Solo trip to Moth HQ in London
It’s already time for another jaunt to Moth’s London headquarters, but this one’s a solo trip. As the company’s Quantum Evangelist, my job this week is to deliver Moth’s message to several of London’s top creative universities.
The common advice for minimizing jet lag on east-bound transatlantic flights is to sleep as much as you can on an overnight haul, then be sure to stay up all day after landing in the accelerated timezone. But I’m terrible at sleeping on flights, so I’m about to try something new: I’m departing New York early in the morning to arrive during evening in London (five time zones ahead). This removes any penalty for not sleeping during the flight. All I have to do is go to bed on London time and all’s well… Right? Time will tell.
The downside to this plan is waking painfully early to get to the airport. And keep in mind: this was on the heels of Halloween night! I went from handing out candy, to packing, to bed, to the airport in the blur of a few hours. A small upside? This morning before waking, daylight saving ended, which meant the clocks “fall back” by one hour. Of course that’s not enough time for a human body to adjust, so my 8am flight felt like a 9am departure instead. And better yet: The UK had already ended its daylight saving a week earlier, so this was the tail end of that small window of the year where the jet lag would only feel like 4 hours instead of 5! Plus, the sunrise was absolutely beautiful. (And yes, that header photo of a sunrise flight was snapped by yours truly.)
Just a bit of David Bowie to drive home that New York / London connection. But wait—didn’t Major Tom famously not make it home? Hmm…
Flying over Brooklyn and Queens with Manhattan’s Financial District (including One World Trade Center) in view. See you soon, New York.
“The Second Time Around” by Jack Howard is a short film that warrants twelve minutes of your attention. The catalog of electronic distractions was large but poorly curated, so this was a needle-in-a-haystack find. Other than a film or two, I was editing docs and decks as we skipped across the Atlantic air currents.
Safely back on the ground, and Heathrow’s control tower appearing to pan into view as we make our way to the gate.
Checking into the hotel and minding the clock. Even though it feels like only 6pm, it’s already 10pm here and I’m meeting with a class from UAL’s Creative Computing Institute at 9am tomorrow! Thankfully my slides and demos are complete and queued up: An introduction to Moth and our Atlas quantum creativity platform. Looking forward to a busy week in London. Signing off for the night!