I've been on flights where they ask for volunteers to get off once they've already boarded, and I've even done so, myself, in earlier years. But this was the first time that I went to check in (online), a day in advance, and got asked even before the final check-in. Delta asked me to bid how much it would take to not fly, from $200 to $500, with ( Read more... )

I'm flying out on Wednesday to spend a week in New Mexico with my daughter and her husband.

Wunderground offers ten-day forecasts, which I take with a grain of salt, since it's very hard to accurately predict weather even a few days out. Still, they've been consistently showing a snowstorm here that morning, ever since the 17th appeared on the ( Read more... )

Wednesday we left our gorgeous AirBnB home in Cockeysville, MD, picked up Sara from the light rail in Timonium, MD, joined mortonfox for a meal in Wilmington, DE, dropped Sara in Philadelphia, PA, then continued through mild construction and traffic for a few more hours before we finally got home. It was great to connect with both of them ( Read more... )

Two unrelated clients both cancelled large-ish jobs mid-stream in the last week; very frustrating. Not sure I'll get paid for work performed already. Yeah, it's all part of the game, but two of these back-to-back sort-of smarts, to the tune of about $600 total ( Read more... )

A bit telling when the best a state has to offer is that it has "plenty of air":

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Dear Drivewise ( Read more... )

We unplugged everything before we left. After several days, modems don't come back as quickly, and I think ours pulled new provisioning data when it came back up and fetched a new IP address. We have one that conforms to DOCSIS 2, which means that 100Mbps normally "only" delivers 32Mbps down, but that's been perfectly sufficient ( Read more... )

Working backwards....

We got home this evening in five hours, with some mild traffic in spots. Nothing outrageous. Due to a bit of a miscommunication, our cat-sitter friends arrived shortly after we did, but it was all good; we had a very nice visit with them.

Today was going to be Historic Smithville, but we changed gears this morning, and ( Read more... )

On most of our longer trips, we'd typically have two or three activities planned each day, and then usually eliminate one of them. For this week, Cat Lady said she wanted to plan absolutely nothing, and just spend our entire time on the beach. I had said that I was fine with this; I'm pretty flexible ( Read more... )

We arrived early, and by now have met everyone in our week-long Brigantine home: The owner, his brother and niece; none actually sleep here. Two long-term residents, one with a small cat and one with a small dog. Three bouncy young ladies who seem to prefer bikinis. Another guest is expected tomorrow. And of course now Cat Lady and me. There' ( Read more... )