Waiting on the plane in the Big Easy

Sitting here on the plane for two hours it just struck me: Why don’t I blog? OK, it wasn’t really my idea. Our lovely media relations director Sarah Melton suggested it. At the time I was watching videos on Dionne Calhoun’s computer with Dirk and Gana.

Weather in Chicago has us stuck on the tarmac here in New Orleans. Apparently it’s not ice or snow holding us back. Wind gusts have shut down quite a few runways at O’Hare. They do call it the Windy City.

So during our delay, I had lunch (chicken jambalaya, sweet potato mash and steamed vegetables), tooled around on the internet (check out Brad Townsend’s excellent Mike Sherman read at dallasnews.com), let Fingers (team massage therapist) know his arm was bleeding, talked ball and Bourbon Street with Gana, and basically wandered from row to row.

Though waiting around isn’t ideal, it wasn’t bad. Normally when we board, people take their usual seats (kinda like the cafeteria in school) and everyone does their thing. A lot of headphones come on. Coaches break down film. Brad Davis and Keith Grant break out the cards. The rest of us in the traveling party usually have work to do.

But with so much time to kill, guys were up and about mingling. Well everyone but a hibernating Jerry Stackhouse. Paul Westphal just got some new tunes on his iPod from trainer Casey Smith. (Westphal digs Radiohead, even if he can’t understand the lyrics.) Dirk pondered entering the All-Star dunk contest. (He’s got a shot at winning … if no one else enters.)

So as I sat down to write this, we’re finally starting up the engines. Chicago, here we come. (Did I get a little too parenthetic?)