European Adventure Day 0 – Wrong Yet So Right

I wrote all of the England-France blogs by hand while I was there. I’m leaving the tense as originally written when I type up the posts.

I’m about a mile above the Atlantic, flat on my back. This feels so weird, yet so so right.

When we got our boarding passes in Philadelphia, Penny and I realized we were no longer sitting next to each other. We were both in first class though, which made me happy. For the return trip, I won’t be so happy. Anyway … after a pointless, pathetic snack of fried cheese somewhere at the airport, we headed back to the gate. The agent said she couldn’t do anything about our seats. Oh well, we both planned to sleep for most of the overnight flight and did we really need to sit next to each other when we were going to spend six days together?

View of the center pod

Then we boarded the plane. It took a second for the odd configuration to sink in. We had scored one of the planes renovated for lie-flat seats. We couldn’t sit next to each other because there was only one pod along the windows.

Pod’s the best word for it. The angle of the seat, the frame – all very podlike.

Heard on the Wire

Comic geeks (and I use the term affectionately for I am one of the tribe) can spend hours debating who would win in a fight. Wolverine vs. Captain America. Wonder Woman vs. Jean Grey. The JSA vs. the Avengers. In one arena, Batman has bested Superman. Detective Comics #327 issued in 1939 features the first appearance of The Bat-Man, as he was originally known. A copy of that comic is currently going for $418,250. This puts the Dark Knight ahead of the Caped Crusader. Superman’s first appearance (Action Comics #1, 1938) sold for $317,000 in 2009.

More press-release goodness after the jump.

Aruba – day 8

July 12, 2009 There and Back Again

It’s over. I’m sitting at the airport. Some sand may still be in between my toes and almost definitely in my ears. Silly wind. But that’s it.

No more long days in the sun, staring at the sea. Floating in the water or walking through hundreds of little silver fish is over.

I’m looking forward to seeing Eckie, but I don’t want vacation to end. I finally get it, Mom.

Today I slept in a little more than I wanted, but was ensconced in a palapa by 10. Mike brought down our snorkeling gear, but were were all content with sun and books.

Swimming platform on the last day

Airplane Thoughts

This past weekend, I was in San Francisco for work. Flew out there from Philadelphia on Friday afternoon and back on the Sunday red eye. On both legs, I slept some, read some and thought some. To pass the time, I wrote down the thoughts and share them here.

Only one worth sharing from the red eye. What kind of asswipe redirects all three fan nozzles toward himself while the only person he’s not related to in the row is sleeping? As the person in the window seat, I may have ended up waking his snoring wife when I stretched over her to redirect my nozzle back to me. I have no regrets.

Preventing Five Hours of Mind-Numbing Boredom

Last week I went to San Diego for work. The trip was nice, got some good work-type stuff accomplished in San Diego while in-the-office work stuff threatened to completely fall apart. Always fun to be out of the office when you’re really needed there. The weather was perfect as it tends to be in San Diego, and the company was delightful.

Still, I was ready to be back home on Friday afternoon when it came time to leave. My flight plan was a 5:45 p.m. from San Diego to San Francisco, a three-hour layover and then the red eye back home. Both planes looked incredibly packed when I checked in online, but I managed to get an economy-plus upgrade for the red eye. More about that later.