Some bloody good advice: get there really early, opt out of the pornoscanner, bring a white flu mask, headphones and a set of noise-cancellers.
Go slow, be the Dalai Lama of travel, bring work that is best done without network access.
Next, scout. Scout the terminal. Walk its length. All of it. You have three hours. Look for the healthiest possible food. Does such a thing exists? It does, surprisingly. Sometimes. Not always, but often enough. Finding it requires patience. This you have. Make note of its location.
The next task is the most difficult step. You are looking for the CNN-free zone. The MSNBC-free zone. The blare-free, drone-free zone. The zone without the talking heads. A zone calm. The listen-to-your-thoughts zone. The get-work-done zone. The read-a-book zone. The just-let-me-sit-there zone. You're looking for the small corner of rationality in a world of nonstop tickers.
Appropriately enough, this quiet space, this neglected corner of the terminal, usually provides refuge to airport employees on break. In the same way you want to eat at the Indian restaurant full of Indians, you, too, want to hang out in the part of the terminal those native to the environment find most comfortable.
Take a perch. Plug in your laptop. Smile to your uniformed comrades. They ignore you or give you disparaging looks. Do the work you would have done at home. Your flights leaves in hours. Break. Eat the healthy food. Board.
Let's fly [Craig Mod/Medium]
(via Sean Bonner)
(Image: Window Seat, Kevin Gong, CC-BY)
