Three Things Make a Post

Thing the First: Holidays
I hope you all had a happy Bloomsday, and are looking forward to a particularly festive Juneteenth.

For myself, this is one of the less impressive Father's Days I've had, since I had to get up at oh-dark-hundred to get to the airport for an 8 AM flight to lovely Orlando. (And, as long as I'm complaining, let me mention that I'll miss Thing 1's 8th-grade graduation ceremony on Tuesday, as well.) Woe, woe is me; I am made of woe. Someone pass me some ashes, and give me a hand over here rending my garments.

Thing the Second: Automobiles
Down here in Orlando, I'm driving a Ford something-or-other (whatever the full-size car is these days) that's probably supposed to be wine-colored, or dark purple, or something along those lines. But, to me, it looks exactly like the color of a bruise.

I'll try to get a picture of it with my iPod camera, and upload that once I'm back home.

I don't mind it as a car -- it's bigger than I'm used to, and the back window is too small, but it gets the job done. It's just that the color is more and more disconcerting as I go on; it's looking more and more thuggish by the moment.

Thing the Third: Amateurs
I never hate humanity more than when I fly, and the higher the proportion of people who don't know how to fly, the worse it is. Being stuffed into a metal tube with a hundred strangers is bad enough, but when those stranger don't even understand metal-tube etiquette, it's much worse.

I was particularly annoyed at the family who didn't realize that their toddler would be much happier sucking on something (to help pop the tyke's delicate ears) on the descent -- and even the kid knew what would help, since the rugrat was clearly screaming "baba" all the way down. The baby was in pain, and all the rest of us were annoyed -- perhaps it's a minor failure of parenting, but it's still a failure.

Amateur flyers don't know how to get on or off planes, or how (and when) to sit down. They don't know how to move through an airport. They never get out of anyone's way.

And I am now in Orlando, the Mecca of the amateur flyer, staying at a tourist hotel and commuting to a conference in a giant hotel/convention center that's about half tourist itself.

The only bright point is that I can remember last year, when this conference was at the end of a two-week, three-conference death march across the USA. This year, I'm only doing two of the three, and I get to go home for a few days in between.