Fun and Games Dept

Economy comfort on a Delta 757-200. All sorts of awesome and totally worth $19.00.

I am flying somewhere every weekend this month. This is highly unusual for me but it is slightly reminiscent of when my dad would fly quite a bit during the summer months.

I love flying. I even enjoy flying on the airlines again. I am a lucky man to be able to do what I love to do.

Flights this month are for both business and pleasure and will take me to three of the time zones in the lower 48 states. Aside from a trip home from San Diego, I will be earning lots of Delta miles.

My life is grand. My life is actually grand altogether. And as I enjoy wifi and a free beer at 37,000 feet (the credit card machine wasn’t working), I can’t help but smile.

At lunch time I found myself watching the very last episode of “The Secrets of Isis”.  Part of a shorter second season, this episode was actually a pilot for a new series that would have been called “The Super-Sleuths”. They pulled out all the stops with this episode as they used plenty of blue screen effects, and both Captain Marvel and Isis were seen to be flying side by side.

I think they made a pretty cool couple, though in a short story I wrote years and years ago, Andrea Thomas (the incognito version of Isis) didn’t marry Captain Marvel, since he was really Billy Batson who was a teenager that hung out with an old man named Mentor, but rather she married teacher friend Rick Mason.

Though Jason Bostwick tends to be the favored actor that portrayed Captain Marvel in this series, as a young lad I always found myself much more attracted to John Davey, pictured here with JoAnna Cameron in their superhero roles. Mr. Davey had a friendly clean-shaven lumberjack come math teacher vibe about him.

I know Ms. Cameron lives in Hawaii and does the comic circuit from time to time, but I have no idea as to what happened John Davey.

Interesting footnote, the vast majority of both the “Shazam!” and “The Secrets of Isis” series were filmed outdoors because Filmation simply didn’t have the budget for lighting. The astute observer will also notice that Andrea Thomas almost always wears the same blazer regardless of where she is or what she’s doing, because the transformation sequence from Andrea to Isis is always the same sequence.

So I’ve been trying to workout in the morning again. Last week I worked out after supper and it didn’t, well, work out well for me (god that’s awful syntax) because I ended up feeling all hyped up and therefore I didn’t sleep very well. Plus, my scale couldn’t care less that I had done any sort of exercise.

On Monday morning I awoke and headed to the gym at oh-dark-early, where a bunch of chipper elders did their thing on the various machines as I did the same. Did I mention that I’m not really a fan of the gym? I think I would be much more content if I could just work out in the basement and do things on our own equipment, but it’s not in the budget, so we haul off to the gym across town. At oh-dark-early.

Yesterday morning I was up before the sun again but I made the determination that I wasn’t going to go to the gym, after all, the weather is still enjoyable and even though it was dark, it was plenty warm enough to go for a bike ride.

So I rode the area roads in the dark, dependent on the white light of a single headlight and the red light of a single taillight. I wore a reflective vest on top of my cycling gear to complete my ensemble.

When I’m out for a relatively short ride I usually enjoy riding along the nearby paved Canal Trail, but when it’s dark I fear the presence of skunks. I’m not really afraid of the skunk as much as I’m afraid that I’ll make them afraid and then there’ll be an unfortunate Skunk Incident and I’ll end up spending the next three weeks in the garage as I air out. So I avoided the Canal Trail and any suggestion of skunks and rode around town a bit before heading out towards the open country, doing a lovely loop (horizontal, not vertical), and heading back home. Once I was away from the street lights I was able to see a beautifully clear, starlit sky that was accented by just a hint of moon.

It was exercise perfection. I’m hoping I can do it again before the end of the week.

Please feel free to click on each photo to see in full sized technicolor.

So yesterday Earl and I decided that we would enjoy a day of relaxation. And to accomplish this very simple task, we would take a “leaf peeping” ride in the nearby Adirondacks. So after a stop at our local diner for a little lunch, we embarked on a nice ride through some very scenic territory.

It was a gorgeous day with just few puffy clouds in the otherwise crystal clear sky. The temperature was a comfortable 70ºF.

Mother Nature is doing wonders with her paintbrush this season.

We zigged and zagged our way across the lower Adirondacks and up into the High Peaks, where we found lots of tourists in the famous village of Lake Placid. This old car was parked out in front of the restaurant that we ate at.

We mugged a little for the camera. That’s what people do with their smartphones these days.

Angles do amazing things with perception.

Though we didn’t eat here on this trip, Lake Placid has one of the last two remaining Howard Johnson’s restaurants.

We stopped at a popcorn shop where I picked up two varieties of popcorn: Red (with smaller hulls) and Rainbow Mix.

I tested both this morning and they were quite tasty. Earl tasted the “Halloween Mix” of popcorn that was featured at the shop. It was orange and black popcorn and featured the flavors of orange and black cherry. It turned Earl’s tongue a funny color.

It was approaching sunset by the time we left Lake Placid, and we made our way across the upper Adirondacks through Saranac Lake, Cranberry Lake, Tupper Lake and finally found ourselves in Watertown, where we stopped for a little snack for supper. And a beer, but just one since I was driving.

After giving the beer plenty of time to wear off, we headed home and got home around 12:30. When all was said and done, we traveled about 400 miles in 12 hours.

So last night I updated my Facebook status with a blurb about Earl and I yelling and screaming and Earl telling me to go get something at Wawa, which is 275 miles away from our house.

The Facebook status was meant to be humorous, but judging by the number of folks that have reached out to me today to see if I was alright, I thought I should probably set the record straight:

1. Wawa is a convenience store chain in eastern Pennsylvania. Apparently, kind of like the great “soda” vs “pop” debate in Upstate New York, Pennsylvania folks are split between Wawa in eastern Pa and Sheetz in western Pa. The reason Earl told me to go to Wawa is because as a lower Bucks County, Pa. native, when we are arguing he can slip into his near-Philly accent, and Wawa is part of that vernacular. In reality, he meant he wanted me to go the Fastrac that’s a mile from the house (for some sort of treat like a KitKat or something) but Wawa just came out of his mouth. It’s like the occasional glass of wooder we enjoy from the tap.

2. Earl and I have been together for over 17 years and while we have had our share of disagreements, it is rare that we fight. Now, Cub has probably seen most of our fights as we have tended to get more set in our ways as we get older (I’ve threatened him with shoving his wheelchair somewhere when he’s that old), but like any married couple we can get cantankerous as we are having a discussion. It probably doesn’t help when I tell him not to be “so AARP about it” or “stop acting like you’re 50s old”, but that’s what he gets for marrying a youthful lad such as myself. Cub just shakes his head at the whole thing. Anyways, any real fight we have had has been executed in silence, I yell and he tells me not to when we’re having a disagreement.

3. Last night I went to upgrade Earl’s iPhone 4S to iOS 7 (like the dutiful Apple soldier that I am) and partway through the process, the ghost of Mr. Jobs informed me that Earl didn’t have enough space on his phone. It turns out he had NO space on his phone. In the process of deleting photos and music that had been backed up this iCloud, while foolishly making sure nothing was lost by plugging his iPhone in so it could sync with iTunes, I confused the ghost of Mr. Jobs and his iPhone 4S didn’t know what to do. So it had some sort of hissy fit and decided to show its Apple logo and nothing else. I ended up having to wipe out his phone completely and reloading it, but only after following some poorly produced video on YouTube that was suppose to help me do everything aside from wipe my butt properly. The video told me to hold in the volume up button until the logo went away. 10 minutes later and after sizable dent was permanently installed in my finger, no dice. This created panic mode. Sometimes I think it’d be easier to defuse a bomb in Afghanistan instead of working on someone’s iPhone when they think they’re losing something, because folks just lose it. I’ll jump on the bomb in the future.

4. Lastly, while waiting for Earl’s refreshed phone to return to normalcy, I suggested that he might want to clean up some of the photos and music on his phone. He pointed out that his iCloud account had plenty of space and why didn’t I just use some of that. Technobabble flew out of my mouth in typical geek fashion for a few seconds but then I stopped, counted to 10 and started talking about apples and oranges. That’s when the pitch of my voice went up a bit and the volume went up a little bit and then I reminded him that he exceeds me in IQ, SAT scores, age and weight and that he should know this. (I beat him on the ACT, apparently). That’s when the Wawa comment came out and we both laughed when I said, “Wawa? I hate Wawa and the closest one is in the Poconos!”

We had a nice laugh together and decided that we’ll drive to the Poconos so we can go to Wawa this weekend.

After I update his phone.

So I’ve had a case of writer’s block for the past couple of days and I really don’t know why I’ve been feeling this way. Life is good. The weekend was enjoyable. I guess I haven’t felt fired up or over elated or anything; we’ve just been enjoying life.

I’m sure this will pass within the next couple of days and then I’ll write a bunch of stuff.

I did have a little bit of a rant on Twitter this morning. I fail to understand why people see the letters A-S-K and pronounce that word as “AXE”. I don’t get it. I interpret the use of “AXE” in lieu of “ASK” as a sign of laziness. The speaker isn’t even motivated enough to say a three letter word correctly. It grates on my nerves more than “I could care less” and the wearing of hats whilst eating a meal.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned.

So today I am in New York for a work-related seminar. I am currently sitting at JFK Airport, my flight scheduled to depart at 5:30 p.m. was canceled and I was rescheduled for tomorrow morning at 10:35 a.m. I had a nice conversation with a JetBlue representative and now I’m on a flight that is departing at 10:45 p.m., though it has been delayed until 11:18 p.m. We’ll see how it goes.

After the seminar this morning, the vendor treated us to something I had never done before. Instead of going to a restaurant and having a sit down meal for lunch, the vendor contracted a tour guide who took us on a walking food tour of Manhattan. Bruce the tour guide was a very nice guy and the change of pace was very refreshing.

Our food included:
Indian Food from a place that I think was called The Kati Roll Company.
Cheesecake from Junior’s
Pizza from Napoli(?) Pizza
And pastrami on rye from Carnegie Deli.

We walked to each of those restaurants and ate on the sidewalk outside of the front door or in an adjacent park. It gave us the opportunity to mingle and talk and learn a little bit about Manhattan. Though we had to hide from the rain for a little while, it was otherwise a different way to enjoy a nifty lunch.

By the way, we experienced the food listed above in the order I have it listed. That was a little odd but the quirkiness kept it interesting.

And now I’m going to find a place to take a nap here at JFK.

I went to bed at 10:00 p.m. Since trying to go to sleep:

1. The air conditioner spazzed out and tried to flood the bedroom again. Yay for LG air conditioners on an oak floor!

2. Some guy named Norman in the 347 area code keeps texting me “Hey Baby”. When he called and I answered he hung up and texted me again. I told him that he had the wrong number. He asked if I was a dude. I said yes. He said, “wrong number”. I said, “Peace”.

3. The nearby decommissioned Air Force Base’s jet repair facility is apparently testing some repairs because what I think is a 747 (it’s close enough to see both decks of windows) has buzzed the house twice and I can hear it approaching for a third go around. This started about 30 minutes ago. (It is currently 11:18 p.m.). Lawd knows I love me some airplanes, but the rule from my childhood applies, if you’re going to buzz the house with a plane, you’re going to take me for a ride.

I’m going to try to go to sleep again.