[Rain Man]

I've never had anything that was close, though I've had a few instances where I've briefly had some questions about the process.

1. I was on a flight from Chicago to Charleston once when the pressurization system failed. We didn't get the oxygen masks, but my ears started popping quite a bit and the pilot turned us around and we went back to Chicago.

2. I was on a little plane in Nepal headed to some little place in Nepal. The plane nosed down and was obviously on a landing trajectory, but I could see out the front window and there wasn't a landing field anywhere. Eventually I realized that it was a grass field and all was fine. However, on the way out I discovered that the villagers would graze their sheep and goats or whatever on the field, and they would blow a whistle when a plane came in so the people could herd them off the runway. Yeesh.

3. I've had a few turbulence incidents and I really don't like turbulence, but I've had nothing as bad as other people describe.

When DaFace and I were on a trip to Louisville or Dayton or some place a few years back, I saw the biggest, nastiest thunderstorm that I've ever seen from a plane. Black, boiling clouds, lightning all over the place, it looked like a portal to hell. I was hoping we weren't flying into it, but the pilot navigated us around the side. The Midwest really gets the most spectacular thunderstorms imaginable.