A long trip to Morocco has started

What’s up, y’all. My trip to morocco has officially started and I’m writing this entry on the flight from SFO to JFK. You might be asking why I brought my laptop on this trip and, honestly, I’m asking myself the same thing. Part of it is that I wanted to be able to download pics from my camera to keep the memory card from filling up. Also, I wanted to be able to type our my accounts of what goes down during the trip so I can add it to this blog and share it with all of you. Probably the most important reason is that I hope this joint will allow me to talk to the main ladies of my life (my GF and mother) regularly while I’m in Morocco to let them know that I’m OK. Although I’ve gone to a lot of places in the past year and a half, I’m still new to this “world traveler” thing and, as such, I can’t help but want to reach out to loved ones while I’m jetsetting and what not.

I feel fortunate to be on this plane because they almost didn’t let me on this joint. I was scheduled for this flight along with 7 of my classmates and we used an online discounter to get our tickets. As a result, we were sent paper tickets via FedEx and we didn’t have any seats reserved for us upon arrival. We all thought it’d be OK, but problems arose when 5 people were able to check in and get seats, but 3 of us were designated as “Seat Request”, which means that we weren’t guaranteed to get a seat on this flight. So, I was fully prepared to be stuck at SFO overnight along with my man Charaf and my man Pete (a.k.a. P-Diddy), which would have sucked to the fullest extent of suck-ivity. Fortunately, they were able to get us seats 10 minutes before the plane pulled away from the gate. Now, I’m safely on my way to the easy coast and, after a layover, will be on the way to making my first trip to the African continent.

As I’ve been sitting here for the past three hours, several things have occured to me that I thought I’d share:

– I’m a huge fan of Delta’s Song airline. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s Delta’s answer to JetBlue and it offers low fares on flights with 24 channels of Dish Network programming available for all customers. This airline has some fot he friendliest flight attendants I’ve seen on a domestic airline and these leather seats are pretty comfortable. Too bad Delta is planning on shelving this airline at the end of the month.
– Dish Network’s service on this flight is BOOTLEG… for real, for real. I’ve flown on Song once before nad had no problems with the in-flight entertainment, but, this time, their joint is some hot garbage! Half of the channels have error messages saying that the satellite signal can’t be established and most of the remaining channels won’t stay on for long enough for me to watch an entire show. The only channel that’s been on the whole time is CNN and I can only watch so much news before I get bored.
– Song’s got a great set of albums on their JukeBox MP3 service that has more than made up for Dish Network’s bootleg reception on this flight.
– Kanye West is a genius! By now, most of you have listened to “Late Registration” and it amazes me how dope that joint is. All of the songs are hot, but I just listened to “We Major” for the millionth time and I’m still amazed by how sick the beat for that song is. Kanye changed the game with that one and most cats out there probably skip over it because it hasn’t been released as a single…real hip-hop fans listen to every song on a CD.
– The Beastie Boys’ “Lincensed to Ill” is a classic and might be one of the top 5 rap albums ever recorded. Some folks might laugh at that statement, but I’m serious…that album is off the hinges. I hadn’t listened to it in years, but there isn’t a single song on there I could skip over. From “The New Style” to “Rhymin’ and Stealin'” to “Paul Revere” to “Girls”, this record is ridiculous from end to end. I know that they’ve done a lot to change music since they released this album in 1986, but folks shouldn’t sleep on how big they did it up when they jumped into the game.
– Jay-Z is a pimp and the greatest rapper of all time! ‘Nuff said. Listen to “The Black Album” and that should be immediately apparent to you. If not, then get your ears checked and listen to it again.
– Mariah Carey was robbed at the Grammys this year. I had refused to buy “The Emancipation of Mimi” because she’s turned into a weirdo in the past few years and I thought it would be a hot mess of a CD. After listening to it on this flight, I can safely say that I was wrong. Mariah is the perfect example of what a great voice can do when it is teamed up with some great producers…it’ll save a music career and ol’ girl has shown that to be true. Listen to “Say Something” and be blessed by some of that good ol’ VA production (courtesy of the Neptunes).
– I’m really fortunate to be making this trip. Two years ago, I never would have even thought about going to Morocco and I’m now a few hours away from being there. God is good!

OK, I’ve got about 2 hours until I get to JFK and I should try to take a nap. We’ve got a 12+ hour layover in NYC and I won’t be able to sleep during that time, so I’d rather rest now than be zombie all day long. I’m really excited about what the next 10 days is going to hold for me.