Vvvvr~rr~r~oooo~o~oommm~m~m...

The sound of the 10-plus feet wide propellers on each side of the fuselage is deafening. My in-ear headphone blasting Tiësto’s “In Search of Sunrise 3” at full volume can’t even block out the constant white noise. The seats are humming and vibrating to the tune of the propellers and half of my butt is numbed. Errhh!

Alright, I might be exaggerating a bit. This is actually kinda fun to ride in this 60-seater Alaskan Airline turboprop servicing from Boise, Idaho to San Jose, California.

The climb to the 25,000 feet cruising attitude was very bumpy due to turbulence and I enjoyed every second of it!! You see, I have a lot of faith in the plane and the people who designed and built it; I never had an once of fear that the plane might crash from bad weather (it would simply be fate even if it does). Turbulence to me is like ridding a rollercoaster, exciting and usually lasts more than two minutes you normally get on an amusement park rides.

I had flown in planes much smaller than this, 6 or 7-seater tin cans that connected remote towns in the vast continental America. Back in 1998, after my graduation from U of M and before I headed out to work for Intel full time, I took a short three months internship just for fun. I’d go in to the office on Monday mornings with my luggage; the secretary would hand me an envelope with that week’s itinerary and off I went... Usually I’d hit 2-3 cities in one week, installing database in field office. Des Moines, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Butte, Montana; Anchorage, Alaska... It was a great experience to visit all those places, especially since I’d probably never go to those places on my own dime.