FriendBurst Blog

Usually, food tastes better when you overpay for it.  When you go to a sporting event, for example, those $10 sausages taste  incredible!  Popcorn at the movie theatre taste far better than anything one could make at home, and its not just because of that unknown oily stuff they call butter either.  It’s psychological.  We’re literally invested in a perception that these consumables should taste better because we’re paying a premium for them.

I’ve found an exception to that phenomenon, however.  Airport food.  I spent most of last Wednesday and this past Monday traveling;  I kinda had to eat airport food.  The Cinnabons, Wendy’s Double with Cheese and Chicken McNuggets at the SeaTac and LAX airports do not taste any better than they would at any of their regular establishments, despite a +20% premium for being in an airport.

Somewhere in all that consuming on my way to Southern California, I managed to do something that would worry me the entire week I spent down south:  I lost my ID.  The TSA guys were interested in something in my carryon at SeaTac (jars of homemade hot cocoa mix), asked my to open up my luggage and requested my ID.  After passing their inspection, I remember putting my ID in my back pocket (instead of back in my wallet).  I later put the book I was reading in that same pocket.  I figure when I pulled the book out to read, the ID must’ve gone flying.

In any case, I wasn’t all THAT concerned getting back on the plane; I had a student ID, the credit card I used to buy the tickets and an old (but still valid) paper copy of my Washington ID.  In San Diego, on my way back, they looked at these items and asked me if I also had some mail with me… like people take mail on vacation…  As I am home, as you can tell, they let me on.

Unfortunately, they didn’t even single me out for extra security screening.  I was looking forward to my enhanced pat down.  Would have been the most action I’d gotten in 2010!  Please!  DO touch my junk!

Here is the first of my Holiday Videos!  The Journey to San Diego!  The sound on this is awesome.  First because I got a new high-end, studio quality USB microphone with which to voiceovers and other audio recordings, and second because it includes a track of my ukulele mentor’s new CD;  Doctor Sparkles’ “SCARY COUNTRY”

My thanks to you for reading and watching.  My thanks to the TSA for letting me come home, and my thanks to Dr Sparkles for sending me his latest CD!

On my plate for today: installing another Christmas gift.  I asked for, and received, Windows 7.  I’m currently running XP, and it’s been okay, but I’ve noticed some of the latest software out there says it’s optimized for Windows 7, so I thought it was time to upgrade.  From what I read yesterday (including the 14 PAGES of step-by-step instructions from Microsoft), going from Windows XP to 7 is not a simple thing.  It’s like a freeking exorcism or something.  I’m scared!

Everything is backed up… nothing too serious can go wrong, right?  *GULP*