Having been anticipating this trip for months, this morning still seemed to come as a surprise. Waking up in my bed for the last time, one last breakfast at home, being driven to the airport and the goodbye and the flight here all seemed to pass in one run-on-sentence of anxious boredom.

I was reminded in a way of the accounts I’ve read from combat pilots, and how their jobs are essentially that: What they’re doing in a broad picture is very exciting; What they’re doing physically in the moment is very boring.

I can’t complain about the flight to the east coast. Service was very good. After a rainy morning in San Francisco, it is warm and very smoggy here in New Jersey.

Just now I have seen on the airport TV that Phil Hartman has committed suicide. Wow. What a reminder that no matter how successful people might seem to be, it doesn’t mean that they’re happy.

My initial impression of New Jersey is of a place that is at least as ethnically diverse as the Bay Area, if not more.