CoN 25th Anniversary: 1997-2022
Airline Horrors

Posted: 18th June 2007 15:34

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Over the last two weeks I've flown roughly 4000 miles. Needless to say, with the state of American air travel, not all of it has been smooth. So let's share our airline horror stories, shall we?

1. A couple weeks ago, my wife and I flew home to Illinois for my youngest brother-in-law's graduation from high school. The woman who checked us in didn't understand airport codes well enough to tag our bag correctly, so we had to stop her and make her fix it. Obviously, we didn't think our bag would make it home. However, we were wrong. After our flight from Boston took off late, we ended up missing our connection in Atlanta to get home; our bag, however, did not, and it sat in Illinois all night long, while we were stranded in Atlanta with nothing but the clothes on our backs; also, since you can't carry on much in the way of toiletries these days, it also involved me more or less stowing away on an airport shuttle to find food and deodorant at midnight on a Friday morning so we could approximate some sort of healthy appearance for the next day.

2. Just yesterday, we were flying back from southern Florida on the way back from another graduation, this time for my sister getting her doctorate. We didn't have time to get breakfast before our 7:30am flight because they started boarding 20 minutes early - however, just when we thought we'd be leaving 20 minutes early, we were called back to the gate. Why, you might ask? Well, we asked too when we saw TSA agents come on to the plane, escort an Indian gentleman off the plane, and then come back to grab a little whitebread woman too. Turns out the girl saw the color of the guy's skin, assumed that he was doing something suspicious, and called the cops from her cell phone. Bad luck for her, though - the guy was actually a federal employee, having gone through all the necessary background checks, and she was arrested for inciting panic on an airplane. smile.gif

We ended up sitting on the plane, though, with no air conditioning, for 90 minutes, delaying us so far that we had to sprint to get to our connection and missing lunch too. So this racist freak of a woman not only almost cost us getting home, she also caused us to be awake for nine hours with no food. If I ever see her, I'm going to beat on her something fierce.

Maybe I can think back to all the trips I've taken and come up with some more, but for now, share.

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Posted: 18th June 2007 16:02

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I've had minimal flight experience. Not that I'm scared, it's just that I don't have the time, money, or much of a reason to fly anywhere. I don't understand fear of flying. Flying is still the safest and fastest way to travel. It's so safe that when the 1 in a million does fall out of the sky, it makes national news. But I digress...

I don't really have horror stories, per se. Just a couple of amusing ones.

When I was a freshman in high school, I flew out to Seattle with my mom and sisters to see some extended family. I had gotten absolutely zero sleep the night before. After about an hour into the five hour flight, I fell fast asleep. And I didn't wake up until the plane hit the tarmac at SeaTac Airport. It was a good feeling. Especially to know that I had slept all the way through a torrential thunderstorm, a 55 minute delay in which the plane circled the airport until it was safe to land, and an "oh my god, we're going to die" landing. That was per my sister, who generally does freak out, but I'll take her word for it. So for all I know, I could've slept through my own death then.

On a return flight from Florida in 2004, again, I was extremely tired. I had the aisle seat, and had fallen asleep. To block out the light, somewhat, I had put my sunglasses on. My sunglasses at the time were completely reflective, so you couldn't see my eyes. About 40 minutes later, I get awoken by the flight attendant. She said that the girl down the aisle had requested that I stopped staring at her. Guess she didn't know I was asleep, and just assumed I was a creep with sunglasses.

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Posted: 18th June 2007 16:08
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I love the experience of flying, but get extremely nervy if the slightest thing seems odd. Like, 'Oh my god why are we still ascending the pilot is suicidal and wants to fly us into the sun and take us all with him!' so if there's any trouble on a plane, I get all panicky.

And panicky did I get on our flight back from New York (delayed like 12 hours) when an eastern-European-lookin' guy was removed from our flight. We were just about to depart, and some security guys hopped on and took him off the plane. I spent the whole trip thinking he was a TERRIST and had already managed to plant his BOMB under his seat and it was only a matter of time until we went kablammo.

On the way to Florida when I was about 7, my sister suddenly discovered her nut allergy. I say discovered, I mean, she was four and must've had a peanut at some point in her life, but if someone has a nut allergy, they should have the sense to avoid nuts. I dunno, maybe she forgot about it, but she had a peanut M&M and proceeded to cause a huge scene complete with hysterical wailing and projectile vomiting. I might've only been 7, but I was embarrassed to be related to her.

I have an extremely embarrassing airport-related story, actually. It's a bit risqué, but it's amusing, or so I'm told. I'll preface it by making sure everyone is familiar with the concept of 'morning wood.' If you're not, google it. Just don't image search, k? Anyway, I had an early flight to London, and caught a bit of sleep on the plane. As the plane descended, I ascended, and we made our way through the terminal. Now, we were drawing nearer to the security check, and by this point I was praying. I don't know what for, but I know it didn't work, because, sure enough, I walked through and BEEP BEEP BEEP. So I remove my belt and the guy gets to patting me down. Sure enough, a hand runs over my special place, and I get this quizzical look from the security guard, followed by one of dawning realisation. I give him a sympathetic, awkward 'yyyup' of a smile and carry on my way, embarrassed but having got more action than I had in a long time prior.
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Posted: 18th June 2007 19:14

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/...1522192,00.html

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In Britain, the worm shut the computers of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. It also hit about 1,200 PCs at the European commission headquarters in Brussels, and allegedly wrecked Delta Airlines' systems in Atlanta for seven hours, leading to the cancellation of 40 flights.


I was on one of those flights cancelled by Delta. That was the Sasser virus, for anyone who may be experienced with computer viruses. Now, normally that wouldn't be so bad, though irritating as anything. We were on our way home from Disney World. This was on Saturday. On Thursday, my grandma had died. The funeral was sunday, the next day, in New Jersey. And now they're telling us we can't get there to be at my grandmother's funeral?

I remember my mom yelling at the customer service or whatever lady, and she was being sort of mean, but her mother HAD just died. Eventually we had to board a different flight. None of us were sitting together, including my 4-year-old sister, who had to sit next to a grown man.

Only time I've ever flown. Not really the best experience of my life.

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Posted: 18th June 2007 22:18

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I used to fly frequently when I was younger - my grandmother lives in Vancouver, plus I took a few trips here and there... I never had any bad experiences as such but this one time, being young and annoying, I nearly got my parents arrested.

We went through security and the guy gave our belongings a brief check. We go through the metal detector and everything checks out fine. So I, being something like 8, tell my old man in a loud whisper, "Hey dad, good thing they didn't find the drugs!"

Oops.

We were delayed a good 10-20 minutes while our belongings are picked apart by Men In Suits. One of the Men In Suits was particularly interested in the ice pack my old man had, trying to get him to open it to show there wasn't anything concealed in there. Nothing came up so they let us go on with our business.

A few months ago this was brought up again and my old man revealed to me he had a small amount of pot on him at the time he was planning on enjoying with his girlfriend on the beach, and that he was pretty much freaking out the whole time. Oops indeed. wink.gif

Aside from that nothing major ever happened. They even managed to get my mother a seat an hour before the flight took off when her dying father (who, living with my grandmother at the time, was also in Vancouver) was a few hours from kicking the bucket. Seriously, that impressed the hell out of me - we managed to buy a ticket, get a suitcase packed, drove to the airport, and saw her off in a mere hour. Sadly, he died about an hour before she got there, but it certainly wasn't due to her being delayed at the airport!

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Posted: 19th June 2007 12:26

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Good stories, all. I'm looking forward to reading more of them.

I've flown very few times in my life, and my worst experience is pretty tame compared to every one else's, but when I was 16 I flew to NYC for a school trip. This was during the "blizzard of 93", if any of you remember the snowstorm that rocked most of the eastern seaboard states that year. (i'm inadvertently dating myself here, but meh)

Anyway, we took off from Asheville, NC, on the way to Charlotte, and then from Charlotte to La Guardia. I had a wing seat on the Charlotte flight, and the wing was absolutely covered in ice. It was my first time on a "jumbo jet", and I was panicked at the site of what looked like a thick glaze over the wing. I had heard stories of ice on wings causing crashes, and the chemical spray the ground crew was spraying over the wing didn't seem to be melting it. The end result was that I watched the wing like a hawk the entire flight, with a constant knot of fear and nausea in my stomach.

Like I said, not much of a story. Hopefully there will be more metal detector antics and terrorist scares after you've read my bore fest. biggrin.gif

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Posted: 19th June 2007 12:52

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Oh, metal detector antics, yes, in a manner of speaking.

Also two weeks ago, when flying to Illinois; as most of you know, I recently moved from New York to Boston. The laws are pretty strict about registering cars in Massachusetts from out of state, so I was in a rush to do so. I took all the information for both cars into the RMV, got the new registrations, and then thought that I should go ahead and convert my license too so I wouldn't have to make the drive again one morning. Unfortunately, unlike New York, they don't do the new license while you wait, they stick you with a temporary.

So I had a cardboard temporary driver's license given to me. On said license was the sentence "Not Valid as Identification." And I had to fly two days later without any other photo ID to my name. Needless to say, I got groped by a TSA agent at every security checkpoint for every flight for the entire weekend.

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Posted: 20th June 2007 00:18

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I've been in way too many airports

This post has been edited by Elena99 on 13th April 2012 19:36

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Posted: 20th June 2007 01:40

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I fly fairly often, especially for one of my age, and I have little complaints about the whole deal. I've become accustomed to it, and it's never been special -- exciting or frightening or otherwise. The worst part for me is being stuck in small chairs for 3+ hours, being of moderately tall stature. I try to be unconscious for as long as possible anyway.

Probably the most annoying airport experience for me was on a flight back from Florida. We arrive smoothly and the airport might as well been deserted. It was totally empty, not a single person in the out-security line. So, we pass through expecting to get out promptly, but out of nowhere, one of the three security guards stops me for inspection. Now, please consider that I was traveling with my parents, and they had gone through the exact same line just moments before. It was immediately obvious I was their son. Regardless, this guard decides that I'm indefinitely suspicious and makes me take off my shoes, open my bag, get scanned by the metal-detector, asked questions, etc. etc. Terribly annoying and basically a blatant insult on my apparently suspicious demeanor. All this on an arriving flight home.

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Posted: 21st June 2007 18:41

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I've flown twice, and both times were to New York City. The only problem I've ever encountered was being seated on the plane for an hour after the scheduled takeoff was supposed to be. That made me a little peeved. But hell, at least I wasn't on this flight

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Posted: 29th June 2007 15:45

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My lone problem i had was when I was flying back home from Washington (the state) when I was going thru security and noticed some people taking there shoes off, when i got up there I asked the guard If I had to take my shoes off, he asked me if I was a minor, I replyed yes and that I was 16 (this was in late 2005). He said I wasnt a minor, I said I was, didnt agree with me, so i took them off anyways and got scolded by my dad and stepmom for arguing with a security guard.

There is more to this flight home, when the plane reached about 25,000 ft. the pilots anounced that there was a problem that would make descending difficult and that we would fly back to the airport, and they put us all on a different plane. It was quite a weird day for all this too happen.

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Posted: 29th June 2007 23:04

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Quote (Elena99 @ 19th June 2007 16:18)
Also, has anyone else noticed that Canadian customs officials are awesome compared to the American ones? And it's not just to Canadians, they're like that to Rich when he goes through, and he's still American.

Really? I've had the opposite experience. It's far too long to type out again, so I'll just link it here.

But I digress; I was once delayed at the airport over two hours surrounded by whining and crying children. I did not arrive at my destination till after midnight their local time. On the plane, I must have had a look of pure "OMFG! I'm going to kill those kids!" because the flight attendant asked me if I'd like any alcohol. I took her up on it. When she brought it to me, I went to pay her and she was "oh, it's on the house". happy.gif

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Posted: 30th June 2007 00:40

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Ugh, children on airplanes. Small children should not be on planes if their parents can help it. I know, that's not fair, and I was once a small child on an airplane too. But still.

Once, on a flight from Maryland to Florida, a toddler spent the entire flight kicking the back of my seat. I turned around once, and the parent apologized, but the kid still cried and kicked the seat the entire way. It was an early morning flight, and I just wanted to sleep, but could not.

I was on an hour-long busride today. Minutes before the bus was about to leave, a family of four sat down in the seats behind mine and across, with one kid/one parent behind me. What did the kid do within seconds of being seated? Kick my chair. Fortunately, I was able to move up a seat since the bus wasn't full.

Edit: Kame, I just read your post. BC, of course, is the other side of Canada and I've only been there once, when I was a kid, so I don't know much about it. But that's awful that you were treated that way. It's not that bad in the smaller cities (Vancouver is huge), but I will admit that if you're not white or Asian, you might get some racists.

It's really unfortunate, since we're supposed to be this great, friendly, multicultural country that welcomes everyone regardless of race, nationality, gender, age, etc. There's an increasingly anti-American attitude up here. I try to tell people that not all Americans are rude, or whatever else they say about them, and that there are plenty of awful people in Canada too. Just look at that idiot who shot up the college in Montreal, for example.

This post has been edited by Elena99 on 30th June 2007 00:50

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Posted: 30th June 2007 07:06

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I'm going to be different and say I had a bad flight experience flying TO Florida.

I've only gone on one trip that required flying. I went to Colorado with the family last March (I think I posted a bit about it somewhere around here). My mom planned it, bought the tickets, etc. We drove to Orlando, flew to Denver, then on to Colorado Springs in a smaller, more crampt plane. Which was fine, since the flight was like five minutes. The return trip was not planned out so well. We flew from CO Springs to Chicago(!?) where we had something like a five or six hour wait for the flight to Orlando. AND we ended up catching an earlier flight back to Florida. The Chicago->Orlando flight was on a plane smaller than the Denver->CO Springs plane, and no one was sitting anywhere near each other. And on our arrival to Chicago, we ended up circling the city for like an hour because O'Hare is that freaking busy. We ended up back home at three in the morning and I had to be at work at 9:30 to open the store. I wonder how much worse the timing of it all would have been if our plane arrived on time and if we didn't leave early.

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Posted: 30th June 2007 07:08

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Quote (Elena99 @ 29th June 2007 16:40)
Ugh, children on airplanes. Small children should not be on planes if their parents can help it. I know, that's not fair, and I was once a small child on an airplane too. But still.

Oh, and to boot, all the kids were unaccompanied minors. Seriously, who sends their kids across country late in the day. In order to shut them up for awhile, I gave them the use of my GBA. I pretty much said, "here, knock yourself out". I figured whatever damage they did to it was worth a bit of peace and quiet. It only worked for about fourty minutes or so though. It was at the point I just wanted someone to get booze. Either me or the kids so maybe they'd pass out or something.

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Posted: 1st July 2007 05:20

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even without the tight airline security, just listening to chinese planes crashing gives me chills. (heard about 2~3 stories this week -.- )

...
and bunch of my friends are going to china ... :/

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Posted: 2nd July 2007 09:12

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I've been on a good number of flights in my time, particularly short-haul ones due to the occasional trip to either France or Germany or somewhere. I've never really had anything reeally bad happen beyond turbulence, delayed flights and bumpy landing, and I've never been as scared as some people can be. One thing that did kinda freak me out was my most recent trip to Germany. On checking my bags in, I saw two of the screens that would normally show the destination so you know who to give your bags to, but the software had crashed or something. One of them showed the windows 95 "it is now safe to turn of your computer" screen. While I was sure that wouldn't affect me, it was a little bit alarming.

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Posted: 7th July 2007 16:24

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I've flown at least 4+ times a year since about the age of three, if not earlier. That's something like 50 or more flights in my short lifetime. My carbon footprint is not terribly pretty, I can assume. tongue.gif

The worst incident I can think of was on the return flight from Malaga to London Gatwick (it could have been one of the other 'ports round London, but Gatwick is the most likely one) a few years back. Our flight was meant to be at 8:00pm Spanish time, but through whatever problems with the airport, plane or weather, we didn't actually board any aircraft until four hours later. While four hours might not seem that bad, factor in an annoying little brother, no entertainment of any kind and getting queasy from a caramel ice cream... and well.

Didn't get any proper sleep that night, and so the time from the morning of the departure and the next evening afterwards (about 37 hours) was the longest length of time I've gone without sleep for, ever.

Oh, and there's the few times me and my dad have been stopped at the German passport control because we don't share a surname. You do NOT want to make my dad show a birth certificate to prove that he's my legal father. He gets real pissed if you do that. biggrin.gif

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Posted: 1st August 2007 17:48

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I have a new one, I didn't actually fly or anything but ill share it anyways:

Last Night I drove down to LAX with my Stepmom to pick up her niece who was flying in from Washington (The State), and she wanted to go all the way back to the gate, the customer service person said they normally allow only 1 person back and asked if Im a minor, I told her I was but wouldn't be as of today so they let me thru with my stepmom and had we picked her neice today I would of had to wait at baggage claim.
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Posted: 15th December 2016 19:14

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Here's another fun bump with a couple more from somewhat more recent history.

1. Back in 2012, I had my first business trip after my daughter had been born, and I was very much against going but not given any choice. I managed to make it through the trip, but my flight home was a disaster - there were no non-stops between Boston and Kansas City at the time, and the connection for my trip home was Dallas (completely out of the way of a direct line). My flight landed two terminals away and with only 20 minutes between flights, and I ended up at a full sprint because that was faster than the monorail and I had no interest in being away from my family another night.

Exhausted and with blisters forming due to poor shoe choice, I got within sight of my gate for the flight home and watched the gate attendants close the door even as I ran up to them. No amount of cajoling would get them to reopen it, and I slumped down in a chair, upset and defeated.

And then the heavens opened, and the pilot came to the gate door to speak to the attendants for some reason. There was some minor issue that he needed to talk to them about directly, and I took my chance. With the door open, I nudged into the conversation to explain that they wouldn't let me board because the door had been closed, and now it wasn't... and they let me on and I made it home that night.

2. This year, when returning from Portugal (as mentioned in another thread I necro'd today), our bags got held up because our plane was overweight hopping from Morocco to Lisbon. My wife and I were stuck another night without any clothes, though we were clever enough this time to get enough toiletries on our persons to get us to the next day. Our bags finally made it back to the US three days after we did, with both bags pretty well busted up... and my video camera missing. I didn't use the camera while on the trip, so I didn't even notice until about two weeks later, by which time the airline claimed no responsibility and refused to help. I still hold out hope that I will find it in some random place in my house somehow, and that it was never really missing, but let's face it, it disappeared somewhere in North Africa.

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Posted: 3rd February 2017 05:23

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I've flown countless times, actually flying to Sacramento at the end of the month! Anyway, with my experience on airplanes, I can't honestly say I've got any horror stories.

I'm really introverted when traveling alone (and pretty much in general) so my idea of a bad time is getting my headphones in, getting relaxed, then having the person next to me talk the whole plane trip, lol.

And the kicker is, that happens to me every siiiingle tiiiiiime :')

But yeah, if that's all I have to complain about I'd say I'm doing okay in regards to air travel, heh.

This post has been edited by Brunettepudding on 3rd February 2017 05:23
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Posted: 3rd February 2017 05:56

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Cactuar
Posts: 263

Joined: 26/5/2015

Awards:
Member of more than five years. Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. 
I am 31 years old and have never been on a plane.

Never left the Eastern TIme zone.

Never been to another country not named Canada (and even then, it was Ontario).

Never been on a passenger train (I have been on a steam engine though).

Never been West of Cleveland nor East of the Hudson River.

Yet managed to meet and extensively interact with people from Ukraine, Russia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Guatemala, Turkey, Yemen, Egypt, India, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, China, United Arab Emirates, England, Senegal, Poland, Germany, Ireland, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Japan, Portugal, and several other countries.

Funny, that. Most were met either at jobs in the manufacturing industry or college/college-towns.

Not that I've never wanted to leave the East Coast. But when you're working-class and never had strong familial support, you can hardly afford to live beyond a paycheck to paycheck kind of life.

I appreciate hot showers and clean water. I'd love to see more of the Earth but never will. I've accepted the beauty I have seen and don't envy the beauty I haven't.

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Post #212102
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Posted: 4th February 2017 13:04

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Black Waltz
Posts: 900

Joined: 12/7/2011

Awards:
Member of more than ten years. Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. Member of more than five years. User has rated 25 fanarts in the CoN galleries. 
Flying rules. Travel is awesome. I wish I had seen more of the world than I had seen at this point, and I've been driven absolutely stir crazy by my lack of mobility. I ought to have picked an easier and more lucrative field than soulful power ballads and brash guitar rock. Perhaps I'd have been some shakes as a rapper after all. Guess we'll never know.

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X is blue.
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