Off to California, again. I’d start telling people I live bi-coastally if it didn’t make me sound like a total douche-bag.
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And, relatedly, here come a series of posts consisting of random notes I jot down during the trip on the index cards I carry everywhere in my right front pocket.

While such in-the-field notation allows me to pretend there’s something vaguely journalistic about the approach, I’m sadly aware that throwing unconnected tidbits together to make longer-looking post is, indeed, the lowest form of blogging.
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Flying out to San Francisco, I tucked a flask full of 8-year barrel-aged rum into my Timbuk2 messenger bag. It did cause the TSA screener to pause the x-ray conveyor belt, but otherwise passed security without a hitch.

Thank you, JetBlue, for providing the other half of each of my in-flight rum and cokes. Thank you also for giving me an exit-row aisle seat. And, in particular, thank you for seating me next to Callie, a highly attractive (though not particularly intelligent) young blonde; for once, I didn’t mind having my seat-mate fall asleep on my shoulder.
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Also, thank you JetBlue for getting me in to San Jose a full hour early. Seriously, a full hour. How does that work, exactly? The captain had someplace to be later that evening, so he just floored it for the whole five hours?
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And, at the same time, lest you think JetBlue is without flaws:

First, wasn’t there a time when flight attendants (perhaps when they were still called ‘stewardesses’) were attractive?

Second, if JetBlue now boasts a 40-channel lineup, why is there absolutely nothing watch-able on my little back-of-the-seat TV?
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My mother does this thing, when we travel, on the first day and the last day of the trip. “Can you believe we’re in Hawaii?” she’ll ask repeatedly, continuing, “we were just in California this morning.” Which my brother and I usually mock mercilessly.

Still, I sort of understand what she means. Early today, I’m deep in winter, walking barren streets just above freezing; this afternoon, everywhere I look the leaves are still green and I’m sitting in the backyard in a t-shirt.

Works for me.