Seat controls in business class… Awesome! My first time in the upstairs of a 747…
Cue the Jaws theme…
I don’t actually know what they do at the Family Simulation Centre, but it just might explain a lot about Canadians…
UPDATED a few weeks later… so, it’s a simulation centre named for the Allan Waters Family, not a ‘family simulation centre’ at all. I’m both relieved and disappointed…
Thanksgiving Toronto style … Duck poutine pizza at Bannock.
Annoyed at the stupidity of it all, the cab driver said “he is no walkway.”
First real snow of the season.
The CN Tower
On yesterday’s flight to Toronto, I experienced a whole new kind of delay. They managed to overfill the fuel tanks, so fuel was dripping off one wing. The pilot had a problem with that, and called for a paper towel.
He got two fire trucks, a police SUV, and about eight maintenance guys to supervise the official paper towel guy, who also came equipped with the optional scoop of kitty litter to make sure that no jet fuel soaked into the ground water.
I would estimate the original spill in the neighborhood of a cup or two. When I think about all those engines idling for the 20 or so minutes it took to clean everything up, I’m pretty sure we used a lot more than that…not to mention the incident reports that would no doubt be written and the debriefing session that will be held at a later date.
Marx in Soho
Last night we went to see Brattleboro’s own Jerry Levy performing Howard Zinn’s play Marx in Soho. It’s a partly entertaining and partly didactic show about what ol’ Karl might have said if he reappeared in Soho (New York not London due to a bureaucratic mixup) in 1991 after watching humanity screw up his teachings for 150 years.
Levy’s a retired sociology professor, and obviously this subject matter is near and dear to his heart. He’s been performing this show around the country and in Europe for ten years.
I thought he did a great job inhabiting the curmudgeonly spirit of Marx, and I learned a little bit about him and his era. I might have dozed once or twice (embarrassing in the front row) but was glad I went.
With apologies to Edgar Rice Burroughs…
John Carter, grizzled veteran of the informatics wars, woke up from a restful night bivouacked beneath a down comforter in the nearby Hilton. He had only one goal that morning, a quest that he would complete at any cost: the search for a good caffe latte. Glancing at the sidewalk he was confronted by a strange sight, a series of brass arcs etched into the concrete. Looking about for clues, he espied a carefully lettered sign reading “American Geophysical Union.” He returned to contemplation of the mysterious traceries in the pavement and eventually realized that the strange symbols represented the orbits of the planets! Triangulating carefully, he realized that he was nearly standing on the planet Mars. What race of graying, bespectacled men might have laid these symbols for anyone to see? Would our world ever see their likes again?
In DC this week for AMIA meeting. I walked downtown in the chilly wind before the sessions got underway. I didn’t get too close to the White House in case the fence might have chosen that moment to fall down completely.
I know! I know! I’m ready to make an accusation. It was the cat, in the kitchen, with the knife.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 