Gotham

Gotham pokes his meaty index finger right into your chest.  He pokes you
-Hey!  You cool?
-Yeah, I'm cool
-Oh yeah? Prove it
-Don't have to
-Yeah, you cool
Then Gotham walks away

Chrome Wheels, Fuel Injected

...and stepping out over the line!

So says Bruce Springsteen in Born to Run.

I swerved down into Harpswell, ME, on the way home from Boston Logan airport and another business trip, and checked out a 2010 Audi S5.  As sexy as coupes come, and pretty much as quick as they do as well.  350 horse, same with torque, and all wheel drive combine to get you to 60 in 4.9.  After driving it, I don't doubt it.

I spent last night and half of today trying to convince myself I want it.

But then I took an hour and put the replacement fuel injector into old blue, the A8, hooked up all the plumbing and wiring and crossed my fingers as I turned the key.  Stumble, stumble, rumble, rumble and then the fuel rails pressurized and the familiar sweet swell and steady, smooth idle of this old soldier of an engine settled in.  Yap, that's what she's supposed to do.  I backed her out of the garage and up onto the road, honked the horn, and gave her some heavy footage.  She just ran away, smooth, refined, competent, quick.

Now that's what I like in a car!  Sorry S5; you're unrefined like a mustang.  And you're not as much fun as this old girl.

I picked up the Mercedes with her new accelerator (not a gas pedal, nay-nay; an accelerator) and pointed her towards home.  After the hour of driving I'd put into the A8, the Merc was simply sterile and boring.  And she'll be headed out the door.

I'll bide my time and wait for the right 2011 A8 to come along.

Keep in mind that the exterior is even more beautiful.

The back seat is pretty nice, too.

It's taken a lot of dates for me to realize that what I want was waiting for me at home all along.  Of course, Mrs. Toadroller was quick to say she'd told me so, and she was right.  Again.

Thousand Dollar Car! Thousand Dollar Car! Thousand Dollar Car!

I am a fool.  I know this; I understand this; I admit this; I share this.

For I own not one but four German cars.  Three of the four-ringed variety and one of the one-ringed, tri-starred variant.  It is a given that, at best, three will be road-worthy at any given time.  There are days like yesterday when that number is reduced to one, and that one not the newest and shiniest of the collection.

Two weeks ago, I embarked on an airport run to Boston in old blue, my thousand dollar car, my precious A8.  I'd been of the "why am I keeping this?" persuasion and felt it was time to give her one last run.   Before I left I swapped on the spare set of snow-tires/wheels I have to test how much of her rumbling is alignment and how much is balance.  Driving down the road at 50 mph showed that alignment is bad; the wheels droned against each other even on fresh pavement.  But as I gathered up momentum to 80mph on the interstate headed south, I was amazed at the smoothness of the ride. Tires in balance, what a concept.  To be perfectly honest, I enjoyed the shit out of that drive to the airport and fell in love with old blue all over again.  Yes, I promised her, I'll spend $100 and get you properly aligned.  I'll get the hole in your exhaust pipe patched.  Together we'll make this journey many times through the winter and let the newer Merc just sit warm and cozy in the garage!  257,000 miles is merely your youth!

I returned from my travels and fetched her from the 6th floor of Boston Logan's parking garage.  Navigating the lefts and rights that hinder your attempts to flee the airport and head north, she started to stumble.  One moment perfect, the next as running on 7 cylinders.  Or as running out of gas.  Shit.  I'd been here before.  She's temperamental about gas - do not let her go low- and when she does, it takes at least 5 gallons down her throat to get her running properly again.  See previous tribulations on this site for more information.  I pulled into the first gas station and loaded her up to the top, simultaneously ruling out one possible cause and raising her retail value a solid 10% 

No dice.  Stumble, rumble. I searched my memory banks and recalled the times it had previously behaved this way.  An Ignition Control Module the first time; ignition coils on the plugs the second.  Screw it.  I kept her in low gears through Revere and Saugus, and held her in 4th for the 150 highway miles to home.  Seven cylinders of insanity.  Not wise, but the car is disposable.  Made it home, parked her at the bottom of the driveway and went to bed.  The problem would be reviewed in the morning.

I recently hopped into Mrs. Toadroller's recently rejuvenated S4 to take one of the elder Toadrollers to work.  As we headed out of the driveway, I thought I heard a scrape.  Three doors down, Mrs. Toadroller phoned to let us know the exhaust system was drooping low, low, low.  Ah, sweet chariot, back to the garage with you.  Sit next to the A8 where she rests with her hood open, engine shrouding and wires spread about the shop.

Yesterday I hopped into the Merc to head to the chiropractor.  I started her up and got a christmas tree of warnings on the dashboard, along with the fairly useless message "Electronic Stability Control system is inoperable.  Consult Owner's Manual."  What?  Shut her off, started her again, same.  Put her into gear and could barely get out of the driveway.  Turned her back into the other side of the driveway and let her sit.

I took the car the boy drives. 

I'm flabbergasted.  The Internet says this Merc issue happens and then goes away.  It doesn't for me.  Battery disconnect/reconnect, fuses; no matter- the ESC is damned well inoperable and no, you won't be able to drive this thing to the shop.  Fine.  You're confined to the corner.  It might be the accelerator, as it is German and wouldn't deign to have a gas pedal.  I'm sure it's fly-by-wire rather than a throttle cable.  Which means a few hundred bucks plus tow.  She is not the car of the decade.  She will not last a year.  There's a feller down in Harpswell with a new enough S5 with appreciable miles, but priced accordingly.  It's got that 4.2 liter V8 I love so much in the A8 and S4.  Are you listening, Mercedes? 

Meanwhile I have an A8 to fix and a droopy tail-piped S4. 

I jacked up the S4 and saw that the metal bracket hanger had rusted off where it was welded to the exhaust.  I jacked the exhaust back up into position and wound her around five times with steel cable.  That will last the ten miles to get her to a shop for a repair.

On to old blue.

It wasn't Ignition Control Modules.  They are cheap through Amazon, however, so I replaced the pair of them and kept the others in my spare parts box.  It wasn't the ignition coils.  That was an adventure in its own way, where the replacement coils were shorter than the originals.  I mean originals.  19 years, 257,000 miles.  They are forgiven and retired now, in the parts box, ready for the dump or for further experimental testing at some future date. 

Computers, codes, internet, thinking.  A martini.  I figured it had to be a fuel injector (also original) or the wiring to it.  Please let it be the injector, as tracing and re-setting that wiring is a fool's errand.  Yes, I am a fool, but I'm not insane.

It took an hour of careful disassembly of fuel lines, fuel rails, fuel injector connectors, vacuum hoses and clips to get a pair of the fuel injectors out.  It is amazing to think those were simply squeezed into place on an assembly line in Germany and haven't been touched since.  Wiggle, wiggle, tug tug and out they came.  Friction and o-rings and retaining clips.  It had been my intent to swap the offending cylinder's fuel injector with another cylinder's and see if the engine warning codes switched to that new cylinder.  I checked the resistance on all the wiring leads to the fuel injectors.  They were all the same.  Good.  Promising.  It then it occurred to me that a fuel injector is basically a solenoid that gets triggered to open a valve.  Why swap them when I can test hem manually?  I took the known good injector and a pair of alligator clips and tapped it to the battery.  Click, click, click.  I took the bad one.  Nada, nada, nada.

It is at times like these that fools break out into a shit eating grin.  Grinning thus, I placed my order for a replacement ($40, Amazon Prime, will be here on Tuesday even if I won't) and took a shower.

The score is two on, two out, and Mercedes is at the bat.  Will she strike out?

Noise Reduction

Musicians who know their trade know to leave some pauses, space, between the notes they play.  Perhaps that’s what defines a musician; knowing when not to play.  Our lives are so full of noise that we rarely experience silence. Do we humans know when to turn things off?  Do we know when not to play?

For most of my life, music has been on.  Background music while doing chores.  Active listening.  Theme music for a road trip.  Something to dance to of an evening.  Always noise.

The movie Going in Style opens with George Burns, widower, waking and starting his day.  Calisthenics, coffee, toast, eggs, dishes, dressing.  Ten minutes of silence telling us more of loneliness and routine and boredom than any narrator or other exposition could.  Silence was sad.

In January or February of this year I turned of Twitter.  Of a weekday, I simply turned off the application and uninstalled it from my computer, phone, and tablet.  It wasn’t a New Year’s Resolution.  The noise had simply become strident and stressful.  Here I was, more aware of what was going on in the world than most people (people who watched the news, listened to NPR, read the newspaper) and yet… to what end?

The thing about Twitter (and Facebook, and Instagram, and… social media in general) is that it’s instantly available whenever you have a spare moment.  On your computer, on your phone.  While waiting in line, while waiting for a meeting to start, while trying to avoid going to bed.  Whip out the phone, tap-tap, and you’re fed an endless drip of sentiment, rage, and entertainment.  Endless.  Everyone has an opinion, everyone is an asshole.  Perhaps it’s better to shut it off and think better of humanity.

Withdrawal takes about a month.  If you make it that long, you can go forever.  It’s funny; when I pull out my phone these days, I can check email and that’s about it.  I still have that nicotine urge for something to occupy and entertain me, but I recognize the occasion of sin and I simply don’t light up.  This must be the life of an ex-smoker.

A high-powered and very successful sales rep I know shared the story of one of his more eccentric customers over dinner.  He described meeting the customer’s wife at a reception and she related more of the customer’s character.  She told of times on weekend mornings where she’d find him in his study, staring off into space.  “What are you doing?”  “Thinking.”  This so surprised the sales rep that he was sharing it with me; still in disbelief.  Why was he shocked?  Do people not think?

My new car has a six disc CD player.  A 10GB hard drive.  A media slot.  A connector in the glove compartment connected to an old iPod.  Bluetooth.  The ability to play satellite radio should I choose to subscribe.  I can, therefore, provide for myself.  On my recent two hour commute to the airport, I remembered the AM/FM radio and gave it a spin around the dial.  The journey took five minutes.  Thirteen channels of shit to choose from indeed.  I turned it off.  All of it.  Instead, I listened to the wind buffeting the car as I sped silently downstream, south, through the night.

I thought of nothing.  I thought of the sound of the wind.  It didn’t whistle; it sporadically sand blasted the car, nudging it slightly off course here and again.  It was a strong wind.  I thought of the day ahead.  Of the days behind.  I solved problems and prepared.  I debated key points with those who were not present to present their counterpoints.  Naturally I won those.

I travel often in my career.  Long drives, long flights, long weeks in hotels and customer conference rooms.  When I’m in a group, when I’m on stage, I’m capable of talking for hours (days even).  It’s my job: I help people understand the workings and value of complex solutions to complex problems. But in the hotel, on the plane.  In the comings and goings and waitings and movings, I like the silences between the notes.

Some of us can’t bear silence.  Some of us have never tried.  Entire lives are occupied from Good Morning America through the babble of shock-jocks and jock-talk into the evening news, through sitcoms and reality-show ejections from the tribe, into boy-wonder Jimmy Fallon’s goodnight schtick, turning on the sounds of surf, Mrs. Montag’s bees buzzing in her ear cans, rocking us gently to sleep.

But we can’t all need the noise.  I would guess (I’m being generous) that not even five percent of us need the noise.  The noise is for those who truly can’t deal.  But like a government program, it’s there, and it’s free, and it beats the hell out of thinking or doing for yourself.  And as a result, the 80/20 is reversed: those that don’t need are addicted anyway, and we’re left with mediocrity.

When faced with silence, embrace it.  Sit on a rock in the woods.  Look, listen.  Smell.  What month is it?  Which flowers are in bloom?  How many birds are there chattering back and forth at 5:00AM? 

The world is between the notes.  Become a musician.

Car of the Decade

Over the last few years, as my beloved Audi A8 has had her fits and starts (stops?) and required more attention, I've taken to window-shopping for her eventual replacement, with many a vehicle passing through my curious inclination as the "Car of the Week."

Oh, I've ranged near and far, considering everything from a newer A8 to a Cadillac CTS Wagon, from an older TT Convertible (just for the sheer impractical fun of it) to a Mercedes R-wagon, from an A5 to a Toyota Venza.

You get the picture.  Weird and wonderful, that's what I like.

A recent business trip had me returning late of a rainy evening on my commute from Boston Logan International Airport, swimming north through the moat of New Hampshire which borders and protects these wooded lands of Maine, when what to my wandering eyes should appear but a new light flickering on my Christmas tree of a dashboard. 

Oh, Saint Nicholas, it's the battery!

Not good.  I've been through this before, when I ended up stranded six miles from home.  At that time, a tow to a local shop and a morning visit showed the car simply to have desired the night off, as she fired right up.  I drove her home and went on with life.  It was as if the previous night's little tiff had never happened.  We both agreed to bury the past and not bring it up again. 

Until last week.

Different conditions, same result.  Despite my shutting down all unnecessary systems like the radio, the heater, the fog lights, etc., she decided to give up half a mile from the exit I'd targeted for its convenient Marriott Residence Inn and a place to spend the night.  Two and a half hours later, I'd been towed that final mile and crawled into bed.  While waiting for the tow operator to get me, I had time and phone battery enough to go car shopping through the south Portland dealerships' respective web-sites. 

Years of Car of the Week dreaming (and a fair amount of saving) translated into decisive action as I phoned up one dealer who happened to have the most recent contenders in stock and at a reasonable price.  I asked if he could bring it on by my temporary abode for a test drive. Three hours and a bit of negotiation later, I'd checked out of the hotel, had the A8 on yet another flatbed, and pointed the long nose of my new Car of the Decade toward home.

Here she is, a 2011 Mercedes E350 4matic "Sport."  Palladium Silver with black leather, as a German car should be. 

I call her the Car of the Decade because, given my history with the A8, a decade is a reasonable assumption of ownership for me.  But who knows?  I had the A8's predecessors for about 2 years each.  One relationship ended due to mistrust; the other due to miscommunication in an intersection.

The A8?  She's in the driveway with a fresh battery in her, though in need of attention to either the battery cables or, more likely, the alternator.  The battery was officially dead-dead, but replaced by Autozone under warranty.  That hasn't solved all problems, giving me more projects to tackle once my back permits me to do some labor.  The Quintissential Quattro Thousand Dollar Car (QQ-TDC for short) will live to drive another day, and will likely continue to be my airport car most of the time, keeping the miles on the 'Merc reasonably low.  That and the eldest Toadrollerette has her driving permit.  What safer car than an over-engineered and entirely depreciated Audi for her to hone her driving skills in?

Ah, Craisins

I love raisins, "nature's candy."

But over the last few years, and partly due to the volume based discounts available at Sam's Club, I've become partial to Craisins.  Cranberries are from my region of the country; Maine/NH/Mass(holes).  Craisins are the cranberry equivalent to raisins.  Dried cranberries?  Dried grapes?  Not much competition, honestly.

If you've never been to Fresno, California, go.  My first (and only, now that I think about it) trip to Fresno was on business.  My flight took me from Denver (where I used to live, and might someday live again.   Oh, Denver pulls at me every few months) into Fresno.  I turned to the person next to me on my flight (gosh, this must have been 2003/2004) and remarked at the incredible sights as we were getting close to landing.  "Oh, you mean Yosemite?"  ..pregnant pause...dope-slap... "oh.  of course."*     I had dinner in a local restaurant that had once been a Chili's.  (How do Chilis franchises go out of business?  Well, in 2004 I can't comprehend it.  Of late, though, I wonder how they stay in business).  A mother in the booth next to me was loudly on her cell phone, talking to her divorce lawyer, with her teenage daughter and friend in-booth with her.

It's funny what you hold on to from business travel.

The next morning I traveled south for an hour through raisin country.  Sun-maid signs here and there along the highway.  If it had been corn, I would have thought I was in Ohio.But the smell of drying grapes was raisins.

But I was in northern California for, of all things, a sales call.

If you don't know me, I am and am not a sales-person.  I'm a pre-sales engineer.  I'm the techie guy in the technology sales process.  I know what the product does; the sales-guy sells it.  The customer asks, "Can it do it?"; the sales-guy says, "Sure!  Dennis (that's me), show him, and I say, (to myself) "What?" and then to the customer, "Yes, of course, watch this," and proceed to demonstrate my product.

Anyway, the customer made prescription cattle-feed.  I had a product configuration tool.  For a whopping $20k transaction, my product helped them cost-effectively and time effectively (instantaneously, as opposed to 3 days) quote, manufacture, and deliver prescription cattle-feed for individual dairy cows.  Yes, that's right, I helped cost-optimize the construction of dairy cattle feed.  What of it?  From happy cows comes happy milk, or cheese, or whatever California dairy-product you desire.  If there weren't so many regulations, the industry wouldn't have hand to find a new way to compete.  Economics, my friends, economics.  Anyway, that was my meeting, and that was my trip to Fresno.  I'm guessing.  I hope to return some day.

Oh yeah.  Craisins.

I challenge you.  Have a box of raisins.  Then have a handful of craisins. You won't be able to go back.  Craisins are to raisins what Audi is to VW, what photography is to a cartoon, what a gin martini is to vodka.  Another class.

Try some.

Especially with your RiceChex breakfast cereal. When you're celiac, this is q quick breakfast.



*I remind myself of a woman who sat next to me flying into Boston. See this post: travel

Some recent travel observations

Every once in a while I'm forced to resign my hermit lifestyle to venture and stroll among the rest of America in all its secular glory.  Last week I spent time in Washington DC and San Francisco, CA, with a couple of layovers in Denver International Airport en route.  Here are some of my observations of spending many hours dealing with airlines not named Southwest:

JetBlue was able to notify me of my impending flight and upsell me a few offers via email, but they weren't able to tell me that my flight was delayed until I saw it on the departure monitors at the airport. 

I'll skip the long story about attempting to determine my options by calling them (let's just say that their phone number is not on their tickets, and really only is set up to sell new tickets).  The lady at the counter was happy to sell me a ticket direct to Baltimore (not my orignal destination but, ironically, closer to my next day's meeting location) for a $40 change-fee and a full appraisal of what she would do if she were in my shoes.  Not that I asked.

Call me negative, but here I was getting emergency travel advice from someone who should have had the empowerment and serving attitude to help me, but was limited to policies and her best guess at what she would do.  She told the customer at the station next to me what she would do if she were him.  It turns out that he couldn't change his ticket from tomorrow to today without a $100 change fee and the difference in fees until 12:01 am when it would no longer be the next day and since the flight he wanted to change to was the same flight I wanted to get off of and it was delayed until 11:30 but the inbound flight hadn't left Ft Lauderdale yet, I mean really!, it probably wouldn't get in until at least 12:01AM anyway and what she would do was maybe wait until it came in but then he'd have to stay in the airport for a while and if it did come in early he'd still have... I stopped paying attention after she handed my my boarding pass and receipt for the change fee.  She was mid-thirties; nice teeth.  I had assumed she was pro-actively helpful and empowered to serve customers as she saw fit to the benefit of the customer and the organization and its reputation... but I assumed wrong.

Asif, the cab-driver who took me to the Holiday Inn Express downtown Baltimore (highly recommended!), asked after my travels and offered a card and a discount if I wanted him to carry me to Dulles the next day.  I had schemes of catching a ride to Baltimore, taking the train to DC's central station, then another train and a bus to Dulles...  My customers recommended I not do that, so I gave Asif a call. 

He arrived five minutes early, took me to Dulles, gave me a discount and I more than happily made up for it with the tip.  Best part of my trip.

United's check in terminals will attempt to upsell you multiple offers before you can get to the simple task of (hoplessly) attempting to change your seat* or printing your boarding pass.  Be careful, as they're not ashamed to default you into accepting the offer, which you might only realize when they ask you for a credit card number.  Back!  Back!

United's seats are uncomfortable.  From the distant past came the memory of a habit I had developed when contantly flying United from Denver to points east and west.  I'd grab a pillow from an overhead compartment and slip it under my thighs.  That served the dual purpose of improving the seat's (lack of) comfort and kept me from slipping forward off of it during the flight. 

They no longer provide pillows in the overhead compartments of United flights.

At Dulles Airport, they've replaced some of the moon-buggie routes to the concourses with a high speed train (like in Denver and Atlanta and other airports) from the main terminal.  At what I'm sure was exhorbitant taxpayer expense, you now have the pleasure of going through security with all passengers of all airlines, then walking a not-insignificant distance to an escalator to the train platform.  A run on the train leaves you with an escalator up and then a much more significant non-insignificant hike and people-mover stroll to get to the concourse. 

The moon-buggies took you door-to-door, terminal-to-concourse.  Sure they were dorky and weird; sure they were a huge vehicle designed solely for Dulles; but that capital has been sunk.  Why build a train?  You drive by a lot of fifty or so of those things.  Surely there's enough material there to have them last for another twenty years or so.  If this were Cuba, it would be good forever.

Shure's SE115 headphones, the in-ear type with foam padding to seal the ears, absolutely rock for shutting out the engine noise of airplanes.  I've used variations on ear-plugs through the years, but these take the cake and can usually be found for $70 on Amazon.

The best restaurant in the Denver International Airport's B (United) concourse is Pour la France.  Their Martinis are filled to the brim; they did not card me as they could probably tell just by looking at me that I'm over the age of twenty-one; they brought the check quickly so I could move on to my next flight.  The food is very good.

I caught up on last season's sit-coms and a few movies in flight.  Let's just say that they made Two and a Half Men look like a family show.** 

San Jose Airport has sort of improved its rental car process with a fancy new building and a shuttle bus to it.  I did, however, have to walk an even more significant non-insignificant distance from my gate to the point at which I could pick up the rental car shuttle, which drove me a distance shorter than the one I hiked to catch the bus.

Rental car:  Toyota Corolla.  It works.  Nice stereo- great bass response- tight and detailed.  It was parked in the middle of a row of Mazda 5's, which I really (really!) want to drive.  I didn't get one.

Seeing the half-moon floating above Half-moon Bay is pretty.  Well named. 

I was really zoned out when I checked into the Hilton San Francisco Airport.  I noticed the wall behind the counter was orange.  No, blue.  No, green. 
     "Is that thing changing color?" 
     "Yes, it is."
     "Okay then.    ...Does that drive you nuts?"
     "Yes, it does."

Speaking of which, I wonder if they've charged me for the on-site parking, which was a non-optional $18/day.  It wasn't on my checkout receipt.

United (no, I'm not finished with them yet), after attempting cross, up, and side selling me a few times, pulled me out of line to measure my suitcase.    It fit in their little template, though it stuck up about an eigth of an inch over the top.
     "We'll have to check that sir"
     "Seriously?  It fits.  I've only been carrying it on flights for a year now."
     ""  (which represents her silent non-answer to my question).
This gate agent reached for the bag as I was pulling it out of their template.  It pinched her finger but good.***  So that sealed the deal.  My bag could, she said as she slapped my claim check into my hand, be picked up at the caroussel in Dulles when I got there.  Looking back, it was about as close as she could get to saying go to hell; go to Dulles! I'm glad I wasn't headed to Newark.

Normally I'd have been glad to let them take my bag (since they charge $20 or more for a checked bag), but this meant that I now had to go out through security to baggage claim, and then take the security and train route back into my concourse.

At Denver International Airport, I got to Pour la France just after the kitchen closed.  No dinner for me.  The martini was still superb.  No pressure.  Finish your martini as they cash out the till and stack chairs on the bar next to you.  It was still 10:20.  I had ten minutes.

I actually fell asleep on my red-eye from Denver to Dulles.  That is until Mr. Flight Attendant bumped me with his $7.00 each box-meal cart an hour and a half into the flight.  I was awake from then on.  More crappy sit-coms.  Okay, 30 Rock was funny.

You know what?  Airport wi-fi thoughput is pretty good at 5:30 in the morning, when there's no competition for the bandwidth.  I watched The Big Lebowski though Netflix streaming.  I gotta say, "meh."  Goodman's character freaked me out.  But there was a scene in a diner where I did a double-take.  Was that Aimee Mann?  Googled it.  Yep.  Who knew?  Sorry about the toe.

Getting closer to Boston, the lady in 33C (which is my way of complaining about being in seat 33B.  There was a row 34, so it could have been worse) tapped my shoulder.  I pulled the Shure SE115s from my ears and she repeated... 
     "What time do you have?  Is there a time zone change from DC?"
     "It' s 9:30.  No, there isn't a time zone change"

A few minutes later another tap, another removal of the SE115s, and she repeated...
     "Is that the ocean?"
     "...Have you ever landed in Boston?"
     "No...  Oh, there's the land over there.  I was getting worried."
     "Well, I'll warn you now.  When we land, we'll be over water until the last second.  I mean, we'll be just a couple hundred feet above the water and it will look like we're landing in the water.  Just so you know."
     "Okay.  ...Thanks."

Back on solid ground in Topsfield, MA, at the Friendlys, where I hoped to get some breakfast, my high-schooler waiter apprised me that the breakfast kitchen was closed and the lunch menu was active, but if I knew of such and such a local eatery, they serve breakfast all day- just the other side of the highway. 

Lesson learned: when the waiter advises you to go elsewhere for food, pack your bags.

Of course, packing my bags is what got me in all this trouble in the first place.


* Exit row seats are now a $15 surcharge!  I shit you not!
** Seriously, is this what people tune in to watch?  I remember being embarassed by Brady' Bunch during my childhood.  I couldn't help wondering what Russian spies would report back to the Kremlin about American culture.  Something like "Nothing to worry about Comrades, their minds are mush.  That Marcia's cute though.  It's a good thing she works for us."
*** I did apologize right as it happened.  But she was now determined.