I am in Ft. Lauderdale for a DOE meeting, a Pre-ARVO meeting and ARVO meetings. Security checkin went smooth, but I am always amazed at the culture of fear that surrounds Americans. Not being able to have family/friends come and hang out with you prior to flights leaving strikes me as terribly sad. It was one of the things that immediately impressed me about Australia though. I was sitting at the gate in Perth watching people and suddenly realized that there were family members about sending their loved ones off. H noted this morning that this was simply because most of the world is not upset at the Australian government the way they are with certain aspects of the US government and they can live a more normal life that is less like certain fiction that while entertaining, previously seemed an absurd possibility.
Sitting at the gate prior to departure this morning always reminds me of what flights would be like if they allowed cell phones to be used while in flight. Who is everybody talking to? It would be an absolute nightmare with a din of people babbling incessantly about everything from their professional lives to inane personal ramblings that should be kept to themselves. The concept of a polite society seems to be continually withering away. FAA, please….PLEASE….do not allow this to happen. Planes are small intimate places where the courtesy of some degree of silence is appreciated.
While we are talking planes, I found out that there appears to be a new direct non-stop route from Salt Lake to Ft. Lauderdale. Even better, I found out that Delta has equipped all of their 737-800’s with the EmPower power outlet for non-stop computing so that all that time in flight in not wasted. I actually got quite a bit accomplished before settling in to watch the Manchurian Candidate remake.
Also, the content is nothing spectacular, but I am pretty impressed with the technology that rendered it. Amazon had these little Canon SD110s on sale for dirt cheap a couple of weeks ago as they were discontinued, so I picked one up to have a tiny camera available for those times when I could not/do not want to haul around an SLR. It’s tiny, but the really surprising feature of this little camera is that is captures passable movies.
So, without further blabbering, here it is.
Finally, Robert and I had another fabulous dinner at Johnny V’s on Las Olas tonight. They have an impressive list of both wines and cheeses, not to mention some pretty fine food. I had a braised pear salad followed by a center cut sirloin that was done to perfection (medium rare) with an aged cheddar potato gratin and baby corn and a pretty tasty Spanish wine that I seem to have forgotten the name of. The wine was not memorable, but it was acceptable. For dessert, there was a diabetes inducing chocolate cake with a banana and caramel frosting and a most tasty coffee. Needless to say, tomorrow will be a fasting day….
More tomorrow.