Quiet Declarations

Last night, I had an hour to kill at BWI airport after arrival, waiting for luggage US Airways placed on the wrong flight, which put me in the unenviable position of being on the wrong side of the security perimeter from nearly all the bars and restaurants.  After wandering for some time, I discovered the strangest airport bar — Varsity Grill & Sports Bar — tucked in the absolute farthest corner of the sparsely-populated international terminal and completely invisible to foot traffic.

It has 40 seats and roughly $30 worth of local college sports photos on the wall.  It has eight beers, and its menu is garbage.  It looks like it might have been converted from an old airline office, complete with fluorescent lights.  I asked the bartender — the only employee on duty — how busy they usually get, and she said they pay her to read her book.  (Incidentally, she also asked where I was headed, and when I said Virginia she asked “where’s that?”)

How does this bar make any money?  Surely not just from people like me who have to wait for their delayed baggage.  I learned only one fact that would shed any light on this mystery: apparently about once a week the airport has what the bartender calls “military day,” when the government transports large numbers of troops through the international terminal en route to foreign bases, and they get so backed up that for a few hours a week there are enough people still outside the security gates to keep the bar busy.

I’d say it’s safe to file this bar under “no economic right to exist” — and were it not for government, wouldn’t exist.  But hey, at least I found a place to kill an hour and something to blog about.

In case you didn’t know, I’ve been in Boston on business for the past 10 days.  Keep in mind that summer travel for me consists of being virtually out of commission from 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. every day because of the intensity of our seminars.  (You may recall that last summer I blogged so infrequently that I had to re-launch my site to bring traffic back up.)

I’m now back in DC for two weeks and owe a lot of people emails and phone calls, not to mention I actually need to conduct business in the office from time to time.  Expect to see me here, well, about as infrequently as you already do.

I’m writing (or at least beginning) an account of this weekend’s trip from a coffee shop in the Chicagoland suburbs.  It’s a local place, not very aesthetic and with crummy coffee, but I really appreciate that most of the the customers know the baristas and the regulars know each other.  And, as you would expect on Super Bowl Sunday, the place is abuzz about the Bears.  “Whodya think’ll win’er?” or “What’s the spread?” are the first questions most customers have asked the barista.  One old guy is reading out loud from an article I happened to read yesterday, and is seriously about to give himself a heart attack over the Colts being favored to win.  In true stereotype-local fashion, he actually just said: “If the Colts beat the Bears it will be the greatest upset in the history of the Super Bowl, in spite of the numbers!”

Anyway, this trip was no business, all pleasure.  My unbelievably cheap flight left DC on Thursday afternoon and my return flight leaves in a couple of hours.  The intent was for a group of good college friends to meet up for a weekend, but an unexpected schedule conflict and a family emergency whittled the group down to two.  Still, hard not to have a good time with any group when you have no commitments or expectations.  I’m fortunate to have knocked out most of the tourist attractions in Chicago, so my last few visits I’ve focused on exploring different regions and getting a taste for the culture and nightlife — and as a result, I’m proud to say I’ve gotten surprisingly good at navigating the city in the process.  This trip’s new experiences included three local restaurants, three coffee shops, and seven bars.  For my tastes, it was an absolute blast — the rest of which I will recount after the break.

(Continued)

In spite of being one of the least planned trips I’ve been on in a while, these past three days in Washington, D.C. have been surprisingly busy. They weren’t hectic — I did too much socializing to call them hectic — but now that I have a new job what was originally planned as a pleasure trip turned into a somewhat frantic exercise in area scouting and apartment shopping.

A bit of background: since Jacob, Julian and Eric were roadtripping back from Nashville after a visit to Vanderbilt and Rites of Spring I thought I might join them. What ensued was probably the slowest drive to D.C. that I’ve ever experienced thanks to Eric’s $10 breakfast at Hardees, Julian only getting hungry for meals ten minutes after the rest of us stopped to eat, my demand to test Jacob’s new light-up frisbee in 30-degree weather at a rest area, and Jacob’s 45-minute detour to some field in Deliverance-East Tennessee to pick up a hand-carved magic table from some hippie musician he met online who gives elbow taps instead of handshakes, built his own house out of rocks and alumninum siding, and randomly has the original soundboard from the Grand Ole Opry in his back room.

Jacob and Court were kind enough to put me up in their humble abode in Clarendon so I could get a good look at the area from a close and carless distance. I got to hang out with Andy and Eric a bit, and I even got in a little business lunch and happy hour with some my new colleagues. I discovered that jogging is far more fun in Arlington than in greater Nashville due to the reduced smog (believe it or not) and more pedestrian-friendly atmosphere, and I also I learned that credit card roulette is a great way to get a free meal. But most of the trip was devoted to learning that my life will soon be one gigantic cost-of-living adjustment. C’est la vie, no more five nights a week at the Flying Saucer for yours truly!

I departed this morning via my favorite airport. There were precisely five people in my security line this morning, meaning either far more people in the district are reading my blog than I previously believed or Wednesdays at 10 a.m. aren’t the busy time. But hey, great news — I saw the sign for the $3 billion renovation to replace the mobile lounge with an underground tram system! Maybe by the time I need to start seriously using this airport they will have partially gotten their act together.

One final word on this most recent travel experience: Independence Air is weird. My flight was cheap and did not fall out of the sky, thus meeting my only two criteria. However, they offered only Pepsi products, did not carry Dr Pepper (a big whiff for strike two) and then attempted to make up for it by serving everyone warm towelettes with a tweezer. Also, everything at the gate is a strange color of fluorescent blue. Not bad… just weird.

What now? Three days back at work and then on to what promises to be a crazy crazy month of May!

[Update 4/28/05: It turns out that the day before this post was written, unbeknownst to me (because I am slightly less of a blogwhore than is commonly believed), Jacob posted an account of our road trip as well. Feel free to compare our stories for blatant inaccuracies or embellishments.]

A couple of weeks ago (or two posts ago — same difference) I wrote about the atrocious design of Dulles Airport, in particular the “mobile lounge” system. After looking a little further into the airport history and also coming across a bit more specifically describing the mobile lounge I can be a little more understanding. It turns out Dulles was the first airport designed to accommodate jets and there was no precedent so the architects were essentially the pioneers — or, in hindsight, the guinea pigs. I’m not letting them off the hook entirely for the idea, but I’m giving them props for being brave enough to try and enduring fifty years of wrath and ridicule as a consequence.

Now, to all the people who keep commenting on these sites how amazing the mobile lounge is… have you been to Dulles Airport? What part of expensive, cumbersome, time-intensive, detached, complicated, choice-limiting, entrapping, inefficient, and just plain weird do you not understand? Yes the mobile lounge concept was an experiment, but nobody uses it anymore because it was a failed experiment.

I will now stop bashing Dulles in writing for two reasons. First, in an hour I head to Dulles to return to Nashville and I’m a bit superstitious. Second, it occurred to me that Dulles won’t actually be replaced without about a billion dollars of my tax money and the realization has reduced to zero my incentive to start an airport revolution.

I was in D.C. today to visit the Institute for Humane Studies, which I enjoyed very much. However, for my return flight I departed via Dulles Airport for the first time — at which I will justifiably direct my wrath for the remainder of this post.

I was curious enough to find out who actually designed Dulles that I scouted around a bit online and came up with Eero Saarinen of Finland. I also discovered this semi-useful history of airport design. In Saarinen’s defense, he gets credit for the unmistakable design of the passenger terminal but is not necessarily responsible for the pitifully inefficient “transporter” design of the tarmac connector. What I want to know is who actually thought having a bunch of huge land rovers shuttle passengers across runways and supply lines was actually a good idea? Is this one of those decisions where the CEO spontaneously threw out the idea in the board meeting and everyone else was too afraid to disagree?

If my experience is anything close to the norm, Dulles was clearly not designed with the actual airline passenger in mind. The terminal itself is basically a long thin rectangle with no directional signs whatsoever, making it impossible to find an airline without walking the length of the terminal and hoping your line wasn’t in the other direction. All passengers of all airlines are subsequently funneled into narrow security openings, forever separating them from Cinnabon and any other restaurants located in the initial building. And then comes the wait of undisclosed length for a bus or “mobile lounge” to take passengers to their concourse. No food, no seats, no merchandise — only the knowledge that you are about to be packed like sardines into what looks like the land version of the military’s amphibious infantry transports.

My flight departed from a “G” gate so I didn’t even ride the mobile lounge, and was instead transported via bus. It turns out that the bus follows a prescribed path indicated by a large paint stripe on the tarmac, but whoever painted the stripe decided it would be fun for the bus to take a tour of the city en route to the gate. Upon arrival, I discovered that G gate is nothing but a large room packed with people who have too few chairs and no personal space. There are no nooks or crannies; people who want to chat on their cell phones just kind of stand around. I thought I might stand outside for a few minutes since it was far less stuffy, but the security personnel don’t let you outside the building. I suspect the lengthy lines for both the men’s and women’s restrooms can be attributed to people using the facilities more out of sheer boredom than actual necessity. There was a small — and I mean small — bookstore as well as a tiny Capitol Hill Bar with barely enough room for a dozen people to stand let alone sit, but it wasn’t until after ordering my $5 beer and $6 slice of pizza that I learned the beer can’t leave the bar area. This room is already half the length of a mid-sized restaurant; where in the world was I going to go?

So, after two solid hours at the airport (of which I needed nearly every minute) I am finally admitted to the gate. Upon entering I discover that I’m on one of the smaller planes that uses a staircase instead of a ramp, and as a result I’m in a multi-use gate servicing G13-G20 or so. Several of these planes were boarding simultaneously, and it turns out that once past the attendant I could have boarded any plane on this section of the tarmac no questions asked. Nice to know they’ve got that process locked down.

Failure of bureaucracy? Failure of government? Principal agent problem? I can’t be certain. I just know that I just spent two hours in an airport trafficked by thousands of people every day and watched a combination of unnecessary restrictions, security failures, passenger inconvenience, and inefficient/incompetent resource allocation that I would find unbelievable if I hadn’t seen it firsthand. Moral of the story? There are plenty, but one stands out in particular: fly Reagan National and avoid Dulles like the plague.

I notice that Court’s passing along a site that lets her highlight the states she’s visited. I didn’t add a new state on this most recent trip, but I’ll play anyway:

(Key: bold for states I’ve been to, underline for states I’ve lived in and italics for the state I’m in now.)

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C

Or visit my personal color map on my travels page, if you prefer.

Or at least that’s what New York City now claims to be, mostly in an effort to rebrand themselves favorably as part of their attempt to win the bid for the 2012 Olympics. Of course, it’s going to be a bit difficult without an Olympic Stadium a.k.a. the proposed Jets stadium in Manhattan.

But Olympics and slogans aren’t why I’m bringing up the city formerly known as the Big Apple. I’m bringing it up because I’ve had the good fortune to visit recently and I thought I’d share (not to mention return to the world of blogging after an only slightly less inexcusable hiatus). March 15-20 served as probably my sixth visit to the city, this time as a convention representative for the College Media Advisers Spring Convention. This was my first foray into the world of college media professional organizations, and I suspect it was no more self-indulging than any other legitimized networking vehicle.

Much more interesting to me, of course, was the city itself. I’ve been to NYC just enough times to claim I’ve seen most of the major tourist attractions but not quite enough to profess any kind of knowledge of the city, so I figured the best way to see the real Manhattan was to walk it. Yes, the whole island. So this became my goal. However, Tuesday night was all about exhaustion after an unconscionably early flight, Wednesday night we scored cheap seats to Billy Joel’s Movin’ Out, and Thursday night we walked some familiar areas and hit the Empire State Building to treat a co-worker who was experiencing his first time.

Friday Eric came into town to join me for the weekend and it wasn’t a moment to soon, as having seen Times Square and very little else by this point I found myself restless and dying to do something ridiculous. First insane move of the evening: we took the subway to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, then walked to Wall Street, Ground Zero, City Hall, NYU, and up Broadway to Times Square. (Non-NYCers: that’s about 100 blocks). There we met one of my company’s vendors at the Pig and Whistle pub for some free drinks courtesy of our business relationship, and followed up with an Irish Pub Crawl that took us another 30 blocks before we turned around out of fear that the subway would close (which it doesn’t) or that we wouldn’t have had the strengh to make it back (which we wouldn’t).

Friday evening notes:

Saturday was the most beautiful day of the year to date, and Eric and I decided to enjoy it by hiking to Museum Row and Central Park. We accidentally wandered into an over-hyped anti-war rally, but we weren’t worried because only about 200 people showed up from Harlem to march in the Million Worker March, leading us to question the effectiveness of their marketing slogan. We got as far north as Harlem, then turned around and walked the length of Central Park and then 5th Avenue back to the hotel. That evening we crashed a CMA Advisers reception for the free drinks then went down to South Street Seaport and the Brooklyn Bridge. Our Saturday night pub crawl started after we hiked around about 3 miles of public housing to East Village for drinks and NCAA basketball, then on to Greenwich Village for more of the same. This time I’d guess 150 blocks of walking or so, all in all.

Saturday evening notes:

To wrap up, Sunday consisted of lunch in Little Italy, a trip to Chinatown, a tour of the United Nations, and a plane ride back to Nashville. I must be getting old because it’s taken me four days to catch up from my trip, which partially explains my lengthy absence from all things blog-related. Nonetheless, it was a fun, fantastic trip largely courtesy of The Man (read: professional development funds) and after two adventureless months a worthy return to my favorite hobby.

For three days last week I was held prisoner in New Orleans, and sadly I’ve only now recovered from missed work and sleep. My intent in returning to Louisiana, which friends know is not high on my list of favorite travel destinations, was sound — joining an old friend and recent Virginia Tech grad to watch his team play Auburn in the Sugar Bowl. Things seemed tolerable enough until tragedy struck by way of a hotel valet.

The durability of my 1995 Ford Taurus, which has traveled 150,000 with me across 43 states, has long been in question and in fact the car has recently been retired in favor of a new automobile to be determined soon. (Suggestions welcome!) So to weather the trip, I borrowed my dad’s Bonneville for the drive, intending to park it in the hotel deck for 2 days and pay the valet storage charge. As luck would have it, I got a call on the first evening explaining that one of the valets spun out a Camaro in the deck and destroyed my dad’s bumper. Unfortunately, this particular car model requires a special bumper that the body shop would have to FedEx overnight from Texas, meaning my friend and I would have to stay an extra day. My options? Drive a bumperless car home and get three estimates for reimbursement, or stay an extra night for free and let the locals take care of the problem. Hence, trapped.

Being stranded in New Orleans is kind of like being shipwrecked on a desert island except that it’s much dirtier and the graduation rate is lower. Also, even islands are above sea level — one direct hit from a category 4 hurricane and this town is history. The locals seem to love it, but honestly, I just don’t get it. I’ve never seen people so proud of settling their town on such inhospitable terrain. Thanks to the subtropical climate everything is either decomposed or fermented, and the only two seasons are too hot to think (which explains quite a bit actually) and price gouge the tourists. Travel out to the Garden District and you realize that the city is actively practicing apartheid; take a big whiff of the air downtown and you understand why residents prefer to stay permanently drunk. Got priorities? Driver’s licenses are issued at age 15 and drive-thru daiquiri stores are a local highlight.

In case you were wondering, this is my fourth trip to New Orleans and I’ve been to Mardi Gras twice. Some say that those who only come for Mardi Gras are missing the true experience, but if the true experience is anything like what I’ve seen then I respectfully disagree. Stay in the French Quarter, nurse Hurricanes until the potholes blur, stake out the flashers on the balcony to distract from the smell, and then get the hell out of Dodge thankful that the role of the tourist is to exploit and retreat. I had my fun and I even enjoyed my extra day, but after being stranded I’ll make sure I have multiple exit strategies in place before calling on the Big Easy again.

So I haven’t posted in… what, three weeks? I can recite the usual pathetic reasons, but really only 3 of the days are excusable: my brief trip to Virginia Tech for my great friend Andy’s graduation.

The trip was definitely short — got in at 4 a.m. the morning of Friday the 17th and was back up for the 11 a.m. commencement activities. Excellent ceremony, not many speakers and only one keynote and very tasteful and an extraordinarily brief 2 hours — thank goodness for December graduations! Then it was time well spent with Andy’s family, Playstation in the afternoon (I am awesome at Madden and terrible at everything else) and out to celebrate in the evening. And as quick as that, the next morning it was back to Nashville to take care of business back home.

Public props to Andy for finally finishing — this required engineering co-op thing has stretched his degree out to what must seem like decades, and as those of us who’ve hung around college too long know, the company can get pretty thin if you’re not careful. For all his complaining though, Andy did manage to get pretty much exactly the kind of job he was looking for up in Washington — I’ll look forward to hanging more with him during frequent visits and possibly even joining him there before year’s end. Congrats man, it’s all working out.

So I’ve spent the last eight days recovering from my vacation, and it’s been worth every minute of still-unfinished business. I return to D.C. to visit friends every few months, and each time I return I become more and more convinced that’s where I’ll end up come July. Granted, the means to support myself will be a determining factor in this decision, but what’s life without aspirations?

Much of the trip shall remain undocumented, with specifics withheld less to protect the not-so-innocent and more because of how blurry they seem by now. Well, they actually seemed pretty blurry at the time too, now that I think about it. Thursday 11/18 Eric and I trekked in and decided to attend a presentation entitled Did Blogs Tip Election 2004?. (Panelist Dan Drezner offers some extremely brief comments.) We then spent the better part of the weekend inconveniencing our good friend Jacob, displacing his flatmate Courtney, and along with fellow Vandy alum Julian becoming more familiar with the local nightlife. Between testing Jacob’s newfound barista skills, debating everything from the ethics of school-condoned postgame celebrations with Court to the evolutionary inevitabilities of relationships with The Agitator, over-celebrating the Titans victory at a posh Clarendon sports bar, and learning that there is such a thing as a gay restaurant, we found our weekend a healthy combination of stress-free and fun-packed.

Eric and I have been back in Nashville for over a week now, and for better or worse I’m still not fully recovered. Be it a special occasion, a job interview, a less-than-credible excuse, or merely another social outing, I can’t wait to get back. Fortunately, if precedent is any indicator, it shouldn’t be long till my next visit.

Well, not so much actually. But I did venture to Lexington yesterday with my family for a day trip to watch my sister play in the Kentucky marching band and catch a little UK-Vanderbilt football in the process. Final score: Vanderbilt 13, Kentucky 14. Yes, pitiful Kentucky beat the Commodores. This isn’t a shock in and of itself, since Vandy only beat I-AA Eastern Kentucky by 5 and blew a 27-point lead to Rutgers at home, but they really never cease to amaze me with the creative ways they find to lose. The ‘Dores scored their second touchdown midway through the third quarter but missed the extra point, then ended up blowing the lead with less than 2 minutes left in the game.

A note about Kentucky football: this win is far less a testimony to their greatness than to what a travesty Vanderbilt football has been for the last, oh, 50 years or so. The Kentucky fans have become so bored of late that they’ve adopted an interesting ritual of refusing to throw the football back to the game crew after extra points, instead tossing it around the upper deck for a while and then ceremonially heaving it over the back wall to applause louder than the team gets on the rare occasions when the other team allows them to have points. The animated intro video during the pregame was telling of life in Kentucky — a cropduster flew past a bourbon distillery, over Corvettes driving on a two-lane road, and over the tobacco fields en route to the stadium. The low point? When the announcer yelled “from Sigma Chi, your Kentucky Wildcats!” as the team ran onto the field. I was definitely confused, wondering if it was a fraternity publicity stunt or the announcer trying to incinuate the team was losing because they partied too much. Then I realized that the Sigma Chi’s had sponsored the run out of the tunnel. What program needs money so bad that they get a fraternity to sponsor the run out of the tunnel?

Give me a break. Vanderbilt is a terrible football team and a terrible football atmosphere, but at least they’re trying.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t just periodically forget about this weblog. I spent this past weekend on a road trip to visit a good friend in Baton Rouge. The official occasion was the Vanderbilt-LSU game — but given how laughable that reason is in reality, I’ll instead admit to visiting for some harmless fun and to get a taste of the LSU experience.

I am not a Bayou person. I don’t have the personality for it, and I definitely don’t have the accent — but hey, when in Rome…. Both of my prior trips to Louisiana were to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and I don’t think either counts because of all the invaders like myself skewing the culture. On this trip, however, I’m fairly convinced I got a more accurate feel. It was ridiculously humid and rained at weird times, but the weather definitely never got too cold for shorts. My catfish poboy was absolutely fantastic. They sell beer, wine, and liquor all at the same store. At least two different radio stations peppered their morning broadcasts with the local weather, traffic update, and daily Bible verse. There is a town called Napoleonville. Apparently one of the counties is in financial trouble so it’s decided to send all the teachers home for a month since they’re one of the bigger expenses. Oh, and on Saturdays the eastern part of the state shows up at Death Valley around 11am to begin tailgating for the 7pm LSU game, which is roughly two hours before Vanderbilt students arrive at the Greek houses en route to not actually attending our 11:30am games.

I had a great time and will definitely geaux back. I didn’t have time to hit up the recommended restaurants for crawfish or bouillabaisse, and I like food too much to miss out on these experiences indefinitely. But before my travels take me south again, I owe D.C. another visit in the coming weeks and I’d like to hit up at least one brand new destination in the next few months. I guess we’ll see whether time permits.

My friend John and I have just returned from a road trip to Columbus this weekend to see some friends and make good on an offer for some free tickets to the Ohio State-Wisconsin game. This is my third trip to Ohio, and after giving it a couple of chances to redeem itself I’m now prepared to pass judgment.

I’ve always felt that Ohio had more syllables than it deserved, and in spite of having a great time there this weekend I nonetheless consider my feeling validated. Some inordinately beautiful weather and the fall colors on the drive saved the state from being the statewide version of Buffalo — flat, cloudy, and gray — that it was on my last two visits. I’m confident that Ohio will never live down to the reputation of, say, a Gary, Indiana, but I’ve seen parts of Cincinnati that make me think this remains a lingering aspiration.

The football game was quite a lot of fun, in spite of the home team losing (not that I care about Big Ten football really). They have all these weird unoriginal cheers like OHIO! and O-H-I-O! and GO-OHIO! that give the impression of far more state spirit than I suspect actually exists outside of the stadium. I was thoroughly impressed, however, by the 15,000 people who packed the basketball arena for the ritual pre-game marching band concert over two hours prior to game time.

On the return trip home, John and I caught two tourist attractions that we’ve been meaning to experience: Hofbrauhaus Newport and Skyline Chili. The Hofbrauhaus lived up to the rather menial expectations we had for an “authentic” German restaurant located so far from Munich: good atmosphere and good beer. As for Skyline Chili, I was impressed by what seemed like a fast and innovative idea for a restaurant chain but very disappointed in their mediocre chili. I know I’m going to get criticism from certain friends with strong opinions about the place, but really, my mom makes much better chili and I’ll invite you over if you don’t believe me. I’m not saying a fast food establishment has to beat home cooking, but one that gets as many testimonials as I’ve heard has to at least put up a fight.

Two October trips down, one to go. We both needed this trip: I haven’t been on the road since June and for John it’s been more than a year. What’s next? Well, I’m back in Nashville for two weeks before heading down to Baton Rouge to watch LSU pummel Vanderbilt in football. Speaking of: what the hell was this?

[Update 10/11/04: On that last question, Joe Biddle explains.]

As a general rule I try to leave Tennessee at least once a month for some adventure, but try as I might, I haven’t been able to escape since June. I’ve had trips rescheduled and canceled for all manner of strangeness, and close friends familiar with my love of traveling have been hinting of late that it’s taken it’s toll emotionally. Well, at long last I begin my travel season (due in no small part to it being football season) with a month that should include at least seven states in at least three weekends, beginning with this weekend in San Diego.

This is my second visit to San Diego, and a much more relaxing one at that. Dad and I are in for the most noble of reasons: the Titans-Chargers game. It’s a nice town, but I agree with a friend’s assessment that it’s “full of dudes”. Yes, it’s a Navy town, home to the Pacific Fleet. But there’s no excuse for the fact that we’ve been all over this town, eaten seafood at two great restaurants, hung out at several bars, and our hotel is located in the heart of the nightlife in the Gaslamp Quarter, and I have seen exactly three attractive women. Incidentally, the first was on the plane from Nashville (and I’m not entirely sure she was legal) and the other two were on dates in the restaurant. Sure, we walked the main drags on both Friday and Saturday nights and saw quite a lot of activity, but contrary to popular belief there is NOT a correlation between dressing slutty and looking good. (Corollary: there is also not a correlation between attractiveness and amount of skin being shown. A weak association, perhaps, but no correlation and definitely no causation. Just thought I’d share.)

The good news is that means we’ve seen some amazing naval activity. We took this fantastic tour of the decommissioned aircraft carrier U.S.S. Midway, which included glimpses of the aircraft carriers U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (recently commissioned and the largest warship in the world) and U.S.S. Nimitz. While on the flight deck we discovered that it’s Fleet Week, and as such we were treated to an air and sea parade featuring numerous fighter jet flyovers and naval vessels sailing with officers in full dress uniform. The oddest parade entry was definitely the experimental stealth boat, which was accompanied by no shortage of armed Coast Guard escort vessels. Oh, more good news is that the seafood here is quite excellent — so far our list includes shrimp scampi, raw oysters, prawn cocktail, and sushi, and we’ve no intention of stopping there!

Okay, that’s enough vacation story for now. Expect updates no less frequently (as if expectations of frequency could get any lower) since it definitely counts as pleasure, not business.