So I'm going to England on Saturday, and you know what my biggest concern is? That the plane is too big.

We'll be going to Blighty in a 747, a plane which has serviced trans-Atlantic routes for decades, never mind all the work 747s do around the Pacific Rim. The 747 is a popular plane, with millions of miles behind it, all culminating in the flight I'll be on.

But I'm sitting in row SIXTY-ONE. I've never been on a plane with more than, say 35 rows. I'm sitting in what amounts to a plane tacked on to the back of another plane. As I've been saying to people the last few days, it's going to be like flying an office building.

From talking to Sarah, you don't really even notice the flight as you're going, the size of the plane apparently negating the usual bumps. She did say that you spend a lot of time at an angle on take off, given how long it takes for the plane to get to altitude.

I'll take her word for it, but I have the final scene of Say Anything... running through my head, where Lloyd and Diane are sitting tight, waiting for the seat belt sign to dim, the final signal that everything's going to be OK. I suppose I can make do with that.

One of the features of the flight that I didn't know about before doing some looking around is that there's a map (either in the cabin or available on the seat-back monitors) that shows the plane's position in real time. This has two possible negative applications:

1. It may reinforce the idea that it's a really long flight. I don't think I'm going to look forward to spending some time in a book, looking up, and then seeing that, hey, we're still over water.

2. The reminder that we will, for large chunks of the flight, be over water. I've never flown for a significant chunk of time over the wet stuff, mostly just skirting the coast or going over or near a Great Lake. I've had a mental dialog going about which emergency landing would be worse, but have come to the conclusion that it probably doesn't matter. I do have bad visions of me manning a life raft in the north Atlantic, though. In mentioning this conflict, one of my RAs noted that she's heard that drowning is a very peaceful way to go.

I've already decided how I'm going to sabotage her performance evaluation.

Really, I'm not that nervous about this, but rather have some anxiety based on it being a new thing. I don't do many new things anymore, given that most new things would either be physically painful, embarrassing, or both. This is an exception, and outside of my combination of awe and fear at the combination of weight, speed, and height involved, am pretty excited for my first European excursion.

In other news, I am happy to see that at least two of my fellow bloggers have endorsed the idea of me taking over the Boston archdiocese. Then again, both are Lutherans (I think; one I'm pretty sure about, the other is a putative Lutheran, given his ethnic background suggesting it as the most likely choice), so the Vatican may not be sold yet.

My fantasy football season is over. Thanks to the 4 TD day from Clinton Portis, I am currently 30 points behind, with my opponent still having one player to go. I suppose Troy Brown probably won't turn the ball over 15 times, or become an emergency kicker and shank several extra points. Suffice it to say Oakland picked a bad day (for both of us) to have their offense turn in an average performance. Then again, I took Miami to win in all the pick 'em games I'm in. Had I been smart enough to play my backup, Brad Johnson... I'd actually be something like 32 points behind. Even with my best possible combination, I'd still be down something like 20 points. Sometimes, a loss is just a loss.

I suppose the only thing I can say about Carson Palmer winning the Heisman is meh. I'll agree with Cooch that Ken Dorsey finishing fifth is silly. Two words explain this turn of events: Gino Torretta. A Miami QB, led team to national title, won a lot of games, completely tanked in the NFL. All sounds pretty similar up to the NFL part, and you have to think that some voters (considering how many of them apparently don't cover football) made a connection that doesn't hold up.

The guy I feel worst for is Larry Johnson, the latest 2000 yard back to not win. It probably didn't help that the schedule included games against the likes of Central Florida and Louisiana Tech, or that he had less than 100 yards in Penn State losses. But still, you average 8 yards a carry, put in 20 TDs, and you finish third?

The Bruce has told us Sox fans to be happy about Jeremy Giambi, and to be honest I'll be happy about anyone not named Tony Clark. (though I'm sure I'll miss Tony the Tiger's defense when the other Giambi boots his first grounder). I also feel badly that this may be the move that sends Brian Daubach packing.

Unrelated to all of this, I pulled number 50, the next to last position, in the student affairs Yankee swap today. That's good, in that I get the next to last pick. What was bad was that there weren't any gifts left. Turns out that one of the participants had to leave early, planning to return it seems, but didn't. I was saved by someone who split their gift, giving me two of the Harry Potter books. As I already have them, I turned the books into a 27 piece tool kit. I now own a hammer, ready to nail more sneakers to boards.