Too much time in airports dealing with crappy airlines makes me a very cranky boy. With the latest cutbacks and budget airlines, things are only going to get worse. Why fight it?– I want to start my own airline. Not only will I charge extra for checking luggage, using the overhead space and for blankets and pillows, I’m charging for everything else. You want a seat cushion? Those will be rented by the hour here at RoadTrip Airways. Water landing and you want to use that seat cushion as a flotation device? Please be sure to pay one of our friendly flight attendants the flotation fee, plus the $20 drying/restocking fee. If a hotel can charge me to store my own water in the mini-bar, I sure as hell will be charging customers to dry out and replace the seat cushions. I’m not stingy, though. In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will be available for less than a dollar per every five minutes. My advice is to fly only full flights, however, otherwise chipping in for the tank of fuel is going to be a bit pricey.

Okay, time for bed. Hopefully I will get some sleep. It’s going to be tough with Jennie’s snores and moans. She pauses between snores every 10-15 seconds to moan “no!”, followed by either “eat squirrel” or “eat squirrels” and the occasional “yes!”. I think she’s spent too much time around the dogs lately. I am actually kind of surprised her legs aren’t twitching, because that sure as heck sounds like a chase dream to me. Fortunately, most of the dogs’ chase dreams aren’t punctuated by snores that sound so much like someone trying to snort a Jell-O-covered watermelon up each nostril. Damn, it’s going to be a long night . . .

*Just kidding. I’m going to be a pilot.

Wow — what a fancy hotel: douche bonnets and a scale so that I can watch my weight go up up up. Yay! I didn’t get my free tickets, by the way.

Yay! And look at this, happy shampoo!

Where’s the angry conditioner and the morose shampoo? I don’t know if I can use my bathroom for anything other than bathing; the toilet paper’s just too pretty in its little pink bow!

I’m definitely back in the west. Gargoyles give way to cow skulls.

What else? Well, assuming I am still with the Borg, I may be heading to either Ottawa or Germany shortly. Could be fun. Much more pleasant than Bogota. Oh well, nothing to do but watch some Futurama.

No Chinese food today. Instead, I am going to the Long Island cousins and enjoying an Easter dinner away from home. True, I would rather enjoy an Easter dinner at home, but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen this year.

Yesterday after the Natural History Museum, I had lunch at NorthWest, a café on Columbus Avenue. Halfway through my meal, Matt Dillon and his friend Lease, who were on the way out of town to visit Matt’s sister for Easter, came in and sat at the table next to me. Or maybe it was ‘Lise, I’m not sure. It sounded like Lease. Being an avid people-watcher and eavesdropper, it was great fun. While Matt fidgeted and wolfed down his eggs Benedict, I stared out the window at the gawkers. Most people walked by, oblivious to being so close to greatness, blind to the shining star that is Celebrity. Okay, I’m playing things up a bit here — most people just walked by. Really, I shouldn’t mock the famous. Considering that nobody ever comes up to me and says “Hey, you’re that guy who put all those silly comments in the C-NET web sites! You hack together some great code, man . . . can I have your autograph?”, I think I deserve the chance to mock, dammit! Crap, off-track again.

A few, though, would look in, then do a double-take. They would then slow down and whisper something to their friend, who would also turn, trying not to be too noticeable, and they would then either stare unabashedly, or argue over whether it was really Matt. Yes, everyone on Columbus Avenue in New York walks in pairs, or did so this Saturday. I just sat there, eating my wild mushroom ravioli, then later my apple cobbler, enjoying the viewing opportunities and wondering whether I should start making faces to see how many people I could distract. Is it rude to make people laugh while they are trying to stare at a celebrity?

So, what do the famous talk about? Well, Matt likes to talk about bread, pastries, and the Sicilian Mafia, the myths behind the color of blood oranges, and being in a cave. Waking up in the dark and thinking he was trapped in a cave, actually. All in all, a great day for an eavesdropping people-watcher.

Hey, what about Rental? Or Lease, or whatever her name was? Oh yeah, she had a salad (Cobb?), was very blonde with entirely too much make-up and rarely spoke. When she did, she had a habit of mangling words. Much too painful to listen to, thank you.

Oh, hey, those aren’t butterflies! Okay, let’s try again . . .

There, isn’t that better? (pssst!- click on the moth and it gets bigger! Really)

I have been stuck here in Manhattan for over two weeks on a job that I was told would take a day or two. I feel somethwat misled. Since I had to work weekends as well, I was promised comp days. Hopefully this is true, otherwise I think my seven-year employment with, er, my employer, is about to come to an end.

Two weeks; I must have done more than just tour the Natural History Museum. Why yes, since you ask, I have. I also spent some time wandering Chinatown, wandered through some graveyards and church grounds, and discovered that the Wall Street Bull has some serious brass cojones.

Okay, that’s all for today children. In other words, that’s the end. Groan . . .

A tangent . . . how unusual for me. Why has it taken me a week to do two days’ worth of work, you ask? Excellent question! The answer, rather boring, is that it hasn’t. I’ve spent most of this time relaying conversations from a 3rd-party consultant (whose source is the customer) to an engineer, who then relays it to another engineer, who responds and we reverse the whole process. Time-consuming and quite frustrating for all concerned, but it’s the only way I am permitted to do this.