A Pilgrim’s Digression

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but Washington area metro (WMATA) is cashing in on the Barack Obama inauguration.  While waiting for the train this morning, I heard an announcement over the PA system encouraging riders to buy their “Obama Commemorative Edition” fare cards and SmartTrip cards.

What?  Are you serious?

Oh yes.  You can read about it here at the Metro website.

Why do I say they are cashing in?  Because a SmartTrip card with no value on it only costs five dollars.  When you buy it, you are charged $30.00, $25.00 of which goes onto the card as value for fare.

The Obama Commemorative Edition SmartTrip costs $10.00 and comes with no value on it at all.

Or if you’d rather, you can buy a paper Commemorative one-day pass for $10.00 (regular cost for a one day pass, $7.80).

Considering Tuesday, January 20th is probably going to be the single worst traffic day in the history of Metro, during which Metro is going to charge rush hour rates all day long, charging more for the paper one-day pass seems particularly outrageous.  I can understand that the SmartTrip card is plastic, has to be specially ordered, etc.  But a paper ticket?

From all accounts I’ve read, on Inauguration Day, people are going to be waiting on train platforms for long periods of time (up to an hour), just to crowd onto a train where they will likely be packed like sardines in a can.

I suppose you can say, “Well, if there are suckers out there willing to pay a premium for a lousy farecard with Obama’s face on it, let them pay it.”  I just hate to see people taken advantage of because of a desire to participate in a once in a lifetime historical event.

This is just one more reason to stay home, as far as I’m concerned.

Update: a co-worker of mine who rides MARC into Washington from Maryland said that MARC is also raising its rates for one day only.  Even customers who bought their usual monthly ticket for January will have to buy a special ticket just to ride the train on January 20th.

Excuse me, but aren’t these trains running on what we call public transportation systems.  Public.  As in (at least partially) tax-payer funded.

I don’t do New Year resolutions; they are pointless because generally once you resolve to do something–lose weight, for example–it becomes that much more disappointing when you don’t live up to yours goals.  However, a new year does offer the opportunity to make a fresh start in some aspects of our lives.

Yesterday, we went to church for the first time in at least a month.  We haven’t been regular attendees probably since June or July.  It was refreshing to see how we were genuinely and warmly welcomed back.  We had been complaining about the agony of meeting church folks in Wal-Mart and around town, because the first thing they say, inevitably, is “Oh, we’ve missed you in church.”

Well, maybe they did miss us.  And maybe the reason we didn’t want to hear them say it is because we felt guilty for not going.

Interestingly, there were a lot of missing faces yesterday.  Whether that is a one-time thing, due to the holidays only just being over, or whether there are people who have stopped attending, I don’t know.  One of our friends–one of of those who gently kept after us to come back to church–said that many  people at church have been in a “funk” because of the economy.

Our Sunday School class certainly did shrink down to a few diehard women.  It’s supposed to be “spares and pairs,” for younger married couples, or single people in general.  There were only about six people in the class, not including Lynn and myself (the only married couple)–and no men, other than the fellow teaching the class.  No offense intended to him, but I think he may well be the reason many of the men have stopped coming.

He’s a rather bookish-looking young man who also plays the organ for our church as well as the Catholic church (he is Catholic himself).   And he teaches our Sunday School class more like a World Religions course in a college, rather than a Baptist Sunday School.  Yesterday he spoke about “Primal” religion and the origins of belief.  It was an interesting topic to me, and the ladies seemed interested in a polite way, but I can imagine some of the men who used to be in the class quietly deciding they’d rather join the men’s Sunday School which meets in another room in the building.

So, we are hoping for a fresh start in our church attendance.  I have to say, getting over that first hurdle of actually going one time has been the biggest challenge.  I don’t feel like it will be so hard to get out of bed and go, next week, but we’ll see.

To provide just one more update, I am also making a fresh start with World of Warcraft.  Well, not entirely fresh.  I’m still playing the same character, but I am going to redouble my effortst to get to 80 and participate in raiding with my guild.  As of last night, he was 79, so that goal is almost achieved anyway.  I didn’t play much at all over the week of Christmas, but since returning last week, I’ve been hitting it pretty hard.  I’m finding fun in it again, though for how long it’s hard to say.

I am even looking forward to getting back to the office tomorrow.  I’m going to take a walk around the Capitol and see what progress has been made on the Inauguration platform.  I’m going to have breakfast at Pete’s and sit at my usual place at the counter.   I’m going to sit at my desk and catch up on all the work of the past two weeks…or at least, sit there and try to remember what in the heck I was doing two weeks ago when I knocked off for the holiday.

When I return to work, there’s always about an hour or so, first thing in the morning, during which I just can’t remember anything about what I was doing last time I sat at this desk.

A new year, a new start.  We’ll see how it goes this time.

So far, I have refrained from commenting on the fact that, more than a month after the election, the Obama campaign is still soliciting money from prior contributors.  Today’s solicitation email really made me kind of angry, though.  Below is a screen capture of the “Your ticket to history” email (click for a larger version that is more readable).

Your ticket to history

The email looks like any other campaign email I received during the election, and it is signed by David Ploufe, “Campaign Manager.”  The email reads as follows:

Between now and January 8th, 10 supporters and their guests will be selected to join the Inaugural activities.
If you make a donation — in any amount — to make the Inauguration a success, you and a guest could be flown to Washington, D.C., put up in a hotel, and be there as Barack is sworn in as the 44th President.

Will you make a donation of 25$ or more right now?  You and a guest could receive your ticket to history.

Unlike past inaugurations, this year’s event will not be paid for by Washington lobbyists or corporations.

This campaign was funded by 4 million ordinary people giving only what they could afford, and Barack and Joe are counting on you again. Help start this administration off right — independent of the special interest donors who have shaped Washington for too long.

This Inauguration will be open to as many Americans as possible. We’ll all come together to celebrate the hope and optimism that define this movement for change.

But you could be one of 10 selected to join us in Washington for all Inaugural events. Any donation you make between now and January 8th counts — whatever you can afford.

Show your support for a different kind of politics and a different kind of inauguration with a donation of $25 or more today.

I have to agree, this is definitely a different kind of politics.  I’ve contributed to several political campaigns, among them John McCain’s run for President in 2000 and (I’m embarrassed to say) John Edward’s campaign in 2007-2008.  True, I’ve never contributed to a winning ticket, yet this solicitation by the Obama people seems extraordinary to me.

As I understand it, the Inaugural Committee, which oversees any and all events surrounding the inauguration, is a Senate committee chaired by Senators.  It is therefore a taxpayer funded operation.  The Architect of the Capitol oversees construction of the platform on which the President is inaugurated, for example.

Why, or rather how, can a President-elect solicit donations for his inauguration?  And to what exactly am I contributing if I donate my $25.00?

This just sounds very shady as far as I am concerned.  If the money is going to the DNC, as seems most likely, then the email ought to be a solicitation on behalf of the DNC.  Somehow I don’t think as many donations would pour in.  It sounds to me like a bait and switch, in which the donor gives money for one purpose and it is routed to another purpose.

I have no evidence of that, just going on common sense here.  I can’t think of any expense the Inaugural Committee can’t or hasn’t covered, thus soliciting donations on its behalf seems rather disengenuous.

I am also a bit peeved that tickets, as well as air fare and a hotel stay—a veritable vacation package–are being given away in a sort of lottery, when tickets are so hard to come by for ordinary people.

The whole thing just seems wrong.  This is not the kind of change people voted for.

After…

7 days of sleeping in guest beds, on couches, and in recliners…

6 days during which we drove over five hundred miles total…

5 days of eating leftover Christmas ham and au gratin potatoes…

4 days of media “concern” for retail stores, which haven’t made enough money this holiday season…

3 days of end of the year recaps on all the news I didn’t care about the first time around…

2 days of opening presents…

and 1 day of rest…

We are finally home again.  Seven days of holiday travel.  And yesterday, as we were preparing to leave, my Grandpa said to me, with a disappointed look, “Gee, I thought you were staying another day or two.”

When I say we opened presents over the course of two days, that is no exaggeration, either.  My son had five Christmases this year.  On Christmas Eve, he opened presents at my Mom’s house, my Dad’s house, and my Grandpa’s house…then on Christmas day we went to Pittsburgh, and he opened up presents from Lynn’s family.  Then we came home yesterday, and he opened presents we had left for him here at home.

He got a Nintendo DS from my Mom, a Wii Fit from my Dad, a Millenium Falcon playset from Lynn and I for his Star Wars figures, a rather large Lego Star Wars playset from Lynn’s sister (I emphasize the “large” because I’m the one who will have to build most of it), and assorted other things that he hasn’t even opened or played with yet.  And my Grandpa gave him a hundred dollar bill in an envelope.

A hundred dollars!  I was lucky to get twenty bucks from a family member when I was a kid.  My grandparents never gave me money, because they always bought me presents.  But I guess this year, without Grandma to do the shopping, Grandpa didn’t know what to give him.

And yet somewhere in the midst of all this excess, the retailers are weeping because consumers didn’t spend enough in their stores.

Overall, we had a good holiday, maybe one of the best despite this year’s losses.  It was extremely weird and unsettling to go to my Grandpa’s on Christmas Eve, as we always do, only to find to our shock that Grandma isn’t there.  One of the first things Brendan said was, “Grandpa, where’s your Christmas tree?”

He seemed surprised by the question and answered, “It’s only me here now.  I didn’t put one up.”

He said later, in one of the few comments he made referring to his loss, that Christmas was Grandma’s favorite time of year and it just wasn’t the same without her.

One thing about extended travelling, though, is that it makes you appreciate your own home and your own bed even more when you return.  I slept in uncomfortable guest beds, in many cases apart from my wife because there wasn’t a bed big enough for the two of us.  At Lynn’s mother’s house, she doesn’t even have a bed for any of us, so I slept in a recliner while Lynn and Brendan slept on the sofa.  Honestly, I think I got the better bed in that situation.  Recliners are remarkably comfortable, as long as you don’t need to lie on your side to sleep.

For the most part, we felt like we were on other people’s schedules.  My mom still had to get up for work at 3:30 in the morning; Lynn’s sister still came down to let the dog out at dawn, as she, too, was getting ready for work.  Now we’re back to our own life and our own schedules, and I’m glad of it.  I’ve got the rest of the week off to enjoy the comfort of my bed and the quiet of my house.

And some time during this week, I have to take a few hours to build this huge Lego set which I am fairly certain will be disassembled almost as soon as my son gets his hands on it to play with.  Good thing I enjoy building Legos; Legos are one toy I always wanted, but never had as a kid.  My parents thought they were too expensive, which of course they are.

Last night, I spent about an hour putting together the Millenium Falcon for Brendan.  Compared to the one I had as a kid back in the early eighties, this thing is huge and incredibly detailed.  It’s 2 1/2 feet long, with battery operated lights and sounds, a cockpit that seats not just two, but four figures (just like in the movie).  Most important, the radar dish and laser cannons actually remain in place.  On the original I had as a kid, one of the frustrations was that it was so cheaply made that pieces like the radar dish and landing gear were always falling off.

One thing hasn’t changed, though: an adult still has to put the stickers on it.  I remember the Christmas when I got my Millenium Falcon, my Dad and I put it together at my Grandpa’s on Christmas morning.  I was a bit obsessive compulsive about everything being just right, and my Dad really didn’t care where he put the stickers, or whether they were crooked or not.  I remember feeling a bit of anger towards him because he didn’t seem to care whether the stickers looked haphazardly put on or not.

Last night as I put the stickers on Brendan’s ship, I had a flashback to that Christmas Day in 1979 or ‘80, only this time I found that I was the one with the big, thick adult fingers trying to place tiny little stickers in difficult to reach places inside the ship.  Suddenly “somewhat straight” was good enough for me, and luckily Brendan doesn’t seem to be as obsessive about neatness as I was back then.

Overall, it’s kind of ironic how time seems to circle back on itself every once in awhile.  My Dad seemed to acknowledge that as well when, back in November, he asked Brendan what he wanted for Christmas.  Brendan said, “The Millenium Falcon.”

Dad said, “Gee, I think I remember another little boy asking for that same thing one year.”

Every little boy wants to be Han Solo.

Last night I dreamed about a tree that grew in my great-grandmother’s back yard.  In the dream, it was a small tree, probably a dwarf fruit tree of some kind.  It needed trimming, and my mom and grandma were trying to trim it.  As they clipped the first branch, the tree trunk cracked and the tree collapsed into the yard.  Upon inspection, the women saw that the tree was almost completely hollow except for some wood at the heart.

After expressing some sadness at the loss of her tree, my great-grandmother said, “At least there will be a new tree that will grow up from the roots.”

My grandma answered, “Yes, but it may not bear any fruit.”

When I was little, my grandparents had a plum tree that cracked and fell over in much the same way as the tree in my dream.  Before it died, the tree bore the sweetest purple plums, and my grandma would put up jars of jelly from it that we would eat on all year long.  After it collapsed and grandpa had cut it up and removed it, another tree grew up from the stump.  It never bore any fruit, however.  I never did understand why it stopped bearing fruit.  Eventually, grandpa removed it entirely, as it was good for nothing except a reminder of what good fruit it once bore.

It’s interesting that the only people in this dream are these three matriarchal women, two of whom died this past year.  I think the dream is an expression of some worries I’ve been having over the fragmentation of my family in the wake of the older people dying.

My great-grandmother had five boys and a girl from the late nineteen-twenties to 1950, and one thing you can say about having so many children, all of whom continued living near each other and all of whom remained close, is that it made for decades of family reunions.  Now that the older folks have begun to die off, though, it seems unlikely that the younger generations will remain all that close.  Many of us don’t live near our family anymore.  Most of us weren’t all that close to begin with, going to reunions at least partly out of a sense of duty.  I haven’t even been to a Christmas reunion in two years, at least, and I know my Dad didn’t go last year, either.

It makes you wonder who remains for us, when our parents and immediate siblings are gone.  And if we are an only child like myself, and like my son, who then remains?  Certainly not second and third cousins, great aunts and uncles.  Even first cousins often grow distant over the years.  When I was little, I spent many weekends with my grandparents, and grandma would always invite my cousins over, too, so that I could play with them and get to know them.  We were great friends, back then.

When I see them now, usually only at Christmas, they seem almost like strangers.  So many years have passed during which I heard about them from my grandparents but had little contact with them.

Loss is something we learn to accept as an inevitable part of life, but it isn’t easy.  However, do we want life to always remain the same, people to remain unchanged?  No, not really.  Life is a losing proposition, though.  We steal whatever bits of happiness we can from death’s table, but in the end He comes for us regardless.

I guess what I want is some assurance that we will be compensated for our losses, in some way.  Compensated by god?  I don’t know.  My faith isn’t very strong these days.  When my grandma died, the one thing I remember the pastor saying at the funeral is that there will be a great family reunion in heaven one day.  Of course, that’s the kind of cliché pastors love to use in giving hope to the family of the deceased, but it has remained with me.  The idea of a celestial “family reunion” does not necessarily provide me any hope, but it is a symbol of the hope in which other people believe.

And who knows, maybe the cliché is true.

All I know is, it’s hard letting go of people, and letting go of the past.  I know from the experience of my maternal grandmother dying that even large families do not always remain close following such a death.  But whether we want to move on or not, time passes.  We go on anyway, a little lonelier.

I look ahead, down the road, and I do wonder what and who will remain after another decade or two.  I don’t know how anyone remains optimistic in a world that, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, has been dying since it was born.  I suppose most people don’t even think about it much.  We bury ourselves in the warm blankets of false hope, materialism, and transitory pleasures, and we close ourselves off from cold reality.  A death is really the only thing that strips away the covers and exposes us to the chilly truth.

This story from the AP caught my eye this morning, Cake request for 3year old Hitler namesake denied.  This couple in Pennsylvania named their son Adolf Hitler and now act surprised and offended that a supermarket refused to print the name on a birthday cake.  According to the story, the same supermarket has refused them service for the past two years as well.

This story could almost be a Saturday Night Live skit, it sounds so ludicrous.  Or perhaps something from Dave Chapelle, sort of like his skit in which a blind black man is convinced he’s white and joins the KKK.  There is such a thing as willful blindness to evil.

“I think people need to take their heads out of the cloud they’ve been in and start focusing on the future and not on the past,” Heath Campbell said Tuesday in an interview conducted in Easton, on the other side of the Delaware River from where the family lives in Hunterdon County, N.J.

“There’s a new president and he says it’s time for a change; well, then it’s time for a change,” the 35-year-old continued. “They need to accept a name. A name’s a name. The kid isn’t going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did.”

The Campbell’s also named a daughter JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell…but the parents aren’t racist.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Not only has the father proudly taken up Barack Obama’s call for change, but little Adolf had “several children who were of mixed race” at his birthday party last year.

I’m sorry, but that line from the news story just brought this image to mind of a tiny Adolf Hitler proudly overseeing the departure of his mixed-race birthday companions aboard one of those children’s choo-choo trains one sees in shopping malls.  Off to the “daycare center” with them, where they will all enjoy a pleasant shower.

Without a doubt, the parents of these children have been incredibly selfish in naming their children in this way.  To them, it might be a valid philosophical point they are trying to make, but to make a point at the expense of your children is incredibly selfish and pretentious.

The sad thing is, three-year-old Adolf looks like a cute kid.  However when he’s old enough to understand what his parents have done to him, he is probably going to hate them.  I guarantee you as soon as that boy is in school, the teasing and bullying is going to begin.

I also think there could be an unintended consequence the parents didn’t think of when devising this scheme to make their point.  Let’s assume for a moment that the parents aren’t hateful people; they don’t idealize Nazi Germany or the legacy of Hitler.  They named their child Adolf Hitler because they really want to take a step forward in laying the past to rest.  In the 21st century, a parent ought to be able to name their child Adolf Hitler without arousing controversy.

Now let’s say they achieve that goal.  Is it really a good thing that we become so desensitized to the name of the Nazi leader that it loses all power to offend or frighten?  An inestimable number of acts of cruelty were committed in the name of Adolf Hitler.  Do we really want that name to symbolize nothing, or very little, much the way naming a child Napoleon Bonaparte Campbell would be seen as eccentric, but not immoral?

People are free to name their children as they see fit, but when parents choose perhaps the most evil-laden name in the history of the world, I do not think they have a right to expect the rest of the world to be accepting of their choice.  We live in a tolerant society, but there is a line.

These parents deserve nothing less than the derision they are receiving.  My only hope is that they will come to see how their own selfishness will harm their child later in life, and perhaps they will decide a name change is in order before the boy is much older.

I took an early flight home from Chicago this morning; it was almost not worth staying in the hotel another night.  I had intended to take a late-morning flight, giving myself plenty of time to sleep.  Only problem is that, as usual, I couldn’t sleep.  I woke up around three and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got up, packed, checked out, and took a cab to the airport where I changed my flight to 6 AM.

So I am home now, and trying to wrap up my writing about this trip.

My final day in Chicago yesterday was better, in terms of the dining experience.  I ate at a place called Big Bowl for lunch, an Asian restaurant that serves both Chinese and Thai.  I believe it’s a chain restaurant, judging from the website, but it turned out to be quite good.  I risked not liking the chicken Pad Thai, but as it turned out I liked it more than I could have expected.

For dinner, I went to the Rock Bottom.  After I was inside and looking at the beer menu (by the way, as a man, you know you’re in the right place when there is a seperate menu for beer), I realized I’d been to this place before.  It must be a mid-Western chain because I ate in a Rock Bottom in Minneapolis when I was there two summers ago.

So, a little disappointed that I still hadn’t found some local dive, I took advantage of the promise of a free sample of each beer and ordered four.  The samples arrived in regular size tumblers, and for just a moment I had the gleeful idea of setting them aside for my meal and then just ordering water to drink.  But, I didn’t.  I drank them slowly, like a wine conniseur, and finally narrowed my choice between the Eric the Red Ale and the Chicago Gold.  I went with the Gold, as it had a lighter flavor, although the ale probably would have satisfied me just as well.

And what do we eat with beer, kids?  I had barbecued ribs, and they were great.

So, two good dining experiences yesterday.  I did not go to any museums.  I didn’t have time.  The conference never let out before five either day I was there, so I missed my chance by not going to a museum on Monday afternoon when I arrived.  I wasn’t too disappointed though.  There are plenty of museums I can see any day of the week on my lunch break.

Now, for a few random thoughts or incidents that I observed today.

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This story that broke yesterday about the Governor of Illinois trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat has been an interesting counterpoint to my stay in Chicago.  Yesterday was the first time I’d ever seen the man on TV, but it only took one look at him to see that he was a crook.

The hair is the prime indicator, don’t you think?  I’ve never seen hair like that on a man outside of the Godfather.  The governor looks exactly like you’d expect an Atlantic City mobster, or an Atlantic City mayor for that matter, to look.  His language is straight out of Goodfellas as well.  Honestly, I think the guy is a little nuts.  He has to be.  No one becomes that much of a stereotype without being a little nutty.

One other unrelated point: everywhere you look in Chicago, you see Obama’s face smiling at you.  He is literally everywhere.  There are street hawkers selling guides to Obama-related sites in the city.

“Obama!  Everything Obama!  Get your Obama guide here!”  One of them was shouting the other day.  A passing woman absently snatched one of the guides out of the man’s hand and kept walking, apparently thinking the guide was just another of those free handouts or advertisements people give out on the street.

“Hey, wha are you doin?”  The man shouted after her.  “That’s my living.  You thief!”

The woman brought it back, but the guy didn’t let up.

“What the hell, you wanna rob a poor person?  What’s wrong with you?”

Finally, a policeman came over and told the guy to cool it.  The woman went on her way.

If I were on vacation, I’d probably be disappointed.  My conference schedule kept me in the hotel most of the day today, though I did slip out at noon for lunch, and I just now got back from dinner.  Meals are about the only part of Chicago I am experiencing at this point.  The dining experience has not been memorable either, however.

Yesterday afternoon, after arriving, I planned to go to the Art Institute; however, it closes at five and I could not justify paying the entrance fee for a couple hours of touring.  So I wandered around the city, vaguely looking for the Sears tower.  It’s only the tallest building in the city, so you’d think it would be easy to spot, but I couldn’t find it.  I ended up heading towards this building that looked distinctive, as if it might be the Sears tower, but it turned out to be the John Hancock building.

After this little adventure, I looked around for a place to eat and decided on a restaurant near the hotel, Bandera.  It held forth the promise of live music and good food.  At least the music was live, if unremarkable.  For $36.00, I got Seattle-style barbecued salmon and a bowl of red beans and rice with sausage.  There was nothing particularly good about any of it.  The red beans and rice was so heavily seasoned I broke out in a sweat and couldn’t taste much at all, after a few bites.  The salmon was just fish, not particularly seasoned at all.  The sides were disgusting–rice pilaf and some kind of vinegary, mixed vegetable salad made up of purple cauliflower, cucumbers, carrots, onions, and water cress.

So that was disappointing.  I have this theory that the more expensive the restaurant, the more it holds forth the promise of haute cuisine, the more likely the food will suck.

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I’m going to be in Chicago this week for a conference; in fact, right now I am sitting in Reagan National waiting for my flight out.  Following are some general observations about travelling, because I have nothing better to do while waiting.

Airports hold the promise of free, high-speed internet–sometimes they even advertise it, as does Reagan National.  Rarely is the internet free, let alone high-speed.  At Dulles, you have to join a subscription service that promises access in other airports across America.  What a racket that must be.  There are probably people who actually need internet when travelling, as opposed to me who just appreciates having it to pass the time.

Here at Reagan, I opened my laptop, and it did indeed find a Wi-Fi signal labeled “Reagan National Airport,” but when I connected I had barely one bar of signal strength and I wasn’t able to load a web page.  I’m using my Verizon USB modem right now.

It used to be, a person who sat alone in an airport, talking to themselves, would be considered crazy.  The police might even be called in to remove them, or at least question them.  Today, a person sitting alone, talking to themself, has a bluetooth earpiece in their ear because they are A Very Important Person.

I know that some states prohibit the use of cellphones while driving, thus there is a need for headsets.  But in an airport?  When you’re just sitting there?

Going through security at the airport is humiliating.  My recommendation: travel as lightly as possible.  No coat, if you can get away with it (they make you take your coat off), no hats or scarves; pack your carry-on carefully, or don’t bring one at all.  Your laptop will have to be removed from its bag and sent through the X-Ray seperately.  You will have to take your shoes off and put them through the machine, as well.

Never mind that my shoes are so worn down at the heel, the CIA itself would have to design the bomb thin enough to fit in my shoe.

Then when you finish padding through security in your socks, you will have to hurry up and grab your stuff and move out of the way because the next person is coming through.  I felt like I’m just one head in a herd of cattle being pushed through a small bottleneck into a holding pen.

Whenever I travel, I feel this almost irresistable urge to eat all the time.  I don’t mean to suggest I take advantage of my employer–in fact I think I am very economical when I travel, parking in economy at the airport, using public transit rather than taxis, etc.  But food…I want to eat, even when I’m not hungry.  I spend my days thinking about where I am going to take my next meal.  Eating at new places is probably the central part of the travel experience for me.

More observations later.  My plane is going to begin boarding in ten minutes.  Maybe the flight itself will provide some interesting content for my blog.