THOUGHTS FROM THE AIR

The following entry was started just short of 8:40 a.m. Eastern time and roughly 15 minutes into my flight from Providence to Chicago …

Well, Providence gets the nod for easiest airport to navigate through out of the ones I’ve flown from this season. Previous trips have started at Bradley and JFK, but this was the smoothest so far.
I still have a flight two weeks from now out of LaGuardia, an airport I’m very comfortable with, but it doesn’t share some of the same conveniences because of traffic in the area.
I was a little disappointed to hear that there’s already light snow in Chicago and temperatures are in the mid-to-low teens. Hopefully I packed appropriately, heeding the warnings of cold weather from a high school friend who went to Northwestern. Adding insult to injury, during our captain’s pre-flight address he mentioned this plane is continuing through to Maui, where it’s about 85.
Lastly, here’s a random thought on travel. Every time I fly I can’t help but think about one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes when Jerry and Elaine travel together. Jerry gets bumped up to first class and ends up being seated next to a model. I’m still waiting for the same experience, and I’ll even settle for it to come minus the first-class part.

As for the trip’s significance, UConn needs a win. Can it get much simpler than that?
Suddenly the Big East tournament is not a guarantee and another loss, especially to a team in a similar position, makes reaching New York even more uncertain.
It’s hard to imagine the Huskies won’t beat lowly Rutgers this Saturday, but the possibility increases if this losing streak continues.
Also, I’ll be curious to see what type of turnout DePaul gets. Chicago is a tough market for college sports and oftentimes the media and fans overlook the Blue Demons.

In terms of tourism, this will be my first trip to Chicago and it’s a city I’ve wanted to see for some time. My plans include hitting the home of original deep dish pizza and at least walking by Wrigley Field.
A few of us may also take in a matinee show Wednesday, but we’re not sure what we can get tickets for. Although it’s not Broadway, Chicago theatre is about the next-best thing.
And of course, a trip to Rush Street and Michigan Avenue is in order.

That’s all I can think of for now. I do have some extra tidbits from Howie Dickenman after Central’s win last night at Quinnipiac and I’ll throw those up later. We’re also scheduled to see Jim Calhoun at around 6 tonight, so I’ll post again if anything of note comes of that.
Until then …