I was supposed to be in Des Moines, Iowa by now. But, I'm not.

Instead, I'm just barely leaving Cincinatti.

I guess Cincinatti got a load of freezing rain and snow just before our flight from Salt Lake City was to land. They closed the runways because of “nil braking action.” The pilot came over the P.A. and said he wasn't sure what was going to happen, that we might have to land somewhere else, but in the meantime, we'd circle in the air.

So, circle we did. For an hour until the Cincinatti airport managed to open one of their runways.

Originally, I was supposed to have a layover in Cincinatti of about one hour. When I arrived, I had about 2-3 minutes to catch my next flight at its scheduled time. When I got off the plane checked the departures on the video monitor in the terminal, I discovered my flight to Des Moines had been delayed thirty minutes from 9:15 to 9:45.

I breathed a sigh of relief, called Christine and let her know what was going on, and headed over to the C terminal where my flight was departing from. Well, 9:45 came and went. They finally let us on the plane around 10:20. Once everyone was on board, they told us it would be another 45 to 60 minutes before we'd take off because the plane had to get in line for de-icing.

Fortunately, my very, very good friend Thom (of Sons Of Nothing fame) gave me two DVDs to watch and I brought them with me. One was Pink Floyd Live in Pomeii - The Director's Cut and the other was Rush In Rio.

I watched the Pink Floyd DVD on the way to Cincinatti and loved it. I watched the original video years ago on VHS and remember a lot of it well. The director updated the film with some modern footage including computer animated bits which, while impressive, kind of clashed with the circa-1972 film. But, overall, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed all the extra footage and interviews. The members of Pink Floyd made me laugh out loud a couple times and I'm sure my cabin-mates on the plane were curious what that was all about. The guys next to me probably thought I was a nut case if they looked over and saw what I was watching when “Careful With That Axe Eugene” was playing.

I watched 30 minutes or so of Rush In Rio while we were waiting for the deicing operation. Wow! Those people in Brazil needed their Rush fix. Watching a whole soccer stadium of people bouncing to Tom Sawyer was something else.

So, Geddy Lee has three industrial washing machines tumbling clothes behind him on stage and it's kind of weird. I'm hoping they explain it in the extras or something, but my theory is that he doesn't amplify his bass like he used to — he just connects it directly to an FX rack and that goess into the house sound. Meanwhile, Alex Lifeson still has quite a small town of guitar amps, FX, and other equipment on his side of the stage. If those washing machines or dryers or whatever were not there, Geddy's side of the stage would look remarkably bare. So, I'm guessing it's all about balance.

Thom's going to be very glad he gave these DVDs to me to watch because they've provided me with some inspiration and some imaginative ideas for the Sons Of Nothing shows.

Well, I hope I can get checked into my hotel before I gave to go teach my class. :-)