Yesterday I walked out to my car and discovered someone had parked on the street blocking the driveway! This is a fairly quiet residential street which has parking on both sides and there were perhaps four cars parked on the entire block (every house has a driveway). There was a woman on the neighbor's front porch about to enter the house, and I called to her and asked if that was her car. "Oh, do you need to go somewhere?" Um, yes, thanks? So she gets into her car, backs up twenty feet along the curb (into a totally legal parking spot!!!), lets me out, and then pulls forward to exactly where she was, completely blocking the driveway, gets out, and goes back to the neighbor's house.

WTF?

Today, the pushy kid who comes around every couple weeks asking to do odd jobs came to the door while I was on the phone on a call that couldn't be interrupted, especially for pushy-kid who always just comes over and demands to be given an odd-job (and $$$) and won't take "sorry, but J isn't home, and I don't know when he will be" for an answer until the third or fourth iteration, at which he tends to storm off unhappily. He rang the bell. And again. And again. And again. And knocked. And knocked. And rang. And pounded. And pounded harder. And then, for all the world, it sounded like he took a running kick at the door. The windows rattled. I finally got off the phone, and things had been silent for a minute. He was, thankfully, gone.

If he comes back, I'm uncertain whether I should point out that his actions were inappropriate and unwelcome or what.

In addition to my thought that signing Pedro Martinez is an incredibly bad decision by the Phillies, I'm sad for another odd reason: he's going to lose at least one game this season.

Right now, his career record is 214-99. Even if he's terrible this season, he'll still have an impressive career record. But it won't look so amazing, with three digits of losses. He's also got a very outside shot of ballooning his career ERA (2.91) over 3.00 if he pitches like he did last season and the Phillies give him enough innings (say, 13 starts, 6 innings a start, 4.5 earned runs a start). Sigh. I wish Pedro had just retired after, say, 2006. He could've been remembered as a Sandy Koufax. But instead he'll be just another legend who stuck around long enough to be remembered for mediocre seasons with a patchwork of teams.

Just about every baseball player I liked growing up has retired. I'll be glad when they all have, so I no longer stumble across articles like this occasionally.

Does Dreamwidth have a possible future which is not

either
(a) a few hardcore adopters and some number of "eh, may as well sign up to protect my username", resulting in the site never taking off and most LJ users generally just becoming really annoyed with it

or
(b) a user community of critical mass is created, leading to a modest exodus from LJ and continued growth over time which eventually accelerates to the point that Dreamwidth's creators sell out to Six Apart/Russia/Microsoft/whatever

...?

Speaking of by-invitation websites which seem to offer more invite codes than get used, I still have 50 invitations to GMail....

Anyone have experience with either of the LG enV3 or LG 8360 phones?

Bold notice on a box of "Enoz Old Fashioned Moth Balls: Kills Clothes Moths, Eggs and Larvae":

NOT FOR USE TO CONTROL SQUIRRELS, BATS AND BIRDS IN THE HOME.

... I'm stupified.

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I wonder if Brother would sell more personal laser printers if they sold them at Petco, labeled "cat beds, with special bonus feature: capable of USB printing!" or some such. Because that's basically what mine is.

The squash outnumber the lettuce these days, which is a universally good thing.

I feel sad for all the people in Boston, because we've had such great weather here in Philly for the past couple weeks and seem unable to share it with y'all.

***

Recent movies:

Love, Actually and Gosford Park are still every bit as delicious as ever.

Waydowntown is ... I'm still trying to find something to like about this movie, but I didn't really dislike it. It just ... was. It was billed as being similar in ways to Office Space but I didn't really see any resemblance at all, and certainly can't vouch for the "If you liked... then you'll probably like..." description. I'm really curious about what I'll think of The Office, which I've heard described as similar to both.

Slumdog Millionaire was brilliant. My first Bollywood (and not a typical example, I've been told). Mumbai is nearly twice as populous as greater-New-York. I really can't wrap my head around this. India baffles me, and I should learn more about it.

Ostre Sledované Vlaky (Closely Watched Trains) was beautiful. Very much looking forward to a second viewing--and not just for the many, many trains--and to reading the book. I'm not quite sure I get Czech film, but I liked it a lot.

And yet Czechoslovakia doesn't baffle me nearly so much as India, even though I've never been there and haven't really got any solid knowledge of Czech/Slavic culture or food, while I am at least pretty well versed in Indian cuisine. I am so totally a white person....

(It now occurs to me that I don't even have the foggiest idea whether this movie is more Czech or more Slavic...)

***

There's really no wrong way to cook a potato. Speaking of which, it's lunchtime.

η ... like cheese fries, with Jarlsberg, Gouda, and "German Mountain Cheese" (Trader Joe's). Yum! Fancy cheeses make cheese fries healthy, right?

All in one day, 21 July 1861. As seen on 29 June 2009, on a visit with my parents. Link to the full photo set on Flickr, where larger versions are available



1. The Confederates expected the Union to cross Bull Run on the Stone Bridge. But the Union crossed further north at Sudley Springs and marched south. Mid-march, their already-fixed bayonets reflected the dawn light and were seen be an observation tower more than six miles south. The Union position was conveyed immediately by flags, and a few hundred Confederate soldiers rushed westwards to meet a force of over 10,000 Union men.



Confederate view from Henry's Hill of initial Union advance across Miller's Hill.

2. The small Confederate defending infantry force retreats eastward towards Robinson's Hill, pursued by part of the massive Union force. The Union artillery and rest of the infantry continue south to establish a line on the west side of Henry's Hill under General Ricketts. Meanwhile, Confederate artillery advances from Richmond under General Jackson and sets up a line on the east side of Henry's Hill. Judith Henry's farmhouse is between them.



Confederate view defending their rear during retreat, at Robinson's Hill. There was no time to entrench, so the rear guard took what defensive cover they could from trees and fences.



Confederate view forward during retreat, heading south down Robinson's Hill. General Jackson's artillery line offers safety if they can reach it.

3. General Jackson's artillery line, once established holds steady, like a stone wall. The small force of Confederate defenders reaches safety behind it and joins a larger Confederate infantry there, while the Union soldiers turn to the west to rally behind their artillery, passing the Henry farmhouse. Confederate infantry pursue them and take control of the farmhouse, using it as shelter from which to fire on the Union artillery.





Stonewall Jackson's artillery.

4. Two of the Union cannon, on the south end of their line, stray too far east beyond their line towards the Confederate line and are spotted. A small force of Virginian infantry observe the cannon are not facing them....



The Virginians' view southwest towards the stray Union cannon. A few hundred infantry charge and take the artillery before it can be wheeled around to defend itself.

5. From this advanced position, the Confederates can fire and advance north directly up the line of General Rickett's Union artillery!



General Rickett's artillery seen from the Confederate forces advancing from the south. The artillery is helplessly still facing Jackson's Confederate artillery to the east. Henry's farmhouse is just north of these cannon.

6. The Confederates capture the Union artillery line. These cannon change hands twice more during the afternoon. After returning to Confederate control, the Union army retreats hastily, rushing past picnicking Washingtonians who had come down during the afternoon to witness what they believed would be the only battle of the war, easily won by the Union.



Henry's Hill, seen from the north as the Union army defends its rear during the retreat. The Confederate forces were too tired to pursue, but they had won the Union artillery as spoils. Henry's farmhouse was in ruins: having been used by Confederate sharpshooters for defense, Ricketts ordered his artillery to shell the house. He didn't realize there were civilians inside.

Judith Henry becomes the first civilian casualty of the Civil War. Thomas J. Jackson earns glory and the name Stonewall. And the Union realizes the war will not be short.

(As they say in Portland, Oregon.)

I decided to take a very last-minute trip to meet my parents in Virginia for a just-after my-birthday/their-anniversary get-together, after leaning against it last week.

So, I pretty much get to have my cake and eat it too, what with getting both this and a nice party at Mark's on Friday. (Well, no cake there. But homemade ice cream!)

I love the travel logistics games when they must be completely re-worked on the fly. But I think my parents are a little less fond of that one, generally.

Happily, I came up with a way to pitch this trip's changes in ways that were positive for them (as well as, in different and unmentioned ways, for me), and that went over well. Go me!

I like short paragraphs today.

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Luther at the Movies offers an interesting theological comparison of Chocolat and Babette's Feast. I agree with Luther, Babette's Feast is fundamentally the better film, for reasons not limited to its theological consistency and tone.

But Luther fails to mention how wonderful are the Django Reinhardt tunes in the Chocolat soundtrack. Nor does he observe that watching Chocolat while eating dark chocolate truffles has a certain je ne sais quoi which I'm sure watching Babette's Feast while eating quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce would lack.

... And then we film it. That's the whole concept.

My life is unaquatic, but sometimes when unexpected things happen my senses film everything, and in quiet moments the footage is replayed, recut, repaced, and scripted with a clever narrative voiced by Ira Glass.

Who's your documentary narrator? Or am I alone in this craziness?

Watched Barbarella last night.

Hilariously bad dialogue. Surprisingly good visuals. Overall tremendously fun. I could say so much more, but let's leave it at that. *grin*

Lumberjack Smoothie

1 part Irish Creme
1 part Root Beer Schnapps

15 Aug 2009 
dep.BOS 12:00noon EDT 
arr.SFO 3:25pm PDT

23 Aug 2009
dep.SFO 2:00pm PDT
arr.BOS 10:50pm EDT

Virgin
direct flights each way
$319.20 total cost

All I really know here is that I have succeeded in (a) not having to wake up at 4am to catch a 6am flight from BOS, (b) minimizing my number of flights and airports and transfers, (c) managing to schedule a pre-midnight return to BOS, and (d) getting this all for a price lower than any other itinerary found with multiple transfers, much less nonstop and at good times. So I think I did well made out like a bandit here. Not that I really know beans about flying.

There are some interesting plans for getting to Acadia in the works. They're actually pretty awesome. (This is assuming on-going unemployment. But hey, that's a safe assumption, right?)

My big by-train trip to and across Massachusetts wound up being a fantastic road-trip with sparklycricket, preceded by a few days of--I feel an odd cross between horrified and gleeful at using this word--staycation at her place.

Concertino was great, though we took a four six hour side-trip to Amherst on Saturday afternoon to drop off my squeezebox for repairs. Massachusetts highway signage could stand a bit of standardization. Also, Western Mass wins some sort of prize for "most inappropriate use of roundabouts ever" in several places.

So, not really enough time at the con nor enough energy at the con, but a great time nonetheless even though I was more-or-less totally non-participatory. I was in an odd mental space and it was what exactly I needed and I got a lot out of it.

Also, we heart Brooke Lunderville, and you will too when you go and have a listen to her music, much of which is available on CC MP3 at the website. Like her sea shanty about LiveJournal.

On Sunday morning there was a big Fathers Day brunch at the convention hotel, and G and I partook, initially unaware of quite how extensive this brunch was. I had five courses, being breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, and cake, in one rather long sitting. Saved us from having to stop on the drive back to Philly, which took barely over five hours as a result!

We took a lovely trip through Yonkers on the return to route us around congestion (as spotted on Google Traffic on my iDevice) which worked out splendidly (detouring off the Hutchinson just south of 87/287 but well north of the Cross-County and Cross-Bronx, mostly taking Palmer Ave across to the Hudson and down straight onto the George Washington, which was totally smooth sailing and fun "small-town" driving as opposed to awful traffic slowness; I'd rather be driving a steady 25mph through small neighborhoods than a stop-and-go 25mph average on highways any day).

"Mmm" is for Mmmalbec at the end of the day.

I will now go through squeezebox withdrawal for a while.

The title/headline and the lead photo in this New York Times article are completely incongruous.

See this News & Advance article for a contrasting perspective on this sort of real estate situation (specifically, five paragraphs from the end). And see here, here, and here for more and better photos.

Mmm, bacon. There are so many good things to do with bacon. However, you may wish to keep a list of "Things Not To Do With Bacon" in your kitchen. Start the list thusly:

Things Not To Do With Bacon
#1. Inhale.

I have a love/hate relationship with travel which tends towards hate as the day of departure arrives. This is made worse when there are things I Should Have Done Yesterday and didn't do. Watch me continue to not do them and feel ever guiltier. ... ... ...

Realistically packing should take twenty minutes. In my mind it takes at least a day. And I will never consider myself properly packed, no matter how thorough I am about things nor how far in advance I pack. If I delay until the last minute, I feel guilt over not having packed yet; if I pack well ahead of time I feel a lingering sense of dread over having not packed well or having forgotten something vital or ... or just dread for no reason at all.

Spotted by someone at an MFL stop, reported on septa:




I've read this five times and cannot stop laughing.

added: Really, "terrified suburbanites who tremble with unease at the sight of everyone", this is possibly the funniest phrase I have ever read. I can't even think it without laughing.

This morning I received my formal invitation to join the American Travelling Morrice! (I was told this was a virtual certainty ten days ago given that its founder nominated me, but it wasn't official until this morning.) The ATM is a morris team which comes together for one week each August to live and dance together, each year in a different location. Most often this is somewhere in New England, but this year it is in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Aside from the obvious complications of getting there and back again (which, thanks to generous morris scholarships will be a lighter burden) there is the logistical complication that the ATM is the week prior to SWIL Vacation: Acadia, necessitating that I miss at least two days on Acadia.

I'm looking into logistical options that would maximize my time on SV:A; "driving to Boston on the 14th, leaving my car somewhere for ten days as I fly out to SF and back, arriving in Boston on the morning of the 24th and driving up to Bar Harbor" seems most likely at this point after a few hours of thinking.

Other options I see include "train up to Boston, [ditto for flights], train-to-bus-to-bus to Bar Harbor", which is both more expensive (~$75 one-way for the Boston to Bar Harbor travel) and reduces time on Acadia by half a day beyond the driving plan and hence is somewhat inferior; and "missing Acadia altogether", which would be very very sad indeed.

So, I ask the Boston-folk here: do you have off-street or safe-and-legal on-street parking where I could leave a car on the 14th and pick it up on the morning of the 24th? In exchange, I can lend you a car for that period.... It would have to be convenient to the airport by public transportation, which is pretty much to say near a subway stop.

And I ask the SV:A-folk here: do you have other suggestions?

And I ask the SF-Bay-folk here: come and see us dance! I'll post a schedule when I have one.

There does exist the (unlikely?) possibility that external constraints will prevent me from taking two weeks of holiday in August, in which case I would have to regrettably (and expensively) back out of SV:A on short notice. In addition to being a marvelous opportunity and tremendous fun, the ATM invitation is also an honor and confers a lifetime membership in a fraternal organization which I must attend to accept, and is an invitation which may not be offered again for some time should I not accept now; as such it takes precedence. I do hope things don't come to that, but at least if it's unavoidable that I miss SV:A it will be because some employer is paying me not to go.

Was looking forward to morris-in-the-park tonight at 6:30, but at about 6:00 the thunder started rumbling and the trees started swaying and the sky had turned from blue to grey. The thunder has been rolling steadily, a very nice perrididdle, just enough to make it not worth it to drive forty minutes or pay for bus/train fare. Sigh.

Feeling schlumpfy in general yesterday and today.

I'm going to feel very dumb if there's no downpour over the next few hours.

EDIT: Downpour. Vindicated.

Dancing was great, lasting from about 7:30pm until nearly 9:00pm, with Ring O'Bells and Bouwerie. There was one minor incident with the Park Police which was more humorous than anything.

There was a dinner outing afterwards, but since I'd already eaten I met up with a friend for dessert and returned on the 1:30am Megabus. Turns out Megabus is very easy to sleep on--an advantage I hadn't figured upon--so I arrived in Philadelphia pretty well rested, and made easy connections to the MFLNO and 113.

It's very refreshing, walking the last few blocks from the 113 home accompanied by birdsong. Still exhausting, though, too.

Under Settings->Keyboard there is now an Auto-Correction toggle. When did that show up?! But it would be better if there were just ways to add words to the dictionary.

Anyway, I can now type Lansdowne. Yay!

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Walked from Chinatown to the High Line. Thought about buying bread and cheese at Dean & Deluca, then realized that I would be passing Myers of Keswick later on my walk, a much better lunch.

Pork & Stilton pie, Shandy Bass, park bench, beautiful day... in a few minutes they'll bring out my curried lamb pie heated up.

Why do we not have lemon soda with 11% beer in this country?

Oh, stopped by Apple Store SoHo and showed a genius the bug. He'd never seen it before and gave me the direct contact info for the development team.

Off to the High Line shortly!

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I just discovered why I always seem to mistype the name of my city: the iPhone does not allow certain letter sequences to be typed. Not that it throws up a suggested correction which you have to refuse, but that not all letters are typable at certain times!

Try typing Lan and then an s, and you may discover, through dragging your finger around on the keyboard, that in this situation you can get a, d, w, e, r, and z, but not s. You have to type some other letter and then backspace and then type s. There appears to be no other way. This is totally inexcusable.

Is this a general OS thing (as in, can others with iPhones try this) or is my phone somehow borked?

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Spent my last token on previous trip.
Boarded 113, paid cash for fare plus transfer.
At 69th, bought tokens.
Used token for turnstyle to the MFL.
Upon boarding train, pulled out transfer ticket and then realized I'd already paid absentmindedly with the token!
Um, now I have a lovely green bookmark?

With luck that will be my last stupid moment of the day!

10:30 Megabus/Eastern Travel bus. Possibly checking out High Line Park this afternoon, then dinner with crystalpyramid, then dancing with Bouwerie (and Ring O'Bells and Half Moon Sword) at Washington Market Park at 7pm, then evening plans :)

Yes, Bouwerie has 8 dancers ready to go again 3 days after an ale.

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In response to this random blog post about Ikea, a comment thread started on Ikea's product names, and led to the following exchange:

In Germany it is widely believed that all those Ikea names are just constructed to amuse Germans. It\’s impossible that they are real Swedish words, you simply cannot have a language that is so funny to Germans by accident (well, Dutch comes close…).

Poäng for example might mean \”Po\” \”äng\” or \”Po\” \”eng\”. Po would be buttocks in English, and \”eng\” means narrow. That cannot be ascribed to coincidence. There was also this children\’s lamp called Fikkar, but that\’s a different story …

... to which came the reply:

You find the Dutch language funny? I am DEEPLY and PROFOUNDLY offended…

When ‘we’ see a small white cat relaxing in a large chair with brown cushions standing on a rug we don’t call it a ‘Kleinweiskatzingrößbraunküssenstuhlamkleit’ or something.

I'll be in NYC this Wednesday. I'm free for dinner around 5pm. From about 6-8pm, Ring O'Bells Morris will be performing somewhere (location TBA, either Brooklyn Promenade or in Tribeca) and the Bouwerie Boys Morris may be dancing with them as well (we're counting noses now). Even if we aren't dancing, I'll be there groupie-ing. You can--and should--too, because Ring O'Bells are marvelous dancers!

I'll also be in NYC this Saturday. I'm going to several Come Out And Play events with reldnahkram and possibly others of you from about 12-4pm, and we will probably meet for lunch somewhere beforehand. Join us--if we plan ahead we can have team-SWIL for a game or two!

If you're interested in either, email or comment and I'll keep you posted on details like where the dancing will be, and you can suggest ideas for Wednesday dinner or Saturday lunch.

Peter Bellamy is awesome. Why did it take me over a month since getting several albums of his to start listening? Oh yeah, so many other recent awesome music acquisitions. Well, all of this stuff just keeps being wow-tastic. (Ok, and I did listen to all the Young Tradition stuff earlier, just not his various solo stuff. Which means I was already a fan of Heather Wood's when I met her this weekend, and hence nearly lost my balance when she started singing a lovely harmony line when I was leading a song. I mean, wow--that's one of those moments that will always be a fond memory.)

I'm glad the gi-normous thunderstorm was this morning, and is not scheduled for a reprise tomorrow morning when I am heading to NYC. What a wake-up call that was!

From about 3pm Thursday until Sunday evening I will be off the internet, off the cellular network (ok, not unusual given that I have AT&T), and off the grid at the Suds, where

... rich or poor, we all take joy in the opportunity to come together and display our prowess, share our relatively good fortune, and display to the Public the arcane but always relevant art of the Morris. Being clever souls, we recognize the value of this not only for ourselves and our Teams, but for the local citizenry clamoring for such a display of unselfish Good Will and the resultant temporary ecstasy it yields. Indeed, the dancing will be fine, the fellowship will be profound, and we will go home at the end richer in so many ways.

And where

... we will live in the field like happy little rodents, finding food aplenty, important and life-sustaining drink at the ready, and all of it available without Darwinian competition nor any extraordinary effort on our parts. We commune with the other beasts of Nature large and small both on the ground and in the air, sharing our love of life whilst soberly realizing the ephemeral nature of such opportunity.

Perhaps I will decide, as I return richer in so many ways, to cast my phone from the train and to never turn my computer on again. This is unlikely, much as it really does sound like a delightful state of affairs to me.

I suspect there will be several more beer reviews come Monday, post Sxpfutc (Suds). For now, the two I picked up at Foodery for myself were Old Speckled Hen (an old favorite, and which I still enjoy) and an Elderberry Black Ale (a novelty). Unfortunately, the Elderberry proved novel but less satisfying. I far prefer Blackberry Wheat Beer, to which this was (it turns out) not at all similar. I will remain cautious of other berry beers.

Yesterday, two LJ friends (who are not themselves friends) coincidentally posted thoughts on religious upbringing and observances.

Today, two other LJ friends (likewise) coincidentally posted thoughts on difficulties with the writing process.

Perhaps one of your other LJ friends (whom I don't know) is simultaneously posting about odd synergies on the friends page, or possibly also recently posted about cats and toasters....

Some mornings I have cereal (Trader Joe's vanilla almond crunch). Other mornings I have waffles (Trader Joe's frozen waffles). Having occasionally bought cereals and waffles at Giant, Acme, or Genuardis, I've found both of these are tastier and about half the price of similar products at other supermarkets. Eggos are tremendously inferior. Ok, done shilling.

On toaster-waffle mornings, Random loves to sit and watch the toaster, waiting for the *sproing*. He even gets to see it twice, since I find it easier to just toast the waffles twice than futz with the toaster settings. Besides, more entertainment for Random that way, and more entertainment for me watching Random that way. (Oh, and the toaster is on the floor in a corner of the dining room for various reasons including "there's limited counter and outlet space in the kitchen" and "this way Random gets a better view".)

This morning I had waffles, but I guess I did my kitchen routines in a different order and Random wasn't paying attention when the waffles were toasting. (I'm out of orange juice, so I just made coffee to start with. Random hates the coffee grinder, and always leaves the kitchen for that minute, then returns. I've always assumed this is a high-pitched noise thing, but Finster is unphased by the coffee grinder so perhaps not.)

Random eventually sauntered back and dutifully stood at attention, gaze affixed on the toaster the whole while I was eating my waffles. (I can only presume he associates my taking something out of the freezer in the morning with the toaster. Cats are generally intelligent on that level of association-making, in my experience.) I tried to tell him he was too late, but he didn't seem to understand. I felt so guilty! I wondered if I should put another waffle in the toaster, just for him. But I didn't--then I'd feel compelled to eat it, and I really don't need a third waffle.

But now I feel sad for Random, for whom I have always thought this ritual must hold some fascination and enjoyment given his behavior. Such are the odd moments of having cats.

Reading all of Amphigorey (no, I'd never read most of these).
Salmon, frites, asparagus, and maize.
Old Speckled Hen.
The first several chapters of Dune (and counting; no, I've never read this either).
Tawny port.

Life is like a box of chocolates: sometimes you get the toffee one you want on the very first try.

Leaving Thursday for a morris ale. Back Monday, maybe?

Teh internets are full of great ideas, like going to restaurants and ordering veggie burgers with bacon. (This is reportedly fun to do on Amtrak.)

1. Go to credit card online payment site
2. Observe ridiculously high balance on card?!?
3. Review recent credit card activity
4. Discover 17 fraudulent charges totaling $1676.10 from 14-19 May!!!!!
5. Call it in
6. Try to remember how to use cash for the next week or so until new card arrives

This is the second time I've gone through this in fifteen years of having plastic money (the first time was with a bank debit card, one single charge from a crook who hit thousands of people on the same day for the exact same charge; it was well-reported on the internet). Is this a typical rate of card fraud? Low? High?

Ask and receive? Questionable Content seems to have started a new "now with real plot!" storyline this week, returning to Pintsize and friends, Marten, and introducing a new character. Yay--that's like five minutes per week upgraded from ho-hum to fun!

Monday afternoon, leaving Tampa: 86 ° F and sunny
Tuesday afternoon, arriving Philadephia: 51 ° F and gray

I'm starting to understand why Florida is a popular travel destination.

Not by security, but by me. It appears I do not have hand sanitizer. (Among other things.)

But I do have: cat claw clippers, a tape measure, a full sheet of Forever stamps, scotch tape, a $1 Venetian chip, an ID from Moore College on a retractable cable, and RealD 3D glasses. And SWAPA 322. (Among other other things.)

So I'm prepared for most eventualities. Suggest situations that might call for several, many, or even all of these items!

I'm also now on a bus from Tampa to Sarasota. The train was right on time.

Florida is, just to confirm what we learned eight years ago, "flatter than Fred is white". Except ... for the roadbed of the Seaboard Air Line, which is often elevated by several feet. And what a difference that, plus the height of being in a train car, makes, compared to the views from I-4! (The steady 79 MPH also compared favorably, I might add.)

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Diner 8552, built in 1948 by Pullman for the Northern Pacific's North Coast Ltd as car 453, rebuilt by Budd in 1954 and renumbered 461, acquired by Amtrak in 1971 and renumbered 8552, interior rebuilt by Temoinsa in the late 1980s.

( Thai curry chicken and more... )
This year's menu is yet another improvement.

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