Halloween Fun

Okay, now we're a solid week past Halloween, it's time for me to blog about it! Sorry about the tardiness- I had to go to the UK this week and internet access there is always spotty. Especially at the Hilton Manchester Airport. We do have a toll-free UK number we can use for internet, but the hotel charges 50 pence (roughly 6.34 galleons) a minute for toll-free calls. How do they sleep at night? So in an effort to save your taxpayer dollars, I decided not to chat with Ramya, check Facebook or ESPN or do work e-mail for a few days. These are the sacrifices I make as part of my civil service.

One note I will tell you about the United Kingdom: Does anyone know what they talked about there this week? I'll tell you: Obama. And then they'd talk about Obama, and when that got old, they would move on to Obama. Obama, Obama, and more Obama. From when I stepped off the plane Tuesday morning (before the election, mind you (I voted early before I left)) until we took off Friday, virtually every television channel (they only have like seven, mind you), radio station, magazine cover, or T-shirt was either a picture or sound bite from Obama. Shelley and I foolishly thought we would be getting away from election talk by fleeing across the Atlantic, but we were sorely mistaken. On the bright side, the election seems to have made the European community hate America a lot less, so we've got that going for us.

So back on topic. Halloween! Early on it came to my attention that Ramya had never carved a pumpkin before. How can that be? So in order to do it right, we eschewed the el-cheapo $2 pumpkin carving set and sprung for the $4 el-deluxo kit. This also marked the first time I've ever carved a pumpkin from a pre-made pattern. To me that makes it less impressive, but it was still a "medium" difficulty design, and I think I pulled it off (mine is on the left). Ramya did an excellent job with her classic face layout.And because I'm sure Carly and Karen are dying to know, yes I did carve a Marc symbol in the back to project on the wall. It's just that we decided to put them out along the sidewalk so you couldn't tell. You didn't think I would totally forgo personalization, did you?

The night after Halloween (Saturday) we went to my friend Dan's Halloween party. Ramya and my costume wasn't so much a "couple's" getup as it was a "pair." See if you can guess:Get it? Anyone? Okay, if you guessed Hannah Montana and Billy Ray Cyrus, you're way ahead of the curve. And yes, we went dressed as a father and daughter pair. This was met with more than a few "Ewws" and "That's disgustings!" It's a Halloween costume, people! We're not advocating incest or anything. Lighten up!

There was a very interesting aspect of putting these costumes together for Ramya and me. First, to get my Billy Ray outfit we simply hit up the Salvation Army- always a reliable source for cheap, out of date clothes that you're going to deface, wear once and then never touch again. Ramya (and her friend Kavel, who joined us for the trip) had never been in a resale shop. Whereas I, being Tawnya Rowden's son, spent a good portion of my childhood in such places and wearing stranger's gently used clothing items. Their verdict was that it was a little sad, being that we were in there ironically, and for many of the patrons this is their primary source of goods. But that's a topic for another post.

On the other side of the coin, to transform Ramya into Hannah Montana we had to visit several stores in the mall that I have been walking past for 20-odd years, and it had never occurred to me to go inside. I'm talking about Claire's, Forever 21, and a whole host of others I can't remember with names like "The Rouge." These places are primarily geared toward pre-teens or sorostitues, dealing in "clubbing" clothes. We're talking glittery, skimpy, shimmery, rhinestoney, ridiculous clothes. As much of a foreigner as Ramya and Kavel were in the Salvation Army, I stood puzzled in these stores thinking "Who wears this garbage?" I would look at some little, one shoulder couture rhinestoned top with, I don't know, "Tasty" bedazzled across the front (on sale for $215) and asked "When would anyone possibly wear this? What utility does this have?" They would look at me and reply "Duh! Clubbing." Right. Clubbing. This is one of many areas that I have no expertise whatsoever in. Luckily the Hannah Montana and Billy Ray outfits came together relatively cheaply as we exhaustively searched from resale shops to high-falutent clubbing retailers- or as I like to call it, "The Best of Both Worlds." Yeah, I went there.

Another note about Claire's: They sell jewlery and accessories to what,8-14 year old girls, right? Well, then one we went to was selling flasks. Like, you know, for booze. They had several versions- ones with an art deco peace sign screened on, one with "I heart NY" in pink rhinestones, and many more. What are these for? Why does a pre-teen girl need a flask? How are we okay with this?

Furthermore, we checked the seasonal Halloween store just to see what they had. And let me tell you, pedophiles everywhere can rejoice, because slutty costumes aren't just for adults anymore. They had several choices including, but not limited to, Shipwrecked- or as I think of it, pre-teen pirate ho. Would you let your daughter wear that? I must be getting old, because as I was searching for that picture I felt like I was looking at kiddie porn. This might just be a sign of the times, but that seems way too revealing for a child to wear to me. Heck, I remember the time in 8th grade that Britt Unger wore a top that bared her midriff. Why? Because it caused quite a stir and people talked about it for days. I believe she was asked by the school not to wear it again. I bet if any man who was attending Concord Junior High in 1992 reads this post, they will remember exactly what I'm talking about.

As for passing out candy, it was another down year. I can't figure this place out- one year we'll get like 60 kids, then the next it'll be like 20. On the plus side I think there were only 1 or 2 that weren't wearing a costume (though it seems that every member of the Leonardtown Raiders football team dressed up as a football player). The trick-or-treaters started showing up around 6:00, and were long done with by 7:30. So Ramya and I made dinner, went downstairs to watch a movie, etc. Right about 10:00 the doorbells rings, so I answer it. On my doorstep were two "boys" that were about my height, both wearing normal street clothes save for Target bags with eyeholes on their heads. I was like "Really? Okay." And gave them each some candy. All in all, better participation than last year.

On a final note, while in the UK we talked with the local guys about Halloween (I think it started because I was always eating candy in the meeting). Apparently they only started celebrating Halloween about 5 years ago, and they say it has really caught on in the last two years. Who knew? I thought it was just an American thing.

So you can check out the rest of my pictures here. Happy Halloween! On to Thanksgiving.

Notes from the Left Coast

I just returned home from Los Angeles, where I went for a one-day meeting. That's right- I flew from DC to LA Tuesday, had a meeting Wednesday, then flew back Thursday. This may sound incredibly wasteful, and it is, but this was a Test Readiness Review and it was necessary to see the actual equipment. Believe you me, I make use of netmeetings and telecons whenever possible. And in this case, there were things we noticed that we wouldn't have seen over the phone. But I digress.

There were a few fun things I noticed on this trip to California. First, did everyone see this Ford commercial during the Superbowl? Well, the meeting was at a testing facility called NTS, and apparently that's where it was filmed. They showed us the centrifuge, and it looked the same (but I guess if you've seen one you've seen 'em all). I also found this behind the scenes video on YouTube that calls out the facility, so it looks legit.

The next fun thing was that I found a good modern rock radio station out there, and every day they did a little contest to win tickets to some concert or whatever (with the advent of XM I don't hear a whole lot of these things anymore). Around 5 o'clock every day they would do the eloquently named "Rush Hour Orgy." This entailed playing a ten-second sound clip that was three songs and one bit of movie dialogue all layered over each other- the first person that called in and could name all three bands and the movie won the tickets for that day. Easy enough, right? Both times I heard it there was only one band I didn't know. Anyway, they'd play the clip, and people would call in- but here's the thing: no one ever knew all the answers. It would be one thing if they guessed one of the bands wrong, but over half the callers would say "Okay, the movie was 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' and the bands were Def Leppard, Linkin Park, and I don't know the last one." Seriously. Or they'd say "One of the bands was Eurythmics, but I don't know anything else." THEN WHY ARE YOU CALLING IN? I can see that maybe they thought the last one would come to them when they were on hold, but once you get through at least guess! It's like on Cash Cab when people just say "I don't know." They don't use a shout out, they don't guess, they just take the strike. What is it with people? Anyway, it annoyed me everyday.

Finally, I stayed the final night at the Renaissance near LAX. I happened to notice the room service menu (I only get room service in emergencies- or in the UK when it costs about the same as going down to the built-in restaurant) and the breakfast section had an option for cold cereal: $6.00. I could go on about how ridiculous it is to pay six bucks for a bowl of Raisin Bran, but the next line read: "Add fresh berries or a sliced banana: +$7.00." Seven dollars for a banana? For real? Not only is that more than they charge for the cereal, but I just bought bananas for $0.50 a pound. Are they bringing you 14 pounds of banana? I guess hotels are like the airport, where they don't know how much things cost in the real world.

So now I'm back home after spending the weekend in DC helping Ramya move to her new apartment. It's a nice place, but it seems that the days when I could do manual labor for hours and not be incredibly tired and sore later are behind me. I feel like such an old man! I don't know how I ever did PAC. I hope everyone had a great weekend!

NCAA and other Tidbits

I've had a pretty busy couple of weeks, so I'm going to resort to the cop-out "bullet point" method of blog posting to get people up to speed on the world of Marc.The coolest thing I've done in the last few weeks would have to be going to watch the Boilermakers play in the NCAA tournament. I will state for the record that while basketball is clearly inferior to football, I do enjoy watching college hoops much, much more than the NBA. I follow Purdue basketball more in passing, so I knew they were in the tournament. But it wasn't until Tuesday afternoon that I discovered that Purdue, being a school in Indiana, was in the "Western" division, which was being played in Washington D.C. on Thursday afternoon. I figured that this was too good to miss, so I cut out of work early to go to the game. We got the cheapest (worst) tickets we could find (notice that in the picture we're in the second to last row of the Verizon center- to see our view click here) for about $50, and since they're sold in two-game packs we got to watch Xavier beat Georgia before watching Purdue humiliate Baylor. I would've liked to see the second round game as well, but this time Purdue-Xavier was bundled with Duke-West Virginia, so the cheapest tickets were like $250 each- and I didn't want to pay that much to watch us lose in person when I could just watch it on TV. Now, the place was crawling with scalpers before each game, but we aren't too familiar with the local ticket resale laws and I really didn't want to end up in the slammer. Other notes from the game:

I (of course) like to judge a school by their band. Purdue was fine as always, but the song selection could've been better. Baylor, on the other hand, weren't the best musicians but played a really fun set, including "The Time Warp" from Rocky Horror. I was entertained.

Ramya likes to watch the cheerleaders, and she pointed out that the Georgia cheerleaders were slutty. I though it was funny she mentioned that, because back in college when we met Georgia in the Outback Bowl I was dating a girl on the Purdue dance team, and she said the same thing. She added that it's a common trick to act slutty to cover up poor dancing. See? Learn something new every day. Ramya also wondered if the two Purdue cheerleaders from the Motor City Bowl ever got together.

Finally, after the game we stopped in to the National Portrait Gallery which, in addition to being across the street from the arena, happens to be one of locations Ramya and I hit on our first date. Anyway, the main reason we went in was to see whether or not Stephen Colbert's portrait really was hanging outside of the third floor bathrooms. Turns out yes! And for what it's worth, the presidential portraits exhibit was pretty fun. As was "RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture." Yes, RECOGNIZE is in all caps.

In other news, Ramya and I are pretty hooked on the Guitar Hero. The most recent development is that they finally started selling the Wii guitar separately so that you can buy it without buying a redundant copy of the game. We saw it in Best Buy, and I did the standard "Let's think about it for a little while and if we still want it later we'll come back" (which is what I do for a lot of my purchases), but Ramya was not having it. So now that we each have our own guitars, what's the next step? Personalization, of course!Now, some may think that giving your plastic video game controller a custom paint job is a little too much. To those people I would say "You are clearly just jealous of our awesomeness." I mean, look at these bad boys! Ramya went with a very appropriate pink guitar with a red lightning bolt, while I tried to recreate the Purdue football helmet. I was going to try to put the "P" logo on as well, but when I beheld the simple elegance of the stripe (and the way it incorporates the Wiimote) I decided to leave well enough alone. I'll also mention that for the above picture we did not intentionally dress to match our guitars, which shows how appropriate they really are. If you want some in-process pictures, check the Facebook gallery here.

I've been doing a lot of driving as of late, and I've been making use of a couple of CDs that I finally got to [cough] borrow from Carly: Evita (Madonna/Antonio Banderas version) and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Chicago/Donny Osmond version). I already had the Broadway Joseph, but I just plain like the Chicago arraignments better. In any case, I had forgotten how much I love musicals- I like the way the whole thing tells a story, and there are several reoccurring themes throughout the songs. I told Ramya that I was on a big Andrew Lloyd Weber kick, and she said "Oh good. That's not gay at all."

I just got back from Chicago this afternoon, and I'll tell you what sucks: Advantage Rent a Car. I've never had Advantage before, so I did my homework ahead of time. All the rental cars at O'Hare are off-airport, so I went to the website to make sure I would know how to get to the hotel from their branch (even though the website specifically says the have an "in-terminal location," which they don't). When I retrieved my luggage, I went out to the curb where all the rental car shuttles pick up. After waiting for several minutes without seeing an advantage shuttle, I asked a, I don't know, traffic director guy if this was where the Advantage shuttle picked up. He answered no, I needed to go way the hell over to where the hotel shuttles pick up and get on the "Fast Track" parking shuttle. I did so, and got on the Fast Track bus after confirming that this was how to get to Advantage Car Rental. Turns out "Fast Track" is a third party airport parking place, and Advantage has a rental counter in their dumpy ghetto location. Here's the thing: How in God's name was I supposed to know to do that? Every other car rental place has their own shuttle. But to get to Advantage, you have to take the Fast Track Parking shuttle, which has no Advantage markings on it whatsoever. And does the Fast Track Parking shuttle pick you up at the parking shuttle stop? No- you can board it at the hotel shuttle stop. I'm just really surprised that no one's complained about this yet. I would've said something to the lady at the counter, but she was having a pretty hard time all around. Including, but not limited to, typing in my address. I told her my street name, and she didn't understand. I tried again, no dice. She said "how's that spelled?" I said, like always, "Silver, like the metal." She said "Oh, silver, like the metal... How's that spelled?"

For my final travel note, there were about 7 Navy people attending this meeting, of whom I was the only one who had ever been there before. They asked me what was a good place to stay, and I told them I like to stay at the Residence Inn (I love that dang Residence Inn). Of course when I get there it's totally under construction. So, go me being the experienced guy- send everyone to a torn-up hotel.

Okay, that's it for now. Have great weekend!

Notes from Philly

Last week my travel-oriented job once again expanded my horizons by sending me to an exotic city I had never visited before. This time I was flung far from home as I took in Philadelphia- the city of brotherly love. Now, I had been to Philly before, but only because that's where the layover is when you fly US Air to Manchester. As I've mentioned previously, I consider this a technicality- You can't count a city when all you do is fly in to the airport, then fly out. This trip counts because not only did I stay in a hotel (that borders the North side of the airport), but I visited Boeing (which borders the West side of the Airport). And actually those are the only things I saw- every day I drove to Boeing, sat in meetings all freakin' day, then drove back to the hotel and went to bed. I saw literally nothing of the city. My physical therapist insisted that I go to Pat's Steaks to get the real Philly experience, but the only (and I mean only) restaurants I ate at were the Boeing cafeteria (which was awesome, by the way) and the Subway by my hotel. I know- it's surprising that I didn't pick up an accent.

The purpose of the trip was for me to take part in a Non-Advocate Review. This means that there's an issue with an aircraft, and they want to bring in a team of people who are technically competent but know nothing about the troubled platform to do a quick review and make suggestions, hoping for something that the regulars have missed. Well, I met at least one of those criteria, so off I went. The first three days were an absolute overload of information that I'll never remember, then one working day, then on the final day we presented our findings. That's right- a full five days of meetings. I've never had to pack 5 dress outfits before. Come to think of it, we have casual Fridays, so I've never even worn 5 work outfits in a row.

The meeting was informative, I like to think I helped, and I'm never volunteering for a non-advocate review again. But I did pick up some observations:

• What the heck is up with people using the word "Incidences?" As in "We have had five incidences of this failure mode." I've noticed it before, but I heard it a lot this week. "Incidences" is not a word! Try incidents! I hate when people take a noun, conjugate it into a verb, and then back into a noun rather than just using the original word. I went on a roughly four-minute tirade about this to Ramya when we were watching MTV True Life, and a girl said that a cross necklace is a "Symbolization" of Christianity.



• Speaking of confusing grammar, one guy commented that he had been working on a long running problem "Since Hell froze over." I wanted to quote Jim from The Office and say "That is not the expression."



• Actually, that guy was pretty annoying. He loved the sound of his own voice. He worked on commercial aviation, and we were there for a military program, which are totally different. At any opportunity he would speak up and say "Hey, in the military world, do you do X, Y, and Z?" To which someone would reply "No, we do A, B, and C." He would then say "Oh, because over in commercial world we do blah blah blah" and talk for several minutes. It was amazing to watch someone establish that what they want to say is irrelevant, then proceed to waste five to ten minutes of everyone's time with a soliloquy that is of absolutely no use to anyone anyway. I think he was personally responsible for the sessions running late.



• Black jeans are alive and well in Philadelphia.



• The Hampton Inn Philadelphia Airport is one of those annoyingly wasteful hotels- by which I mean that every day I would use a nickle-sized dollop of shampoo from the free little bottle, ditto for the conditioner, use the soap, and leave them all in the shower. When I get back in the evening, all the toiletries I used have been discarded and new ones are on the sink. Come on, I used like 5% of the bottle! They're basically throwing away most of the shampoo they buy! There must be a landfill somewhere filled with mostly full bottles of Prell or whatever those generic hotel brand shampoos are.



• The commercial aviation guys did have some fun anecdotes. One of them was about the first time they used composite flooring in the passenger jets. They were plenty strong in all of their tests, but in the field they had a problem because if someone walked over them with severe enough high heels, the concentrated weight on the end could punch a hole in the panel. Apparently this was only observed on the Latin-American airlines. Do with that what you will.

Now this week I'm off to Fort Worth again, and it's possible that I will be on travel the week after as well. This prompted Ramya to say "So you travel, like, all the time." Yes. Yes I do.

Update: It is now 1:43 on Tuesday afternoon, and I'm on a telecon that's a follow-up to last week's NAR. One participant just said "Well, we've seen two incidences of failure mode X." Another (guess who) replied "Well, I don't know what you military guys do, but in the commercial world..." I listened for a little while, then decided to start my stopwatch to see how long he went. Unfortunately (for the purposes of my story) he only talked for another 54 seconds, but still. It's somewhat comforting to know that the old gang hasn't changed much.

Update #2: He started telling another commercial world story before I started typing Update #1, and he's still going.

Hi. I'm in Delaware.

Today I returned home from a business trip to Delaware, which means that after a solid 28 years without ever visiting the First State I have now been there twice in one month. Alas, there were no gay beaches to be visited this time- I was there to meet with ILC Dover about a pressure seal for one of my programs. Here's what I knew about the company before I got there this morning: they make pressure seals. I quickly found out that they make quite a lot more, and do you know what their bread and butter is? Making spaces suits for NASA!

Since our meeting finished up around lunchtime, a couple of the employees asked up if we'd like a tour of their facility, and you'd better believe I did. The first stop was the ILC Museum where they kept several space-type items- historical space suit pieces, autographed astronaut pictures, exhibits showing the suit's composition, etc. Apparently they have a lot of pieces that they loan to various museums and they keep them here between trips. For instance, John Young's suit had just returned from a museum in New Zealand.

The ILC museum was pretty nifty in itself, but the next stop was the space suit test lab. Now, I go to a lot of museums, so I've seen actual space suits before. But this was the first time I've been allowed to walk right up to them and twist knobs, move them around, and take pieces apart. Well, maybe not so much "allowed to" as "not stopped from." They had an old Apollo era suit in one corner, and a couple of the newest models set up for testing. While I didn't get to put on a suit or anything (that probably would've been pushing it), I did get to mess with them. My main impression? They are heavy. Apparently they weigh over 200 pounds, and that's without life support. In fact, since it's so hard to stand around in them (they are designed for zero gravity) they actually hang testers from a winch in the ceiling during evaluations. The lucky souls are suspended in front of this panel of hardware that's loaded with various knobs, screws, levers and whatnot to try to replicate whatever they may encounter during spacewalks. It ends up looking like the adult version of those baby play things that you lay kids under with all the lights and rattles. In any case, it seems that a lot of the weight comes from the bearings at every point of articulation, of which there are many. Plus, there's a lot of attachment hardware- I understand that the biggest difference between the space race suits and the new models is that the current ones are very modular. Whereas the Apollo suits were completely custom made for each astronaut, now they just make 5 or 6 different sizes of everything and piece together a good fit. The only thing that's still custom is the gloves, and I'll get to that in a minute.

Being that the suits were custom, all astronauts used to travel to the Dover facility to get sized/fitted. I guess while they were there it was customary to walk around the building and shake hands with the employees- hence alot of the older guys have their pictures with guys like Neil Armstrong or Eugene Cernan. This was either a nice goodwill gesture by the astronauts, or they wanted to make sure the regular joes protecting them from the cold vacuum of space were personally invested in the quality of their work. Anyway, now they just measure hands for custom gloves. Apparently they tried to make due with 9 standard sizes, but it didn't prove to be sufficient- one of the guys said that Jerry Ross had "hands like a bear." So now they size them all with some special hand scanner that's so accurate it even shows the hair. We actually got to go into the glove lab while workers were stitching away. They let me (I did ask first) try on an in-process glove, and it fit (dare I say) like a glove, which is apparently pretty rare for something so custom. The name wasn't on them yet, but they were for Astronaut 6GH, whoever that is. It seems I have the hands of an astronaut, if nothing else.

Believe it or not, they said they frequently get calls from people who want to buy their own Space Suit, or a child-sized one for their kid's birthday- which they don't really do, because these things cost millions of dollars. However, since people are willing to pay ungodly sums to get N*SYNC or Peyton Manning* to come to little princess's super sweet 16, I think anything's possible. The other neat thing they had in another lab was a Russian cosmonaut suit, which they were studying to see what they could learn from the other perspective. Evidently the Russian suits are a lot lighter and more compact, mostly because they are designed with a much lower safety factor- it seems that they value speed and value over personal safety, which also presents itself in their aircraft design. And where did ILC Dover get a Russian space suit? From- and I kid you not- eBay.

The other fun product that they make in Dover is LTA, or Lighter Than Air aircraft. Blimps. Big ones. They had a huge hanger-like area where several people pieced together giant hunks of various polymers to form all manner of airships, from the unmanned surveillance aerostats the Army is using in Iraq and Afghanistan to the commercial airships you see at football games. In fact, other than the Goodyear blimps (which are made by, well, Goodyear) ILC makes every other modern blimp you can think of (or at least the blimp part). That includes the Metlife Snoopy Blimps, the Budweiser Blimp, and my new personal favorite, Bloomin' Onion I.

All in all, what appeared to be an ordinary day of meetings turned out to be surprisingly amusing (and educational). I'll close with a quote one of the guys relayed from the company president when talking about the space suit boots (which they made). He said "Every time I see one of those glorious pictures of the footprints on the moon, I think 'why didn't we put the company logo on there?'" I guess it's better as is, because something like this could've really cheapened the whole thing.

* I make that reference because Ramya knows someone who had Peyton Manning at her sweet 16 party. But, as I told her, all the money he gets from appearances goes to his charity. Also, Cedric the Entertainer was there.

Adventures in GPSing / Dudley Castle

When our meetings in jolly old Wolverhampton (this is two Thursdays ago...9/20/07) finished up around 11:00 a.m., Shelley and I found ourselves in the West Midlands with several hours to kill. Throughout the duration of trip we had found ourselves nothing short of amazed at Shelley's new GPS (which really is a marvel), so when we got to the car we fired it up and said "Show me the points of interest!" It gave us several, but the third or fourth choice was Dudley Castle. And we were off.

It turns out Dudley Castle is now part of the Dudley Zoological Gardens, located in the small town of, well, Dudley. Originally built in 1071, it went through various iterations until being largely destroyed in 1750, and then reopened as a zoo in 1921. It really makes for quite the unique attraction- you can look at the snowy owls, then the tigers, then wind your way up the 900 year-old staircase to see the penguins. Personally, I was more interested in the castle, because we have zoos here.

But there were some interesting parts of a United Kingdom zoo- most notably was how close you could get to the animals. There was a "Wallaby Walk," which let you walk right through the middle of the wallaby pen. There were guardrails to keep us on the path, but nothing to keep the wallabies and their four-inch claws away from us. Which is not to say that we were in any danger, because they all slept right through our visit (I figure they've seen a lot more humans than we have wallabies). There was also "Walk with the Lemurs," which was a similar path through a wooded setting, with Lemurs everywhere. We were standing and watching a group of them climb a tree when one stepped over my foot to cross the path. Not only was it interesting from a nature perspective, but it was a sort of commentary on the British vs. American mindset: You'd never get that close to a wild animal in the US, no matter how cute and fuzzy it may be. If a kid tormented a lemur to the point where it chewed his nose off or something, some lawyer would sue the zoo for every penny they could get. Whereas in the UK, the jury would be like "The sign said not to touch them, you bloody prat." In any case, it gave me the chance to get really close to some animals I otherwise wouldn't have been able to. Plus, now I can add wallaby and lemur to the types of poo I've had on my shoes.

The zoo is really more "around" the castle than "in" it, which you can kind of see in this picture. There are several exhibits in what's left of the great hall, and you can climb the remaining tower. Unfortunately, the only camera we had was Shelley's phone, but it still takes pretty good pictures. Here's me standing outside the museum part:Don't you love the super-low doorway? It kind of made me feel like a giant- kind of like when I hang our with Ramya and her friends. At this point I should also mention that I didn't pack any warm clothes for this trip. I left directly from Rehoboth beach, where it was sunny and warm. Thank goodness we stopped by a Banana Republic outlet (tax free- go Delaware!) where I bought a sweater, because I wore that thing every day. I swear that it was snowing in Preston, but Shelley insists it was just a fine mist. I know what I saw. But that's neither here nor there. When we got to the top of the tower, there was actually a pretty good view.You can't really tell in the picture, but there are names and initials and "PB hearts JH" carved all over this poor tower, proving that there are teenage vandals in every country. I said "Just imagine, some hooligan could've carved they're named in here five-hundred years ago. We could be looking at medieval graffiti!" Shelley replied "I'm guessing the ones in Sharpie are a little more recent." Believe it or not, the sun actually came out while we were up there, which allowed us to take this fun picture:Yes mom, I was standing on the ledge of the tower. But notice that I had one hand on the castle, one hand waving. Safety first!

The moral of the story here is that while I wouldn't plan a trip to the UK just to visit the Dudley Castle and Zoological Gardens, it was certainly a nice surprise. And it strengthens my belief that if you drive around long enough in rural England, something interesting will present itself. That something interesting is usually a castle, but hey. It works for me!

Up next, karaoke for Ramya's birthday. But first, Notre Dame at Purdue! If Purdue wins, they would be 5-0 while the Domers would be 0-5, and I would just be beside myself with joy.

Rehoboth Beach, or Wolverhampton? Hmm...

For your weather update, it is currently "crappy" in the United Kingdom. It's been particularly bad today- doing that constant mist thing. As Colin (one of our contacts over here) put it "at least in the US it just rains and gets it over with. Here you have to deal with this all day." No doubt!

We spent the first two nights in Preston, which was nice because the hotel has an awesome fitness center. I mean, we're talking 10 treadmills, 10 elliptical runners, 5 or 6 bikes- they even had a weight machine room and a free weight room! There were 4 TVs, but since I didn't want to be an ugly American and change the channel I ended up watching an hour of the Pakistan / Sir Lanka ICC Twenty20 Cricket match. I can now tell you how cricket is scored, but not how it ends, because it never seems to. Apparently the big draw of the Twenty20 games are that they are much faster than standard cricket, but when I started watching it in the early afternoon the game was well underway. So I worked out, took a nap, went out for dinner, and when I was heading for bed it was still going strong on the TV in the lobby. Turns out Pakistan won. Of course, checking the scores page only adds to my confusion- seeing as how New Zealand beat England by 5 "runs" the same day Pakistan beat Australia by 6 "wickets."

Anyway, last night I turned on the TV in my room for the first time and I discovered the second best thing about the Preston Marriott. I was flipping channels until I heard "And now back to Transformers!" and I thought "I have found my station." They were showing and old G1 episode from my childhood (though it was not dubbed over with British accents, as Ramya suggested) and it reminded me that some things are best left in memory, because that cartoon is much worse than I remember. The point of my story is that when I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I could still hear the show- there was a speaker in the ceiling that piped in the TV sound! How awesome is that? I think all hotel rooms should have this feature. Scratch that- all bathrooms. Even in my house. For that matter, the showers here have two knobs- one to set the temp, and one for how much water you want. So once you find the right temperature, you never have to mess with it again- just crank up the flow. Why don't we do that?

If I had to pick a third favorite thing it would be that the second floor (where my room was) had a sign at the top of the stairs that said "Leisure Club" (what they call the fitness center) with an arrow pointing down the stairs. When you went down half a flight, there was a landing where you do a 180 then go down the rest. But on the landing there was another Leisure Club sign that now pointed down the other half of the stairs. Why? Who goes down half the stairs, looks around, and upon seeing the two choices of "go back where I came from" or "finish going down the stairs" thinks "Hmm, where to now?" I guess it was nice of them, but personally I've never required re-directing while still on the flight of stairs.

I just realized that I haven't posted for a while, so I need to give an update about the trip to Rehoboth Beach. Maybe I'll hit the high points in a bulleted list:

• The drive there was fun, because Ramya and I both sing along to the radio as though we were performing on stage. We listened to Time Life's Greatest Hits of the 1980's collection (two of the three discs were in the case) and then moved on to a mixer labeled "Ramya's cool disk." We don't know when it was made, but it included Rosa Parks and That Thing You Do.


• The house itself was pretty nice, and I base that on being in a total of one rental houses in my life. It was only a few blocks from the beach, and it had plenty of space (there were 12 people there). It also had an outdoor shower (a real one, not like the cottage) and actual flip flops nailed to the bathroom wall as a decoration. They tied right into the Flamingo theme that ran through the house.


• I swam in the ocean for the second time in my life (the first time being in Hawaii roughly 20 years ago). Having grown up on Lake Michigan, I was worried about getting the saltwater in my eyes. Turns out it wasn't that bad- I think years of sweating into my eyes prepared me for the mild burn. Getting it in my mouth was another story.


• I had my first experience with Thrasher's Fries. Ramya and her friends rave about them- you get them by the bucketload on the boardwalk, and they're just big, thick french fries deep fried in peanut oil and covered in salt and vinegar. They are every bit as delicious and healthy as they sound. Plus, there's a big sign on the stand that says "NO KETCHUP!"


• Ramya's friends Sarah and Sean brought their Wii, so I got my first real play time with it. Turns out I'm not so good, but I think I just need practice. One interesting thing is that when I play Wii bowling, the ball always hooks to the left- just like in real life! Maybe that thing is realistic.


• I introduced a whole new crowd to Catch Phrase. Oh yeah. They're hooked.

But most importantly, I got to meet a whole mess of Ramya's friends, and I think I passed the test. I seemed to fit right in, even though they are all lawyers. Which makes sense, seeing as how they're her "law school" friends. Anyhow, I better wrap up because it's a quarter to ten here, and I have another full day of meetings tomorrow. Good early night!

Post-Labor Day

Yeah, I haven't posted anything for awhile. It's been a combination of lots of travel, not much time, and not much that struck me as "blog worthy." But just in case you're wondering what the next few weeks hold for me, it's sort of an improving travel progression: Next week I'm in New Orleans (boo!), after that England (meh), then finally a week in San Diego (yeah!). The crazy part is that the weekends therein are Ramya's birthday (we're going to Rehoboth Beach with a bunch of her friends) and Ramya's birthday party (we're going to a karaoke place) so I might have to do creative packing/laundry at Ramya's house. I've had worse stretches of travel, so I should be able to work it out.

But this brings up a more pressing issue: the Karaoke theme is the '80s, so what songs should I plan to sing? My leading candidates are Against All Odds, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Hold On to the Night...I don't know. The most important thing is to not have to jump octaves while other people are listening. Keep in mind that I'm not trying out for American Idol (for so many reasons) but this will be the first time I meet a ton of Ramya's friends. And what would be more comfortable than going up on stage and belting out a tune for them? Hmm, maybe some REO Speedwagon. Or Chicago. I'm taking suggestions!

In any case, I hope everyone had an enjoyable labor day! It was definitely nice here- I actually turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows for a few days until Monday night, when the humidity beat me into submission again. Sunday we went for a nice bike ride wherein I established a killer farmer's tan. Seriously- the shirt I wore to work today has slightly shorter sleeves and I look little ridiculous. Then on Monday we had my friends Shelley and Theresa over for a cookout. We enjoyed the deck, and even played a little Planet Hollywood (I won't describe it, but you can tell from the title that it plays to my strengths) before moving inside because the sun was too dang bright. Once inside, they challenged me too (get ready) Scene It. Fools! Shelley gave me a run for my money but I remain undefeated.

Maybe I could go a little more obscure with Hold on Loosely or High on You. Hmm, I'm going to have to see what they have available when I get there.

By the way, my favorite quote of the weekend came while we while passing the base's aircraft museum:

Me: We'll go there sometime when you're ready to see me totally geek out.
Ramya: You haven't totally geeked out yet?

I'll try to keep you posted while I'm on the road these next few weeks, but internet availability might be sketchy.

Totally unrelated: Check out some awesome wedding announcements.

Random Searches

I'm back in Maryland for the weekend. It looks like all the scheduled trips are going to happen as planned, which means New Orleans next week and LA the week after that. All went well in Texas this week, after the torrential downpour we had to drive through to get to the hotel. This keeps with the theme of horrible weather when I'm in Texas.

My reason for posting today is that I think I finally saw confirmation that the TSA searches are indeed random. I used to always say "how random can they be if it's always me?" because seriously- I used to get the extra search all the time. But on my way out of DFW, I saw them searching a woman who was wearing a tank top, those black spandex bike-short looking pants, and flip flops. What did they think she had on her? If she was trying to smuggle something onto the plane, they weren't going to find it with a standard pat-down. I guess it's good that they follow the rules, but it certainly didn't help them in the much-needed common sense department.

Where I've Been, Including Tamarack

Okay, I totally stole this whole idea from Kate, but the website is pretty neat. It's a little more high-tech than the little map I have hanging at my desk, on which I color in each state with my highlighter as I visit them. Feel free to make your own!

In any case, this sparked a discussion about what counts as "visiting" a state- I say that you clearly can't count ones that you only drove through, dinner/comfort stops or no. This is why I called shenanigans on Kate. I don't count West Virginia, which I've driven through a million times, and I even stopped at Tamarack! I've also driven through Massachusetts a couple of times- once to go skiing for Daniel's bachelor party, and once because Carly and I left the Hartford airport going the wrong way and didn't notice until we saw the basketball hall of fame.

Tangent- I don't know if you've ever driven through the heart of West Virginia, but there are signs for this Tamarack everywhere. And I don't mean the occasional advert, I'm talking "You're only 250 miles from Tamarack- the Best of West Virginia!" Then later "You're only 225 miles from Tamarack- the Best of West Virginia!" and so on. By the time the signs were declaring that something remarkable was only 5 miles away, we had to stop. And how was it? It was okay. It's basically a glorified tourist shop, about twice the size of your average Ohio rest stop (but to be fair, the rest stops in Ohio are the best in the country, and you can quote me on that). Don't get me wrong, had we come expecting a simple restroom/snack machine stop we would have been pleasantly surprised. But I can't see how it justified all the hype. Plus, it was basically a really expensive chotchkie store. I remember seeing a little five-inch tall wood carving of a mouse standing on a piece of cheese, and it was thirty bucks! Oh dear God- you can actually see their catalog online! I don't see the mouse, but this carved bunny will run you $90. And check out the Bronze Squirrel Bookends, for the low, low price of $2,640! The website makes the place seem like a legitimate tourist destination, but make no mistake: it's a rest stop/tourist trap in the middle of nowhere.

So back on topic- my biggest conflict is whether or not to include South Carolina. I've never visited the state per se, but I did go to Carowinds, which is an amusement park that's actually in both North & South Carolina. Does that count? Oh, and I also included Louisiana because in two weeks I'll be making my first visit there for work. I've heard a lot about New Orleans (which is where I'll be), but the thing that really sticks with me is Jim describing it as "The only time in my life I've felt truly unsafe." Today Ramya told me that they stopped there when she was 13, and she remembers thinking "This place is dirty." So...sign me up!

I realize this is the first time I've mentioned Ramya, but don't worry- you're going to be hearing a lot more about her. More later!

Back in the USA

Annnnnnnnd, I'm home. Actually, I got home Friday afternoon, but I've been pretty busy up until right this moment so I hadn't had a chance to update the ole' blog. In any case, England was pretty much the same as everytime- just another business trip, only with massive jet lag. And there was a lot more driving since now the government contract flights are direct to Heathrow (London) instead of Manchester, making the drive to Wolverhampton 2.5 hours instead of 1, but whatever. We could still fly to Manchester if we wanted to, but we'd have to connect in Chicago. Somehow I refuse to fly 2 hours in the wrong direction only to make an 8-hour flight a 10-hour flight when I can just drive another hour, but that's just me.

Speaking of driving, we had a pretty sweet Peugeot this time, and it had one of those computers that told you your fuel economy all the time. Get this: it told you in miles per gallon, even though they sell gas in liters. How did that happen? I was talking with the British guys about this, and they said what's weirder is that in France, they measure fuel economy in liters per kilometer. So instead of 30 mpg, a car has 0.0784 l/km. I'm sure it's just upbringing, but that seems like a much less useful number to know. Other different things I noticed on this trip:

Live Free or Die Hard is called "Die Hard 4.0" over there. Not just Die Hard 4- apparently they use 2 significant digits at the cinema.

I saw an add for a brand of potato chips (crisps) called Man Crisps. Previously I've seen man-oriented marketing on the Yorkie candy bar, which proudly proclaims "It's Not For Girls!" right on the wrapper, but it still seems a little funny to me. This article refers to these kind of campaigns as "jumping on the mandwagon," and I think that's funny!

We were fairly unadventurous this time food-wise, opting to eat at KFC and Subway instead of local pubs, and though I always have trouble understanding people with accents other than Midwestern, the girl at Subway was something new. I can usually understand British people, but this was the first time I spoke to one who couldn't understand me at all. She would ask "What type of crisps do you want?" I'd say "the baked walkers, please." She'd say "Sorry?" I'd repeat myself. She'd look confused, say "What type of walkers?" I'd say "Baked, please?" and so on, until I ended up with the cheddar and onion variety. It's not what I wanted, but I already had a bottle of Diet Coke when I wanted a fountain Sprite so I let it go. Anyway, the point of this story is that we can sit over here in the United States, fat, dumb and happy thinking we have the most powerful onion flavored potato chips, but dear lord- the United Kingdom clearly has the advantage. I think I could take a bite out of a raw onion and it wouldn't have been as oniony as those crisps. Once I got used to them (or my taste buds burned away) they weren't bad, but I'm sure I had some killer breath thereafter.

And finally, I'll admit that I have trouble with British currency. It's still a handy base-10 system, but I don't recognize any of the coins and I always end up feeling like I'm in a Harry Potter book (how many knuts in a galleon?). But I'm a little confused by the 2 pence coin. It's like a 2 cent coin, and what's the point of that? Is it really worth manufacturing a whole separate coin for 2 cents, when we don't even have a 2 dollar bill anymore (really)? You change would have to end in 4 or 9 pretty often to make it work, and it doesn't because tax is always already included in the price, and they all end in 0 or 5 as it is. I'm sure they have it all worked out.

Plus, there was actually one day that it was sunny, which was the first time I've ever seen the sun in Wolverhampton. It was a nice change of pace. Oh, for another fun note, we took the train from the hotel to the airport, and I woke up at 4:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m. EST) to make the 5:30 train. When I finally laid down in bed Friday night it was 11:30, marking an even 24 hours awake. Woo-hoo! Of course the only reason I was up that late is because my buddy Eric was in town for a visit and we got stuck playing Donkey Konga, but whatever. It was all good. Now I'm here for a week, then it's off to Texas for a week. It's like that Jet Set game show I saw on the BBC, but for places no one really wants to go. And I get a lot less money. But I'm not complaining.

Word Verification

I'm about to head out the door, but here's a quick Blogger note. You know how you have to do that word verification thing to leave a comment? Check out the one I got the other day:
Seriously? I have now idea what that's supposed to be. Obviously I didn't get it right (I deleted the question mark) so the world may never know.

I'm actually heading out toward Dulles early (my flight is at 9:47 pm), because we discovered long ago that you're much better off going to Tysons Corner before rush hour, killing some time at the mall, then heading to the airport rather than fighting traffic. I think Shelley and I are going to see Ratatouille, because I didn't get to see it last week like I planned.

Speaking of which, I did get to see Transformers and Live Free or Die Hard. Transformers was worth seeing, especially if you're a fan like me. I was surprised by how childish some of the humor was, and yet there was also violence and profanity. It was kind of like they couldn't decide who the intended audience was. I was disappointed, but it was still a nice spectacle and I recommend checking it out. Die Hard, on the other hand, exceeded my expectations in every way. I thought it was going to be one of those cop-out, just to make money sequels, but it was a really fun movie. They went all out, and it's quite possibly the best one of the series. They even have a nice scene involving the JSF (sorry, I mean the "Lightning II"). It's not quite right, and they could've talked to me for like 2 minutes and fixed about 5 glaring errors, but what are you gonna do? Only a real dork like me would notice. But if they're going to spend millions of dollars on a scene, why don't they start with a simple internet search to check the facts? This is another reason I should be a consultant in Hollywood- the first being to screen out horrible dialog.

Allright, I better run. If anyone's wondering what the weather in Wolverhampton is going to be the next few days, it looks a little like this: rain, cloudy, light rain, rain. In other words, just like always. I'll update you next weekend!

Back in MD (for now)

I'm back in Maryland, and I made it without incident. This does not, however, indicate that I will ever fly Delta again. I think the next time I need to get back to South Bend I'll do what Mom and Jim have been suggesting for years, and fly to Chicago, then take one of the hourly trains or buses that run to the South Bend airport. I've had it with these connections that never leave on time!

There were only two oddities about the trip back. The first one was when I checked in for my flight in South Bend. The Delta ticket counter was set up just like every counter for every airline these days: there was the big tensa-barrier maze for the people waiting to talk to an actual person (with about 10 people waiting), and then next to that were the self-check in terminals (with no one using them). So I went up and checked myself in, then waited for the lady to take my suitcase and check my ID. She walks up, I hand her my tickets and drivers license, and we have this exchange:

Lady: [eyeing me suspiciously] Were you just in that line? [indicating the ticket counter line]
Me: Oh no, I just used this self-check in thing.
Lady: [shaking head] Mmmm-mmmm, people goin’ to be maaad at you.
Me: Wha…why?
Lady: You just cut in front of all those people!
Me: Oh…isn’t that the line to speak to an agent? I had an e-ticket.
Lady: [somewhat menacingly] Whatever. You just better hope none a’ them saw that.
Me: Uh…sorry?
Lady: Alright, well what is your name?
Me: [eyeing the two airline tickets with my full name in her right hand and my drivers license in her left] Marc Burgess.
Lady: [with plenty of attitude] Okay Mr. Burgess, let’s get you on your plane.

And so we did. Mind you, two other travelers walked up to the self-check in terminals and used them without waiting in line during all of this. That’s how it works, lady! Sheesh. Anyway, I sort of like the South Bend airport because it’s so small. You go to the gate, and the little Canadair jets sort of pull up to the curb to pick you up. So I got on the plane with about 15 spoiled Notre Dame kids and we were off!

Oh right, the other oddity. When we landed in Baltimore, we did that whole walk off the plane directly onto the tarmac thing. As I’m leaving the plane, the bag handlers (throwers) were already unloading our bags. I had the premonitory thought “I wish I could just grab my bag right now, since it’s like 10 feet away.” But of course you can’t, so I made my way to the claim. Not only was the claim number not listed anywhere, but of the 6 Delta claims, only two were in use. So all Delta passengers from all flights (150 or so) were to claim their bags at the same two carousels, making for quite the claustrophobic experience. The wait became more and more annoying, and when my suitcase finally turned up I kept thinking “Yup, 35 minutes ago I walked right past it.” Seriously, where does luggage go for so long between the plane and the claim? Anyway.

I enjoyed my little vacation, but I think I need to learn how to actually relax. I got in about 2 hours of hammock reading time, and the rest of it I was kind of on the go. Not only was Mom at the cottage with me, but so were Howard and Jasmine, and Dad and Jeanie were in town as well. So I spent most of the time playing games, running around town, and even helping out with errands at the cottage. As I was leaving, I thought “Wait a minute, I was supposed to be relaxing.” It was a good time, but as always, it was over too soon!

So now I have exactly one day at home before I turn around and fly right back out to England. We have a couple of meetings in Jolly ole Wolverhampton, then I’ll be back Friday, at which point my buddy Eric will be in town for a few days. I’m not taking my computer, so you won’t hear from me this week, but I’ll let you know if I have any great discoveries over there when I get back. Have a great week!

Guess Where I am! Hint: Not Elkhart.

Long story short, yesterday reminded me why I hate air travel. I was booked on a 5:15 flight out of Baltimore that would get me to Cincinnati at 6:55, and then an 8:55 to South Bend. To me, this was perfect, because that's plenty of time to cover the approximately 5 linear miles from the regular terminal to the regional terminal and still stop for some Gold Star chili (it's not as good as Skyline, but what is? Too bad there's no Skyline in the airport). Also, I always call "Gold Star" chili "Red Star." Like I think they're some sort of communists. Seriously- I typed "Red Star" then had to go back and fix it.

Well, the first thing I noticed was that the Delta ticket counter was mobbed. Their departure board was pretty much solid delays, and my own flight had been pushed back to 6:00. Whatever, I can get my chili 3-way and go, still making my second flight. It takes a good half hour to check myself in then get my bag tags, then I head through security. By the time I emerge, the boards list my flight as 6:30. Okay, might have to skip the chili. I find my gate, and it is just flooded with people. It's beautiful in Baltimore, but apparently the weather is prohibitive at every other Delta hub. So, the tarmac is littered with planes, but they aren't allowed to take off. Every once in a while, one of the planes would load up, sit there for an hour, then let everyone to come back in the airport because they knew they weren't going anywhere for a while. Oddly enough, we could see plenty of Southwest and American planes taking off and landing- apparently the weather was only affecting good old Delta.

By the time they announced that my flight had been pushed back to 7:00 I had made some single serving friends in the airport (because nothing brings people together like shared suffering). They were even making announcements I had never heard before: they were announcing that there were delays in the updates to the delays. Things like "We were supposed to have an update on the departure time for flight xxxx at 6:30, but that update has been pushed back to 7:15. At 7:15 we should be able to tell you when flight xxxx will be departing." Take a minute to process that: the airport was in such a sad state that they couldn't reliably predict when they could reliably predict how delayed a flight would be.

So around 6:45 I'm starting to be legitimately concerned that I wouldn't make my connection. On the PA they announced that the flight to Cinci that was scheduled for 4:00 is now boarding, and that there was no information whatsoever about my flight. Yes- they announced that they now knew less than ever about my flight. One of my new friends was waiting to fly standby to Cinci (which was home for her). She was supposed to fly tomorrow, but her meeting finished early so checked out of her hotel and headed for the airport, and was now thoroughly regretting her decision. Anyway, at the last minute they called her name for the flight. She jumped up and cheered, we all clapped for her (I'm serious), and off she went. But then I thought, "Wait, she's just going to Cincinnati. Let me take this flight so I can make my connection, and she can fly later tonight!" But whatever. All's fair in air travel.

A quick call home confirmed that that 8:55 is the last flight from Cinci to South Bend, so if I ever do get out of Baltimore, I'll probably get stuck in Ohio for the night. I took the plunge and got in line for the ticket counter, making me customer number 26 waiting for the one agent. After about 15 minutes in the line (around 7:15), they announced that my plane would be leaving Cincinnati "soon." No times, just "soon." About 20 minutes later they posted my flight for an 8:20 departure, confirming once and for all that I was not leaving tonight.

I stepped up to the agent right at 8:00. After 2 or 3 minutes of furious key strokes, he confirmed that there was no way I was getting home tonight. Keep in mind that because the delays were due to "weather," the airline doesn't owe you anything. No meals, no hotels, just a fake smile and a "sucks to be you." As a bonus, he also pointed out that there was no way I was getting there tomorrow (Friday). The best they could do is Saturday morning, departing at 6:45 a.m., arriving in South Bend at 1:30 p.m. For those keeping score at home, that means I get to leave my house at 4 a.m. at the latest, and I'll have like 3 hours to go home, shower and change, then get back to the reunion (which is also in South Bend). That's a recipe to look my best, especially on a likely 5 hours of sleep.

And here's the kicker: God knows where my bags are. I had the option of letting the airline hold on to them, then check them on my flight Saturday (uggghhhh) or go to the baggage desk and try to get them back tonight. Remember, it's 8:15 at this point. I had this conversation with the guy:

Me: How long will it take to get my bags back tonight?
Guy: They're pretty swamped down there. We have a lot of delays.
Me: So what, like an hour?
Guy: Um, it could be a while.
Me: Are you talking more like two hours?
Guy: Uh...yeah...it could be a while.
Me: [nearly choking on the words] Just check 'em through for Saturday.

We are now taking bets on whether or not I will ever see those bags again. But, I just wanted to get home, and I made a snap decision. I'm sure I'll pay for it later. I called home to let them know the deal, and Jim says "Why didn't you have them send you to Chicago, then take the train to South Bend?" Yeah, wrap that idea up and mail it to 8 hours ago. I'm adding that to my mental tally of future plans: Just fly to Chicago and take the South Shore Line. It's probably cheaper, as well. Oh, and never fly Delta again.

So here's hoping I make the reunion! This puts a minor dent in my vacation, but I've had worse. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Airplane Fun

I've been on the road a lot lately, and let me tell you- air travel has been as fun as ever. Not only are the rules increasingly complex and pointless, but my fellow travelers have really been getting on my nerves. It reminds me on an old George Carlin quote: "Think about how dumb the average person is, and then remember that half of all people are dumber than that."

My flight back from Vermont a few weeks ago was interesting because it was on a very small, cramped regional jet. It was still four seats across, but they were labeled A, C, D, and F- presumably to keep people from complaining about getting a middle seat, because there were none.

I was in my aisle seat (3C) ready to go nice and early, which really increased the amount that people bumped into me as they went by. The first was a guy who went past, then said "Oh, I think I went too far" and had to work his way back up to the front of the plane. Mind you, this is a small plane, and there was already a solid line of about 50 people standing behind him, so swimming upstream was a difficult task for everyone. He looks at his ticket, stops around row 3, looks at his ticket, moves up to row 2, etc, looking very confused. Another concerned (annoyed) passenger says "What row are you looking for?" He looks at his ticket once more and says "Um, I'm in 1F." The lady blinks, and points to row one and says "That's right here." Let me reiterate this: HE WASN'T SURE WHERE ROW 1 WAS. I'll admit that on occasion the little nameplates don't quite line up with the seats, so maybe it would be hard to tell row 34 from row 35. But row 1? That's usually the one at the front of the plane.

Meanwhile, another traveler was constantly changing seats. Someone would stop at his row, say "Sorry, I'm in 6A" (or whatever), and he would say "Oh, I'm sorry. Someone was in my seat, so I just took an open one." So he would move, and as I already stated, this was a small plane. He would bump me a few times, find an open seat, ask if it was taken, then climb in. Often, the person in the aisle seat would have to move so he could take the window. Then of course, the cycle repeats. I watched him leave a seat to find an open one (displacing several people in the process), each time explaining that his seat was taken, at least 5 times. You're thinking what I'm thinking right? Tell the jerk in your seat to move! Or, failing that, ask them what seat was theirs and take that. This is not that hard! Eventually the flight attendant notices this dude constantly shifting and makes her way over. She asks him "Sir, which seat are you supposed to be in?" He answers "My ticket says 4F, but somebody's in it." The flight attendant looks over, looks back at him and says "4F is open sir." He says "Oh! I thought F was the aisle!" then proceeds to his original seat. Let me reiterate this: HIS SEAT WAS OPEN THIS ENTIRE TIME. He just didn't understand the clear markings above each row, and thought that constantly shifting seats was a better option than asking about it.

That reminds me of a flight several years ago- I was sitting in 8C, an aisle seat. I'm just chillin' as the plane loads, and suddenly some suit wearing businessman says to me (in a very arrogant tone) "You're in my seat." I look up to see him staring at me, looking as annoyed as he can, and say "I'm pretty sure this is mine. What seat are you in?" He thrusts his ticket in my face, which I love. It's like "I'm too special to verbally tell you, so I'm going to let you read it to really drive my point home. Zing!" So I say to him "That says 8A, which is the window seat." He stammers a little and says "Oh, I thought A was the aisle." As I get up to let him in I said "Nope, it's just like the little picture above the row says." And really, in what world would A be an aisle seat? Why would something in the middle be given the designation A? Have you ever seen a series of items, arranged alphabetically, in which A is in the center? Think about it man! I just love that before thinking about it, or looking around to read the little posted signs, he assumes that I must be wrong and brings on the attitude. He didn't even say "I'm sorry" or "Excuse me."

Anyway, as he made his way to 8A, I saw his nice embroidered briefcase. It read "Harvard Law Alumni." Draw your own conclusions.

Now to be fair, after the trip back from Vermont I flew round trips to Indy and Dallas, and they were both very pleasant. I even got to see Music and Lyrics, which was actually pretty good.

Vermont Part #2

I forgot the other thing I wanted to mention about this trip. Budget was all out of economy cars, so I got a nice brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now, we all know how I feel about SUVs, but at least it had satellite radio- and I'd never really listened to Sirius before (I'm an XM subscriber). But the weirdest part was the key/remote, which I have shoddily photographed with my phone: Sorry the picture stinks! It couldn't focus that close, and any further away you wouldn't be able to see the buttons. What I want to know is: what does the lower right button do? It's a circular arrow with "x2" in the middle. The "x2" means you have to press it twice, like you have to do to pop the back window open. The first day I didn't have the courage to press it (because what's it going to do, blow up? Deflate the tires? Steal my lunch money?). So I finally hit it, and...nothing. Nothing happened. I'm only so puzzled because I have no idea what that symbol means. Any ideas?

In totally unrelated news, check this out. I highly doubt it all worked in one take, but it's impressive none the less.

Not Affiliated with Burlington Industries

Greetings from Vermont! Once again, I find myself in the Green Mountain State, this time for some live fire testing of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's gun. If that sounds awesome, it's because it is. I'm staying in Burlington, and I always forget how close to Canada this is. What weird is that when I was eating breakfast this morning, they had on Canadian news. I didn't notice until they gave the website and it ended in ".ca." Before that my only clue was that they were spending a lot of time talking about hockey. I noticed this when I was in Montreal before- out of every 5 topics covered on the news, 4 happened in the US. Maybe there just isn't that much to talk about in Canada. Of course, I notice the same thing in England as well.

At any rate, the testing was at the Ethan Allen firing range, and it has nothing to do with the furniture (it's incorrectly labeled as the Underhill Artilery Range here). Lots of stuff out here is named after Ethan Allen. I think the range is also a National Guard outpost, but it was actually a really pretty, woodsy place in the middle of the mountains. So there on the range they have the actual JSF gatling gun set up, and they were firing off bursts of ammo while taking various measurements. Now, I don't want to use too many technical terms for everyone, but the gun was "really big" and "really freakin' loud." Even when it was just firing a single shot from the other side of the giant bullet-proof doors, you still had to cover your ears, and it seemed to suck all the air out of the room, then blow it back. It was cool. For the last shot of the day they did a 60 round burst, which took less than a second. It almost seemed to just make the air in the room vibrate, for lack of a better term. It's hard to describe, but definitely manly.

The range was 200 meters long, and there was a huge berm at the end to catch all the lead. When the gun fired, huge clouds of dirt would instantly kick up on the hill. The most surreal part of the day was right after a 10 shot burst, one of the technicians said "Oh look- deer!" And sure enough, there were two deer walking across the range. I asked "Aren't they scared off by the guns?" The guy said "Oh no, they're used to it by now." Yikes. Apparently the deer have also figured out that for the most part the bullets are above their heads, but man. I would've thought they had better self-preservation instinct than that.

So the testing was supposed to take 3 days, and I planned to witness two of them. Then on Thursday I was going to fly back to DC, then turn right around and fly to Indy for Carly's graduation. The only problem is that the testing finished today- and what would normally be a great surprise has totally boufed my travel plans. Now I have to fly to DC tomorrow, drive the two hours home, then drive back to the airport on Thursday to fly. Also, now I have to take Thursday off from work as well, instead of that just being my travel day. Oh well!

Cars are Stalking Me

Check out what came in the mail the other day- this is the kind of things companies send you when you rent a lot of cars and they way overestimate your importance. In any case, tell me this isn't creepy:
Somehow, the knowledge that thinking about me "revs their engines" makes me feel a little dirty. But you know, the fun didn't stop there! The individual cars sent me snapshots with some little personal notes that may or may not have been swiped from a desperate girl's Match.com profile. Not that I would know.

The Milan has little personality in it's photo- just like in real life.

Traditionalist (def): A car marketed toward senior citizens.

Who decided that the Taurus should write like a kindergartner/axe murderer? Although, oddly enough I always figured that's what the Focus's handwriting would look like.


The Fusion definitely gets the award for being the most aggressive of the bunch.

I fail to see how this was supposed to entice me to rent cars- mostly, it was a waste of paper. But I wanted to take it one step further and do a little handwriting analysis on our specimens here. I found one usable (free) website, and to test it out, this is what it said about me:

You plan ahead, and are interested in beauty, design, outward appearance, and symmetry.
You are a social person who likes to talk and meet others.
You are affectionate, passionate, expressive, and future-oriented.
You are a talkative person, maybe even a busybody!
You enjoy life in your own way and do not depend on the opinions of others.

So, take it's conclusions with a grain of salt. It's probably not worth using the site to analyze our Budget friends. But, this is what my signature looks like when I try to write with the mouse:

Anyway, that's probably the most unsettling personification of cars to ever call me by name. The only thing that would be creepier is if the next Marriott mailer is a snapshot of a Residence Inn that says "I miss having you insi..." You know what? I'll just leave that up to your imagination.

LA is a Movie Town

So LA was nice as always, and I got back to Baltimore on Friday, just in time for rush hour. But in the bathroom at LAX I saw what might be the greatest toilet stall graffitti ever written. Luckily I had my trusty camera phone (which I never imagined I would be using in a public restroom):
If you can't make it out (the picture isn't the best), it says "Toy Story 2 was okay." There are many things that strike me as odd about this. First of all, it's about Toy Story 2. Many movies have provoked strong reactions from people- The Passion, Fahrenheit 9/11, but Toy Story 2? I mean, what is so remarkable about this particular film? Evidently, it's okay-ness. I guess I can see taking a sharpie to the wall if you really loved or really hated a movie, but how was someone so forceful with a neutral opinion?

Since the flight from LA to Baltimore takes all freakin' day, I did get to see two movies on the way back. First up was Stranger than Fiction. The verdict? I liked it. It was low-key Will Ferrell, which can be just as funny as Ricky Bobby Will Ferrell. Without spoiling anything, the movie comes down to the writer (Emma Thompson) having to chose between killing off Harold for the sake of the book, or letting him live. Several people weigh in on this, and they seem to agree that the story she's writing is too important (in a very Lady in the Water way), and she should go ahead and bump him off. The only thing is, we've been listening to the story- and it doesn't seem that great. The only interesting part is that Harold can hear the narration, and that's totally external to the book. Not a huge flaw, but it's a little annoying. I definitely recommend the movie.

Next up was Happy Feet. News flash: it was stupid. I understand that it's a kid's movie, but the cuteness can only carry it so far. There was no real "substance." It was kind of like Moulin Rouge, in that it was truly a musical with random music chosen from about the 1970's on. Only instead of actors in highly stylized period dress, you had computer generated dancing penguins- and if that's what you came for, you won't leave disappointed. There were no Christina Aguilera/Pink/Maya/Lil' Kim joints, but it did at least have Fat Joe.

So today I've been doing chores and trying to remember what it's like to go to work at my office. I think I'm here for the week, then gone for two, so I better enjoy it while it lasts. Have a great week everyone!

Pause for De-icing

Well, I saw snow again, and ironically, it was also in Dallas. As I said earlier, it was freezing there, but by Wednesday morning there was a layer of snow on the ground and a Munn-like sheet of ice on the roads. It's always hard to judge how bad snow really is in Texas (or Maryland) compared to the midwest, because in Michiana the plows are out as soon as the fist flake hits the ground. In Ft. Worth, I don't think either of their plows even made it to the highway. My contacts there did confirm that the only times they've had snow in the past year, I was there. Lucky me!

The trip from the hotel to the airport usually takes around 35-40 minutes, but it was pushing 2.5 hours with traffic crawling along at around 15 mph. I didn't see any accidents, but as I crested one of the many hills I saw a pickup truck doing a very ice-capade like series of spins in the middle of the highway. I realize that the dude had probably never driven in the snow before, but I watched the display with a sort of detached amusement- it reminded me of watching certain people I could name play video games: I'm not sure what he was trying to do, but that clearly wasn't it. Luckily, no one else was around and he finally came to rest on the shoulder, and he was driving away by the time I crawled past.

On the way I met Jamie at IHOP- I was only 30 minutes late, because I left a solid 20 minutes earlier than I thought I needed to. They were really pushing this all-you-can-eat pancakes deal, and since it was the same price as the regular pancakes, I went for it. Halfway through the first stack I realized the genius of their plan: who can eat more than 5 IHOP pancakes? They are huge and rich. Of course, it's not really a scam if it doesn't cost any more, so what's their deal? Probably just trying to get me in the door.

In any case, when I finally made it to the airport, the snow was coming down. The flight boards read "cancelled cancelled cancelled delayed cancelled cancelled cancelled delayed etc." My original flight was cancelled, so they routed me through Raleigh, NC. Of course, my flight left the gate late, and then we had to wait for de-icing for over 2 hours. I was asleep for most of it, but the pilot kept announcing the new delays to wake me up. And then, there was that guy in the back of the plane. You know, the pilot would say "Well folks, we're 7th in line for de-icing, and it takes about 45 minutes per plane, so it will be a little while yet." Instantly, this guy is on his cell phone, talking extremely loudly (clearly for the whole plane's benefit) "Well jeez! Now he's saying we're 7th in line, and it's taking them 45 minutes per plane! I know! Well, I was supposed to be there at 5! Now, who knows? I don't know what's taking so long!" etc, etc. Of course, with every announcement this cycle repeated except the numbers were updated and I got a little closer to punching him in the face.

I probably don't need to tell you that by the time I made it to Raliegh my connecting flight to DC was looong gone. The only remaining flight that day to DC was scheduled to leave at 8:00, but get this: It was coming from Austin, where the weather was even worse than Dallas. So, I got to kill 4 hours in the Raleigh airport until the plane rolled in. Now, I was supposed to fly right back out to New Jersey, but after calling our travel people, I learned that there were no fights that I had a prayer of making that night. The little angel on my one shoulder said "Marc, you can get a hotel in DC tonight, then catch the early flight out tomorrow and still make half the meeting" (which was scheduled for 8:00 until 12:30). Then the devil on my other shoulder said "Are you serious? Screw it." and I did. I made all the calls and canceled the reservations (I had spare time) and I finally got to my car at Reagan at around 10:30, and I was home in bed by midnight.

And then this morning, it snowed in Maryland. There- snow here finally. Whippee!