I am not the most comfortable flyer, so I would definitely consider high speed rail if it were an option.

The World Wide Web 

There are just under a billion Facebook users worldwide (Map of the World Drawn Entirely Using Facebook Connections). There are approximately 2.4 billion Internet users currently (New Media Trend Watch) out of a world population of almost 7 billion. Google envisions another billion coming online by 2015 – mostly from developing countries and on mobile devices.

Can you imagine the far-reaching consequences of that kind of connection?

In this On Being interview, Seth Godin talks about what we teach our kids in this connected world.

Their role as a contributor to society starts now when they’re 10, not when they’re 24. The trail they leave behind starts the minute someone snaps their picture. Life is life and you ought to live it like people are looking at you, because they are. We need to trust them to be bigger than they could be because they choose to be bigger.

We all have the capacity to make a difference if we choose to be bigger.

More Maps 

Map of the World Showing Internet Fiber optic cable Connections. These cables are mostly under water and allow for very high speed connections.

World Internet Connection Density (by router configuration)