airplanes

so i have been working for about 2 months now, and one thing that i have gotten very familiar with is riding on an airplane. riding on the airplane itself is a very normal thing, very structured experience, you pretty much always know what to expect. however, as i have taken the 7:30am delta shuttle on monday morning from laguardia to logan, and the 5:30pm delta shuttle back on thursday, i have come to notice several oddities which i never really payed attention to before.

1) every thursday at around 5pm, regardless of how the weather is monday-thursday pre-6pm or how it is supposed to be in the upcoming weekend, clouds form above the skies at laguardia which cause all flights to be grounded. aka, no planes no planes headed for laguardia can take off. it is really strange. and they pack the flights in so tightly, and laguardias runway is so small, that even something as small as a 5 minute takeoff delay can result in a 2 hour total delay.

2) sitting on the back of the plane saves previous time, as we get to deboard from the ass of the plane once it lands. however, since the shuttle is one of the small McDonnell Douglas MD-80 planes, it also means sitting right next to the engines on either side of the plane. and the engines are freaking LOUD.

3) why is it that you have to shut off all personal electronic equipment once the plane doors shut, and why is it suddenly ok to turn them on once we reach an altitude of 10,000 feet. has anyone else ever wondered about this? i mean i used to wonder why we had to wear seatbelts because clearly if the plane is going to fall out of the sky, wearing a seatbelt would only facilitate severing our body into two clean pieces upon the impact of the crash. but do personal electronic devices really pose a challenge to the pilot's ability to conduct either a take-off or a landing of the plane? i know liquid explosives are worrisome but, if electronics actually were dangerous, wouldnt they also require us to check those in too? why cant i just listen to some of my music or play on my psp during the takeoff or landing. this truly annoys me, and i am convinced that it is one of those legacy regulations that was implemented before personal electronics were created, for fear of some frankenstein electronic device that could completely impede a planes ability to do anything other than to fly straight.