Now I’m on the plane from Memphis to Lexington. For the first time ever, I’ve been able to get my GPS working on an airplane. It’s pretty cool to be able to look out at the splashes of light and tell exactly what town each one of them is. It looks like we’re going to pass about 20 miles from Nashville, and we just passed Jackson out the left window. We’re going about 335 mph, at 11,000 feet. Interestingly, our ETA is exactly the same time as we are scheduled to arrive. So maybe I’ll be home in bed by 1am.

I was to fly back from Chicago on Thursday evening. Well, as I mentioned, that didn’t happen. I spent much of the night at the O’Hare airport. Then, some friends of my brother called me and told me they were coming to get me. So I got about 4 hours of sleep in a real bed. Friends like this are just awesome.

I had been scheduled to fly through Charlotte, but when I got to the airport, they rescheduled me to fly directly to Lexington. Of course, true to form, that flight started boarding about 20 minutes after it was supposed to leave, due to mechanical problems. Most of the time, I’d like for them to take their time when there are mechanical problems to be fixed. But, being about 14 hours behind schedule, I was feeling moderately less charitable.

We finally got to Lexington at about 10:30, but it took about 45 minutes to get our luggage off of the plane. Why? Well, nobody knows. There was nobody around to ask what was going on.

And, so, I finally got home, leaving me about 20 hours to unpack, do laundry, and repack to leave for vegas. And here I sit in the airport, ready to leave.

Well, I’m still in Chicago. And I’m not very happy about this.

Ok, time for one of my biggest annoyances about airports. An airport is primarily driven by time and schedule. Why, then, can you NEVER find a clock in an airport? They should be *everywhere*! Here are thousands of people, many of whom are not sure what time zone they are in, trying to make it on time to their planes. We need clocks, folks. This is so obvious, and yet every airport I go to, I search in vain for a clock. This does not seem like a hard reques. Clocks are cheap, and adding the current time to all of these dozens of digital displays that are everywhere would seem to be a simple thing to do.

Last night, dozens of flights were cancelled. Apparently because of weather, although nobody ever really told me for sure. So, rather than arriving home at 8 last night, I was standing in line at Customer Service. And around 11pm, one of my brother’s friends picked me up and took me home so I could sleep for a few hours. Then, I was up at 4:45, in a taxi by 5, and now I’m back sitting at the airport waiting for the flight to Lexington.

Since I leave tomorrow morning for Las Vegas, I’m somewhat concerned about my luggage. But I’ve been assured that it will be on this flight, or that it will be there waiting for me. We’ll see. If not, I’ll have to borrow a suitcase and just do without whatever it is that got left in my other suitcase.

I should have enough time to do some laundry and pack for the next trip.

I’m seeing a lot of the same people that were here last night. They all look tired and grumpy, just like me. Maybe we can all get home today. And, with any luck, I won’t get sick before heading out to Vegas.

Sitting in the training room in Chicago. Turns out that although we are training on a networked device which provides internet security, we don’t actually have an internet connection here, so I can neither check my email, blog, nor, which is most distressing, get on IRC. Sitting through a training class without having IRC to distract me will be quite a feat.

I’m here for training on the Symantec Gateway Security 5400 Series. I don’t know what that is. Hopefully, within the next two days I’ll find out.

So, anyways, the trip up here was largely uneventful. Just two things stick out from the experience. Ok, three. I forgot one.

Sitting in the Lexington airport was a *little* more interesting this time. In the past I have flown when the business travellers aren’t there, so the wireless network is quiet. This time, it was midafternoon on a Monday, so the business travellers were out in force. Also, I had
better tools this time.

A quick scan showed that there were 3 other people using the wireless. Of those, 2 were alarmingly insecure Windows machines. Unfortunately, one of them shut down and got on a plane shortly after I found him. The other was a laptop named “Patti & Tim’s Cool Laptop”. Patti & Tim, if you’re reading, you may want to consider locking down your file shares just a little bit more, or, at the very least, changing your administrator password so that it is no longer “administrator”.

No, I didn’t do anything illegal, immoral, or unethical. I suppose that someone may be able to construe it as “breaking and entering” when I left a friendly note for Patti & Tim, encouraging them to not use wireless networking until they had installed Zone Alarm. But I felt that
it was neighborly.

The next memorable thing was the guy sitting behind me on the plane. He was out to impress somebody, and he kept getting louder and louder as we travelled. Fortunately, the flight was only an hour. Apparently he managed some kind of manufacturing plants around the world. Notably in
Sao Paulo, and all over China. I learned that the rivers in Sao Paulo are exactly the same as the sludge in an American sewage treatment plant. And I learned that every business in China is composed of thieves. This guy seemed to be the classic example of the famed Ugly American, and I was glad not to be sitting next to him. Apparently he had some chip on his shoulder about someone bootlegging a product that his company made, and he was determined that every business in the world was a part of this fraud. Every one but his own, of course.

Finally, I was very impressed by the gentleman that drove the van that took me to the hotel. I did not ask him where he was from, but it was some middle-east country. He’s Visual Basic programmer, and has been in the country just a few months. He’s trying to get himself established, and make a little money, so that he can start seriously looking for a
programming job. I am always impressed by the work ethic of recent immigrants, as opposed to that of the rest of us. It is a tragedy how may of these folks end up trapped driving taxis, mopping floors, and working as attendants in nursing homes. Yes, I know, I’m supposed to want to retain the good jobs for Americans. But it’s guys like this, with dreams and ambitions, that I want to call Americans. Not to overglorify someone I don’t even know, but this is the sort of guy that made this nation great, and we do ourselves a great disservice by making it hard for guys like this to make their way here.

When I encounter folks like this, I’m always reminded of a customer that I wasted an enormous amount of my time and talent on – [NAME OMMITTED DUE TO BETTER JUDGEMENT] – an organization dedicated to denying this gentleman the priveleges and advantages of our country. They may have had a good point at some time in their history (not that I know what that would have been) but they have developed into outspoken bigots demanding that they are not bigots. They are, they claim, anti-immigration, not anti-immigrant. It becomes a very hard distinction to make, and I’m not sure it’s even possible.

Anyways, I’m just writing on and on because I don’t have a network connection, so I should probably shut up.

Oh, one more thing. I just discovered that I’m not actually signed up for this class. So apparently I’m just going to watch over someone’s shoulder. Or just sit in the back here somewhere. I’m not sure who dropped the ball on this.

I wanted to mention that November 8 was the feast of Saint Tysilio (or Suliau), Abbot of Meifod. He lived in the 7th Century, or thereabouts, and ended up in Brittany, near Saint-Malo. That’s about all I know about him. However, I encoutered his name many years ago, although I was not aware of it at the time.

You see, there’s a tiny town in Wales by the name of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, which means “The Church of Mary of White Hazel Pool.” In the 19th century, a church was built there, called the church of Tysilio, or, in welsh, Llantysilio. After the church was built, the name of the town was changed to reflect this. The new name of the town is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, making it the longest place name in the world. The bit that was added means “quite near the rapid whirlpool, the church of Tysilio under a red cave.” (Yes, those 4 Ls in a row are correct.)

I remember an entry in the Guiness Book of World Records, showing the railroad station sign for this town, and also showing the railroad tickets for this town, which were printed an extra-large size.

The Oxford Companion to the Year, where I learned that yesterday was Saint Tysilio’s feast, notes that there’s also a smal gift ship nearby called Ysiopfachgardiauwrthybontdrosyrafonddyfrdwyynllangollen, which means “The little card shop by the bridge over the river Dee in Llangollen.”

This afternoon Sarah and I went out to a birthday party at the Lang residence. The wind was just about perfect, and we flew kites. I had three kites up. Actually, various small kids, most of whom I didn’t know, were flying two of my kites at any given time. One of them will likely never recover from the experience. 😉

My big kite, which has been out of commission with a broken back for more than a year, got to fly today, and I got it pretty high up. There was hardly any wind at the ground, but up high it was tugging fairly good. It was a lot of fun. I wish I’d gotten around to fixing it earlier.

At the end of the evening, the ENORMOUS pink full moon rushed up over the horizon just as the sun was setting on the opposite side of the world, and it was absolutely gorgeous.

“Dear God, whose name I do not know, thank you for my life. I forgot how big . . . thank you for my life.” (Joe vs the Volcano)

I’m just about ready to start my two weeks of travels. Nothing compared to Ken’s whirled tour, but quite a bit for me.

Tomorrow afternoon I leave for Chicago for two days of training at Symantec. Don’t tell my boss, but I really have very little idea what I’m going to be trained on.

I get back Wednesday night, and then I leave Friday morning for ApacheCon in Lost Wages, NV. I’m really looking forward to ApacheCon this year. It’s going to be an awesome conference, and if you haven’t signed up yet, there’s still time. Especially don’t forget to sign up for the tutorials, which will all be excellent.

</shameless plug>

The next time you look at CNN.com, or any other web site afilliated with Time magazine, look for the ads for the magazine. The message “Click Here to try 4 Free Trial Issues of Time!” appears next to a recent cover, which shows a kid with drugs. Yeah, it’s an article about kids taking too many prescription drugs. But it struck me as funny in a sort of “the first 4 are free” kind of way.

Last night I saw two silent movies at the Kentucky Theater. The Haunted House, starring Buster Keaton, and The Unknown, starring Lon Chaney.

I was misinformed, and the Kentucky does *not* have the original Wirlitzer. This showing was part of a fundraiser to restore the original Wirlitzer and reinstall it. They have all the pieces, and they are currently in a store room at the Singletary Center for the Arts. It’s going to cost about $650,000 to restore it, and once restored, it will be one of just 46 operating cinema organs in the world. Pretty cool.

But they did have an organ, and an organist to accompany the movie, so it was almost like the real thing. The Chaney movie was very very odd, with a deeply convoluted and confusing plot. But with the silent movie format, you didn’t actually have much dialog to rely on, just the inter-scene dialog panels, and some panels with plot explanations. It’s a very interesting format.

http://buglet.rcbowen.com/photos/2003/Oct/pumpkin/

More pumpkin pictures.