Month: February 2008

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Long weekend

As mentioned in my previous post, Amy & I were, um, JETSET PARTY PEOPLE!!! this weekend. Saturday morning, we flew out to St. Louis, had a brief stopover, then flew on to Tulsa, where we celebrated Survivor Status for Amy’s pal Doug, five years after his treatment for brain cancer. The party was a blast, and Doug managed to make it through his guest/host-of-honor speech much better than I would’ve, if I’d been in his shoes.

Sunday morning, we headed back to the airport to return to St. Louis, to surprise my brother at his 40th birthday party. Of the weekend’s four flights, that would turn out to be the bumpiest. But them’s the breaks, when you plan air travel in the midwest in February.

I’m pleased to report that Boaz had no idea that Amy & I were in town, proving that my mom and his wife are quite capable of keeping secrets from him. I wasn’t so sure about my dad, so I didn’t tell him about this trip till Friday.

I had a great time shooting the breeze with my brother and sister-in-law. Boaz has already cemented the family’s travel plans to NJ this summer. (Hint: they overlap with Springsteen’s dates at Giants Stadium.) My nieces, as ever, were a hoot. At one point, the little one managed to pack about a million silk scarves into her shirt, giving herself cafeteria-lady-boobs. Amy took a ton of great pix this weekend; once she’s done fixing them up, I’ll post her flickr link.

Going into the weekend, I was worried that weather would mess with our plans, and cause us to miss one flight or another. Naturally (just as happened in Belfast), the only fight that got delayed was the one coming home. Oh, well.

Another upshot of this weekend: I can cross off one more state in my list of “states I’ve visited for more than just a drive-through.” I’m at 29 states (+1 district) and counting, and I do have an invite to visit a friend in Maine this summer.

Feel free to visit the Visited States page and make out yer own durned map.

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What it is: 2/18/08

What I’m reading: A Fan’s Notes, by Frederick Exley

What I’m listening to: Oblivion with Bells, by Underworld

What I’m watching: Gerald Green’s cupcake dunk.

What I’m drinking: Water. I’m taking a few days off from the lush life.

Where I’m going: Home!

What I’m happy about: Surprising my brother by coming out to St. Louis for his 40th birthday party last night.

What I’m sad about: Boarding my 4th Embraer ERJ 145 in a span of 52 hours. (We also had a party in Tulsa this weekend.)

What I’m pondering: This post from Donald Pittenger on great artists who hit a peak and never manage to come anywhere near it again. I thought Philip Roth’s late run makes for a good counter-example, but I know a lot of people find him irrelevant.

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Numbers Game

News out of the Yankees’ camp is that they’ve issued Morgan Ensberg a jersey with #21. This makes me a little sad because, Paul O’Neill was one of my favorite Yankees during the 1996-2000 run. My two O’Neill images from the World Series are of him falling off the pile during the 1996 (?) celebration, and of him walking around right field in a daze after the 1999 sweep over the Braves, two days after his father’s death.

I know O’Neill wasn’t a home-grown Yankee, but I’d have given #51 out way before Paulie’s.

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Much abides

Happy 40th birthday to the person who’s inspired me the most in my life (even if he wouldn’t want to take credit for some of my meanderings), my brother Boaz.

Many happy returns!

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Ice: Flow

Today could’ve been a disaster. My flight home from Belfast was scheduled for 11:15am, and the client had arranged for a car to pick me and another editor up at our hotel at 8am. However, the awful weather in the northeast wreaked havoc on Continental air traffic, so the inbound flight was delayed by 4 hours.

I saw this online when I got up in the morning (miraculously not hung over, despite wine at dinner and 4 pints of Guinness till 1:30am), but we were stuck having to either tell the client’s car service to blow off because we didn’t need it till later, or go to the airport “on time,” and wait there.

Because the client’s office wasn’t open till 9am, we elected to stick with the driver. And we spent SIX HOURS in the airport until boarding. Fortunately, I kept my power adapter in my carryon and still had wifi access through the BT service I bought on my first day in town.

So I hung out, chatted with the other editor, met up with a NJ-based employee from the client company and chatted with him, goofed on the internet, listened to music took care of e-mails, bought some souvenirs, read most of Philip Roth’s new novel, and still had two hours to kill before a seven-and-a-half-hour flight. Sigh.

But then something amazing happened. I looked out the window as we approached Newfoundland, Canada, and saw this:

And I thought, if we left on time, there’s a good chance the angle of the sun would’ve been so different that this would’ve made no impression on me. Instead, I managed to get a photoset of some amazing sights. And I get to share it with you, and that makes all the delay and aggravation worth it.

What I’m saying is, try to find the beauty wherever you can, even when you’re tired and pissed off over the misworkings of the world. In fact, do it especially when you’re tired and pissed off over that stuff.

Enjoy the pix. I promise I’ll get the set of Belfast Itself up sometime soon.

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Cigarettes Only

No time for a post, dear readers! The client visit was all day (it went great, thanks), and I only have an hour in the room to clean up, pack, do my work e-mail, and get ready for dinner and far too much drinking!

So I leave you with a little bit of Belfast art from my Sunday meanderings: