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With Wi Fi aboard, be careful of what you click

With Wi-Fi aboard, be careful of what you click

By Adam Sheffer, New York Times | Updated: 6 June 2012 15:56 IST

Highlights

I’m a Modernist, devoted to Mies, postwar abstraction and flying. In the last year or so, I’ve been in Amman, Paris, Venice, Athens, Boston, London, Naples, Dublin, Rome, Reykjavik, Milan, Málaga, Moscow, Montreal and Memphis, to name a few.

I'm a Modernist, devoted to Mies, postwar abstraction and flying. In the last year or so, I've been in Amman, Paris, Venice, Athens, Boston, London, Naples, Dublin, Rome, Reykjavik, Milan, Málaga, Moscow, Montreal and Memphis, to name a few.

One year, I was traveling back and forth to Paris so many times that the flight attendants recognized me.

I was traveling with an important artist and I was really trying very hard to impress him. When we boarded the plane, a flight attendant yelled out that it was great to see me. I felt really good, believing the artist would think that I must be someone special for a crew member to greet me that way.

Then the attendant asked me if I wanted a drink. It was 8:30 in the morning and I was sure the artist thought I was a drunk. Fortunately, he just found it amusing.

When Wi-Fi became available in flight, I was really excited since I thought I would be extra productive.

The first time I tried it, I was traveling to Los Angeles from New York. Since it's a long flight, I thought I'd get a lot of work done. So I e-mailed a colleague telling him that I was in a plane but could still work.

My colleague, a notorious prankster, e-mailed me back with the subject line "Picasso," with an attached image. The body of the e-mail said that he found the Picasso I had been looking for. I opened the attachment and my screen filled with, well, porn.

I was in the middle seat with two business types on either side of me. I was mortified. And they didn't look amused. I slammed the laptop shut and didn't say a word or do any work for the remainder of the flight.

Since I travel so much you'd think I would be savvier. But a lot of times I feel like I'm living out a "Seinfeld" episode.

When heading from Rome to Moscow, I had to board a shuttle bus to my plane. There were two buses: one was nearly empty; the other was really crowded. I'm not a fool. I opted for the less crowded bus. I got very comfortable and kept thinking how smart I was. That is, until I discovered the bus was taking me to a plane headed to Kuwait.

I make mistakes all the time. I had a meeting in Israel and by the time I landed in Tel Aviv, I was really tired. When I got to my hotel, all I wanted to do was go up to my room as quickly as possible and then sleep.

But since I was sure it was a Friday, I wanted to be respectful of the Shabbat laws. So I didn't push any buttons in the elevator that would take me to my floor. I waited for the doors to close.

I must have stood there three minutes. Then a guy got on the elevator and immediately pushed the button for his floor. I gave him a dirty look. And then he told me it was Thursday, not Friday. I felt pretty foolish.

To help beat jet lag, I travel everywhere with a Pilates abdominal device. It's a metal circle, with two plastic handles, that you use to strengthen your core. I swear some security people think it's a weapon. I've had to explain what it's used for and a few agents asked me to demonstrate.

They didn't look impressed. But they did let me on the plane with my Pilates gear, where I proceeded to show the flight attendants just how it worked. At least they seemed impressed.

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