First Class

Greetings from Chicago,

I flew here on an American flight last night to stay with my college roommate who is out here. I upgraded to first class and was confirmed Thursday night.

American Airlines Flight 1081
Seat 4F

So I've flown first class maybe 5 times in my life, which means it's still special to me. Add in the stop at the Admiral's Club beforehand to get some reading done and I feel like a seasoned air traveler. Odd considering that I don't fly for business really.

So the flight began with a drink and some warm nuts. This is apparently an American thing, where they warm mixed nuts and serve them. That was followed by the flight attendant asking what snack I wanted. That night they had a grilled chicken salad and a philly cheesesteak calzone. I could really feel her eyes boring down on me as she asked "Healthy option or greasy fattening one? I'm judging."

I went with the calzone. It was fine. Hot at least and awesomely greasy. It was not in any way shape or form related to an actual cheesesteak from Phliladelphia, but it was fine. Followed by two more mixed drinks, and a chocolate chip cookie. See, that's the problem. Everything in first is still a wonder, the free booze, the food and the dirty looks from coach passengers as they pass you on the way to their seats.

I'm not sure I will need it on the way back. But it was indeed a nice flight. Now I'm in Chicago about to grab a hot dog with my buddy.

Happy April!

I was asked by my brother to update my blog more frequently and so I will. I also have some cool ideas for some new segments. Not that any of you really want new segments. I highly recommend that you fine readers use Google Reader with this blog, so you don't have to keep checking all the time. The reader will just post when I post. It's nifty like that.

I'm sitting in the President's Club in Newark Airport waiting for my the second half of my leg back to Boston. I spent the weekend, though truncated, in Pittsburgh visiting my brother and sister-in-law. She's about 2 weeks from having my niece or nephew and so we got this idea to do a baby bachelor party, where the father can get drunk for one of the last times in a little while. I love visiting them. They are so chill and all of their friends are chill. It's like recentering every time I go there. I do love them a lot.

And it came at a good time as last week was no good. There was some personal stuff, which was not good. Then I found out that I'm one class shy of graduating grad school. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I was all done crawling to the finish and then you tell me the 5K is really a 6K? I think I have an interim solution as I am going to take a class on the business side in the beginning of the summer that should put me in the clear.

Oh, and my breakneck race to spend every minute of my free time continues next weekend when I'll be in Chicago. Stay tuned. I might be the only person to get DVT traveling only for pleasure.

Total Miles Flown for 2009: 15,965.

Movies

I was chastised by my brother Willett in Hong Kong for not writing enough. Granted this criticism came when he was a little drunk and called me on my cell phone at noon on Friday at work. It's not his fault. It was late in the evening when he called me. It's just rare to have those drunken phone conversations at your desk stone sober, because they go something like this from my end.

"What?"

"I can't understand you."

"No, I do care what you think."

"I'm not avoiding the question."

"I miss you too."

Etcetera etcetera. But all is good. I'm going to try and get out to see him in the fall perhaps.

I recently rented Oldboy from Netflix. It's a Korean thriller, that will no doubt be redone in America in 5 year much worse. I highly recommend the movie, as the director is a Hitchcock devotee and the end is incredible. It makes me sad that so much great film is from overseas, while we content ourselves with crappy comedies and remakes of asian horror movies. In my opinion, we make worse movies than cars.

Case in point, ConAir was on TNT tonight. It's a good movie from a popcorn action thriller genre, but Nicholas Cage's accent is awful. It's this sort of sometimes cajun, sometimes not accent. It makes me weep. He has been in far worse movies, but I just thought the contrast of what my TV showed me tonight was somewhat glaring. That's all.

Enjoy your week.

Graham rides a Virgin

So I'm flying out to my friend Tory's wedding in LA this weekend. Tory is awesome and we stayed in touch since college. She is a super wonderful person and while a wedding in Cali two weeks after I've been there isn't the most convenient thing, she's a pretty special person and so I wanted to make an appearance.

So I decided to take Virgin America out there and then use my free flight on JetBlue on the redeye back. So let me give you my thoughts on Virgin.

* So I'm blogging from the airplane. This is cool. This makes an airplane and a bus I've blogged from. I need to find a boat and a train with wifi and I'll be all set. I was actually able to pull up the picture of the actual plane I'm flying on, so that's pretty sweet. Here it is:

* This flight is full of kids. I suppose I should say 20-somethings. I normally fly American as I have status and the average age on those flights is far older. It makes me feel old.
* Not having the exit row sucks. But I wasn't willing to pay $100 beans for it either.
* There's not a lot of room in this seat. The girl in front of me moves alot. So I'm terrified of the seatback coming back and cracking my screen, which I know is a common complaint for laptop users on airplanes.
* Virgin has this cool interactive touchscreen entertainment system called Red. Sweet right. Well, actually not so much. The touchscreen thing is annoying. The girl behind me keeps changing the channel or texting, or playing tetris and it's like she's poking me in the back. It's not very hard. Just hard enough to be mildly annoying.
* Maybe it's all the young people, but this is a sleepy flight. For leaving Logan at 4, there were a lot of people sleeping and window shades closed. This worries me. When I fly, I like to be able to see out the window, especially at take off. When the shades are drawn, it feels like I'm in some bizarre motion machine and I keep waiting for the takeoff. Call me crazy, but if the wing is on fire, I want to see it before the captain makes a calm announcement about it.

I think that's all I got so far. I'll write more when I maybe order food. You do that through the touch screen also. They have some commie roast beef on wheatberry bread or whatever the hell that is. I might also just snack and save myself for In N Out.

Evacuation Day

Today is Evacuation Day. This is the day that the Brits left the City of Boston after the Colonists took to the high ground outside. However, it is also St. Patrick's Day. This is no coincidence. The heavily Irish legislature back in the day was looking for a way to celebrate today and they found the British evacuation occurred on the same day.

Which means that I was off today. I'm not sure how long I'll be working for the Commonwealth of MA, so I will take this opportunity any chance I get. It's almost as awesome as Confederate Memorial Day in Texas which also falls on the same day as MLK day. Not kidding.

So I was home and was watching daytime TV, and was pleased to see that Maury was on. I think all he does is paternity tests now. But they are awesome. Brothers with the same girl who want to know whose baby it is. I'm always amazed when the girl brings the guy on who she thinks was the father and it turns out not to be him. Then she goes running backstage inconsolable. I mean if you count back roughly nine months, how many guys could there be. I certainly wasn't a prude back in the day, but these people apparently get around.

If you're looking for more in-depth information on Maury, you can go to his link. You'll find awesome stories like this one:

Sholonda first came to the show because she suspected Billy, her boyfriend of 20 years, was living a secret double life and cheating on her. On the night of her birthday, when Billy was supposed to take her out for dinner at Red Lobster, she believed he was with another woman. Sholonda's suspicions were true. Billy failed the lie detector test. After the show, Sholonda and Billy stayed together, but they soon returned because Sholonda needed to reveal a secret to Billy. Out of revenge, Sholonda cheated on Billy with his own brother, Freddie. What happened?

You'll have to click on the link to find out.

That's what friends are for

So this is my last night in San Diego. I saw my friend Waka's show last night and it was awesome. I'm not just saying that. I would tell you if I just liked him. I really hope the show makes it past this workshop and doesn't allow itself to get dumbed down for kids. There was a lot of adult jokes in there and yet also enough pratfalls to work for the kids. It was a really physical show, and my friend has a topless scene, which the ladies no doubt enjoy.

The weather has been great. I hooked up today with another friend of mine who works for the California Emergency Management Agency, CALEMA. I always think of the bad guy in the 2nd Indiana Jones when he says that. He's a trip and we got to catch up. Its nice when you have work relationships bloom into friendships. I get a kick out of the Guinness signs to make St. Patrick's Day an official holiday. I guess those marketing geniuses never lived in Massachusetts before. I will miss this, one day, when I am no longer employed by the great Commonwealth.

Off to bed, so I can wake up stupid early and stand-by for flights all day to get home. Sweet.

Go F Yourself San Diego

Good Morning,

Greetings from the exciting city of San Diego. I find myself out here to see my good friend's show at the La Jolla Playhouse. My other friend Sam came out to hang this weekend as well. So while my hard working actor friend was in his show last night, Sam and I took on Downtown La Jolla. It sort of reminded me of a Greenwich with a more laid back style and a view of the Pacific. I was amazed at the amount of galleries. Sam and I actually stumbled into one gallery that was giving out free wine, and we learned all about Warhol and some other dude who uses word puns.

But we are staying in some part of La Jolla that looks like an office park. Huge complexes of rentals anchored by the I-5 and Rockbottom Brewery and TGI Friday's. Not quite what I was expecting.

We're off to brunch. I'm sure this will contain egg whites and avocados. Sweet.

Cluck Cluck

I wish this were a real movie. Sadly I fear it is not.

Sickness and Comcast

I think my title may make for a great book title someday. It was meant to highlight the disappearance of your favorite blog author. No, me. I'm currently fighting a cold. Well, not so much fighting, as watching it move from my head and settle quite happily in my chest. Awesome. Then the internet and cable went out in my house for a week. I called right away, but much like UPS, they fail to deliver or arrive when working human beings are home. They offered me a 11-1 appointment the next day. Riiight, because we all work next door to our house.

Anyway, I loathe Comcast. Perhaps not so much as the guy that set up this website, but I really don't like them.


So let me explain what has probably happened to you if your cable and internet go out at the same time. This has happened to me twice with these boobs, so I am a quasi-expert on this.

You probably think that your cable comes in from the street to that box under your TV and that's where the problems lie. False. In fact your cable starts on a pole on in a junction box in your apartment. Each apartment has it's own wire going to the mother cable source. These wires are labeled with your apartment on it. Over time the labels can fall off or a person who knows the system and wants to get free cable can just rip off the tags to confuse the Comcast tech.

The tech is not confused. Well, no more than Frankenstein was by fire in Young Frankenstein. They simply pull all the wires out. But you're asking, "Doesn't that mean everyone's cable goes out?" Yes. Yes it does.

Then I call Comcast to report a loss of all services and they see that I'm a paying customer and send out a tech to reattach the wires and label mine. The guy who was stealing obviously isn't going to call, so that's how they weed out the problem. Comcast calls it "Disconnect in Error." I call it "Disconnect on Purpose." The tech who came to fix it is like, "You should have told them this was a Disconnect in Error. I'm on call until 10PM, and I would have come out that night."

Then I saw red. See Comcast is smart. They have insane policies and moronic customer service, but it's never the person who you're talking to's fault. The poor tech bears most of the anger, but it's not his fault he works for a souless awful company.

I do have an idea Comcast on a revenue generator. What if you charged people $25 extra to come when normal people were home? I'd pay $25 for them to come from 7-10PM easy. I bet others would too. This is a slam dunk and if you're listening Comcast, I want a piece of this action.

Miller Time!

So I'm in Milwaukee visiting some terrific friends, Tom and Megan. I've been joined here by two other pals from college as well. So today, after a late start, had a great brunch and then took the Miller Brewery tour. The end of the tour brings beer samples and a comment questionnaire. Tom had a few suggestions. My two favorites were:

• Allow beer to be drank on the tour
• Make better beer

A Magical Place

So this past weekend, or long weekend, I went down to Walt Disney World with one of my oldest friends and her family. The last time I was at WDW was with these same kind folks, except it was during Hurricane Katrina and they're from New Orleans which means it wasn't that much fun towards the end of that trip. I have collected some thoughts about this place from my weekend and will share them with you:

• The flight to Orlando from anywhere is always filled with kids who are so excited. Our plane had just taken off from Boston and the runway was falling away underneath us and one kid points to South Boston and asks his Mom, "Is that Orlando?" Cute in one way, but not in a "your kid eats paste sort of way." These same kids are generally pretty quiet on the flight back. If not, that's why God invented these. (Thank you Santa)
• Disney has this thing called Magical Express. In short, they send you luggage tags for your checked baggage. You check in with them at Orlando International when you arrive and magic gnomes whisk your luggage from the carousel and drop them in your room. All pretty cool, unless your tags don't arrive on time. Not a huge deal, but I waited through this long line and told the "cast member" this and she smiled and said "Hakuna Matata." Then I punched her. Not really, but that crap might work on 11 year olds, but not on this guy who wants to make sure his bag isn't stolen.
  
• We stayed at The Boardwalk Inn. Which faithfully recreates a Jersey Shore town in the 40's. It's cool because it has a few token businesses along the Boardwalk, like a bakery, pizza place, piano bar etc. I sort of wish it captured the Shore era from the 70's and 80s. They could have real life junkies hanging out underneath the boardwalk, fighting seagulls for leftover pretzels.
• There are a lot of fat people at WDW. But the most sedentary of the bunch, choose to rent a motorized scooter. Because God forbid you lose weight walking. It's quite the site seeing couples driving down the paths in these things. Like a sad, slower CHiPs for large people. My favorites were the ones with the awnings. I was amazed at how quickly people would alight from these things when they needed to get in line for a ride, or get a beer or an ice cream cone that looks like Mickey.
• There appears to be some compulsion to wear branded Disney clothes. Every other person had on something made in China with Disney's logo on it. And not just mouse ears. No, fake hockey jerseys, designer looking T-shirts, sweatshirts and leather bomber jackets. I mean you're at the godddamn park? Why the hell do you feel the need to wear their stuff? It reminds me of the people who would come to New York and buy some shirt that says "Bada Bing" on it from Little Italy in rhinestones. While, if they wanted to appear cool and with it, they could buy something unique that says more than simply the name of the place they have visited. I like this option myself.
• You should do the World of Beers tour at Epcot. There are 11 separate countries represented around a lake and you can stroll around and drink a native beer in each of them. Realize that as you get older, these countries seem much closer together. Take it from me. I respectfully submit that if you chose to do this, start in Norway or France and make your way around. It's fun to end up in England. And if you start in Norway, you get to wear of these official hats.

I'll have some more Disney Observations soon. If you're drinking, tip a glass to Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity who died today at 74.

For my brother

And all those others that follow the Big Blue Wrecking Crew. Observe one of your tribe....

His ramblings are NSFW, so turn the volume down on the speakers in your cube, y'all.



J-E-T-S.

Yeah, I know our QB is 87. What.

The Good with the Bad

Do see Slumdog Millionaire at your earliest convenience. It was a great melding of romance, comedy, documentary, and mystery. Really solid stuff. This should be the winner for the Oscars. The Reader? Seriously?

Maybe see Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay if you feel there were a lot of unanswered questions from the original, or you want to see the same jokes again, or you want more NPH. Warning: Rob Cordury's shtick gets really old really fast.

That movie did get me laughing about how DHS is portrayed in the movies and TV. People throw the words Homeland Security around like it's some bunch of super cops, or CTU from 24. If someone from DHS ever did screech up in a blacked out Crown Victoria, I'd expect some guy to get out with grant guidance in his hands to tell me that the pen I was using wasn't an allowable expense. Really. DHS is no more than the sum of it's parts.

Though there was a former state worker who had delusions of grandeur while working for DHS at National Airport in D.C. That got settled with him losing his job. Don't worry. We're all safer for it. Trust me. I miss that guy, if only because he made me look so damn good.

Bundle Up Obama

As tomorrow is the inauguration of Barack Obama as our nation's 44 President, let us hope that his time in office lasts longer than William Henry Harrison, our 9th President.

Here to tell this man's sad story is a very drunk grad student.

If you've never seen these, they are highly entertaining and perhaps what Al Gore invented the internet for.

We are getting dumber

So I was flipping through the channels tonight, and stopped at the local Fox affiliate. They had a show on called Hole in the Wall. Basic Premise: You stand in front of a small swimming pool of water. A styrofoam wall comes at you, designed to push you into said pool. But there is a sillouette cut into the styrofoam meaning if you match it's shape, you don't go in the drink. I'm assuming if you stay dry you win some cash, but I didn't stay on the channel that long.

I was waiting to see if there was a catch. But no. I hate this show. We are going further and further towards reality shows and "wild" game shows. I don't mind the game shows. As a matter of fact, I think Japan has some awesome ones. But they are generally too risque for us across the Pacific. We prefer to show the world how dumb we are.

Yech....

So...

I had planned to write many entries in the New Year. But then the days flew by and someone stabbed me in the back with a screwdriver.

Not entirely true, but that's what it felt like. I've had this dull pain in my back for a few weeks, maybe a month. It was the kind of pain you think will be cleared up by a masseuse at some point. But then on Wednesday, while teaching a class on Martha's Vineyard something bad happened. It felt like I was getting shanked. I found my knees actually buckling from the pain. So I put the class on break and told my co-instructor I needed to go to the hospital.

So I went to MVY Hospital, which is quite small and cute. I was seen quickly and given an injection in my ass for an anti-inflammatory and 2 scrips for ibuprophen and a muscle relaxant. I took the last two days out sick, and the instances of the lower right corner of my back have lessened. But I still get them and man to they hurt. I'm too young for back pain. If this doesn't clear up by Monday, I'll have to ask my doctor for the good stuff.

Willie Sutton would laugh

So today 5 banks were robbed in NYC, prompting news articles and even a piece on NPR's All Things Considered. The media is pointing fingers to the economy and the lost jobs around the holidays. 5 banks is surely the sign of financial meltdown, or the sinister return of high crime numbers to plague Gotham.

Bullshit.

There is a reason why people should not fear a return to lawlessness with an uptick in bank robberies nationwide (Up 54% in New York City this year.) Because my friends robbing a bank in the City of New York is easier than robbing a pizza place on the corner. I don't want to give away trade secrets, but here are the items needed to rob a bank in the early 1900's:

• Revolver
• Mask (Preferably Lone Ranger Style)
• Dynamite for safe
• Multiple accomplices to watch people/guards (Preferably dim witted family)
• Horse

Items needed in 2008?

• Ballpoint Pen
• Something to write on with above pen
• Baseball Hat
• Sunglasses
• Metrocard

These are all "note jobs", which means perp walks into bank and scrawls "Give me UR $$, I hav a bumb" on a deposit envelope and a smiling woman behind counter hands him money. Sometimes it's not a lot (couple hundred) and sometimes it is (couple thousand). But how can the perp be angry. He just used a pen to defeat bulletproof glass. Because friends, the banks happily give up the cash as it's insured by the Feds. So to them, they would rather lose $1,000 than have their guard tackle the guy, sprain his ankle and have the perp sue for $1 million dollars.

But try doing this at your local pizza joint. Walk up to the counter and smile at Sal and give him a note that says "Give me al UR pizzas!" and see what happens. Either:

a) You get your ass beat
b) You get laughed at and then realizing you are serious, see above step

So this isn't another sign of financial armageddon. This is business. And the only people hurt by this is the Precinct C.O. who is being held accountable for an extra robbery in his/her precinct than no one else seems to care about.

Long December

To borrow from the Counting Crows, it has indeed been a long December. I had planned more blogging, but this happened. That storm brought 13 hour days on the night shift for about a week. Followed by damage assessments in communities that I had talked to on the phone but never been to.

Then I flew down to NYC to be with the family for the holidays. I also wanted a week off. This is my first week off this year, so it's nice. And so, I present some holiday thoughts from New York City.

• My friend Sam made the observation that NYC has plenty of 2 groups of people. First there is incredibly hot women. Now women of Boston don't pout. I personally feel that the women in Boston are beautiful. However walking down Columbus Ave. yesterday I saw more model-like and statuesque women in ten blocks than I had all year prior. The second group is bat-shit crazy people. Like the guy smoking on the subway and talking to himself. You just don't see that in Boston. Totally insane people mixing with the general population so well.
  
• I stood on line at the Borders in Columbus Circle yesterday for about an hour. The line winded around the store. No joke. This didn't tell me that our economy is back on track, but instead that New Yorkers are complete procrastinators. I don't think people waited that long to cross the Berlin Wall when it fell. Dumb long.
• I also realized why people come to this city and flock to Applebee's and Olive Garden. I'll admit I used to see this place packed and think, "Are you people idiots? There's far better Italian food 3 blocks west. " But then I realized that NYC can be a hard place to be an outsider, even sometimes a visitor. Passing all of these small restaurants in the city, you can feel like this guy, standing outside the window. To tourists, even being in New York is the adventure. Meaning that after an exhausting day of jostling and seeing more police cars than exist in their entire state, they look for something a little more comfortable, safe and familiar. Enter the always packed Olive Garden in Times Square.
  

Merry Christmas to all of you. And sorry for the intermittent posting for this month.

Like a Needle in my Brain

So on the way to work every morning I listen to Morning Edition on NPR. It's got really good coverage. My friend Chuck thinks it's communist radio, and while I will agree that it might be a little left, you can't get more interesting stories in the morning. Also, they have the BBC News on at 9, which is great. They apparently believe in covering news, while our networks have scavenenged our news divisions in the name of entertainment.

However, every 5 months or so, comes an evil time on NPR. Pledge Week. It seems on WBUR that it's been going on for 2 weeks. NPR pledge week is the 6th circle of hell for two reasons. First it interupts the programming. Just when you get into a story, they break and start asking for $$ again. It's disruptive. Secondly, and most importantly, they are awful at it. They seem to guilt you into giving. They talk about how much it costs, but never about how much they want to raise. (I know this is against fundraising mantra.) Also, they banter in small talk, off script, and many of them aren't good at it. They end up saying the same things over and over, which means you have to change the station.

Here's the thing. I gave $100 last drive. I'm all set. So why force me to endure this brain melting tripe. What if they could unlock my radio if I gave, and return me to the programming? Think about it. If you give $50, you buy out of the current pledge week and back to normal NPR. You give $100, you buy out of it for a year. They would make so much money, they could sleep on it. Or use it to wallpaper the studios. I think I'm onto something. Maybe with HD Radio, they could do it. If they can put peanut butter and jelly in the same jar, why the hell we do this?

Looking for that special someone?

It's the holidays, as if the music and the smell of fear from the retailers didn't give it away. And I know many people are thinking of tightening the old purse strings and giving less gifts. I can understand that. However, some of you might be unable to do that because of psycho girlfriends or blood oaths sworn to extended family members by your ancestors on the top of a mountain in the 1300's.

For those of you looking to pick up a little gift, the Mass Turnpike has an idea:


This is a gift certificate to the Mass Pike. I, for the life of me, can't understand who would buy one of these. I saw them advertised on the variable message boards on the way home and thought, "What a terrible gift." I don't mean that people wouldn't like some toll relief, especially as this news breaks. But imagine the look on your loved one's face, when they tear open that envelope to find a MassPike gift certificate. Nothing says "I totally forgot about Christmas because I've been drinking for the past week, and so I pulled into the Natick travel plaza and bought this thing from the FastLane Office."

Remember, shopping is what civilians can do to save the economy and fight the terrorists.